Is the c-word highly controversial?

Costing some £5 million, the BBC's highly controversial News at Ten/News at Six studio revamp, aimed at attracting a younger audience, was the main topic on this week's Newswatch as viewers objected to the cost of it - especially as it was carried out at the same time as the BBC has been pleading poverty and making cuts.

By describing it as 'highly controversial' there, I was of course trying to make it look bad.

As regulars will know, I've long had a bee in my bonnet about the BBC's used of the c-word. 

Now, sometimes 'controversial' can be used to describe something that is indeed 'controversial' - i.e. with an air of objectivity - but it can also be used as a negative label to predispose an audience against something or someone - i.e. in a biased fashion.

This week, the man on the new highly controversial BBC curved catwalk himself, Huw Edwards, presented Wednesday's News at Ten and read out a bit about the government's Rwanda plan, saying that “the UK Government says it remains committed to its highly controversial plan of taking some migrants to Rwanda”. 

So not even merely 'controversial' but “highly controversial”. 

If he had said 'the UK Government says it remains committed to its plan of taking some migrants to Rwanda', would that have less impactful? 

It would certainly have told us the news, shorn of any suspicion that “highly controversial” was being used there to convey a partial point of view, that the Rwanda plan is a bad thing.

At least the BBC are consistent. Using TVEyes to look back to the News at Ten on the day the Rwanda deal was announced in April [the 14th], the newsreader that day - I'm assuming Huw - described it as “a highly controversial change to UK immigration policy”.

Am I right to have such a long-lived bee in my bonnet about this? Is it the BBC casting the Rwanda plan in a bad light through its use of a negative term?

Huw Edwards has never felt he belonged in England

I’ve enough fight in me to work till my eighties, says Huw Edwards runs a scaremongering headline in today's Sunday Times.

While Huw's tucking into his Welsh rarebit this morning I hope he doesn't read the comments.

It's interesting just how unappreciative most of them are about the great BBC man and his autocue reading abilities. 

That sense some have that he's rather 'chippy' won't have been dispelled by this bit either:

Edwards, a fluent Welsh-speaker, has signalled that he wants to make more programmes in Wales. He says that as a Welshman he has never felt he belonged in England.

Charming! 

Huw sounds off again and the BBC might speak to him about it

As Charlie notes on the open thread, Huw Edwards:

...is to be spoken to by the BBC after tweeting that he felt uncomfortable about a portrait of a Waterloo 'hero' being taken down by an art gallery. 

Charlie rightly suspects that Huw won't be quivering in his boots. 

He's no more likely than Emily Maitlis to face any real consequences, and is just as gung-ho about receiving criticism from his BBC bosses as she is.

The overly-opinionated News at Ten presenter had tweeted:

As a journalist I feel uneasy about this element of 'censoring' history. Should not Picton remain on display as a reminder to Wales of an aspect of its past - no matter how disgraceful?

He then argued with various critics on Twitter about it, 'doubling down' on his point of view. 

Very Huw.

Here a couple more tweets on the matter:

Save Our Statues: Huw Edwards's tweet was definitely not impartial - it was actually in line with most decolonisers, preferring to brand British history as "disgraceful" rather than remove it. Yet apparently even that position is too weak for the Maoist BBC.  

Stephen Phillips: It is madness that Huw Edwards  is being censured by the BBC for speaking against the woke madness infiltrating our institutions. Historical revisionism has no place in a civilised society. Nadine Dorries must act to protect our heritage from these idiots.

In which I get out of bed and take offence at Huw Edwards

78 year-old physicist Sir Michael Pepper has incurred the wrath of grumpy BBC newsreader Huw Edwards. Paying tribute, via The Times, to his late colleague Sir John Meurig Thomas, Sir Michael wrote the following: 

The ostentatiously Welsh Huw got out of bed this morning, on the wrong side no doubt, and tweeted: 

I don't think Sir Michael Pepper meant that Sir John Meurig Thomas used Welsh in his daily life "simply" to thwart others. (That's fake news, and from a BBC newsreader!). 

