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Kathy Gyngell

Kathy Gyngell: How dare they? BBC robs the poor to feed millions to its fat-cat presenters

BBC Bias, Licence Fee | 16th September 2020 | by Kathy Gyngell

Guest post from Kathy Gyngell – this first appeared on The Conservative Woman

LITERALLY, how dare they? BBC arrogance and entitlement knows no bounds.

Yesterday, because it has to, the corporation published its very own Rich List of its on-air and front-of-house staff paid more than £150,000 per annum in its annual report for 2019-2020. All compulsorily paid for by you and me, including millions of over-75s.

Be ready to be shocked at the sheer uncaring arrogance and brass neck of it in this time of growing unemployment and job uncertainty, when young people’s futures have never looked bleaker because of the coronavirus pandemic. You can see the full list in the BBC Group Annual Report and Accounts 2019/20 published yesterday.

It takes no more than a glance down it to see that the long list of reporters, news hosts and celebrities are being paid, on average, rather more than £150,000, too. A lot more in fact.

At the top is Gary Lineker on £1.75million – a figure reported shortly afterwards to have been reduced this year to a still eye-watering £1.35million per annum, a pay cut the Match of the Day star is understood to have graciously agreed for his new five-year contract.

How did the footballer-turned-crisp-salesman greet the news of the publication of his continuing annual windfall? With humility? With gratitude?

No, Lineker sent out a tweet that shows his contempt for the little people who pay his salary. He said: ‘Oh dear. Thoughts are with the haters at this difficult time.’

Think of that next time you see his smug, smirky face pontificating on Match of the Day.

Settling into the first-class seats on the BBC gravy train with Lineker is Zoe Ball on £1.36million after pocketing a £1million pay rise.

Then comes Graham Norton on £729,999, Steve Wright (who he? I hear you ask) at £479,999, Fiona Bruce on £454,999, Vanessa Feltz on a nice little earner at £409,999 and Claudia Winkleman bringing up the ‘celeb’ rear on a cool £365,000–£369,999 for rather less than a year’s work. Please do turn to pages 82 to 85 of the report for the full mind-boggling list.

Then find me one iota of justification for the inflated salaries for these so-called celebrities who even the kindest would have to admit are no Terry Wogans, Two Ronnies or Bruce Forsyths, the real entertainers of decades past.

The over-rewarded and mainly indifferent editors, reporters and presenters who make up the rest of the list are the reason I have had BBC TV and radio switched off in my home for a long time. Lockdown was bad enough without being driven mad on a daily basis by the BBC’s entitled ones – their propaganda, inanities, bad grammar and substandard reporting.

If I never hear the harassing Nick Robinson (£299,999 per annum) or the maddeningly smug and patronising tones of Mishal Husain (£269,999) ever again, I will be happy. As for the egregious and self opinionated Emily Maitlis on £374,999, well, words fail me.

I am bemused about why I have to pay for their overblown salaries (by any standards) in order to turn on my television.

Nor does this list provide the full story of the BBC’s excesses. I have little doubt there will be plenty of characters just saved from the glare of publicity by coming in at £149,999, just under the ceiling for non-disclosure.

And let’s not forget what the bosses (the BBC execs) are paid. Tim Davie, the BBC’s new director-general, was already on £400,000 last year, no doubt now due to catch up with his predecessor’s £450,000 a year, which is well over double what the Prime Minister gets.

And it doesn’t stop with him. Read the astonishingly long list of backroom executives in receipt of well over £150,000 on pages 85 to 88 of the report.

All the while, the BBC is robbing cash-strapped Brits to pay staff who are not in demand elsewhere, or they surely would have already left for other channels.

That is the big lie that the BBC feeds us – that these oh-so-talented stars would quit if they didn’t have golden handcuffs. Ha ha! The truth is that most would be unemployable elsewhere, or would have to take huge pay cuts.

There simply aren’t enough prime slots to go round for the fact cats in today’s media outside the protective cocoon of the BBC. They’re not as irreplaceable as they think. It’s their domination of their spots – their monopoly of the airtime – that makes them famous, not their charm, wit or ability.

I vote that the Beeb cut their pay down to 10 per cent of their current amount and tell them if they can find better-paid work anywhere else, go. I bet none would. Who wants them?

That the corporation has seen fit to pay such inflated salaries in recent years for a biased propaganda service that many choose not to watch, and with so many people furloughed or facing redundancy or seeing their businesses closing, is nothing less than an outrage.

And to those over-75s who were war and pre-war babies, for whom watching television provides an essential source of information and acts as a crutch against loneliness and isolation, from whom the greedy BBC steal licence fee money, it is no less than a kick in the teeth.

Mr Davie, you are going to have to do better than this if you don’t want a mass protest over the licence fee.

Justice closes its eyes to BBC bias

BBC Bias, News-watch | 27th February 2020 | by Kathy Gyngell

It is very disappointing to have to report that three judges (two in the High Court, one in the Court of Appeal) have thwarted David Keighley’s application for judicial review to challenge the impartiality of the BBC.

Very frustratingly, they have acted without calling a full oral hearing to consider evidence put forward by David and his legal team, relying instead on written submissions to the court. That shows an almost casual disregard for the importance of the need to make sure the BBC meets its main Charter obligations – and leaves no line of redress except through Ofcom, which is itself stuffed full of ex-BBC staff of the same mindset.

Judges lined up to assist Gina Miller in her manic efforts to stop Brexit, but faced with extensive evidence of the need to stop the BBC’s negative reporting of Brexit, they have performed the judicial equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and closing their eyes.

Last summer TCW’s readers helped support the crowdfunding effort get this judicial review in motion.

As David reports on the crowdfunding site, Lord Justice Singh in the Court of Appeal has refused to grant leave to appeal against the decision of Mr Justice Supperstone who on 14 November 2019 rejected his application for judicial review to challenge the impartiality and performance measures of the BBC. This hearing was a review of the refusal of Mrs Justice Lang to grant leave for the judicial review (on the most cursory of grounds).

You can read about the rejection of the appeal in detail, with links to both rulings, here.

David Keighley is left with considerable costs – approximately £18,000 – to shoulder, on top of the £57,000 very generously donated in the crowd-funding appeal, which paid the considerable costs of taking the case through its various stages.

The brick wall nature of the judgment is extremely worrying and frankly raises nearly as many questions about our judiciary as it does about the BBC.

