Thursday, September 30, 2010

Optimists...


"We're the optimists now" said Ed Miliband. I'm sure they are. They know they've a lot to do but they do know also that they have a vital and strong ally: the BBC. I'll be interested to see how the wall-to-wall fawning and insipid coverage of the Labour conference compares to the coming coverage of the Conservative event. Today I noted that they link to how Paxman "grilled" Ed Miliband...he didn't even warm him up; in fact he didn't even get him out of the protective wrapping (please remove before cooking). Reminded me of Andrew Marr's "grilling" of the three party leaders before the election: (credit to Craig) breaking down the interviews into its consistuents topics:
Cameron:
Cuts, deficit - 15m 26s (67%)
Priorities - 3m 20s (14.5%)
Hung parliament, campaign - 3 m 0s (13%)
Living Wage - 1m 18s (5.5%)
Nick Clegg:
Hung parliaments, Clegg personally - 11m 7s (49.7%)
Immigration - 7m 32s (33.7%)
Trident - 3m 42s (16.6%)
Cuts, deficit - 0m os (0%)
Gordon Brown:
Hung parliaments, campaign, the Queen - 12m 18s (48.5%)
Immigration - 5m 21s (21%)
Bankers - 3m 11s (12.5%)
Ash cloud - 2m 40s (10.5%)
Afghanistan - 1m 56s (7.5%)
Cuts, deficit - 0 m 0s (0%)

Note the text in bold, the most pressing topic of the election and how each leader was questioned; just a coincidence of course, as was the non-bias of the BBC's electioneering blog, a tally of which Craig kept for 30 days with the running total for the whole campaign: Labour - 742, Conservatives - 558, Lib Dems - 471. Remember this was before the election so no Coalition parties combined; clearly one party matters to the BBC. It's worth regular visits to Biased BBC blog.

Update: Classic...as if one cue. Looking at some of the blatantly partisan people who have signed doesn't add much gravitas to their 'plea'. Pollocks, "There is a simple fact that you appear to be overlooking: the other political conferences would have been targeted too but fell outside our scope because of the long-winded niceties of calling strikes." Of course they would.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Craig did us all a great favour in keeping records on the BBC's arrogant bias toward the past incompetent and venal government.
Now Craig has gone, and they still continue their bias.
Interesting that lefty loonies like James Naughty,Martha Kearney and the odious Caroline Quinn, signed the letter condemning the unions for striking when the Conservative Party have it conference. They may be loonies, but not stupid, they can cowardly hide behind much less biased fellow travellers.

Span Ows said...

Yes, re Craig the record of time speaking/interruptions given in various programmes was also very eye-opening. Re the strike and this letter, I think it's the images being broadcast of them "trying" to cross picket lines is what they fear most.