The BBC will destroy itself if it doesn't address bias

We can only hope....the BBC destory's itself.

The report concludes the BBC is anti Israel, anti conservative, pro EU and exists not for the interests of its licence payers but for the agendas it leans to.

The Chairman of the Conservative Party Grant Shapps has just launched another broadside from the Right against the BBC. The state broadcaster needed to rebuild public trust after the revelations of sexual abuse and related cover ups (over Jimmy Savile, mainly) and high pay-offs to senior staff, but it also needed to address the question of "fairness" in its political reporting.

The first two matters are plainly important, but they do not go to the heart of the matter in the way that the BBC's blatant liberal-left bias does. Sex scandals and excessive pay happen in many industries. But political bias undermines the whole notion of public broadcasting.

How many times have we been here before? (Just take a look at some of the related articles below this one.) The BBC has become little better than the broadcasting arm of the Guardian newspaper. As former BBC front man Peter Sissons put it a while back: "In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there”.

"If you want to read one of the few copies of the Daily Mail that find their way into the BBC newsroom, they are difficult to track down... and you would be advised not to make too much of a show of reading them. Wrap them in brown paper or a copy of The Guardian, would be my advice," he added.

No-one really doubts that this is the case, whatever desperate protestations emerge from the higher echelons of the BBC. Who thinks the BBC is anti-EU? No-one. We all know from what we read, hear and listen to that the gravitational pull is always to the side of those who support Brussels.

Who thinks the BBC supports Israel? Only the most fanatical of Israel's enemies. Outside that small but vocal constituency it is perfectly clear that an anti-Israeli agenda permeates the BBC's newsrooms.

Who thinks the BBC adopts a neutral position on climate change? Again, no-one. Who thinks the BBC is balanced on free-market capitalism versus social-democracy? The list could go on and on.

What we find extraordinary is how short-sighted this all is. The BBC depends on taxpayers' money. And taxpayers' money is delivered by governments which as often as not end up being composed of politicians of the Right.

Why would Right-leaning politicians be well disposed to a state broadcaster that backs the agendas of their enemies? Can't the BBC see that its persistent and blatant bias will ultimately lead to its destruction?

So far, the answer to that question is: apparently not. Which really rather suggests that the bias is so deeply embedded that they are completely unable to appreciate what their critics are on about.

They will reap what they sow. And when they do, they will have no-one to blame but themselves.

The Commenter