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The City of Hull has just begun ‘Larkin 25′, a 25-week-long event, marking the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death on 2nd December 1985. BBC Radio 4′s ‘Front Row’ hosted by Mark Lawson, plugged the event, but spent at least half its time promoting the charges that Larkin was:

a/ a misogynist;

b/ a racist;

c/ a Nazi sympathiser.

No-one on the programme challenged these claims and even the suggestion (from one of the organisers of the Hull event) that we should separate the man from his work, came over as tacit acceptance that the allegations are true.

Pretty par for the Front Row course. Shiraz Socialist takes issue with the evidence presented in the one-dimensional BBC view.

John Humphrys writes for the Daily Mail about the EU and claims – with breathtaking arrogance that oozes from every condescending sentence – that the corporation might have been guilty of not recognising eurosceptics enough. Pardon? Which parallel BBC universe does he live in? He and his cohorts have ignored and poured scorn on euroscepticism for years; they have also made bias by omission (i.e not properly reporting EU affairs so that the public is unaware of what is actually going on)into a fine art.

First, though, in his mock mea culpa, he wheels out the oldest canard in the BBC armoury; that the reporting of the EU by the corporation over the years must have been pretty much balanced because coverage has come under fire from europhiles too. The Wilson report into the BBC’s coverage of the EU (published after an inquiry in 2005, but subsequently totally ignored by smug news executives) comprehensively demolished that line.

Second, he claims disingenuously that it was Margaret Thatcher who signed the Single European Act in 1986, thereby paving the way for “ever closer union”. His point here is clearly ludicrously contrived to suggest that everyone, including Mrs Thatcher, supported the expansion of the EU; thus the BBC was right in giving weight in its coverage towards that process.

What he fails to mention, of course, is the bull elephant in the room; that Margaret Thatcher almost immediately regretted that signing, and it gave birth in subsequent years to the powerful growth of the current eurosceptic movement (in the country at large as well as among the Westminster elite) which the BBC has disgracefully under-reported and ignored (again as pointed out by the Wilson report), while characterising those who dislike the process of integration, as right-wing nutters. Humphrys himself, with his sidekick, the execrable James Naughtie, have been among the ringleaders of those at the BBC who systematically deride and denigrate anyone who dares to express the idea that Britain should leave the EU.

Third, he claims in his preposterous analysis that eurosceptics might finally be proved right by the pressures on the euro triggered by the recent financial problems in Greece. But why on earth has he only woken up to this now? When the euro was launched, almost a decade ago, Today devoted an entire programme to a virtually unqualified eulogy supporting its importance. In the intervening years, the programme has massively under-reported, ignored or ridiculed those who have warned that the vile currency is a Trojan Horse; another wedge designed principally to further more integration and to isolate those who oppose it.

When it comes to the EU, John Humphrys and every man jack of them at the BBC know only how to misrepresent and to grossly insult those who oppose the jackbooted fascists of Brussels; those sinister forces who today, as I write, are engaged in calling for further “economic government” (i.e. more powers). Surprise, surprise, there’s no mention on the BBC website of this latest blatant power grab. Mr Humphrys’ article only serves to underline the corporation’s euro-fanaticism.

Don’t ya just love ’em – the greenies? BBC global warmist alarmist Mark Kinver details here the truly terrifying row between “environmentalists” and the European Commission over biofuels. On the one side, the EU is doing what it does best – creating new layers of lunatic bureaucracy to “certify” that forests cut down for biofuel are not doing ecological harm. They proudly declare that their new laws are the “most stringent” (i.e. most repressive) in the world. Over in the other corner, those “environmentalists” (to the BBC, the most saintly group of people on earth) are yelping that – despite years of pressure to force biofuel production – they now think that cutting down trees by the million to do so is not a good idea. Mr Kinver, of course, reports it all without any attempt at balance. Centre stage in his mincing words are Sebastien Risso of Greenpeace, and – how utterly shameful that this should be the case – the Conservative MEP spokesman, who apparently applauds and supports the EU measures.