And I'd say that if Sir John did what Sir Michael described regularly it shouldn't be held as a slur on the Welsh nation for him to "simply" recount that that's exactly what Sir John did or to say why he did it. 

Of course though, silly me, taking offence doesn't need adequate reasons these days, especially on Twitter. It's enough just to take it, send out a snippy tweet and bask in the 'likes' from people with Welsh flags in their Twitter bios. 

What a world!

Pouring oil on the flames

Three CNN journalists - a reporter, a producer and a cameraman - were arrested yesterday while broadcasting live. Another CNN reporter reporting nearby wasn't. 

As CNN covered it live and reacting live they began speculating about a racist motive. The reporter who wasn't arrested is white, they said; the reporter who was arrested is "not white", they said. Soon they were tweeting along the same lines:

I don't quite swallow this whole though because I've watched the original clip in full and seen that both the arrested producer and the arrested cameraman are also white - something which, at the very least, surely complicates the insinuation of racism on the arresting officers' part.

CNN reporter

CNN producer

CNN cameraman

Other journalists added their 'likes' to this race-based take:

Is this an example then of a major broadcast media outfit unnecessarily racialising a story and other media outlets then falling in with their contentious - and possibly inflammatory - angle?

trading as WDR

There's lots of fascinating stuff (as ever) at Bill Roger's trading as WDR blog. 

As Charlie pointed out on the open thread, Bill has caught Lord Hall in the act of spinning the ratings for BBC Sounds. By Bill's calculations, the BBC's justification for launching the service - that it would increase the number of listeners aged 16-34  - hasn't been realised. The figures have barely budged.

Another post tells us that the BBC's preferred supplier for booze is Majestic and that over the past twelve months the BBC has bought close to £25k from them. By my own calculation, the amount they spent rose by 22.6%. Wonder if, post-election, post-Brexit, this year will see a sharp drop in fizz? 😜

Meanwhile, BBC Editorial Director Kamal Ahmed is focusing on what Bill calls a "woke wheeze" called "Growing up, Learning and Identity". Ah, an even greater focus on identity politics from the BBC? How delightful!

And there's something too about our old friend 'Opinionated' Huw Edwards:

The BBC's lead anchorman Huw Edwards is back from his social media holiday, and piling in on those who have given Welsh place names new English monikers. 

Huw doesn't approve. 

There's lots more too, including a regal response to an FoI request about the disappearance of the BH piazza Christmas tree. a very W1A BBC job advertisement, and various job moves...

...plus something I meant to mention yesterday. The National Audit Office has found that of the BBC's commercial successes, only four of its forecast top 16 money-spinners date from after 2010 - i.e. the BBC is replying on stale cash cows. Bill adds something that I've not seem reported elsewhere though:

The NAO notes a load of money was lumped on a second series of His Dark Materials, way before the first could be assessed financially.

I do hope Peter Hitchens takes note. He's not keen on the BBC's pushing of Philip Pullman, which gives me a chance to post his take on it from this week's Mail on Sunday:

Flop after Flop, but Pullman's Atheism keeps the dramatisations coming

The atheist author Philip Pullman is, I suspect, more admired and bought than read. When his finger-wagging anti-Christian books are dramatised, on stage or film, they flop. Yet people still keep trying to stage them. Why? My diligent colleague James Heale has obtained for me the viewing figures for the BBC’s recent costly TV version of ‘His Dark Materials’. They started at 7.2 million in Episode 1. Then they fell almost continuously, with one hiccup at Episode 5, to a poor 4.1 million at the end. But how many of them were awake? It was quite boring. A friend who stuck it out to the end confesses that he fell asleep during the final bout.

