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BBC Bias: an EU referendum campaign progress report

BBC Bias: an EU referendum campaign progress report

News-watch has been carrying out detailed monitoring of news output since mid-January. A large number issues relating to impartiality have been noted, and overall, there is still, despite improvement, significant cause for concern that the ‘exit’ case is not being properly represented.

On the plus side:

There is definitely and clearly an effort to explore the respective ‘leave’ and ‘remain cases. ‘Exit’ guests are appearing in unprecedented numbers, and are often being treated with due respect.  Pro-EU politicians such as George Osborne are, on occasions, being subjected to rigorous scrutiny. There is evidence that presenters and correspondents are better briefed on EU issues than in the past, and are challenging the key economic points from positions of real knowledge.

This improved coverage to date underlines just how much the ‘exit’ case had previously been neglected, and its advocates under-represented, denigrated or often ignored.

But:

That said, there are still major issues. All of them are fully evidenced on the News-watch website, and for the sake of economy, the key points are only summarised here.

The BBC has not explored much the issue of the validity or otherwise of David Cameron’s reform package. From the off, website copy suggested it was valid, and there has been no determined exploration of whether it is. This is central to the ‘remain’ case and the absence of scrutiny is bias by omission.

Though some programmes are going off-diary and exploring the roots of the current debate, as yet there has been no obvious effort to investigate critically the full nature of the ‘leave’ movement, and what it represents. Nick Robinson’s survey of the history of the UK-EU relationship was purely through the lens of Westminster Bubble, that is, the leading politicians and the main political friction points. It added nothing new, and if anything served only to reinforce the stereotypes that have characterised the BBC’s coverage of what it calls ‘Europe’ for far too long. Who are those who actually want to leave the EU?  They are not simply racists, anti-immigration fanatics, over-zealous ‘populist’ patriots, disaffected Tories, disgruntled fishermen and lazy working class louts who fear foreign competition. What is the ‘leave’ case and what are the historical roots, both inside and outside Parliament?  Nothing has yet been done in that terrain, and that’s a glaring omission.  Unanswered questions include why the most left-wing, radical Labour leadership in two generations has allied itself with the CBI, the big Banks, and the IMF, and against thousands of its traditional working class supporters in wanting to stay ‘in’. The BBC talks freely and often about the low-hanging fruit of a ‘Tory civil war’, but this debate is about much more – and nothing in the coverage has explored that area in any but a fleeting (and often derogatory) way.

Heavy and increasing weight has been given coverage of those who say ‘Brexit’ will be damaging, such as the IMF, the Treasury and the CBI. Senior BBC political correspondents have reinforced this by suggesting (18/4) that the ‘leave’ side case is ‘cobwebby’ and not fleshed out.

Analysis conducted by News-watch of BBC2’s Newsnight typifies the problem. This covered 40 editions. ‘Exit’ guests were appearing for the first time – a big step forward – but there were still serious inadequacies. The programme has not sufficiently explored the ‘exit’ case, and has routinely given far more prominence to the remain side. There have been fewer ‘exit’ guests, and the imbalance is not accounted for by a tougher treatment of the ‘remain’ side – if anything, the reverse applies. Against this already skewed background, the decision to use the Sealand defence installation as a metaphor for what exit might look like was silly. It skewed the first Newsnight special referendum programme (11/4) strongly against the ‘exit case’. It may have been intended to be a humorous approach, but given the BBC ‘s past track record of denigrating the exit case, it came across instead as a deliberately negative editorial device.    On Tuesday night (19/4) the different treatment of Emily Maitlis of her two guests, Pascal Lamy and Lord Owen, underlined the problems in the Newsnight approach. Towards Mr Lamy, she was thoughtfully inquisitorial, and allowed him plenty of space for his answers; towards Lord Owen, she was much sharper, interrupted much more, and scarcely allowed him to respond.

Similar detailed analysis (20 consecutive editions)  by News-watch of Radio 4’s 10pm programme, The World Tonight, also highlighted significant impartiality problems. The programme explored the ‘remain’ and exit’ arguments from its more cross-border perspective, and mounted special programmes assessing opinion to the EU debate in Berlin, Spain and France. But most weight was given to the pro-EU perspective in those features.  In separate studio interviews, ‘remain’ figures such as Alan Johnson had more opportunity to put their case than ‘exit’ ones.

Since January, News-watch has also analysed a number of referendum-related special programmes, including ones on Greenland’s exit from the EU, Norway’s existence outside the EU, a survey of the EU’s impact on countryside issues (Costing the Earth), and Nick Robinson’s Europe: Them or Us.  All of them have shown a distinct bias towards the ‘remain side. Nick Robinson’s description of Winston Churchill as the ‘father of European unity’ stands out as particularly biased because he chose as the bedrock of his programme a provocative historical interpretation that is hotly contested by the ‘leave’ side. The Greenland and Norway programmes particularly over-stressed the difficulties of leaving the EU, and the Costing the Earth programme gave much more space to the ‘remain’ side.

Analysis of Mark Mardell’s reports on World This Weekend is underway. Two editions, one from Portugal and the other from a meeting of The European House think-tank at Lake Como, have already been specially analysed and noted for their pro remain bias. On both occasions, Mark gave significantly less prominence to the respective ‘exit’ spokesmen and gave them less space to answer the points put to them.

Analysis of a strand broadcast on Radio 4’s World at One, by Professor Annand Menon raised serious bias issues.  The five three-minute segments (from 12/4) were presented as objective analysis of aspects of EU operations and impacts, but they were anything but. For example, he played down the complexity of the EU’s structure – flying in the face of one of the principal objections of the EU from Eurosceptics.

This brief synopsis of bias is not exhaustive, but gives an overview of some of the key issues.

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News-watch Launches EU Referendum Blog

News-watch Launches EU Referendum Blog

This new service will track on a regular basis programme items that seem to be biased towards the pro-EU side. The observations are not the result of detailed analysis. Rather, they are pointers based on News-watch’s experience in tracking the BBC over many years, and on past BBC performance.

If you spot BBC bias, do let us know.  You can register instances at www.bbccomplaints.com 

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Ofcom appointment ‘threatens fair coverage of EU referendum debate’

Ofcom appointment ‘threatens fair coverage of EU referendum debate’

Opinion polls at the weekend gave the EU ‘out’ camp the edge. But it has now emerged that supporters of Brexit will be fighting the battle to win hearts and minds as the EU referendum approaches with their arms tied behind their backs.

That’s because new developments at the BBC and the independent sector regulatory body Ofcom mean that complaints about unfair coverage of the EU debate on television – still the most crucial medium in influencing public opinion – don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of succeeding.

It paves the way for a constant barrage of pro-EU propaganda with the opposition neutered and unable to get a fair hearing for their concerns.

The most astonishing development came last Thursday when the Department of Culture, Media and Sport announced that an EU fanatic with little professional experience of broadcasting is to chair the content board of Ofcom, the body ultimately responsible for ensuring impartiality in news coverage across ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News.

