Forget Waitrose voter and Essex man... it's Robinson man who counts at CCHQ

At the end of David Cameron's day - as recently recorded on his 'One Day in History' blog - he crashes in front of Newsnight with a cold beer.  It's just another indication of the importance of the BBC within Team Cameron's thinking.  At the recent Tory conference in Bournemouth Mr Cameron gave more than half-a-dozen big interviews to BBC journalists.  A team from the Ten'o'clock News followed him around all day for a fly-on-the-wall feature.  The Cameroons will never forget the roles played by the BBC's Nick Robinson (and ITN's Tom Bradby) in applauding their man's speech to the 2005 Tory conference and damning David Davis' next day effort.  Both political editors regularly comment as well as report.

Team Cameron believe that the traditional Tory newspapers played almost a zero role in the election of David Cameron and they believe that the broadcasters - and the dominant BBC in particular - hold the keys to victory at the next General Election.  They fear that a hostile BBC could be deadly.  To Team Cameron's credit, however, this has not produced soft-pedalling on issues of BBC reform (see here and here, for example).

Noone is more important in the party's outreach to the BBC than its political editor Nick Robinson.  The Tory treasury team was delighted at Nick Robinson's reaction to Thursday's tax announcement and had carefully prepared the way for that reaction by providing a special briefing to the former Clarke-ite Tory.

The party's outreach to the BBC matters because the BBC is hardly representative of modern Britain.  Traditional Tories, Eurosceptics, rural Britons, Christians and friends of America and Israel have long known this but the BBC itself has now admitted the problem according to today's Mail on Sunday.

At a secret 'impartiality summit' in London last month, writes the MoS' Simon Walters, "which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians."

Here are some more extracts from the explosive MoS exclusive:

"Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.'

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'"

The BBC has long worried about employing newsreaders and journalists from ethnic minorities and few would complain about that.  But like the Tory A-list that is a very shallow understanding of diversity.  Programmes like Today need more people from conservative and Christian backgrounds, for example, to counter the institutional left-liberal questioning.

Impartiality is an increasingly difficult thing to achieve and there is more honesty in propgrammes like Radio 4's Moral Maze that platform genuinely different worldviews.

The BBC's biases will be further exposed in a forthcoming book by ex-BBC journalist Robin Aitken - Can We Trust The BBC?  See the New Culture Forum's site here for more on Mr Aitken's thinking.

Related links: 18 Doughty Street Talk TV hosted a recent discussion on BBC bias and Tim Montgomerie suggests that technology will dethrone the BBC.

Comments

[Wat Tyler]

Yep... well, tell us something we didn't know.

A £3bn pa ring-fenced tax to fund a stream of anti-British propaganda. Fantastic.

As we've all said a million times, Roll on Privatisation.

[TomTom]

The BBC rants on trying to denigrate Christianity and The Established Church - as if the C of E had anything to do with Christianity - and forgets it is The Established Broadcaster funded by a compulsory levy.

It forgets too that the Governors of The State Broadcaster (BBC) have a similar relationship to the one that broadcasters in Moscow have with Vladimir Putin

[Sean Fear]

Surely the cultural influence of the BBC is far less now than in, say, the 1950s.

[Chris Palmer]

Wasn't it also Greg Dyke who said that the BBC was 'hidiously white' (or something along those lines.) and that the organisation needed to be made 'more representative' - whatever that means.

The only way to deal with the BBC is to abolish the Royal Charter and License fee and either sell the organisation off or give it away to the people (an argument which I stated in a 100Policies submission which still has not been put up.)

[Richard]

So, what do the Tories plan to do about this?

[Dontmakemelaugh]

Some of us have been warning about the dire effects of the BBC propaganda for years and some of us have actually got up off our backsides, seated on the sofa, and thrown television in the bin along with the BBC.