You many remember Mr Pullman from such foam-flecked tweets as:

Of course Meghan Markle is attacked by the British press because she's black, and of course Prince Harry is right to defend her. What a foul country this is.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) January 9, 2020

😮

Anyhow, if you're not already a fan, please take a look at Bill's very fine blog.

Oh dear, Huw!

Huw Edwards has hit back at BBC bias accusations, but nearly half of Brits (48%) say they don't trust BBC News journalists to tell the truth. This figure was 41% just back in October https://t.co/UVZoNbiOC5 pic.twitter.com/Rx0OxAwPQR

— YouGov (@YouGov) December 16, 2019

Update: Given that the BBC has, over the past couple of years or so, been relying rather too heavily for its defence against its critics by citing a BBC-sponsored Ipsos Mori opinion poll showing public trust for the corporation holding up, this YouGov poll will surely go down very badly with them. 

In fact, I suspect it will be about as welcome as norovirus. 

To the question, 'How much do you trust BBC News journalists to tell the truth?' only 8% said "a great deal". The other options were 'a fair amount', 'not much' and 'not at all'. 

Meanwhile, the BBC's John Simpson has been in action today retweeting ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger saying:

And to all those saying "no-one trusts the BBC" the evidence is not with you. This is a 2017 snapshot, but pretty consistent over the years, and, imho, won't have changed much.

I doubt it will ever have crossed John's mind to think that citing Alan Rusbridger in defence of the BBC is exactly the kind of thing people like us expect of people like him at the BBC!

Huw Edwards comes down from the mountain

For those who haven't read it in full yet, here's Huw Edwards's blogpost at Linkedin in all its glory.

All I'll say about it in advance is:

- that Huw obviously isn't a happy bunny.

- that in Paragraph 1 Huw puts on his tin foil hat and pushes a conspiracy theory that most criticisms of the BBC over bias are part of some malign attempt to "cause chaos and confusion" and "undermine trust in institutions" rather than being manifestations of genuine anger by large numbers of licence-fee-paying (and non-licence-fee-paying) individuals. He sounds slightly hysterical and silly, don't you think?

- that Huw's tone of chippy complacency might not be the best way of winning the argument.

- that Huw seems oblivious to the point that it's actually groupthink arising from the BBC's narrow recruitment processes which is the main problem (similar backgrounds, similar outlooks); indeed, he maintains the remarkable proposition that the BBC consists  "of all backgrounds...and outlooks", which is demonstrably untrue.

- that the 'complaints from both/all sides' argument doesn't hold water, never mind how many times it's repeated by BBC supporters. Some sides may be right, others not. 

- that the BBC's rage against "the social media age" is becoming ever more strident. 

*******

Anyhow, here's Huw himself:

GE19 - from the presenter's chair

This is my 35th year in the BBC. I have covered every general election since 1987 and have presented countless election results programmes since then. But this December 2019 election provided my first overnight stint in the anchor's chair, a stint which includes revealing the result of the Exit Poll at 10pm precisely. There are many millions watching our coverage worldwide and it really is one of those moments when you feel a great sense of responsibility. You are supported by the best news team in the world, and you are expected to deliver a results programme which upholds the BBC's reputation for quality and fairness. But you're doing so in a world where toxic cynicism and accusations of bias (from all sides) are adding to the pressures on the entire team. And you realise yet again that the real purpose of many of the attacks is to undermine trust in institutions which have been sources of stability over many decades. The apparent purpose, in short, is to cause chaos and confusion.

So my first duty is to thank all my BBC News colleagues for their hard work and dedication, resisting the sometimes appalling levels of pressure from political parties and their puppets in parts of the press and elsewhere. Providing a fair and balanced account of a complex election campaign - with feelings running high on all sides - is difficult enough. Trying to do so while dealing with relentlessly vitriolic attacks is doubly challenging. So I want to pay tribute to my colleagues for doing their best every day on behalf of the licence payer.

