That said (see the previous post)...
The BBC are clearly more than willing to stick the stiletto into UKIP, when the opportunity arises.....
Later in the same Newsnight special there was a discussion between two anti-Brexit Labour supporters (the ever-dramatic Simon Schama and Kerry Anne Mendoza of The Canary) and Nigel Farage. And Emily (going after the former UKIP leader far more than anyone else) chose to ask Nigel this 'gem' of a question:
When you look to the future now do you think we've become a softer...I mean, UKIP's share of the vote is now, what, 2%? Does that sound to you like a rejection of Nasty Britain or a Britain that didn't like the language of (indecipherable) intolerance?
And Emily couldn't let it go, as this exchange will show;
Kerry Anne Mendoza: You've got a Labour Party that is reinvigorated, and more importantly a labour movement which is reinvigorated which is actually engaging the young, the old, the gay, the straight, the black, white, and brown, and all the colours in between.
Emily Maitlis (to Nigel Farage): All of kind of inclusivity that UKIP felt uncomfortable with.
That was a gratuitously insulting and deeply biased question from Emily Maitlis, basically saying that UKIP were/are homophobic and racist.
BBC bias is deeply ingrained. It needs uprooting.
I had a feeling throughout the election campaign that the BBC were giving UKIP and Mr Nuttall a higher profile than they had done in previous elections. I presume this was done as everyone thought it would take votes away from the nasty Tories. As it turned out the analysis suggests it would have been Labour votes that were probably lost.
ReplyDeleteSorry Craig, it is probably a feeling rather than your excellent empirical analysis.
That thought did cross my mind, Deborah.
DeleteUKIP did OK, airtime-wise, during this election. Now it's all over the BBC can, if they so choose, go back to their old ways and start ignoring - and smearing -UKIP at will.
Emily Maitlis's questions to Nigel Farage could well be a harbinger of things to come (even though those questions also felt like a blast from the past).
The Establishment certainly seem keen to bury UKIP once and for all.
....not that UKIP haven't helped bury themselves a bit over the past few months.
DeleteDo you think the BBC hates, (I don't think that is too strong a word), Nigel Farage because he is just so reasonable and not like the bogey man they would like him to be?
ReplyDeleteConsidering that he isn't UKIP's leader and that he wasn't seeking election why did The Vote Now Show on 4th June try to make fun of him?
Farage runs a model phone-in show on LBC. He states his opinion but then gives callers plenty of time to put their point across and he doesn't belittle anyone.
The BBC hates everyone who doesn't subscribe to their own narrow band of political opinion. The BBC would call their brand inclusive, but in fact it is anything but.
DeleteIt was a masterstroke in strategy by the beeb to promote themselves to the young voters as part of the 'Tory controlled media' and thus anti Corbyn (as if). See Liar Liar from a short while ago.
Otto
With over 1 million views between the 26th and 31st May, this Youtube video (Liar Liar) with its message of hate towards the Conservatives and Theresa May was I think a critical factor in the run-up to the GE. To some extent Corbyn was the unsuspecting beneficiary. He claims to have appealed to the youth, but he couldn't have done that unless there was a receptive audience there. I suspect he didn't necessarily appeal particularly to first-time voters, but armed with the passion of the 'Tory cuts' message, the Labour vote was the only one in town.
DeleteOtto
To be fair, pretty much everyone has been bashing UKIP. Brexit was lost, so this is revenge. That said, Stage Performer Maitlis is highly unprofessional.
ReplyDeleteApologies for being off topic, but Marr this morning was openly gloating and biased. I'm sure you'll have a post about it later, but I'm nearly as wound up as Iain Dale's Martin.
ReplyDeleteMarr's paper review panel couldn't be more obvious: Spectator curmudgeon and loyal Cameroon, Toby Young (who did support Brexit in the end, though), Polly Tuscany, who has somehow become the respected doyenne of politics journalists, beloved on all sides, and May's arch enemy. FFS. Is there such a thing as gloating by panel?
(I wrote the 'doyenne' bit before Marr used the word in reference to Tim Shipman.)
Scarfe's crude cartoon filled the screen for 24 seconds, until Osborne turned the page. Gloating by camera shot.
