I genuinely cannot believe what I have just seen on the BBC national UK news. A report on the general election in Scotland in advance of tonight’s Scottish Leaders’ Debate. I know we have become used to the unfettered Tory bias of the BBC, but this was at a level of propaganda which has left me seriously disturbed.
In the 6 minute piece, four different BBC presenters told the viewer that the election in Scotland is dominated by the issue of a second independence referendum – which is not true, but is precisely the way that the Scottish Conservatives are trying to frame the debate in every single one of their leaflets and broadcast appearances.
They then had a piece by Sarah Smith from Kelso – a walk from the border with England and the second most Tory place in Scotland. Why choose somewhere so entirely unrepresentative? Then in Kelso they found an “independent” journalistic commentator to explain the situation to us. This “independent” journalist was the Conservative’s arch Conservative, Alex Massie of the Spectator, of Murdoch’s Times and often of the Daily Mail, possibly the most right wing man in Scotland.
Did the BBC introduce Massie as a Conservative, or at least as from the Spectator, known to be the Tory house magazine? No. They passed him off as an independent journalist. Did they balance him with another commentator who was not a raving Tory nutter? No. Did Massie’s contribution count against the time allocated to the Tories in the broadcast under election rules? No, he was “independent”. What did he tell us? Why he confirmed exactly what four different BBC presenters told us in the piece, that this election is all about the second Independence referendum. Exactly as the Conservatives say. Because nobody in Scotland ever thinks about anything else, obviously.
You are not going to believe this. Even as I type, at 18.24. a fifth BBC journalist has just told us tonight’s debate will be about “that fault line in Scottish politics, a second Independence referendum.”
This insistence on framing the entire debate in Tory terms, of trying to ensure that the metaphorical battle takes place only on Tory chosen ground, is disgusting. The second referendum has already been initiated by the Scottish Parliament after the SNP and Greens won a majority of both seats and popular vote in the last Holyrood elections. That is where the competence to initiate the referendum lies.
The BBC approach would at least have a certain honesty if they were saying that, as this election is, according to the BBC and the Tories, all about a second referendum, therefore if the SNP wins in Scotland there should be one. But that is not the terms in which they are framing it. What they have told us, in terms, is that should the SNP win less than 90% of the seats, that represents a rejection of the second referendum. Yes, that really is the BBC narrative, day in and day out, again and again and again, here in Scotland.
Just to complete the intellectual dishonesty of the snivelling hacks, the same people who characterise 35% opinion poll showings for Corbyn in England as total disgrace and failure, characterise 25% poll showings for Ruth Davidson in Scotland as the most sensational victory and triumph.
Of one thing I am sure. After Independence, the Imperial Broadcasting Corporation at Pacific Quay does not need to be reformed. It needs to be immediately closed down on day one, and every single employee needs to be handed their P45. Every single last one. Anybody who has worked in this obnoxious state propaganda organisation can have no part in building a new society.
Unless they have another vocation, like shovelling horseshit. I have never seen so many horses in Scotland as featured in the BBC report from Kelso. Tally-ho boys, what?!
You’re so right , the BBC are hell bent on setting this debate in constitutional terms , just like the party political bumph fluttering through our letterboxes from the unionist parties . It’s a paradox beyond belief that only SNP leaflets contain no mention of the constitution , only coherent policies . The cunning devils!
I agree with almost all of the article apart from the last two paragraphs where you want all employees to lose there jobs. I would have shared this article on social media had it not been for this. It gives the impression that an independent Scotland would be an intolerant place where people, no matter what their position or political opinions would be sacked because of the bias of the organisation that employs them. Not everyone at the BBC is employed in a position where they have any control of journalist or editorial output. Many just want to have a wage and provide for their family.
You are entitled to your viewpoint but I have a different view. You see I worked for the FCO in a very senior position, and I walked away from it because the organisation was doing something very immoral. That was at great cost to me and my family. But we have not starved (yet). You see, I think that the failure to take moral responsibility for your personal actions is a major problem in society. So I do want them to lose their jobs, yes, for knowingly conniving in an indefensible campaign against their own country.
Sorry Craig but i think you are misunderstanding my point. What about technicians, camera operators, clerical staff, cleaners, catering staff, maintenance staff etc. Surely you do not want them to lose their jobs as well.
It’s the old story of the bricklayers who built the gas chambers. Yes, I would make the entire staff redundant. I would let the those people re-apply for jobs in the successor organisation though.
