Here’s a gem of BBC groupthink from last night’s BBC Six O’Clock News

, transcribed in full: George Alagiah: The number of immigrants arriving in Britain is too high, that’s what the Conservative leader, David Cameron’s said, in his first ever major speech on the issue. He says there’s an unsustainable pressure on public services because of a rising population. The Tories say that there should be strict annual limits on the number of migrants allowed to come here from outside the EU, … Continue reading

General BBC related comment thread:

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

On Thursday night the Guardian broke a story, published on Friday, that Peer was paid to introduce lobbyist to minister

, concerning the payment of cash to former Labour frontbencher, Lord Hoyle, formerly Doug Hoyle, a onetime government whip, MP for Warrington and chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, by a lobbyist: …for an introduction to Lord Drayson, the defence minister in charge of billions of pounds of military procurement, according to evidence obtained by the Guardian. The story was mentioned briefly in Newsnight’s round-up on Thursday of Friday’s newspapers, … Continue reading

MEP and Daily Telegraph leader writer Daniel Hannan has been in touch

to report some shockingly biased BBC reporting concerning some comments of his. Hannan blogged on Thursday, ‘Cast-iron guarantee’ must not rust, about how the Conservatives should handle the EU Treaty. In it he called on his party to make sure they play no games on the issue, saying: My party calls Gordon Brown a liar because of his sophistry over Europe, and we are right to do so. Let us … Continue reading

General BBC related comment thread:

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Jonathan Calder of Liberal England asks Why doesn’t the BBC name Emily Thornberry?

Parliament’s standards watchdog, Sir Philip Mawer, has criticised the behaviour of an MP who inserted a quote into an official press release as “unwise”. Sir Philip didn’t name the MP in his annual report, but as Jonathan points out, it takes little effort to find that the MP in question is Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South, subject of a report by the House of Commons Committee on Standards … Continue reading

Sky TV (BSkyB) have applied to Ofcom to remove

their three free-to-air channels, Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three, from Freeview (Digital Terrestrial Television, DTT) to replace them with five pay TV channels. This will also require new Freeview equipment for those wishing to subscribe. I don’t mind Freeview having subscription services on it – indeed, if it did, there would be even less argument than ever for the unique way the BBC is funded by the … Continue reading

Following up on recent revelations about the BBC invasion of Facebook

, Samuel Coates, deputy editor of Conservativehome, has cleverly found a silver lining to such wholesale Beeboid waste of tellytaxpayer’s time – revealing that there are eleven times more ‘liberals’ at the BBC than ‘conservatives’. Facebook lets you target advertising at people based on various criteria, including their workplace and their declared political outlook (using the American terms liberal, moderate and conservative to represent left of centre, centre and right … Continue reading

General BBC related comment thread:

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Biased BBC reader Robinhas kindly submitted this article

Biased BBC reader Robinhas kindly submitted this article: For the BBC, natural disasters seem to be a golden opportunity to attack President Bush and to amplify the prevailing pro-climate change bigotry. Take the Californian bush fires, which some of the online reporting acknowledges have actually been part of the American climate scene for time immemorial. Yet in paragraph five of BBC News Online’s main report of the fires, the finger … Continue reading