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The BBC is biased , it is a left wing organisation , there is no such thing as a completly unbiased media source.
As for Blair , he wont last much longer , the hard core left wing in the labour party will replace him with an old-style Labour leader , who will do the old style labour stuff (major defence cuts , union appeasing , rampant nationalisation) .
Come next election , the labour party will be swept from power by the British public and the Torys will once again come to their rightful place in Government.
I hope we do get Blair replaced by a Labour Prime Minister. Although you're living in the 1970s if you expect a Labour government to restore union power, it's what kept us out of office for eighteen years and no modern Labour PM would be stupid enough to let the unions run wild again. I hope there will be large defence cuts, our defence force is bloated and it's about time we realised that the job of the armed forces is to protect Britain in the event of an invasion not to act as a division of the Imperial American Army and go following in their foreign adventures. Also we need some nationalisation, we need at least air traffic control, the railways and the post office brought back fully into state hands - the public backs more nationalisation in certain cases because it is sick and tired of Thatcherite bosses ripping off consumers, sacking workers and pocketing huge pay rises and giving parasitic shareholders huge dividends so the sooner we start nationalising a few things the better!
And you dare to accuse others of being biased! LOL.
Going back to the topic, the government will try to use the BBC admission to shift the blame for the death of Dr. Kelly. Many questions remain though, not least why did the government gave Dr. Kelly's name to the press and proceeded to tear the man apart and to conduct a witch-hunt of unprecedented proportions.
Like is often the case (Jeffrey Archer comes to mind) compulsive liars never stop lying and will go to incredible lengths trying to convince others they are telling the truth.
The Government on the other hand behaved appalingly and it is because of their hounding of Dr kelly and The BBC that this poor man felt so pressured and killed himself.
If the Government insist on trying to throw the Blame onto the BBC then they will only embarrass themselves even more.
PNJ...REALLY!!! You should stop will all this bullshit!
And we all know where Archer ended up! Hopefully, Blair will follow him. Thanks for bringing him up Al you reminded me of his little outburst where he said something like "You wait 'til I'm Mayor, you see if I don't." I don't know what it was about but the image of Archer's pompous face saying that has cracked me up!
Why is it that people here can only see one demon in this situation when so many people together have impacted on the victim? None of them looked at Dr Kelly, each was trying to achieve their own ends from this story. The original reporter, Ali Campbell, Tony Blair, the MoD, Intelligence services, the select committee, theanti-war campaigners – each has had a role to play in the death of this man.
My “crusade” is there because they have tried to paint themselves whiter than white in this incident and that couldn’t be further from the case.
They took a single interview and twisted it (as journalists are want to do) and made it into a story that suited their own agenda. In this case it was a chance to say that Alistair Campbell had personally changed a report to Parliament to hype up the threat from Iraq.
Certainly, Dr Kelly’s evidence suggests that he gave no such impression or undertaking in the conversation he had with the journalist. So where did the “sexed up” part of the story come from? Remember that this was the whole crux of the story.
Mr Gilligan claimed that his story was based on a single source, yet the person now confirmed as the source disputed that he said any such thing. Therefore you only draw a single conclusion from this – i.e that the journalist lied. Something which the select committee seems to be thinking now.
Had Mr Gilligan reported what he was actually told, the “exposure” of Govt lies wouldn’t have been possible. The story couldn’t have run as it did and the fuss which came from it wouldn’t have come about.
What were the Govt supposed to do? Accept the lie? Of course not. They were under pressure from the anti-war lobby. Here they had a chance to hit back with a story which was clearly untrue. As I said at the time, this gave the Govt an opportunity to force a hole in the anti-war case. A case which had merit was being undermined by poor reporting by the BBC.
No, they had a duty to ensure that the truth of this story came out – that being that Alistair Campbell didn’t change the document. They never questioned that the document may have been changed (you'll note) just that it wasn't Cmapbell who did it.
It's worth noting that this is something which the select committee exonerated him of. Certainly I believe that the Govt lied over Iraq and it’s threat, but when it came to this story they were right.
And I never suggested that they should. If anything they should protect their source. One way of doing this is to only print what he said, and not embellish it to fit their own agenda.
Because the particular “wanton abuse” didn’t actually happen. At least it didn’t according to the source, the select committee, or the Govt. The only people who maintained that it did was the BBC and their case was based on Mr Gilligan’s “report”.
