Surely, surely, we need to see improving schools as being absolutely central to what we have to do for Wales to be successful.”
Quite why the tories aren't making more of labour's dirty little secret the other side of the Severn Bridge is a complete mystery to me.
No academies, no free schools. And the poorest in Wales are way behind their counterparts in England in literacy and numeracy. I'm sure its just a coincidence.
I did a review of the panellists on the last News Quiz series, including Sandi Toksvig there were 28 left wing panellists appearing on the programme which equates to a, typically BBC balanced, 80% left wing representation on a popular radio show.
I could research the imbalance relating to other programmes, QT, AQ, MTW, HIGNFY etc but I have a life!
"Why would anyone think the BBC is stuffed full of Guardian readers?
Oh.....because it is:"
Why are you quoting figures from The Commentator when discussing media bias!! It's well to the right of anything polite company might look at-certainly well beyond UKIP and in my opinion a very nasty blog indeed.
Why are you quoting figures from The Commentator when discussing media bias!! It's well to the right of anything polite company might look at-certainly well beyond UKIP and in my opinion a very nasty blog indeed.
The figures are from the BBC, but don't let mere facts get in the way.
I did a review of the panellists on the last News Quiz series, including Sandi Toksvig there were 28 left wing panellists appearing on the programme which equates to a, typically BBC balanced, 80% left wing representation on a popular radio show.
I could research the imbalance relating to other programmes, QT, AQ, MTW, HIGNFY etc but I have a life!
Why aren't the Tories doing this?
Because then they'd look as mad as Hodges and the deranged obsessives on this thread.
As I have said before, the Beeb may be a Maoist cell, but as Susanna Reid heads up the Red Peril operation, if that's what communism looks like, sign me up.
So your evidence that the BBC is dominated by Guardian reading lefties is one where half the daily newspapers bought at the BBC are right wing newspapers !!
The evidence is the disproportionate number of Guardian copies - far in excess of what you'd expect from this minority-interest rag..
However, as I said, it's not the main issue - the main issue is the staff. Odd, isn't it, that no-one (except, to his credit, Southam Observer) amongst on those on the left who deny the bias ever seems to want it to be checked out.
But then, I suppose that's consistent with wanting constituency boundaries to be biased towards Labour as well. The harder it is for the Tories to get fair media coverage and fair boundaries, the better, eh?
You are assuming that at the BBC staff buy just one newspaper which reflects their political views whereas the likelihiood is that people are buying more than one in order to get a more balanced view of affairs . I agree that constituency boundaries should not be biased towards either Labour or the Conservatives who at the last election got 47% of the seats for only 37% of the vote .
Is it even possible to draw up seats (Under FPTP) that are 'unbiased' to all 4 parties, factoring in say LD 15%, UKIP 10%, CON 33%, LAB 37% ? To give seats with the same distribution.. - I'm not sure it is.
No of course it is not possible to do that with a FPTP system , one or more parties will always have a bias in their favour .
Mssing around with electoralcalculus seat predictions, one thing I noticed is that at the current Lib Dem share of 13.17%, UKIP and Con have between 0 and 2 seats, Lib Dems 23 but Labour still has 65 seats !
Labour's seat pattern is incredibly 'sticky' or some such.
To quote a publication like The Commentator which was set up as a right wing Israeli propaganda sheet is a bit weird when you're criticizing the BBC for left wing bias because several employees were seen buying the Guardian!
The BBC has faced criticism for casting a porn star in the Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Mark Sloan, who has starred in a number of X-rated films including Tight Rider and Sherlock Bones, was cast as one of the friends who dined with Kate and Gerry McCann on the night Madeleine went missing.
Sloan, 44, who has taken part in previous Crimewatch reconstructions, said that working in the porn industry had helped to improve his acting.
Not at all. You have revealed yourself to have a serious right wing bias by reading such stuff. Certainly you should never be employed by any public news organization
I did a review of the panellists on the last News Quiz series, including Sandi Toksvig there were 28 left wing panellists appearing on the programme which equates to a, typically BBC balanced, 80% left wing representation on a popular radio show.
I could research the imbalance relating to other programmes, QT, AQ, MTW, HIGNFY etc but I have a life!
Why aren't the Tories doing this?
Leaving to one side the question of whether comedy panel shows really count, isn't Sandi Toksvig a LiBDem and aren't they in the government?
"UK car trader sees sales of new vehicles rise 15.6% Pendragon attributes increase to strong UK car market and expects 2013 profitability to beat expectations for full year."
Anyone who spat out their tea – in horror or delight – on hearing her say "the Tories put the n into cuts" on Radio 4's News Quiz could imagine her shining at prime minister's questions.
But Toksvig has washed her hands of the party. "Do you remember the Lib Dems?" she says. "They were great, weren't they? I don't support anybody now." Are they still counting on her support? A raised eyebrow. "I don't know if they're counting on anybody. It will be interesting to see, when they go to the polls, what has happened. I'm political in the sense that there's much to be done, but I'm apolitical in the sense that I don't think there's a party that represents anything I believe in."
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will never be seen as a serious broadcaster.
Not at all. You have revealed yourself to have a serious right wing bias by reading such stuff. Certainly you should never be employed by any public news organization
That's nonsense old fruit. I used to read the Morning Star (albeit for a good laugh)
Not at all. You have revealed yourself to have a serious right wing bias by reading such stuff. Certainly you should never be employed by any public news organization
Doing a google search and posting a link counts as 'serious right wing bias'?
