An Agony in 79 Fits

For those who have yet to savour in full the delight's of Lord Adonis's onslaught against the BBC over their 'pro-Brexit' coverage, here's a compendium from the past couple of weeks (starting from the earliest and going through to this morning).

His Lordship seems to have well and truly gone Through the Looking Glass. His main points are that:

• The BBC was taken over by Brexiteers in c.2014
• The BBC is systematically pro-Brexit
• Brexit wouldn't have happened without the BBC
• The BBC has fanned the flames of populism
• The BBC created Nigel Farage as a national figure in the first place
• The BBC is the voice of Nigel Farage and kowtows to him. 
• The BBC is the voice of the Brexit establishment and kowtows to Downing Street
• The BBC has censors that act in support of the Brexit establishment

To paraphrase the Queen of Hearts, “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as eight impossible things before breakfast.” 

I'll highlight in bold some of his wildest statements - and, yes, he's learning quick. He's even using the term "fake news" about the BBC now:

1. I never got a proper response from BBC re Mr Farage’s recent 32nd appearance on BBC Question Time. I have referred this to @ofcom, to see whether it will do its supposed job of regulating the BBC. It refused when I questioned Mr Farage’s appearance before the event.
2. I have lots to say on this! BBC, worried about its funding, has decided Brexit is done deal and it should kowtow to Brexit establishment. My friends @bbcnickrobinson & @afneil take this to extreme of disparaging anti-Brexit people on twitter etc. This is serious breach of Charter.
3. Laughable that @BBCr4today calling Melrose ‘turnaround specialists.’ They are asset strippers. Like calling Rees-Mogg & Farage ‘creators of a Better Britain.’ Oh but of course, BBC, voice of the Brexit establishment, think that too!
4. Hold on, we are in course of leaving the EU, the most reckless & absurd national act of our lifetime, & the BBC is a prime instrument of the populism causing it. This is political sleepwalking (much as I admire you!).
5. No, BBC is systematically pro-Brexit David. How else to explain 32 appearances by Farage on Question Time, incl last month? You are fighting last battle, when Mrs T was hostile to ‘liberal’ BBC. Reality now is that scared, weakly led BBC has been cowed by the Brexit Establishment.
6. Ok, now I’m the ‘Nigel Farage of the Centre’ can I please have 32 appearances on BBC Question Time?
7. I think we should debate this somewhere. Maybe The Times? It is my firm conviction that the BBC is a substantial part of the reason for Brexit & the debasing of our national political debate. I can no longer defend it.
8. Decline of BBC accelerating: figures today show young people watch more Netflix than BBC. BBC News no longer reliable & impartial: consistently pro-Brexit & Farage, leading to big loss of confidence. Maybe we need a new ‘public service broadcaster’ which respects those words.
9. Changed my Twitter profile to include huge compliment from @NickCohen4 - @Nigel Farage of the Centre.' My ambition now: Farage's 32 appearances on BBC Question Time, to help defeat Brexit!
10. Nick welcome to join my tour of the 100 constituencies with biggest Leave votes. To be fair, he wouldn’t have heard about it from BBC.
11. BBC News Editor challenged on zero coverage of anti-Brexit marches last weekend. His response? ‘How much of a live issue is it really?’ Well, on the BBC not at all, which is precisely the issue! #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
12. I’m afraid this ‘BBC right or wrong’ stance is no longer tenable now that the BBC is clearly responsible for trashing the country.
13. BBC CRISIS: We need a debate on what should succeed the BBC after this licence fee period, or sooner if there is a non-Brexit government, so that we restore proper news values and impartial reporting. Mr Farage’s 32nd Question Time appearance  this month the last straw.
14. BBC defenders ask why am I attacking the ‘public service broadcaster’? Because on the biggest issue by far facing the country the BBC is the ‘public disservice broadcaster.’ It fanned the populist flames & largely created Mr Farage as a national figure.
15. Followers with time to lodge FOI requests: ask for BBC news producers’ and reporters’ communications last week on BBC boycott of anti-Brexit marches while giving huge coverage to Mr Farage’s fish-throwing. Note esp @rburgessbbc’s strange defence on @bbcr4feedback.