Unbelievably, the press release announcing his appointment claimed that he had not been involved in any political activities for the past five years, and therefore (by implication) could be trusted with this crucial role.

But a moment’s investigation on the web reveals that this is utter nonsense. As his self-trumpeting website shows, Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist, is fighting an all-out political war on several fronts towards his revered dreams of slaying nationalism, allowing the free movement of peoples and of greater EU integration.

At the core of his campaign is a slickly-produced TV programme called The Great EU Disaster Movie, which his production company Springshot made last year in association with the BBC and Franco-German television channel Arte. It posits the collapse of the world as we know it if, God forbid, nasty nationalist factions such as UKIP have their way and the EU weakens its iron grip on the body politic. Predictably, the programme had its first network airing on the BBC. It has since been established that, disgracefully, the Corporation stealthily took substantial funding from the EU to ensure that it was translated into other languages.

Emmott’s so-called charity, Wake Up Europe – a trustee of which is Richard Sambrook, a former Director of BBC News – is in the midst of a major pro-EU propaganda drive at British Universities with the film at its heart. If that isn’t ‘political activity’, the definition needs changing.

The show’s joint producer has claimed in The Guardian that the programme is a neutral examination of the potential problems that would be caused by the UK’s exit. Her stance cuts to the heart of the entire problem of the Brexit debate in that those who want to remain simply cannot see or even begin to accept that they are biased.

What makes Emmott’s appointment so utterly damaging is that the rest of the Ofcom content board – in step with Quango Land generally – are like minds drawn apparently from the liberal left. The full list of 10 is here. What leaps out from their CVs is that all but two have worked for significant parts of their careers at the BBC. They write papers about how wonderful and important the BBC is. Many are closely linked to a BBC-favoured propaganda organisation called the (Reuters)Oxford Institute of the Media – which last November held a seminar about ensuring ‘fair’ coverage of the EU. Guess who chaired it? Bill Emmott!

One of the two content board members who has not worked at the BBC is Dr Zahera Harb, who began her career in journalism in the Lebanon, and is now a board member of the worthy-sounding Ethical Journalism Network. Don’t be deceived by such Orwellian double-speak. Its main concerns include attacking the ‘hate speech’ of Donald Trump and ensuring that Palestinian Authority – along with immigration generally – gets better coverage in the media.

The second important media development was on Friday: the closing date for submissions to a so-called ‘public consultation’ by the BBC Trustees’ in connection with their draft editorial guidelines covering the EU referendum campaign.

Those who favour Brexit should be afraid, very afraid. For all the 16 years that News-watch has monitored the BBC’s EU output, the Corporation has been massively biased against the withdrawal case. It has crudely but pervasively cast EU opponents as racist far-right xenophobes, Conservative eurosceptics as hopelessly ‘split’, and at the same has totally underplayed or ignored the solid, consistent support for withdrawal from Labour figures such as veteran MPs Kate Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins.

The Trustees’ proposals for ensuring impartiality, and no doubt will adopt – because such exercises are only fig leaves to accountability – are a farce. The main problem is that as usual, the guidelines put the BBC in the driving seat in terms of what is fair, under their definition of ‘due’ impartiality. That gives them massive leeway, and the proof is that the BBC Trustees have not upheld a single complaint about EU coverage in all their existence.

Even more disturbing, the final judgment on what constitutes bias in the run-up to the referendum will, in effect, be left to the only two Trustees who have any substantial journalistic experience. Both – surprise, surprise – are ex-BBC career journalists.

Step forward Mark Damazer, former Controller of Radio 4, under whose tutelage it was confirmed as the national channel of right-on causes; and Richard Ayre, a former controller of editorial standards who is an ex-chairman of an organisation called Article 19 which is similar to the Ethical Journalism Network mentioned above, with the addition that another of their obsessions is climate alarmism.

The News-watch submission to the BBC – for what it’s worth, because there is no chance that it will be heeded – is in full here.

A remaining question is who sanctioned the Bill Emmott appointment? Eurosceptic John Whittingdale is ostensibly in charge at DCMS. It seems scarcely credible that Emmott would have been his choice. Did David Cameron or George Osborne force the appointment through as part of their frantic drive to stack the cards as highly as possible against an exit vote? They both know that the BBC is firmly already on their side. Now Ofcom is sewn up, too.

After the publication of this post, an Ofcom spokesperson has contacted Newswatch with the following statement: “Any conflicts of interest involving non-executive Board members are managed appropriately and Bill Emmott would not be involved in discussions or decisions related to the EU referendum.”

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News-watch submission to the BBC’s EU Consultation on EU Referendum Editorial Guidelines 15.1.2016

News-watch submission to the BBC’s EU Consultation on EU Referendum Editorial Guidelines 15.1.2016

The BBC Trust recently embarked on an eight-week consultation on draft Editorial Guidelines for its coverage of the EU in/out referendum.  This is News-watch’s submission.  The proposed guidelines are here.

 

Preamble

News-watch has been monitoring the BBC’s EU-related output for 16 years. Detailed research based on systematic analysis of relevant BBC programming using established academic principles has shown that the Charter requirements on impartiality have been serially breached. Most importantly, the case for withdrawal has been seriously under-reported, and those advocating Brexit have been pervasively cast as xenophobic, disorganised extremists from the ‘right’ or ‘far-right’.[1] The archive of News-watch reports and elements of engagement with the BBC can be found at www.news-watch.co.uk. Over the entire period, the BBC Trustees have undertaken to examine the News-watch findings only twice. On each occasion, the Trustees adopted a highly biased approach to the research and clear evidence of breaches of impartiality were rejected on spurious grounds that suited the BBC but flouted rules of fair inquiry.[2]

This submission is an attempt to persuade the Trustees to adopt in the proposed Editorial Guidelines a much more rigorous and demonstrably independent approach to ensuring impartiality during the referendum campaign.

The BBC Trustees and those tasked with investigating impartiality on their behalf have sought to cast monitoring as ‘unhelpful’ and based on ‘metrics’, and implied that such investigations concentrate solely on counting speaker appearances and calculating airtime allocation.[3] This is a wilful misrepresentation of News-watch’s approach, which investigates impartiality using a range of analytical tools, both quantitative and qualitative, and has never focused on statistical data in isolation. The News-watch corpus of work provides abundant evidence that illustrates that the Trustees, by contrast, do not have in place adequate processes for properly ensuring that Charter requirements are met.[4]

And indeed, the draft Referendum Guidelines reduce impartiality to achieving ‘broad balance’ – a simple metric focusing on headcounts – and ignore the vital consideration of how guest speakers are actually treated, including interview tone, question content, the number of interruptions, the positioning of speakers within individual reports, within programmes or within the overall schedule. Also, who is chosen for each side, and how well informed and articulate are they. Impartiality rests on a multitude of complex, interlocking factors, and News-watch is concerned that the measures outlined in the draft Referendum Guidelines for monitoring content will be ineffective in ensuring a fair hearing for both sides.

Observations

This EU referendum will result in a decision of immense constitutional importance. The proposed Guidelines document is too vague to deliver demonstrable impartiality. It leaves too much to the BBC’s own ‘editorial judgment’ applied in the loose and imprecise framework of ‘due’ impartiality. It has been written from the inside to accord with and defend the BBC’s own operational practices rather than as a rigorous framework to ensure genuinely independent regulation of content.

A major over-arching concern is whether the Trustees – who are the final arbiters of impartiality – are themselves sufficiently independent. Of course members of the Trust are appointed by DCMS and a condition is impartiality. But special considerations apply here. Only two of the five members of the Trust Editorial Standards Committee, Richard Ayre, and Mark Damazer, have extensive experience of working in a national newsroom. Yet both spent the majority of their careers at the BBC and have been and are major champions of the Corporation. They may claim to be ‘independent’ but this is not credible, and yet they will inevitably play a crucial role in determining issues of impartiality that arise during the campaign. We spend several years trying to persuade Mark Damazer to take a less Europhile approach, without success. Also, as far as we can see several of the Trustees are firmly in the ‘man-made climate change’ camp, an issue clearly linked to the EU, and we see no counterbalancing members. The Guidelines, in the exceptional circumstances of this referendum, should provide detail of how genuine independence of outlook will pertain to key judgments.

There is nothing in the Guidelines about transparency of process. Whilst obviously elements of the BBC’s decision-making are confidential for good operational reasons, public confidence in the editorial processes would be boosted if there was a greater degree of openness in how key judgments are going to be made through the referendum campaign. The output can only formally be challenged through the complaints procedure. It is a fact that since the Trustees first became the BBC’s regulatory body, they have not upheld through the ESC a single complaint about EU coverage.[5] The BBC is judge and jury in terms of its own editorial balance. Against that background, measures should be included in which decision-making is open to retrospective scrutiny and which demonstrate that legitimate outside concerns about balance will be taken into account.

The key provisions contained in section 3.1 of the draft document are too vague to provide a reliable framework to ensure impartiality. The BBC should be aiming in this historic constitutional debate to achieve genuine impartiality (not just ‘due’) between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps. News-watch has provided extensive evidence to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee that the ‘due’ word has been the justification for major imbalances within EU coverage.[6] As things stand, nothing in the Guidelines will redress this. A further problem is that the requirement for impartiality is framed in relation only to a ‘broad balance’ and the need for the inclusion of a ‘range of voices’. This gives editors enormous leeway in exercising their judgment and makes outside challenge almost impossible. The ‘broad balance’ principle is further extended because it is stipulated in the Guidelines that it can potentially be achieved across strands or channels. This could lead, for example, to the 8.10 Today interview being ‘balanced’ by something much lower down in the running order. This is clearly wrong.

A major issue relating to EU-related coverage that is not spelled out in the Guidelines at all is the need for exact terminology. In one particular area this is absolutely crucial. The News-watch archive demonstrates that in BBC programming, the term ‘European Union’ has very frequently wrongly been used interchangeably with ‘Europe’. The inaccuracy has even extended to the Trustees’ own annual poll about whether the BBC informs audiences about ‘Europe’. Of course this looseness reflects to an extent colloquial usage. But in the referendum campaign terminological precision will be vital. Those against the EU, for example, are frequently cast as xenophobes who are against ‘Europe’. Such lines of attack will need to be rigorously challenged, but there is no requirement in the Guidelines that there must be heightened, constant vigilance to prevent breaches of impartiality in this way.

The BBC has ruled out in evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee the inclusion of monitoring as a means of assessment during the referendum campaign. This is confirmed in the Guidelines in that they make no mention of any monitoring processes other than through internal editorial judgment. That is a gaping hole in the assessment process. Without rigorous, structured monitoring based on academic principles, impartiality cannot demonstrably be achieved. For example, how can the editor of a daily programme, who is charged under the Guidelines with achieving such balance over the course of the week, keep track? With the Today programme (for example), that means running analysis of dozens of items. Who is going to do this work? Will it be a separate responsibility for the duration of the campaign with personnel allocated accordingly? 3.1 rules out ‘stopwatch’ and ‘mathematical’ measurements but what other ways of assessing impartiality between two sides are there? It is not spelled out.

A major unanswered question is how the trap of covering the campaign through the Westminster bubble will be avoided. Polls show that public opinion is heavily anti-EU in its apparent support for mass immigration. How are such views (for example) going to be taken into account? On the other hand, the leadership of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are all likely to be in the ‘stay in’ camp, and possibly the majority of MPs (most Labour plus all SNP, all Liberal Democrats, and half of the Conservative PLP). How will this lack of accord between public opinion and their Parliamentary representatives be reflected and dealt with? And how will UKIP be handled in that it is the majority party in the UK contingent at the European Parliament, but has only one MP, and three peers who support the party, and yet commanded 4m votes at the general election. These are just a sample of the issues involved.

The Guidelines stipulates that ‘broad balance’ requirements will not apply to some coverage, for example if there is ‘an internal disagreement over tactics’. It makes the Chief Political Adviser the arbiter of suspension of ‘normal rules’. Analysis by News-watch has shown that such coverage of rows within UKIP, and especially with regard to its immigration-related policies, has led to substantial disproportionate coverage. If this happens during the referendum campaign, it could have a significant damaging effect on the ‘no’ campaign. The Guidelines actively give license for this coverage to continue, and decisions in this arena will be entirely at the BBC’s discretion, and not subject to monitoring.

The BBC accepts that its journalists are not currently informed enough about the EU to ensure impartiality during the referendum campaign. News Director James Harding has announced that compulsory training courses to remedy this are being planned. Mention of this training is not included in the Guidelines, however. Will members of staff who have not undertaken the training be allowed to work in frontline programming covering complex and sensitive areas of the referendum campaign?   Can we see this training programme, to comment on its objectivity – the BBC’s last training programme addressed none of the fundamental EU issues.

Related to this, the Lord Wilson of Dinton report on the BBC’s EU coverage specifically spelled out that special measures should be taken during a referendum campaign to inform audiences better about issues relating to the EU. There is no mention in the Guidelines of such special programming in the news arena or of any measures to ensure that it is properly impartial. This month (January 2016), a Radio 4 programme about Brexit, projected the process as something of unprecedented difficulty. This – in the context of a vote that could be less than six months away – showed strong bias against the case for withdrawal. The Guidelines should contain provisions that prevent this.