I looked on the BBC website, but funnily enough, the numbers weren't there......
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will never be seen as a serious broadcaster.
Is The Walking Dead a political thriller about the Lib Dems?
Labour History Group @LabourHistory 31 years ago today @spellar won the Birmingham Northfield by-election, the only Lab gain from Con in a by-election between 1971 & 1986
Not at all. You have revealed yourself to have a serious right wing bias by reading such stuff. Certainly you should never be employed by any public news organization
Doing a google search and posting a link counts as 'serious right wing bias'?
I looked on the BBC website, but funnily enough, the numbers weren't there......
Don't worry about it.
Roger once had a go at me for posting a tweet by that (ex) Tory MP, Paul Goodman criticising Ed Miliband,
About two hours earlier, he had praised a tweet criticising David Cameron, by you guessed it, Paul Goodman.
So your evidence that the BBC is dominated by Guardian reading lefties is one where half the daily newspapers bought at the BBC are right wing newspapers !!
The evidence is the disproportionate number of Guardian copies - far in excess of what you'd expect from this minority-interest rag..
However, as I said, it's not the main issue - the main issue is the staff. Odd, isn't it, that no-one (except, to his credit, Southam Observer) amongst on those on the left who deny the bias ever seems to want it to be checked out.
But then, I suppose that's consistent with wanting constituency boundaries to be biased towards Labour as well. The harder it is for the Tories to get fair media coverage and fair boundaries, the better, eh?
Perhaps the quality of writing is percieved to be better in the Guardian. I know when I've looked at the DM there's nearly always some sort of puff for the Mail itself ….. after a Mail campaign and so on. Wearisome.
Do you think the BBC is more biased than it was when Major and Thatcher got over 40%?
If that's a serious question, then, yes, I think it is. The deterioration in standards of accuracy and impartiality at the BBC has been pretty steady over the last thirty years.
Looking increasingly like Ed will be proved right in calling the police in Stark contrast with Cameron and Plebgate
Nice try, tim, but spinning that Ed was right before he was so weak that he became wrong and canned the inquiry is a hiding to nothing - especially since a number of Labour figures (including PB favourite Dan Hodges) pointed out at the time that the sudden disappearance of the evidence was a tad eyebrow-raising.
So where will the "swingback" voters come from ? You could argue there could be a swingback to the LD's but I cannot see how can there be to the Tories since hardly any came this way in the first place.
TV drama of the late 20th Century -- The Sweeney, Rumpole, Minder, Brideshead Revisited, Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Prime Suspect. All ITV.
Maybe it is the politicians of both parties who stuffed up British television drama with their changes to BBC and ITV.
In one of my lunches with BBC people, they say the big problem has been more the fact US subscription channels are willing to take risks with movie stars and money to see if a show will be a hit or not.
For example, take Boardwalk Empire, pilot cost a lot of money ($18m) director by Hollywood Royalty, Martin Scorsese, and the star of the show is decent Hollywood actor, Steve Buscemi.
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-hugging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
So your evidence that the BBC is dominated by Guardian reading lefties is one where half the daily newspapers bought at the BBC are right wing newspapers !!
The evidence is the disproportionate number of Guardian copies - far in excess of what you'd expect from this minority-interest rag..
However, as I said, it's not the main issue - the main issue is the staff. Odd, isn't it, that no-one (except, to his credit, Southam Observer) amongst on those on the left who deny the bias ever seems to want it to be checked out.
But then, I suppose that's consistent with wanting constituency boundaries to be biased towards Labour as well. The harder it is for the Tories to get fair media coverage and fair boundaries, the better, eh?
You are assuming that at the BBC staff buy just one newspaper which reflects their political views whereas the likelihiood is that people are buying more than one in order to get a more balanced view of affairs . I agree that constituency boundaries should not be biased towards either Labour or the Conservatives who at the last election got 47% of the seats for only 37% of the vote .
Is it even possible to draw up seats (Under FPTP) that are 'unbiased' to all 4 parties, factoring in say LD 15%, UKIP 10%, CON 33%, LAB 37% ? To give seats with the same distribution.. - I'm not sure it is.
No of course it is not possible to do that with a FPTP system , one or more parties will always have a bias in their favour .
Mssing around with electoralcalculus seat predictions, one thing I noticed is that at the current Lib Dem share of 13.17%, UKIP and Con have between 0 and 2 seats, Lib Dems 23 but Labour still has 65 seats !
Labour's seat pattern is incredibly 'sticky' or some such.
Efficiently distributed votes. Also, Labour supporters are prepared to vote tactically more than others.
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-huging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
Of course the BBC has institutional biases. They frequently fail to recognise the diversity of views at all ends of the political spectrum. It is biased towards the young, the urban, the novel, the international, towards human interest over statistical accuracy, towards the provocative over the consensus. It is attuned to seeking out the views of minorities.
Does the BBC need to keep a constant check on its latent biases? Yes of course it does, and it is often too slow to recognise justifiable complaints. Does it need to be dismantled brick by brick? No, not yet.
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-huging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
Those planes are carrying HAARP weapons, controlled by the illuminati. Don't investigate it.
