Is Baroness Hoey being lined up to be the next BBC chairwoman?

Kate Hoey:The next BBC chairwoman?

Have any of you been mooted as the new BBC chairman yet? Pretty much everyone else has, if you believe the papers. 

The latest headlines concern the Europhile former chancellor and 'man of a hundred jobs already', George Osborne. Having failed to land the plum Royal Opera House job, the Daily Telegraph's Choppers now claims the Government is "lining him up" to replace Sir David Clementi. 

There are lots of 'woulds' and 'ifs' in the article and Christopher Hope adds that "some government sources" have "downplayed" for the ex-chancellor's chances. The piece ends by saying, "Mr Osborne declined to comment" and "The Daily Telegraph understands that he has not yet been approached about the role". 

So frankly we're barely any further on that when George Osborne was first mooted weeks ago. 

Andrew Neil, for one, doesn't reckon much to the story. "I bet he's not", he tweeted in response to the headline about Mr Osborne being "lined up" by the Government. 

Anyone who wants drastic surgery to save the BBC won't be looking to Mr Osborne, who would be almost as bad as David Dimbleby. Michael Portillo, Trevor Phillips or Sir Robbie Gibb would be better bets. 

No one's mentioned Kate Hoey though, have they? Should we start a rumour here in her favour and pass it onto the Telegraph? Yes, let's! I've a feeling "some government sources" might possibly have mentioned her at some stage, and she'd be great. 

Question time

Questions, questions. And time to answer them:

Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph: Why is Nicola Sturgeon in the BBC Question Time election debate when the vast majority of the viewers cannot vote for her party?

Kate Hoey, retiring Labour MP: And if Nicola was invited why was the DUP leader Arlene Foster not there too?

I agree with Kate

On a similar theme:

Kate Hoey: So BBC PM news bulletin at 5pm can mention Soubry court case but not a word about the electoral commission losing case against Darren Grimes. Bet they would have covered it if judgement different.

I bet they would too.

Hardline hornets in hats (featuring Kate Hoey and BBC Complaints)

hardline

Regular readers will know that I've had a hornet in my Homburg hat for months about the BBC's use of the word 'hardline'. 

I closely tracked the BBC's use of the word and found it was nearly always used about certain kinds of people.

To recap, the VAST majority of the BBC's recent use of the word 'hardline' - and its beloved sibling 'hardliners' - have been connected to Brexit-supporters, especially those in favour of leaving the EU on WTO terms (i.e. supporters of a 'no-deal', crash-out-and-apocalypse Brexit). 

But 'the others' in my surveys have been equally predictable to anyone who's watched the BBC over the years: Trump's immigration policies, tax-cutters in the US, the right-wing Austrian government (over immigration), the Italian populist government (over immigration) the national-populist Hungarian government (over immigration and everything else), European governments in general that oppose mass immigration, the conservative CSU in Germany (over immigration), a Turkish right-winger not part of Erdogan's party, Hindus in India, France's yellow vests ...plus clerics in Saudi Arabia who oppose women drivers. 

To bring things up to date, and tracking the word's use by BBC folk since the start of February this year on BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC News Channel...

Yes, the term 'hardline' is still mostly used - again and again and again and again and again - in connection with 'Brexiteers', and all the variants thereon.

Seriously, using TV Eyes to monitor 'hardline' brings up masses of BBC reporters/presenters endlessly spouting the term in connection to Brexiteers, the ERG, Conservatives, Eurosceptics, etc. 

I've not found a single counter-example, so pro-EU, hardline Remain types who want to overturn the 2016 referendum remain once again untainted by the loaded term in the BBC's output.

The exceptions this time are, again, mostly familiar - Hindu nationalists (repeatedly) and parties in Italy opposed to mass immigration - but there's also a one-off criticism of anti-China US politicians and (more predictably) Australia's immigration policies.

To sum up, the BBC uses the term 'hardline' almost invariably against right-wingers, opponents of mass immigration, Hindu nationalists, and strong supporters of Brexit.

It's a trend that's so overwhelming that it should speak for itself and dispel any doubts about the BBC's biased use of language here.

Specifically tracking the use of 'hardliners', however - besides the many, many incarnations of 'Tory hardliners' - also brings up something that might seem less predictable at a first glance but has long been a BBC 'thing' - multiple mentions of Iranian 'hardliners' (who the BBC often also label 'conservatives'). That's nothing new though. It's long been a thing hereabouts to complain about the BBC using the term 'conservative' to describe the most hardline Islamists in the Iranian revolutionary regime. 

Given the John Simpson transcript I posted earlier, this latest finding in the Iranian context is particularly intriguing. 

*******

Anyhow, all of this leads back to Kate Hoey MP's potent complaint to the BBC about their perpetual use of 'hardline' in reference to people who think like her (whether left-wing or right-wing or whatever) on the subject of Brexit.