I would add that I think the world has changed. Not just new media, but the role of broadcasting platforms is totally different now from when BBC Scotland was designed. BBC UK audiences used to be 20 million. Now 7 million is their absolute top and 3 million normal. Trend still down. Netflix, Amazon, 800 satellite channels etc. I don’t think with a new start we would build this kind of dinosaur platform anyway. Content production nowadays much more important than the platform it’s on. Need a rethink.
Let those people re-apply for jobs, well how very kind of you. What about the interim period- how are these people supposed to survive. People on low paid jobs, with probably little means of support. As for your example of the bricklayers who built the gas chambers, well. You are not the only person who has had to make sacrifices while taking the moral high ground including myself. I have never before heard of anyone who insists that anyone no matter how detached they are should pay through losing their livelyhood. Please tell me your account has been hacked.
RD: I know what you mean. My grandfather died in a concentration camp, so I don’t think jokes about them are in the least way funny.
He fell out of the guard’s tower.
I am well aware of your previous career and have read and enjoyed some of your books. I feel that you have not properly read properly my comments and if you have, then i am very disappointed that you would have people lose their jobs when they have no control of output. Sacked for being a sound engineer for example is just downright sinister. I’m actually trying to help you.
Awfully kind of you. Actually the audio-visual industry is in a very bad state in Scotland largely because the BBC spends so little of the money it raises here in Scotland. There are a very large number of sound engineers in Scotland having to do other work or only occasionally employed. By chance I know three or four. I know both editors and sound editors who do not get employed because they are Scottish nationalists.
Let me be plain. If I were the sound engineer working on the propaganda piece above, I would chuck the job in because I would want to do something more moral in my life than produce Tory propaganda. I don’t accept that doing low level work in a bad organisation absolves you from all complicity or moral responsibility for what that organisation does.
Any replacement organisation for BBC Scotland ought, because of the changes in the industry, to be much smaller anyway. Given a finite number of jobs and the existence of qualified unemployed people, why it is more moral to give the job to someone who used to work for the BBC, as opposed to giving the same job to an equally qualified person who did not work for the BBC, is somewhat beyond me.
Well said Craig, I’m a sound engineer(not BBC) and I have turned down a number of projects that involved making little more that state propaganda pieces, I’m surprised at how many of my friends won’t. Mind you I walked off a job for being ordered to wear a corporate T-Shirt! They apologised and ask me back.
I had a chat with a BBC crew reguarding Corbyn’s abysmal coverage – everyone I talked to said that they were free lance or zero contract lived in fear of not being asked back but were disgusted by the bbc’s new attitude. It was seemed a general agreement that it was being run badly in order to justify its eventual dismantlement.
I couldn’t agree more. The BBC has in effect become the Tory Governments mouthpiece. The Andrew Marr Show has become the Conservatives weekend propaganda broadcast. The BBC Board should sack all the present Political “Journalists” and bring in a new lot that can point out what the Tory scum are actually doing to the British people. #CorruptTories
now this I also agree with, together with breaking up the whole structure. There should be no ex Government operatives working in any of the editorial newsrooms.
We need a Wikileaks report on what is going on in the background as otherwise we are unlikely to know the truth.
I watched the same reports in total disbelief. What a terrible piece of totally biased journalism.
I absolutely agree with you. It makes my blood boil when I hear or read reports of the idiots who are running for parliament, and all they have on their tiny minds is independence. NOT what the election is about. That will happen when we are ready. But the BBC is seriously biased and NO ONE seems to be able to do anything about it. This cannot be right. It is simply not democratic. I will not be watching the discussion because the iSight of that Bird woman and the Smith woman make me want to throw up
Your feelings will be echoed in Scotland Craig, but the BBC thinks they are untouchable (which seems to be the case).
I am lucky to be old enough not to have to pay a fee to this abominable biased organisation, but with your background knowledge how can enough people (of all ages) make an impression on a “public” body which was set up to inform people, not to attack their political views.
The BBC must be the only “public”organisation where you pay them money but if you are not satisfied you can’t get it back (except for aforesaid oldies).
I don’t pay for the licence fee either – with a clear conscience of course – and I should in theory
More people should boycott these scumbags.
Couldn’t agree more ! The content and presentation of these BBC News reports need to be investigated ? Utter Disgrace!
It isn’t just the BBC, one of the presenters on LBC was claiming the election was about independence as well.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/alex-salmond-says-general-election-is-a-vote-on-indyref2-1-4430556
BBC is always left wing bias,so all because its not as blatant as usual you think it may be right wing,pull the other one
Reg have you ever watched the BBC since Corbyn became Labour leader?