[SimonNewman]

One has to accept that the Cameroon strategy is logical. Even those of us who dislike the BBC still wake up to The Today Program, and many of us go to bed with Newsnight (not difficult, it's been incredibly dull since they fired Peter Snow). The BBC's slanted reporting has a big impact on potential Tory voters, including many who are natural Conservatives. Their kid gloves treatment of Labour in 2001 made a Conservative victory impossible, and their hostility to Howard in 2005 (combined with a poor campaign) helped limit the Conservative revival at a time when Labour was already deeply unpopular.
Of course, the risk in following the BBC line too slavishly is that you ultimately remove any reason for centrist & right of centre voters to vote Conservative, while failing to attract many left-wing voters either. Currently all three major parties are presenting themselves as broadly left of centre, it's getting pretty crowded over there! And it has opened a big opportunity for Labour on the right, which they are already beginning to exploit.

[Stuart Raven]

From what I remember of Nick Robinson he would be 100% aligned with the Cameron/Osborne axis.

Amazing, really that the BBC allow him to hob-nob with Cameron. He tries to pretend to be impartial but he's not fooling anybody.

Robinson must have had some special entry to the BBC. I seem to recall someone telling me that he was best buddies with the son of Brian Redhead (remember him?)

The two were in a car that crashed - I don't know who was driving - and Robinson was badly burned in a vain attempt to save his friend. That's what I was told, anyway, years ago.

[Alex Crowley]

I agree with Andrew Marr's analysis that the bias is more cultural than party political- it just so happens that our party is on the wrong side of the cultural fence for the Beeb's liking.

I've always thought that the notion of public service broadcasting was irrelevant in the modern age, and we should be taking a serious look at abolishing the licence fee. Not the BBC itself, but the public funding. I truly believe that, should they ever need to find their own funding, they will have to listen to their audience and correct themselves accordingly.

Of course, the party can't think this out loud, because I agree that we need the BBC. However, that shouldn't stop senior members of the party whispering it in the ears of BBC execs every now and again.....

[hf]

The BBC's culture has also been altered by the shift towards younger presenters and producers. It is ageist. In general terms because people tend to become more conservative with age, having a younger workforce creates a more anti-Conservative viewpoint.

In my 40's I find that the lack of gravitas in New readers weakens its impact.

[David H]

Surely this has always been the thinking behind Cameroonism - that a Conservative victory is impossible with a hostile BBC. To this end Cameron has avoided talk of tax cuts (the BBC will portray this as leading to the closure of schools and hospitals), immigration controls (xenophobic little Englanders), Europe (ditto) and has been soft on crime to avoid being portrayed as a "hang 'em, flog 'em" Tory. Despite disagreeing with much of this I'd have to admit that it's a strategy which seems to be working - he (Cameron) seems to have developed a friendly relationship with the BBC which his predecessors lacked.

[TomTom]

The Conservatives should do ONE thing with resopect to the BBC.

Simply de-criminalise the TV Licence Fee and let them pursue civil actions for non-payment rather than the taxpayer mounting criminal trials with prison as penalty

[malcolm]

I think this indicates that the Cameron strategy may be sometimes unpalatable even to a generally moderate Conservative like me but is probably right.I agree with him in that I believe the BBC has far,far has more influence than any newspaper on the electorate.
I'm quite pleased that people like Marr and Justin Webb recognise the reality but why won't they do anything about it?
Perhaps EVERY Conservative spokesman on the BBC should ensure that he/she talks about the 'institutional bias of the BBC' whatever the question being asked.Should take long to shake things up!

[Denis Cooper]

Hold on - if "a hostile BBC could be deadly" then it would be stupid for any party to go into an election with a manifesto proposal to abolish the licence fee.

On the other hand, as a licence payer I feel I have a right to expect the BBC to properly fulfill the requirement for impartiality laid down in its Charter.

I know that condition of the Charter is being broken, and now BBC journalists have admitted that they know that condition is being broken, so they could not reasonably argue against a sensible proposal to something about it.

Having complained to the BBC about its coverage on numerous occasions over recent years, I know where the catch is - that my complaints about the BBC go to the BBC, and lo and behold they are always found to be unjustified.

What is needed is a completely independent outside body to take complaints about the BBC, examine them in a much stricter and more impartial way, and widely publicise both all the viewers' complaints and their findings.

It need not cost more, because the BBC could pay for that body out of its funds, including the fines imposed when it is found to have broken its Charter.