I should say a few things about notions of 'bias' and the attacks (from both left and right) on journalists who are trying their best to provide a duly impartial service. This clearly does not apply to many of those hacks working in parts of the press and online, where regulation is risibly weak and blatant propaganda can be passed off as 'news'. And while I have the highest regard for parts of our press - which produce some of the best journalism and analysis anywhere in the world - it is still the case that the broadcast media are obliged by law to work to different editorial standards. This stark difference is sadly lost on many of those very clever (and often nameless) people shouting abuse on social media on an hourly basis.

I work in an organisation where thousands of journalists provide material for countless outlets on television, radio, and online (in all its forms). We are all committed to providing a fair service, but we sometimes make mistakes which we deeply regret. The most curious notion of all (promoted with great energy by the BBC's critics on both left and right) is that these mistakes are often 'deliberate', carefully planned to undermine one party and boost another. These critics imagine a world in which thousands of BBC journalists - of all backgrounds, nationalities, outlooks - work to a specific political agenda 'dictated' by 'a few powerful individuals' as one commentator insisted recently on social media. In the last week of the campaign, I was simultaneously accused (yeah, by The Sun) of being a Labour supporter, and (on Twitter) of deliberately facilitating a Conservative victory. I have been accused of being a Plaid Cymru voter (this is a difficult notion in London, I have to say) and in one spectacular zinger of a letter a few years ago, a 'vile Welsh neo-con'. Whatever.

The BBC is not, to put it politely, run like some newspapers, with an all-powerful proprietor and/or editor making his or her mark on the tone and direction of the coverage. BBC News is a rather unsettling mix of awkward, contrary and assertive people who (in my very long experience) delight in either ignoring the suggestions of managers or simply telling them where to get off. That's how it works. For the record, I have never been asked to change a script (unless there's a factual error to be sorted) or adopt a slanted line of questioning. Yes, I've had some very robust exchanges with editors about the stories we cover and some of the choices we make, but the fact that these conversations take place (in the middle of the newsroom, with dozens of colleagues gleefully earwigging) underlines my case. The BBC can be an infuriating place but it is above all an invigorating and uplifting place in which to work. Any colleague who might try to 'freelance' and promote his or her own political views would also be quickly told where to go. There are just too many stakeholders in the production process for such 'freelancing' to happen or go unnoticed. Our critics - some of them in academic posts where they are presumed to have some expertise in this area - often betray a wholly laughable cluelessness about the ways and culture of the BBC.

Our specialist editors are in a league of their own: they are employed to analyse and explain. They can be highly critical of what's going on or they can take a more positive view of the success of a particular strategy or individual performance. That's what they're paid to do. They sometimes upset people with their analysis. Hard luck. It's not 'biased' just because you happen not to like it. And here we have the real poison of the social media age: there is a refusal to entertain an alternative point of view; there is a desire to embrace only those sources which confirm your own 'worldview' or 'groupthink'; in short, it's 'biased' if it challenges your own bias. It's unhealthy and profoundly damaging.

So here's hoping for a future in which public debate can be conducted with far more courtesy and tolerance; and a future in which people seek trusted sources of news while discarding the kind of dross that's polluted American political discourse. The BBC is far from perfect, but it can play a very valuable role in promoting the better path.

A yw'r BBC yn rhagfarnllyd?

Here's Huw interacting (in a rather snippy, Simpsonesque fashion) with a far-left historian/journalist:

Huw Edwards: Thanks to all my BBC News colleagues for their hard work — thanks to the many millions worldwide who watched us overnight — and here’s hoping for a future in which public debate can be conducted with far more courtesy and tolerance. Diolch.

Mark Curtis: This doesn't capture it. The BBC played a (predictably) despicable role in the election in order to secure a win for the establishment candidate. It largely whitewashed his lies and public conduct, failing to report numerous of his actual policies, while demonising his opponent.

Huw Edwards: But this really does capture it, Mark. The abusive guff from left and right will no doubt continue. Thousands of BBC News staff of all backgrounds and outlooks working together to secure a result? Grow up. Nadolig Llawen.