Yes frequently and the BBC never make the point labours sums don’t a add up,watched MacDonald this morning saying he would issue bonds and not borrow,what a Pratt.Economically illiterate,what the hell does he think issuing bonds is .borrowing he should have been pulled up on it and been told he was being stupid
Reg, are you blind as well to the 380 billion of QE cash that was created out of thin air under the Tories, money from old rope? get real, add the cuts, where is all that money gone?
so what has happened to the total money supply in recent years if QE created all this extra cash? The point this argument fails to address is that playing with monetary policy is not a sufficient response.
Well as the Tories have no figures, except the ballooning deficit that was meant to have been dealt with twice over already and has now been pushed out to 2025 and beyond its a bit rich to complain about Labour. Take the mote out of your eye and see what is in front of you!
Reg,
The only economically ‘illiterate’ person posting here is your good self. May I point out to you the absolute fact that banks create money, it means there actually is a Money Tree with money hanging from it in a digital format, namely, the money does not actually exist, it has not been created by the State and it has not been created by wealth creators, be they small businesses or large corporations. Now, who’s the fucking illiterate here, and if my word ain’t good enough for you, I suggest you try the bloody Bank of England or Bundesbank who have research papers stating this very fact. As such, you actually don’t need to create ‘debt’ with interest, rather, the bloody Treasury can create money and invest said funds all in infrastructure with zero inflation, zero because we live in a period of debt deflation with only tangible assets raising in price, which is why we have asset inflation. Now off you go and read your neoliberal economic books, you know, the one’s divorced from reality!
It’s not the banks that create money but those who borrow from them. If there is limited demand for borrowing from them by corporates as has been the case then all QE does is put more liquid bonds on their balance sheets while total money supply and the economy stagnates.
ResDes,
Sorry old bean, the banks create money by way of debt creation and it pays them to overly inflate asset values, particularly in a period of near zero interest rates – maybe go and read some research on the topic area, but fact remains banks create money and this is backed-up by the Central Banks themselves, who have only recently caught on to the fact.
“Sorry old bean, the banks create money by way of debt creation”
Not arguing with that what are bank debts other than lending – but if you go and bother to look at the aggregate figures you will see that bank balance sheets have hardly grown since the crash. Now they may have been lending on the wrong things that don’t increase productive capacity (not that McDonnell wants to see much of the extra expenditure going there) – but the main problem is that they haven’t been lending enough to stimulate the economy.
Reg-they are constantly banging on about the Labour party spending plans and wringing their hands about it. Every BBC News for a week had that guy from the Institute for Fiscal Studies blathering on about Labour. Strangely nothing much has been said about the Conservative plans, apparently totally uncosted. So what was your point again?
This article is also quite revealing. The Biased Broadcasting Company is are totally shameless:
https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/20/a-bbc-radio-listener-has-caught-the-broadcaster-dead-to-rights-in-its-pro-tory-bias-video/
please tell me that you have complained to the BBc Ombudsman? here is the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/complaints_and_appeals/
Fiona
The GE is on 8th June. No way the BBC will deal with any complaint before then, and after their assistance in having the Tories re-elected, there will be drawn-out useless denials of anything wrong. That’s the problem which has to be remedied.
typical BBC response, please use the long grass when you have an urgent query, how transparent.
Exactly, Craig
Sacking them would not change the editorial decisions and output. The whole BBC propaganda machine needs to be wound up or privatized and compete in a MSM market where it would surely fail along sooner or later with the rest of corporate media. Making the public pay for being propagandized is the biggest scandal and shows the absolute contempt with which the ‘ruling classes’ hold citizens.
All I see is establishment panic… the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn is starting to ramp up and no doubt there are MSM plans to build up to a grand finale to discredit him. The mission is spread policy information vigorously and hope it drowns out the BBC/MSM agenda enough to derail their plans. Keep calm and dig in.
Oops, I didn’t proof read after editing my post!
Yes I said something very similar in a reply above (posted since your comment).
“Sacking them would not change the editorial decisions and output”
No but they facilitate it, and could change it. Nobody is forcing them to work for the BBC. Problem is many so “Amoral” IMMORAL (via self inflicted blind deference to power) so out of touch with the consequences of that it would be an impossible feat of self reflection…
Better to imagine that because you have stuff and so called status, that somehow means your not a monster.
They are all religious fanatics. And you have to be fanatical not see your obviously just corporate mercenaries for hire. Like the army.