I look forward to a www.bbccomplaints.org website with a daily update on all the complaints received, and the fines imposed on the BBC for previous infractions, plus the forum where viewers could compare notes on the latest breaches.

[ratbag]

NOT on topic but merely in reply- - -
=-=-=-=--
TomTom says "as if the C of E had anything to do with Christianity"

I find this most offensive. Our church was packed today. The congregation is not elderly - the number of buggies proves that! It works locally and abroad on one charitable cause after another and our beliefs are straight up! We had 30,000 people at our July Two-Day fete.

Has TomTom been to church lately?

Please don't be offensive or I'll have to take some lessons from the Moslems and blow something up - - - :-)

[daveinboca]

The BBC has done an internal audit/navel-gazing exercise in which it finds itself guilty of a number of unforced errors, indeed, tendentious factitious disinformation. USS Neverdock has a good summary of the results of the BBC's introspection, along with some trenchant well-deserved down-putting observations of his own.

In the USA, we have PBS and NPR, both tilting left and occasionally far left. But the completely open editorializing of creepy sports of nature like Orla Guerin and her crew on the Middle East is suffused with hate for Israel and cheerleading for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.

Orwell foresaw all this, and 1984 is behind schedule, but with the BBC as the Ministry of Truth, the UK will eventually arrive at life under Big Brother.

[Stuart Raven]

This was not always my opinion but frankly, especially now most of us have access to scores of channels, I think it's time to abolish the licence and sell off the BBC.

Now there's a sure votewinner!

[TomTom]

Has TomTom been to church lately?

Please don't be offensive or I'll have to take some lessons from the Moslems and blow something up - - - :-)

Posted by: ratbag | October 22, 2006 at 16:26

Feel free ! But first disown Supercessionism.

Then read the XXXIX Articles and decide which ones your congregation does not uphold.

Then separate out your Rotary Club activities and work out just how deep your theological knowledge of 1st Century Christianity is - before it became the software for the institutionalised church

[ratbag]

TomTom Go on then just BE offensive.

Our Christianity is full, sincere and profound. We preach the Gosapel of the Risen Christ "Christ has Died - Christ has risen - Christ will come Again"

If - as the WWI cartoon said - you know a better hole go to it and take your venom with you.

[ToMTom]

What strange words you use - venom

Merely because I ask about the XXXIX Articles and Supercessionism.........

Unless you have read Ruth and Isaiah you cannot have much comprehension of the New Testament, and the midrash involved in the Four Gospels requires a more profound understanding that simply reciting slogans

[Denis Cooper]

Stuart, actually I'm not so sure that a commitment to sell off the BBC would itself be a sure votewinner with the wider public. Oddly enough quite a lot of people still support the BBC as a publicly owned broadcaster. But I'm pretty sure that such a proposal would make the BBC extremely hostile to any party which had made it, and would probably cost them a lot more votes in other ways.

[ratbag]

TomTom - Read the Gospels and look on the OT as a folk story of heathen folk.

I've got no time for fundamentalist bible thumpers who - I find - can always find a useful quotation twisted out of context. Read what Jesus said. He died for us and he hadn't got much time for the " scribes and pharisees" who were the bible thumpers of the day.

And whatever "Supercessionism" is only the nitpickers know - I don't.

"Venom"? - YOU started by a venomous attack on the CoE so don't come over all innocent.

[TomTom]

Jesus was a follower of Pharisaic doctrine - had he been a Sadduccee he would not have believed in Resurrection...............modern Judaism is Pharisaic.

The Scribes were highly regarded as were Pharisees and Jesus dined with them. If you knew your Bible you would know they were the religious party and the Sadducees the social party -

Unlike you I have read the entire Bible including Apocrypha - i suggest you do so with a Concordance

[malcolm]

As usual Tomtom an utterly irrelevant series of points that have nothing whatsoever to do with this thread.Ratbag, Tomtom likes to show us almost everday the benefits of either his great education or his ability to google irrelevant but worthy facts.I suspect he wasn't trying to be deliberately offensive to you.

[ratbag]

Malcolm - You're probably right. Thopugh if he didn't MEAB to be rude he shou;dn't have BEEN rude. I have never read such nit-picking erroneous drivel in my life!

