Why I fear the Boris Bashing Corporation may sway the most critical election since the War
Despite everything that has been said about the supposed prevalence of social media during the election campaign, the BBC remains by far the major source of news for most people.
According to media watchdog Ofcom, BBC1 is the most used source of news for a sizeable 58 per cent of the population. the BBC’s website is consulted by 25 per cent of people for news, while 23 per cent turn to the Corporation’s news channel.
Meanwhile, the Beeb has a dominant position on radio. its stations are listened to by 72 per cent of people who get their news from what used to be known as the wireless.
By contrast, the overall reach of printed newspapers is significantly less than 20 years ago, though newspaper websites have partly compensated for the decline.
Although i don’t at all discount the influential new role of social media such as Facebook and twitter, the BBC is probably as powerful as ever and, because of the relative decline of newspapers, arguably more so.
With extra power goes extra responsibility, and it’s my contention that in recent days our national broadcaster has shown a worrying lack of balance. it has dwelt obsessively on tory mistakes and cock-ups while tending to ignore serious Labour failings.
Of course, i don’t deny that the Conservatives have contrived to shoot themselves in the foot on several occasions, nor that the BBC was absolutely right to report these selfinflicted wounds.
i obviously make no complaint about the coverage given to the tribulations of Welsh secretary Alun Cairns, who resigned yesterday over allegations surrounding a former aide ‘sabotaging’ a rape trial.
Nor do i grumble about the thousands of words devoted to the idiocy of Jacob Rees-Mogg. What impelled him to suggest that the victims of the Grenfell tower conflagration should have used ‘common sense’, God alone knows.
if i were not a peace-loving man, i would derive huge enjoyment from throwing a custard pie at him. He has affected a lofty and supercilious air that might have even ruffled feathers in the 18th century.
so no objections on this score, though i could have done without the sermonising that accompanied the reporting of these two men’s errors. FOR example, presenter Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s today programme yesterday delivered a sententious lecture to listeners about the importance of the ‘attitudes and values’ of political parties — implying the tories had come unstuck big time.
Where i think Auntie got badly carried away was over her hysterical response to the selective editing of a tV clip by tory propagandists which made Labour’s sir Keir starmer look comically indecisive over Brexit.
the live interview made him look hopelessly confused, so it’s a mystery why the tories thought they needed to tinker with it. But did their sleight of hand deserve so much BBC outrage? the pro- Labour Guardian and Daily Mirror dealt with it calmly and briefly.
But my grouse is not really over the way in which the Beeb evidently relished reporting tory misfortunes at such length. No, what has been shameful is the manner in which it has virtually turned a blind eye to Labour excesses.
if you relied on the BBC for news, you probably wouldn’t know that Zarah sultana, the party’s candidate for Coventry south, wrote in an online post in 2015 that she would ‘celebrate’ the deaths of tony Blair and israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. the BBC reported this fleetingly. (she has since apologised.)
Nor has it shown much interest in the past online anti-semitic reflections of Ali Milani, Labour’s candidate for Uxbridge, the pM’s constituency. Mr Milani has used the hashtag ‘Jew’ and ‘Zionist’ as an insult in messages, though he has recently apologised.
And yet while the BBC almost ignored these disquieting revelations, it has told us countless times that Francesca O’Brien, the tory candidate for Gower, wrote on Facebook in 2014 that people on the reality television show Benefits street needed ‘putting down’. (Ms O’Brien has since apologised.)
What a nasty thing to say. But it was, so far as we know, a one- off piece of stupidity, whereas Ali Milani, for example, was guilty over a longer period of more insidious views, which are widespread in Jeremy Corbyn’s party. Hardly even-handed of the BBC.
Let me give two more examples of its recent indulgence of Labour. During yesterday’s today programme, which waxed so indignant over tory failings, it was only parenthetically mentioned that former Labour
Foreign secretary Jack straw had suggested Britain’s allies might regard Mr Corbyn in Downing street as a national security threat.
Also, while making such a hullaballoo over No 10’ s thwarted attempt to publish an official costing of Labour spending promises, the BBC didn’t think to investigate whether these pledges could turn out to be ruinous. easier to pick on the tories. The BBC was admirably (and, to me, surprisingly) balanced during the 2016 eU referendum. so why has it reverted to type, and become the Bash Boris Corporation?
i doubt it is over-run with Corbynistas, though i imagine there are quite a lot of them. i suspect an innate anti-toryism has been boosted by the Remainer sentiment and Boris Johnson loathing that are ubiquitous in fashionable circles.
in their conscious minds, most BBC journalists do their best to resist such bias but, when Conservatives are on the ropes, a kind of group-think kicks in — and, as yesterday, we see the baleful consequences.
it’s not just the Beeb, of course. Other channels join the feeding frenzy. sky News’s Kay Burley was so frustrated yesterday at not having a senior tory to interview that she berated an empty chair, and mockingly told it all the searching questions she would have asked if tory chairman James Cleverly had been sitting in it.
By the way, sky News’s political editor, Beth Rigby, would be wise to keep her views to herself. Last month she wrote a piece on the channel’s website inveighing against No Deal, and urged the pM to ‘put it in his election manifesto instead and let the people decide’.
But it is the BBC — so much bigger than every other outlet, and also our national broadcaster — in which we rest the highest hopes that it will strive to avoid partiality. How often we are disappointed!
Not always, though. it was a joy to hear veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby talk calmly and reasonably on BBC radio yesterday about last night’s edition of panorama on BBC1, introduced by him, on the divisions caused by Brexit.
He said: ‘everywhere there is this irritation, discontent and incomprehension about why parliament hasn’t been able to implement what seemed to be a simple question in the referendum. it’s done terrible damage. it’s complicated, and people don’t like that.’
Will the BBC give Boris Johnson a fair run over the next five weeks? Will it examine the flaws and inconsistencies and evasions of Labour, the Lib Dems and the sNp with the same forensic scrutiny it brings to bear on the tories?
if the answer to these questions is ‘No’, we are in even deeper trouble as a country than i thought. this is the most momentous General election since 1945, and it is categorically the role of the British Broadcasting Corporation to try to sway the result.