In 90 minutes of BBC coverage and analysis of the leaders’ debate on the BBC News channel, the single Scottish commentator the BBC have had on that channel – and he has appeared three different times – is the ludicrous Torcuil Crichton of the Labour Party (and Daily Record), introduced by the BBC as though he were an independent commentator. Without being challenged by anybody, Crichton has again and again been allowed to expound the ridiculous argument that Cameron benefited from Nicola Surgeon’s strong performance because it weakened David Miliband.
This is ludicrous because of course it makes no difference to the balance of the House of Commons from a Tory point of view whether the Scottish MPs facing them are Labour or SNP. Three times Crichton has been on, making his invalid point, with nobody making the obvious response – or indeed any response. Three times – separate times, they are not repeats – he has been allowed to make a jibe about the SNP promising “a land of milk and honey”, as his Labour Party dismissal of anti-austerity economics. Again, without reply.
The BBC is an utter disgrace in the way it covers Scotland. My personal view is that post independence we don’t need state propaganda in news or current affairs, and should simply sack everybody in the BBC news and current affairs departments in Scotland, without compensation.
On the debate, without detracting in any way from Nicola Sturgeon’s excellent performance, I think the personalisation of it is wrong and that what the polls are reflecting is a strong desire right across the UK to support anti-austerity policies and no nuclear weapons. Sadly this is probably the last time even the possibility of such policy options will be allowed a significant hearing on mainstream media in England for the next five years.
I Must Say.. i was very shocked to see that Yon unknown face belongs to the D.R. NO respect whatsoever… ( the wee daft Scots Don’t even have Broadsheets.) they are near frozen with fear of SNP.
And they YET AGAIN Badly need the bbC.. bbCnts.
Perhaps we need some research into how the presstitutes within are nurtured, how the underhand groups subsist within the Beeb. We had gamba feigning innocence over the savile saga, despite meeting in the corridors on an almost daily basis,yet these are meant to be truth seeking journalists? In the final analysis the Beeb is a big con, with the attenboroughs,clarksons arrayed up front as window dressing, and the yentobs using the goodwill to slip in their spin and falsehood. But there has to be a sinister devil commissioning such programs as whitewashing an Azov nazi battalion and such spin, to hell with political correctness – truth be told, there is a group of shlomos and homos running the news behind the scenes, and the Torahs have been told to mouth the Tory spin in these election times as a quid pro quo, and nick robinson with his wolfblitzer singsong yiddish is not even in the fray yet !!!!!
It’s amazing to me that Ed is on the defensive in terms of his inability to challenge Cameron on austerity, particularly the Tories introduction of the bedroom tax, the gradual rolling out of universal credit and the coalitions Open Public Services Programme.
Why isn’t Ed exposing Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010 which has resulted in the most severe assault on the welfare state since its foundation?
Why isn’t Ed highlighting that the intention of the coalition’s Open Public Services Programme is to open up all public services (other than the court system and the security services) to competition from “any qualified provider”.
Why isn’t Ed exposing the Tories false justification for their increased retrenchment of the welfare state predicated on deficit reduction and economic growth?
Why isn’t Ed highlighting the parallels between the current Tory demonization of the poor, austerity ideology and the Poor Law ideology of the early 19th century?
Why hasn’t Ed exposed the fact that on the very same day that the bedroom tax was announced in parliament (estimated to “save” the Treasury £480 million) the top rate of tax in the UK was cut from 50% to 45%, resulting in a loss of revenue of £1 billion?
That is twice tonight that the word ‘insurgent’ has been used on the BBC to describe the SNP, The Green Party and Plaid Cymru (“the insurgent parties”). Once by a woman BBC reporter on Newsnight (BBC2) and now by a Miranda somebody or other (Lib Dem I think) guest on ‘This Week’ (BBC1). This is the dictionary definition of the adjective ‘insurgent’: disobedient, insubordinate, insurrectionary, mutinous, rebellious, revolting, revolutionary, riotous, seditious.
