BBC Mock Balance 217

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A classic example of BBC mock balance on the news tonight as James Cook devoted apparently equal time to Douglas Alexander and Mhairi Black in Renfrewshire East.

Of Mhairi we were told by Cook that her opponents say that her youth shows, and that she carries fighting talk too far. Well, of Douglas his opponents say that he is a war criminal, and that he stabbed his sister in the back. That was not mentioned.

Whereas the “equal time” allowed the SNP candidate included BBC commentary giving direct personal criticism of her, there was no critical note in the Alexander side of the coverage. An interesting example of how the state propaganda system works.

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217 thoughts on “BBC Mock Balance”

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  • Rob

    Well none of the anti-SNP campaigns seems to be working. Today the latest polls give SNP every seat in Scotland.

    What Scotland will need to evolve is a unionist opposition, otherwise the SNP will continue to divide and conquer. In the long term that will be just as unhealthy for our politics as the permanent Labour majorities of the past.

  • Iain Orr

    The Women’s Hour election debate this morning was considerably more balanced than much other BBC election coverage (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05s33xg . My own impression – others may differ – was that the smaller parties all landed hefty blows on Teresa May and Harriet Harman.

  • Jon

    Fred,

    It was in 2010, first £30,000 tax free. Even MPs going on to the House of Lords claimed it. Salmond wasn’t any worse than the others. He wasn’t any better either.

    Hadn’t heard of that. Yep, not allowed in the fantasy Commons!

    The SNP have more private school educated politicians than any other party in the UK including the Bullington Club Tories who they so love to bash

    In the long term I am in favour of dismantling private education, with a flattening out of the over-representation of privately-educated people in politics as a short term measure. That said, if this report is true, we should be pleased that the thrust of SNP policy is broadly left of centre, despite the privileged backgrounds of the MSPs in the party.

  • ------------·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node

    Regards, George Galloway’s film, “The Killings of Tony Blair,” there are a few delays but nothing terminal. I’m on his mailing list – here’s the latest email received 13/02/15.

    “Dear backers,

    Please forgive the delay in bringing you this update, and thank you once more for your patience and continuing support. A lot has happened both on and off the film since I last wrote, all of which, thankfully, is good news for us, and bad news for Mr Blair.

    But let me cut to the chase. I’m happy to report that the Blair Doc is now, finally (!), on the home stretch. Over the winter period we’ve been busy tying up the remainder of our 40+ interviews (among them our second and third former cabinet ministers) and planning the post-production process. As a result, we have now secured a top quality editor who has started to put the film together. Meanwhile, our composer Steve Finnerty from Alabama 3 (of Sopranos theme-tune fame), is working on an original score with the help of art rock legend Robert Wyatt. We are also working with graphic designers, animators to make sure our documentary looks the part too.

    As a feature-length doc covering a wide range of topics, and with extensive archive footage and many, many interviews, we expect the edit to take at least 12 weeks to complete, and will give the editor the time he needs to make the finished article as good as it can be. With further post-production work required after the editing is complete, it is still too early to set a formal release date.

    Back in the (sur)real world the winter months been rather less successful for Mr Blair. From the public disgust at his GQ and Save the Children ‘philanthropy’ awards to his placing in the metaphorical dock by parliamentary Lords and even Nick Clegg (yes you heard correctly) over the CIA torture report and the Chilcot Inquiry, even I am surprised at how quickly mainstream opinion has turned against Blair. Indeed it appears we’re approaching somewhat of a zeitgeist. You may recall Kony 2012. By the looks of things this year’s shaping up to be #Tony2015. Thanks to your support myself and the Blair Doc team will do our best to make sure of it.

    Respect,

    George Galloway”

  • fred

    “In the long term I am in favour of dismantling private education, with a flattening out of the over-representation of privately-educated people in politics as a short term measure. That said, if this report is true, we should be pleased that the thrust of SNP policy is broadly left of centre, despite the privileged backgrounds of the MSPs in the party.”