Looking increasingly like Ed will be proved right in calling the police in Stark contrast with Cameron and Plebgate
Nice try, tim, but spinning that Ed was right before he was so weak that he became wrong and canned the inquiry is a hiding to nothing - especially since a number of Labour figures (including PB favourite Dan Hodges) pointed out at the time that the sudden disappearance of the evidence was a tad eyebrow-raising.
The police found no evidence, the case is now being looked at again.
So unless there is proven criminality the Labour party won't take action against office holders ?
The police found no evidence, the case is now being looked at again.
The police found no evidence of criminal activity, but that always seemed a bit far-fetched anyway, since stuffing a Labour selection process is probably not a criminal offence. The odd thing was the speed with which Ed dropped Labour's own internal inquiry into whether anything was amiss. You can hardly blame people for wondering whether the reason was perhaps that he got a phone call from the boss.
James Bethell@JimBethell2h "Great disappointment" felt by (Labour) City leaders re front bench equivocation by Labour, says Labour leader of Nottingham. #citygrowth
I believe the Labour candidate for Broxtowe may also be somewhat ambivalent too, has he told them?
This years Oscar for best film may well be won by a BBC trained director. Indeed he owes all his success to the BBC (and of course me for my wise council!). He was chosen to be the lead director on Downton because the BBC saw a short he did and took a chance and four dramas later he was picked up by Tory Boy himself Julian F..
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will never be seen as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
I know it's probably not your thing, but given you weren't impressed with The Walking Dead it'd be interesting to know what you would make of PS3 game The Last Of Us (in terms of plot).
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-huging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-hugging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
From the home of OGH's favourite Tin Foil Hatter. He used to be a regular here.
Ofgem said average net margins more than doubled between October 2012 and October 2013 from £45 to £95 per household on a rolling month-on-month basis."
Ofgem pointed out that wholesale costs were now rising for this current winter - by 8% for gas and 13% for electricity.
I know it's a hopeless case, but I do despair when articles like that say: "The so-called big six companies collectively made profits of £3.7bn in 2012", without making even a token attempt to explore whether that is higher than you'd expect. (It isn't, BTW - If you look at the figures, there is no way on this earth that anyone could claim the companies are making excess profits.)
Sky reporters are about half a grade above tabloid reporters.
TV drama of the late 20th Century -- The Sweeney, Rumpole, Minder, Brideshead Revisited, Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Prime Suspect. All ITV.
The novel was filmed twice: in 1986 as an award-winning BBC television serial, starring Patricia Hodge as Mary Fisher, Dennis Waterman as Bobbo and Julie T. Wallace as Ruth, and, less faithfully, by Hollywood in 1989 as She-Devil, starring Roseanne Barr as the "she-devil" and Meryl Streep as her adversary, Mary Fisher.
Labour History Group @LabourHistory 31 years ago today @spellar won the Birmingham Northfield by-election, the only Lab gain from Con in a by-election between 1971 & 1986
Completely off-topic, but I need to ask the Brains Trust here something.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-hugging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
From the home of OGH's favourite Tin Foil Hatter. He used to be a regular here.
I know it's probably not your thing, but given you weren't impressed with The Walking Dead it'd be interesting to know what you would make of PS3 game The Last Of Us (in terms of plot).
I liked Homeland S1 &S2 but I'm having trouble with S3 - its all over the place.
I used to be a serious gamer but haven't played in years. I've the sort of personality that gets addicted to such stuff and so tend to avoid it. I once clocked Tetris after 8hrs straight and had no idea how long I'd been at it. It was quite a surprise. When I designed web sites - I dreamt in HTML...
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
We'll have to disagree, Plato! The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen. Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm. The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
This years Oscar for best film may well be won by a BBC trained director. Indeed he owes all his success to the BBC (and of course me for my wise council!). He was chosen to be the lead director on Downton because the BBC saw a short he did and took a chance and four dramas later he was picked up by Tory Boy himself Julian F..
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
We'll have to disagree, Plato! The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen. Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm. The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
Will you be getting Battlefield 4 ? First FPS that has interested me in yonks.
I'd be interested to know what the balance of centre left and centre right newspaper purchases is at the BBC. Given that there are more centre right titles than centre left ones it is not a huge surprise that an entity that is supposed to provide balanced coverage depends on a smaller number of centre left publications than centre right ones.
However, an independent investigation of the individual political persuasions of BBC news staff seems perfectly reasonable to me. There would be two big problems with that, of course:
(1) Who could be trusted by all concerned parties to be truly independent? I have s suspicion that whatever that person concluded would be subject to bitter dispute, with the person him/her self being accused of every kind of bias.
(2) Political persuasion is not really the issue. The issue is whether any political persuasion affects coverage. So, actually, whoever conducted the survey would have to make very subjective judgements. That, again, would make any final report highly controversial.
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
We'll have to disagree, Plato! The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen. Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm. The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
Will you be getting Battlefield 4 ? First FPS that has interested me in yonks.
Maybe. I didn't really get on with the earlier games, though. The kids and me love CoD, so we're waiting for Ghosts. The trouble is, they're all saving their cash for PS4s, so I may have to buy it myself!
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
We'll have to disagree, Plato! The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen. Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm. The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
I liked The Following but that went a bit strange towards the end, Vegas was meh for me, Hannibal didn't keep my attention so gave in after about E5 or 6. I enjoyed GoT but got a bit bored after the dragons bit - I must try it again.
