Who Pays The Piper…….

 

 

In 2006 the BBC was found to have a pro-EU bias by a report commissioned by itself:


The report may conclude that direction does not come from the Top but the problem is that the ‘troops’ are the ‘believers’ in the EU and they are the ones who mold the tone and direction of any programme as admitted by the report:

 

 

We were also told by Helen Boaden, the BBC’s former director of news admitted in July 2013 that:

The BBC has a “deep liberal bias” and has failed to reflect the public’s growing concerns about immigration and the European Union.

 

 

Seems nothing has changed.

 

The Spectator looks again at revelations that the BBC has pocketed money from the EU despite its claims to be ‘independent’ of politics:

The millions in EU funding the BBC tried to hide

Over the last three years the BBC has secretly obtained millions of pounds in grants from the European Union. Licence fee payers might assume that the Corporation would have been compelled to disclose the source of this money in its annual reports, but they bear no trace of it specifically. In the latest set of accounts, for example, these funds are simply referred to as ‘other grant income’.

Instead of making an open declaration, the BBC’s successful lobbying for this money had to be prised out of it using a Freedom of Information (FoI) request lodged for The Spectator, proving that there was never any danger of the state broadcaster’s bosses volunteering it willingly.

The FoI response confirms that BBC staff applied for, and accepted, about £3 million of EU funds between April 2011 and November 2013, most of which has been spent on unspecified ‘research and development’ projects, with the remaining £1 million spent on programming.

 

Rob Wilson MP, says:

The whole point of the licence fee is to protect the BBC’s political independence and impartiality by providing it with a source of funding that is outside the hands of governments and politicians. Thanks to this FoI response, we now learn that it has been going cap in hand to the EU for millions of pounds on the quiet over the last few years. Such outrageous flouting of the principles on which the BBC is based and funded will only promote cynicism about its political impartiality and lead to a loss of trust in the BBC’s independence.’

 

But it isn’t just the money…the BBC has been sidelining Labour MPs who are Eurosceptics so as to present ‘Euroscepticism’ as a rightwing plot:

When Newswatch [a site that checks for BBC pro EU bias] provided oral evidence [Of the BBC’s lack of reporting of Labour scepticism] to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee in March 2013, Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins said that the figures gathered by Newswatch were ‘a revelation’ to him as a Labour withdrawalist, and added: ‘Even in the House of Commons, at least one in 10 speeches are made by Labour withdrawalists, so the imbalance is very clear.’

 

 

Eurosceptic Labour MP Kate Hoey, now part of an unofficial coalition of politicians overseeing the privately-funded organisation Newswatch, which monitors the BBC for EU bias at a cost of £60,000 per year, says the FoI disclosure is ‘shocking’. She says:

‘I have grave concerns about the bias of the BBC when it comes to EU matters. I find the whole thing shocking. The lack of transparency is unjustified. Why does it seem so worried about people knowing where it gets its money? What has the BBC got to hide other than knowing that many of us don’t trust them on EU matters and the need for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership?’

Ms Hoey adds that she has concerns that the BBC ‘very rarely’ reports Labour MPs’ views on Europe. She says:

‘Even Today in Parliament [on Radio 4] always tries to convey Tory splits on Europe, and this doesn’t help the perception of an EU bias. There are Labour MPs with strong views on Europe as well. It doesn’t help that the BBC very rarely reports these views.’

 

 

 

 

 

True Lies

 

 

Three interesting ways of looking at things from the BBC today:

 

1.  Moazzam Begg has been charged with terror offences…..the BBC throughout the day has been tacking on to each bulletin about this that Begg, though spending 3 years in Guantananmo, was never charged with any offence’.

Why emphasise that?

Why is that relevant to this?  Surely of more relevance is that the US thought he was guilty of exactly the same offences he has been charged with now.  He admitted attending terrorist training camps pre-9/11…but the BBC doesn’t find that relevant here.

 

Not just on every radio bulletin but it seems they are pretty keen for you to know that on the web as well……..2 reports, the same words….

Mr Begg, who is now a director of campaign group Cage which helps the families of people who have been detained, has never been charged with an offence.

Mr Begg, who is now a director of campaign group Cage which helps the families of people who have been detained, had never previously been charged with an offence.

 

Why no mention of Begg’s well known links to Jihadists?

 

 

2.  Miliband has had his changes to Party rules approved……the BBC has been telling us that ‘the Union’s influence in choosing a leader will be reduced’.

Sorry…but that’s just not true….the Union’s influence will increase and even Labour insiders acknowledge that.

The BBC tells us in this long pro-Miliband report:

The BBC’s chief political correspondent Norman Smith said it was interesting that opposition to the reforms had come from ordinary party members rather than trade unionists – perhaps underlining concern about how the changes would affect their own votes.

 

…..interesting indeed…….but the BBC doesn’t care to elaborate.

Why let the facts spoil a good PR stunt for their Boy?

 

3.  Then on Saturday Live this morning they were talking to a Ukrainian girl who told us that the internet allowed them to find the truth about things that the Russian news service was distorting….democratising the media.

The BBC presenter told us it ‘was great that the new media is subverting the mainstream’.

Of course that attitude is a bit different at home when bloggers are the enemy…..as you can see from the first two examples of BBC journalism above it’s just as well there are others out there providing the truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BBC ANY QUESTIONS

I had the UTTER MISFORTUNE to listen to BBC Any Questions today. It was from the Bath Literature Festival with Justice Minister Simon Hughes MP, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Maria Eagle MP, Yale Law professor and author Amy Chua, and writer and broadcaster Germaine Greer. So, all to the left as usual. What stunned me was the question on whether Harriet Harman should apologise. The panel were unanimous – she should not. It was put to the audience, 99% of whom agree she had NOTHING to say sorry for. I was stunned. The bias is UNBELIEVABLE.