Category Archives: Paxman

LEFTY COLUMNIST: WE DOMINATE BBC FLAGSHIP NEWS

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Following Jeremy Clarkson’s comments about the strikers on The One Show yesterday, outraged Liberal Conspiracy editor and Guardian contributor Sunny Hundal tweeted:


He received many replies, not least from fellow lefty and Guardian columnist Deborah Orr (wife of Will Self, one of the BBC’s favourite “controversial” lefties):




“We dominate the really serious flagship slots.”

Orr is only scratching the surface, but it’s interesting to see an insider’s take from within the metropolitan lefty media bubble that confirms what we’ve been saying all along.

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Stuffing Paxo

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Jeremy Paxman famously asked the then Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard the same question 12 times on Newsnight. Former Newsnight editor Peter Horrocks chose it as his favourite moment when the programme celebrated its 25 anniversary, and the clip is available on the Newsnight website (unlike many other people’s favourite – the outing of Peter Mandelson by Matthew Parris, which the BBC refuses to rebroadcast).

On Monday Boris Johnson asked Paxman what he earns at least five times during the course of their interview. Newsnight decided to cut the segment from broadcast:

THE BBC was blasted last night over claims it cut parts of an interview where Boris Johnson attacked Jeremy Paxman over his wages.
It is claimed the London Mayor demanded “five or six times” to know the BBC anchor’s taxpayer-funded salary – thought to be £1million a year…
Johnson said: “We didn’t get an answer for that by the way – about your earnings.”
The BBC last night said cuts were due to programme timings and views were “fairly reflected”. Mayoral aides have called for the unedited interview to go out online.

The BBC’s tax-dodging superstars do not like it up ’em.

More on this from the All Seeing Eye.

(Hat tips to anyone and everyone who has mentioned this in the comments.)

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PAXMAN TORY TOFF CLAIMS

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I’ve known Jeremy Paxman since I worked with him on the university newspaper in Cambridge in 1971. Then, like most students of that era, he was an crusading lefty. Over the years, his politics have undoutedly changed, partly, I suspect, because he’s now firmly part of the hunting/fishing set. But elements of that sneering lefty, it seems, are still not far beneath the surface. They came out last night when he interviewed Boris Johnson on Newsnight. Boris strongly pooh-poohed suggestions that his past as a member of the Bullingdon Club was relevant to what he is doing now. Jeremy was having none of it. He descended into muttering name-calling, the main theme of which (though it was largely incoherent) seemed to be that Boris was a toff and the Tories were a party of privilege. That, of course, is a constant theme of BBC coverage of the party conference. Well worth a look.

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