{My dictionary didn't have "supercessionism," but the US section of google had buckets of it - - - "traditional Christian teaching that the Old Israel was replaced with Christ’s sacrifice by a New Israel—the Church".}

Christ speaks for himself and doesn't need all these nutcases interpreting Him.

[Stuart Raven]

As an Episcopalian with a more than friendly interest in the C of E, I can understand some of Tom Tom's reservations.

However, I believe that the church is now improving. There are many decent ministers who need our support. I'm heartened by Ratbag's news of the vibrancy of his church.

These days our churches are increasingly looking to the devout worshippers of Africa and other parts of the Third World for a moral lead, and rightly so.

Bishop Nazir-Ali of Rochester and the Archbishop of York are truly Christian examples to us all.

[EdR]

Yesterday on the BBC's report about youth violence, sandwiched between some very negative reporting, the reporter kindly decided to take an extraneous clip of Cameron (edited down to the three words: "keep it real") alongside the commentary that Cameron's comments to be sympathetic to teenagers had 'become known' as his hug-a-hoodie speech (no material or quote from the actual speech, obviously!). Then it went onto what it called 'more practical suggestions'. It was basically a 10-second potshot.

[Dot Con]

Back to the topic in hand........
The BBC has for too long fished in a very small pool when advertising for its staff. The consequence has been that producers, researchers and programme controllers are drawn from an unrepresentative, fairly unquestioning group of liberals - easily embarrassed by conservative or suburban values.
The answer is not to scrap the licence fee. This will simply damage the good aspects of BBC programming and run the risk of replacing it with Berlusconi or Murdoch-style "popcorn telly" funded by endless tedious ads and commercial breaks.
But to receive the fee, the BBC should now be required to advertise more widely, to ensure that the authentic voice of conservative Britain is properly and uncynically represented (do all game-show panellists have to be relentlessly left-wing, clones?), and to plug itself into a wider cultural milieu than it has managed to do in recent years.
Many of the slightly anonymous senior managers at the BBC (like many government ministers) still seem to be unnaturally in hock to the relativist, anti-establishment values of the 1960s. The real world has seen the downside of this and has moved on. It is time the BBC did the same and begun to take serious steps to re-acquaint itself with mainstream culture and opinions rather than falling for the unrepresentative agendas which seem to dominate its news and current affairs programming.
A bit more Surbiton and a little less Islington on the Board of Governors would be a good start.................

[Denis Cooper]

I'd add that ITV is not actually that much better than the BBC, and for the same reason. But at least with the BBC the people who pay for it in a very direct way, the licence payers, can reasonably insist upon a better service for their money.

[Geoff]

I look forward to a www.bbccomplaints.org website

Denis, http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

[Rachel Joyce]

The worrying thing about this bias is not just what the BBC say or don't say, but HOW they say it. I have seen numerous interviews of Israeli politicians where the tone of voice of the interviewer, and their obvious disdain gave many non-verbal cues to the audience about what they should think of the Israeli. In contrast, interviews with representatives of terrorist organisations are usually very respectful.
The other trick is to invite a group of people eg journalists/ politicians (such as with "Dateline London") and give the impression that the invited panel are from a cross section of opinions. Then when they all agree on an issue (usually with a leftish or anti-Israeli slant) it implies that this is a representative mainstream view, again giving cues to the audience of what "right-thinking" people should believe.
These tricks are incredibly sinister, and not something that can be easily complained about - as it is view by implication rather than by hard words.
I agree with Tim that it is technology that will deal with this issue, the more the public are made aware, the better.

[Annabel Herriott]

I have often wondered whether the interviewer is being fed the next line through their ear piece. It would be a good start to just ban them. It comes over as a bit like T.Blair and his army of researchers, filling that huge file, all marked of with post its that he lugs on and off the table like a security blanket.
The BBC interviewers merely seem to be out to "get" whichever poor politition they have on the end of their hook. That is, if they are Tory. I watch the, crouched on their seat, waiting to pounce, while the tory politician sits back, flicking off the attempts to wrong foot him. I normally turn to my partner and remark - that one to us.
I wish the BBC would concentrate on the issue under consideration rather than leftist point scoring.