Ever wondered why your complaints to the BBC about their coverage of climate change and immigration go nowhere?

Bishop Hill could have the answer to one of those…and the BBC register of interests the other.

Here Bishop Hill brings us a leak, via the Guardian, of the result of a complaint to the BBC about Lord Lawson being ‘allowed’ to speak on the BBC  (Transcript of interview)

New BBC policy: right is wrong, wrong is right

Reviewing the broadcast, the BBC’s head of editorial complaints, Fraser Steel, took a dim view. “Lord Lawson’s views are not supported by the evidence from computer modelling and scientific research,” Steel says, “and I don’t believe this was made sufficiently clear to the audience …

So probably not much good complaining about the lack of contrasting views about the ‘science’ to Fraser Steel:

• Fraser has overall responsibility for the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit, which investigates complaints about serious breaches of editorial standards where the complainant is not satisfied with previous replies from the BBC, or where a complaint has been taken up by the external regulator Ofcom.
• He is required to investigate impartially and independently. His findings are subject to appeal to the BBC Trust, but cannot be overruled by the BBC Executive.

Well worth his £90,000 remuneration.

Though he seems to think he’s not busy enough and has taken a second job…….

UK Immigration Services has over 15 years experience offering legal advice on UK immigration rules including assistance with UK citizenship applications.

• We are members of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants(JCWI) who campaign for justice in immigration and asylum law.
• Easy to find, 10 minutes from Heathrow Airport and 45 minutes from Central London.

How on earth can someone working for the BBC, especially as the head of the complaints department, many of which will be about the BBC’s immigration coverage, and also working for an immigration advisory and campaign group, be considered by any stretch of the imagination, impartial?

Apart from the fact that his decision on climate change is clearly ill-informed about the ‘science’ and therefore his judgement questionable, he clearly has a vested interest in keeping immigrants ‘flocking’ here and using the services of his company.

Here you go, a brand new Open Thread ready to see us off into the wide blue yonder of the weekend. Here is where you can share the BIAS from the State Broadcaster.

Paxman has jumped ship and fired off a torpedo as he did so.

Newsnight is ‘made by 13-year-olds’, says Jeremy Paxman

The former host says his Conservative leanings made him a lone voice on the show as the younger producers wanted to change the world

If you hadn’t heard PMQs for yourself and only relied upon the BBC’s wash up of it afterwards you might not have realised that Miliband was completely steamrollered and failed utterly to make a dent in Cameron’s defence.

The central plank of Miliband’s attack was that the Cabinet Permanent Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, must have warned Cameron about the accusations against Coulson, Miliband also claimed that Coulson hadn’t been security vetted and if he had of been he would not have passed muster and therefore not have been given the job of communications director.

Miliband said there was now a very important question that the whole country wanted an answer to…did Sir Gus O’Donnell raise any concerns about Andy Coulson?

The BBC, in the shape of Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson, decided Cameron was lying when he said O’Donnell had not raised such concerns.

Robinson bizarrely tried to claim that Cameron’s defence, claiming that the revelations in Leveson cleared him, was similar to Blair trying to use the Hutton Inquiry to defend himself….as the BBC is of the opinion that the Hutton Inquiry was an Establishment whitewash presumably Robinson thinks Leveson is as well as Leveson certanly does clear Cameron.

Robinson went on to say Cameron had one problem…when Miliband asked him twice about whether there was civil service advice about Coulson Cameron insisted that that too had been raised in Leveson with Gus O’Donnell…Robinson says ‘I’ve checked and I can find no evidence that that was raised…what was unwise of the Prime Minister was to claim that Leveson cleared him of this..it seems to me he didn’t.’

Unfortunately anyone with the ability to run a word search of the witness statement of Gus O’Donnell to Leveson would have found that he did clear Cameron:

Question 30 – Please set out in full for the inquiry details of your role, if any, in relation to the appointment by the Prime Minster of Andy Coulson to a post in No.10. Your account should include a full explanation of the basis on which you were asked to advise.  Mr Coulson was brought in as a special adviser to the Prime Minister.

I was not involved in the process of appointing Mr Coulson. Mr Coulson was cleared to SC (security clearance) level and was undergoing DV (developed vetting) clearance at the time of his resignation

Gus O’Donnell had no involvement in the appointment of Mr Coulson…pretty clear.

In other words Miliband’s attack, and Robinson’s ‘analysis’, is completely undermined by the actual evidence….Miliband himself claimed that O’Donnell had said nothing about Coulson at the Leveson Inquiry…clearly he did.