Mark Curtis: I know you need to tell yourself and the public this, but people saw for themselves how BBC performed during the election (along with now considerable academic and other analysis). The idea that BBC reporting is generally impartial or accurate is unsutainable, in fact laughable.

Huw Edwards: Explain again, Mark. Slowly. With your ‘academic and other analysis’. How does an organisation direct thousands of its staff to work in unison to back one political cause? I know you need to tell yourself this stuff, but it’s risible.

Mark Curtis: Huw, IMO, there’s no point in arguing with anyone in an institution, since they adopt groupthink, especially one whose DG dismisses criticism as “conspiracy theories”. BBC is in denial but has been exposed. There should be an indpt enquiry to determine whether you or I are right.

Diolch = Thank you

Nadolig Llawen = Merry Christmas

Huw = Hugh

A yw'r BBC yn rhagfarnllyd? = Is the BBC biased?

Sunday Morning Reading IV: Wear It In, Don't Wear It Out

The Mail on Sunday reports that "BBC staff have been told to hide their work ID cards in public to avoid being confronted by angry members of the public. The broadcaster has been running a Wear It In, Don't Wear It Out campaign". The report mentions in passing something that passed me by:

Earlier this week the BBC News at Ten presenter Huw Edwards was accused of bias after liking tweets supporting Labour policies and mocking the Conservatives.

Don't most BBC presenters do that? 😉

Update: As for Huw, it turns out that he 'liked' a Labour Party-supporting video on Twitter and was accused by a Conservative MP of "a lapse" in impartiality. Huw's explanation - see below - was that he thought he was 'liking' a pro-NHS tweet...and hadn't watched the video to its end, where the pro-Labour/anti-Conservative stuff appeared (for which he apologises)! 

Yeah I liked a tweet which seemed to be a celebration of our wonderful @nhs —apologies for not watching right to the end. But apologise for supporting the NHS? Never. EXCLUSIVE — my family owes it a huge debt. https://t.co/mr2xu0y0oc

— Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) December 5, 2019

"You do realise you sound crackers, Peter?"

Peter Oborne appears to have riled Huw Edwards:

Ah right! You get an entire workforce of stroppy @BBCNews journos to follow an order to support X and dump on Y. Easy! You do realise you sound crackers, Peter? 🤷🏻‍♂️ https://t.co/CQikTJrpzv

— Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) November 24, 2019

UPDATE. The Big O responded:

BBC newsreader resorts to cheap insult rather than explain why BBC edited out audience laughing at Boris Johnson when he was questioned on trust. https://t.co/DA45Uz6TyD

— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) November 24, 2019

Is Peter telling porkies?

Peter Oborne, writing an opinion column for the Guardian (and now running a new website called The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Boris Johnson and his government), has gone down a storm today (with the usual types) for saying this:

I have talked to senior BBC executives, and they tell me they personally think it’s wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics. 

Really?

It looks as if the BBC's Rob Burley might want to set up his own new website called The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Peter Oborne in response, given that Rob has tweeted this today: 

Just because you read something in an opinion column doesn’t mean it’s true. Often quite the opposite.

It may have riled Rob in particular because The Big O 'named and shamed' his main man, Andrew Marr:

Recently the hugely experienced broadcaster Andrew Marr allowed Johnson to go unchallenged in saying the Tories “don’t do deals with other political parties”. What about the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010? Or the £1bn “confidence and supply” deal struck with the Democratic Unionist party just two years ago? Marr let Johnson get away with it. So do many others. 

Meanwhile, here comes Huw Edwards:

I have great admiration for Peter, but he should name these ‘senior BBC executives’. I have never come across any such suggestion in my 35 years here. As for ‘undermining trust’...

So who to believe?

