(sorry for my lack of posts over the weekend and monday- I wasn't, unfortunately, at some glamorous location, but I was in fact buying a new lap top following my old one's disastrous lapses. Maybe now... at last... I can get blogging proper-like. Of course my lap top's not the only sometimes-faulty equipment- there's also me)


I recommend this article in The Business by ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie. It's heartening to find people getting closer to my views on BBC bias.

Whilst I do consider there is an anti-Conservative bias at the BBC, it certainly isn't consistent and is not usually blatant. Tim doesn't get stuck on that one, skirting neatly round it in the opening paragraphs concerning Fox News.

Tim gets full marks from me for identifying the BBC's core biases as lying in the foreign affairs realm, specifically concerning coverage of Israel and the US. He might have done more than mention Iraq, but gets marks for political awareness for this low-key approach. I would personally have been more direct, but Montgomerie says only that British servicemen are 'disappointed' by the lack of coverage of their positive work. Aah, very good- the patriotic approach to a serious BBC bias.

Coming to BBC anti-Conservative bias, he does so by a gate left open at the back, so to speak:

'Soon after David Cameron had abandoned traditional Tory support for lower taxation and public service reform he was subjected to a very tough interview on the Today programme. Can voters be sure you have changed? Isn’t this new policy inconsistent with what you were proposing at the last election? Those questions were the questions of the establishment. Missing was an attack from the right. “Doesn’t Britain need lower taxes to compete with the world’s tiger economies?” “Isn’t school and hospital choice an essential way of forcing public service workers to improve their performance?”'

That's a great point. We attack dogs of the right feel muzzled by such circumvention of the political spectrum.

From there argument devolves into laundry list... but at the end the Beeb's dirty washing must produce just such, mustn't it. And he's held a few garments up to the light beforehand. So, high marks, Monty.