[1] https://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/News-Watch-European-Election-2014-Full-Survey.pdf

[2] https://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Independent-Editorial-Advisers-Report-on-Lord-Pearsons-Appeal-to-the-ESC.pdf and https://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2.-Editorial-Standards-Committee-decision-on-Newsnight-Complaint-17-November-2013.pdf

[3] http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/european-scrutiny-committee/eu-scrutiny-follow-up/oral/23350.html

[4] https://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/News-watch-submission-to-the-European-Scrutiny-Committee.pdf

[5] European Scrutiny Committee, Oral evidence: Scrutiny inquiry: follow up, HC 918, Wednesday 14 January 2015, p5

[6] https://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/News-watch-submission-to-the-European-Scrutiny-Committee.pdf

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Mandelson gets open goal to attack EU Referendum

Mandelson gets open goal to attack EU Referendum

One interview sequence is rarely definitive proof of BBC bias. But a recent Today feature about the private member’s bill to commit to a referendum about membership of the EU comes very close to it – and it has now become the subject of a complaint to the BBC.

The interview sequence in question, broadcast on January 10, also underlines vividly what Newswatch surveys repeatedly show: that editors and interviewers give most space to those who want closer ties to the EU and sideline, limit or disrespect the arguments of those who do not.

Update: Lord Pearson of Rannoch and the MPs Philip Hollobone (Conservative) and Kate Hoey (Labour), have lodged a formal complaint about the feature on the ground that it was ‘a striking piece of BBC bias at a crucial time in the debate about the EU referendum’. The full correspondence on the matter can be seen here.

At 8.10am, in the front page slot, Evan Davis interviewed Michael Dobbs – the Conservative peer guiding the private member’s bill through the House of Lords – and Peter Mandelson, the former Labour minister and spin doctor who, it transpires, believes that a referendum should not be held because it would be ‘a lottery’.

Both men were actually on air for about the same time. But the way they were treated was emphatically noteven-handed. One crude measure is that Lord Dobbs had just 250 words to put his case across, while Lord Mandelson had more than 750 to elaborate his anti-bill arguments. The difference in treatment went much deeper, in that Evan Davis allowed in some depth (without interruption) Lord Mandelson’s attack, both on the need for the bill and the reasons why advocates were supporting it.

But I leave you to decide for yourself why – the full transcript is below.

What leaps out is that Lord Dobbs was asked primarily about how he would vote over the bill and whether the measure was a waste of time on the ground that it would be the next Parliament that actually decided the matter. In consequence, he had only two short opportunities to explain why he was introducing the legislation.

After a brief initial question to Lord Dobbs about why he supported the bill, Mr. Davis quickly moved on to what was clearly his main focus – how Lord Dobbs would vote and whether the measure was a waste of time because it would be the next Parliament that determined whether the referendum would actually be held. Lord Dobbs managed to deliver only 250 words (about 95 seconds) about the reasoning (essentially that it was about giving people choice) behind the bill. His argument was heavily curtailed by Evan Davis’s interventions in which he put instead the points about how Lord Dobbs would vote.

By contrast, it was clear from the start that Evan Davis wanted Lord Mandelson to have space to put across his detailed reasoning why the bill was essentially ill-conceived, was Political grandstanding, and was a waste of Parliamentary time. In the end, he was afforded the opportunity to deliver three lengthy sequences amounting to more than 750 words in which he advanced his case that the bill was primarily designed to try defuse the UKIP threat.

On the face of it, elements Mr Davis’s approach to Lord Mandelson were adversarial, in that he suggested that the pro-EU case was not being put very well. But on closer analysis, his questioning actually delivered a framework for Lord Mandelson to plough on expansively with his substantive points. It seems clear, too, that Mr Davis had no desire or intention to interrupt in any significant way. For example, when Lord Mandelson, made the sweeping and politically partisan claim that the bill was grandstanding and playing to the UKIP gallery, why did not Mr Davis intervene to suggest that UKIP actually had popular support and this might instead be seen as something that aimed to give British people (as Lord Dobbs had suggested) a definite opportunity to express their opinions?

This all adds up to a striking example of BBC bias at a crucial moment in the debate about a referendum. And it fits closely with the longer-term and more detailed analysis by Newswatch, which shows consistently that those in favour of the EU almost invariably get the most space and most favourable framework to advance their views.

Full radio transcript here
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The Brexit Collection reveals the depth of the Corporation’s pro-EU bias – 13/07/2016

The Brexit Collection reveals the depth of the Corporation’s pro-EU bias – 13/07/2016

After the EU referendum, the BBC assembled on Radio 4 a barrage of anti-Brexit programmes which predicted that there would be rioting on the streets over food supply, the virtual ruin of the Scotch whisky industry and an uncontrolled explosion of hate crimes against EU citizens.

July 13, 2016

BBC reform, like so many other issues, has been pushed off the agenda by the referendum hullaballoo.

But sorting out BBC bias as the Brexit process gets underway is surely an urgent and major priority for the new May government – that is, if she genuinely wants Britain out.

The Corporation clearly now sees its central mission to push at every opportunity the case for Remain, for a second referendum, for a general election to endorse the exit plans. Anything, in fact, anything to upset the referendum vote.

So great is their opposition to ‘exit’ that their bias is now arguably (for example Newsnight, here) a deliberate attempt to undermine the democratic process, and to reinforce the view (held by many in the Conservative and Labour party and those who mounted demonstrations at the weekend) that those who voted ‘Leave’ were basing their decisions on lies; that they were deluded and plain wrong.

The new BBC Royal Charter is due to come into effect by the beginning of 2017, and yet the changes so far proposed by culture secretary John Whittingdale – broadly putting complaints under Ofcom and creating a new management board – will scarcely scratch the surface of current malpractice.

And meanwhile, BBC bias is continuing on an industrial scale. So brazen has it become that it has posted on the BBC iPlayer the Brexit Collection, a selection of 15 Radio 4 programmes about the Brexit vote.

The bias across most of the programmes is so extreme that it is impossible to know where to begin in describing it. News-watch, will, in due course, publish all the transcripts together with a full analysis and report.

In the meantime, a good entry point is the edition of The Food Programme, first broadcast on Sunday July 3, and presented by Dan Saladino.

He assembled for the bulk of the programme a cast list of six guests who declared, between them, that Brexit could lead to food riots; that ensuring food security after Brexit amounted to the worst peacetime challenge that the UK had ever faced; that farms would be abandoned, agricultural jobs would be lost, that the Scotch whisky industry faced virtual ruin, and that immigrants in the food processing and production industry the length and breadth of the UK were now living in fear. The full picture is here.

A key mover in this blatant exaggeration and scare-mongering was Professor Tim Lang from the City University in London, the main ‘expert’ on food supply. What Saladino did not tell listeners, however, was that Lang also works for a greenie food charity called Sustain, which, their annual reports show, receives a significant part of its funding (at least 10 per cent and probably as high as 25 per cent) directly or from the EU.

