Obituaries

Is the BBC predictable in its bias? 

That thought came back to me on reading a comment from chrisH at Biased BBC. 

He wrote: 

"The BBC are so predictable that I was able to predict that Titos wife and Felix Dexter would comprise half of “Last Word”…the obituary show on Radio 4 at the moment."

My point being that the BBC is so predictable that we just know there`ll be lefties in their dotage, and multiculti useful tools of alternative comedians that get the tributes.

Safe to say that if you actually HAD changed things…or used to be a “right winger”-there`ll be no mention of them.

The BBC gives its paste and plaster medals to the Miliband archetypes, the Howard Marks safe rebels…you try bringing up a few kids not to riot?…the Beeb won`t bother its arse.

It`s the total predictability-the obvious perpetual engineering of the social soul…that cheeses us off. 

Oh hell-another dead social work lecturer-a champion of the profession! Didn`t get her, but 50% isn`t bad from the “ever-original BBC” is it?"

I tend to drive home to Last Word when I finish work on Friday, and rather enjoy it (if it's right and proper to enjoy an obituary programme!), but is there truth in what Chris says?

As an experiment, here's the list of the five people whose deaths were marked by this week's Last Word:

Sir Anthony Caro, leading British sculptor

Felix Dexter, comedian

Jovanka Broz, widow of Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia

Professor Olive Stevenson, social work academic

Noel Harrison, son of Rex, singer, actor, Olympic skier, best known for 'The Windmills of Your Mind'

And here's the full list of obituaries featured over the past week in the Daily Telegraph. 

Who did Last Word cover and who did they choose not to cover? Who did the Telegraph cover and who did they choose not to cover?

Decide for yourselves whether this supports the case for a biased, left-wing selection process by the BBC:

Augusto Odone, the economist whose devotion to his suffering son was portrayed in the film Lorenzo's Oil, father of Cristina

Sir Anthony Caro, Britain's greatest abstract sculptor

Captain John Hatton, the soldier whose tank fired Britain to glory in a Nato contest, pipping the Belgians

Tommy Whittle, the saxophonist who abandoned dance bands and became one of the best-known modern jazzmen in Britain

Jeremy Gotch, a former child internee of the Japanese who pioneered the use of containers to transport bulk freight

Sir John Batten, physician to the Queen who pioneered treatment for adults with cystic fibrosis

Gypie Mayo, the virtuoso guitarist who helped Dr Feelgood into the Top 10 and played with the re-formed Yardbirds

Lou Scheimer, the cartoon mogul behind teatime favourites such as He-Man who irked Disney with a sequel to Snow White

Major-General Pat Kay, the marine officer who helped to take 65 enemy prisoners in Normandy and later guarded the nation’s secrets

Lawrence Klein, the pioneer of economic forecasting who advised China and won a Nobel Prize

George Ortiz, the connoisseur whose unrivalled collection of ancient objets d’art earned both admiration and controversy

Charles Castle, tap dancer and TV producer who hobnobbed with stars and made an acclaimed film about Noël Coward

Jock Kane, the whistleblower who battled to bring sex scandals and security breaches at GCHQ to light

Professor David Barker, the epidemiologist who suggested that infancy had a crucial role in causing 'lifestyle’ diseases such as diabetes

Felix Dexter, the actor who made his name in comedy not law