Have you tried Elementary, White Collar, Suits, The Mentalist, Da Vinci's Demons, True Blood, Supernatural, Eureka, Haven, Revolution, Masters of Sex, Once Upon a Time, Grimm? Even teen aimed dramas like Pretty Little Liars is most entertaining. Justified is superb. That's off the top of my head. What have we produced here of similar quality? Not a lot.
There are oodles of excellent TV shows from the US - the more I see, the less time I have for what passes here as *great* - it really isn't.
(1) Who could be trusted by all concerned parties to be truly independent? I have s suspicion that whatever that person concluded would be subject to bitter dispute, with the person him/her self being accused of every kind of bias.
(2) Political persuasion is not really the issue. The issue is whether any political persuasion affects coverage. So, actually, whoever conducted the survey would have to make very subjective judgements. That, again, would make any final report highly controversial.
(1) I'd suggest either a respected polling organisation, such as YouGov, or a group from outside the UK, for example academics from a respected foreign university.
(2) I wouldn't start with the subjective question of whether the coverage is biased, but with the objective question of whether the political views of the staff are skewed compared with the country as a whole. If not, end of story. If so, then I think the onus would be on the BBC to demonstrate that they somehow manage not to reflect this in their coverage. I also think it's not hard to come up with objective tests on coverage, as I've discussed before.
(1) Who could be trusted by all concerned parties to be truly independent? I have s suspicion that whatever that person concluded would be subject to bitter dispute, with the person him/her self being accused of every kind of bias.
(2) Political persuasion is not really the issue. The issue is whether any political persuasion affects coverage. So, actually, whoever conducted the survey would have to make very subjective judgements. That, again, would make any final report highly controversial.
(1) I'd suggest either a respected polling organisation, such as YouGov, or a group from outside the UK, for example academics from a respected foreign university.
(2) I wouldn't start with the subjective question of whether the coverage is biased, but with the objective question of whether the political views of the staff are skewed compared with the country as a whole. If not, end of story. If so, then I think the onus would be on the BBC to demonstrate that they somehow manage not to reflect this in their coverage. I also think it's not hard to come up with objective tests on coverage, as I've discussed before.
But what do you mean by "skewed"? Would it be skewed if, for example, well-informed BBC news staff did not believe that most of the welfare bill was spent on unemployment benefits or that 10% of the population was not moslem, and so on?
LD - LAB and UKIP - CON potential switchers are the key for next GE methinks. We could see some swingback from LAB -> LD and UKIP -> CON which would have a net LAB -> CON effect, even though the actual internals are different.
...the objective question of whether the political views of the staff are skewed compared with the country as a whole.
But would you really expect the political views of BBC staff to match those of the country as a whole?
In the main these will be people who live in big cities, and possibly have a higher level of education than the country as a whole, so even if there was no institutional bias you would not expect them to represent the country as a whole in that way.
Of course, you know that, so you have created a test that they are bound to fail.
...the objective question of whether the political views of the staff are skewed compared with the country as a whole.
But would you really expect the political views of BBC staff to match those of the country as a whole?
In the main these will be people who live in big cities, and possibly have a higher level of education than the country as a whole, so even if there was no institutional bias you would not expect them to represent the country as a whole in that way.
Of course, you know that, so you have created a test that they are bound to fail.
Does being able to explain it excuse it? Or perhaps we should make the license fee only apply to people living in big cities, with higher levels of education (if you can call an English degree education)?
But what do you mean by "skewed"? Would it be skewed if, for example, well-informed BBC news staff did not believe that most of the welfare bill was spent on unemployment benefits or that 10% of the population was not moslem, and so on?
Well, if for the sake of argument it turned out that BBC news and current affairs staff comprised 65% Labour supporters, 25% LibDem supporters, 10% Conservative supporters, and 0% UKIP supporters, wouldn't you think that the BBC would have a bit of explaining to do as to how they guaranteed that no bias crept in to news and current affairs programmes?
The only dramas worth watching on TV currently, are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just filler. Until the Beeb start showing them, it will as a serious broadcaster.
I wrote a very rude review of The Walking Dead for IMDb. I watched S1 and bits of S2 and thought it was dreadful. I know Mr Dancer likes it. I assume its got a lot better on that basis.
We'll have to disagree, Plato! The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen. Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm. The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
Walking Dead and Vegas were excellent.
Also enjoying Sleepy Hollow, True Blood and the other 2 you mention above.
"The findings of the inquiry reportedly included a draft of the party activists’ retraction letter, which was sent to Mr Deans for him to get it signed by Michael and Lorraine Kane."
But what do you mean by "skewed"? Would it be skewed if, for example, well-informed BBC news staff did not believe that most of the welfare bill was spent on unemployment benefits or that 10% of the population was not moslem, and so on?
Well, if for the sake of argument it turned out that BBC news and current affairs staff comprised 65% Labour supporters, 25% LibDem supporters, 10% Conservative supporters, and 0% UKIP supporters, wouldn't you think that the BBC would have a bit of explaining to do as to how they guaranteed that no bias crept in to news and current affair programmes?
I'd be wary of suggesting that people are incapable of putting their own views to one side and producing balanced reports. Otherwise, how can the system ever work? Is the BBC to be staffed solely by people with no political views?
