Saturday 25 November 2017

Is it Maoist to complain about BBC bias?



Back in April, I looked into a tweet by Tim Montgomerie that asked "Are all presenters of Radio 4's Week in Westminster Remainers?" and found that, though they weren't all Remainers, Tim did have a point about the balance of Remainers and Leavers. 

Out of the 26 episodes between the EU referendum and then only 2 episodes had been fronted by an open Leave supporter (Peter Oborne) while 14 episodes had been fronted by open Remain supporters. 

Tim has returned to the fray today with another such tweet


Well, the regular presenters when I last looked in April were: Steve Richards, George Parker (FT), Tom Newton Dunn (Sun), Helen Lewis (New Statesman), Peter Oborne (Daily Mail), Anushka Asthana (Guardian), Isabel Hardman (Spectator) and Jim Waterson (Buzzfeed). Since then there's also been Anne McElvoy (Economist), Paul Waugh (HuffPost) and Sam Coates (Times). 

Tim remains wrong about "not one of them" backing Brexit, given that Peter Oborne is still a regular presenter, but the overall balance - especially with the likes of Steve Richards, Tom Newton Dunn, Helen Lewis and Anne McElvoy being on - remains very heavily pro-Remain and he still has a point....though making it is, apparently, "Maoist":
Tim Montgomerie: Nine (I think) regular presenters of BBC Radio 4’s #WeekinWestminster. Not one of them back Brexit. At least five are Remainers.
Nick Cohen: Tory Maoism (cont).
Tim Montgomerie: Poor Nick. Can’t tell the difference between a Brexiteer wanting balance on a publicly funding broadcaster and a communist tyrant of an undemocratic superstate who killed millions.
I've never thought of myself as a Maoist before just for complaining about BBC bias. That said, I'm off out in a few minutes (despite the wintry showers) to advance courageously under the guidance of the red flag of Mao Zedong thought, and do a bit of shopping.

(P.S. If any of the 70% of 16-24 year olds who Survation found had never heard of Mao are passing by, please write to your present or former schools and complain!). 

2 comments:

  1. Tricky.

    Is Rob going to enter the fray with:

    A) Boom!
    B) Politics at the door
    C) DNA
    D) An old poll
    E) All of the above

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was going to say that Nick Cohen is one of our worst columnists, lacking in insight or interesting observations. Then I remembered Dan Hodges.

    ReplyDelete

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