It seems extraordinary, too, that Mrs Justice Lang has decreed this level of costs. She might as well have said: ‘This is a warning to anyone who has the temerity to challenge the action of the nation’s monopoly broadcaster – you will pay for it.’

Neither judgment, of the High Court or the Court of Appeal, took into account the inability of the BBC to exercise its judgment, analyse its performance and properly measure it. There’s no doubt, as David writes, the lack of impartiality of the BBC continues to be a matter of grave public concern – the recent raft of negative newspaper reporting of BBC bias supports that. You would be forgiven for believing there was no current debate about the BBC or the anachronism and inequity of the Licence Fee.

The BBC remains its own judge and jury – which we pay for. As David has written repeatedly, the ‘supervision’ of OFCOM has made no difference. Its October 2019 review of BBC News and Current Affairs content and elsewhere demonstrated that it is not prepared to tackle this issue.

David has not stopped in his endeavours. This judicial review case is over, but with the support of other like-minded individuals, he will carry on trying to make the BBC accountable and comply with its Charter obligations.

Still blustering over Sir Cliff: The BBC’s arrogance knows no bounds

BBC Bias | 3rd September 2018 | by Kathy Gyngell

This is a guest post by Kathy Gyngell, from The Conservative Woman

We have chronicled the saga of the BBC’s gross and inept intrusion into Sir Cliff Richard’s privacy from day one on TCW. In July Mr Justice Mann vindicated Sir Cliff and held the BBC to account over their coverage of the raid on his home. Since then the corporation has kept its head firmly in the sand. No one has been sacked and the apologies have been half-hearted.

For a while the BBC managed to psych up the MSM that there was a grave issue of press freedom at stake. Ever used to being their own judge and jury, the corporation sought to appeal against the ruling. But Mr Justice Mann was having none of this imaginary quagmire.

We published his reasons for dismissing the BBC’s argument here. It was, David Keighley wrote, a clear case of ‘game, set and match’ to the judge.

You’d be forgiven for believing that would be the end of that. Not so.

David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, has now appeared on one of the BBC’s own programmes to say Mr Justice Mann did not read his own judgment! We must thank the Is the BBC biased? website for being so quick to pick up on this interview which we reprint below.

The person, of course, who has not read the judgment is not its author but this senior BBC apologist. David Jordan’s interview on Newswatch confirms what we already know – that BBC arrogance knows no bounds.

This transcript is from Is the BBC biased and is published here by kind permission.

SAMIRA AHMED: No one from the BBC was available to speak to us about this before. I am pleased to say we are now joined by David Jordan, the corporation’s director of editorial policy and standards. Thank you for coming on Newswatch. Do you accept, as many viewers say, that the BBC has fallen below the standard expected of it?

DAVID JORDAN: We are very clear we regret some aspects of the way in which we covered the Cliff Richard story at the beginning. We made clear that we think that the use of a helicopter was inappropriate in the circumstances and that there were some other things about the way in which we covered it, the proportionality of it and so on, which we, with the benefit of hindsight, now regret. So yes, there are certain things about the way in which we did the story which we regret. But we have never conceded the principle, and that’s why we got involved in the court case when Sir Cliff took a case against us. We have never conceded the principle, nor wish to concede the principle, that we should not have reported the matter at all.

AHMED: The editorial misjudgment is the one we want to talk about. You mentioned the helicopter going up, which was defended at the time. Leading bulletins with it and going live, those were areas, too?

JORDAN: Well, those were all the areas which the judge criticised in his judgment . . .

AHMED: (interrupting) And do you agree?

JORDAN: . . . and which the BBC has conceded that, with the benefit of hindsight, we might have done differently, if we did the story today . . .

AHMED: (interrupting) Entering it for an award, despite all the criticism?

JORDAN: Yes, well, the BBC has said that was a misjudgment.

AHMED: Sir Cliff offered to settle this without going to court and the police, of course, did settle. It has cost the licence fee-payer £2million so far. Would you like to say sorry?

JORDAN: Well, it’s not true that Sir Cliff offered to settle it. We offered to settle with Sir Cliff on a number of occasions, but what Sir Cliff’s lawyers wanted was not a settlement but a surrender. They wanted us to concede the principle, as well as to acknowledge that the way in which we had done things was not appropriate. So it isn’t true to say that Sir Cliff offered to settle. I’m afraid he didn’t, otherwise we could have prevented us having to go through all of the ensuing case.

AHMED: Well, can you talk about this point of principle then? Because if it’s a big point of principle that your journalistic freedom is threatened, why are you not appealing?

JORDAN: Well, we’ve made it clear we considered appealing very carefully. The problem is that legal advice that we were given is that the prospects of success in a legal case were very small. So the judgment we had to make was whether it was worth going forward with a small likelihood of being successful, or not to go ahead at all. Given the costs of litigation in this country, which are very considerable, and given the extra pain that would have been caused to Sir Cliff and all for the unlikely to result in the outcome that we wanted, which was to contest the principle involved in this case, we decided it would be better not to do so.

AHMED: You see, given that he was not arrested at the time and wasn’t subsequently charged and no one had ever covered a case like this, sending up a helicopter before, people are asking why did the BBC claim there was a public interest defence to this?

JORDAN: Well, this took place in 2014 in the context of a number of sexual abuse cases involving high-profile people in the entertainment industry, and it was the case that in some of those cases where people were named it resulted in other allegations coming forward and other victims presenting themselves and thereby making the case against them considerably stronger. And we have had something similar happen in the United States recently with the naming of Harvey Weinstein, the accusation he is a sexual abuser, bringing forward a lot of other cases of a similar sort. So that is where a considerable part of the public interest lies. There also is a public interest in the public knowing about police investigations and the media’s ability to scrutinise those public investigations and scrutinise the work of the police. And there is a public interest and the public’s right to know things that are going on in our society and that is always the presumption from which we start.

AHMED: You’re the head of BBC editorial policy and standards. You heard the court evidence, BBC journalists joking in emails about Jailhouse Rock, ‘congratulations and jubilations’. Is that acceptable by BBC editorial standards?

JORDAN: Well, we’ve made it clear that, it is not an editorial standards matter as such, but we made it clear that was not appropriate. However, you know, let’s be clear, who of us have not issued at some point in our lives an email which, if read out in a courtroom, or plastered all over the national press, would not look slightly awry?

AHMED: (interrupting) Hmm. This is BBC editors about a serious allegation.