@Tim: "That's what angers them, politicians like IDS and Shapps get their false stats ripped apart everywhere, look at Dan Hannans little meltdown today on the same crap, and they simply can't take it when the BBC questions their transparent falsehoods. They want the BBC to broadcast their lies as facts"
On the whole I tend to view most stories in the press and the BBC as a mixture of fact and fiction. Where a story is reported about which I have personal knowledge - and there have been a few over the years - the story has never been reported accurately. There have always been errors, some more serious than others. So I approach all other stories with the same degree of scepticism.
Politicians of all parties always complain about the BBC and always will I expect. That the BBC has a sort of groupthink - as all organisations do - is certainly true. That does not really mean it is malevolently biased one way or the other, just that it finds it hard to believe that others think differently to it. But all groups think that, to some extent. That's why you need challenge and outsiders to shake up the complacency which affects anywhere with a strong culture.
But what do you mean by "skewed"? Would it be skewed if, for example, well-informed BBC news staff did not believe that most of the welfare bill was spent on unemployment benefits or that 10% of the population was not moslem, and so on?
Well, if for the sake of argument it turned out that BBC news and current affairs staff comprised 65% Labour supporters, 25% LibDem supporters, 10% Conservative supporters, and 0% UKIP supporters, wouldn't you think that the BBC would have a bit of explaining to do as to how they guaranteed that no bias crept in to news and current affair programmes?
I don't think telling someone that they had to answer that kind of question would be remotely legal. You would have to take an issues based approach. But you'd also have to define "supporter". Is that the same as voter, or does it mean naturally sympathetic to? Poll after poll indicates that putting voting intention to one side Labour is viewed more positively than the other parties. However, if we go on votes - do you look at the last election? If so, wouldn't it be right to say that the majority of BBC staff should have views which, for example, reject the Tory view of how to deal with the deficit, while also being very pro-EU and in favour of positive action on dealing with global warming?
Similarly if you found 80% supported Camerons green stance in 2009, when all parties agreed would you have to go and get them retested when Cameron changed his mind? All three party leaderships are pro EU memberships, who do you want BBC journalists measured against, them or the public? If Dave gets removed do we then have to retest the journalists against the new Tory leaders views?
All I'm suggesting is that the BBC should test the hypothesis. The hypothesis is that Andrew Marr was right and that there is a very deep-rooted liberal-left bias in our state broadcaster.
If the hypothesis is false, and there is no liberal-left bias at the BBC, end of story.
In the rather more likely event that the hypothesis turns out to be resoundingly true, the BBC would have to consider what to do about it. They might consider widening their recruitment pool, issuing memos to interviewers telling them not to sneer at and interrupt politicians just because they are Conservatives (even better would be to tell them not to sneer and interrupt so much with any interviewees), ensuring that the guests on Any Questions are not overwhelmingly left-wing, calling in Daily Mail, Telegraph and Spectator journalists, rather than Guardian and Indy journalists, for comment rather more often than they do, etc etc etc.
But what do you mean by "skewed"? Would it be skewed if, for example, well-informed BBC news staff did not believe that most of the welfare bill was spent on unemployment benefits or that 10% of the population was not moslem, and so on?
Well, if for the sake of argument it turned out that BBC news and current affairs staff comprised 65% Labour supporters, 25% LibDem supporters, 10% Conservative supporters, and 0% UKIP supporters, wouldn't you think that the BBC would have a bit of explaining to do as to how they guaranteed that no bias crept in to news and current affair programmes?
I'd be wary of suggesting that people are incapable of putting their own views to one side and producing balanced reports. Otherwise, how can the system ever work? Is the BBC to be staffed solely by people with no political views?
A balanced equation doesn't require a 0 on either side.
It is clearly the base that a right leaning journalist will find the answers of a right leaning politician more persuasive and less in need of follow up questions and contradictory comments. The same is true for left leaning journalists. Both will frequently miss the follow up questions which a political adversary would ask.
It's not a terribly serious position to say that this reality causes intractable difficulties and so we should just ignore it.
The simplest solution would be to just allow people to fund the news coverage they want, but in the absence of that as a viable option, it is not unreasonable to expect a publicly funded news service to make serious efforts to have all major viewpoints represented in their editorial teams, with the overall goal of mirroring the population at large.
I don't think any serious commentator can doubt there is an element of cultural, social and political bias in the BBC's news and current affairs reporting, nor that this is manifestly not a good thing. Many otherwise fine posters on PB demean themselves by talking of PBTory hysteria whenever this topic comes up. However, I think both the seriousness of the bias and its impact on the political climate is overstated.
The bias manifests itself mainly in terms of the extent of coverage given to "bad news" stories in contrast to "good news" equivalents, and in terms of the lengths the BBC goes to to contextualise or provide balance to "good news" stories in contrast to its reliance on Government spokespeople to contextualise bad news. So, for example, acres of coverage was given to the double dip that wasn't, with the only balance taking the form of Government spokemen having a brief right to reply. By contrast the emergence of data indicating a strengthening recovery was dealt with much more briefly, and then balanced out by Labour's attack line on cost of living and some human interest pieces about people still struggling.
