Breathtaking

Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay, who was very cross about Jack Straw's veto of the release of pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes, called the decision "breathtaking".

Is there a better word for the naivety of this news story from the BBC, about foreign secretary David Miliband's visit to Iraq?

Mr Miliband is expected to see evidence of improved stability in the region when he meets members of the newly-elected provincial council.

Interestingly, the story on the FCO website does not make the claim about evidence of improved stability. Where did the BBC get it from?

An iota of a sentence

It seems that Hazel Blears' loyalty to Tony Blair may have been to the leader than the man himself. The BBC reports today that

In a speech to constituents in Salford, Ms Blears told ministers to "get a grip" and stop jockeying to replace Gordon Brown when he steps down.

Presumably Blears made sure that the speech got reported to the ministers who are not constituents of hers.

The BBC's article includes a sentence that goes even further than the usual practice of dropping the word "that" and is consequently even more mangled:

It comes as Harriet Harman insisted there was "not an iota of truth" she was positioning for the top job.

Presumably, that should read:

It comes as Harriet Harman insisted [that] there was "not an iota of truth" [in claims] [that] she was positioning for the top job.

.

Back on message

I've just come across this astonishingly naive piece about the defence training review on the BBC Wales website.

The consortium behind plans to build a multi-billion pound defence academy says the project is back on track after a new partner signed up.

The contract to build and run training facilities at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan is worth £12bn and could create thousands of jobs at the base.

The ongoing problems with the defence training review have been well documented here and by other media. The BBC, which didn't go near any of the negative stories, doesn't bother explaining why the project was ever off track.

It's also pretty astonishing that the scheme is described as being worth £12bn, which is the officially "unaffordable" cost to the taxpayer. Still, if the BBC is determined to turn a PR puff into a news story, small matters like that shouldn't concern them.

Peston's unconvincing denial

The BBC reports that its Business editor Robert Peston has told MPs he does not believe his reporting led to the collapse of Northern Rock. When you dig into Peston's denial, he hasn't really denied anything.

Mr Peston broke the story of the bank asking for emergency funding from the government in September 2007.

He has been criticised for causing the run on Northern Rock that followed.

But he told the Treasury select committee he had acted responsibly in reporting the facts, which were from multiple sources and had been checked.

...

Mr Peston said he had never held off from reporting a story he knew to be true to serve a wider interest.

No problem with that last bit, but it's quite an admission, not any kind of denial. In fact, Peston is claiming that his report wasn't responsible for the "retail" run on the bank:

He said the bank had a flawed business model and there were other "structural reasons" why it was vulnerable, such as its policy of keeping its number of branches to an "absolute minimum" in relation to its number of customers and its lack of computer server capacity, which made its website crash.

"Savers become anxious because they simply could not find out from the institution what was going on," he told the committee.

But in any case,

Mr Peston said the bank's collapse had not been caused by the queues of customers demanding their money back but a "wholesale run, " with other institutions refusing to fund it.

"Northern Rock, frankly, would have collapsed, it would be where it is today, irrespective of whether there had been that retail run," he said.

It wasn't wot killed her guv, and even if it was me, she would have died anyway.

Careful now!

The BBC is so obsessed with balance that its director general has shot himself in the foot defending its preposterous ban on the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza.

Mark Thompson said: "After consultation with senior news editors, we concluded that to broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully couched, ran the risk of calling into question the public's confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its coverage of the story as a whole ...

"We will continue to broadcast news about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and, if appropriate, to cover the work of the UK NGOs on the ground. We cannot, however, broadcast anything which we believe might compromise the impartiality of the BBC's journalism."

I've added the italics to show how weak the justification is. As the Guardian's Marina Hyde says, the BBC is "a bit jumpy" after the Ross/Brand affair:

You will scarcely find an employee who will not speak of a risk-averse culture, with some judging it a worse paralysis than in the wake of the Hutton report.

Which is saying something.

What happened to objectivity

It would be tedious to get into the rights and wrongs of the latest silly row over Strictly Come Dancing. If you ask me, anyone who takes part in a Scam TV phone-in, whether it be a "quiz" on this morning or a phone poll, can't complain afterwards that their money is "wasted".

But this "news story" from the BBC is a disgrace. It quotes a BBC spokesperson as saying nothing went wrong and, in any case, it will all be sorted and then has another quote from the BBC's controller of entertainment production, Jon Beazley.

The BBC needs to stop running news stories and puffs for its entertainment programmes because it throws objectivity out of the window.

BBC in analysis - shock

The Tories are clearly winning the Damian Green row, lately because of an email that was not so much leaked as sent to them by mistake. Despite the government claiming that there was no attempt at a stitch-up over the forthcoming statement from the Speaker , the facts are against them. According to the BBC:

a spokesman for Ms Harman said the meeting had "nothing to do with the contents" of the statement.

"The content of the Speaker's statement is entirely a matter for the speaker," he said.

"The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the parliamentary business and handling of issues that arise from the fact that the Speaker's statement and the Queen's Speech will be happening on the same day."

However, BBC political correspondent Reeta Chakrabarti said: "Harriet Harman details in the e-mail several principles she sees as vital, including that MPs must be able to do their work and that they are not above the law; matters that would appear to be central to the issues the speaker must discuss."

How very unlike the BBC to give the public the facts that show that one side is right and the other wrong in an ongoing political argument. BBC "balance" usually involves making both sides look equally valid.

The BBC in action

If anyone doubts that the BBC does its best to appease the government (of the day), take a look at what it did with the story of Lord Bingham's criticism of the illegality of the Iraq war.

PA, which has no axe to grind says:

Legal advice given to Tony Blair prior to the invasion of Iraq was fundamentally "flawed", a former senior law lord has said.

The BBC says something almost identical:

Legal advice given to Tony Blair by the attorney general prior to the Iraq war was fundamentally "flawed," a former law lord has claimed.

So the BBC demotes Lord Bingham and decides that, whether he was a law lord or not, his opinion only has the status of a claim. It systematically seeks to undermine anything that shows the government in a bad light.

Today's burning issues

I've done a piece on Comment is Free today about Heathrow expansion.

Jack Straw, yes the "lord chancellor and justice secretary", has done a CiF blog too - about Ross and Brand. Hasn't he got anything better to do than jump on bandwagons?

About time

The Independent tells how Question Time went out without a government representative after immigration minister Phil Woolas was ordered to turn down his invitation. The first question was about Woolas' comments at the weekend and he was unable to defend himself.

Tony McNulty, the recently promoted Employment minister, had been offered to the BBC as a substitute for Mr Woolas, but in a show of independence the corporation refused, saying the Government did not have the right to choose who went on the programme.

Well done the BBC for standing up to the government spin machine, for once.

On whose authority?

BAA is the private (foreign owned) monopoly owner of most of the country's major airports. It may be colluding with the government to secure a third runway at Heathrow but it is very definitely not a public authority. It was privatised in 1986.

But according to the BBC:

The British Airports Authority (BAA) is calling for a high-speed rail link to Heathrow to complement a third runway at the west London airport.

Auntie returns

I've just been watching the latest edition of Newswatch on BBC. Newswatch is the BBC's pretence of accountability on its news coverage and is slightly more credible than Points of View. Sometimes the presenter will put viewers' complaints directly to journalists and BBC managers and challenge their answers.

But this week it was the BBC's gossipy political coverage in the firing line and Nick Robinson was put up to rebut every complaint. The format was to have a viewer's complaint read out, followed by Robinson doing a piece to camera explaining why he was right and the viewer was wrong.

Robinson insisted that the BBC was right over its "Heseltine moment" story, pointing out that David Miliband had never denied using the words. But there is no doubt the BBC sexed the story up. It claimed:

David Miliband has been overheard telling aides that he toned down his speech to Labour's conference to avoid it being seen as "a Heseltine moment".

Which implied that Miliband had a strong version of his speech that he then "toned down". But he BBC reported that he said:

"I couldn't have gone any further. It would have been a Heseltine moment."

Just the one crucial fact left out

The BBC has reported that:

Iran has been asked by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, for a substantive response to allegations that it is developing a nuclear weapon.

In typical BBC style, the story trades in claim and counterclaim, appearing to be balanced:

Iran says its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes.

Allegations about its nuclear programme are unsubstantiated, says the country's IAEA envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

Mr Soltanieh said that Iran had not been allowed to see any of the documents which allegedly back up US accusations of a military nuclear programme.

But apparently IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei isn't having any of it:

Speaking to the IAEA's board, Mr El Baradei said Iran should provide "substantive information to support its statements and access to relevant documentations and individuals".

Iran "should clarify the extent to which the documentation is factually correct and where, as it asserts, such information has been fabricated or where it relates to non-nuclear purposes", he added.

