BBC’s hissy fit over Brexit bias research PROVES it has something to hide
This important piece of research - published yesterday in the Sun - triggered a hissy fit at our publicly-funded national broadcaster
SO now we know. The BBC hates Brexit so much it has four times more pro-EU guests on its flagship politics shows than those who voted Leave.
Unsurprisingly, this important piece of research — published yesterday in The Sun — triggered a hissy fit by our publicly funded national broadcaster.
One newspaper reporter who asked its press office for a statement was even threatened with “Twitter bombs” — a form of online attack — if she dared to quote The Sun’s statistics.
Its aggression suggests it has something to hide. Yet the facts are there for all to see, and they only confirm what most fair-minded people have long suspected — the BBC is run by a pro-EU metropolitan elite which is out of tune with the majority who, let’s not forget, voted for Brexit.
Let’s look at the evidence. I recently asked the Corporation for a list of every guest it invited to the Proms this summer. The answer was very revealing.
Bosses spent £19,020 entertaining dozens of luvvies and politicians.
And guess what? The vast majority of those treated to free drinks and a night at the Royal Albert Hall — courtesy of TV licence payers — were vocal defenders of the EU and prominent critics of Brexit.
They included Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Tory politician Lord Patten, Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, Guardian editor Katharine Viner and ex-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Theresa May, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn — who all backed Remain — also accepted a free ticket and were hosted on separate nights in a private box by £450,000-a-year BBC director-general Lord Hall.
By contrast, I counted just two prominent pro-Brexiteers among the invitees, one of whom was Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.
The BBC may argue it did not deliberately exclude Brexiteers from the guest list, but that is beside the point.
Here is the proof that its executives routinely rub shoulders in private with those who share their views. They just can’t help it.
Another example relates to Nigel Farage. Last month he made a formal complaint to the BBC after it broadcast a story linking him to the violent death of a Polish man shortly after the Brexit vote.
The corporation aired the very serious charge — made by a member of the public with the apparent encouragement of a BBC journalist — that Farage had “blood on his hands” for the fatal attack on Arkadiusz Jozwik because of his role in the EU referendum campaign.
A court case a few weeks ago proved this was nonsense. Farage then revealed this allegation had caused him and his family “more misery than any other in my 25 years in politics”, with people regularly abusing him in the street.
Yet despite the BBC’s highly questionable coverage, it has refused to publicly apologise. It cannot bear to admit it was wrong — or to say sorry to a man whose views it despises.
Compare its treatment of Farage with its adulation of Nick Clegg. He has been given free rein this week to plug his new book, unsubtly titled How to Stop Brexit, on BBC TV and radio.
Clegg’s pro-EU views helped cost him his Sheffield seat at the last election after the city voted for Brexit in the referendum. But in the cosy bubble inhabited by the BBC, such considerations are apparently irrelevant.
This delusional politician has been welcomed with open arms to use the BBC’s platforms to spout his anti-democratic ideology. It is as though the 17.4million votes cast in favour of leaving the EU do not count.
In July, a cross-party group of 70 MPs wrote to the BBC complaining it is heavily “in favour of those who wish to water down or even reverse the referendum decision”.
Their letter followed research painstakingly compiled over months by the pressure group News-Watch, which claimed that Radio 4’s coverage of Brexit was biased, with listeners two-and-a-half times more likely to hear a pro-EU speaker than an anti-EU one.
But BBC head of news James Harding rejected their calls for new anti-bias guidelines to be drawn up.
He told them the BBC’s job was not to be “pushed or pulled by one political interest or another”. And, laughably, he said it was “impartial” on the EU.
Yet amazingly, its pro-EU tentacles have even got a grip on a programme like Countryfile on BBC1.
Earlier this year an edition of the agriculture show interviewed strawberry farmer Anthony Snell, who said that his business would fail “catastrophically” without migrant workers.
Many viewers were outraged at this one-sided, pro-EU view, but the BBC saw nothing wrong with it.
But then again, should we be surprised?
A few years ago I discovered that the BBC receives regular payments from the EU via a little-known scheme called the EU Framework Programme for Research and Development.
Between 2014 and 2016 it accepted £2.7million. The most recent grant, during the last financial year, was for £1.35million.
This money is not used for editorial purposes, but you have to ask why the BBC, which receives a guaranteed £3.5billion a year from the public, is tapping the EU for yet more cash.
You also have to wonder — how impartial and objective can the BBC be when it comes to the EU, given it is on its payroll?