However, this is to be expected, because as a leading part of the media the BBC has a duty to hold the Government to account. Doubtless all governments feel they get a rough ride from the BBC - certainly Blair and Brown both felt they did from time to time - and the alternative (state media actively making the case for the Government or not providing sufficient challenge) is on balance worse.
Also the British people often seem impervious to the line they are given. Welfare reform, for example, has remained remarkably popular, despite the BBC's generally negative line on it.
Finally, the Conservatives do themselves no favours by discussing the need to address bias alongside the broader issue of the future of the licence fee. Few things chill the blood like the prospect of the Government of the day using control of funding as a lever in a discussion about editorial line.
What is (sadly) missing from the modern British political scene is an august body of essentially neutral "wise men" (who could of course be female) with the power and capacity to address matters like BBC reform, MPs salaries and expenses and constituency boundaries, without partisanship or undue influence from elected politicians. Every democrat in the coutry should be appalled by the bias in constituency boundaries; but many rejoice in it.
I'd be wary of suggesting that people are incapable of putting their own views to one side and producing balanced reports. Otherwise, how can the system ever work? Is the BBC to be staffed solely by people with no political views?
In principle they could, but they don't produce balanced reports. That is the problem. In fact it's worse - they don't even see that there could be a problem.
Similarly if you found 80% supported Camerons green stance in 2009, when all parties agreed would you have to go and get them retested when Cameron changed his mind? All three party leaderships are pro EU memberships, who do you want BBC journalists measured against, them or the public? If Dave gets removed do we then have to retest the journalists against the new Tory leaders views?
All I'm suggesting is that the BBC should test the hypothesis. The hypothesis is that Andrew Marr was right and that there is a very deep-rooted liberal-left bias in our state broadcaster.
If the hypothesis is false, and there is no liberal-left bias at the BBC, end of story.
In the rather more likely event that the hypothesis turns out to be resoundingly true, the BBC would have to consider what to do about it. They might consider widening their recruitment pool, issuing memos to interviewers telling them not to sneer at and interrupt politicians just because they are Conservatives (even better would be to tell them not to sneer and interrupt so much with any interviewees), ensuring that the guests on Any Questions are not overwhelmingly left-wing, calling in Daily Mail, Telegraph and Spectator journalists, rather than Guardian and Indy journalists, for comment rather more often than they do, etc etc etc.
Did Marr say liberal-left bias? I am pretty sure he didn't. He said liberal and urban. As you know Richard, you can be liberal without being on the left. I'd have thought that is exactly what the entire leadership of the Conservative party now is. So are you, aren't you?
On Topic: "very few CON voters from last time have moved into the LAB camp."
In order to take a brief look at how this might have varied over this Parliament, I looked at Table 2 of the four October ICM Guardian polls since the general election.
These are just four polls, but I think one could understate the importance of Con->Lab switchers. Remember, these people are worth double compared to LD-Lab or Con-UKIP switchers in the electoral arithmetic.
They also look like they are more likely to change their mind than the Lib Dem -> Labour switchers, who look relatively solid.
Comments
Quite why the tories aren't making more of labour's dirty little secret the other side of the Severn Bridge is a complete mystery to me.
No academies, no free schools. And the poorest in Wales are way behind their counterparts in England in literacy and numeracy. I'm sure its just a coincidence.
SirComeSpect mez2468
• 31 minutes ago
I did a review of the panellists on the last News Quiz series, including Sandi Toksvig there were 28 left wing panellists appearing on the programme which equates to a, typically BBC balanced, 80% left wing representation on a popular radio show.
I could research the imbalance relating to other programmes, QT, AQ, MTW, HIGNFY etc but I have a life!
Why aren't the Tories doing this?
"Why would anyone think the BBC is stuffed full of Guardian readers?
Oh.....because it is:"
Why are you quoting figures from The Commentator when discussing media bias!! It's well to the right of anything polite company might look at-certainly well beyond UKIP and in my opinion a very nasty blog indeed.
Arch left winger Mark Senior thinks it is perfect - the prosecution rests...
As I have said before, the Beeb may be a Maoist cell, but as Susanna Reid heads up the Red Peril operation, if that's what communism looks like, sign me up.
Labour's seat pattern is incredibly 'sticky' or some such.
To quote a publication like The Commentator which was set up as a right wing Israeli propaganda sheet is a bit weird when you're criticizing the BBC for left wing bias because several employees were seen buying the Guardian!
Where have all PB's sane Tories gone?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/14/bbc-guardian-most-popular-newspaper
Happy now?
As you know, our family is a massive net contributor so your post is insanely dim
"Happy now?"
Not at all. You have revealed yourself to have a serious right wing bias by reading such stuff. Certainly you should never be employed by any public news organization
Pendragon attributes increase to strong UK car market and expects 2013 profitability to beat expectations for full year."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/28/uk-car-trader-sales-new-rise-pendragon
Mr Deans was expected to hear tomorrow the outcome of a disciplinary case against him -- but he has chosen not to do that.
"Leaving to one side the question of whether comedy panel shows really count, isn't Sandi Toksvig a LiBDem and aren't they in the government?"
Beat me to it.
Anyone who spat out their tea – in horror or delight – on hearing her say "the Tories put the n into cuts" on Radio 4's News Quiz could imagine her shining at prime minister's questions.