It did Manda> ….I DONT WANT a nationalised rail, OR water authority. . . railways were chaotic for years any every government till denationalised and now they are a victim of their own success, and full most of the time with first class ruling stock, and modern stations. . The private water companies have rebuilt many of the ancient sewers which governments didn’t care about. . do I need to go on?
Any = “under”, Full =”for”, ruling =”rolling”
These people protect paedophiles
And whitewash it up with a £3m report, claiming they did nowt wrong
They are SCUM
I hope the Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t get drawn into discussing that dead cat. It is a propaganda tool pure and simple. She must steer it back to the issues she wants to talk about.
She need to say this is about a General Election and proceed from there.
When I went to click on this article through twitter it was classes as ‘sensitive material’?
Beeb bias is a serious issue. It used to be perceived as a left wing bias. Times change.
Deconstructing the UK and its institutions would leave a vacuum. Anyone who believes that it will be permanently filled by well wishing liberals has never looked at the world around them.
America, Israel, the Soviet Union. These began with a blank canvas and left wing ideals, but look at them now.
fwl,
Would that ‘left wing bias’ label have been bandied about from maybe 1997 to 2010. Because I think we can all appreciate how ‘left wing’ the Labour party was through that period.
The BBC have been having exremely right wing guests masquerading as being ‘independent ‘ commentators for a while, including figures from the Henry Jackson Society, a right wing think tank funded by American conservatives, which i complained to the BBC about last year.
Douglas Murray was holding forth on the Big Questions which follows the execrable Marr. I switched off.
I did the same. The third time, after two KMA replies signifying nothing, they got quite stroppy and told me to contact The BBC Trust. Being abroad and not having any of the relevant paperwork I was somewhat stuck. But now I intend to have another go about the deeply suspicious HJS.. I actually think the BBC reckon they are Eliot Ness and the Untouchables!
This sounds just like my post about Nick Robinson a couple of days ago. #BBCBias It’s shameless
Same here, same time-ish. Second complaint about that person. Deathly silence!
CM,
Whilst I understand your own preoccupation with Scotland, its disturbing to report that media-bias here in the UK is at a level I honestly believe is beyond the State Propaganda one gets in China and North Korea. I’m just watching a show on the legacy networks and have some women claiming that the Election is boring and the conclusion already known – if that’s indeed the case, which the presentation by our MSM clearly invokes, why have a fucking election to begin with? If the Tory scum in all major legacy parties are that afraid of a left-wing Labour candidate why not just launch a coup and get it over and done with?
At least the plebs would then know where they stand and may actually sit up and take some note. As it stands, I’ve been surprised by the level of non-interest by my own people here in South Wales whilst undertaking voter registration, never mind the fact such a civic duty is now virtually banned in many of our post 16 colleges, which in my day were community learning centres and not businesses where freedom of speech is virtually denied – would like to blame this on the Tories, but its a New Labour legacy, hence, my support for Corbyn, who, although not ideal, if a far better proposition for the average person than Ms May or the likes of David Miliband and the Bitterites presently infesting much of the PLP.
I could never understand why McQuarrie’s name was rarely if ever mentioned when BBC bias was an issue during indyref1. Despite the recognised view after the event that the organisation fell short of expectations, including a (qualified) acknowledgement by McQuarrie’s successor and protege McQuarrie, the current situation seems like an exaggerated version of that period. Almost as if McKinnon wants to prove to HO that she bigger balls that McQuarrie when it comes to dealing with ‘Nats’.
In an interview with her in The National 28 Dec 2016, the piece was titled, “My mission is to restore trust in the BBC”. Despite the obvious disparity with this claim and what we’re witnessing now, she remains unaccountable and, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t even been invited to provide a progress report on her “mission”.
Argyll Exile,
Progress report – Mission abandoned – 29/12/2016.
earlier I deleted the iplayer downloads application from my laptop and deleted the iplayer website from my favorites,
I moved home 2 years ago and my tv is still in the box I packed it in,
I’ve spent half an hour trying to initiate cancelling my tv licence, it is a really arcane and convoluted process,
I filled out a form to request my refund and have to print it off and post it to them?!?!
I can’t cancel online, I can only submit a query about cancelling,
I will not register for iplayer to struggle to find one or two programmes a week that don’t offend me,
I struggle to sit through Question Time, I used to love HIGNFY but it just irritates me now,
I do listen to R4 in the car but I do find myself shouting abuse at it or just turning it off in disgust,
I’m increasingly convinced that watching TV as it is presented today will trigger mental illness if you aren’t already mentally ill but unaware,
if more people cancelled their TV Licence/DirectDebit it might actually register how much they have alienated their viewers,
it’s the silent hand of the market isn’t it!
