UPDATE Sign this Sack Laura Keunssberg petition. It put on 16,000 signatures in the last twelve hours after gaining just 25 in its first three months!
No matter how terrible the BBC is, it constantly manages to get worse. The BBC News this evening appears like an especially rabid Tory Party broadcast. Sarah Smith was just breathtaking, while I thought Laura Kuenssberg must be the Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Sarah Smith’s report from Holyrood was so astonishingly biased that a rather bemused BBC correspondent named Keane followed it with “But after Sarah Smith’s report let’s not forget that the SNP have won an historic third election”. Sarah Smith’s contribution was a voiceover of a photo montage of Ruth Davidson. Smith told us the election was all about Independence and the “stunning” Tory result was evidence that voters were firmly rejecting the idea of any second referendum. Cut to Ruth Davidson saying the Tories were firmly rejecting any second referendum.
Let us for a moment accept Sarah Smith’s contention that the Tories attracted those voters who do not want a second referendum. The truth of the matter is that just 1 in 9 of eligible Scottish voters, voted Tory. 21% of those who voted. So the proper conclusion should be that the Tories came a distant second and most people rather fancy a second referendum. Sarah Smith’s anti-independence tirade was gobsmacking, but then it was topped by some BBC pundit comparing Ruth Davidson’s Tories to Leicester City.
A foreign visitor would have had to be watching very carefully indeed to realise that the Tories had not won, and indeed got half the votes of the SNP. So the Tories are not Leicester, they are Newcastle. Yet the Tories in Scotland got four times the coverage of the SNP on the BBC news.
And so to the rest of the UK. Laura Kuenssberg seems to have a depth of hatred for Jeremy Corbyn which is more generally reserved for Fred and Rose West. She appears to be sponsored to say “anti-Semitism” as often as possible. She opened her report by saying that the results called Corbyn’s leadership into question.
The strange thing is that the results are near identical to Ed Miliband’s 2012 result at precisely the same Council elections. The net loss of Labour councillors is 12 out of over 2000, as I write. Miliband’s result was unanimously hailed in the media at the time as a triumph. Exactly the same result for Corbyn – including winning many councils in Tory Westminster constituencies in Southern and Midlands England – is a disaster.
An opposition party should make gains in council elections. But when that opposition party makes truly spectacular gains, but is still the opposition when they cycle comes round again, you can’t expect it to make further gains exponentially. Keunssberg stated directly that Labour has to be “piling on hundreds and hundreds of net gains” to have any chance. That is simply untrue. 2012 was Miliband’s high water mark. It was all downhill from there. Corbyn is exactly matching Miliband’s best ever performance, and doing so despite being tendentiously branded a mad anti-Jewish racist by the bitter Blairites in his own party. Plus under Corbyn, unlike Brown and Miliband, the London mayor is now Labour again
Miliband went downhill from 2012 precisely because, after his 2012 successes, the BBC and corporate media threw their entire firepower at Miliband. Corbyn has already weathered an even greater media barrage than Miliband ever suffered. It is by no means plain he will follow Miliband’s downhill trajectory from here. In England next year’s local election results – in a tranche of seats last contested when Miliband was already slipping back – will tell us a great deal more.
Basis of estimate of 4x the coverage?
Sunday Politics on BBC 8th May showed an interview with Ruth Davidson. This was shown throughout the UK. The interview with Nicola Sturgeon was only shown in Scotland. I think this is exactly what Craig is talking about.English viewers are only shown what the BBC wants them to see.This kind of selective biased viewing happens all the time.Also the only question that interviewers ask is about the second referendum.Nothing is ever asked or said about the many good thing that the SNP party has done.
The bbc has a charter that says it will speak the truth.we know the news at the bbc has had a government bias whoever is in power.it is insulting that the powers that be still think that they can make these false reports and they will not be challenged.we are not so easy to fool and these biassed untruths only galvanize our scrutiny of those who aim to fool us.we finally have a strong and valid opposition with Jeremy Corbyn leading the charge for truth,honesty and fairness in pur society.the Right will lie and cheat to stay in power,while Mr.Corbyn asks only to serve.I know who I trust more.
So this is the drivel I’m risking a thousand pound for avoiding my licence fee over… I want a refund..
Scrap the Beeb, it’s an absolute shambles. If we want lying biased newscasters and reporters/broadcasters then let them find their own funding under advertising.
Fiercely independent my erse…
Am gobsmacked by the biased BBC coverage particularly regards Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. Also the biased coverage of council election which had a BIG thumbs down for the Tories…not covered. Sidiq had minimal coverage……Such Laura Kuenssberg contempt should be reserved for the lying cheating politicians not people like JC who genuinely want a fairer society where the disadvantaged have some form of support.
I am also shocked by the biased coverage of the Junior doctors dispute
arsehole -Laura just told it as it is
Looks like the Laura Kuenssberg petition has got the BBC rattled !!
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura-kuenssberg-jeremy-corbyn-petition
I’ve only just become aware of the Kuenssberg petition. I would definitely have signed it had I known about it.
The BBC coverage of any story relating to Jeremy Corbyn has been biased in the extreme, and, as licence payers we are inadvertently contributing to the situation. I have, and am, seriously considering the idea of proposing another petition – to encourage people to cancel their TV licences on the basis that the media coverage on BBC ( yes, I know its no better across a whole range of other media as well) is unacceptably partial against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Even so-called ‘liberal’ newspapers like The Guardian are increasingly and overtly anti-Corbyn. With the in-party backstabbers in full swing, the hostile media coverage and the post-Milliband Blairite dissent it is small wonder that Jeremy Corbyn is finding it all extraordinarily changing to make headway. But, as a Labour Party supporter, since Corbyn arrived, I can confirm that the membership is 100% behind him, and that, slowly but surely people are being won over when they appreciate what really Jeremy stands for, when the spin is removed.