More on the BBC man who can't tell his Tolstoy from his Trollope

Back in the early summer of 2013, I launched a series of full-length reviews of Radio 4's PM, reviewing every item every day for a month or so. 

Looking back at them (examples here, here, here, here) I think they were fair - and they found that, with exceptions, PM itself (and Eddie Mair, its main presenter back then) was pretty fair too, and often highly interesting and entertaining as well.

Times change. Presenters change. 2016 happened. (Brexit, Trump). And now, out goes Eddie and in comes Evan. 

Having dipped into recent editions, I listened to it in full tonight. And what a falling-off there's been! Hyperion to a satyr!

Seriously, there's been a change, and it's not been a change for the good.

Is it a case of PBTBH (Post-Brexit-Trump-BBC-Hysteria) Syndrome? Or is it all down to Evan Davis being Evan Davis and not Eddie Mair? 

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Evan's introduction, for example, included the following - and this really is a genuine transcript, not a piece of satire on my part!:

On Brexit Theresa May says there will be no second public vote. But could there be a swing towards the idea? We'll get the opinions of Professor John Curtice, Justine Greening and Labour's Dame Margaret Beckett.

I laughed, rolled my eyes and gave in to my eyebrows' very strong urge to impersonate Fiona Bruce after that.

The first item though concerned Donald Trump and what Evan called an "important" development in the Robert Mueller investigation. His guest - one Angela Bernstein - was even more emphatic, calling it "very, very important". She clearly wasn't a Trump fan. 

The second item was launched by talk of a second referendum, with Evan saying "Let's focus on it". And focus on it PM duly did, with pollster Sir John Curtice, pro-Second People's Vote Remainer MP Justine Greening and Dame Margaret Beckett. Dame Margaret sounded close to endorsing a Second People's Vote too but wouldn't entirely commit herself, provoking Evan to press her and sound somewhat exasperated when she wouldn't clearly, boldly and decisively state her (obvious) view on the matter. 

Then it was onto audiobooks (good or bad?), prompted by the sainted Michelle Obama's new book, with TES editor/Radio 4 Front Row host Stig Abell and  feminist publisher Carmen Callil of Virago Press presenting both sides of the argument, and our Evan not sounding like an audiobooks fan.

And then poor Evan got Trollope and Tolstoy confused and had to excuse himself. (I kiddeth thou not).

Then Evan announced that is was important to register the moment that a second MP announced that he has AIDS. 

And the much-reported Syrian refugee bullying school story came next, with 'the bystander question' being discussed with a Canadian psychologist Linda Papadopoulos.

And, leaping one item, the programme ended with a United Nations-related celebration of reggae with a guest who called it "a music of resistance".

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The surprise item here for me was the latest instalment of Mark Mardell's Brexit: A Love Story? 

I thought that had finished. And it used to be on The World at One.

But, no, here was Mark Mardell back again, with the Simon Bates 'Our Tune' theme tune, and - apparently - the second episode of the second series, with more episodes to come. (Be still my beating heart!)

I noted down the contributors as I listened tonight and found that Mark had talked to:

(1) Former Mrs May advisor (and declared Remain voter) Katie Perrior.
(2) Former David Cameron communications director (pro-Remain) Sir Craig (no relation) Oliver.
(3) Former senior minister under Mrs May (and declared Remain voter), Damian Green.
(4) Former Lib Dem coalition minister (and declared Remain voter) David Laws.
(5) Pro-Brexit MP Stewart Jackson (described by Mark as being an "ardent pro-Brexit MP").
(6) Former (tricky to place) Mrs May advisor Chris Brannigan.
(7) Former (strongly pro-EU, pro-People's Vote) mandarin Lord Kerr.
(8) Former George Osborne advisor (anti-Brexit, pro-People's Vote) James Chapman, and
(9) (Anti-Brexit, pro-People's Vote) Conservative MP Heidi Allen. 

The labelling (or lack of labelling) by Mark was striking here.

I've tried to label the nine contributors mentioned as accurately and fairly as I can - via lots of listening to what they said and even more Googling about what they've previously said. But Mark Mardell didn't provide any background, Brexit-opinion-wise, on seven of them.

Heidi Allen was one exception. Mark said she'd "campaigned hard for Remain" but simply let her speak.

The other exception - the ninth was Stewart Jackson MP.