I thought that the women in the debte were the voices of reason and compassion and it’s just a pity that none of them can be Prime Minister. Nicola Sturgeon was brilliant as usual. Channel 4’s facebook page is full of very positive comments about her, from across all parts of the UK.
I have been disappointed but not surprised that the BBC’s spin was so negative.
Fortunately I missed Question Time as apparently they were discussing the SNP in depth without anyone from that party being there to defend it.
I e mailed the above questions to my local Labour Party candidate but unsurprisingly didn’t receive any response.
Kirsten
Caught a fleeting Glimpse of it… Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was telling em straight, the women, came out as the humanitarians…Considering what they…And MOST Humans stand for..the winners of that dabate aint surprising.
Here’s a good indicator of where the BBC’s guiding hand will point it’s biased:
The Chair of BAE Systems, Roger Carr, has just been appointed as Vice-Chair of the BBC Trust.
Re: BBC debates. Forgive me for being off topic.
Times are sad. When it comes to coverage of any news anywhere the BBC has become a mere shadow of what it was. I spend about 90% of the time watching Al-Jazeera.
In the 1960s you could watch Oxford Union debates on such topics as dying for King and Country, done by BBC. In 2015 we have to rely on RT.COM or @AJE to host this sort of thing.
The English speaking world dserves better. Mehdi Hasan for example should really be moderating debates between our leaders,
or maybe he would feel a bit demeaned to appear in the same room as Nigel Farage.
And you can sign a petition against that appointment of BAE Systems’ Roger Carr to the BBC Trust here:
https://www.caat.org.uk/get-involved/act-now/petition/bbc
Dismantle the BBC.
Yougov expectations for Nicola Sturgeon being the best performer in last night’s leaders’ debate stood at 9% when she actually won with 28%. What was really good about this was the massive number of people outside Scotland wanting to know if they could vote for the SNP. It is encouraging for all anti austerity parties, of which Left Unity is the leading light, but it will take time.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/03/revealed-the-winner-of-the-leaders-election-debate
Antony Goddard
“Times are sad. When it comes to coverage of any news anywhere the BBC has become a mere shadow of what it was. I spend about 90% of the time watching Al-Jazeera.”
I don’t think anyone goes to the BBC for serious news. It’s like going to Ed Miliband or David Cameron for an honest appraisal of what their policies are going to be. Unfortunately because of the Zionist/Neocon control of our media the forthcoming US-led war with Russia is being played down while military forces build up on Russia’s borders. As if they have not caused enough pain in Ukraine.
http://en.hunternews.ru/?p=772
Antony Goddard
You watch that tool of neo-conservatism global hegemony pretending to be an independent commentator on ME???
Problem is… we pay for it! The neocons must be laughing their heads off!
It was inevitable that the BBC chose Crighton.
His padded out CV reveals that he worked for them as a director and producer.
https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/torcuil-crichton/a/4ab/194
BBC Has lost all credibility as a purveyor of unbiased factual news.It is but a propagator of the Establishment propaganda on most relevant issues, sometimes by deliberate omission. They deservedly deserve the term Presstitutes.
Propaganda is as powerful as heroin; it surreptitiously dissolves all capacity to think.
The conscious manipulation of the habits and opinions of the public by propaganda, is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of a country.
Most people have no idea that what we are fed by the news media is nothing more than a portrayal of what powerful interests want us to believe, that what happens to pass as education is as often as not mere propaganda, that what we learn in school may have very little or nothing to do with the truth, that what our parents teach us may be nothing more than an accumulation of their own personal biases, no doubt a rather subtle modification of what they were taught by their parents. And through such a process, governments and nations around the world wield control as to what their citizens, believe, value, and do.
Salford Lad
Shouldn’t you attribute those quotes?
Clark, thanks for the link.
You said on the ‘It Didn’t Happen’ thread that the BBC does not allow advertising. True, it doesn’t within the UK, but if you access their web sites from outside of the UK you will find them plastered with adverts. The BBC make a fortune from these adverts.