    I wouldn’t describe the SNP policy as left of centre.

  • Jon

    Regarding “SNP supporters wanting to harm England”, I think that’s going to be hard to prove – either of the subset of SNP supporters here, or of SNP supporters in general. Insofar as I would be likely to vote SNP in England if I could, I guess that makes me a supporter.

    Do I wish harm to come to England? Well, no, if that question really needs answering – but I do think the Scots are better off with self-determination, which I think is the natural course of things. I support all independence movements where there is a genuine desire to form a new country (and where it is economically viable – I am not too sure about Cornwall).

    I think Scottish politics have a social democratic momentum at the moment that British politics has been missing for the last twenty years or so. The social democratic Greens try to do their bit, and Respect and the radical left theirs too, despite infighting, but it has been insufficient to turn the London/metropolitan tide. So far, anyway!

    There are some very interesting gains to be had in Scotland with a strong SNP result. A boost to the independence campaign, the continuation of free higher education in Scotland, and potentially a move to a more progressive taxation system (either from independence or the promised further devolution powers). This is not a lurch the hard left as some newspapers would have us believe – it’s a move to the centre, applying a bit more regulation to capitalism, and turning the greedometer down a notch or two. There will still be a filthy rich and a filthy poor, but it’s a good start.

    My hope is that gentle social democratic gains in Scotland will become infectious south of the border, and Labour voters in the north of England will create some pressure to bring some of the old party back. I still am not sure that Blair’s ghost has been exorcised from the machine, especially in light of Craig’s recent posts about the supposed differences of hawkishness between the Miliband brothers.

  • Jon

    Fred, that’s okay – we can agree to disagree on that. I think they are to the left of the three main London parties, so you can read “left in relative terms” if you prefer.

    Node, when the Killing documentary is available, I shall be purchasing it. I think trying to change the elite writing of history on this matter is a very important task. Interestingly, Blair’s reputation genuinely feels like it has been in tatters for some years already – perhaps a delayed effect of the 2003 marches!

  • Mary

    Do not hold your breath.

    Goddard abuse inquiry to review Lord Janner case

    Breaking news
    2 minutes ago From the section UK

    The independent inquiry examining historical child sex abuse in England and Wales is to conduct a “full investigation” into claims made against former Labour MP Lord Janner.

    The inquiry, chaired by New Zealand judge Justice Lowell Goddard, confirmed it would consider the case, after the CPS decided against a prosecution because of the politician’s dementia.

    That decision is one of the things the inquiry said it would review.

    Lord Janner has denied any wrongdoing.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32515196

  • Ba'al Zevul

    “The SNP have more private school educated politicians than any other party in the UK including the Bullington Club Tories who they so love to bash”….Dr Azeem Ibrahim is the Executive Chairman of the Scotland Institute

    This thought came to you (check the link) courtesy of

    Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, who

    is a Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College and Lecturer in International Security at the University of Chicago. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

    http://english.alarabiya.net/authors/Dr-Azeem-Ibrahim.html

    No particular interest in dissing an at least ostensibly non-globalist agenda, then. And ‘The Scotland Institute’? He founded it.

    http://worldfellows.yale.edu/azeem-ibrahim

    Today, Azeem’s main focus is on his own private foundation, the Ibrahim Foundation, which funds innovative community projects around the globe and advising a variety of global leaders on policy development.

    Coming soon, The Office of Azeem Ibrahim, The Azeem Ibrahim Africa Governance Initiative, The Azeem Ibrahim Faith Foundation, and Azeem Enterprises Inc No.3 LP.

    Pffft. Really, Fred! Can’t you do better than that?