As cited above, his first contribution saw Mark describe him as an "ardent pro-Brexit MP". His second contribution saw Mark call him a "pro-Brexit MP".

I know we're getting somewhat into heavy detail here, but heavy detail counts. And Mark Mardell's 'bias by labelling' here is absolutely textbook.

More importantly, however, was Mark's narrative, and this, in large part, amounted to how Mrs May's advisors, Fiona Hill and (strongly pro-Brexit) Nick Timothy, gave uninspirational Mrs May confidence. And how, as a result, she "gave in to a hardline vision".

(Seriously Mark Mardell of the BBC? Mrs May giving in to a hardline pro-Brexit vision? What are you smoking, or drinking, Mark?)

They refused to talk to Mark Mardell - as Mark kept grumpily repeating. And they were the main 'baddies' here.

So: 9 contributors: 7 Remainers. 1 Leaver. One hard to place. And Mark Mardell.

And don't forget the 'bias by labelling' either.

Please note my list above and listen to it for yourselves. Stewart Jackson was the only obvious pro-Brexit voice here among a sea of Brexit doubters, and enemies, and Mark. Mardell.

And this whole PM was very BBC.

Love?

As you may have noticed, there's been a bit of news day. And it's still going on.

Meanwhile, taking a longer view, and working over months rather than minutes, David and Andrew at News-watch have been very busy surveying another BBC series about Brexit - namely Mark Mardell's  Radio 4 Brexit: A Love Story.

We dipped into it (posting about three of its episodes) and found it severely wanting impartiality-wise. But David and Andrew have gone beyond mere dipping and have devoutly drenched themselves in the entirety of the thing.

Please read their resultant full 143-page report here.

The stats speak again. This was a series that, statistically-speaking, was sharply biased against pro-Brexit points of view. And the word count has shown what a simple count of the allegiances of the contributors could only hint at:

Although there was only a slight numeric advantage in favour of ‘pro’ EU/EEC contributors, those speakers delivered 64 per cent (13,392) of the words spoken, against 28 per cent (6,009 words) from the ‘antis’, a ratio of 9:4. In addition, of the top 10 contributors by running length, eight were ‘pros’ and only two were ‘anti’. Strong Europhiles such as Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Sir Stephen Wall had much more space to advance their ‘pro’ opinions than those who were negative about ‘Europe’. 

And that's only for starters: Only six speakers of the 121 contributors who appeared in the series as a whole "made what could be called substantive points against the EU".

The whole series struck me as being a 'masterclass' from the mighty Mark Mardell in how to appear to be impartial whilst being anything but.

It may therefore, perhaps, be taken as a template for BBC reporting as a whole on certain subjects. 

Pole position

I've finally caught up with an episode of Mark Mardell's Brexit: A Love Story? that I'd missed. 

It concerned the Blair government's opening of the doors to mass immigration from Eastern Europe in the the first decade of the present century. Did that push the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum?

The feature was dominated by the views of three 'talking heads' - all remarkably like-minded, except for disagreeing over who was to blame for so massively underestimating the numbers. Two were members of that government - Tony Blair himself and David Blunkett - and other was the professor behind that infamous report predicting just 13,000 migrants, Christian Dustmann. Prof. Dustmann blamed the politicians, and the politicians blamed Prof. Dustmann!

Other than that, however, all three were united in their support for mass immigration and that wave of mass immigration in particular. Even if Tony Blair said he might have done things a little differently in hindsight, they all thought it had, nevertheless, been a very good thing for the country. 

And, Mark argued, even if you don't approve of it, that wave of Eastern European migration wasn't the EU's fault. The UK government chose not to put in place an EU-sanctioned 7 year moratorium - unlike nearly every other EU country.   

And then, finally, Mark Mardell advanced the argument that, regardless, this open door to Eastern Europe didn't play a significant part in the EU referendum result and that it was a later wave of mass migration instead - the migrant crisis that brought so many to the shores of Europe from the Middle East and Africa -  that actually played a part in the referendum outcome. 

I'd have preferred a much greater range of opinions from the 'talking heads' here and far less of Mark Mardell's agenda-pushing. But that's probably too much to ask.