Ranged against the six gloom-mongers was a lone fisherman, who said he wanted Brexit but little more – the diminution of the UK fishing industry under the Common Fisheries Policy was not on the agenda –  and Tim Worstall, from the Adam Smith Institute. The latter managed to suggest, against all the predictions of doom elsewhere in the programme, that Brexit would actually lead to a reduction in food tariffs, and that the UK could make better trade deals with partners throughout the world.

But Saladino clearly thought that any positive comment about post-Brexit prospects should come with a health warning. Unlike with Professor Lang and his link with EU funding, he carefully pointed out that Worstall had been a speechwriter for Nigel Farage. For a BBC presenter, that, of course is a dog-whistle hand grenade that any views from the contributor have to be treated with caution because of (in the BBC’s eyes) Farage’s ‘extreme’ political views.

Another programme in the Brexit Collection was How to Make Brexit presented by Carolyn Quinn, about Greenland’s decision to leave the EU back in the 1980s. The bias is so evident it’s almost impossible to know where to start. Close to the beginning, Quinn used an extract from a pro-EU rant on the Now Show to illustrate one of her key points. The tone was thus set.

Quinn’s linking commentary and choice of quotes was framed with only one aim in mind – to tell us how desperately complex a departure would be. The first quote in this vein from a contributor was:

“This is the largest scale legislation and policy exercise that has possibly been carried out ever…The trade options alone are staggering….” Quinn left absolutely no room for doubt: leaving the EU is something that only a fool would contemplate.

Further initial commentary about the Brexit Collection can be found on the Is the BBC Biased? website here.

The choice of these programmes shows above all that the BBC itself does not care about and does not even begin to understand the depths of its pro-EU bias. The new Secretary of State for Culture has a huge challenge on his hands. The task of dealing with it has scarcely even begun.

David Keighley: So who did pay for the BBC’s latest blast of pro-EU propaganda? 04/03/2015

David Keighley: So who did pay for the BBC’s latest blast of pro-EU propaganda? 04/03/2015

March 4, 2015

Scratch the surface of almost any BBC statement about ‘impartiality’ or ‘bias’ and you unearth rather an unpleasant smell.

The BBC says no EU money was used in the making of its Sunday night pro-EU extravaganza The Great European Disaster Movie, which depicted  in ludicrous, extremist terms  the total disintegration of civil society across the Continent, if, God forbid, the EU was forced out of existence.

Note the weasel words: ‘in the making of’. The reality is that post-production, the film-makers Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras – both of whom are pro-EU fanatics – have told the outside world they are receiving EU money for the transmission of the film in other languages. So put another way, it is an EU propaganda project.

And the BBC were co-producers of that film.

What’s also not clear is who did fund the project. It was made by Piras’s company Springshot Productions, and that means its financing is totally opaque. Things here don’t add up. It’s unlikely that the budget of a project of such scale and production standards would be anything less than £1m, and yet Springshot is tiny. According to the company website, it has made only one other film, two years ago.

The point here is that it is only larger production companies turning over millions a year that can afford to make glossy hypothetical dramas – and they don’t generally make money, which is why they are so relatively scarce. Someone with deep pockets and a deep desire to spread massively pro-EU propaganda was behind it. The BBC should tell us who this was so we can make up our own minds about the decision to show it.

It seems that someone, somewhere in the higher echelons of the BBC hierarchy has a guilty conscience, because immediately after it was shown, a very rare occurrence happened, the BBC equivalent of a Blue Moon. In a Newsnight special hosted by Robert Peston,  two genuine EU ‘come outers’, Mark Reckless, the Ukip MP, and Peter Hitchens, the Mail on Sunday columnist, were fleetingly allowed to make some of the arguments in favour of withdrawal and to explain why the claims by Emmott and Piras were preposterous.

Unlike the unremitting one-sidedness of the film, the views of Reckless and Hitchens were of course offset, notably by a spokesman of the Greek Marxist party Syriza, who agreed with Emmott in ascribing all the current massive economic problems of the EU to nasty ‘austerity’.

There are other BBC-related problems in this film which only surface with digging. Emmott, a former editor of the Economist, and Piras, an Italian who worked as a foreign correspondent in London for many years, are clearly united in their huge desire to ram the need for the EU down our throats.

They are so fanatical that they have set up an organisation called The Wake Up Foundation, a so-called charity, the main aim of which – though clothed in high-flown language – is another vehicle to spread their EU bile. A feature by Emmott on their website in which he compares Nigel Farage to Silvio Berlusconi typifies the approach.

Far more concerning about The Wake Up Foundation, however, is that one of its trustees is Richard Sambrook, who is a former head of BBC newsgathering and Director of News, who was moved sideways to the World Service at the end of his BBC career because of question marks in some quarters over his judgment relating to the BBC’s handling of the fall-out from the Iraq war.

Sambrook, after a spell as a public relations adviser, re-surfaced as a Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University.  His department was commissioned by the BBC Trustees in 2011 to conduct research linked with the Stuart Prebble inquiry into whether the BBC was covering EU-related issues in accordance with the Charter.

That research, as has been reported by Kathy Gyngell on TCW, was ineptly conducted and as a result gave the wholly false impression that BBC news programmes gave adequate coverage to eurosceptic and withdrawalist opinion. Not only that, the main person who conducted the research had recently received a substantial slug of EU cash from the EU for a project designed to ascertain how the EU might better project itself.

So, put another way, the BBC commissioned a rabidly pro-EU programme from a film making duo who have close professional and organisational links with a former Director of BBC News who, in turn, has been appointed by the Corporation to tell the outside world – on a supposedly ‘objective’ basis – how balanced and impartial is the BBC’s output in relation to the EU.

The linkage raises several awkward questions.  Was Sambrook directly involved in the making of the European Disaster Movie? Was he involved in any way in persuading the BBC to show it and to become co-producers? To what extent is he involved in the dissemination of the pro-EU propaganda of The Wake Up Foundation? Were the BBC aware of his links with Emmott when they commissioned his department to do the Prebble survey?

Something in the state of Denmark, if not rotten, smells very fishy indeed.

Humphrys ‘was biased in handling of EU issues’

Humphrys ‘was biased in handling of EU issues’

Kathy Gyngell clearly highlighted on The Conservative Woman blog yesterday the hypocrisy of John Humphrys revealed in his forthcoming memoirs, being serialised in the Daily Mail. Today she discusses further evidence of his double standards, this time over the Iraq Dossier affair.

How could he have continued to work on BBC Radio 4’s Today – drawing massive pay from the pockets of the public he professed to serve – with the concerns he says he had about the anti-Brexit bias of the BBC hierarchy and the Corporation’s general liberal left groupthink bias?

Some would call that fraud.

There is another glaring contradiction in his stance. Mr Humphrys declares that he still believes that the BBC is a wonderful institution, is a ‘tremendous and irreplaceable force for good’ and that the country is stronger because it exists.

How does he square such sycophantic hyperbole with his assertion that the flagship BBC programme Today and news output generally is infected with institutional bias? It’s a massive contradiction. Impartiality is a core BBC Charter obligation and his grave allegations are that the Corporation has been in breach of it at least since the EU referendum (as well as at other times, as outlined below).

