Polly put the kettle on and we'll have...the BBC

The Commentator raises an interesting line of argument, and relates it to every right-winger's favourite bogey-woman, the BBC's former Home Affairs editor, Polly Toynbee of the Guardian...

In a Grauniad article, Polly "nervously acknowledges" that the BBC gets "73% of news audience", but says that's "because people choose it". She claims: "The BBC is not an opinionator, and its size is no democratic threat but a democratic asset in a world where moguls buy press power. It's Murdoch who intimidates governments...". She simply cannot understand why conservatives don't want to conserve this "great", "independent", "non-market" British institution. "The BBC stands as a monumental public good", she says. 

The lesson The Commentator draws from his is that Polly has an "abject, almost sociopathic, inability to empathise that leaves one dumbfounded. It never occurs to her that people of a different political-ideological disposition might genuinely look upon the BBC as possessed of an institutionalised liberal-Left bias. Because the BBC reflects her own prejudices, she cannot but assume that it must be objective; all the biased opinions being on the other side of the political spectrum."

When one of the Guardian's most biased columnists argues that the BBC is essentially impartial and worth cherishing many a right-winger will raise their eyes to heaven. The question is: Will those who aren't right-wingers raise an eye-brow too?