Frankly I wonder if you will see any villain other than the Govt. I am happy to spread my net, and yes it includes the Govt. Why can’t you?
It depends on the government of the day, under a Labour government they are accused of being "left-wing" and under a Conservative government they are accused of being "right-wing". This is the peril being a state broadcaster and in a way it's very healthy because it encourages a good distance between the government and the state broadcaster.
We don't know that Gilligan misinterpreted what Kelly said - the only people who know what was said at that meeting were Dr Kelly and Andrew Gilligan. Although bear in mind that in an organisation the size of the BBC that two reporters, Gilligan and the Newsnight woman, who work in different places as the Newsnight woman would work at TV Centre and Gilligan would either work at the BBC Westminster studios or at the BBC Radio HQ, would be highly unlikely to be able to make up a similar story for both their respective programmes together. What they had in common was their source - Dr Kelly. Therefore, in these circumstances with, let's assume, Dr Kelly giving air to the claims over Alastair Campbell and the 45 minutes it isn't unreasonable to assume that a furious government would allow his name to become public thus allowing the pressure to pile on top of him until he was forced to take his own life.
Let's remember that Dr Kelly was well used to talking to journalists to help with their stories in fact it would all have been an uneventful course of events for him - until the Ministry of Defence allowed his name to enter the public domain thus piling the pressure onto him. Therefore, the pressure that caused him to take his own life was solely down to the government.
In fact, I think the BBC made a mistake releasing their sources in that statement because they have shifted blame away from the government and have wrecked their "journalists don't reveal sources" line which was a fully credible line for them to stick with.
I think you conveniently forget that I have named many collusionists including the corporate media, intelligence services, defence agencies and other such private and public agents in the neverending battle between those who wish to concentrate power in the hands of the elite and the public which should have means to scrutinise and remove that power from those who would so abuse it.
My net is fairly wide my friend, the culpable constituency of powermongers just happens to be by nature a rather limited circle.
Unless of course he didn't...
Really?
I think that Norman Tebbit would argue with that. Okay not a good source but the Tory Govt of both Thatcher and Major certainly thought that the BBC was left-wing.
Indeed, and this reply goes to Aladdin too.
We don't know what was said between the two, other than what was presented to the select committee. Certanly Dr Kelly was emphatic in his denial that he said anything about the "45 minute" issue (the crux of Gilligan's piece) and yet he agreed that part of the story represented what he said.
Unless we are going to suggest that Dr Kelly lied to Parliament.
The error that the BBC made was through looking at the wrong document. That their report on the September document appears to have been incorrect has changed the focus of the debate.
If they had limited themselves to the "dodgy dossier" they would have seen great political capital. Sadly they have undermined the entire "did the Govt lie" debate though piss poor reporting.
The Govt was on a sticky wicket over the "dodgy dossier", but in this story they appear to have been exonerated.
Only those who fit you view of collusion with the Bush administaration. You seem to lack the ability to see that those who support your goal are equally part of the "dark forces" at play.
As I have said, I am happy to condemn my Govt for their part in this farce. They should not have named Dr Kelly, who honourably put himself forward at the source, for example.
By the same token, I will condemn those who used his evidence for their own ends, without considering his position either.
Is it bollocks. There are those who have power and will misuse it, and those who want to set the agenda. Neither has our interests at heart, and (in this instance) neither of them had Dr Kelly interests anywhere on their scope.
All governments think the BBC is out to get them and it's usually because as the government the BBC has more to report on them than the opposition and so governments believe that because they are being held up to account the BBC is out to get them. From my knowledge, I don't recall the left being very happy with the BBC during the 1980s either especially over their portrayals of Foot and Kinnock and about their reporting of the Miner's Strike.
Just because Dr Kelly is dead does not mean that we can ignore the possibility that he did lie to the select committee. Although what appears to have been the case now is that although Dr Kelly was the main source for the report and was unable to confirm or deny that Downing Street was involved with the "sexing up" of the dossier there were other sources, most notably one in Downing Street that was able to confirm Alastair Campbell's role. Also I refer you back to my other point - the BBC is a large organisation, the Newsnight team and the Today team are based in totally different parts of London, what are the odds of two reporters collaborating to falsify their stories when the costs in terms of losing their jobs and being unemployable are so apparent? The only thing they had in common was that they both spoke to Dr Kelly. Dr Kelly may not have "said" anything about the 45 minute claim but he may not have denied it either, thus leaving the door open for another source to confirm the rumour.