...from both sides (zzzz)

If you watched the BBC News Channel yesterday afternoon you'll know that the BBC, as well as covering events in the House of Commons, repeatedly reported on the anti-Brexit protests in London, at times using a split-screen effect to show live footage of the protests as events unfolded in Parliament or the BBC studio. I did think for a few seconds that even the wildest #FBPE types would be pretty happy with the BBC's coverage but - with reality quickly kicking in - I know them too well for that:

Michael #FBPE (V): Dear BBC News. It seems to me that your continuing insistence that we gauge the mood of the nation on Brexit by talking to a few angry men outside a Wetherspoons isn't balanced. A million protestors deserves more coverage and should help divest you of ongoing pro-Brexit bias.

Oh Michael, little did you really that you would rouse a mighty BBC dragon from its heavy slumbers (to the music of Act II of Wagner's Siegfried).:

Huw Edwards, BBC: I’m sick of the toxicity on both sides. It seems to me that you should actually watch our coverage. I continually drew attention to this People's Vote March on air yesterday over several hours. Our BBC News coverage watched by big audiences. 

To be fair to Huw, he certainly did continually drew attention to this People's Vote March on air yesterday over several hours.

Anti-Plantagenet bias from Huw Edwards

the old church at Llanfrothen

Fresh from making his views clear on the name of the Welsh assembly (he favours the Welsh-only rather than the bilingual option), the BBC's Huw Edwards is now leading a campaign -  Exploring Sacred Wales - to link 500 Welsh churches and chapels with a single 440-mile route. 

He's doing so in his role as vice-president of the National Churches Trust (NCT). 

It sounds like a fine project and I wish it success. 

Here's Huw's reasoning:

In Wales today, those tokens of Plantagenet savagery, the medieval castles, are cared for with a vigilance approaching the fetishistic. We willingly revere these symbols of our oppression.  

In this same Wales, those heroic symbols of our nonconformist freedom, the chapels, are neglected, disdained and spurned. They lie rotting and decomposed in town centres, casually vandalised. They are invisible and irrelevant. They seldom pierce the people’s awareness, but when they do, they provoke repugnance and scorn. 

It really is no exaggeration to say that the spirit of the chapels shaped modern Wales. But modern Wales doesn’t want to know.

Time for an R.S. Thomas poem then:

The Chapel

A little aside from the main road,
becalmed in a last-century greyness,
there is the chapel, ugly, without the appeal
to the tourist to stop his car
and visit it. The traffic goes by,
and the river goes by, and quick shadows
of clouds, too, and the chapel settles
a little deeper into the grass.

But here once on an evening like this,
in the darkness that was about
his hearers, a preacher caught fire
and burned steadily before them
with a strange light, so that they saw
the splendour of the barren mountains
about them and sang their amens
fiercely, narrow but saved

in a way that men are not now.

Huw know who

Huw standing out

The press review on this morning's Andrew Marr programme discussed an Observer report on the ongoing controversy in Wales over what to call the Welsh assembly. 

Those inclined to the nationalist side of the debate favour using only the Welsh word 'Senedd' - pronounced 'Seneth', as the Plaid Cymru leader told Andrew Marr this morning after he'd pronounced it phonetically - while those of the other persuasion prefer the bilingual option of 'Senedd/Welsh Parliament' (a position being campaigned for by former Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones). 

Andrew pointed out the photo of his BBC colleague Huw Edwards towering over the article but didn't explain why Huw was looming over it. So I checked the Observer piece for myself, and it turns out that Huw Edwards has been channelling his inner Naga and giving his view on the matter:

“I’m not in a position to comment on the politics of this, but I can certainly say I’m rather puzzled by the proposal. Senedd is now widely established and understood as the name of the democratically elected body in Cardiff Bay. Senedd has strong historical resonance as the word for the representative body assembled in 1404 by Owain Glyndŵrr, the last native prince of Wales. 

“It is not a complex word. There’s none of the usual guff about being ‘difficult to pronounce’ [Craig - try telling that to Andrew Marr!] , which is always an excuse not to use Welsh in some quarters. It is a Welsh word for the principal democratic body in Wales. What exactly is the problem?”

