. Yesterday morning they started off a new [Don’t] Have Your Say thread with the following question: Will this year’s Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool enable the Tories to regain support from Labour? With rumours of a possible snap election, a poll for the Observer suggests that just 13% of voters view party leader David Cameron as the party leader most able to handle a crisis – compared to 60% … Continue reading →

reports the Mail on Sunday: BBC Five Live’s award-winning presenter Peter Allen has been snubbed for a job fronting Radio 4’s flagship Today programme “because he is too much of an Essex boy”. Friends of Allen – who left school at 18 to work for his local newspaper and did not go to university – believe he is a victim of “Oxbridge snobs” who control the BBC. According to a … Continue reading →

*, hangout of sundry lefties, ‘activists’ and ‘edgy’ wannabes, among others: I has a new job! For the next three months, anyway. I will be helping shape the views of middle England on the Jeremy Vine programme on Radio Two. Most importantly, it means that I will have all weekends and evenings free, and will be able to attend more Urban events. Hurrah! I hope the BBC will identify this … Continue reading →

reports Saturday’s Daily Mail: First her kitchen turned out not to be her kitchen. Now it seems Nigella Lawson’s trip to the shops on a London bus for her cookery show wasn’t quite what it seemed either…. Producers have admitted that they hired the bus Miss Lawson rode on, filling it with extras pretending to read the newspapers as normal passengers. So while Miss Lawson, 47, was telling viewers to … Continue reading →

guide, first covered by Biased BBC back in June (see halfway down), former BBC governor Dame Pauline Neville-Jones (a formidable lady with an immense record of public service at the highest levels) is quoted in today’s Daily Mail, BBC’s Newsround fed youngsters Al Qaeda propaganda, claims ex-spy chief, with all her guns blazing. Speaking about the latest version of Newsround’s 9/11 explanation, a BBC concoction arrived at after a short … Continue reading →

Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts. Click through to read and contribute comments on this … Continue reading →

programme on the departure of Jane Garvey from the show: We’d like to offer a permanent audio memento, the essential Garvey collection. Tell us about your favourite Jane moments – on the form on this page, or by leaving a comment below – and we’ll try to dust off the tapes and put together a compilation which you’ll be able to get online (there’s a couple of clips available here … Continue reading →

reporter John Kay spent more than two minutes on a jocular report searching in vain (on a nice sunny day out) for a place in Cornwall called Porthemmet – a spoof news report about a spoof tourist destination, also covered by BBC Views Online, Shock for visitors to fake beach (another fine example of Views Online headline writing). Sadly, neither the Ten O’Clock News nor BBC Views Online were able … Continue reading →

news bulletin reported that Home Office Security Minister Tony McNulty had admitted that the government had made mistakes in the aftermath of the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London, in particular that the Muslim Council of Britain should not have been treated as being representative of British Muslims. The story was mentioned on Newsnight with greater brevity, and is featured, ‘Mistakes’ made over 7/7 reaction, on BBC Views Online (appearing on … Continue reading →