16. Listen here to dismissive defence of BBC decision to boycott reporting of large anti-Brexit marches last weekend by its News Editor Richard Burgess to understand there is a big problem with the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
17. Yes, hang on a second, when I last checked they weren’t British populists who appear on your Today Programme constantly ... & on BBC Question Time 32 times for Mr Farage alone. No, that phenomenon is home-made by the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
18. Anyone know background of BBC News Editor @rburgessbbc? Tory/Brexit? Gives every indication of being partisan Brexiter from his contemptious remarks about anti-Brexit marches on @bbcr4feedback.
19. This is why BBC is in crisis. It was okay while BBC better than competition. Now it is worse - & far  worse than Channel 4 & Sky at impartial news and breaking stories. I can no longer defend failing BBC leadership.
20. Who is Head of News at the BBC, Nigel Farage or @rburgessbbc? April Fool! They are one and the same person, judging by BBC news values & coverage.
21. The BBC isn’t just demeaning itself, but destroying itself, by its pro-Brexit news values and coverage. Roy Jenkins used to tell me that political parties are ‘vehicles not tabernacles’: same true of public service broadcasters. In my view the BBC is betraying the public.
22. Absolutely wrong. The Head of News & other BBC execs are senior public officials & highly paid accordingly. They must be accountable for their actions, including the undermining of a once great public service broadcaster.
23. Just written to Lord Hall, DG of BBC, suggesting he review BBC News and its total subservience to Mr Farage in news values. BBC reports Mr Farage & has him on Question Time & Today Programme so constantly he might just as well be DG himself!
24. Is BBC News Editor @rburgessbbc actually a Brexiter? On basis of his astonishing defence of BBC boycott of anti-Brexit marches last week - not a story, no impact, how many were there anyway - I seriously wonder. A key issue is how many partisan Brexiters at top of #BrexitBC.
25. This won’t wash. Mr Burgess is UK News Editor & the BBC put him on @bbcr4feedback to explain why BBC boycotted the anti-Brexit marches because he didn’t think they were ‘news.’ Maybe you should spend a few minutes reflecting on implosion of the BBC as a serious news organisation.
26. Mr Farage presently occupies the following posts in the state de facto: Prime Minister, Leader of the Conservative Party, Director-General of the BBC, Editor of the Daily Mail, Telegraph & Sun. Oh & ex- ex-leader of UKIP at 2% in the polls.
27. No, we are saying Mr Burgess should do his job of impartially reporting the news, which we don’t believe he does. But good of you to accept that we are ‘angry’ about the trashing of the country by the populist Mr Farage, who was largely the BBC’s creation.
28. #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation. Tellingly, BBC news reviews never include @TheNewEuropean & often start with the Daily Mail.
29. Taking only recent weeks, join dots together: Mr Farage’s 32nd appearance on Question Time; BBC boycott of last week-end’s anti-Brexit marches; wall-to-wall BBC on Farage & Rees-Mogg’s fish stunt; constant refrain ‘WHEN we leave the EU’ not ‘IF ...’  Fox/fake news, BBC-style
30. BBC CRISIS: Key moment in Brexit takeover of BBC was Tony Hall’s appointment of my good friend & Cabinet colleague James Purnell as his right-hand man. Ever since, Tony & James been over-compensating pro-Brexit & anti-Labour. Join dots on #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
31. Which is why so many marched against Brexit last weekend, unreported by #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
32. Vital to understand that the BBC is now part of the problem not the solution. It was taken over by the Brexiters c.2014, thanks to very nice but very weak Tony Hall. It is 2/3 of the way towards Fox News & fake news; we need to put that right before it’s too late.
33. ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to get Nigel Farrage off BBC Question Time & the Today Programme.’ Happy Easter!
34. No, we won’t win this if we allow England’s Brexit institutions, which now include the BBC alas, to rule unchecked. But I love the postbox pic on your homepage!
35. Followers, I am writing up my dissection of the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation into a pamphlet on what needs to be done to save public service broadcasting. I'm looking forward to debating this with the great @DAaronovitch - on the BBC, if they will allow it (!)