Post-Naga, I'm sure Huw has nothing to worry about. I'm quite sure he won't get into trouble over this.

Pitch perfect

Here’s a much more fact-packed account of the subject of my previous post, including Huw Edwards’s intro, which I had missed.

The thing that struck me was, well, it looks as if Huw knew that the shortages and deprivations inflicted on Gaza's civilians were due to internal political feuds and enmities, but he threw in “years of an Israeli blockade” for good measure. Why? Because he could. Lazy and biased.

Nearly all BBC broadcasting is fundamentally pitched from an identifiable position. Andrew Marr’s line of questioning is clearly constructed from the Remain perspective. All Middle East reporting is as seen from ‘one side of the fence’. All religion-related items are from an anti-Christian and pro-Islam base. (As illustrated in today’s The Big Questions) If not explicitly pro-Islam, the more contentious elements of the ideology are invariably ‘let off the hook’

Here’s one of my favourite people; I don’t know if it’s still legal to call yourself ‘Fats’ these days, but this particular 'Fats' shows you don’t have to be skinny or young to be beautiful. 

This should be the Brexit song. There are better sound recordings available, but the pure visual joy in this performance cheers me up. My quibble is with the subtitles. Why write “strolling” when the lyric is clearly ‘rolling’? The word is vital to understanding the strange title of the song.

I love the musicality of the first legato “cra-a-a-a-y” followed by the jaunty, almost triumphant staccato of the second “cra-ha-ha-ha-hy”. That’s our message the EU when and if we ever finally actually exit.

Oh, and I much prefer the new set of The Big Questions. No more green and orange quilting, which was obviously designed to make your eyes bleed, as Claudia Winkleman might say.

Huw's at Ten

On last night's BBC News at Ten, Huw Edwards could have introduced the Brexit segment like this:

The House of Commons has started to take a detailed look at the legislation designed to take Britain out of the European Union. The EU Withdrawal Bill will end the primacy of European law, but MPs have tabled some 500 amendments, including one which opposes setting a date in law for Britain's departure.

Instead he introduced it like this:

The House of Commons has started to take a detailed look at the controversial legislation designed to take Britain out of the European Union. The EU Withdrawal Bill will end the primacy of European law, but MPs have tabled some 500 amendments, including one which opposes setting a date in law for Britain's departure.

Lord Prescott v Huw Edwards

Following Eddie Mair's interview with Boris Johnson on Wednesday's PM this exchange ensued on Twitter:

Incidentally, Wednesday night's Newsnight also covered it with Evan Davis playing a clip and saying:

Now that point was forcefully made to the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson this afternoon, when he was interviewed by Eddie Mair on Radio 4's PM programme. Mr Johnson tried to rebut it, but it didn't go well.

"Well Huw, it's certainly a provocative step"

On last night's BBC News at Ten on BBC One, Huw Edwards wore a serious look on his face around the 24 minute mark as he began introducing the next story. His eyebrows began arching and a surprised tone soon entered his voice (at the words "or even classed as inadequate"): 

Now, schools in England have been warned that they could be marked down by inspectors or even classed as inadequate if it's judged that face veils worn by teachers or pupils hinder the learning process. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, says he's concerned that some headteachers are coming under pressure to relax the rules on wearing the nijab. Let's talk to our Education Editor, Branwen Jeffreys, who's with me. Branwen, why has Sir Michael decided to toughen his approach in this way?

If you felt that Huw was expressing, on the BBC's behalf, a measure of disapproval for Sir Michael's warnings there, with those arched eyebrows and incredulous vocal inflections, then BBC Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys pretty much removed all doubt by her immediate reply to his question about Sir Michael's 'toughened' approach:

Well Huw, it's certainly a provocative step. 

Yes, Sir Michael appears to have gone beyond 'controversial' for the BBC here to something even worse: "provocative".