The 45 minute claim was disproved, the 45 minute claim in reality only referred to the amount of time it would take Saddam to issue orders to launch WMDs if he had any, not the amount of time it would take to actually launch the WMDs which as seems so apparant now, did not exist. The trouble is that the BBC's admission that Dr Kelly was the principal source has entered the public conciousness that he was the only source and so with Dr Kelly's denial to the select committee there are a lot of BBC haters out there who are now using this as an excuse to question the whole integrity of the BBC's journalism.
Sorry, but the BBC and Mr Gilligan claimed that only one source was used. So where did the Downing Street source come from?
Although I have also noted that they are now using the term "principal" source. Change of focus, in the style of Tony Blair I think...
The BBC originally said there wasn't one.
So, if Dr Kelly was the only source (as claimed) and he couldn't confirm that Mr Gilligan's assertion was that the "45 minute" aspect was added by Downing Street, then Mr Gilligan must have put that aspect in his report himself. Or have I missed something?
I don't actually hate the BBC. On the whole I prefer them to most other news organisations. However, I don't have a blind faith in them.
[edited to add:
Note. Single source.
The only issue of import is that thanks to the BBC's balls for kicking some life into the debate, the revelations have confirmed the flasehood of the government's claims, have shown that Tony's "word" is worthless.
Get rid of the whole lot of them by toppling Blair and the whole issue is resolved. Future governments will I suspect be less willing to send young men and women into combat unless they can, as should always be the case, prove to the public that there is a credible and imminent threat to British security itself.
Whatever other diversionary bullshit this harranguing of the BBC is providing for the government, the principal benefit of the piece and the government fraud it unmasked is indisputable.
thought you'd get a kick outta this:
CIA: SADDAM, OSAMA HAVE THREE LETTERS IN COMMON
Persuasive Link Between Middle East Madmen, Tenet Says
Testifying before Congress today, CIA Director George Tenet revealed for the first time that the names Saddam and Osama share three letters in common, offering the most persuasive proof to date of a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
It's on Borowitz.com...a liberal comic who makes fun of the news.
oH BUT THEY HAVE!
How have they?
Precisely.
The revelations prove nothing because they weren't "revelations" at all. They were the fancy of a reporter whose story has yet to be supported by anyone, including the apparent source.
The accusation is that the Govt inserted the "45 minute" clause, but that it is still unsubstantiated. Hell, if the sole source for the story says that he mad eno such claim then the only other person involved in the writing of the story is the journalist.
I agree with you. And I think you'll find that I said this at the time that the report first came out. Wrong story, wrong document, wrong focus. The focus of the whole issue has been diverted. Why? Because a reporter, in an attempt to prove that the Govt lied, filed a poor report. The report was damning, but apparently false, thus undermining the agenda that the reporting was trying to support.
I really wish that the BBC had focussed on the second document, afterall it is the most damning one.
By whom, when.
Do you have any details?
From Independent - 10/03/1992 (558 words) By PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES and MAGGIE BROWN
THE LABOUR Party yesterday accused the BBC of acting as if the election had already been called, as it urged Marmaduke Hussey, the corporation's chairman, to justify the withdrawal of last night's scheduled Panorama report on the causes of the recession.
The costly and carefully- scripted report by Peter Jay, the BBC's economics editor, concluded there was no sign of an economic miracle.
It was cancelled last Friday evening by Samir Shah, the news and current affairs executive recruited from London Weekend Television to be responsible for weekly programmes. The withdrawn report had been in the making for the past month. Nothing from the 40-minute film could be salvaged for last night's Panorama, BBC 1's prestige current affairs slot which is watched by about 4.5 million viewers.
Mr Jay, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, had given key interviewees, including Nigel Lawson and Sir Alan Walters, guarantees that their contributions would be used at length and without distortion. The 22 minutes devoted to analysing the track record of Mr Lawson, the former Chancellor, was reportedly one of Mr Shah's key objections. Panorama sources said it was clear Mr Jay did not see a way of cutting the material, which weighed up allegations that Mr Lawson had spoiled Mrs Thatcher's ''economic miracle'' by his policy decisions.
