Here's a BBC bias-related question posed on Twitter today by Tim Montgomerie:
Well, going back through the Week at Westminster archive shows the following as having been presenters since the EU referendum last June:
Steve Richards (7 editions)George Parker, FT (6 editions)Tom Newton Dunn, Sun (4 editions)Helen Lewis, New Statesman (3 editions)Peter Oborne, Daily Mail (2 editions)Anushka Asthana, Guardian (2 editions)Isabel Hardman, Spectator (1 edition)Jim Waterson, Buzzfeed (1 edition)
Now, several of those TWAW presenters were undoubtedly staunchly pro-Remain - namely Steve Richards, Tom Newton Dunn and Helen Lewis.
Four of the others are harder to place with total certainty. [Please fill in the gaps if you can though]. I'm assuming with some confidence however, rightly or wrongly, that George Parker, Anushka Asthana and Jim Waterson were Remainers while Isabel Hardman was probably pro-Leave.
The only staunchly pro-Leave Week In Westminster presenter, therefore, has been Peter Oborne - and he's only presented two editions since the referendum, thus giving the programme as a whole a very pronounced pro-Remain slant, presenter-wise.
From that then, I'd say that Tim has a point.
I believe Isabel Hardman is closer to Fraser Nelson, who was pro-Remain until the very end, when he finally accepted that the EU was irredeemable, and would only harm Britain in the end. Ultimately pro-Leave, but reluctantly so.
ReplyDeletePeter Oborne with all his bad tempered harrumphing qualifies just about as one of those BBC Right Wing comedy acts they allow on. Never expect to hear anyone like Ann Marie Waters with a critique of Islam on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteBut what is it about these Tory supporters that means they will not worry about bias unless they pompously 'find' it themselves. Most of these politicians and commentators supinely accepted Cameron's non-reform of the BBC charter and only occasionally (when it suits their own agendas) wake up to the minute-by-minute outrage of BBC factionalism.
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