Then there’s BBC America, which also takes adverts; and you have to bear in mind that BBC America aires programmes which were funded by UK tv licence payers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_America
It really is a most delicious scam they’ve got going at the BBC, and as always it’s the British public who are being fleeced.
The husband of Ben Bradshaw MP Lab Exeter Central is one Neal Dalgleish. They were the first gay couple to have a civil partnership.
Bradshaw is a member of the Henry Jackson Society. Dalgleish was a producer on Newsnight and is variously described as an editor. He was probably moved on when everything changed after the Savile programme was not broadcast by Newsnight at the time of Entwistle but I cannot be sure.
The latest entry on the web is for Dalgleish working for BBC Media Action which replaced the World Service Trust. He was setting up arrangements for an Arab Media Watch broadcast in Cairo. See the Facebook page for Arab Media Watch.
On the Wiki entry for the BBC World Service there is confirmation that it received funding from the US in 2011.
Nice to know how the cogs work.
” Yougov expectations for Nicola Sturgeon being the best performer in last night’s leaders’ debate stood at 9% when she actually won with 28%. ”
Pleased for her but up against such lacklustre opponents that can’t have been difficult.
Nick Clegg was declared the “winner” of the 2010 debate with an even more impressive 61%.
That worked out well for him didn’t it?
Whilst I am loathe to defend the biased BBC I watched the debate and coverage on the BBC News channel and they had three SNP representatives giving their views, one of whom was Stewart Hosie, our General Election Co-ordinator and another was Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.
They each got time to express their views, although I felt they could have had more time, but I confess that I am biased too 🙂
“Pleased for her but up against such lacklustre opponents that can’t have been difficult.”
You can only fight the guy(s) in the ring with you.
Nick Clegg was declared the “winner” of the 2010 debate with an even more impressive 61%.”
Receiving 28% with 7 debaters is better than 61% with 3. Clegg became deputy PM, what’s your point
It’s not just Scotland that suffers appalling BBC bias. The Welsh are shamefully treated by them too, and so are my own people, the Cornish. The BBC refuses to give our politcial party Menyon Kernow any air time at all even though they’re standing in all 6 Cornish constituencies, and are foremost in the endless attempts to assimilate us into the English Borg collective. The BBC is misnamed. It should be the EBC.
Regarding who won the debate – the clear winner (by a country mile) was there for all to see. And there is proof. How many of the other parties on show gained a further 2000 members since the debate, and purely because of its leader’s performance? Nicola Sturgeon’s party did!
Take a bow, Nicola. You were brilliant and, above all, honest, and that is what people are looking for. The other two ladies put in commendable performances too, with good and fresh things to say, unlike the “stuck record” rhetoric from the establishment men that we are all sick of hearing.
What a fantastic refugee centre Pacific Quay would make. It would hold about 0.00025% of the people displaced by Labour foreign policy.
C.weatherill,
Hear, hear!
Let’s all vote Green, Plaid Cymru, SNP, Mebyon Kernow and shake up this wretched Disunited Kingdom and replace it with a modern fit for the purpose confederation of the isles.
Nyns yw marw myghtyrn Arthur!
End of paragraph 1 – Ed Miliband not David surely?!
I suppose many here will have seen this recent Exaro News piece; but because I like putting the boot into the British Bullshit Corporation…
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5527/bbc-at-war-over-panorama-on-claims-of-vip-paedophile-network
BiBiCee have just shown Cameron peering into a pram with the presenter saying “He get’s broody about babies”.
Yes especially the ones in Libya he helped to kill and injure, the ones in Syria for whom he wished the same treatment and the little ones in Gaza who were slaughtered by his cronies in Israel. He has affirmed that he is a Zionist.
Joolz
I was referring to BBC News, which is a separate channel. I presume the programme you were watching was somewhere on BBC Scotland.
Assuming that Labour will not form a coalition with the SNP, few people will vote for the crackpots of UKIP, Plaid Cymru can’t make any difference outside Wales, and the Greens are not radical enough (no Y-cubes), we could be headed for another 5 years of a Conservative-LibDem coalition. Well, at least they have had EXPERIENCE in the job. 🙂