McDonald ‘stood down’ by BBC from Any Questions programme because no Tory would appear
The Tories’ widely-reported boycott of Radio 4 – because of their ludicrous claim that the Today programme was biased against them – has seen a bizarre and deplorable reaction by the BBC.
When the corporation was unable to get a Conservative MP to appear on tonight’s Any Questions programme on the station, it told Labour front-bencher Andy McDonald that this meant that he couldn’t appear either, as the Shadow Transport Secretary tweeted this evening.
SKWAWKBOX view:
The craven BBC will hide behind its impartiality charter to excuse its behaviour, but this is utter nonsense. If the Tories are offered the chance to put forward a spokesperson and ignores it, that’s their problem and not a breach of the charter.
Instead, the BBC are reacting to Boris Johnson’s cowardice – by effectively banning Labour.
The BBC’s utter complicity has led it to the verge of its own undoing, as the Tories prepare to defund the broadcaster – but it is still licking their boots and denying the people the opportunity to hear from the opposition to Johnson’s assault on the fabric of this country.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
The BBC is State Broadcaster and has a long history of bias to the government of the day. For example, it supported the government of the day in 1926 against the strikers in the General Strike.
Moreover, it was biased against socialists as JB Priestly wrote about after he marginalised by them when he was in the corporation. Moreover, the state security services had a office there in the 50s and 60s vetting potential employees. The Guardian had an article about this a few years ago.
In recent decades, they showed doctored videos about the miners clash with the police during the 80s miners strike. Of course, we were treated to the spectacle of a hung hover Johnson’s performance being “ accidentally” replaced with a video from 3 years previously. Not noticing that May and Farron were leaders of their respective parties. Not forgetting, editing Johnson’s ridicule by the studio audience during the GE leaders debate plus the various bias shown by Kuenssberg and other reporters in the GE.
As Peter Oborne said “ without the Soviet style support of the media, Johnson would fall”, yet, the pretence by the State Broadcaster they are not bias and the Tories giving a performance about them is almost beyond parody.
Lord Reith, the first boss of the BBC, was something of a Hitler supporter. He praised his actions in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ and his invasion of Czechoslovakia.
I found these revelations in a book by Nick Robinson whose family were refugees from Nazi Germany.
Incidentally, Nick Robinson’s MP is Jeremy Corbyn.
The BBC forgot the part about using a long spoon I think.
Still, I bet they have vast amounts of evidence of Tories ‘blackmailing’ them into helping them keep Labour out of government.
They’ll hand it over to avoid jail but first we have to convince them we really are going to be passing those laws I talked about.
The BBC is suffering the same subversion as the Labour Party. There are people within both organisations who are actively working to ensure their demise. Very rarely the BBC will produce something which is detrimental to the right wing who demand 100% loyalty but even this occasional ‘slip up’ marks them out for destruction.
Similarly anyone in the Labour Party, especially Jews, who depart from the pro Israeli line is earmarked for suspension and expulsion.
Most of this can be laid at the door of the gutless PLP who are responsible for letting the Torys in to destroy socialism And now we can look forward to the years of Victorian cruelty and a second rate opposition of so called moderate mps.I am like many others seething at what our own mps and governance have done to this country.and to the Labour party.Absolutely scum and traitors
And this is the reason why the right wing are against mandatory reselection.
The great disappointment of the past five years has been the failure to consolidate the left’s position in the way the right always do for themselves.
It is naive to think that setting a better example of behaving will do.
You do that after the right have been neutered.
Ludus 57….Parliamentary Labour party?Doesn’t that name say everything.A separate party thats behaviour signifys a separate mindset from the membership and a law unto themselves.Whilst the PLP have more power and use it to decide the direction and leadership then democracy is Zilch.More power to the people(membership).!
Ludud57 : I don’t disagree about why MPs don’t want automatic reselection.
But – as the selections that happened before December’s debacle illustrated – it’s naive to think that it’s a magic solution to problems within the Party. As has been noted – Hodge is still there.
Ludus57, exactly. Exactly. E X A C T L Y . I agree with every single word. They are worth repeating. I said almost exactly your:
“It is naive to think that setting a better example of behaving will do.”
