I suppose things can only get better under Michael Grade. Sadly things are too bad at the BBC to be solvable by the cigar-sucking smoothie, formerly you-know-what, 'pornographer-in-chief' at Channel Four. Melanie Philips, rarely one to understate things, says that 'bias is too inadequate a word to express the systematic collapse in our public service broadcaster of any understanding of what objectivity actually is', which sounds about right.

She highlights a Michael Gove column in the Times which made what I considered a striking point:

'The Middle East peace process is treated as an entity, almost like the Virgin Mary, which is beyond reproach.'

So that would mean that rationalisation would be out of the window, UN resolutions would be scattered against Israel like Hail Marys, and the purity of the basic Palestinian cause rather like the Immaculate Conception. Sounds a good analogy to me.

That's why of course the BBC's (to change the metaphor) sacred cows must be argued with knowledgably, just as the reformation people did to the superstitious priesthood over the status of Mary. Norm Geras gives us this example, and it's only fair I should link it here (you could find it through Melanie's, at BBBC, and probably other places, but it's a good one.)

On the subject of knowledge, this is a site everyone who is interested in the functioning or non-functioning of one the BBC's objects of devotion, the UN, should become familiar with. It's the website of the Kurdistan Regional Government and it publishes many articles relating to the Oil-for-Food scandal. This is about Iraqis pursuing the injustices that were facilitated against them by the supine, greedy or complicit administration of the UN. I suppose I should thank Max for this source- it's invaluable.