As an emergency replacement, Panorama's production team assembled a studio team to discuss the state of the economy. They invited Sir John Banham, head of the CBI; Sir Christopher Tugendhat, chairman of Abbey National; Ian MacAllister, of Ford UK; and John Edmonds, leader of the Boilermakers' Union, to appear on a panel chaired by David Dimbleby.
In a reply last evening to a letter from Jack Cunningham, Labour's campaigns co-ordinator, Mr Hussey said Mr Shah's decision, which was based on his own editorial judgement on the programme's content, had his ''full support''. The BBC was determined to report fairly and objectively during the election campaign, he said.
The decision has appalled many people concerned about the BBC's ability to report the election in a robust manner. Some saw it as an example of nervous self- censorship, or cowardice.
David Hill, Labour's director of communications, said: ''If this had been a programme attacking the Labour Party, the Tories and the Government would have gone barmy. The BBC is acting as if the election has been called already.''
Mr Hussey yesterday refused a renewed request by Dr Cunningham for a meeting with senior party figures. He said: ''If I open the door to one party I open the door to them all, and that, I think, is in no one's interest on the eve of an election campaign.''
Labour's latest protest follows an earlier allegation of biased BBC reporting of its proposals to finance pension and child benefit increases with a 50 per cent tax rate and higher national insurance.
The last straw was a Radio 4 Today programme which Labour claims unfairly concentrated on a minority of people who would not benefit. ''It was blatant and a sign of what we feared was happening,'' Mr Hill said.
''We asked for a meeting with Mr Hussey to point out how the broadcasters' agenda was being unduly influenced by newspapers such as the Mail and Express,'' another spokesman said. A meeting with John Birt, the BBC director- general designate, is expected to take place this week.
Copyright 1992 Newspaper Publishing PLC
Date: 10/03/1992
The Day in Politics: Labour accuses BBC news of bias
From Guardian - 13/12/1991 (147 words) By GEORGINA HENRY
SIXTY Labour MPs have signed an early day motion accusing the BBC's Breakfast News of 'extreme bias' over its handling of the results of the Maastricht summit on Wednesday.
The motion, put down by Joe Ashton, MP for Bassetlaw, accuses the programme of being 'nothing but a party political broadcast for the Prime Minister and Tory Party'. It says the programme made no attempt to explain how the Social Chapter affected various groups and workers and 'neglected to give a level playing field to the other side of the argument'.
The BBC yesterday said it was happy with the programme. Peter Bell, managing editor of news programmes, said it carried a wide range of reactions to the Maastricht agreement from Britain and Europe. 'The shadow employment spokesman, Tony Blair, was interviewed live and had an opportunity to put Labour's point of view.'
Copyright 1991 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Date: 13/12/1991
'The BBC says that complaints from the public are evenly split between accusations of bias against the government and the opposition. ''We believe our coverage has been fair to all parties,'' the spokesman said. ''Surveys also suggest the public believes we have been fair.'' '
Additional reporting by James Bethell
Copyright 1992 Times Newspapers Limited
From Western Mail - 10/03/2001 (Unknown words)
THE BBC was accused last night of Nationalist bias by proposing to give Plaid Cymru second ranking above the Conservatives.
A series of four general election television programmes has been proposed, with each focussing on an individual leader and his party.
The show with the greatest impact will go out nearest the election, and that spot has been designated for Labour. But the row is over the second-nearest programme to the election.
The BBC proposes to hand that show to Plaid Cymru, despite the fact that the Nationalists are usually fourth in the Westminster election stakes in terms of share of the vote.
The Tories, despite losing all its seats in Wales, recorded the second highest share of the vote. "We have sent the BBC a very short and terse letter, " said a Wales Central Office source.
"We are the second Westminster party in both votes and opinion poll returns, and that spot is ours by right."We hope that this is not the first sign of bias from the BBC."
Copyright 2001 Western Mail and Echo Ltd
Date: 10/03/2001
Is it biased?
From Economist - 26/10/1991 (489 words)
THE BBC is under fire again. Rude references to the corporation were loudly cheered at the Conservative conference in Blackpool, and Chris Patten, the party chairman, has formally complained about its coverage of the health debate.
