Category Archives: pro EU

Anyone catch the odd interview here with Irish PM Enda Kenny on BBC “Today” this morning? The line being taken by Evan Davies was that Ireland should follow Iceland and choose to default on its massive debt. Enda, being a good little European, insisted that Ireland was 100% committed to “colleagues” in the EU. Wonder why the BBC were wanting him to suggest he might follow Iceland? – one way to get him to admit unswerving to the EU? Give it a listen if you get a moment…

With apologies to the late Minne Ripperton! The Boiling Frog spotted an excellent example of the BBC eulogising the wonders of the EU here.

Prominent on BBC News earlier today was a report that Dutch airline KLM is refusing to pay out compensation to its passengers delayed by the volcanic ash cloud earlier this year.

And throughout the report the BBC just couldn’t stop mentioning the EU. It was liberally sprinkled with phrases such as; “protected by EU rules”, “under EU rules passengers are entitled to compensation”, “the EU Commission promises to get tough” and so on. The obligatory ‘financially hit family’ were featured, who were facing poor treatment from the airline. The tone of the report was very clear; nasty airlines, but at least the nice EU is on your side. They even interviewed a European Commission spokesman in front of the Berlaymont which must be a first (The BBC do know where it is then?), but no-one from the airline was interviewed or any hint that the airlines were grounded because of an EU decision in first place.

Influential public relations agency BBC EU PR has just produced a puff piece for one of its top clients.

“Need some helpful spin?
BBC EU PR
Best in the business.”
(Herman Van Rompuy)

Update 16.20 – just noticed that Roland Deschain mentioned this on the open thread earlier, so tip of the hat to him. Beeb Bias Craig spotted it before me too.

Comments on this thread in haiku please. Starting from… now.

I see the BBC is piling the pressure on David Cameron’s new (supine) stance on the EU – using the ramblings of a French politician who suggests Cameron has “castrated” future UK influence in the post Lisbon world. (As if it would have any influence one way or another!) This is a moment of unrestrained joy for the ruthlessly pro-EU BBC – with the Czechs sadly caving in on Lisbon and poor little Cameron with nothing left to do but abandon any pretence of asserting British sovereignty in the guise of a “Never Again” claim that doesn’t matter since Lisbon ensures there will be no need for anything again.

One of the biggest failings of the BBC is bias by omission. That is, they conveniently ignore the issues that really matter because they don’t accord with the BBC mindset. An organisation that spends £800m a year on newsgathering – probably the biggest operation of its kind anywhere in the world – fritters the money away.

Take coverage of the EU, for example. Five years ago, the Wilson report damned the corporation’s analysis of EU affairs as narrow, boring annd unchallenging. The BBC responded by saying – as it always does when criticised – that it’s coverage was actually OK, but even so it would do better.

Spool forward to today. The Lisbon Treaty remains a matter of massive controversy which millions of people in England – as the recent EU poll showed – think is a major step towards a tyranny that they don’t want. So how does the BBC cover steps towards its ratification? By providing measured, in depth debate, as it promised? Not a bit of it.

On BBC1 Breakfast Time this morning an item on the Irish vote on Lisbon was sandwiched between coverage of the cervical cancer scare and – far more important – a lengthy item on the importance of dog-tagging. The Irish piece boiled down to a soundbite from a fish and chip shop owner who was intending to vote ‘yes’ and a fisherman who would say’no’. In between, a bland BBC reporter told us that the reason that Ireland was voting yes was because of the recession. And that was it.

Nothing about the implications of the vote, the claims of vote-rigging by Brussels, or the lies being told about the Treaty. No attempt to show the importance to people’s lives, or to do anything but the bare minimum.

This is what the BBC’s £800m news operation now routinely does. Items of major importance are reduced to their lowest, most simplistic, denomininator, while other matters its judges closer to people’s lives (like dog-tagging) are elevated to inflated over-importance. The BBC sold its soul to the EU years ago, and while Britain moves inexorably towards being a satellite vassal state of Brussels, its journalists sit on their hands refusing to analyse the issues that matter. “Bias by ommission” indeed.

Remarkable story here.

An advertisement for Britain’s judge on the European Court of Human Rights has
stated that the post does not need to be held by a British national. The advert for the £175,000 a-year position says the role is “not restricted to British nationals…” It has been published jointly by the Ministry of Justice and Foreign Office.

I note it adds that candidates must “demonstrate a close current connection with the United Kingdom and familiarity with one or more of its legal systems”. Like Sharia?

Thus far, the BBC has been unable to find any critics of this outrage!

I was looking at this loving BBC profile of Manuel Barroso – he who is EU Commission President. It portrays him as some sort of right wing character although he considers himself “centrist”. You have to wonder at the sort of media prism that presents Barroso as anything other than a hard left anti democratic dictator. Still, since the EU helps fund the BBC, this kind of spinning is always to be expected.