BBC Bias Must Be Taken In Hand

The BBC's pro-Labour bias is well documented in various blogs (notably Biased BBC), and yet it is amazing that the new coalition government has done nothing yet, as far as we know, to eradicate it. Last night I watched Emily Maitlis interviewing a Tory spokesman about the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which asserted that the poor would be worse off under the Coalition's cuts. She constantly interrupted him and was persistently aggressive in her manner. None of the other talking heads lined up by the BBC supported the government.

This approach was in stark contrast to her interview with Labour MP Tom Harris about complaints that MPs were being abusive to IPSA staff over expenses claims. Not for him the aggressive interruptions, the harrying. No, at one point she even called him 'Tom'. How sweet. No mention that this incompetent system was set up by his boss, Gordon Brown, who, as it happens, is still leader of the Labour Party, although he hasn't made an appearance for 3 months.

No mention, either, that the Institute for Fiscal Studies is part funded by the BBC - and the EU - and various government departments.

I have no complaints about interviewers being tough with politicians - but I do resent the fact that the BBC, a publicly-funded body, subjects Coalition MPs to the kind of aggression that it rarely applied to any Labour MP during the 13 years of the last government's rule, and hardly ever covered some of the most egregious pieces of legislation (a lot of it from the EU) passed since 1997.

Time for a purge of BBC mandarins, time for the BBC's Charter to be rescued from New Labour's political interference, time for the Coalition spokesmen to be more robust with interviewers and time for government and others to stop paying attention to think tanks and other similar bodies, etc.