  • Abe Rene

    @Joh Goss “Lord Justice Phillips..took great delight in cutting off any lifeline to Julian Assange” This led me to think of an interesting intellectual problem: how to help Julian Assange escape? Let us consider some difficulties:
    1. It would have to be done despite the best professional efforts of British Intelligence and the Metropolitan Police to stop it.
    2. We can assume that MI5 might well eavesdrop on any conversation with Assange -someone already found a bug in the Ecuadorean embassy.
    3. Even if someone had a workable plan, how to communicate it? If I were Assange, I wouldn’t trust a stranger. It could only be done by people known to Assange who were trusted by him.
    4. How to deal with infiltration of such a plot by apparent well-wishers?
    5. At some point the discussion would have to go on in private or underground. Only things that could be safely discussed in public could be mentioned here.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Jon, I’ve been recording what I can find of Blair’s activities since February here (prolonged thanks to Craig)

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-1/#comment-508703

    …onwards, as a matter of record. Also get a hold of this if you haven’t already:

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blair-Inc-The-Behind-Mask/dp/1784183709

    Nothing very new, but good detail.

    If The Killings is going to come out, it should do so within the month, I think. But I have a nasty feeling that if it does it will be polemic rather than indictable substance. Hope I’m wrong.

  • YouKnowMyName

    A historian speaks, perhaps this following philosophy will appear on on BBC Radio 4 sometime?; where this morning at 5:40 am the announcer revealed that today was the anniversary of the marriage of Herr Hitler and his squeeze who were trapped in a Bunker in Berlin as “allied forces” surrounded them… doesn’t 70 years change the BBC Mock Balance definition of “allied” – somewhat!

    over to Steven F. Cohen , writing recently in the US “coffee-table” http://Salon.com magazine,

    . . .as an historian who has specialized in lost alternatives, well, now I have another to study, to put in historical context and analyze. And it’s my historical analysis-that an alternative in Ukraine was squandered primarily in Washington, not primarily in Moscow. . .

    . . .the Ukranian crisis is the greatest blow to American national security- even greater than the Iraq war in its long-term implications- for a simple reason: The road to American national security still runs through Moscow. There is not a single major regional or issue-related national security problem we can solve without the full cooperation of whoever sits in the Kremlin, period, end of story.

    Name your poison: We’re talking the Middle East, we’re talking Afghanistan, we’re talking energy, we’re talking climate, we’re talking nuclear proliferation, terrorism, shooting airplanes out of the sky, we’re talking about the two terrorist brothers in Boston.

    Look: I mean American national security of the kind I care about-that makes my kids and grandkids and myself safe-in an era that’s much more dangerous than the Cold War because there’s less structure, more nonstate players, and more loose nuclear know-how and materials…. Security can only be partial, but that partial security depends on a full-scale American-Russian cooperation, period. We are losing Russia for American national security in Ukraine as we talk, and even if it were to end tomorrow Russia will never, for at least a generation, be as willing to cooperate with Washington on security matters as it was before this crisis began.

    Therefore, the architects of the American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security-and therefore I am the patriot and they are the saboteurs of American security. That’s the whole story, and any sensible person who doesn’t suffer from Putin-phobia can see it plainly.

    Q: Is it too strong to say that the point is to destabilize Moscow?

    What would that mean? What would it mean to destabilize the country that may have more weapons of mass destruction than does the U.S.?

    Q: Is that indeed the ambition?

    I don’t think there’s any one ambition. I come back to the view that you’ve got various perspectives in discussion behind closed doors. I guess Mearsheimer [John Mearsheimer, the noted University of Chicago scholar] is right in the sense of saying that there’s a faction in Washington that is behaving exactly as a great power would behave and trying to maximize its security, but it doesn’t understand that that’s what other great powers do, too. That’s its failure. Gorbachev and Reagan, though it wasn’t originally their idea, probably agreed on the single most important thing: Security had to be mutual. That was their agreement and they built everything on that. We have a military build-up you’re going to perceive as a threat and build up, and I will perceive your build-up as a threat… and that’s the dynamic of permanent and conventional build-up, a permanent arms race. And that’s why Gorbachev and Reagan reasoned, We’re on the edge of the abyss. That’s why we are going to declare the Cold War over, which they did.