‘You are not going to believe this. Even as I type, at 18.24. a fifth BBC journalist has just told us tonight’s debate will be about “that fault line in Scottish politics, a second Independence referendum.”’
Before the 2015 election Nicola Sturgeon said that it wasn’t about independence.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/08/nicola-sturgeon-vote-snp-general-election-not-second-scottish-independence-referendum
Then as soon as the election was over, before the results were even in you posted this.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/05/independence-here-we-come/comment-page-1/#comments
So basically you are complaining that the media isn’t falling for the same trick twice.
Well said, the BBC propaganda in action yet again disgusting
It’s like the whole cabinet wants to play at having a deaf ear to criticism. I cannot understand how rude they’ve become either. But, it is time for change. 30,000 disabled people have died who might have still been with us. The whole degrading thing about the assessment of disability.. John Osborne, editing The London Evening Standard makes me feel ill. Only realistic headline in papers was The Observer, warning about how thousands of school children from poor families will be affected by Tory cutbacks if they get back in..
Made me think we need to abolish private healthcare. Because it’s not like they haven’t as people (i.e. Cameron) faced issues. But they have tones of inherated exploited wealth to insulate the worst effects of any hardship.
And they actually believe they deserve it, As they cut from the most venerable, from the peoples taxes who want the opposite? No question these people are disturbingly messed up. Totally upside-down.
The BBC, and to a certain extend some commenter’s here, are the looking glass into the middle of the cotton wool piece of fluff that is Theresa May’s campaign. Multiple rounds from a 12 gauge, into booth feet, is not the right preparation for going on a walk, unless its out of No10.
Michael Fallons attacks on Nelson Mandela, his lies about cuts to the armed forces, and or a serving Conservative who was a full time IRA member, you’ll find them in most main parties, don’t you, but not in any BBC scrutiny.
The BBC needs abolishing, not just in Scotland, but everywhere. A great idea has turned itself into the status quo ministry of truth.
But every time it happens, we collectively cry out, get angry, shout at the screen, a lot of good energy wasted. What is the next step?
How do we take this public broadcasting brief away from these status quo merchants and self servers?
Watching the debate right now and it is utterly transparent how stage-managed this is. I mean anyone, no matter their leanings, can see this quite readily as it’s so obvious.
In File on Four today the BBC played a clip of Mrs May as Home Secretary clamping down on police misbehaviour. Sinisterly she said it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to turn a blind eye to the problem but because of her vast moral rectitude she would not.
May has an extraordinary definition of what is unfair.
It’s unfair for a policeman to be racist, but it’s not unfair for her party to ravage Libya, Syria and Somalia, the three foreign countries where she is actively seeking illegal regime change.
It’s unfair for a mullah to express extremist views while he is on UK benefits, but it’s not unfair to keep 10 million people who have been invited to reside in the UK and maybe as many born in the UK who live abroad, without the slightest idea what their status will be Why? because she needs the racist vote in order to retain power. Who pays for her power? The UK does.
For a vicar’s daughter she has a mind-numbing lack of comprehension about the sin of eye motes, i.e. not seeing her own party’s faults. Tories are scavengers and pagans , red in tooth and claw.
Neither should we be jealous of Tory horses and horse skills, nor should we assume that camera technicians agree with what they film. But there is the measure of the new Labour leader, that he does not have that pure white rage by which others, including myself, smelt ore.
Yes as I’m always saying it’s the BBC “in” Scotland not BBC Scotland. The biased shit state broadcaster has been spouting anti-Scottish dross since its unfortunate inception, is it any wonder Baird loathed Reith, an establishment toady who set the narrative.
(Cue Habb’s but, but Reith was a Scot- So what.)
Craig you should also take in the utter onesided BS, that’s pumped out by Radio Scotland every single day. That’s if your blood pressure can take it.
Radio Scotland, should also be cleared out of all the rats after indy is achieved.
On the upside people in Scotland are now aware of the Ministry of Truths propaganda after the neferious part they played in indyref 1.
I must add I find it pretty remarkable and very encouraging that even though just about every newspaper and TV station, is opposed to Scottish independence, the SNP and to a certain extent, independence, has remained constant among a large section of the Scottish public.
That gives me hope for the future.
“After independence is achieved” . . . . HOW? Coup? Civil unrest?: because most Scotts DONT want it??? We already got asked that question.