English: The BBC Trust logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is a very interesting article from Oxford economist, Simon Wren-Lewis, writing in his Mainly Macro blog. It’s RECOMMENDED READING for the weekend, in my view. Check it out!
via Left, Right and Centre: some recent observations – Simon Wren Lewis – Mainly Macro.
The article cites some excellent further readings in the moving perception of Left, Right and Centre. It will be of interest to US and UK readers who complain of left wing bias in the US media and the BBC respectively. The article provides some excellent insights into the BBC’s reporting on the political bias of various think tanks.
Let me conclude with two open questions about the BBC:
- So if the BBC has a left wing bias, why should it continue to receive funding from the taxpayer?
- Isn’t it about time that the BBC was privatized?
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Simon Wren-Lewis says that the BBC tries to be fair in its reporting and that its critics, citing left wing bias lack or fail to produce evidence.
His assertions are nonsense and in addition the BBC uses imagery to convey misleading impressions whilst pretending to be even handed.
Background of Reporters and Presenters
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Nearly all the BBC,s reporters and presenters are Labour supporters, agree with the concept of Global Warming/Climate Change, promoted by the Co-Op Bank, the Guardian and other left wing publications such as the Daily Mirror.
About 1/3rd of BBC presenters and some of their reporters are gay, metrosexuals whose views are identical with those on the Labour front bench, 1/3rd of whom are also gay and metrosexual.
Unlike Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner who openly states his views, the BBC tries to hide these facts which are unrepresentative of the population as a whole where gays and metrosexuals represent 1 person in 90.
Background of the BBC Governors and Directors
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Look into the backgrounds of many of them you will find many of them have been trained by the Fabian Society, Common Purpose and have left wing views
Issue Treatment
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Listen to an episode of the BBC’s flagship program, the Today program, with Mishal Hussein, John Humphries or James Naughtie interviewing Boris Johnson, a Conservative Cabinet Minister, a businessman, a businesswoman or a spokesperson for a right wing cause or the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Catholic prelate or anyone who is not a Muslim and you will get an aggressive and hostile interview.
Reverse the situation to include a Trades Union leader like Bob Crow, a Labour MP, a Guardian reporter or someone with left wing views, believes in man made Global Warming/Climate Change (Professors Beddington and Nurse, Dr Brian Cox, George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas MP etc), Paul O’Grady (who used to play as Lily Savage) you will get something quite different.
The interview will be gentle, full of admiration and characterized by an air of fawning supplication, grovelling, approval and the distinct impression that these BBC interviewers and presenters agree with every word that is being said.
Watch a program about cuts to schools in remote areas of Scotland you will see lingering shots of children playing in the sunshine and latter day Miss Jean Brodie’s dispensing pearls of wisdom to these fresh faced cherubs.
Then to the sounds of menacing music building up to a crescendo the camera pans to darkened skies over a nuclear submarine pen and a Trident submarine moving swiftly through the water.
Next to make sure we get the point the cost of the school as contrasted with the billions spent on the submarine and its nuclear warheads along with more lingering shots of the children now leaving the school for home,followed by more shots of the submarine looking for all the world like the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The BBC reporter will tell the viewer that the money saved by closing the school will be X that the Trident submarine costs billions more and that both are policies being pursued by a Conservative administration.
His /her tone will leave the viewer in no doubt that in that reporter,s mind these policies are wrong and unconscionable but will not point out that the Trident submarine is part of a group of 4 which are designed to protect the entire country which has 70 million people in it and tens of thousands of schools.
Tory cuts and local authority expenditure are 2 areas where the BBC shows extreme bias.
The Trades Unions and the Labour Party along with local authority Chief Executives,the BMA, the Royal College of Surgeons and NHS directors all say that any attempt at reform or expense reduction will cause service levels to implode and people to die.
To my knowledge the BBC has never investigated local authority waste,malfeasance and junketing and has always accepted the left wing argument about local government and NHS expenditure being necessary.
This to stop the sky falling in and the end of life as we know it.
Treatment of Right Wing Media Tycoons and Donald Trump
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Recent Panorama programmes into the Barclay Brothers saw a Panorama reporter effectively invading their property on Brecou in the Channel Islands,staking out their London home and accusing them of secrecy and tax evasion when in reality all the brothers had done via the Daily Telegraph was expose fat cattery at the BBC,expose MP,s in the expense scandal(more than 50% of these were Labour MP,s) and expose junketing in profligate left wing local authorities.
Because the Barclay Brothers are billionaires they were able to employ someone as a security man to follow the Panorama reporter around and clearly by the plaintive tone of his voice he disliked the fact that the tables had been turned on him.
The fact that the BBC engaged in this failed attempt at a hatchet job tells me that this was an attempt to muzzle the only right wing paper with the courage to root out political corruption, malfeasance and out and out theft of public money by people who were in this case predominantly but by no means exclusively, left wing.
With Donald Trump, the same reporter made several references to the Mafia in an attempt to suggest in not too subtle a way that Trump,s success in hotels and property dealing was partly down to their money.
“The Donald”, as would most of us, threw the Panorama reporter out of his office but the nudges and hints about Mafia money were left hanging in the air.
Bedroom Tax and What the BBC Calls Things
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The Bedroom tax is not a tax at all but is a benefit cut of the same kind that applies in Germany, except that they actually padlock the spare room and inspect periodically to ensure that it has either been sublet or remains padlocked.
The BBC is therefore misreporting what is going on and not pointing out that other countries in Europe, like Germany, which is much more successful than we are, are doing the same thing.
The policy for the UK is not wrong but needs to be accompanied by an increase in housing supply to make it work.
The BBC did not say that but condemned the policy and the Conservatives without informing the viewer about the wider context.
Question Time and Any Questions
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Watch is listen to these programmes and you will see the BBC’s left wing bias red in tooth and claw.
See David Starkie putting forward his right wing views and notice how often Dimbleby the Chairman either interrupts, tries to interject to blunt the thrust of the argument or invites panalists with opposing views to jump in.
Then compare that with the amount of platform he gives to left wing reporters,Guardian reporters and left wing people in the audience.
Part of this is because Dimbleby wants a knighthood, a fact Private Eye picked up on 15 years ago.
However the rest of it is the BBC’s left wing agenda which is determined for it by the Bilderberg Group whose proceedings it attends but does not report on.