Digging into the Humphrys archives unearths rafts of similar inconsistencies in his approach and conduct which suggest he has worked for at least the last 20 years in a bubble of what at best can be described as selective vision and hearing.

Much of what Mr Humphrys has put into his book is not new at all. In 2014 perhaps when he started drafting his memoirs? – there was no other obvious peg) and again in 2017 (h/t Is the BBC Biased?), he gave interviews to Radio Times which contained strikingly similar key points: that there was at the Corporation an all-pervading liberal outlook, and that the BBC’s reporting of the desire for EU withdrawal and concerns about high immigration levels had not properly reflected widespread public concern.

Then, as now, he was noticeably vague on detail. He seems to lay most of the blame on ‘bosses’ who were upset by the referendum result. Is his view that they have directly influenced programme content – and if so, who was it who followed their instructions? The Today editor? Presenters? Producers and behind-the-scenes staff?

In 2014, when the first Radio Times piece appeared, News-watch noted this point, and stated in a blog:

‘He doesn’t say in which interview, with which guests or how or when he arrived at the judgment . . . No, this “bias” happened at some undefined, mysterious time in the murky miasmic mists of the Blair era. It evidently made Humphrys queasy and uneasy, but back then, he and his chums above and below him in the BBC hierarchy did nothing at all about it. Now, though, says the great man, the bias is fixed – it’s a matter of regret, but move along there, folks, nothing to see: everything in the BBC garden is tickety-boo.’

News-watch has analysed over the years more than 1,200 EU-related interviews conducted by Mr Humphrys. Analysis in the News-watch reports highlight that his approach to Brexit was shot through with the bias he now seems to blame others for creating.

Two prime examples stand out. In 1999, when a thirty-something Nigel Farage was standing for the first time in the European Parliamentary elections as a Ukip candidate, most of the interview was taken up with suggesting that Ukip was, in effect, a maverick aberration. A News-watch blog observed: 

‘Farage said he simply wanted his country back on an amicable basis, and free trade; Humphrys’s stance was that this was ‘literally unthinkable’. . . . (he) did everything he could to attack the credibility of Ukip and asked nothing about the thinking behind the need for withdrawal. His opening gambit was to observe that it was “funny” (peculiar) and “puzzling” that Ukip was contesting seats in the European Parliament when it wanted to withdraw from the EU.’

Spool forward to the closing days of the EU referendum, and Mr Humphrys filed a highly unusual (in terms of its length) 27-minute Today item on attitudes towards immigration based on visits he made to Keighley in West Yorkshire, Shirebrook in Derbyshire and Hackney, east London. The News-watch analysis concluded:

‘Humphrys’s approach was heavily biased. In his world those who oppose immigration do so . . . from a position of prejudice. He . . . missed out numbers and rate of expansion – the key bedrock of opposition to current levels of immigration. Contributions of those who expressed concerns about immigration came across as shallow and prejudiced, a picture that was made worse by Humphrys’s repeated putting of “racist” claims to them. They had to deny they were racists, and were given only minimal space to advance their fears about numbers.

‘On the other side of the coin, Humphrys heavily stressed the contributions of those who were, in various ways – in their own estimation – victims of prejudice . . . Immigrants he spoke to wanted a better world, and had been thwarted in that quest only by white prejudice.’

All this, coupled with other more detailed analysis in News-watch reports, boils down to the fact that Mr Humphrys is as responsible as everyone else at the Corporation for BBC bias. What he is alleging now will probably generate book sales, but do nothing to sort out the problems he identifies. Those inside the BBC bubble, Mr Humphrys included, are incapable of seeing outside it. And complacency of the type displayed by Mr Humphrys for at least 20 years (the period of News-watch analysis) has blocked any chance of a solution.

Will Mr Humphrys now be thrown to the wolves by the bosses he so clearly despises? No. The Corporation will carry on regardless. As it always does.

BBC Push European Elections Remain ‘Victory’ Claim

BBC Push European Elections Remain ‘Victory’ Claim

How very predictable. The BBC have never treated Nigel Farage or his core message seriously. During the European elections of 1999, when he was spokesman for the fledgling UKIP, they virtually ignored the party’s plans for withdrawal and gave far more airtime to the pro-Euro Conservative party. In all the years in between, they ignored as much as they could of the Brexit perspective and bracketed it firmly with bigotry, xenophobia and extremism. For example, News-watch surveys show that of 4,275 guests talking about the EU on Radio 4’s Today programme in survey periods between 2005 and 2015, only 132 (3.2 per cent) were supporters of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

And so on Sunday night, as the European parliamentary results rolled in, what was the BBC’s focus? Undoubtedly, virtually from the off, it was to discredit pro-Brexit developments in any way possible. The programme rapidly became the Emily Thornberry/Alastair Campbell show, complete with unchallenged allegations from the latter that the Brexit Party was funded by roubles, and from Lady Nugee that those who had voted for Brexit first time would see the error of their ways at a second poll. Both worked flat out to discredit Nigel Farage and rubbish the strength of the pro-Brexit vote.

It quickly became apparent, too, that part of the strategy was that BBC presenters and reporters crudely lumped together the votes for Greens, Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties, and claimed they were all Remain.

This was poppycock, and at odds with what election results can indicate. For example, pollster Katherine Peacock said on the Today programme on May 3 when discussing the rise in the Liberal Democrat vote in the local elections, which Vince Cable had claimed was a vote for Remain:

‘You know, Vince Cable said that a vote for them is a vote for Remain. But I think it’s much, much more complex than that. And Lib Dems have a tradition of being that protest vote and of running councils and of making gains in local elections and I think that’s what you’ve seen a return to. Whether this actually can be transferred across to the European Elections is quite challenging. I think the issue of identity with political parties is very interesting. You’ve got only 8 per cent of the public who say they very strongly support a political party. Forty per cent say that they very strongly hold their position on Brexit, either Leave or Remain.’

There is no doubt that many of those who voted Liberal Democrat last Thursday were voting for Remain. But political allegiances are not currently as simple or binary as that, and to lump all the votes for one party together in the way the BBC did was highly questionable.

Yesterday morning Nigel Farage appeared on the Today programme. His interviewer was Justin Webb, and it was obvious from the outset that his mission was, as per usual, to attack and seek to discredit the Brexit Party’s success in every way he could, to the point of belligerence. There is a full transcript of the interview at the end of this article.

Mr Webb’s very predictable first point, continuing the overnight BBC theme, was that with ‘a total of 40 per cent of the vote’ Remain had won. Nigel Farage countered that parties who had entered the election supporting Brexit had won 52 per cent of the votes. Undaunted, Mr Webb resumed the attack. He said: ‘What they don’t accept is a no deal Brexit, which they say would be immensely damaging and what a huge number of the British people fear is a no deal Brexit that would damage their jobs. And that is the point that they’re making.’