Disgusting attempt by Toynbee to scaremonger about the Troubles coming back because members of the Orange Order might be influencing May. The IRA members are in government in Ireland proper, but that's an amazing peace deal, yeah. Not even Young really tried to correct her.
And now we get to the main narrative for the next few months: You musn't pursue a 'hard' Brexit (meaning an actual Brexit). Theresa May did win the election, but she lost Brexit, and possibly lost the country's future in the process. Yet these four permanent members of the bubble elite are gleeful about it, couldn't be happier.
Complete and total anti-Brexit bias from Marr when interviewing the Dutch mandarin. About the EU, he says, "You want to do a deal which ensures that Britain is in a worse position than now, and therefore a Hard Brexit."
This is pure anti-Brexit bias. The point of a real Brexit is that Britain will ultimately be in a better position. To state that's actually a bad position is an opinion, and a Remain one at that. Brexit itself doesn't dictate what the final negotiations will be. It is simply an end position about legal and economic matters. It says nothing about whether or not there will be a free trade deal made afterwards. It says nothing about how EU immigration will be renegotiated. It might not even say anything about some future agreement about cross legislation with the ECHR. All it says is that Brussels is no longer in charge, EU laws do not have supremacy over British law, and Britain is off the hook for bailing out failed European states from their economic or immigration disasters.
To Andrew Marr - Remainiac - being out of the EU can mean only a worse position for Britain.
Oh, then Heseltine. Brexit is the cancer eating away at the heart of the Tory party. If we tried to guess Marr's lineup today and came up with this group, it would seem like petty-minded, Marr-hating silliness.
I'm not even watching the Corbyn bit now. Marr will have a big plate of humble pie in front of him, and will have to eat a peice with every Corbyn answer this morning.
I think I'll go play a 17th Century scenario war game for a while to calm down before I watch the rest of it.
I can report that Corbyn was skittish, buoyant and almost flirtatious with Andrew Marr this morning.
DeleteHe is quite the smooth snake oil salesman. He's perfected the calm, smiling, gentle old uncle act, completely masking his inner Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe. And more people voted for his policies than for Miliband's. Not a good sign for your future.
DeleteWell I've had to avoid the BBC last few days. Can't abide much of it at the best of times !
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I put on the R4 News at 8 am this morning. On this "News" was Alistair Campbell opining that there could be no deal with the DUP because it would endanger the Peace process (of course it seemed to be claimed that Campbell is an recognized expert on the peace process). Full-on bias and agenda setting from the start of the day then.
Then "Broadcasting House" at 9 am featured Heseltine, hoping that Brexit is dead. He was on again on Pienaar's politics at 10 am! Oh boy, it's going to be rough until the next election.
My general reflections on the BBC's election campaign was, as others have noted, that they started backing Farron, then when he was obviously getting nowhere, switched to the Progressive Alliance (remember Blair and Mandleson getting air time?). That was also getting nowhere, but they were rescued by May's incredible own goal manifesto. As May faltered, the Beeb held it's nose and got full on behind Corbyn.
The first PM with Eddie Mair (5 pm R4) that I heard after the election was announced was to hear him comparing May with Erdogan, apparently because of her audacity in calling an election without BBC permission. The last PM before the election was to hear him introduce his "election free spot" at just before 6 pm with a multitude of voices in regional accents repeating the words of Brenda which end with "what is she thinking of". Over and over again. At 6 pm on the day before an election. It wasn't bias lads, it was pure propaganda.
But Cameron sold the farm for the EU referendum. A 10 year charter means the BBC can do whatever it wants. May is too weak to do anything now. I have to regard listening to the BBC as like listening to the Guardian. It's ok in short doses in order to hear what that lot are thinking and occasionally there is some actual news. But I have to listen to many other sources to get a proper picture of what is going on. I hate that I have to pay for the BBC.
And finally, in all the reviews and speculation that I have heard today, there has been almost no mention of the biggest issue. That we are under attack from Islamic terrorists, of which there may be 23,000 at least in the country. With a weak government I am afraid there is going to more carnage.
One almost gets the feeling that the Beeboids feel that the DUP are the greater threat to "our values" than the Islamo-fascists who actually go out and murder large numbers of people.
DeleteQ: When is a populist vote not a populist vote?
ReplyDeleteA: When it's for a party approved of by the BBC.
Otto
Or, when is populism a good thing? Same answer.
Delete