Well, that's her opinion! (not that she's supposed to have one, what with being a BBC reporter 'n' all).

She continued:

Ofsted said it's taking it because schools have come under pressure to change their uniform policies. Every school in England can decide what its pupils should wear and many that have a majority or many Muslim pupils allow girls to cover their hair with a hijab but don't allow a niqab - the face covering Sir Michael is objecting too. He says he wants to take a stand against' the inappropriate use of the veil', as he describes it. He says it can in some circumstances get in the way of teaching and learning. But Muslim organisations have already said that he's resorting to...'the politics of fear' was one expression used, And, more strikingly, all the teaching unions are united in their opposition to this. They've described it as an 'extreme and unhelpful move' and said that it could alienate some pupils and parents, and they're asking, 'Where is the evidence that Ofsted has that this can really get in the way of learning?'

And that was that.

She also went onto Twitter to post three tweets on the subject - two from the 'anti-Sir Michael' side, none from the 'pro-Sir Michael'-side:

Branwen's blog pursues many of the same paths. 

She writes that Sir Michael "is massively raising the stakes", though she re-casts her own provocative assertion that his move is "provocative" by writing that other people will see it as provocative ("It...will also be seen as provocative") - thus distancing herself somewhat from her earlier bold assertion.

Her closing section plays down the scale of the problem in its first two paragraphs, before raising a metaphorical eyebrow at the same thing that seemed to 'surprise' Huw Edwards. Only in the final sentence does she 'balance' things with a nod towards the other side of the argument:

Only a handful of state funded schools are thought to allow the wearing of the niqab, mainly in their sixth form.
There is no current evidence of it impeding the pupils in achieving excellence.
For a school to be rated as failing purely on the grounds of the niqab being allowed seems for the moment improbable.
But any head teacher wanting to maintain a very inclusive uniform policy will now be able to point to Ofsted and the Department for Education in backing up their policy.

I'm not sure that any of this - whether on TV, on Twitter or on the BBC website - can truly be said to be 'impartial BBC broadcasting'.

"Is it your party's role really to stoke up fears?"

Posting YouTube videos about BBC bias can your point across to many people but I have to say that it's rare to spot one that's actually convincing. And, as far as I can see, the medium seems to be dominated by anti-Israel activists, Scots Nats and UKIP supporters (rather like Twitter).

There was one I spotted the other day that seemed to prove its point. I've hesitated to bring it you though, simply because of its editing, but I'll now let you judge for yourselves.

It uploads parts of an interview with three Welsh politicians (Plaid's Leanne Wood, the Lib Dems' Kirsty Williams and UKIP's Sam Gould), conducted by Huw Edwards, but instead of uploading the whole interview, it cuts out parts of it in order to cut to the chase. I don't doubt that the editing gives the post more punch, but I'd still like to see the whole first part of that interview (to see it in context).

The point being made by the video is that it demonstrates Huw Edwards's anti-UKIP bias, and it does so by showing contrasting the BBC presenter's opening questions to his three guests - the last of which appears somewhat less friendly, does it not?:

To Plaid's Leanne Wood: Leanne, am I right in saying you really are firing your guns at Labour? You're ignoring everybody else? Is that right?

To the Lib Dems' Kirsty Williams: Kirsty, for you. We reported from Scotland last week and the Lib Dems there, they were very open in saying to us, you know, 'We've got a bit of a fight on our hands here. Clearly the SNP are in a strong position. So to keep the number of seats we've got is going to be a big battle.' It's the same story in Wales, is that right?

To UKIP's Sam Gould: What's your message, Sam? When we looked over we spoke to some young footballers there in Ynys Mon. Lots of them were saying they were normal Labour supporters, they were very strong on their Labour traditions, but they said that they were bothered, in some cases, by levels of immigration, some of them in other policy areas. Is it your party's role really to stoke up fears? Is that what you're about? Or what is it about?