Cancellation of scheduled investigation into UC 10 days before GE vote is appalling display of Establishment bias
Seemingly unremarked by anyone, the BBC changed its schedule yesterday – in a way that is entirely at odds with its legal impartiality obligations during the general election campaign.
At 9pm last night, the BBC was meant to broadcast an episode titled “Universal Credit: One Year On” – a follow-up to a harrowing Panorama investigation into the misery inflicted by the Tories’ pet system for impoverishing the vulnerable first broadcast in November last year.
The title of the 2018 programme was “The Universal Credit Crisis“.
A visit to the BBC’s Panorama iPlayer site confirms what should have been shown to the nation last night:
The 2018 programme made harrowing viewing, exposing the utter shambles of the Tories’ conscious cruelty toward unemployed people, those on low wages – and millions of children:
Things have only got worse since, so the new programme would certainly not be any kind of good news for the Tories or their election hopes.
And the BBC cancelled it – with nine days to go before polling day.
Had they shown it, many casting their postal ballots in the next few days would have had a huge reminder of why the Tories should never be anywhere near power.
The Panorama programme page does not say when the programme will be broadcast, but even if it is next week it will certainly be too late to influence postal ballots.
The disgraceful scandal of the BBC’s unmistakable bias in the 2019 general election continues.
Labour will scrap the Universal Credit system if it wins the election.
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The BBC News and Current affairs cannot be allowed to continue under current management and and editorial staff.If allowed to continue they will completely undermine people’s faith in the very idea of public service broadcasting,which may be their ultimate aim.
Kitty Jones – The problem with Jeremy Corbyn? The incoherence of the mass media.
I thought I would gather together evidence of these contradictions, but found someone had already done an excellent job of that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Colin Millar’s extraordinary gallery of empirical evidence.
https://politicsandinsights.org/2019/12/03/the-problem-with-jeremy-corbyn-the-incoherence-of-the-mass-media/
Heh heh heh… good find 🙂
“But boss, we did what you said last week and told them he was too far to the left – and he went up in the polls.”
“So tell them he’s not far ENOUGH to the left, you idiot. And if his numbers don’t crash this time you’re all fired! For fuck’s sake, do I have to do ALL the strategic thinking around here?”
Good share SteveH.
Yeah Steve. Sue’s blog is spot on always. I make it one of my regular reads although due to her condition and work commitments its not updated very often. But what goes down on her site is pure gold.
Yep. The fakery and incoherence is massive when its distilled like this.
What bothers me is that too many Labour spokespersons have been behind the door when it comes to highlighting this sort of prostitution of journalism.
Let’s face it, the bastards aren’t going to be nice just because you’re apologetic and defensive. You might as well have a go at taking them down politely but aggressively.
We now have two highly credible academic analyses of the nature of the faskery of antisemitism scam. I have yet to hear a representative ask an interviewer if they have read these studies (as opposed to repeating an endless loop of tittle-tattle) as part of their research. If the answer is ‘No’, then a response might be :
‘So why have you the temerity to be asking me questions from a basis of incredible ignorance and partiality? Go and do some useful work for your salary.’ (Well … perhaps not he last bit 🙂 )
And which door is that RH?
You imply that these Labour spokespersons you refer to were asked/questioned about A/S AND that you have observed it happening again and again AND that you have observed it happening recently, so could you give us a few examples.
I wonder if I were to check back through the Comments sections on skwawkbox during the past few weeks since the GE campaign started, how many times you – and others – have said the same thing. Funny, isn’t it, how you – and others – keep on bringing it up.
And you appear to refer to the people questioning them as ‘bastards’, so could you name two or three of these ‘bastards’ you’re referring to, and the programs on which it happened.
I have no doubt of course that this will be repeated again and again between now and election day by the usual suspects, and estimate that it’s been mentioned at least thirty to forty times or more already since the GE was called by RH and Co.
Funny, isn’t it, how they feel the need to keep repeating it over and over and over again!
Allan – If you watch TV or listen to the radio then you’d have seen and/or heard the evidence for yourself and to claim otherwise would be mendacious idiocy.
What on earth are you trying to achieve by picking a fight on this?
Getting a bit of attention, maybe?
Everyone from Top to the lowliest reporter at this Tory Propaganda Broadcaster are Corrupt Liars I am now doing what I was going to do last year they are getting no more of my Pension I hope the lot of you Rot in Hell for the Crimes you have deliberately covered up on the Tories behalf and the Crimes YOU at the BBC have committed against the Working Poor and all the other vulnerable People, Remember this what goes round comes round and when Jeremy Becomes PM the very people you despise the Lower Class WILL CLOSE YOU DOWN and we will demand that every Penny you have all property all assets are Taken from You every one of You as proceeds of CRIME yes you Kuennsberg, Smith, Neil, Marr, all you newsreaders who reported nonsense instead of the Truth The Many will never forget your Betrayal of the POOR in Favour of the RICH nor will you Be FORGIVEN
They haven’t had any of my money for a few years now. I have been getting a stream of threatening letters for some time now and expecting a visit. Hope its one of the days when I feel very ill so they get a real mouthful from me.