JORDAN: It was people who are covering a story and they were celebrating the fact that they had covered the story – and they did it in an inappropriate way, in a wrong way, but, you know, he who casts the first stone, etc.

AHMED: Jonathan Munro [BBC head of newsgathering] came on Newswatch after the story ran and defended it and defended the helicopter and, you know, it’s very interesting to see with the benefit of hindsight, but the BBC is supposed to have editorial standards and judgment and what viewers are really concerned about is the BBC didn’t seem to have them at the time of the Cliff Richard case.

JORDAN: No, I think some misjudgments were made. They were made in good faith at the time. They were made within the context of the law that applied at the time and nobody was trying to do something wrong. It was at that time completely standard practice to name a person who was the subject of a police investigation. This case has altered case law on this question. In a way . . .

AHMED: (interrupting) Well, Mr Justice Mann denies that.

JORDAN: Well, I’m afraid that means he hasn’t read his own judgment. I’m afraid his judgment . . .

AHMED: (interrupting) You’re telling me he was wrong?

JORDAN: I’m afraid his judgment says this, and it introduces a huge chasm of uncertainty into whether or not you can name a suspect in these circumstances. He does say if the police name them you can do so, but he introduces . . . and he does say if it is manifestly in the public interest you can do so, but then he says that it wasn’t in the public interest in this case, which involved a sexual abuse case . . .

AHMED: (interrupting) So you take it case by case. You have made that clear, that is a legal issue about whether the balance between the public interest and the right to privacy, and that’s a case-by-case basis, says the judge. Can you tell me why no one at the BBC has resigned over this Cliff Richard case?

JORDAN: Well, it’s not always the right thing to do, to sack people or make people resign, when something goes wrong. Obviously, it’s very important that we learn the lessons – and we have done and are doing – and we will do things differently in the future. But. as I said, the people who made the decisions about how this story was going to be covered did so in good faith, they did so within the context of the law as it existed at that time, and it’s not always appropriate to sack people and get people to resign for doing their job in the way that they thought was proper at the time.

AHMED: David Jordan, thank you.

JORDAN: Thank you.

Photo by JOHN K THORNE FILMS

BBC put Rees-Mogg under fire

BBC Bias, Today Programme | 6th February 2018 | by Kathy Gyngell

The morning after being ‘caught up in a scuffle’ at the University of the West of England (a scene that BBC Somerset’s James Craig described as ‘very aggressive and unexpected’), found Jacob Rees-Mogg being interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.

The purpose of the interview was not, though, the previous night’s headline-making attack on him, which was sufficiently intimidating to draw condemnation from both Labour’s Shadow Education spokesman Angela Rayner and the Lib Dems’ Jo Swinson.

It was not this at the front of presenter Nick Robinson’s mind. He neither bothered to inquire what had happened (which would have given him an account from the horse’s mouth), nor asked after his interviewee’s wellbeing, or even what Mr Rees-Mogg made of this assault on free speech.

His intent was quite otherwise.

It was to force an apology from Mr Rees-Mogg – the politician who undoubtedly is the biggest threat to the BBC’s pro-EU ‘remainer’ stance.

Jacob Rees-Mogg had, Mr Robinson said in his introduction, ‘claimed in the House of Commons . . . that Treasury officials had fixed their economic forecasts in order to show that all options other than staying in the EU customs union were bad’.

What a terrible slander on the oh-so-neutral Treasury. It had to be rectified, to be sure. Enlisted in this project was the Head of the Centre for European Reform, Charles Grant, ‘the man who he claimed had said all this’.

The interview that followed was a BBC classic of its kind – based on a false premise, staggeringly imbalanced questioning and finally laying a flaky claim to the moral high ground.

The full transcript can be found here.

Suffice it to say the item was not premised on the possibility that Treasury officials were again flouting the nation’s will (true to their ‘Project Fear’ form) by fiddling the figures, this time to keep us in the customs union, aka the EU. No, it rested on the false premise that leaving the customs union, though implicit in the Referendum vote to leave and underlined by Mrs May’s decision to create a department to negotiate independent trade deals under Liam Fox, was newly up for discussion and the latest reason for reviewing the ‘leave’ decision.

As for the way the interview was conducted, it was what we have come to expect – interruptions and harassment of the few pro-Brexit interviewees that the BBC deigns to invite to undergo a predictable drubbing.

Indeed, it was a masterclass. Nick Robinson’s non-stop interrupting and talking over Jacob Rees-Mogg was possibly a record – by my count 18 times to just once for his other interviewee, Mr Grant.

Robinson not only gave JRM the much tougher time but allowed Charles Grant to get away with outrageous claims about the impact of a changed tariff regime.

On one level, you could say, it was par for the course, just more evidence that Brexit is challenged massively on the BBC; that no stone is to be left unturned when it comes to demolishing the case for Brexit, whereas Remain perspectives will always be projected as much more attractive and credible.

So it is absolutely to Mr Rees-Mogg’s credit that he gave an admirably clear account of his own position and stood his ground even in face of Robinson’s final (in full stern-headmaster moral-high-ground mode) questioning of his character:

‘A last word to you, Jacob Rees-Mogg, let me ask you this if I may, because this is why, in a sense, this row matters. There are some people who’ve presented you in the past as a sort of amusing backbench eccentric. You’re now, you’re a leading figure in terms of backbench Brexiteers, and many ministers say you are a likely candidate to be our next Prime Minister. Do you not accept that to accuse civil servants of rigging official forecasts is not the behaviour of a man who wishes to lead this country?’

Despite the insulting nature of the question, reprobate Rees-Mogg floored him with his reply. Following the Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro school of thought, he walked towards the fire and repeated, yes sir, the Treasury had fiddled the figures. He refused to be bullied.

Which is why this interview will not be the end of it. Jacob Rees-Mogg must know he can expect little sympathy from the BBC on any count – whether he be beaten up or prevented from speaking – and that they will trash his character if they can. It will be personal now.

For it is deep in the BBC’s DNA to ridicule or smear any advocate of conservatism or politician really prepared to challenge the Left, which is what JRM does. It has proved an effective way of demoralising the Tory Right. If the BBC’s previous form is anything to go by they will be out for his blood.

And the BBC has the resources. Look at what they were able to throw at the Cliff Richard story, discarding any decent journalistic principle in the process.