If you've not read it already, please read it.

*******

And that in turns leads on, as knights follow daze, to News-watch's David Keighley and his powerful new article at TCW, ‘Hardline’ Hoey and the BBC at its slippery worst - which is a 'must-read'. (So please read it!)

David crystallises the argument and details Ms Hoey's exchanges with the BBC - and the BBC's (oh-so-familiar) "blinkered", "self-righteous" replies. 

The whole first section of David's piece, however, needs quoting in full as it might be new to you. And even if it isn't new to you it remains, frankly, quite staggering:

ONE of the huge frustrations about the BBC is that they have a defence for every complaint, made up according to their own ever-shifting rules, and adjudicated mainly by their own staff. 

When David Cameron formally announced that he would hold an EU Referendum, Newsnight reported the development with a programme which included 18 Remainers (one who was said to be a businessman but actually was a Liberal Democrat politician) and just one who wanted Leave. 

News-watch complained. The BBC’s response? Months earlier, Newsnight had presented an edition which contained someone who put the case for withdrawal. The programme with blatant 18-1 stacking was thus fine because this was ‘due impartiality’. Of course.

Ah yes, good old BBC 'due impartiality'! - about as flexible as term as you could imagine. 

Sloppy and loaded

The Two Brexiters

I don't think Kate Hoey MP (above, with someone else) would mind us lifting this from inews (though inews possibly might!), so here goes:

‘Hardline Brexiteers’: The way the BBC describes pro-Brexit MPs is not impartial. The term is never applied to figures who are 'hardline' in wanting to remain in the EU. 

The word “hardline” has been creeping into descriptions of MPs who are pro-Brexit for a year or so now. After hearing it in a BBC news bulletin this week, I wrote in to complain.  

Jonathan Munro, head of newsgathering for the BBC, replied: 

We do take great care in our language on Brexit. I’m sorry you were unhappy with the scripting of our early evening bulletin on Sunday. The term ‘hardliner’ is in use across the media, including most newspapers, generally to distinguish the views of members of the European Research Group from their Conservative colleagues who support Brexit, but have indicated they are more flexible about the terms the Prime Minister is negotiating. 

Our headline referred to ‘Tory hardliners’ and the introduction to the report made clear the term was being used in the context of the debate over the Northern Ireland backstop. 

I hope this answers your concerns. 

No, Jonathan, it doesn’t. The BBC received £3.8bn from licence fee payers last year. Unlike other media, it has a special duty, as defined in its charter, to be scrupulously impartial. Munro’s argument that it is following where other media lead is therefore not an excuse. It’s an abrogation of the BBC’s duty to the British public. 

The Corporation was warned about its biased use of language about the EU in 2005, when the referendum was first mooted. Lord Wilson of Dinton conducted an independent inquiry into bias claims, which concluded that the BBC was “not succeeding” in being impartial in its coverage of Europe. 

The BBC promised to do better but the sloppy and loaded approach has become worse since the referendum. First came the phrases “hard” and “soft” Brexit. This painted those who wanted a clean break with Brussels as hard and unyielding, and those who did not as cuddly and reasonable. 

Another term picked up by BBC journalists to describe leaving the EU was “divorce”.  Jean-Claude Juncker frequently refers to the EU as a “family”, and in 2016 began referring to Brexit as a “divorce”. By autumn 2017 a survey by News-Watch, which searches for BBC bias in coverage of the EU, showed BBC presenters and correspondents using “divorce” as the core definition of what Leavers wanted. 

Not only were Leavers xenophobes – they were now home-wreckers, too.  

The term “hardline” has been used by BBC journalists to describe President Trump’s immigration policies and a vicious wartime Japanese governor. It is clearly not intended as a compliment. 

News-Watch surveyed the coverage on Radio 4’s Today programme of Parliament’s defeat of the Withdrawal Deal. Only a handful of the 111 contributors were firm supporters of implementing the referendum result. And the main one – Steve Baker, spokesman for the ERG group – was introduced as – surprise! – “hardline”, a term never applied to figures such as David Lammy or Dominic Grieve, who are “hardline” in trying to thwart leaving the EU. 

The word “Brexiteer” – with its echoes of “mutineer” – is another biased description used routinely by the BBC. The Financial Times manages to use the more neutral “Brexiters” – you’d think a supposedly impartial news organisation would do the same.

'Brexiteers'? I've used that myself, perhaps because I spend far too much time monitoring the BBC. 

Who first used it though? Who amplified it? And did they mean it as a compliment (dashing, noble-hearted heroes?) or as an insult ("with its echoes of 'mutineer'")? And have I been brainwashed by the BBC, despite myself? 

Whatever the case of that, Kate Hoey definitely has a point about the use of "hardline" and "divorce", don't you think? 

(I do).

Kiss Me Kate

I agree with Ms. Hoey: