The day the election was called gave us all the opportunity to see the 'narrative' and tactics that the Labour/BBC alliance have agreed upon.
All Labour policies are to be accepted as wise and their funding or economic assumptions not questioned. All Labour spokesmen will be allowed to state that Gordon Brown got the big decisions right without being challenged, the same will be true for Vince Cable. All Labour spokesmen will be allowed to make disparaging remarks about George Osborne and claim that he and David Cameron got all major decisions wrong and were alone in the world in proposing cuts. Labour spokesmen will be allowed to conflate reducing the deficit by 50% over four years with reducing debt; two completely different matters but the public should not be reminded of this. All Labour spokesmen will be treated with respect and not interrupted except in extremis. Labour will be allowed the first and last word and in some cases the only words on some matters. The views of ex-Labour bigwigs that Gordon Brown should be re-elected will be treated as major news rather than as obvious and will be covered in full and over and over again. All speeches by Labour chiefs (past and present) will be treated rather as the sermon on the mount and given full coverage.
Lib Dem spokesmen will be allowed to make as many ridiculous claims as they like even to claim that Nick Clegg could become Prime Minister without being challenged too hard. Vince Cable's remarks will be treated as if presented on tablets of stone. A hung parliament will be discussed as if it will be a good and exciting outcome and speculated upon based upon a Uniform National Swing, even though the swing in the marginals will almost certainly be different (Channel 4 News last night covered this point well, the BBC continue to ignore it). Opinion polls will only be mentioned when there is one that is positive for Labour and the commentary that the public should be left with is that the polls are narrowing, even if the gap is actually opening up again (Norman Smith on Radio 4 news yesterday evening was a prime offender).
All Conservative pledges will be treated as unfunded or dangerous to the economic recovery. Any slight difference in emphasis between any two Conservatives will be treated as indicative of a major split (meanwhile any major discrepancies on economic policy between Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alistair Darling will be ignored). As many as possible interviews with Conservatives will mention Eton, privilege, hunting and Lord Ashcroft. All Conservative spokesman will be treated with a mixture of disdain and disbelief and interrupted as often as possible to ruin their flow and make them sound permanently on the defensive.
So that's the Labour/BBC plan as I see it; any other tricks you have spotted?
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7 comments:
Nota
Sums it up perfectly !
What!
No mention of always putting Unite and the other unions in a favourable light, and constantly telling the audience that BA did not give a comment?
Westminster Hour and The Toady Programme obviously have not heard or read Thompson's pledge for balance.
Begs the question of who is in charge of the BBC? - Thompson or Whelan/Brown.
Talk about a loaded question... Nicky Cambell's phone-in on R5 this morn;
'Do you want a posh Prime Minister?'.
Labour sets the class war narrative and the Beeb runs with it, slagging off Cameron.
Might be worth mentioning on bias bbc, but I can't figure how to post on their site.
It will be interesting now that even more business leaders; you know, those people that actually provide jobs that dont rely on the taxpayer to pay their wages, have come out in support of the Tories. How will the BBC spin that? They are all fat cats? Gordon wants to keep the NI rise only to 'invest' more money in the public sector and stuff the wealth creators.
special: You can see how the Beeb spin it, [lots of examples on their website] and Nota might wish to add it to his list.
Labour pledges are reported as being honest altruistic attempts to revive the economy and to be 'fair'. Tory pledges are portrayed as 'tactics' to gain votes and power. Those sneaky devious underhand Tories eh?
Totally agree with comments here. The BBC is literally bending over backwards to support new labour. I've made several detailed accounts of bias to them but I just get the same reply each time. They don't appear to acknowledge the specific points made or understand the rational behind them. They are typical jobsworths. The trouble is we pay their wages. It's time to close the BBC
Like bodo, I can't work out how to post on Biased BBC (for the record, excellent job, guys) -
but cheering like hell after this piece by Nota. Encapsulates everything I've been fulminating about for weeks!
Still choking after the BBC 10 O'Clock news told us all in all seriousness to log on to their Reality Check site for all the info we'll need. Ehem. Luckily I was still in high spirits after seeing ITN's Bratby skewer Brown who was still stuck in dalek mode, "6bn out of the economy, 6bn out of the economy" and apparently unable to hear any questions.
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