Clever, clear-thinking and calm, the hated by the Left Jacob Rees-Mogg poses the most significant political challenge to the BBC’s Leftist pro-EU orthodoxies in years. So will he be the subject of BBC special investigations? Will BBC favourite Anna Soubry, featured again this morning trashing the Brexiteers, be enlisted to help? Will we see his country house from BBC helicopters circling above, or BBC journalists set to the task (metaphorically speaking) of investigating his dustbins? It is not beyond the realms of imagination.

Photo by James Cridland

Kathy Gyngell: BBC lights the red touch paper

Brexit | 26th October 2017 | by Kathy Gyngell

Guest post from Kathy Gyngell – this first appeared on The Conservative Woman

The BBC has just started its latest anti-UK democracy drama, Gunpowder, which plumbs new depths of brutality. One by one, it seems the barriers against barbarity are being crossed in the media, with the BBC in the vanguard. But perhaps it is no surprise when you look at who they commission.

The series is written by a gentleman called Ronan Bennett, a novelist and screenwriter who was once a self-styled Irish republican revolutionary who grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Belfast during the Troubles. So he would know a thing or two about trying to destroy the British state. At the age of 18 he was convicted of murdering an Inspector in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during an IRA bank robbery. After 18 months in Long Kesh his conviction was declared unsafe and he was released. He still cites his time there as an ‘inspiration’ to him.

After moving to London he mixed with people he himself describes as ‘young enemies of the state’: activists, anarchists, revolutionary socialists. Before long, perhaps unsurprisingly, he was arrested again and accused of leading a terrorist gang. He spent 20 months on remand but was cleared after a 14-week trial at the Old Bailey in which he defended himself, helped by leading Left-wing advocates Michael Mansfield, Helena Kennedy and Geoffrey Robertson.

You might wonder who else apart from the BBC would employ a man such as this self-styled activist who admits his fiction is ‘his way to play his part politically’? Two guesses and both are right. Step forward Jeremy Corbyn, who hired him as a researcher, a position which caused a huge security headache and, not surprisingly, a fair whack of controversy. But don’t worry, in case you want to direct him to the nearest food bank, stay your hand. The Guardian also keeps this ‘controversialist’ in business and keeps his measured suggestions flowing. ‘Let’s put May’s grisly new coalition out of its misery as soon as possible’ being a recent highlight of an outpouring of victim propaganda.

No, this no-doubt talented writer is not on the breadline. His focus on violence and his romanticising of terrorism have made him the darling of the liberal luvvies. No doubt, successful and in demand, our film maker, now a reformed fellow who adores British democracy as much as he values the freedom it gives to propagandise what he wants, would never wish to harm innocent people.

However, I put it to the fair-minded readers of News-watch and members of Biased BBC that had he been a man of Right-wing terrorist leanings, no amount of self-analysis and reform would make him fit to be commissioned to write a BBC drama.

Photo by The British Library

There is plenty of good Brexit news, we’re just ignoring it

EU Referendum | 27th July 2017 | by Kathy Gyngell

Guest post by Kathy Gyngell. This Article first appeared on the i.

It is difficult to believe something is good or going well when everyone around you tells you it’s not; when you are confronted with an unmitigated diet of negative stories whenever you turn on the TV or open a newspaper.

I am talking about Brexit.

From the current negotiations, doomed of course (all the cards are in the EU hands you see) to any post-Brexit Britain scenario – business, trade, travel or the general economy – the message is the same. It’s all a disaster. In fact, the apocalypse is imminent.

Brexit now threatens even our very safety. One snowflake civil servant, terrified of having his “safe” space violated, reports how “it is proving worse than anyone guessed”.

Is it though?Not if you look behind and beyond the headlines.

Against this relentlessly pessimistic picture of gloom, doom and uncertainty; of plunging economic prospects (untrue); of collapsing of consumer confidence (untrue); of a drying up of investment (untrue); of job freezes (untrue); of skills shortages because of the ending of free movement (untrue); of the inevitable introduction of tariffs; and of impossible renegotiation (untrue), positive news stories have been, and are consistently, under-reported.

When Brexit good news does crack the surface it is routinely skewed too. “Despite Brexit” reporting is an editorial technique that particular newspapers excel at. Should the UK’s economy prove “resilient”, it is despite, never because of, Brexit. If ever there was a case of cognitive dissonance it’s this method of rationalising every failed gloomy prediction.

Yet there was good news from the start. Within weeks Britain experienced an economic boom; the much-needed depreciation of the pound had an immediate impact on exports and set off a tourism bonanza.

Then no less than 27 countries with a combined GDP of more than £40 trillion – over two-thirds of the global economy – were up for taking advantage of Brexit and striking new trade deals with the UK dwarfing the benefits of the EU’s £12 trillion single market.

Nor did British or international companies succumb to the nervous breakdowns expected. Au contraire.

The US tech giant Amazon doubled down on its commitment to the UK, creating hundreds more highly skilled tech jobs. SoftBank committed to substantial new investment; so too did Google with its development plans for huge new London headquarters.

As for the gloom and doom-mongers who thought the City couldn’t survive without the European Investment Bank, there is no shortage of alternative cash for start-ups. In fact, the rigid approach to venture capital typified by the EIF hindered not helped tech investing. The Channel Tunnel operator is far from the only company to be positive about Brexit – its net profit rose 20 per cent to €30m this last year.

And this week we have had the most bullish CBI Survey of UK manufacturing virtually ever. The volume of output is the highest since January 1999, and total order books are the highest since October 1988. Did we see that in headlines across the press yesterday? I don’t think so.

We didn’t hear it because good news stories like this are not just not widely reported – they are often not reported at all.

Only some defy the rule. The German car manufacturer BMW picked Oxford over Germany and Netherlands to build its new electric Mini. A story hard to ignore.

Demands by Germany’s Free Democrat Party for a special “Brexit cabinet” in Berlin, to safeguard the vital interests of their country, hardly got a mention. Yet the growing alarm among industrial and manufacturing companies there at EU attempts to humiliate Britain is good news for us.

Meanwhile, trade talks have started – Japan is seeking an early deal, and Liam Fox has been impressing free trade advocates in Washington this week. The White House has made it clear it is in US interest to make the deal succeed and has said it will.

In fact the current economic picture in the Britain is “a complete vindication of the Brexit vote” as Britain’s leading investor Jim Mellon – the UK’s answer to the US billionaire Warren Buffett – put it.

The outlook is good. Models of countries thriving through their freedom to trade internationally are not to be found in the EU but outside it.