Robinson seems more intent on generating some sort of ‘scoop’ and whipping up a storm against Cameron rather than getting the real story…the real story which in fact provides a better scoop…..smashing Miliband’s attack.  Robinson is more concerned with supposition and speculation despite admitting he had no evidence to back that up…I paraphrase his words here:

Now it seems extremely likely, though I haven’t got the evidence, that civil servants said ‘you do know there are some questions about Coulson?’…it seems to me to be extremely likely that that happened..I don’t know we weren’t there…..’I’ve checked and I can find no evidence that that [Leveson asked O’Donnell about Coulson]  was raised…what was unwise of the Prime Minister was to claim that Leveson cleared him of this…it seems to me he didn’t.’

Pure speculation on Robinson’s part…if he’d bothered to check the statement he would have  realised that not only had O’Donnell cleared Cameron but that Coulson was vetted.

More excellent journalism from the impartial, accurate and accountable BBC.

Robinson goes on to attack ‘another interesting tactic he [cameron] uses’….Robinson says Cameron said he got the same assurances about hacking that the police and the PCC got…and neither had felt the need to act upon those, and therefore this shows he was right not to be concerned either.

Robinson says thatCaeron is muddling his times because at the time the allegations were made the police hadn’t looked into this.

Robinson claims that this undermines Cameron’s defence…however logically it reinforces it…If the police and PCC came to this late in the day, with more time to look at evidence and with possibly more evidence, and yet still decided there was no case to answer, then that backs up Cameron’s decision made at a time when there was even less evidence.

We then had a Labour Spad telling us that it was totally implausible that Coulson wasn’t vetted…and they have failed to answer why Coulson wasn’t subject to that degree of scrutiny.

But as we saw from O’Donnell’s statement Coulson had an initial ‘SC’ level of vetting which allowed him to see secret, and sometimes top secret, material….and he was undergoing the DV process when he resigned.

Once again the BBC is allowing false information to be broadcast and false assertions made against Cameron without challenge.

Even at 17:00 the BBC were still claiming Coulson wasn’t vetted properly:

17:00: PMQs update – Labour is hoping to keep up the pressure on David Cameron by asking Sir David Normington, the former senior civil servant and Commissioner for Public Appointments, to investigate why Andy Coulson was not given top-level security clearance when he worked in Downing Street.

The Labour Spad then went on to claim that DV would have discovered that Coulson had been involved in hacking…..complete rubbish.

Shame though…that would have saved a £100 million trial…who knew eh?  If only we had taken the Guardian’s word for things we could have chucked Coulson in jail and saved oursleves £100 million.

The same Guardian that lied about the News of The World deleting Milly Dowler’s text messages.

The BBC, whilst forensically delving into PMQs remarkably avoids the point raised by Philip Davies, Tory MP, (24 mins 50 secs) that when he was on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into Press standards, privacy and libel   no concerns had been raised about Coulson by any party, and that Nick Davies of the Guardian came to the Committee and revealed that he had never seen any evidence that directly linked Coulson to phone hacking and that the Committee concluded that:

‘have, however, not seen any evidence that the then Editor, Andy Coulson, knew, but consider he was right to resign.’

Always curious, and telling, what the BBC dodges around.

Miliband’s claims are comprehensively trashed by O’Donnell’s statement to Leveson…the statement that neither Andrew Neil nor Nick Robinson could find.

Very quick post on Cameron and whether Gus O’Donnell advised him not to appoint Coulson…..note also that Coulson was security vetted…..

From Leveson…..Gus O’Donnell says he had no part in Coulson’s appointment…the BBC have been trying to say he did and are claiming they couldn’t find this…..

Question 30 – Please set out in full for the inquiry details of your role, if any, in relation to the appointment by the Prime Minster of Andy Coulson to a post in No.10. Your account should include a full explanation of the basis on which you were asked to advise. 

‘Mr Coulson was brought in as a special adviser to the Prime Minister. I was not involved in the process of appointing Mr Coulson. Mr Coulson was cleared to SC (security clearance) level and was undergoing DV (developed vetting) clearance at the time of his resignation’

As Coulson was SC cleared he could perfectly well be employed:

Lenny Henry was never very funny but it seems that he IS now the Cultural Kommisar for Ethnicity on the BBC

ACTOR and comedian Lenny Henry yesterday slammed the BBC’s £2.1million plan to foster ethnic talent.

The corporation’s director-general Tony Hall announced a new “diversity creative talentfund” last week to help “fast track” shows by minorities. But referring to 12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor and Idris Elba, from TV crime drama Luther, Mr Henry said: “They didn’t need more training, they just needed a break.”

Earlier this year, he complained that the number of ethnic workers in ­British TV had plunged by a third between 2006 and 2012 to just 5.4 per cent of the broadcast workforce. He called for new laws and targets to reverse that decline. Mr Henry told the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport committee yesterday the UK had been haemorrhaging talent to America because of a mistaken belief that black ethnic minority actors “don’t have enough star power to drive a feature film or a long-running TV series”. Talking about Mr Hall’s plan, he said: “Development is great but there are people absolutely trained and ready to rock. “The inference seems to be ‘oh you’re not ready yet, here’s a little bit of development money, go away and practise a bit more until you’re ready’.”