Forward the letters to the Israeli embassy
No news is good news for the Torys.We shall see if negative campaigning against the Labour party and in particular an individual actually works…I feel ashamed to admit that Friday the 13th as been a day I would never venture out.This Friday the 13th I will be out celebrating a win for Labour and hopefully a landslide.We can then move on to suspended the head of the BBC and set up an inquiry into the breaches of electoral law and the lack of action.across the whole news network..I have never witnessed propaganda against the Labour party on this level in my lifetime and its an offence against democracy.!
Like. A lot!
The SKWAWKBOX post above this with old footage from 2006 of Jeremy Corbyn was tweeted by @Iibdem – that’s @iibdem with a capital i.
He or she has tweeted some other good stuff too – a video of a heartfelt radio phone in to James O’Brien on LBC which, if you watch it to the end, is followed by another video with Hugh Grant saying “Conservatives are bad people who have to be stopped.”
I’d never have guessed Hugh Grant was one of us 🙂
And a retweet oa an @FilipJackson video of a speech by Lenin on the evil of antisemitism and of the capitalists who fomented it and created the conditions which later would lead to the Holocaust.
Perhaps the reason nobody remarked on this programme’s non-appearance is that no-one knew it was scheduled. It’s not listed in Radio Times, as the Prince Andrew Panorama was already scheduled and you wouldn’t get two Panoramas in one night!
Complaints on this are well justified, but let’s also make sure we give due prominence to the damning evidence about the Tories when the BBC do provide it.
Last night’s Newsnight had a good piece on the scandal in the criminal justice system that is “release under investigation”, where police just release suspects and then their cases get lost in the ether for months on end, leaving them and complainants with no idea what is happening. The Tories have no handle on what is happening, and people are being let down badly by the system.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50563533
No great surprise, really.
Withhold your TV licence fee. I’m no legal expert but surely they’re in breach of contract if they fail to report impartially. This overt bias cannot be allowed to continue
And it’s no fucking good the corporation pointing to a scant few mildly critical articles or interviews about or with a few middle ranking toerags in an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes regarding their so-called neutrality. They’re kidding nobody with their mealy-mouthed “here’s one I prepared earlier” pathetic palm-offs.
However, going legally licence free means you don’t have a contract with the the lying, paedophilic public school failures.
Don’t like it? Don’t pay them. Easy.
The trouble is that hopeless News and Current Affairs is *not* the totality of the BBC. By a long chalk.
Get rid of the Beeb and (as also threatened as a quintessential Tory desire) also Channel 4), and you’ve lost more than you’ve gained.
Just off the top of my head – in the last couple of weeks there have been essentially subversive films on poverty pay, on the death of Dag Hammerskjold and on the legacy of Franco in Spain that would probably not have seen the light of day outside the public broadcasting remit – except in some dark internet corner..
Be careful what you wish for before becoming an unwitting Tory sap.
Just another BBC ploy to keep their masters looking good
Remember when the rot really set in – when Blair and Campbell were the ‘masters’ and got Greg Dyke out.
Again – paving the way for the Tories, courtesy Nularbore.
My veiws on the BBC are simply disband and dont try reforming a culture it doesn’t work.You will be suggesting reform the tory party and the establishment next
Are the Left being deliberately blocked on the BBC News website in Have Your Say?
Need to democratise BBC, kick political Tory placements out and involve licence payers.
Boris Johnson shuts down press conference after question on NHS in a trade deal
Johnson runs away, again, when asked about the NHS and Trump. Why is Johnson so afraid of scrutiny.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-shuts-down-press-21024829
OK just watching BBC News item from a food bank in Grimsby, some bloke in there getting food saying he was homeless down in Clacton and was put into a hotel he has now been moved to Grimsby, when asked who he would vote for he said……… he wouldn’t vote for Corbyn ! But he likes what he hears from Bojo the clown…….Is he stupid, masochistic or a Tory plant maybe a Turkey voting for Christmas?
Many Homeless are unable to vote or have any stake in society..no bank account etc etc.Basically your homeless man is a plant or very open to the suggestion of a Hotel and food.BBC news and radio are very much politically motivated to influence the public and are fighting for survival.Vote Tory seems to be the flag of the BBC at home and abroad from my experience of suffering the same bile from BBC Asia broadcast from Singapore.