Unimpeachable

Here's another factoid about this morning's The Andrew Marr Show: The Arron Banks interview in the middle of the programme lasted 15m 37s while the interview with government minister James Brokenshire at the end of the programme lasted 7m 01s - i.e. less than half the time. 

Poor Mr Brokenshire!

And to add insult to injury, Andrew did that thing BBC interviewers keep doing - making sure they get the last word:

AM: A bit of a row at the moment between the BBC and the government over Budget coverage. Can I ask you directly: In terms of the poorest people in the country, the bottom 10%, and the richest people in the country, the top 10%, who is getting the most cash benefit from the Budget?
JB: Well, proportionately those...
AM: (interrupting) Cash benefit?
JB: ...proportionately those on the lower end have actually gained the most from this Budget in terms of lowering thresholds over taxation but also...
AM: (interrupting) And in cash terms?
JB: ...increasing the actual numbers that are there in terms of, for example, the national living wag. So the benefit proportionately is very firmly there.
AM: Proportionately. But in cash terms?
JB: I don't think you actually measure this in cash terms...
AM: (interrupting) Well, the IFS has. The IFS, unimpeachable, not a left-wing source or anything like that, says "Our estimate is that the poorest 10% of people gained £50 per annum from this Budget while the richest 10% gained £280 from the Budget. So in cash terms, the richest 10% do get more than the poorest 10%.
JB: But that's why...
AM: (interrupting) By quite a large margin.
JB: That's why I come back to the point about proportion, the different proportions in terms of where you start off, and, therefore, the benefit and impact of what people receive, which is why I do make the point as to how this was a Budget for those on low incomes, the benefit that will provide and, actually, the real support through taxation, through the national living wage and, therefore, this very firmly being a Budget for those on low incomes.
AM: The British people are less concerned with proportions than cash I suspect James Brokenshire. But thank you very much indeed for talking to us. 

Incidentally, following on from yesterday's post quoting Charles Moore slamming the BBC for treating the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) as if it was wholly free from bias and "the court of final appeal as to whether this is a good or bad Budget", did you spot Andrew Marr there calling the IFS "unimpeachable"?

For IFS's Sake

I agree with Charles Moore:

All through Tuesday, the BBC led with the news that the Institute for Fiscal Studies — ‘expert’, ‘independent’, ‘respected’ etc etc — thought Philip Hammond’s Budget was ‘a bit of a gamble’. One has nothing much against the IFS, but why is this news? Why is it not treated the same way as the Institute of Economic Affairs on the free-market right or of the Institute for Public Policy Research on the Blairite left — as a body whose views are probably worth hearing, but only as one among many? Behind the IFS’s exaggerated prominence is a false idea that it is objective and the others are biased. They are all biased — or rather, coming from a particular political point of view — and there is nothing wrong with that, so long as it is stated. The IFS is a centrist, anti-Brexit outfit of the usual Whitehall-ish goody-goodies. It is not the court of final appeal as to whether this is a good or bad Budget.

He's not wrong about the BBC leading with the news all day. Here's how BBC One's three main news bulletins began on Tuesday:

BBC News at One: The big winner of the budget is the NHS - says a leading think tank - but warns yesterday's budget may be a bit of a gamble with the public finances. The Insitute for Fiscal Studies also says that more than 2 million families on Universal credit - the new flagship benefit - will be hundreds of pounds better off a year but some public services will continue feeling the squeeze.  

BBC News at Six: The Chancellor is accused of taking a gamble with his Budget despite an uncertain economic future. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests Philip Hammond may have to increase borrowing and says many public services haven't benefited. 

BBC News at Ten: Tonight at Ten, the Budget was a gamble with the public finances - the independent verdict of a leading research organisation. 

Brexit dividend

Jonathan Blake

Wonder if Lord Adonis and Alastair Campbell will be retweeting Guido Fawkes today?  The latter writes, "Have to say the Number 10 press team have played a blinder this morning. First they got Marr to agree to an easy pre-record interview rather than a live. Then they got the BBC to lead all morning on the Brexit dividend rather than the fact that the money is actually coming from tax rises".