And there we had it. News-watch research shows that this is what the BBC has been saying in various ways since the referendum took place. Of course, Corporation journalists have a duty to be adversarial when appropriate. But the overall treatment of the Brexit Party went well beyond that, and the negativity was only one way. On the results programme, by contrast, when a Plaid Cymru spokesman claimed at length that the Welsh vote was without doubt a victory for Remain and reversed the referendum vote, no one challenged him.

To be fair, Mr Farage managed to make some telling points of his own, such as that the two-party system served nothing but itself. But the relentless dogs-of-war onslaught continued, with Mr Webb openly laughing and incredulous at the idea of the Brexit Party standing in the next general election with a full manifesto, and then claiming Nigel Farage’s past policies included ‘a liking for President Putin’ – and no doubt in BBC terms the biggest heresy of all – ‘you don’t want the health service’.

In this one interview, all the BBC’s editorial doubts about Brexit, which have been the focus of their EU coverage for the 20 years that News-watch has been monitoring it, came into play. The difference now is that the BBC is seemingly transforming into what looks increasingly like a campaigning organisation with an agenda of its own – and that, as became crystal clear overnight, is to work all-out to discredit the idea of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, no matter how much the people of Britain might want it.

Here is the full interview:

JUSTIN WEBB: Let us turn to Nigel Farage who’s here in the studio, morning to you.

NIGEL FARAGE: Good morning to you.

JW: Nobody won, did they?

NF: Well, I don’t think we did too badly. I mean, the party didn’t even exist six weeks ago. We set it up and, of course, we had no ground campaign, no branches and yet, with a big simple message which is ‘We’ve been badly let down by two parties who’ve broken their promises’, we’ve topped the poll in a fairly dramatic start.

JW: And with a big simple message on the other side, ‘We want to remain’. They actually did better than you, got 40 per cent of the vote you, you and UKIP got 35 between you.

NF: (speaking over) No, no, no, no . . .

JW: So actually, they . . .

NF: (speaking over) No, no, no, no . . .

JW: Let me just put it to you . . .

NF: Hang on a second . . .

JW: They can legitimately, on the other . . .

NF: (speaking over) No.

JW: . . . side of the argument, claim victory this morning.

NF: (speaking over) Of course they can’t, because the Conservative Party position is they support Brexit and us leaving, add the Conservative vote are up. If you go around the country . . . do you know what it is? It’s about 52/48. We’re pretty much where we were three years ago. Things haven’t changed, people haven’t changed their minds. Now, actually, you know, that referendum was won by a clear majority of 1.3million. In a democracy, it’s the majority that wins. The problem we’ve got is that for a democracy to really function properly, you need the loser’s consent. And it’s pretty clear, listening to those clips, that the Remain parties still don’t accept Brexit. So these battles will go on.

JW: What they don’t accept is a ‘no deal’ Brexit, which they say would be immensely damaging and what a huge number of the British people fear is a ‘no deal’ Brexit that would damage their jobs. And that is the point that they’re making.

NF: Yeah well, the point is . . .

JW: (speaking over) And that is the point that these European elections have made to you and your supporters.

NF: Well, we couldn’t have been clearer. You know, the next date is 31 October. That will become as big a day in people’s minds as March 29. And all I can say is this: if we don’t leave on March 31 [sic] then you could can expect to see the Brexit Party’s success last night continue into the next general election.

JW: If a Conservative leader, new Conservative leader, new prime minister, comes to power and says, ‘Okay, we are going to leave on October 31 without a deal.’ And some Conservatives, as seems very likely, say, ‘We can’t support that,’ so there is an election. Will you do a deal with that leader to make sure that that side wins the election?

NF: Well, the first thing I want to say is this: that we’ve got a two-month period now during which there’s going to be this Conservative contest. That’s two of the five months we’ve got left until the leaving date. And I absolutely insist that we do have a mandate to now be part of that team. I want the Brexit Party . . . we’ve got some businessmen and women of considerable experience, quite happy to help the government get ready for 31 October by becoming part of that team . . .

JW: (interrupting) You haven’t got any MPs?

NF: Well, we will actually be in Brussels. You know, that’s where, that’s where . . .

JW: (speaking over) Yeah, but you don’t have any standing in this country to be part of the negotiations, any more than the Lib Dems do.

NF: Well, I don’t know, we’ve just won a national election. I would have thought we do have quite considerable standing. And we’ve also got the right people and the right expertise. So that’s the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is whatever any Conservative leader says, well why would I believe them? Because we’ve heard it all before, Theresa May telling us 108 times we were leaving on March 29 and we didn’t, so . . .

JW: (speaking over) So hang on a second, even if there’s a manifesto then, say for the sake of argument, Boris Johnson is in charge, there’s a manifesto, he’s, he’s brought down by his own party effectively . . .

NF: (words unclear, speaking under)

JW: . . . there is a general election . . . well no, all these things are . . .

NF: (speaking over) We’re a long way from . . .

JW: . . . entirely possibly.

NF: We’re a long way from that.

JW: And they came to you and said, ‘Let’s do a deal, let’s say “no deal” Brexit, but let’s get it across by doing a deal your party’ are you . . . you’re not ruling it out, are you?

NF: I do not believe that the Conservative Party is even capable of producing a leader through this contest with that kind of clear message. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.

JW: But if they do, if they do, and a lot of Conservatives not only think that it’s possible, but think that is likely, and want it to happen, a lot of Conservative members . . . members. What they want to know from you is what then is the electoral setup going into that . . .

NF: (interrupting) If I see a Conservative manifesto at the end of this year, with an autumn election that says absolutely, unequivocally and clearly, ‘We are leaving the European Union with or without a deal and we mean it’, I’d be delighted to see it, but, but again, would they (words unclear due to speaking over)

JW: (speaking over) And, and . . .

NF: But they, but they . . .

JW: (speaking over) No, but you, hang on a second . . .

NF: (words unclear)

JW: (speaking over) No, excuse me, because you were (words unclear due to speaking over)

NF: (speaking over) In 2017 . . .

JW: . . . almost getting there . . .

NF: (speaking over) In 2017 . . .

JW: . . . but then you didn’t tell us what you were going to (word unclear due to speaking over)

NF: (speaking over) In 2017, the Conservatives told us we would be leaving on March 29 with or without a deal, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t . . .

JW: (speaking over) And if they tell you now, at the end of October, what do you do?

NF: I wouldn’t believe them.

JW: What, you’d simply, you’d simply blank them and stand against them?

NF: Firstly, it isn’t going to happen. I don’t think you . . . I mean, we’re not going to get a Conservative leader with that degree of clarity. And secondly, I wouldn’t believe them. How could I, with the track record of the last couple of years?

JW: But, but what you’re doing then is (laughs) suggesting to the country that you are going to stand as a political party . . .