But Toksvig has washed her hands of the party. "Do you remember the Lib Dems?" she says. "They were great, weren't they? I don't support anybody now." Are they still counting on her support? A raised eyebrow. "I don't know if they're counting on anybody. It will be interesting to see, when they go to the polls, what has happened. I'm political in the sense that there's much to be done, but I'm apolitical in the sense that I don't think there's a party that represents anything I believe in."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/26/sandi-toksvig-interview
I looked on the BBC website, but funnily enough, the numbers weren't there......
31 years ago today @spellar won the Birmingham Northfield by-election, the only Lab gain from Con in a by-election between 1971 & 1986
I'd love to get an STD from Ms Riley.
Now - does Ed admit he was duped and reopen the enquiry ?
Roger once had a go at me for posting a tweet by that (ex) Tory MP, Paul Goodman criticising Ed Miliband,
About two hours earlier, he had praised a tweet criticising David Cameron, by you guessed it, Paul Goodman.
"Doing a google search and posting a link counts as 'serious right wing bias'?"
No but it shows the insanity of the exercise. Anyway you're far to smart for this. Leave it to those who aren't
Maybe it is the politicians of both parties who stuffed up British television drama with their changes to BBC and ITV.
Ed and Falkirk have nothing whatsoever to do with Plebgate.
For example, take Boardwalk Empire, pilot cost a lot of money ($18m) director by Hollywood Royalty, Martin Scorsese, and the star of the show is decent Hollywood actor, Steve Buscemi.
British TV can't compete with that
Ineos fired him.
You are correct - a stark contrast.
What are chemtrails? And do we get sprayed by them?
I have this tree-hugging friend on FB; someone who smokes impressive amounts of weed, and he often puts photos of aeroplanes on his page, kicking off that the 'government' is purposely spraying poisonous gasses over Wales again. Then his thread is full of fellow conspiracy theorists who think 'they are out to poison us'.
What's it all about? I'd never heard of chemtrails before this guy started venting about them.
http://falkirklabourparty.wordpress.com/clp-committee/
But its 'all a smear story':
http://www.prweek.com/article/1218414/unite-hits-back-against-allegations-nasty-labour-comms-work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail
Does the BBC need to keep a constant check on its latent biases? Yes of course it does, and it is often too slow to recognise justifiable complaints. Does it need to be dismantled brick by brick? No, not yet.
It was a nice run for sure, Pulpstar. Make sure you remember the name and watch out for him running in this country.
Those planes are carrying HAARP weapons, controlled by the illuminati. Don't investigate it.
Hmm..
"Great disappointment" felt by (Labour) City leaders re front bench equivocation by Labour, says Labour leader of Nottingham. #citygrowth
I believe the Labour candidate for Broxtowe may also be somewhat ambivalent too, has he told them?
This years Oscar for best film may well be won by a BBC trained director. Indeed he owes all his success to the BBC (and of course me for my wise council!). He was chosen to be the lead director on Downton because the BBC saw a short he did and took a chance and four dramas later he was picked up by Tory Boy himself Julian F..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-24716429
Deans steps down. United they fall...
If you're interested - my reviews are here. http://www.imdb.com/user/ur43365781/
I know it's probably not your thing, but given you weren't impressed with The Walking Dead it'd be interesting to know what you would make of PS3 game The Last Of Us (in terms of plot).
Is perhaps a more directly relevant link to wikipedia.
http://the-tap.blogspot.ie/2013/10/chemtrails-are-real-chemtrails-are.html
Not as good as The Singing Detective mind.
http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/ITN/1982/10/29/AS291082001/?s=birmingham northfield
I used to be a serious gamer but haven't played in years. I've the sort of personality that gets addicted to such stuff and so tend to avoid it. I once clocked Tetris after 8hrs straight and had no idea how long I'd been at it. It was quite a surprise. When I designed web sites - I dreamt in HTML...
The Walking Dead is the series that got me back into watching TV drama, after years of just watching News, Music or documentary channels. I was laid up for a week with a dodgy knee, and my brother lent me the first series when I was bored of playing Call of Duty. I think the acting's great, good characters, and it is good at building suspense. Of course you can pick holes in it, but that first episode was one of the best openings I've ever seen.
Since then, we actually use our Skybox to record series. The Following, Hannibal, Vegas have all been watched fully and enjoyed. Sky are good at releasing box sets on demand, so there's plenty more to choose from. I'm currently getting through the complete The Shield on LoveFilm.
The Walking Dead is still my fave, though.
Are you going to share his or her name?
However, an independent investigation of the individual political persuasions of BBC news staff seems perfectly reasonable to me. There would be two big problems with that, of course:
(1) Who could be trusted by all concerned parties to be truly independent? I have s suspicion that whatever that person concluded would be subject to bitter dispute, with the person him/her self being accused of every kind of bias.
(2) Political persuasion is not really the issue. The issue is whether any political persuasion affects coverage. So, actually, whoever conducted the survey would have to make very subjective judgements. That, again, would make any final report highly controversial.
Have you tried Elementary, White Collar, Suits, The Mentalist, Da Vinci's Demons, True Blood, Supernatural, Eureka, Haven, Revolution, Masters of Sex, Once Upon a Time, Grimm? Even teen aimed dramas like Pretty Little Liars is most entertaining. Justified is superb. That's off the top of my head. What have we produced here of similar quality? Not a lot.
There are oodles of excellent TV shows from the US - the more I see, the less time I have for what passes here as *great* - it really isn't.