The response to my saying that was “we can reform them” … Seriously “we can reform – – – – – ” Ludus57, until more people realise REALITY,… face reality, desend from their mythical utopias & zen states, the rest of us have to triple our efforts. Much has been “compromised” for worse than nothing in return ie – slander and sabotaged. Worse than that with every kick in the teeth, the kickers are rewarded with peerages and promises of peerages and the all the better to kick with more viciousness funded by us, the state! And still there are a few, but a few too many, who with gross misunderstanding of virtue, enable the B side bastards to perpetuate the A side bastards. What’s virtuous about that❓
Then the B Bastards lecture us with “we must unite behind who ever wins”. Those who plotted the most disuniting dishonest gutter coups against Jeremy bleat now about unity. Starmer, Nandy, Rayner are beneath contempt. But they are give power by the pathetic wet failure to face the clear evidence that Tory B sides intend to finish crushing and finishing the Labour Party for good. They wish to make us the puppet of warmongers, planet wreckers, refugee makers, outsourcers, big pharma.
Quite odd that the few who lecture us about good examples, never lectured the coup plotters. Have you noticed. That is why it is necessary to address URGENTLY some KEY aspects of “culture” and “attitudes” on the “Left”. They cannot be overlooked. They must be addressed NOW. Without that a governments will struggle to be resolute, assertive and resilient. It will bend in the wind, give ground and compromise policies for nothing in return. Persistent apologisers and appeasers are worse than no members at all as they sap the drive … the spirit … the MORALE that is crucial to ANY radical social change. DROP THE DRIZZLE… the devotion to soul crushing futile WETNESS.
Labour is meant to govern this country, not shout from outside. LABOUR MUST GOVERN not be forever waving placards at the schmoozers of the 1% . The schmoozers of the 1% in and out of our party have shown take no notice of placards. LABOUR members must focus on KICKING THE SCHMOOZERS out of government.
To do that, we need to drop the amateur timid approach. Eg after the defeat orchestrated by the coup plotters. The obvious response should have been to recommence open selection. Open selection could should also have been ongoing THROUGHOUT the Tory search for a new leader.
The forever tremulous state of trying to appease, and avoid MSM bad press is counter productive. It actually insures that the MSM does not even have to try hard. Any lie would do. Every single plotter should have been expelled then. The party has to realise there are lots of excellent “unknowns” in the party. I saw one of them. A marvellous young lady who won a seat in the Midlands. She spoke brilliantly with the necessary clarity. AND WON IN A SEA OF LOSS. She and Jeremy are LIVING PROOF that the fixation on “big names” should be dumped swiftly. Think of it, Ummuna was a “big name”. Where is he? So was Berger, Soubrey, etc etc NB big names only for those who fail to listen.
OPEN SELECTION is the way to clean out the muck and make the true GEMA of the party shine.
Open selection. Open Selection.
O P E N S E L E C T I O N
🌹🌹🌹
true GEMS of the party shine
“Impartiality” when it suits. Which is basically when it won’t disadvantage the Tories.
Desperate behaviour by the BBC.
There’s a tendency to think of bias in the BBC’s News and Current Affairs output as simply a conspiracy of Tories. It isn’t as simple as that, as a recent article in the Groan by a BBC employee noted :
” … a highly influential Westminster social circle revolves around trips to various holiday homes in continental Europe, where various MPs and the journalists who are supposed to report on them have long been playing just as hard as they work.”
That’s the way that taken-for-granted narratives are formed : the dogging circle.
The full article is worth a read :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/tv-debates-brexit-bbc-centre-ground-leavers-remainers
Another key factor is organized lobbying – of which the Israel Lobby is the most egregious example of frightening journalists off reporting uncomfortable narratives. The Tories also have been particularly adept at putting the frighteners on.
In a wider context, the following article by Tom Mills (originally published in ‘Tribune’) – on the JVL website – is an interesting analysis from a distinguished writer on the subject :
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/saving-the-bbc-from-the-left/
RH I only found out what “dogging was by watching Car share with Peter Kay comedy show.You are being serious about the dogging with the Tory boys and the BBC .I new things were desperate at the state broadcasting corporation. But dogging?…kuensberg?God help us!
Different story when they lied to get Corbyn to do the neil interview…
Bunch of failed public schoolboy shills, that bbc. The ‘fags’ for the big boys; those being they who go to parliament. That’s probably why (like the clergy & Westminster itself) there’s so many pederasts ensconced within it. But because they were lower down the pecking order in eton & harrow, theyre the ones thrown under the bus, while the Westminster nonces cover up for themselves and themselves only.
…On another note, McDonald would’ve made a decent fist of the leadership/deputy IMO. Never once seen him have a bad interview, always thoroughly prepared, well-briefed and eloquent enough to get his point home.