Even John Major, who is more sympathetic to the BBC than Mrs Thatcher used to be, is angry. The Sunday Times claimed that there was a "furious stand-up row" when he met John Birt, the BBC'S deputy director-general, in Blackpool. Then on October 18th the Independent reported that ministers were planning to "break up" the Corporation when its royal charter comes up for renewal in 1996.
The truth is less dramatic. John Major did not complain to John Birt directly (although a cabinet minister did); and his anger was focused on one specific news story rather than all the BBC'S coverage. The Independent story followed a lunch with Kenneth Baker, the home secretary, but Mr Baker seems merely to have repeated his well-honed line that all ideas must be examined when the BBC charter comes up for review. Since any changes are at least four years away, ministers have no firm views yet. If the Tories win the coming election, a green paper will be published later in the summer but that will be designed to start a debate, not pre-empt one.
the BBC does make mistakes and the reaction story is broadcast after the Conservatives' health debate was one of them. It consisted of vox-pop interviews with health workers who disliked government policy. That was hardly news. But the Tories should not draw wider conclusions. As the chart shows, most viewers have long believed that the BBC is biased not against but in favour of the Conservatives. And although Mr Patten urged viewers to ring in and complain, the BBC'S daily log of calls shows few people have followed his advice.
Despite the Tory pressure, some BBC chiefs are also concerned about what would happen if Labour won the election. Labour's policy is still uncertain. Roy Hattersley, the party's deputy leader, wants to keep the licence fee. Many of his colleagues think it should be replaced by a straight government grant. However, Robin Corbett, the broadcasting spokesman, want to replace the licence fee with a tax on new televisions, radios and videos, adding around a third (there's a vote-winner now) to their prices. All Labour thinkers agree that pensioners should be exempted from paying the licence fee, so presumably the government would have to make an additional grant to the BBC to make up the difference.
Yet any plan to replace part or all of the licence fee with a government grant would give ministers more power to influence the BBC'S political coverage. That would be dangerous. Politicians of all stripes would be tempted to use it. Just imagine the delicate threats Mr Major could have made to Mr Birt in Blackpool, if the BBC'S grant was being haggled about in the current public-spending round.
however...I think its fair to say that whoever is in 'power' in this country they will always accuse the BBC of Bias. If it were possible to get articles from '79 onward I'm sure we'd find plenty of articles about how hard done by the Labour opposition felt after the three day week thing etc ....
The BBC is and always has been an easy target . and well...thats just lazy!
Date: 26/10/1991
A die-hard political habit of blaming it all on the BBC: John Grant explains why broadcasters will always have to look out for MPs shouting 'foul'
From Guardian - 21/10/1991 (977 words) By JOHN GRANT
THERE IS one thing that can be said for certain about the current declaration of war by the Tories on the BBC over its alleged pro-Labour bias: it is just one more cyclical blip in a serial that has run for far longer than any TV or radio soap.
Nor will there be any climax while the BBC remains in the super sensitive business of public service broadcasting. John Birt, the BBC's director general-designate, must resign himself to producing the wearisome mix of apologia and defiance in the face of political pressure, sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, that will be his inevitable response whichever party governs.
The current complaint by the Conservative Party about the BBC's coverage of the NHS debate at the Tory Party Conference in Blackpool has more than a little justification but is really just one more example of the in-built conflict between broadcasters and politicians which is irresolvable in a free society.
Unsurprisingly, Roy Hattersley, Labour's deputy leader, and shadow home secretary, has bounced into the fray. He proclaimed: 'This government has a record of bullying the BBC that goes back a decade. It seems to believe that the BBC should not be an objective broadcasting corporation but a state broadcasting corporation'.
Let me take Mr Hattersley back a decade further. In 1972, in the wake of the infamous Yesterday's Men BBC programme that parodied the then Labour opposition, Labour's leader Harold Wilson appointed me as the party's first-ever parliamentary spokesman on the media. He made it clear to me that the major part of my mission was to put the boot to the Beeb.
The now ennobled Lord Wilson had many more prime ministerial virtues than he is nowadays given credit for but he was rightly regarded as paranoid in his media relations, and especially so about the BBC. Not that his condemnation was entirely unwarranted. But perpetuating the dogfight could only be counter-productive to Labour, not least in a pre-election period. It made more sense to mend fences, and that was both my approach and that of Sir Charles Curran, then the BBC's able and affable director general.