Not one squeak, of course, from Mr Kinver about the twin elephants in the room: It was the greenies who caused this idiotic quest for biofuels when we don’t need them, and are now reaping the whirlwind; and that the EU’s role in ploughing on relentless to wreak ecological havoc is beyond parody, but entirely true to form. We are ruled by eurocrats (supported by the Cleggerons)who make Stalin look amateur.

I suppose when we consider that the report is by Barbara Plett (Remember her?) we should not be too surprised to read the Mad Mullah’s plans to bring about a Second Holocaust gets a sympathetic press. Headed “Fourth Iran sanctions; Last Resort or Lost Opporunity?” Plett ensures that any tough approach to Iran is contextualised against the background of a kindly artistic people whose only crime  is toy seek nuclear energy. Can’t we just given them just a little more time?

Has anyone being following the terrifying messages being delivered with chilling fanaticism in this year’s annual BBC propaganda-fest, the Reith lectures? Lord Rees of Ludlow regards humankind as a disease or a “fever”. Man-made global warming is an indisputable fact that must be tackled before and above everything else. He talks menacingly about over-population and unsustainability (so did Hitler). He postulates a new cadre of scientists (who think similarly to himself, of course) to control political decisions. He demands that CO2 consumption be rationed throughout the world at much lower levels than that in the west (thereby condemning millions to fuel poverty). He wants Britain to focus away from traditional manufacturing (i.e. that which provides what people actually want) towards green energy (ie on what they don’t want, that doesn’t work, isn’t necessary, and is viable only with massive subsidy).

In short, this is the groupthink and the creed of the BBC; it’s through these talks you can see the true mindset and agenda.

I have every respect for the sherpas; but since when were they climate experts? And how, exactly, do they measure that ice is melting in the Himalayas and be able to say with any degree of certainty that in their 20 years of experience or so, it’s worse than what has gone before? No matter about such niceties, to the BBC, it’s a good climate change scare story and it supports the IPCC, and because it involves ice melting, it must be true. At least the sherpas don’t pretend to be scientists – unlike this shower from Ohio State University, who have decided that they can prove through proxies that Arctic ice is at its lowest level ever. Their methodology?

When we look carefully at various chemical and biological components of the seafloor sediment, and how the sediment is distributed — then, with certain skills and luck, we can reconstruct the conditions at the time the sediment was deposited.”

A bit like scriers and necromancers, then. And sherpas. But no worry, to the BBC, it’s all proven, consensus science. If it’s scary it must be news.

Tony Blair, while for some obscure reason being prime minister of the UK, laid the foundations for the greenie legislation that costs UK taxpayers an eye-watering £18bn a year in perpetuity. Now, the BBC reports glowingly, he’s joined the fast-expanding greenie venture capital gravy train that, in general, advises greedy corporations how to make an obscene fast buck or two by forcing people into fuel poverty and by pushing the the third world to abandon measures that help them out of poverty. For the BBC, of course, this is simply a great story; they report it without any qualifying comment in their eco-freak mutual admiration society. Their fervent wish is the resurrection of St Tony.

Sadly, I missed this response from Roger Harrabin on April 7. It deserves a wider airing for its surprise value (to put it mildy). At least he has not so far resorted to BBC lawyers, as one of his sensitive colleagues has:

Here is the official BBC comment: “It is well known that BBC correspondents are often invited to act as an independent moderator for events, sometimes for a fee. Our Editorial Guidelines allow correspondents to do so, as long as they do not undermine the impartiality of the BBC. There is no evidence here suggesting this expectation has been breached.

“To give more context: Roger Harrabin also undertook a chairing role at a lecture by the climate sceptic Vaclav Klaus; the RSA meeting mentioned in this blog featured a proponent of GM crops as well as the Soil Association, and for the recent Economist meeting Mr Harrabin requested a climate sceptic speaker on the panel.”

Personally I find some of the comments in this blog objectionable. I do not have a fixed view on climate change, and have always tried to depict it as a Risk issue rather than a case of rigid scientific fact. This will have been clear in my recent interview with Prof Phil Jones which was widely appreciated by both sides of the debate.

I note that this blog does not complain about bias from those high-profile BBC presenters who also chair conferences and who regularly make on-air remarks ridiculing climate change.

