Remarkably biased coverage of the planned eviction of Gypsies from the illegal part of the Dale Farm on BBC Today this morning. There were two interviews conducted by Chris Patten favourite Sarah Montague at 8.10am, although just before that we had Irishman Fergal Keane on to set the scene as sympathetically as possible for the poor oppressed “Travellers”.Then the lovely Sarah interviewed one of the Travellers who casually informed her that they had followed the law but because the law had not listened they were forced to break the law. That’s called the Sinn Fein defence where I come from – in essence it is never your fault when you choose to break the law. The lady went on to say that they were looking for a public apology from Council leader Tony Ball. When Sarah pursued this line enquiring if that meant that should they get such an apology they would move off the illegal site, she was given the answer no. Sarah chose not to pursue the utter intransigence and belligerence of the Traveller interviewed.
Then, Council leader Tony Ball was then interviewed and as you would expect, the glacial tone reserved for Conservatives reappeared. Montague sought to establish that a/ No force would be applied against these kindly Travellers and b/The United Nations has spoken on the issue and found in favour of the Travellers so clearly the Council was in the wrong anyway. I though Mr Ball dealt with the latter point well but throughout the interview it was perfectly obvious where BBC sympathies lie.
I always try to be positive so perhaps in the spirit of UN approved comradeship, the BBC should offer those Gypsy lawbreakers the chance to move in to a nice BBC big carpark, I’m sure the kindred spirits would get along just fine.