(2) I wouldn't start with the subjective question of whether the coverage is biased, but with the objective question of whether the political views of the staff are skewed compared with the country as a whole. If not, end of story. If so, then I think the onus would be on the BBC to demonstrate that they somehow manage not to reflect this in their coverage. I also think it's not hard to come up with objective tests on coverage, as I've discussed before.
Remember the BBC have a long history of smearing Tories and having to pay damages for their smears.
The ITV thing was a mistake by Gordon the Gopher's bitch.
In the main these will be people who live in big cities, and possibly have a higher level of education than the country as a whole, so even if there was no institutional bias you would not expect them to represent the country as a whole in that way.
Of course, you know that, so you have created a test that they are bound to fail.
Also enjoying Sleepy Hollow, True Blood and the other 2 you mention above.
Loved the Wire and Sopranos too.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/falkirk-pressure-on-labour-to-reopen-selection-inquiry-1-3160666
"The findings of the inquiry reportedly included a draft of the party activists’ retraction letter, which was sent to Mr Deans for him to get it signed by Michael and Lorraine Kane."
"That's what angers them, politicians like IDS and Shapps get their false stats ripped apart everywhere, look at Dan Hannans little meltdown today on the same crap, and they simply can't take it when the BBC questions their transparent falsehoods.
They want the BBC to broadcast their lies as facts"
On the whole I tend to view most stories in the press and the BBC as a mixture of fact and fiction. Where a story is reported about which I have personal knowledge - and there have been a few over the years - the story has never been reported accurately. There have always been errors, some more serious than others. So I approach all other stories with the same degree of scepticism.
Politicians of all parties always complain about the BBC and always will I expect. That the BBC has a sort of groupthink - as all organisations do - is certainly true. That does not really mean it is malevolently biased one way or the other, just that it finds it hard to believe that others think differently to it. But all groups think that, to some extent. That's why you need challenge and outsiders to shake up the complacency which affects anywhere with a strong culture.
If the hypothesis is false, and there is no liberal-left bias at the BBC, end of story.
In the rather more likely event that the hypothesis turns out to be resoundingly true, the BBC would have to consider what to do about it. They might consider widening their recruitment pool, issuing memos to interviewers telling them not to sneer at and interrupt politicians just because they are Conservatives (even better would be to tell them not to sneer and interrupt so much with any interviewees), ensuring that the guests on Any Questions are not overwhelmingly left-wing, calling in Daily Mail, Telegraph and Spectator journalists, rather than Guardian and Indy journalists, for comment rather more often than they do, etc etc etc.
http://order-order.com/2013/10/28/labour-candidates-self-confessed-elitism/
It is clearly the base that a right leaning journalist will find the answers of a right leaning politician more persuasive and less in need of follow up questions and contradictory comments. The same is true for left leaning journalists. Both will frequently miss the follow up questions which a political adversary would ask.
It's not a terribly serious position to say that this reality causes intractable difficulties and so we should just ignore it.
The simplest solution would be to just allow people to fund the news coverage they want, but in the absence of that as a viable option, it is not unreasonable to expect a publicly funded news service to make serious efforts to have all major viewpoints represented in their editorial teams, with the overall goal of mirroring the population at large.
The bias manifests itself mainly in terms of the extent of coverage given to "bad news" stories in contrast to "good news" equivalents, and in terms of the lengths the BBC goes to to contextualise or provide balance to "good news" stories in contrast to its reliance on Government spokespeople to contextualise bad news. So, for example, acres of coverage was given to the double dip that wasn't, with the only balance taking the form of Government spokemen having a brief right to reply. By contrast the emergence of data indicating a strengthening recovery was dealt with much more briefly, and then balanced out by Labour's attack line on cost of living and some human interest pieces about people still struggling.
However, this is to be expected, because as a leading part of the media the BBC has a duty to hold the Government to account. Doubtless all governments feel they get a rough ride from the BBC - certainly Blair and Brown both felt they did from time to time - and the alternative (state media actively making the case for the Government or not providing sufficient challenge) is on balance worse.
Also the British people often seem impervious to the line they are given. Welfare reform, for example, has remained remarkably popular, despite the BBC's generally negative line on it.
Finally, the Conservatives do themselves no favours by discussing the need to address bias alongside the broader issue of the future of the licence fee. Few things chill the blood like the prospect of the Government of the day using control of funding as a lever in a discussion about editorial line.
What is (sadly) missing from the modern British political scene is an august body of essentially neutral "wise men" (who could of course be female) with the power and capacity to address matters like BBC reform, MPs salaries and expenses and constituency boundaries, without partisanship or undue influence from elected politicians. Every democrat in the coutry should be appalled by the bias in constituency boundaries; but many rejoice in it.
The Hannan blog is back up - no idea if any "revisions"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100242793/the-almost-unbelievable-pomposity-of-bbc-favourite-jonathan-portes/
In order to take a brief look at how this might have varied over this Parliament, I looked at Table 2 of the four October ICM Guardian polls since the general election. These are just four polls, but I think one could understate the importance of Con->Lab switchers. Remember, these people are worth double compared to LD-Lab or Con-UKIP switchers in the electoral arithmetic.
They also look like they are more likely to change their mind than the Lib Dem -> Labour switchers, who look relatively solid.