So Henry wants to see racial discrimination as the best way of avoiding racial discrimination. It just depends which race you are discriminating against I suppose?

Anyone else catch the “debate” on The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 later afternoon on the “phone hacking scandal”? Superb balance as always with Nick Davies, Guardian journalist; Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian;Harriet Harman, Labour’s Deputy Leader, Neil Wallis, former Deputy Editor of the News of the World; Lord Norman Fowler, former chairman of the House of Lords select committee on communications; journalist and Executive Director of Hacked Off, the strident Joan Smith; Alleged Conservative Fowler was happy enough to blame Thatcher for the cosying up to the Murdoch empire, so earning his pay for the day. The conclusion was that we “need” Leveson unexpurgated and nothing short of Leveson will do.

The BBC seems determined to use the Coulson conviction to damage Cameron through association. I watched the BBC news last night and it was interesting to see how often they used images of Coulson and Cameron together as if to imply that Cameron was in some way guilty too. Now of course one could say that Cameron used poor judgement in using Coulson – and he himself has said that – but then again I am sure we all remember Gordon Brown’s nefarious spin doctor Damien McBride. I don’t recall the BBC lighting on the revelations concerning McBride with quite the same GLEE it has on Coulson. The BBC must be gutted Rebekkah Wade was also judged to be INNOCENT. Throughout the court case it has also used her to try and also damage Cameron. Miliband has joined in the attack on Cameron and the BBC is doing what it can to damage the PM.

Here you go, an on-time Open Thread. If BBC bias is bothering YOU this is where to detail it.

The BBC has in times past appointed itself the ‘Official Opposition’ when it felt that Labour weren’t sufficiently rigorous in holding the Tory government to account, so the BBC took on the job itself.

It now looks like it has decided, in these straitened times of austerity, to take on the role of Judge and Jury, passing judgement on all and sundry…well, on selected targets anyway.

Here Nick Robinson tries to spin a story and create a ‘crisis’ for Cameron:

Hacking verdict: Prison for Coulson, questions for Cameron

On the day David Cameron walked up to the door of Number 10 as prime minister he was there – standing in a huddle of the staff who were about to move into new taxpayer funded jobs in Downing Street.

This story is, of course, not just about one man and the prime minister who hired him. It is about the hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics for years and the behaviour of those he hired.

Tonight a man who helped get his boss into Number 10 faces up to a new life – in prison. His former boss faces serious questions about his judgement.

Not sure why Cameron should ‘face serious questions about his judgment’ or why he should apologise for employing Coulson.  Only after extensive police investigations and a trial was Coulson judged guilty in law….all else is politically opportunist point scoring based on rumour and allegation solely intended to try and discredit Cameron…and the BBC is clearly still playing that game.

The BBC were all too ready to campaign for Islamist terrorists to get them released from Guantanamo and to make excuses for those who carry out the worst atrocities and yet harrumph loudly about Cameron employing someone who was at the time not even charged with any crime.

As for the ‘hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics‘……where are the questions from the BBC about previous incumbents of No10…or those who would like to move in there?……

All the time the Sun supported the Labour Party did the BBC raise any questions or doubts? Or ask questions about the Labour placeman at the Times, Tom Baldwin, feeding in Labour friendly stories to the paper and now a Labour communications spinner?  Does the BBC raise any questions about its own close links to the Labour Party?  Robinson describes Murdoch as ‘the most powerful media mogul in Britain.’….but that’s not true is it?  The Director General of the BBC is the most powerful media mogul in Britain…and his minions not only have the massive power and resources to influence the political narrative but are willing and able to deploy it in the service of the Labour Party.

And if the story is really about Murdoch and his hold over British politics shouldn’t the BBC be rather more rigorous and wide ranging in its investigations rather than seemingly restricting its censure to the Conservatives?  Perhaps they might like to ask why for instance Brown didn’t tackle Murdoch if he really believed his son’s medical records had been illegally accessed  and his financial records hacked as he now claims.

Robinson’s line seems remarkably similar to Miliband’s:

“I think David Cameron has very, very serious questions to answer because we now know that he brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street. David Cameron was warned about Andy Coulson, the evidence mounted up against Andy Coulson, David Cameron must have had his suspicions about Andy Coulson, and yet he refused to act.

I believe this isn’t just a serious error of judgement, this taints David Cameron’s government because we now know that he put his relationship with Rupert Murdoch ahead of doing the right thing when it came to Andy Coulson’