Except that, if you read El Baradei's statement to the IAEA board, he also said this:

"I call upon Member States which provided the Agency with documentation related to the alleged studies to authorize the Agency to share it with Iran."

The IAEA is asking Iran to comment on documents that it can't show it because the states that provided them won't let it. It isn't clear why the very balanced BBC didn't mention this.

Keep you hair on

The Mail on Sunday has a funny story about an MI6 agent whose false moustache apparently slipped during filming of an interview by the BBC,. The MoS compares the incident to the NatWest advert and (at least on the web version) shows stills from the ad with captions that suggest that they show the actual spy losing his moustache. It had me wondering for a second whether the whole story was a hoax. But no,

The incident occurred as BBC journalists questioned ‘John’, a middle-aged agent of 20 years’ standing, in an unprecedented interview as part of an MI6 recruiting drive.

Of course! Helping MI6 with recruiting is part of the BBC's remit.

Astonishing

There has been a trial. Some men were convicted of terrorist offences. They and others were not convicted of other offences as the jury could not reach a verdict. According to the BBC

Counter-terrorism officials were "dismayed" by the verdicts in the trial linking eight men to a transatlantic bomb plot, the BBC has learnt.

The BBC's Frank Gardner said there had been "astonishment" in Whitehall as the evidence was considered to be strong.

The BBC's Frank Gardner is fast developing a career as the mouthpiece of the security services. The state doesn't get the verdict is wants and - while a retrial remains a possibility - uses the state broadcasting service to moan about the outcome and talk up the evidence.

Or perhaps the state over-egged the whole airliner plot from the outset.

No Comment - unless it suits us

The funny thing about the leaked crime letter story is that the Home Office is keen to say that it was only a draft, uncleared and (therefore) unsent, in spite of the policy of not commenting on leaked documents. According to the BBC:

A spokesman said: "We do not normally comment on leaked documents but this is draft advice that the home secretary has not cleared and has not been sent to Number 10.

The BBC also uses the "set to" ruse, in spite of the uncertainty in its report:

The letter suggested both property crime, such as burglary, and violent crime may go up, based on the experience of the recession in the early 1990s.

At the bottom of the piece, the BBC asks:

Are you worried about rising crime levels in the current economic climate? What are your experiences? Send us your comments using the form below.

If you're not worried, we don't want to hear from you.

Strictly spin

The BBC continues to struggle to tell the difference between news and PR. Tonight's BBC One six O'Clock news included a propaganda film by Caroline Wyatt, reassuring us that the MoD's Nimrod aircraft is safe. A web version of the story is here. Wyatt mentions the criticism of the plane from coroner Andrew Walker, who called for the planes to be grounded after one exploded in mid-air, killing 14 servicemen. Wyatt observes:

His words clearly stung.

Yes, and they got you in to help counter the criticism. Wyatt also points out that the Nimrod's replacement is eight years behind schedule. In her film, Wyatt drew the conclusion that this would mean that the MoD would ensure that it was safe for years to come. The other possibility is of course that it would fly the Nimrod whether safe or not.

On the same programme was a puff for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing. Is that really news?

Purely co-incidental

Yesterday the Guardian had a great scoop, exposing a government plan to use media outlets, volunteers, contacts and web users in a propaganda campaign against al-Quaida.

Today the BBC has had to deny - slightly unconvincingly - that a Radio 4 programme fitted the government's propaganda script very nicely indeed. Any similarity between what the government wants the BBC to say and what it says is purely co-incidental:

the BBC was quick to deny that the editorial content of the programme was influenced in any way by the Whitehall report or that it had been fed stories.

The BBC fed stories? Never!

Warm under the collar

The BBC website has an interesting story about the UK's contribution to climate change, which, as the BBC and others have pointed out before, is higher than admitted if aviation and shipping are included.

It's the tone of the piece that I find most interesting. Environment analyst Roger Harrabin has been given licence to have a bit of a go at the government.

a massive blow to the British government

The government sat on the SEI report since February, tested its calculations, then published it in an obscure press release on 2 July.

we are getting countries like China to do our dirty work

I'm not saying I disagree with any of it, it's just stronger than you would normally get from the Beeb.

Good question

The Zimbabwe Guardian asks:

CAN the BBC tell the truth about Zimbabwe when its senior managers are appointed by the United Kingdom government and will they be fired if they step out of line...

I think the politics of this site are a bit dubious, but it's a good question, particularly as Greg Dyed was sacked Director General because the BBC governors felt that the government didn't like him.