Mark Mardell gets his facts wrong (again)

The (2008) crash brought down banks but did so much more. It added fat to the fire, poured petrol on the glowing embers of resentment - resentment of conventional politics and of politicians who couldn't get a handle on the crisis, who were too busy trying to deal with it to reflect the rage and resentment which bubbled up seeking an outlet. The time seemed ripe for UKIP. (Mark Mardell, The World at One, 25/8)

The penultimate episode of Mark Mardell's epic Brexit: A Love Story? was broadcast on yesterday's The World at One. His odyssey had finally reached Nigel Farage.  

As we discussed on the Open Thread, the item was heavy on Nick Clegg, treating him almost like the oracle, and (as MB put it) Mark Mardell "felt free (by none too subtle use of allegory) to accuse a mainstream party - UKIP - of being aggressive, violent and criminal in intent". 

It also included a clip of David Dimbleby presenting the 2014 local and European elections and saying, "And, of course, the party with most to talk about and the biggest mouth in politics at the moment, Nigel Farage's UKIP". The drawling derision with which he pronounced "...the biggest mouth in politics..." was quite something. Has he even talked about another UK party leader like that before (or after)?

Plus there was also a glaring factual error from Mark Mardell too when he said:

Douglas Carswell's defection and by-election victory gave UKIP their first ever MP.

That was actually Bob Spink who defected from the Conservatives to UKIP in 2008.

As MB put it, "that's a pretty gross error for someone whose job it is to follow all things political and parliamentary, and who no doubt as researchers to hand, free to use as far as he is concerned...and then the producer presumably read the script".

What's the betting though that Brexit: A Love Story? eventually wins Mark Mardell an award of some kind?

In which Mark Mardell goes after the anti-EU press

If you're a regular listener to The World at One you will know that Mark Mardell has a thing about Brexit. He loves it - every twist and turn of the process, warts and all.
                         Sarah Montague, The World at One, 24 May 2018

The latest edition of Mark Mardell's Radio 4 series Brexit: A Love Story? was remarkably biased, even by the standards of Radio 4. 

(H/t tip Monkey Brains)

It looked at the influence of the press on public attitudes to the EU and only focused on the right-wing press that published critical stories about the EU: The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail.  (It didn't consider the role of pro-EU newspapers like the FT or The Guardian.)

It featured four pro-EU 'talking heads':

• Ken Clarke
• Sir Max Hastings
• Jeff Meade
• Jacki Davis

and only one Leave supporter:

• Kelvin MacKenzie

(and didn't he quickly express buyer's remorse?)

All four of the pro-EU 'talking heads' were critical of the right-wing, anti-EU press, helping build a strongly-directed narrative - that the right-wing, anti-EU press, with their exaggerated or made-up stories, filled the nation with a relentless diet of anti-EU stories and, thus, soured our love affair with the EU.

And who was 'in the dock'? Paul Dacre, Rupert Murdoch and, above all, Boris Johnson. 

It's quite extraordinary that no alarm bells rang at Radio 4 over its long section on Boris Johnson. To have all four pro-EU 'talking heads' criticising him or (at best) damning him with faint praise and to have no supportive voice defending him is surely indefensible. In fact, the whole thing came across as a sly hatchet job.

And what sort of 'balance' did Kelvin MacKenzie provide? Well none really, given that KM exuberantly painted a picture of his former newspaper The Sun which portrayed its EU coverage as playing it for laughs - i.e. of consisting of "fun" stories which played fast-and-loose with the facts in the interests of entertaining Sun readers. Mark Mardell himself could hardly have scripted more 'helpful' remarks. 

This was all appallingly biased. Twitter was ablaze with enthusiastic comments from pro-EU listeners recommending it to each other. If Radio 4 can't see that then there's something very wrong with their bias filters. 

I'm assuming a later episode of Brexit: A Love Story? won't be considering the BBC's role in advancing the EU's cause over the past few decades. If such a programme was ever made and a similar approach to balance was taken but in the opposite direction (yes, I know we're entering the realms of fantasy here) then the equivalent 'talking heads' to achieve the same level of bias in the other direction might be, say, having John Redwood instead of Ken Clarke, Peter Oborne instead of Sir Max Hastings, and Michael Gove and Sarah Vine in place of Jeff Meade and Jacki Davis. Imagine the uproar! (It will never happen so imagining it is all we'll ever be able to do). Who would be that imaginary report's Kelvin MacKenzie though? One things clear though: It certainly couldn't have Mark Mardell as its presenter.