NF: Yeah.

JW: . . . with a whole gamut of policies . . .

NF: Yeah.

JW: . . . and recently, on The Andrew Marr Show, when you were reminded of what those previous policies were, that you’ve held, you didn’t much like it. You are going to have to turn yourself into a full-scale political party?

NF: It’s a heck of a job. You know we’ve done amazing things in six weeks. I’m not pretending that to set up the infrastructure to fight 650 seats, perhaps for an October election is easy, but that, that work . . .

JW: (speaking over) But you’re intending to do it?

NF: . . . that work starts (words unclear due to speaking over ‘this afternoon’?)

JW: (speaking over) With a full manifesto?

NF: Absolutely. (words unclear due to speaking over)

JW: (speaking over) And we’ll be reminded of your previous liking for President Putin . . .

NF: (words unclear, speaking under)

JW: . . . and you don’t want the health service and all the rest of it . . .

NF: (speaking over) Hang on, they were never policies. I mean, I know the job of media is to close down debate, but those things that were talked about on the Andrew Marr programme . . .

JW: (speaking over) No, I’m opening it up, they’re your policies.

NF: (speaking over) were never, ever policies. But we will, of course, talk about policies, to have a policy platform . . .

JW: (speaking over) Right . . .

NF: . . . no question about that.

JW: (speaking over) Right, you are, you are going to stand in the next election with a full set of . . .

NF: (speaking over) But I’ll tell you what’s also, I’ll tell you what’s also very interesting, all the focus this morning is on the impact we’ve had on the Conservative Party. Just look at what happened to the Labour vote in the north-east of England and in Wales, where for the first time in over 100 years the Labour Party have not won an election in Wales. We’re also taking huge numbers of votes from the Labour Party too.

JW: You are going to challenge those two parties, right across the board . . .

NF: (speaking over) Yes.

JW: . . . and you think you can supplant them or live with them . . .

NF: (speaking over) Well . . .

JW: . . . in, in an election?

NF: I think that the two-party system now serves nothing but itself. I think they’re an obstruction to the modernisation of politics in our country, an obstruction to us moving forwards and yes, we’re going to take them on and I accept it’s a hugely ambitious thing to do, but that is what we’re going to try.

JW: So you’re going to stay in politics, because you had said you’d gone. In fact, you had gone.

NF: Well, I was quite happy to have gone . . .

JW: (speaking over) But you’re not any more.

NF: . . . and had we left the European Union . . .

JW: You are sticking with this for the long term?

NF: Yes, absolutely.

JW: Final thought about Donald Trump who’s coming here soon, are you going to see him?

NF: Well it’s difficult because, you know, whilst I’m a friend of his and I saw him quite recently in America, you know, this is an official state visit. And we know that Number 10 are saying, ‘Please don’t meet that person’, so if I do, it’ll be in private.

BBC stone-walls Mark Mardell EU history bias

BBC stone-walls Mark Mardell EU history bias

On March 29 last year, one year before non-Brexit day, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a day-long series of programmes called Britain at the Crossroads which the Corporation’s PR hype said was designed to examine the steps towards Brexit.

At its heart was the first of a multi-part series presented by Mark Mardell called Brexit: A Love Story? which purported to give a history of the love-hate relationship between the UK and the EU.

Predictably, it proved very one-sided. There was a deluge of pro-EU/EEC comment, – from both the presenter and contributors –  but much less from those who were anti-EEC/EU. The News-watch survey into the programme, and of Britain at the Crossroads series can be accessed here.

A complaint against the blatantly biased approach was duly submitted by News-watch. Richard Hutt, the Director of the BBC Complaints Unit, finally responded, appropriately, perhaps, on April 1.

Mr Hutt relied for his defence on overarching ‘due impartiality’. This allowed him at a stroke to rule out the main findings of the News-watch report. Under this rubbery concept, of course, the BBC is allowed huge flexibility. They argue that most topics are not ‘binary’ but discussed from multiple viewpoints, and it is thus up to BBC editors to decide the degree to which the various perspectives are included.

It’s an all-purpose ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card, allowing the BBC to decide what it likes.

On this basis, Mr Hutt declared in his letter that it was perfectly acceptable for Brexit: A Love Story? to contain a predominance of pre-EU views (in a ratio of 9:4) – indeed that it was ‘inevitable’ – because the programme team had decided that the relationship would be examined through the lens of successive governments. Well, of course.

It did not seem to occur to him at all that on day of programming about Brexit, such an approach was grossly partisan. As most people in Britain voted for Brexit, why was the chosen programme angle (as an  example of an alternative) not instead about how Parliament had for 50 years flouted British public opinion against the EU/EEC and continued to do so?

Put another way, why were the main contributors legions of fawning civil servants, along with Tony Blair and Nick Clegg, rather than figures such as Nigel Farage – who spoke a mere 134 words, most of which were taken up by him explaining the correct spelling of his name –  or veteran eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash (who did not appear at all)?

Mr Hutt also argued that the low number of eurosceptic contributions was defensible, because those who were included were of a high quality and their comments were edited in a way that skilfully and succinctly conveyed their core arguments.  He claimed that this was an acceptable ‘editorial technique’; their contributions might have been small in volume, but they were punching above their weight and ‘fairly represented’.

This, too, is a highly dubious defence. The supposed expert selection of such contributions meant that the most prominent included Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, Jimmy Goldsmith and Kelvin Mackenzie. Of course, all these were ‘eurosceptic’ in their outlook. But were they typical of such opinion? Hardly. This was further evidence of the BBC ’bubble’ – those opposed to the EU were at every stage (and are) immoderate or extreme.

Mr Hutt, it also emerged, does not believe that academic techniques of content analysis of the type used by News-watch can be used to assess bias. It boils down to that, to him, that 9:4 imbalance was totally irrelevant because any attempt at ‘simple quantification’ of BBC content is not helpful. He argues that views about the EU/EEC are not generally ‘binary’ and that in any case, someone who might be classed as ‘pro-EU’ might actually have been making an impartial contribution.

This has now become a standard and fossilised BBC defence. Chief political advisor Ric Bailey made exactly the same stone-wall point on the BBC’s Newswatch programme which discussed the recent blatant imbalance against pro-Brexit panellists on BBC1 Question Time.

Lord Wilson of Dinton, the former cabinet secretary, conducted an inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of the EU in 2004/5 when a referendum about the proposed EU Constitution was being considered. He observed (p.5 of the report):

‘Senior managers appear insufficiently self-critical about standards of impartiality. . . This attitude appears to have filtered through to producers, reporters and presenters in the front line. There is no evidence of any systematic monitoring to ensure that all shades of significant opinion are fairly represented and there is a resistance to accepting external evidence. Leaving decisions to individual programme editors means that if there is bias in the coverage overall, no-one in the BBC would know about it.’

Almost 15 years on, Mr Hutt’s letter is clear evidence that nothing has changed.