Saturday, 18 April 2015

Pro-EU bias Shocker on BBC Radio 4



Radio 4's The World Tonight gave over yesterday's edition to one of its periodic specials where the great and the good are gathered for a Chatham House debate at the "agenda-setting" think tank RUSI. 

On yesterday's edition they were discussing the foreign policy challenges facing the next UK government, beginning with Europe.

Even though we're in the midst of a general election, The World Tonight's pro-EU bias came through crystal clear. 

The panel included two prominent advocates for the European Union - and for Britain not only staying in but playing a much more 'positive' role in it - namely Anne Applebaum and Timothy Garton-Ash. The third British member of the panel, the head of RUSI Robin Niblett, is scarcely less pro-EU and the U.S. participant, former Clinton era assistant secretary of state James Rubin, also couldn't understand why Britain wasn't playing a more 'constructive' role in Europe. 

Except for when Mr Niblett briefly took exception to the other three's "Britain bashing", they all sang from the same hymn sheet as regards Britain and the EU.

The World Tonight report Beth McLeod teed up this part of the debate with a report from Berlin on how Germans are exasperated yet sorrowful about what presenter Ritula Shah called the UK's "hokey cokey" attitude to the EU. Her 'talking heads' and vox pops made much the same points as the panel. 

Why wasn't there a single Eurosceptic or pro-withdrawal panelist or 'talking head' on this programme? Why only 'pro-Europeans'?

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