Eat my kilt

If you spend too much time looking out for BBC bias you find yourself starting to spot bias everywhere. It’s under the bed with the fluff.

Oh how easy it is to get oneself radicalised. Here at “Is the BBC biased?” we pride ourselves on our moderate, centre ground approach, always ready to give credit where it’s due. 

There is only one area over which I freely admit I haven’t been able do this, but that is because the fault lies with ‘them not me.’ It’s the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East, specifically the Israel/Palestine situation. I sincerely believe the BBC takes a fierce and firm anti-Israel / pro-Palestinian approach, which I suspect stems from ignorance on the part of BBC management as well as their on-the-spot reporters and foreign correspondents. They get away with this bias because they assume (probably correctly) that the bulk of the audience is equally ignorant, and consequentially, has absorbed a negative attitude towards Israel, on the misguided, old fashioned understanding that the BBC is impartial. It’s surprising that so many viewers still take that on trust.

Apart from that, we’re very fair over here at “is”. (Fairness; hmm. Sounds vaguely familiar. )

Someone who seems to have taken the BBC bias theme a bit far is Leo McKinstry in the Daily Mail. He may have a point or three, but I fear he risks straying into the realms of paranoia. However, his article does contain one riveting clip. The  video captioned “ ‘For God’s sake!’: David Dimbleby loses his cool live on BBC”

I’m not sure what DD’s uncool ejaculation was in response to - I’ll guess he was basically cross that Labour seemed to be going down the pan - but I enjoyed the lady in the background unsuccessfully trying to keep herself out of shot by doing an exaggerated impression of Mrs Doyle, scurrying past the Great Man, bent double carrying what looked like a tray of beers.

McKinstry did mention something that had struck me as quite uncalled-for when I saw it at the time. 

“Similarly, viewers caught a glimpse of the incestuous political bubble that operates at Westminster, as correspondents Nick Robinson and Laura Kuenssberg rhapsodised about the wonderful personal qualities of Ed Balls — in reality another bully and social-engineering zealot — after he had lost his seat”.

I didn’t see the Kinnock interview he mentioned, so he probably has a point there, but I didn’t really notice that “mourning over the ‘phenomenal losses’ "  apart from some understandable references to the ‘human cost’ of these unexpected and humiliating defeats.

I don’t expect any of the younger generation of furious left-wing Tweeters on the BBC payroll would ever regard a blog like this as any other than a ‘hate-site’. In fact they probably haven’t even come across it . 

I just feel sometimes that too much over-the-top bias-mongering is counter productive and dangerous to the health.

Now that Scotland Nationalism has ‘Roared’ I feel, in retrospect, that I wish the Scots had got their wretched independence when they had the chance. If they had, we might have been spared the endless, very unpalatable Sturgeon-mania. 

I feel sorry for Peter Brookes. No more Wallace and Gromit.  

Bye!

I keep missing the beginnings of programmes, and it was so with that excruciating election special Question Time. However I saw enough to conclude that the panel’s pathetic attempts to rationalise their pre-election wrong-headedness was, well, pathetic. But the BBC’s choice of panellists and, for that matter venue, showed that they’ve learned nothing from the election result. Back to square one. 

Paddy Ashdown. What is he like? His eyes have closed up altogether, when they used to be just slits. He specialises in getting things wrong, and is most unpleasant while going about it. 

As for Alistair Campbell, his pseudo psychoanalyses with that ‘I’m above it all, looking down on you lesser beings with my superior understanding of human nature” are simply boring and wrong. He has reneged on eating the kilt as well. Julia Hartley-Brewer was rather good, but  not good enough to sweeten the gloom. As for the audience - well what can one say?  (The cuts the cuts, Fatcher etc etc.)

The local council results must mean something. I wonder if +458 (conservative) and   +123 (Ukip) gains, and -164 (Labour) and -324 Lib Dem losses will translate into proportionate representation in the BBC’s political coverage? 

Either way I certainly won’t be promising to eat my headgear if you know what I mean ‘arry.