    That concept of mutual security doesn’t mean only signing contracts: It means don’t undertake something you think is in your security but is going to be perceived as threatening, because it won’t prove to be in your interest. Missile defense is the classic example: We never should have undertaken any missile defense program that wasn’t in cooperation with Russia, but, instead, we undertook it as an anti-Russian operation. They knew it and we knew it and scientists at MIT knew it, but nobody cared because some group believed that you’ve got to keep Russia down.

    The truth is, not everything depends on the president of the United States. Not everything, but an awful lot does, and when it comes to international affairs we haven’t really had a president who acted as an actual statesman in regard to Russia since Reagan in 1985-88. Clinton certainly didn’t; his Russia policy was clownish and ultimately detrimental to U.S. national security interests. Bush’s was reckless and lost one opportunity after another, and Obama’s is either uninformed or completely out to lunch. We have not had a statesman in the White House when it comes to Russia since Reagan, and I am utterly, totally, 1000 percent convinced that before November 2013, when we tried to impose an ultimatum on Yanukovych-and even right now, today-that a statesman in the White House could end this in 48 hours with Putin. What Putin wants in the Ukraine crisis is what we ought to want; that’s the reality. . .

  • Ba'al Zevul

    “The SNP have more private school educated politicians than any other party in the UK including the Bullington Club Tories who they so love to bash”

    And let’s just take a closer look at that allegation:

    http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/wider-political-news/old-school-ties-reveal-msps-are-a-class-above.23879394

    1. Fully 17% of Holyrood’s elected members were educated independently – in contrast to a Scottish national average of less than 4%. However, the Scottish Parliament remains much more democratic in its intake than Westminster, where 34% of members attended fee-paying schools. Eton College alone produced 20 MPs, including Prime Minister David Cameron.

    2.Conservatives are far more likely to be privately educated than representatives of other parties. Just over half of Tory MPs went to a fee-paying school; just under half of MSPs did….The share of SNP MSPs who are independently educated is far lower, at 15%…

    3. First Minster Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill went to the same state school, Linlithgow Academy. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon went to Greenwood Academy, a comprehensive in Irvine (@2014 – BZ)

    (Labour, 13%, and all five LibDemCons were comprehensive-educated)

    So where is that majority of privately-educated SNP politicians hiding?

    Could it be that a porky has been told?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Wonder what the reason is or where the motivation came from for his support of the entity?

    It’s what you do if you want to meet rich people.

  • ------------·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node

    Ba’al Zevul 12.51 pm : “If The Killings is going to come out, it should do so within the month, I think.”

    Galloway said on 13/02/15 :

    “…. we expect the edit to take at least 12 weeks to complete, and will give the editor the time he needs to make the finished article as good as it can be. With further post-production work required after the editing is complete, it is still too early to set a formal release date.”

    In other words, the earliest possible release date is mid-May but almost certainly it will take at least a couple of months more.

  • ------------·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node

    Mary : “The extremely ambitious Chuka is a member of Labour Friends of Israel. Wonder what the reason is or where the motivation came from for his support of the entity?”

    Being an FoI is a minimum requirement for political advancement. Anybody aspiring to be Prime Minister of the UK or President of the USA is required to also make a public speech supporting Israel’s “right to defend” itself. Watch out for Chuka’s.

  • John Spencer-Davis

    Evidence of what an extraordinarily venal and corrupt person Margaret Thatcher actually was.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/28/how-margaret-thatcher-and-rupert-murdoch-made-secret-deal

    I have been very resistant to the idea that Margaret Thatcher would accept and condone the alleged sexual corruption among her subordinates (Peter Morrison and Peter Hayman, for example, and allegations made against Leon Brittan, Keith Joseph, Rhodes Boyson, and Michael Havers, among others). I have been more inclined to believe that ignorance or naivety was a better explanation. I regret to say that I am reconsidering that view. I don’t think she had an honourable bone in her body.

    Kind regards,

    John

  • Ba'al Zevul

    In other words, the earliest possible release date is mid-May but almost certainly it will take at least a couple of months more.

