“Silence you pinko-liberal apologist! It’s clear you’ve been taken in by the seditious, dirty communist lies of the British Brainwashing Corporation! See, you’ve always wondered what that second B really stood for, haven’t you? Well, now you know the truth…this is the way Stalin worked, you realise? Nationalised, state-media. Pyongyang style freesheets designed to spread lies about lovely Nadine! Lies, all lies…”

It’s either that or acknowledge reality has a left-wing bias…

I know the current wisdom is we shouldn’t call her Mad Nad but she is increasingly looking unhinged to me.

Nah! Not mad, just one Chardonnay too many. (Don’t think it was just a glass though, bottle or two may be?)

But then Good ol’ Winnie made some of his best speeches when he was tired and as emotional as Nadine seemingly is, and we cannot blame her for trying to keep to his high standards, after all the Conservative party needs another Blonde to lead it.

Doesn’t it?

Just because she may be mad, it does not follow that the BBC is not biased.

And as for “Its either that or acknowledge reality has a left-wing bias” – that’s just laughable and self-delusional. Its also a tacit admission that the BBC IS biased to the left.

This should bother all UK citizens of every political hue. The BBC is a national resource for everyone, is meant to be non-biased and has a unique, and in my view very valuable, method of funding.

The BBC is playing fast and loose with its future by not addressing the plainly obvious editorial bias it has. What better way to invite critics to dismantle the licence fee than to continually fail to address the legion of complaints about its behaviour?

And, to be clear, I think party political bias is relatively far down the list of the BBC’s sins. Every party gets equally criticised – the trouble is it is exclusively from a Left-wing position! For example: “Is the govt doing enough?” is a regular theme. You very very rarely hear “Is the govt role in this too big?”

The bias is more a cultural, metropolitan, statist, big govt, broadly left of centre, bien-pensant bias than one that sticks to party lines.

And, bias per se is fine. It would be almost impossible to create programmes or reports without any bias at all. It would be very boring as well. The point is that there should be a hugely better balance between different viewpoints or biases than there is now.

If you accept that even its critics love the BBC and want it to recapture its former reputation, then you will see this doesn’t need to be an issue that divides people on political lines. It does however, require the Left to acknowledge the reality of the situation and agree to share access to the single most influential media organisation in the UK (far more influential than Murdoch for example).

If the BBC, and the broader Left in general, fail to wake up to the threat their behaviour is causing, the BBC is probably doomed in the long run. It is no longer feasible, nor democratic, to tax the UK population over £3B a year (with the threat of prison for non-payment) and then serve up a one-eyed view of the world.

“The BBC is playing fast and loose with its future by not addressing the plainly obvious editorial bias it has. What better way to invite critics to dismantle the licence fee than to continually fail to address the legion of complaints about its behaviour?”

Someone has said it here and elsewhere before, the BBC is biased to everyone whom we are not. If they report things in a lefty way all the lefties go “Oh they’re not biased, if anything they’ve got it in for Labour”, and conversely the righties will always shout (as here) “The BBC is a socialist haven, it never says anything good about the right wing”

Lets face it, the BBC isn’t actually as bad in terms of what perspective it reports things in as people will say. It is MUCH more shocking that it is able to report as it does, increasingly factually incorrect and with a sky news style flair over substance, from our money than it is that occasionally individual reporters have a bit of a political slant one way or the other.

But saying that, people like #4 above completely fail to recognise the uses of the license fee and how useful some of its application is. This isn’t to say I agree with the fee, but is also to say that the vast majority of us would probably choose to spend our disposable income in the same way to get some of the same services that they provide.

Its also a tacit admission that the BBC IS biased to the left.

Yeah, is that why it kept running those stupid ‘Mr Brown as Mr Bean skits’ during the local election coverage?

how about the tacit admission that mainstream tories online are turning into conspiracy loons.

Oh well – leading horses to water etc etc

@Lee Griffin

If by your comment you think I am against the Licence fee, perhaps you should re-read this part of my post:

“The BBC is a national resource for everyone, is meant to be non-biased and has a unique, and in my view very valuable, method of funding.”

But, I think it is only valuable if those who are trusted to spend such a vast amount of money live up to their obligations.

Oh – and Sunny, your response about “loons” doesn’t constitute an argument but that probably doesn’t bother you.

The Beeb is not meant to be unbiased, and I seem to note that The Admiral admits it would be impossible as well as undesirable to remove its bias.

It is a different thing altogether to say that the Beeb is unbalanced, fails to completely fulfil its remit or oversteps its non-commercial function – all of which it certainly has had occasion to suffer relapse into.

The Beeb also is fully aware of the political role it represent and is generally aware of the pressure this places it under, as it regularly demonstrates when it retrospectively analyses its evolution on significant anniversaries.

It is an old line of attack against the institution to criticise it for bias which dates back to the general strike when Churchill attempted to turn it into a directly controlled tool for government propaganda.

The attack is traditionally motivated by the purely partisan interests of the official opposition to distract from their own limitations and usually increases in force after the government of the day has cracked down on adversarial behaviour by individuals reflecting the laxity of management structures under the contemporary regime (see the Gilligan affair and aftermath).

The BBC is not the voicepiece of the government, but the media arm of the civil service and the relationship is equally symbiotic.

“And as for “Its either that or acknowledge reality has a left-wing bias” – that’s just laughable and self-delusional. Its also a tacit admission that the BBC IS biased to the left.”

Actually, it was a piece of rhetoric with which to bash an idiot. Not quite sure how it’s a tacit admission that the BBC is biased, in any case, though. It merely suggests that Dorries’ pereceptions of the world are far to the right of reality, and that consequently any reliable reportage would seem biased to her through her self-delusion.