Just as sceptics attack the BBC for being biased on climate change, so greens attack the BBC for giving to much prominence to climate sceptics. In a very complex debate we’re trying to get it right.

First – “objectionable”. The reason why remarks on this blog (from this writer at least) are robust and at times pungent is that the BBC is reporting climate change with “due impartiality”, that is, it has assumed that there is a consensus on the subject and is affording warmists very significantly more airtime than so-called sceptics. No matter what is said or missed, or established to the contrary, BBC reporters pough on like the Triffids.

Almost every day, the BBC website posts another warmist alarmist story; the occasions when balance is given to these ludicrously one-sided reports are extremely rare. Worse, sceptical sites such as WUWT, Bishop Hill, EU Referendum, Icecap and dozens more are routinely and deliberately ignored. Thus, in Mr Harrabin’s own report of the International Conference on Climate Change, he suggested that the hockey stick was disbelieved by sceptics; nowhere has he analysed why people like Andrew Montford have comprehensively demolished the assumptions made in its compilation. This is at best lazy disregard of the truth; at worst, extremely poor journalism.

Second: greenies complain that Mr Harrabin’s coverage is not greenie enough. That’s an old nonsense that the BBC has used at least since I was a BBC publicity officer. It didn’t wash then and it doesn’t now; the existence of complaints from both sides of a debate does not mean that what is complained about is balanced. The facts that matter in this connection are that, as I posted earlier this week, when people like Richard Black write a story about climate change, in 99 cases out of hundred the only people quoted are from the eco-freak side. Harrabin, Black&co. ignore sceptics in a systematic, unprofessional way. They are thus on a mission of agitprop, not journalism. I have reported dozens of examples where simple attention to the other side of a debate would have created balance. But it doesn’t happen.

Third: The meetings and conferences which Mr Harrabin chairs or presents at are also attended by sceptics. The evidence speaks otherwise. If this is genuinely the case, I’d like to know from him the balance of sceptics to warmists at the events he has chaired over the past two years. I’d like to know how much he has earned from chairing the events; and to see the briefing letters and notes he has prepared. Has he put the sceptics’ case at any of them them? Has he told people why the hockey stick has been comprehensively demolished, about the work of Anthony Watts, of Andrew Montford, and of all the thousands of sceptics round the world? I expect not, though if I am wrong, I will happily say so.

Finally, I can think of only Jeremy Clarkson and Andrew Neil who have ever said anything against climate change on the BBC. If there are more examples,as Mr Harrabin asserts, I would be delighted to know who they are, when they expressed their scepticism; and how this balances out with the thousands of biased reports that Mr Harrabin and his cohorts have filed.

I look forward tio your reply, Mr Harrabin. And rest assured, anything you furnish that proves my perception of the way you operate is wrong will be properly aired.

Compare and contrast these two accounts of the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, one by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin, the other by a genuine journalist who attended the event. Mr Harrabin’s sole intent, it soon becomes apparent, is to pour scorn on the conference; to him the 700 who gathered in Chicago were steak-eating, libertarian, republican, right-wing Yanks. In the BBC’s rogues’ and vermin gallery, you can’t get any lower (unless, perhaps, if you are from UKIP). No mention of their qualifications, the range of expertise they encompassed, or anything else that might gave credence to the proceedings. His sole intent is to rubbish what went on.

Not only that, his pay-off line – in accusing Lord Monckton of not being a scientist (and therefore, presumably, in Mr Harrabin’s book, not qualified to make the closing address) – falls heavily into the domain of the proverb involving kettles and the colour black. The writer will be the Roger Harrabin who mainiacally pontificates to the world about the dangers of global warming from his privileged BBC pulpit, even though he himself has no science degree. It will also be the Roger Harrabin who, despite being a self-proclaimed expert (in churning out the material that he does), confuses weather with climate:

His (Lord Monckton’s)closing words were delivered in a weeping whisper, a soft prayer of praise to the American constitution and individual liberty.

As the ecstatic crowd filtered out I pointed one delegate to a copy of the Wall Street Journal on the table. A front page paragraph noted that April had been the warmest on record.

“So what?” he shrugged. “So what?”

h/tip George R