36. Yes yes, I take the response that the BBC will only allow me to debate its future if I agree to appear with Nigel Farage, with him getting two-thirds of the air time, but needs must!
37. I have a lot of sympathy with this view now that BBC is little more than the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation, provided there is reserved funding for genuine public service broadcasters on the model of Channel 4 News & Sky News.
38. Chris, if I’m ‘usually sensible’ & argue the BBC is now #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation, then maybe I have a point? Followers, read my tweets, consider wall-to-wall Farage & Brexit you see on BBC News & Question Time, & judge.
39. HOW TO DEAL WITH BBC CRISIS: Channel 4 News so much better than BBC at impartial reporting and breaking stories, give them the public service broadcasting licence for news, wind up BBC News, & launch an entrepreneurial start-up public service broadcaster to replace C4N.
40. This is a very concerning & unwise tweet, from BBC’s Head of News, to which I shall be returning with facts.
41. I’m afraid this is the case & I simply don’t understand it. Why lie about something, as BBC Head of News, which there is actual film footage by your own reporters to disprove? What is going on at the BBC that has fundamentally corrupted its news values and reporting?
42. This is tweet FROM BBC JOURNALIST WHO COVERED THE FARAGE FISH STUNT, which the BBC’s Head of News @rburgessbbc just told me they didn’t cover, citing a Daily Telegraph source. Now surreal: do BBC bosses not speak to their reporters? What’s up at #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation ?
43. Exhibit A on BBC coverage of Farage trawler, which BBC Head of News @rburgessbbc just told me they didn’t cover! Exhibit B includes the BBC’s film footage. What on earth is going on at #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation?
44. #VoiceofFarage.
45. Good questions to @rburgessbbc, BBC News UK Editor, who appears to be moonlighting as Mr Farage’s agent in New Broadcasting House. Or maybe it’s a job share.
46. The film which the BBC News Editor told me doesn’t exist #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation. 
47. Exhibit D of BBC coverage of Farage Fish stunt. From the very trawler which @rburgessbbc just told me the BBC wasn’t on!
48. Astonishing. The ‘inconvenient truth’ cited approvingly here by the BBC’s Head of News comes from the Daily Telegraph which, er, has an agenda on Brexit. It’s also the BBC’s agenda, which is presumably why he cites it. In factual terms this is wrong btw.
49. BBC CRISIS: No 10's Director of Communications is Robbie Gibb, ardent Brexiter, recruited by Mrs May straight from top of BBC where he was Andrew Neil's right-hand man on Daily & Sunday Politics. Join the dots of the Brexiters' control of the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
50. I’m struck by how many people are saying they don’t intend to continue paying their licence fee to the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation which they no longer use because of its bias and low quality.
51. Actually Iain I was thinking of you for the 7.50 ‘Provocation of the Day’ slot. What’s your first foray going to be? Yes sport by @campbellclaret. Tony: foreign correspondent. Peter: ‘how to spend it.’ Mr Farage is reading rather than writing the news, reverse of @BBCr4today.
52. The Queen does a brilliant job. BBC News, which largely created Mr Farage & Brexit, needs fundamental reform or replacement. As for latter, Channel 4 News or Sky TV both significantly better & could take on lead public service funding & role from Mr Farage.
53. Exhibit B of BBC coverage of Farage trawler, complete with film footage which the BBC’s Head of News just told me didn’t exist! Ever clearer that it is indeed the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
54. Responses to this heartfelt tweet say a great deal, regrettably, about the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
55. Good idea. BBC local radio does this but is disdained by @BBCr4today & @BBCNews in favour of the Daily Mail & the No 10 press office.
56. Could someone tell the BBC? Orwell used to work for them, when it was a public service broadcaster & not the Voice of Farage.
57. Very good point. The #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation's entire coverage of the European Parliament has been of Nigel Farage MEP. Major dereliction of its public service broadcasting duty.
58. For those urging me to go quiet on the BBC, important to understand that Brexit & Farage are largely the creation of the BBC. This isn’t a side issue but a central issue if we are going to win next year’s ‘final deal’ referendum to honour our European destiny as a people.