New Zealand’s success story of reform and liberalisation started when Britain joined the EU in 1973. Now it engages in half of world trade in sheep meat and one-third in dairy products. Its supply chains span the globe.

Singapore, the Asian powerhouse, has averaged a GDP Growth Rate of 6.77 per cent since 1975. It is the perfect model of how Britain can survive and thrive outside the European Union’s customs union.

Such success is only possible if we break free from suffocatingly negative and anti-democratic EU and the shackles of its failed economic environment.

Deep structural flaws remain within the euro and in its big regional imbalances. The 19-country currency zone at the heart of the failing EU project only grew by 0.3 per cent in the last quarter, just half the rate of the UK.

The German banking system will need a bailout soon while the Southern European economies are forced to break the EU’s rules to keep their economies afloat. Yet Brussels profligacy continues to know no bounds.

That’s before we even mention an EU immigration crisis of catastrophic proportions, which its appears the EU has no will or ability to control, and which is spilling over to us. If we stay, their problems will be our problems. We will be well out of it and that is very good news.

It’s time to reject the safe space, terminal fear-of-change disease that drives the negative Brexit news machine.

Kathy Gyngell is co-editor of The Conservative Woman

Photo by Tomek Nacho

Evan Davis cranks up BBC anti-Brexit rhetoric

BBC Bias | 29th June 2017 | by Kathy Gyngell

Scenting Tory blood, the BBC cranks up its anti-Brexit propaganda. That was the conclusion I reached at the end of the BBC’s shameless last week of anti—Brexit coverage a year on from the referendum victory. The Tories’ election debacle appeared to have given them carte blanche to revolt.

Now they have declared all-out war. Last night on Newsnight Evan Davis used that time-honoured tactic to justify what is clearly now the BBC’s official stance. He rewrote history – in this case the very recent history of the election result.

In an aggressive and rude interview with David Jones MP – a minister in the Brexit department until the election – Evan Davis asserted as a fact that the ‘Theresa May plan for Brexit’ was one ‘which clearly didn’t grab the population in the election’. How he was party to this knowledge we were to find out.

“I don’t think it was that,” Jones immediately countered, “I think frankly the big issues were other non-Brexit-related issues, most particularly the issue of social care but also one or two other issues too. But I think so far as Brexit is concerned, we are now in the position where 80 per cent of the electorate of this country voted for parties who want to take Britain out of the EU.

To which our insolent BBC apparatchik replied: “Sorry, what planet are you on?

“Loads of swing voters who might have voted Tory voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party because they so detested the Theresa May version of Brexit. Metropolitan, liberal Remainers . . .”

Yes, of course, this was why the swing voters voted for Corbyn!

Quite rightly, Mr Jones retorted: ‘I don’t see how you can …’ but before he could finish, Evan bulldozed over him: “….We cannot vote for Theresa May because we don’t like her Brexit . . .’ This was his theory of the election result and that was that.

David Jones once more attempted to question this thesis: “I don’t see how you can possibly read that into the election result – 80 per cent of the population voted for parties that clearly support Brexit.”

No, they didn’t – not at least according to Newsnight’s mind reader: “ … the polls show more people didn’t like her version of Brexit than did like her version of Brexit. You can’t say that anybody who voted Labour was endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit, because they voted for a party . . .”

Mr Jones tried again, once more to be ridden roughshod over.

Davis was not letting go of his cherished theory: “But hang on, you were saying if somebody voted Labour they were effectively endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit and that is completely untrue isn’t it? They voted Labour as a protest against Theresa May’s Brexit.”

If that is not a fake fact I am not sure what is.

The valiant David Jones had one more go: “Well, I don’t see how you can possibly read that into it”.

And guess what, Evan couldn’t wait to explain to this poor idiot Tory what was going on in the mind of the man on the Clapham omnibus on the way to vote (according the Book of Evan, and the Holy Gospel of the BBC, that is). It was, he avowed:

“Because they thought they’d get a softer Brexit from Labour and potentially stay in the customs union, because they thought it was bonkers to leave it.”

Is that so? How many voters I wonder would have passed a quick test outside the polling booth on exactly what the customs union is?

You have to be quick with your repartee if you are not going to be a lamb for the slaughter on the BBC. By now poor Mr Jones, like a torture victim who manfully keeps repeating his name, rank and serial number, could only respond: “I think that that is a complete misreading of the election if I may say so”.

It was, of course. But that didn’t stop Evan triumphantly snarling: “Do you accept polls that show more people believe that Theresa May’s Brexit should be amended than support it?”

The much tried Tory didn’t contradict him. A pity. The polls show no such thing.

What one showed with quite crystal clarity on the eve of the election was nine out of 10 people rejected the idea that this was a “Brexit election” at all – insisting that it should also be about public services. A poll for The Independent showed quite simply they did not believe her. They saw the election as being about public services. This, not Brexit, was uppermost in their minds. It was, of course, the ground Mr Corbyn’s Labour fought on and what dominated the public debate – certainly from the ‘dementia tax’ cock-up onwards.

Evan Davis’s interpretation of the election was bizarre. In contrast to his assertions about a lack of support for Mrs May’s Brexit plan, eve of election polling showed that the Conservatives had a strong lead when people were asked which party has the best policy on Brexit – 47 per cent named the Tories against only 19 per cent naming Labour, and of Labour voters one in five thought the Tories had the best approach to Brexit.

I must say I am looking forward now to Evan’s creative take on the rejection of Chuka Umuna’s Remoaner amendment to stay in the single market and customs union in Parliament yesterday – by 322 votes which included the Labour leadership and the majority of Labour MPs.

I can’t imagine he will he let the truth get in the way of a good story. Especially when that story supposedly justifies an all-out BBC assault on the Brexit process over the next 19 months.

Transcript of BBC2 Newsnight, 28 June 2017, Interview with David Jones, 10.41pm

EVAN DAVIS: Well, I’m joined now by Conservative MP David Jones, who was, until very recently, the Minister of State for Exiting the EU. A very good evening to you. How long do you give Theresa May?

DAVID JONES: Well, I think we have to acknowledge that it was a difficult election campaign, we didn’t do as well as we wanted to. But I think that most Members of Parliament were very impressed by what she did immediately afterwards. She came to the 1922 Committee, she acknowledged that there had been mistakes, she put her hands up to it, and she got a great deal of support from everybody who was present in the room. And I think that slowly but surely, she is building up her credibility with the party and I think that she’s got quite a long time ahead of her.

ED: It’s interesting you say she’s building up her credibility, because today, the first vote in Parliament, so it was a vote on a Labour amendment to get rid of the public sector 1% pay cap. You stuck with the vote, you voted against the Labour amendment, the morning briefings were you were going to get rid of the cap, despite voting against the Labour amendment, this afternoon retreated on the change on policy. It was like complete confusion. Can the next 1722 days of this Parliament carry on like that?

DJ: Well, I have to acknowledge that today was not one of the best days. But nevertheless, looking at what has happened over the last two weeks, I have seen Theresa May stabilising the ship, and I think . . .

ED: (interrupting) Sorry, stabilising the ship? Since the election, which was a disaster, Grenfell – she’s had to apologise to the nation for the reaction to that. And she’s . . . we’ve had today, a complete confusion over policy?

DJ: It has been a very difficult time, I don’t deny that.

ED: But you said she’s building up her credibility rather than burning through her credibility.

DJ: Yes, well yes I do, because quite frankly, at the end of the election campaign, that credibility was very low, in fact, the entire party’s credibility was very low. But nevertheless I don’t detect any appetite within the Parliamentary party to see her go.

ED: Would you describe your old department, DExEU, the department you were dropped from, would you describe that as chaos?

DJ: No, I wouldn’t. I would actually say that DExEU is an extremely effective department, I think that it’s got an extremely strong team of officials and I think they’re very well prepared for the negotiations.

ED: But you were dropped and another one resigned about five days before the negotiations started, that’s madness isn’t it?

DJ: Well, I’m not second-guessing why the Prime Minister decided to . . .

ED: Well, why do you think she dropped you? Why did she drop you?

DJ: I just said, I’m not second-guessing why the Prime Minister decided to dispense of my services. Any politician who takes a ministerial role knows that from the moment he is appointed he is that much closer to leaving.

ED: Hang on, we basically five days before the negotiations started, we lost two of the people in the department who were going to be doing the negotiating. We had to bring in two new people who had five days’ notice to get ready to meet Monsieur Barnier.

DJ: Two very competent people who I think will do an extremely good job, but most importantly backed up by an extremely strong team of officials and led by the very competent David Davis.

ED: It’s all going so well, on your account, do you think David Davis and Philip Hammond can both stay in post for the next two years and agree something between them on . . .

DJ: Yes, I do. And in fact, quite contrary to the reports in today’s newspapers, they actually work very closely indeed, they have regular meetings and discussions. I think that today’s reports have been overblown and I think that it’s essentially a difference of emphasis. But I think that actually they’re working extremely closely and very effectively together.

ED: What is the difference of emphasis do you think between them?

DJ: Well, I mean, this morning for example, there was the suggestion that Philip Hammond wanted us to remain in the customs union and David Davis saying not. But in fact . . .

ED: (laughs) That’s not . . . that’s not an emphasis!

DJ: Well it is, because in fact both David Davis and Philip Hammond are agreed that we will have to be out of both the customs union and the single market by the end of this Parliament, in five years’ time.

ED: But what’s interesting is, because even though you were dropped from the government, you are behaving, if I may say, and this is not being, being rude, you’re behaving in a very loyal way, you clearly think Theresa May should stick it out for quite a while, you’re basically with the party on all of this. In a way it seems like the leadership issue has become a proxy for the Brexit issue. It’s interesting listening to Nicky Morgan thinking, well, the clock’s ticking on Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg in that piece saying, no, she is the right person to steer us through. Is this the case now Brexiteers are putting their faith in Theresa May, soft Brexiteers or Remainers are saying maybe we need to get rid of her and we can get something moving on (words unclear due to speaking over)

DJ: (speaking over) I think there is no doubt that Brexit is going to be the defining issue of this Parliament and of course, we’ve only got a very limited timetable to work through: we’ve got one year and nine months. And so really, what we can’t afford is the indulgence of talking about alternative leaders, or putting in place somebody else, for someone who actually I think will do a very good job and will lead the country through these negotiations very effectively.

ED: Well, you’re making my point, the Brexiteers clearly have more faith in Theresa May than anyone else. But you say, you know, ‘this is no time for indulgence’ but it is surely the time for people to discuss and express their concern over the Theresa May plan for Brexit which clearly didn’t grab the population in the election.

DJ: I don’t think it was that, I think frankly the big issues were other non-Brexit-related issues, I think most particularly the issue of social care but also one or two other issues too. But I think so far as Brexit is concerned, we are now in the position where 80% of the electorate of this country voted for parties who want to take Britain out of the EU.

ED: Sorry, what planet are you on? Loads of swing voters who might have voted Tory voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party because they so detested the Theresa May version of Brexit. Metropolitan, liberal Remainers . . .

DJ: I don’t see how you can . . .

ED: . . . said ‘We cannot vote for Theresa May because we don’t like her Brexit . . .’

DJ: (speaking over) I don’t see how you can possibly read that into the election result.

ED: Well, the polls show, and I know we don’t put a huge amount of weight on polls, but the polls show more people didn’t like her version of Brexit than did like her version of Brexit. You can’t say that anybody who voted Labour was endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit, because they voted for a party . . .

DJ: Brexit, actually, to coin a phrase, does mean Brexit. We have already set ourselves on the course for leaving the European Union.

ED: But hang on, you were saying if somebody voted Labour they were effectively endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit and that is completely untrue isn’t it? They voted Labour as a protest against Theresa May’s Brexit.

DJ: Well, I don’t see how you can possibly read that into it.

ED: Because they thought they’d get a softer Brexit from Labour and potentially stay in the customs union, because they thought it was bonkers to leave it.

DJ: I think that that is a complete misreading of the election if I may say so.

ED: Do you accept polls that show more people believe that Theresa May’s Brexit should be amended than support it?

DJ: Look, Theresa May’s Brexit is absolutely clear and that is to leave the European Union but to seek the best possible relationship with the European Union in terms of a free trade agreement and in terms, of course, of access to the single market.

ED: (speaking over) Why not have a free vote on it? All those MPs have been honest about their views on the situation in the election, we’ve just had an election, they (words unclear due to speaking over) voted, post referendum . . .

DJ: (speaking over) We’ve had the vote already.

ED: Well, then let the MPs vote on which Brexit they want.

DJ: Forgive me, but we’ve already agreed and decided to leave the European Union, we . . .

ED: (interrupting) And there are multiple ways of leaving the European Union, it doesn’t have to be the way you want to do it.

DJ: The ways of leaving the European Union are specified in Article 50, and that’s the process we are going through at the moment.

ED: Are you saying, sorry, this is really important, are you saying there is literally only one way of leaving the European Union, there are no choices whatsoever in that at all?

DJ: The choice has already been made, we’ve served the notice under Article 50 . . .

ED: (speaking over) Yes . . .

DJ: . . . and we are therefore on our way out of the European Union. What we’re now doing is attempting to seek the best possible relationship with the European Union after we have left. And I think that is something that is shared by members of parties on both sides of the House.

ED: David Jones, thank you very much.

Kathy Gyngell: Farage is no racist despite ITV’s bid to load the dice against him

BBC Bias, EU Referendum | 9th June 2016 | by Kathy Gyngell

Tuesday night’s ITV ‘debate’ was not just a travesty of this term – you could hardly called this pre-planned, separate tables, Q&A format a debate – it was also a case of helping mud stick with a supposedly impartial broadcaster applying the brush. Nigel Farage may be an old fashioned beer drinking and fag smoking bloke but that hardly makes him a racist. He may wear clothes more suited to the golf course than Westminster, but neither does that make him a racist.

I imagine he is the first to spot a racist when he sees one. Anyone who’s taken the trouble to read the Ford and Goodwin’s fact-packed account, Revolt on the Right, of the rise of Ukip under Nigel Farage’s tutelage knows that his slate is clean. Far from finding examples of racism, these two left-leaning sociologists uncovered a history of Ukip leadership fighting it and on constant guard against entryism.

None of this stopped Britain’s mainstream media from going into overdrive a few days ago, accusing Farage of scaremongering for the crime of citing recently released German crime statistics – including sexual offences – which demonstrated that migrants are ‘over represented’. It wasn’t playing cricket, they judged, to warn the British public of the price Sweden and Germany is already paying for uncontrolled male economic migrants from different cultures. Unpalatable truths, it seems, become racist over night, and certainly when Archbishop Welby takes a hand and adds his moral authority to this hypocrisy and sanitising of the truth.

Here in the ITV studio stood a man already condemned as a racist by the ‘tricoteur’ hierarchy of the press and the Cof E – without resort to trial or jury. And it was inevitable that Farage’s questioning would be more hostile than Cameron’s – evenThe Guardian conceded that. So it behove presenter Julie Etchingham, all the more, to be even handed; to allow the already condemned man time to counter accusations of “inflammatory” scaremongering and racism – the worst crimes (apart from paedophilia) you can be accused of today.

She was not and she did not; she curtailed his defence by pandering to the questioners angry and prejudiced interruptions. ‘Calm down’, Nigel appealed to one of them. Julie leapt, not to Nigel’s but to the questioner’s defence. The question was stated calmly, she said. No, Julie it was only so in tone. The content was far from calm – it was of itself inflammatory.

Predictably, neither the studio audience nor the commentators afterwards were pressed to explore or deny the facts on which Archbishop’s Welby’s and the audience’s accusations rested. On the ITV news programme that followed, what did we get as a result but the whole debate again – over whether Nigel Farage is a racist or not? There was still no reference to the undeniable evidence of Cologne or why politicians of both parties are so keen to buy into this demonisation of Farage. His accusers should have been challenged on the threat to the morally defunct and out of touch leaderships of both Tory and Labour parties posed by the rise of radicalism and nationalism inspired by the Ukip leader.

You can plant a thought in people’s minds, bed it down with some discussion with eager fellow travellers, then nurture it by interviews with so called ‘ordinary’ members of the public, one of whom gave the game away by referring to Mr Farage as such and the Prime Minister as ‘David’. That in a nutshell is what ITV did with this debate. Mr Farage has to be congratulated on his measured handling of it.

Predictably too the Twitterati verdict deemed Nigel’s interactions with two of the women who questioned him as unattractive and patronising. I thought these rather good adjectives better applied to Mr Cameron, who seemed to me to be p…ing on all of us.

Kathy Gyngell is co-founder of News-watch and co-editor of The Conservative Woman, where this article was first published.

Kathy Gyngell: How would the BBC cope if it didn’t have Hezza to fuel Tory Europe splits?

BBC Bias, Conservative Party, EU Referendum | 15th June 2015 | by Kathy Gyngell

The BBC’s approach to EU coverage is pretty much on the lines of a word association game.

EU – Conservative Party – split – europhiles – Michael Heseltine – Ken Clarke – reasonable – superior – prime time.

Eurosceptics – extreme – xenophobic – inferior – marginalise – diss – interrupt.

Labour – unified – no story – splits – never – Tony Benn – past – irrelevant.

That is how it was in 1999 when I started on a BBC/ EU coverage monitoring and transcribing project with David Keighley for Global Britain. And that is how it still is today.

Yesterday, in fact, on Sunday morning, it was back to the future with Andrew Marr (about 20 minutes in to the programme for anyone who can be bothered to watch):

“When it comes to the great Conservative Party debate over Europe,” Marr assured us, “there is nobody who knows the territory better than Lord Heseltine.”

For those of you too young to have been wearied by the tedious and pompous pontifications of this particular peer on the BBC over the years, Lord Heseltine was Deputy Prime Minister under John Major in the 1990s. He retired from his seat and has not been active in politics since 2001. Not that that has diluted his incestuous relationship with the BBC.

They love him because he is an unreconstructed Europhile.

Despite the old boy looking a shadow of his former self, Mr Andrew Deference Marr did his best to big him up:

“He confronted Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s; he stood at John Major’s side in the 1990s and he’s continued vigorously to make the case for Britain to be at the heart of the EU.”

This latter point was, of course, being entirely thanks to the BBC for the permanent platform they’ve offered him for the last 14 years – not mentioned I might add.

Marr then encouraged the old dinosaur to witter on for 6 minutes until he produced the line he was looking for – for the end of programme news headline:

‘Lord Heseltine told this programme that David Cameron was right to tackle the issue of immigration (Is he tackling it? Ed) but he had a warning for the Conservatives: “It is very complex … he (Mr Cameron) is more likely to be successful if the people he’s negotiating with feel he has he backing of the party that he leads.”

The only conceivable reason for having him on – since he is not active in politics any more – is when he can be used to highlight ‘Tory splits’.

One thing those canny BBC news producers can rely on is that he will diss whatever the Eurosceptics are currently doing.

