Raheem Kassam: The BBC spends a third of £1 million concealing 'Balen Report' into its Middle East coverage

Raheem Kassam is the Executive Editor of The Commentator. Follow him on Twitter.

How does the BBC continue to get away with it?

By spending your money, that’s how.

If you’re a TV licence fee payer, or someone from abroad who consumes BBC news stories in exchange for advertising, then sadly you’re complicit, albeit in a miniscule way, to the BBC’s ongoing concealment of the now infamous Balen Report.

Completed in 2004, the Balen Report was supposed to assess BBC reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict. That the Beeb commissioned such a report in light of accusations of bias already tells us one thing. And no, it’s not that they are dedicated to transparency and fairness.

Now we learn that the BBC has been spending cartloads of public money trying to hide the Balen Report.

Since its completion, there have been public, legal challenges aimed at having the BBC disclose the document. At first, it appeared that the BBC was able to hide behind an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act that allowed it to hide information held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, but to their dismay, the Information Tribunal soon challenged such a position.

Raheem Kassam: David Cameron should not seek to copy Obama's "omnipresidency"

Raheem Kassam hails from Uxbridge, studied Politics at university and is now a freelance political campaign strategist.

The roles of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom have become more aligned as of late, with image and style perceived to be as crucial as policy and ‘substance’ (as one now disappearing actor called it).  To this end, it appears that politicians want to be seen out and about as much as possible – doing, thinking, meeting and speaking.  I’d prefer they were working; call me old fashioned like that.  Let us briefly consider Obama’s ‘omnipresidency’ compared with what effectively has been a rather modest outing thus far for David Cameron.

Politico.com reported in August 2009 that Obama had uttered over half a million words in public since taking office.  Given his tenure, we don’t and probably won’t have access to that kind of statistical information about Cameron, however what Barack and Co seem to be doing is perhaps typical of the left.  He’s micromanaging.  Obama is involving himself in minutiae on an unprecedented scale; a tactic which some would argue is growing the ‘Presidential cult’ and demeaning the office of the Commander-in-Chief.

From insisting Massachusetts police acted stupidly during the arrest of Professor Henry Gates in 2009 to wanting to  'to 'kick BP's ass' over the Gulf Coast oil spill, Obama shows himself to be overly concerned with appearing active or in touch, rather than leading his country in a statesmanlike fashion.   Cameron on the other hand seems reserved on this, despite our familiarity with his team’s fiddly and meddlesome modus operandi.

It’s really just ‘peacocking’ or abstract electioneering.  These politicians want to show that they’re ‘normal’ – but we know the lives our leaders live is anything but that.  Why make such purposeful efforts to masquerade this and patronise our ability to distinguish between statesmen and celebrities?  In one whirlwind week last month, for example, President Obama made a third appearance on 60 Minutes, gave a major speech on the financial crisis and made five talk-show appearances the following Sunday.  On the eighth day he appeared on Letterman.