Mehdi Hasan on the BBC’s ‘liberal’ bias

New Statesman - Bias and the Beeb

Mehdi Hasan, the NS’s senior politics editor, on how the recurrent claim that the BBC has some sort of liberal bias does not stack up when you consider that their political editor was formerly chair of the Young Conservatives, their editor of live programmes was deputy chair of the Federation of Conservative Students, and that their chief political correspondent, Guto Harri, became communications director for Boris Johnson months after resigning from the BBC. Gavin Esler wrote a book eulogising Ronald Reagan, and despite claims by some conservatives that they are ignored by the BBC, Melanie Phillips is a regular panellist on The Moral Maze while Peter Hitchens has appeared on Question Time at least once a year since 2000.

These claims seem to be a concerted effort to undermine any journalism which does not fit the right’s agenda, and according to Steven Barnett of Westminster University, the left seems to have internalised the claim about “bias” and are reticent about promoting their own values. (It’s notable that some of these elements are Zionists who scream when views opposing theirs are treated with other than the contempt they think they deserve, and that the BBC is one of their favourite targets.) With a Tory government likely in the new year, the article concludes that it is time for liberals to stand up for their own values.

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