No surprise then that nothing that former Cabinet Minister Owen Paterson – who appeared later in the programme – could say was going to make the headlines – however strong his critique of Britain’s current relationship with the EU. Not even his revelation that Britain, still a great global trading nation, is now represented in world trade councils via the EU by a female former psychiatric nurse from Sweden – no doubt a great expert on trade – demonstrating just how much power over our own affairs we have ceded.

It gets worse. Not content with digging Lord H out of the woodwork the BBC ignored Kate Hoey’s incendiary article in the Mail on Sunday – incendiary for the Labour Party that is – on her Brexit advocacy and on her searing critique of the Labour leadership candidates’ failure to understand why the party lost votes to Ukip.

Was she on Andrew Marr’s sofa? Of course not. Just an obscure SNP MP John Nicholson and Marr’s favourite liberal leftie, self-regarding Shami Chakrabarti.

But then, according to the BBC, the Labour Party is never split on Europe. How convenient since that means it cannot be newsworthy that Kate has criticised Labour for being so pro-EU that its sceptical members aren’t taken seriously.

Yet Kate is one of about 20-30 Labour MPs who want to exit the EU, along with prominent Labour donor John Mills. Yet another prominent Labour eurosceptic the BBC chose to ignore is Kelvin Hopkins, MP for Luton and former Nalgo official, who was on the EU Scrutiny Committee.

The BBC rarely, if ever, talks to Labour Eurosceptics – in the past or currently. News-watch, who have conducted consistent monitoring of the BBC’s Today output for the last 15 years, told the EU Scrutiny Committee recently that across all the programmes they had surveyed only one in 1,400 speakers on EU affairs was a Labour withdrawalist.

Over the May general election, the only speaker on Today representing a leftist/socialist withdrawal position was one Ken Capstick from the Socialist Labour Party (the rump of Arthur Scargill’s operation). The exchange with him lasted an entire 15 seconds

Of course the 20-30 Labour ‘dissenters’ does not compare with the 100+ in the Conservative party, but this does not justify the BBC treating the Labour Party as if it is in complete unison when it is not.

Kate Hoey’s article was significant by any standards because it’s the first time she has gone so prominently on the front foot. Nor will you get any enlightenment on this from BBC website. On Sunday, there was (of course) a story on Labour going strongly pro-EU on the referendum, but nothing about Kate Hoey.

Plus ca change….

This article first appeared on The Conservative Woman

Photo by JULIAN MASON

Kathy Gyngell: In the BBC’s Alice in Wonderland world, criticism by MPs compromises its impartiality

BBC Bias, BBC Trust, European Scrutiny Committee | 26th March 2015 | by Kathy Gyngell

Biased Today, biased yesterday and biased tomorrow, the BBC has much to answer for over its uncritical and inadequate EU coverage.

More than any other news outlet the BBC shapes and moulds public opinion. Over the years, it has inspired an unwarranted public confidence in the EU. It has been responsible for conveying a sense of the inevitability and necessity of British membership

Had it not so determinedly stuck to its view that the EU was ‘a good thing’, a fact of life that anyone in their right mind should accept, Britain might not be in the mess it’s in today. We might not have uncontrolled immigration; we might be able to deport who we want when we want; and we might still have a vibrant fishing industry. That’s just three of the many areas over which we have lost national authority at great cost.

The House of Commons all-party EU Scrutiny Committee’s report, published yesterday, which accuses the BBC of ‘falling down severely’ in its obligation to provide impartial coverage of the EU, raises these questions.

Its findings confirm what many of us have been arguing for years – that BBC coverage of EU matters is deplorable, that it has a ‘concerning’ pro-EU bias, and that Eurosceptics have been given inadequate airtime. Specifically the MPs criticise Lord Hall for failing in his role as the BBC’s editor-in chief .

All this rings a profound bell with me, just as does the arrogance of the BBC’s response. The crux of it is that the BBC cannot be criticised because (in their perverse world) any criticism by MPs (however valid it may be) constitutes a breach of the Corporation’s independence. It can’t be seen to follow MPs criticism – no, not even if it is right.

I wonder which Propaganda (sorry Press) Officer there dreamed this excuse up as he pondered the embargoed document before publication? I know that nothing should surprise me but I am amazed that Lord Hall signed off such a response for release. Perhaps for this particular editor-in-chief, intent and belief are adequate substitutes for whatever is actually broadcast. During his appearance before the Committee, his claim that the desire for balanced output “ran deep” within the BBC and that he believed that this was being achieved now, sounded like weasel words. It isn’t being achieved.

This is far from the first time that the BBC has stonewalled criticism about its EU coverage. I have in my files copies of an ongoing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the then Controller of Radio Four, back in the early 2000s. Like today’s BBC spokesperson, her response that the Corporation provided extensive and impartial coverage of European and Parliamentary issues was (or should be, she thought) sufficient unto the day.

Boaden refused to consider the consistently logged, timed, comprehensive transcript evidence and analysis, that we (Minotaur Media Tracking) sent her, as evidence. In her thinking no external monitoring of BBC output could or would ever constitute evidence – however objective or impartial – because the BBC editorial process meant that the BBC was always impartial – and therefore above criticism. It’s surprising to find she has a degree in English literature; the concept of tautology could not have featured in her studies.

Despite Lord Wilson’s subsequent critical report, despite the cumulative log of evidence of BBC bias by News-watch, despite the fact that this is far from the first time that the BBC has been called to account, the BBC never wavers in it pre-programmed ‘Boaden’-style response. It refuses to harbour any self doubt – not a smidgeon.

Lord Hall has taken a leaf out of Ms Boaden’s book. “As Lord Hall told the committee, we are and will be impartial in all matters concerning our coverage,” the BBC spokesman said.

James Harding, the BBC’s Director of News and `Current Affairs, was not backward in going on the offensive either. His ‘Aunt Sally’ was that if the public was going to trust the BBC to report on politicians impartially it had to be clear that BBC journalists weren’t “asked by politicians to come and account for what they do and in effect do the bidding of those politicians”.

True to form the Today programme thought there was nothing to defend either.

In its own inimitable way yesterday morning’s edition of Today devoted 8 minutes to a Mark Knopfler record plug but nothing to the EU Scutiny Committee’s report that just happened to criticise the BBC on a subject of fundamental importance to every British citizen!

This article first appeared on The Conservative Woman

Photo by John Christian Fjellestad