    Think it’ll beat Chilcot? As GG said on August 26th last year, ‘Mr Blair’s inability to stay clear of scandal, whether it be through outlandish comments on the state of the Middle East or the latest dictator he has decided to prop up, continues to provide us with new material that is simply too good to not include.

    I hope you can understand this slight delay in delivery, but to have a real impact, as I hope you will agree, this film needs to be nothing short of a properly investigated, 100% watertight piece of journalism that will convince even – or perhaps especially – those not already convinced of his crimes.’

    Blair hasn’t stopped, and will not have stopped on the anniversary of that statement. Indeed, his activites are more widespread and outrageous than they were then, while their opacity has increased.

    I really hope Galloway can get to the root of some of Blair’s activities, present his findings strongly, and initiate some official scrutiny – which is about the best that can be hoped for. But given Blair’s very tight control of information, the goldfish-like attention span of the media, public and politicians, and the number of political cadavers whose location is undoubtedly known to Bambi, I very much doubt that this will happen.

    Sadly.

  • John Goss

    Abe Rene, I don’t think any “Great Escape” is on the cards. Most likely his freedom will be the result of Sweden looking for a face-saving way out (it has caused a lot of division in Sweden). Next week there will be a new government in Westminster, with a significant SNP presence. Wikileaks continues to expose government lies and dirty-tricks regardless of Assange being incarcerated. So I don’t anticipate any Mary Queen of Scots type escape from the Isle of Loch Leven dressed as a maid.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Monsieur Goss

    “Ba’al, good point, about Th$ Killing of Tony Blair. Where is it? I’ve visited a few sites and can find no sign of it. You can still make a donation though.”

    ___________________

    Wouldn’t that be a case of throwing good money after bad? 🙂

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    How about the BCC giving some balance to the Crown’s murder of all those troublemakers – e.g., McRae, Palme, Cay Mitchell, Kelly, Hilder, Todd, Loftus, Rawlings, etc., ad nauseam!

  • Mary

    Speaking of ‘killing’, here is the IDF’s latest attempt to kill a Palestinian child.

    ‘Stray’ bullet. No bullet can be certain to be ‘stray’. A .22 bullet can kill at a mile. This is yet another poor child with a paraplegia in spite of a useless operation. The spinal cord is so delicate that if it was squeezed gently between two fingers, total loss would occur. The poor boy was studying. That is in the Palestinian ethos.

    Consider an ‘Israeli’ child suffering the same. All over there is Z driven world ‘news’.

    ‘GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A 14-year-old Palestinian is in critical condition and has been transferred to Ramallah for treatment after he was hit by a stray Israeli bullet on Friday at his home in the central Gaza Strip, his family said Tuesday.

    The family of Fadi Abu Mandil, 14, said that the teen will undergo surgery in his spine as he is currently unable to walk.

    His uncle told Ma’an that the child was hit with a stray Israeli bullet while studying at his home when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian farmers.

    On Friday medical sources said that the 14-year-old from al-Mughazi refugee camp had been transferred to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah city.

    Israeli forces were again firing on Gazan farmers on Tuesday, damaging property and forcing farmers to flee their land, and on Sunday, they shot and injured a 37-year-old man.

    Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on Gazans since the ceasefire agreement signed Aug. 26, 2014 that ended a devastating 50-day war between Israel and Hamas.

    In March alone, there were a total of 38 incidents of shootings, incursions into the coastal enclave, and arrests, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

    That was up from 26 incidents through February, and left seven Palestinians injured and one dead.

    The attacks come despite Israeli promises at the end of the ceasefire to ease restrictions on Palestinian access to both the sea and the border region near the “security buffer zone.”

    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=765127

  • Republicofscotland

    The heads of both Edinburgh and Glasgow city councils,wages have broken the £50.000 barrier, both leaders are Labour councillors,and both said theyd take the next pay rise that was due soon.

    This info makes a change from the bleeding heart in here who’s never done quoting the FM’s wages.

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