Fortunately, Lord Wilson lunched with the new BBC chairman Sir Michael Swann and things calmed down for a while, helped by growing hostility within the Tory ranks at the media treatment of the Heath government.
BBC-government relations in the Thatcher era were mostly sour, not least when the abrasive Norman Tebbit was Conservative Party Chairman.
Now they have taken another plunge. Rightly, the Corporation has had to apologise to the Employment Secretary, Michael Howard, for the way three of his TV and radio appearances were handled. Foolishly, there are charges that the BBC succumbed to Labour public relations pressure when regular phone calls to producers secured TV slots for the party's spokesmen - a tactic used consistently by all political parties whenever their PR men function efficiently, and certainly used by me in 1974 as a Labour minister responsible for government information services.
Realities, despite a perpetually fraught situation, are nevertheless simple enough to discern. The BBC does seek to maintain the hallowed and essential Reithian tradition of providing a public service of high standards of responsibility and impartiality - independent of government - which informs, educates and entertains.
But the Corporation is the sum of its fallible, huge and immensely unwieldy parts. Those parts do include executives, producers and presenters of widely varied political viewpoints and of none. I was once grilled by an interviewer whose producer quietly warned me in advance was 'to the right of Genghis Khan', and once 'negotiated' out of a BBC radio series on the unions, which I devised, because of TUC pressure on an establishment-minded, don't-rock-the-boat BBC hierarchy.
Objectivity and impartiality may be BBC watchwords but from time to time, prejudiced human nature creeps in, just as it does in the commercial broadcasting sector. There is a tendency for all journalists to seek to excite, to expose, and sometimes to over reach themselves in their self-appointed role as public watchdogs.
Back in the mid-seventies, Mr Birt was co-author, with Peter Jay, now the BBC's economics editor, of a paper about broadcasting which complained of 'a bias against understanding'. Now he stands accused of fostering a different kind of bias. He has done his best by his journalists. He has written to the Sunday Times to defend their 'manifest dedication to impartiality', has pledged continuing serious consideration of complaints, but has added somewhat provocatively that the BBC 'will not be bullied by any party'.
He might have added that if politicians of all parties were judged by the same yardsticks of truth and impartiality as the broadcasters in their responsibilities to the public interest, life at Westminster would be rapidly extinguished.
There is, though, a real danger lurking. The BBC's Royal Charter comes up for review in 1996, and the knives are already flashing. Mr Birt has committed himself to making the cash-strapped and sprawling corporation 'lean and efficient', implying a fundamental re-definition of what sort of public service is required. Should the BBC, for instance, continue to provide the kind of music-based radio that can be supplied as satisfactorily by the commercial sector without costing the licence payer a bean?
Irrespective of the governing party, the BBC must be allowed to maintain its long standing charter requirement to act 'as a trustee in the national interest'.
It must continue to complement, not compete with, the independent sector in the quest for scarce revenue resources. British broadcasting, public and commercial, still leads the world and nothing should be allowed to undermine that situation.
John Grant is a former Labour minister and SDP MP. He is a member of the Radio Authority but writes here in a personal capacity.
Copyright 1991 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Date: 21/10/1991 Publication: Guardian
simple really.
And guess what: far from being anti-war, the BBC was the most pro-war broadcaster (pnj please take note!).
I hope we won't have to hear any more left-wing, liberal or anti-American rants about the BBC.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,991109,00.html
PS for byny: Further to what Clan has said, simply click on the [url]http://[/url] button found above the text box when you are posting a message, and paste the website address in question.
No if you look carefully what they are saying is that the claim of the 45 minutes came from one source - what they do not say is how many other sources, like the Downing Street source confirmed or denied it. If Gilligan had gone to them "Is it true that the government added the 45 minute claim?" and another source said "Yes." then that source is not claiming anything, instead they are agreeing to the claims of the original source. Hence the reference to a principal source, they had a few sources but only one source made the claim about the 45 minutes.
Therefore Dr Kelly may have been the single source that claimed the government added the 45 minutes line but that doesn't stop other sources from confirming/denying his claims which is what Gilligan, the Newsnight and now the Ten O'Clock News reporters did.
How many of them claimed that the BBC had a right-wing bias, which is what I asked.
I never argued that the BBC didn't argue against the standing Govt, but on each occasion you show, if was from a left-wing perspective, which is what I was saying