59. I’m struck by how many people tell me Channel 4 News & Sky News are superior, more impartial & story-breaking news sources than the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation. @faisalislam generally regarded as best Political Editor in broadcast.
60. I’m struck by how many people tell me we need an impartial radio alternative to Today Programme of the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation. One which doesn’t have a 1950s clergy ‘thought for the day’ & a review of papers where John Humphrys reads out large parts of the Daily Mail.
61. Don’t worry, a whole set of complaints about pro-Brexit bias & breach of the BBC Charter are being presented to Ofcom, starting with Mr Farage’s 32nd appearance last month on BBC Question Time #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
62. The question - a really serious one - is when ‘too often’ Farage becomes the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation. It is my considered view that this has now happened. ‘My BBC right or wrong’ is not the right policy for the country - when the #BrexitBC is undermining the country.
63. Incorrect. This shadowy BBC Censor does veto Brexit related programmes likely to offend No 10. I know because it’s just vetoed one in which I was involved, although BBC sponsored. More anon.
64. As I explore working of #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation , I am amazed at its layer upon layer of management. There’s even an internal system of censorship above editors/lawyers, called ‘Editorial Policy,’ which vetoes output likely to offend government & Mr Farage.
65. BBC rebuttal here deeply revealing & wrong: ‘The BBC is no longer reporting on the binary choice which faced the electorate in the referendum.’ In other words, forget Parliament, Brexit’s a done deal, get over it, we are the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
66. This explains BBC boycott of the large anti-Brexit marches last weekend, while reporting Farage stunt: because BBC is ‘no longer reporting’ the ‘binary choice’ of Brexit, as a matter of editorial policy. The cat now firmly out of the bag at the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
67. The march the BBC boycotted under their new editorial policy that they don't report the 'binary choice' of Brexit (ie whether it should happen or not) as it's now a done deal. Ignore the British constitution, we're the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
68. No, he is doing his job of saying what he believes to be a profound public interest: to stop Brexit democratically & restore impartiality of what’s sadly become the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
69. Depressing & partisan by Nick Robinson. We’ve got to stick with the Brexit BBC because otherwise we get Trump & Fox. Excuse me, Channel 4 News & Sky do a better job than you Nick - & not by aping Fox. It’s you that are Fox-lite.
70. This shows how Brexit the BBC has become. EU immigration undermines ‘fact’ that we ‘control our borders’, says Nick. But last year there was MORE immigration here from outside the EU. So we don’t control our borders even when supposedly ‘sovereign’ either?
71. Now that Nick Robinson is a player in the Brexit debate, can I debate these views with him on the Today Programme? I’m free tomorrow. Maybe chaired by @afneil, who is well known to be independent on these matters @BBCr4today.
72. Lord Hall, Director-General of the BBC, should watch this good description of the British constitution by a student & withdraw BBC editorial policy statement yesterday that ‘the BBC is no longer reporting the binary choice of Brexit’ because it’s a done deal. It isn’t.
73. But Nick, it is a fact that we control our borders. It is false to say otherwise - fake news, the thing Fox does which you say we should stand by the BBC to resist. So please do your job & we will stand by you.
74. Huge complacency Nick. The country is in crisis, dangerously poor, polarised, fractured and populist, & you want us to throw garlands! This is not where things are at, I’m afraid. And in the view of many of us, you (the BBC) are the midwife of Farageism.
75. If you are among the thousands who demonstrated again Brexit a fortnight ago only to have your voice silenced by the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation, please lodge a formal complaint.
76. This is @bbcnickrobinson. We ‘remainers’ are apparently bush fighters unaware that ‘the war is over’. But the war isn’t over & declaring it so is fake news from the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
77. This is @bbcnickrobinson.The BBC denies it is a fact that we control our borders. Except that we do, as a fact, & declaring otherwise is fake news from the #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
78. BBC’s @bbcnickrobinson says if we attack the BBC we will end up with Fox News. But the superior public service ethic of Channel 4 News & Sky News shows this is more fake news from #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.
79. 'CONTROL (verb): determine the behaviour or supervise the running of sthg'. As in 'we control and supervise the running of our borders.' 'BIAS (noun): inclination or prejudice for or against a person, group or sthg'. As in #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation.