[Oldmanmatt]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/08/jacob-rees-mogg-billionaires-labour-values?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1573198750

[TobyD]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/08/jacob-rees-mogg-billionaires-labour-values?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1573198750

I'm not sure that Young is saying anything more insightful here than my team's better than your team, and the points about partiality in the media are from an extremely partial standpoint. I tend to think that the BBC get it right as they get criticised by both sides. Emma Barnett is a good interviewer, and certainly challenges Conservatives as much as she does Labour or Lib Dems.

Despite what I've said, I agree that jrm shows an unpleasant superiority and is woefully out of touch. However he might be more meaningfully compared with the unpleasant superiority shown by the Labour hard left some of whom tout their 'working class' credentials despite being handsomely paid and privately educated.

[TobyD]

Many Jews want Boris Johnson out. But how can we vote for Jeremy Corbyn?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/09/jews-brexit-boris-johnson-jeremy-corbyn?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

[Offwidth]

I'd argue the chances of Corbyn standing down may be as likely in any workable minority Labour coalition as with a Boris majority (where the left of Labour will likely double down on their fears and feel the need to fight harder).

On a different topic, a leading tory campaigner now hints Corbyn might shoot the rich.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-50319640/general-election-2019-zahawi-on-corbyn-and-stalin-claims

While the great campaigner Boris also seems to hide from voters:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/08/shifty-shades-of-may-boris-johnson-dodges-voters-in-week-of-election-hell

Plus for a bit of election jollity we have poppygate.

https://www.indy100.com/article/jacob-rees-mogg-poppy-remembrance-sunday-general-election-9194586

[TobyD]

I wonder whether Farage deciding to only contest Labour seats means a probable Conservative majority?

Surely, however, if the LDs do ok and take some incumbent Conservative seats these are the ones that the Conservatives really need to win?

[tomtom]

I wonder whether Farage deciding to only contest Labour seats means a probable Conservative majority?

Surely, however, if the LDs do ok and take some incumbent Conservative seats these are the ones that the Conservatives really need to win?

Still splits the Tory/brexit vote in non Tory seats...

But what a snake Farage is...

[Oldmanmatt]

I think he was waiting to be paid off.
How they paid him off, I don’t know, but his company is probably looking healthy.

[Will Hunt]

Paranoia among Corbyn fanboys and girls is ratcheting up. Just have a google for Wreathgate if you want a good chortle (and then a cry as you realise what's become of people).

[petejh]

  Dire at every level. Twitter/insta/fb has rotted people's minds to leave mush.

[BrutusTheBear]

Not a fanboy, nor a follower, nor a cultist... a supporter.  Language leads the narrative and the majority of language used around the Labour Party and JC on here very much says that the narrative has been driven well home.

Anyone care to have a stab at explaining why the BBC chose to use footage from a previous Remembrance Day Mr Johnson attended rather than the one that happened yesterday?  (Or am I just being a paranoid conspiracy theorist?)

[Oldmanmatt]

Not a fanboy, nor a follower, nor a cultist... a supporter.  Language leads the narrative and the majority of language used around the Labour Party and JC on here very much says that the narrative has been driven well home.

Anyone care to have a stab at explaining why the BBC chose to use footage from a previous Remembrance Day Mr Johnson attended rather than the one that happened yesterday?  (Or am I just being a paranoid conspiracy theorist?)

No, not paranoid at all.
I think the BBC see Labour as an existential threat (to the BBC), in it’s current form and the Tories, slightly less so. That, coupled with a Tory stacked boardroom (after a decade of Tory Gov appointing) make the Beeb about as reliable as the rest of the media.

Have you seen the side by side Express front pages, doing the rounds of FB? One story trumpeting Bojo’s plan to boost the economy with a minium wage rise to £10.50 (living) and another lamenting Corbyn’s plan to destroy the country by raising minimum wage to £10...

Pete, again, has hit the nail on the dog’s bollocks, right down the middle, hole in one.

The media has always been so, it’s just so damn rapid fire now. Sustained fire, to boot. Facebook and Twitter have thrust it into every coffee break or shit stop.


Anyway, you don’t have to be a fan boy, or cultist, to support JC; but there are quite a few for whom those descriptions seem appropriate.

[BrutusTheBear]

Yes indeed.  We quit paying the license fee and watching the BBC a long while ago.

There is huge imbalance in reporting in the MSM and there are now plenty of academic studies to back this up if it’s not possible for folk to notice this for themselves.

RE the Express:  It’s an incredible level of hypocrisy and double speak that can be seen straight through by most but then if I were to point this out to certain members of my family and friends it’s like there’s a bypass installed that prevents clear thought!

A few thoughts from a Labour supporter...  You aren’t voting for JC, you’re voting for a set of policies and more importantly for someone to become your local MP.  Our candidate is a local GP who cares massively about protecting the NHS and the environment.  She is an active campaigner locally and will clearly represent her constituents very well should she be elected.  I will vote for her and am actively campaigning for her.

Examples of language that annoys the hell out of me.  ‘Hard/ far left’-UK politics has shifted to the right so much that what would be considered moderate policies, in Scandinavia, are treated like they are straight from a communist doctrine.  This is not far left.
‘Moderates’ used to describe corporate sponsored careerist MPs such as Chuka.  There is nothing moderate about these folk.

[TobyD]

It seems that to many people, 'biased' has become a shorthand for anyone who says things that you don't like.

I'd disagree strongly about the BBC, they employ many, many extremely good journalists. Britain generally had an exceptionally good and vigorous media in all forms. The newspapers all have their particular slants but everyone knows what these are.
If you want an example of actual problematic media, I was working in Malaysia when the Arab spring uprisings happened, absolutely never mentioned in any Malaysian news sources, despite other reports about the region.

Trying to say that the BBC is the equivalent of RT helps noone.

[Oldmanmatt]

It seems that to many people, 'biased' has become a shorthand for anyone who says things that you don't like.

I'd disagree strongly about the BBC, they employ many, many extremely good journalists. Britain generally had an exceptionally good and vigorous media in all forms. The newspapers all have their particular slants but everyone knows what these are.
If you want an example of actual problematic media, I was working in Malaysia when the Arab spring uprisings happened, absolutely never mentioned in any Malaysian news sources, despite other reports about the region.

Trying to say that the BBC is the equivalent of RT helps noone.

Which is not what was said...

It’s rather hard to fathom, any reason beyond bias, that Auntie Beeb should run a video clip of Bojo laying a wreath in 2016, rather than the actual 2019 event.
Just because he laid it upside down in 2019.
A silly little gaff, that really didn’t need such a dramatic cover up.

I quite often start the day, with the BBC news app and the Sky app. Of the two, I’d say the BBC app has more cant than Sky. Subtle, but present and not truly dispassionate. Whilst it’s fair to say “nothing is without some bias” the Beeb has taken a position, and I don’t think i should have any leaning.

I am aware of what fully state controlled media looks like, I didn’t suggest it applied to the BBC.

[gme]

The BBC thing is pretty amusing if anyone has friends sitting on both sides of the political spectrum. My Tory supporting friends hate the left wing bias that the beeb trots out and can quote example after example of how the left wing luvvies control the BBC.
Speak to my labour supporting friends and you get the same argument from the other side.
Makes me think they do actually sit somewhere in the middle. A relatively balanced set of scales.

[TobyD]

The BBC thing is pretty amusing if anyone has friends sitting on both sides of the political spectrum. My Tory supporting friends hate the left wing bias that the beeb trots out and can quote example after example of how the left wing luvvies control the BBC.
Speak to my labour supporting friends and you get the same argument from the other side.
Makes me think they do actually sit somewhere in the middle. A relatively balanced set of scales.

I totally agree.  Matt, I wasn't saying that you were implying the BBC was analogous to state controlled media, re the wreath I assume someone probably thought it would be respectful to try to avoid a controversy about armistice day, probably a misjudgment but there you go. It's a thousand times better than most us networks imho.

[Offwidth]

I think the BBC has just become deliberately bland on nearly all of its main news broadcasting (after decades of political battering). You usually need to dig in the webpage or watch the back end of Newsnight to get proper journalism.

A bit more analysis on Farage.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/11/nigel-farage-move-may-not-help-tories-as-much-as-it-first-appears

I agree its bad news for the Lib Dems in tory marginals and good news for Labour in their marginals. However there are signs of some big shifts in some southern constituencies.

Two examples:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/09/dominic-grieve-campaign-trail-beaconsfield

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/09/luciana-berger-lib-dems-finchley-golders-green-remain-voters

[SamT]

, re the wreath I assume someone probably thought it would be respectful to try to avoid a controversy about armistice day, probably a misjudgment but there you go.

Ask yourself if, though, it had been Corbyn who'd laid a wreath upside down, or whatever gaff Bojo dropped, would the beeb have reported on it, let alone has to be so kind as to 'cover it up' with some old footage #fakenews.   

Its the little things round the edges that expose the beebs 'slant' (as Matt so aptly puts it) on things.

You couldn't accuse them of being outright biased, but they definitely seem to have an anti corbyn slant.

[IanP]

Not a very big cover-up:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50374630

I tend to be with Toby on this one - the BBC seems to be to work pretty well as a pretty neutral and trustworthy mainstream source of news.  If anything it may have a tendency to the liberal (with small 'l') middle ground which may be why supporters of both the main parties (who currently are respectively more left and right wing than they have been in a generation) seem to see bias.

[Fiend]

I think some people confuse "lack of anti-Tory bias" with "pro-Tory bias".

If the BBC have a pro-Tory bias then they'd doing a shit job of it as the news website often presents the Tory leadership as making complete tits of themselves without any help needed.

[Andy B]

What percentage of current BBC presenters, editors and correspondents are ex-conservatives?
From memory, there are: Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Evan Davis, Matthew Paris (he may not be with the bbc anymore, I can’t remember), Laura keunessberg (has had to apologise for Tory bias is the past), all in senior positions.

[TobyD]

, re the wreath I assume someone probably thought it would be respectful to try to avoid a controversy about armistice day, probably a misjudgment but there you go.

Ask yourself if, though, it had been Corbyn who'd laid a wreath upside down, or whatever gaff Bojo dropped, would the beeb have reported on it, let alone has to be so kind as to 'cover it up' with some old footage #fakenews.   
You couldn't accuse them of being outright biased, but they definitely seem to have an anti corbyn slant.

Nah I still disagree, I think they would have steered clear of anything that appeared to mock armistice day / remembrance day ceremonies. I really disagree that they're biased against Corbyn. They've been very thorough in repeatedly debunking the government's assessment of labour spending commitments, and questioning them not publishing the Russian enquiry reports recently.

[TobyD]

What percentage of current BBC presenters, editors and correspondents are ex-conservatives?
From memory, there are: Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Evan Davis, Matthew Paris (he may not be with the bbc anymore, I can’t remember), Laura keunessberg (has had to apologise for Tory bias is the past), all in senior positions.

Irrelevant as I think that they're generally extremely professional and questioning of politicians of all hues. Anyhow, Matthew Paris has written recently and repeatedly about how Johnson is unfit to be PM, he's left the Conservative party and is voting Liberal Democrat.

If you talk to staunch conservatives, they'll say the BBC are all woke lefty liberal pacifists.

[Andy B]

What percentage of current BBC presenters, editors and correspondents are ex-conservatives?
From memory, there are: Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Evan Davis, Matthew Paris (he may not be with the bbc anymore, I can’t remember), Laura keunessberg (has had to apologise for Tory bias is the past), all in senior positions.

Irrelevant as I think that they're generally extremely professional and questioning of politicians of all hues.

That doesn’t answer my question. Plus just because you think they are professional doesn’t necessarily mean it is the case. See above re. Keunessberg’s (not sure on spelling, sorry) previous with regard to bias.

...Anyhow, Matthew Paris has written recently and repeatedly about how Johnson is unfit to be PM, he's left the Conservative party and is voting Liberal Democrat.

So he’s overtly biased towards the Lib Dems at the moment, and that doesn’t account for any of the others mentioned, or any more that I have forgotten.
My apologies if this has been asked or answered before, but are you a member of the Liberal Democrats Toby?

If you talk to staunch conservatives, they'll say the BBC are all woke lefty liberal pacifists.

Of course they do.
(I do speak to conservatives too, but thanks for the tip  )
 

[i.munro]

I quite often start the day, with the BBC news app and the Sky app. Of the two, I’d say the BBC app has more cant than Sky. Subtle, but present and not truly dispassionate. Whilst it’s fair to say “nothing is without some bias” the Beeb has taken a position, and I don’t think i should have any leaning.

This applies to the Television news as well. Sky is significantly more to the left (less biassed from my POV) than the BBC. Given how unlikely it is that Sky is actually left-wing biassed given that Murdoch is still AFAIK a significant shareholder I find this very significant.