Is it fair to say that the BBC has acted as Mrs May's lapdog over this? Well, here's an example of how they've been reporting it - a BBC-on-BBC interview on Breakfast: 

Sally Nugent: We're joined now by our political correspondent Jonathan Blake. Jonathan, so we're hearing about this kind of...it's being framed as money as a result of Brexit, but it's really not as straightforward as that, is it?
Jonathan Blake: No. Things in politics are rarely as simple as the politicians might like to point out. And when the Prime Minister talks about the Brexit dividend, that is something which a lot of people argue doesn't really exist. The UK will stop paying into the EU budget after we leave the EU, but that money may well be accounted for elsewhere if the government wants to keep funding sectors such as agriculture which get funding back from the EU as a result. There is also the rebate that the UK gets back every year as well from its contributions. And the government's own spending watchdog, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, has said that tax revenues will fall overall as a result of Brexit. The government has accepted that so we'll have less money to spend in general. Nevertheless, that's the detail. It's the message that matters for the government and for the Prime Minister to come out and clearly link the money she apparently thinks the UK will save as a result of leaving the EU to NHS funding is a very powerful thing for her to be able to do. It will please a lot of Brexiteers within her own party and beyond. It's not quite as much as many NHS leaders and campaigners had wanted.  And, as you heard just there, Labour are saying that the government has left the NHS in crisis and it will cost billions to recoup the amount they will have to borrow as a result of spending cuts. And even if we take into account the so-called Brexit dividend, the Prime Minister writing in the Mail on Sunday this morning, saying that alone will not be enough and we as a country will have to contribute a bit more. To translate that Prime Ministerial-speak for you: Taxes will have to go up to pay for this. 

Even Lord Adonis and Alastair Campbell would surely struggle to pretend that that was pro-government, pro-Brexit BBC reporting!

Incidentally, more than one person hereabouts said that the BBC News website completely ignored the the PM's "Brexit dividend" claim last night. Checking Newsniffer, the first version of the BBC's main online report on the story was published at 22:40 and, indeed, didn't mention the "Brexit dividend". It was only at 23:55 that the phrase began appearing in the online report. (Thereafter it's been all over the BBC of course). Checking TV Eyes to see if the TV coverage was any quicker it turns out that Hugh Pym did use it at 22:18 on BBC One's main news bulletin. Make of that what you will!

Is the IFS biased?

Here's something I thought you might enjoy from Charles Moore's latest Spectator's Notes:

Saturday’s Guardian carried a long interview with Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He came across as a well-informed, public-spirited man. He did not come across as impartial. He seemed a typical social democrat. He thinks more public spending is better than less, doesn’t like first-past-the-post politics because it weakens the middle ground, and wants tax penalties for second homes. Above all, he is anti-Brexit: ‘The economics are obvious. If you make trade with your richest trading partner more expensive, you will make yourself worse off.’ He says there is no economic case for Brexit, just a ‘controlling-immigration case’ (no mention of the key sovereignty/democracy case). Mr Johnson is entitled to all these opinions, but he and his IFS are given lots of BBC airtime as unbiased experts. Yet they are just as viewy as the IEA or the Centre for Policy Studies. The difference is a) that they don’t declare it and b) that their ‘objective’ beliefs chime with those of the BBC. To think that the case for Remain is an objective one and the case for Leave isn’t is the most out-and-out Remainer view of them all. Neither case is objective, nor should it be. On its website, the IFS describes itself as having, during the referendum, provided ‘a vital impartial voice in the debate’. It is bad for our public culture that such flat untruths can be smugly asserted by people earning their livings as ‘experts’.

Clear enough guidance

If - like Theresa May - you say that UK-born workers sometimes find themselves out of work because of low-skilled immigration, then the BBC's Reality Check has a simple message for you: You're wrong.  

Except during an economic downturn, "non-UK workers have no effect on the employment of UK-born workers", the BBC tells you (using Paul Johnson of the IFS's findings on the matter as the gospel truth).

So that's you told! The BBC has spoken. 

(John Simpson would be so proud of them). 

Lies, damned lies and the BBC

This week's Feedback featured an interview with Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, one of the four panellists on the BBC Trust's latest impartiality review - one looking at the corporation's use of statistics (and, largely, giving the BBC a clean bill of health). 

When Mr Johnson and Roger Bolton turned to the question of the EU referendum, it wasn't hard to guess where the BBC might take Mr Johnson's call for the BBC to be "braver" in the future: 

Roger Bolton: But you go further than that. You say 'braver'. It's not a question of just being informed, to explain things. It's being braver. Some people would say that would mean you're going to editorialise. 'Go on, tell us what you really think?', that sort of thing, And that's not  really the BBC's job. [Not that doesn't stop lots of BBC reporters from editorialising anyhow!]

