
And so to the Ten O’Clock News. Brown’s anniversary as PM. The polls are lousy, but you would not know it, since flashing up images of Brown and Cameron, the BBC managed to display Brown on 48% and Cameron on 28%- with no apology at any point for this major reversal of the reality (incidentally Cameron is on 46% at present). And so on to a review of what a Tory administration might do. There was not much flesh on the bones in the four reports by BBC luminaries, BUT, each segment contrived to use old fashioned black and white footage to insinuate that the Tories wished to take us back to the 1950s. We had a family fireside scene (circa 1950), whereas in reality the Tories are fully cognisant of changes in human relationships…….and then yuppies with their champagne (circa 1987) were contrasted with dole lines. The BBC’s political editor contrived to speak about ‘the men who may run Britain’ (showing Cameron, Osborne and Hague) as if there are no females in the shadow cabinet. A little later on Question Time, David Dimbleby was not exactly forensic in his questioning of Yvette Cooper, the motormouth Treasury spokesperson, about her and her husband Ed Balls’s curious mortage arrangements. By contrast, Dimbleby had been briefed, by the BBC Newsnight programme going out at that time on BBC2, about further revelations about Tory chairperson Caroline Spelman’s odd remumeration of her nanny, a story being worried to death by little Michael Crick, even though it concerns events ten years ago. A couple of weeks ago my wife sat next to a rare being- a conservative who works for the BBC. She volunteered that after the Nantwich by-election and Boris’s victory in London, the Lefties in the BBC had turned nasty and were really out to get the Tories. Last night’s none too concealed evidence of bias and malice confirmed this.
Post your comment
Michael Burleigh is a historian and the author of 10 books. These include The Third Reich: a New History, Earthly Powers, Sacred Causes and Blood & Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism. He is on the Advisory Board of Standpoint.
- There's Nothing Like a Piano-playing Dame
- Does Engagement with Terrorists Save Lives?
- New Readers Start Here
- Mastersingers — from Cardiff to Cohen
- Introduction
- Iran and Iraq: A Stark Contrast
- About this Blog
- Welcome to the new Standpoint website
- Transparency in Government?
- Downfall
- Tramp of the Jackboot?
- A little story from Germany
- Interesting Times
- Abu Qatada
- Check Out Memoirs
- Why isn't Auntie reporting Aunty?
- The Worm Turns
- History-Schools-Discuss
- Shaken not Stirred

