Paul Johnson: Well, you can be brave by saying that something is highly likely to be true, as opposed to not. So if you look back at previous reviews that the BBC Trust have done - e.g. the reporting of climate change - there was a period during which what was reported was, you know, 'On the one hand some scientists think this. On the other hand some scientists think that' [Really? That's not how I remember the BBC behaving. They always seemed to be talking about the '97%' or the 'consensus' in the years before that impartiality review], and the braver thing to have done would have been to say, 'Well look. the vast majority of scientists think this thing, and there are these very tiny minority on the other hand who think the other and, therefore, we're going to say, you know, on the huge balance of probability, one thing is true and not the other'. And, actually, there are quite a lot of things were that is terribly important because simply telling people, 'Somebody says this. Somebody else says that', doesn't help inform.

Roger Bolton: Well, that's just what some people have said. There is...the idea of 'false balance'. But, I mean, it's alright talking about that in theory, and maybe it's OK talking about science, but when you're in the nitty-gritty of politics, such as the referendum campaign, and one side, for example, says...talks about the £350 million that we're going to get back [how typical of Roger Bolton to have chosen that particular stat rather than, say, the Treasury's '£4,300 worse off' claim!] then, you know, the BBC journalists are thinking, 'What do I do here?' Do you think they treated that issue properly?

Paul Johnson: Not in all circumstances, though - let's be blunt - the £350 million number was simply untrue, just straightforwardly untrue.

Roger Bolton: And you would like the BBC journalists to say, 'It's untrue'?

Paul Johnson: And there are...

Roger Bolton (interrupting): Would you like the BBC journalists to say, 'It's untrue'?

Paul Johnson: There are some places where they come very close to doing that, particularly in the 'fact check' part of the website [indeed they do - far too much so for some people], where it comes very close to doing that. More often it refers to the number as being 'disputed' or 'uncertain' [or 'controversial'] or what have you, and I think it should have been clear that this is a number that is not correct.

Roger Bolton: My thanks to Paul Johnson from the Institute of [sic] Fiscal Studies, whose statistics are always reliable.

All of which reminds me of something from an edition of The Andrew Marr Show a couple of weeks ago where former BBC DG Mark Thompson and Coco the Clown made their return after an earlier joint appearance on Eadio 4's The Media Show.

Again, it wasn't hard to figure out which side of the Brexit debate Coco was intended to represent (especially given the previous discussion about experts and people being fed up with them, a la Michael Gove):

Andrew Marr: And, of course, referendums change things completely, because here on the newspaper review, and all the rest, we had to balance Brexit versus non-Brexit in every case. 

Mark Thompson: So referendums present, I think, very difficult, possibly even, under the current rules, insuperable problems for broadcasters. You have imaginary parties. They’re temporary, they’re going to cease... 

Andrew Marr: In and Out, yeah. 

Mark Thompson: In and Out. They’re going to cease to exist the day that the vote happens, and yet you’ve got to treat them as if they are exactly equally balanced in the...in the polls. And in a sense, if...if one side, you know, produces an eminent, you know, economist, the other side produces, you know, Coco the Clown, they’re sort of treated as if they’re somehow equal. So I think there may be a case for looking at the rules for how referenda are...are covered in...in broadcasting.

In other words, Coco the Clown on one side shouldn't be accorded the same respect as the eminent economist on the other - a repeated call which continues to echo the gripes of aggrieved Remain supporters like Timothy Garton Ash, Roy Greenslade, and Feedback listeners who wanted the BBC to rubbish every 'clownish' Leave claim and to treat one side differently from the other if the BBC feels that side was right and the other wrong on any particular point....

....rather as Evan Davis did week in and week out during Newsnight referendum coverage anyhow!! (and it was always the Leave side which got the sharp end of the stick from Evan)...

...and just as Paul Johnson was calling for on Feedback.

If such people ever get their second referendum you can bet your bottom euro that they will lobby like maniacs to get the BBC's rules of engagement changed, and this BBC Trust impartiality review will doubtless help them down that road.

Just imagine a BBC that's even more off the leash 'next time around'!

IFS...FFS!

Oh nearly forgot...

Here's something, courtesy of Guido Fawkes. It concerns the independent', 'widely-respected' Institute for Fiscal Studies - treated as impartial, final-word-on-the-matter given judges of everything from the Budget to the costs and benefits of the UK's EU membership by the BBC (and, it seems, almost everyone else).

Did you know that it has received what looks to me like pretty substantial funding from the European Commission?

Fancy that!