Toffee, you r right on much but, Do you think McDonald interview for GQ with Arsetair Campbell ended well for Labour and Jeremy and us? No. I lost confidence in McD over that. Plus was very suspicious since about two years ago. I feel he is one of the people who failed Jeremy miserably. Whatever weak points Jeremy may have, he brought an EXCEPTIONAL something that attracted me amongst the 500,000. Worth repeating, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND members. He brought scintillating hope. No one else has achieved that in Europe. So i believe that those around him had a MORAL DUTY to do EVERYTHING to help and support him. He may have been stubborn on things eg consistency of delivery at PMQs and poor performance at all radio clips / interviews which i have heard. However, it was the people around JC who should have employed EVERY method to get through to him, even by employing outside expertise.
This an example of the “cultural” change needed on the “Left”. The dominating “NICENESS” of the people and tendency to see opposing views as “conflict” or “argument” ie a negative leads to a reluctance to contradict, upset etc etc. It is an unprofessional, amateurish approach. Any soft safe or virtuous safe or niche virtu acts like a magnet around people of like mind STICK! Consequence – no REAL reaching out and REAL interaction and involvement with different views. Thats why for eg interviewees crumble / melt even with empty MSM presenters. There is little experience of being EFFECTIVELY assertive with pompous presenters. So instead one gets passive aggressive or reduced to timid inappropriate laughter, giggling and appeasement. When one has always avoided what is SEEN as “conflict”, it is difficult to feel positive.
These are correctable behaviours. But if not even recognised as needing correction, the operation remains amateurish and stunted even in the long run catastrophic.
One cannot create radical change by hiding, thinking problems will disappear, avoiding verbal challenges, appeasing the unappeasable and sacrificing allies. Members should be appeased. NOT the MSM and their controllers. It must ALWAYS be remembered, Jeremy won despite the most vitriolic attacks from all sides. That is proof that “big names” are much overrated and so is the MSM. The MSM and “big names”, must be confronted by exposing their inconsistency and deliberate deceiving of the public. It must be done ACTIVELY. The attitude should never be “the public will see through the MSM lies.” No! People believe what they hear repeatedly.
Telepathy would be a fine thing, but it is with dynamic words and presence that we persuade. 🌹🌹🌹
Do you think McDonald interview for GQ with Arsetair Campbell ended well for Labour and Jeremy and us? No. I lost confidence in McD over that.
Must confess I’d missed that?!!
Dunno what was said, but no doubt others (Of higher profile and lower, or even equal importance within the PLP) are far more culpable in letting Corbyn down.
For me, McDonald’d still be a better choice than what’s currently on offer. Him, or Gardiner – but Gardiner’s LFI affiliation’d put me off.
Search out the GQ Arsestair interview. Tis available online, plus Arsetair then crawling all over the radio stations to discuss it. That was the final stroke re McD for me. He had said other unhelpful things before and had a diarrhoea of apologies re the AS slanders. I posted here how he whined (played out on radio) re the slanders not stopping.
“WE DID EVERYTHING THEY ASKED”
Re Gardiner, i am not a fan and was never a fan if his. Definitely bad news in more than one way. Further, he has the ability lacks just what we desperately in parliament an umbilical link to the heart of the party ie MEMBERSHIP. i suspect that it is he who brought out the worst in Jeremy eg the barely audible unfocused monotone voice in radio interviews.
In addition Gardiner seems of the same type as Thornberry, an arrogant sneering aloofness. They think they are the life of every gathering. They are both utterly tiresome.
And most crucially i suspect Gardner was the concocter in letter and spirit of “CONSTRUCTIVE AMBIGUITY” which with the plotters made Labour lose. Gardiner to ne is a fudge, a fog a tiresome fog.
Give me any day: Richard Burgon, Chris Williamson, Len McCluskey, Ken Loach, and without the occasional lapses of judgement eg “H Tourette’s” – Ken Livingstone and over bombastic and odd occasional lapses of judgement the underrated BRILLIANT George Galloway. And of course Tony Benn sans his mantra “do policies not people”. That is another undoing and misjudgement re politics. PEOPLE make policies in their own image. Eg, to keep the lies and criminal doings of Boris Johnson and other A side Tories and B siders like Blair, out of debates keeps their WHOLE character out of view… out of the minds of the public. It is like refusing to let people be AWARE & ALERT re: Epstein has a plane called “Lolita Express”, and “Prince” Andrew is his “honourable friend”. Thus allowing children to suffer because facts were withheld in the mistaken idea of being “kind”.
Or refusing to keep alive the FACTS that Blair cosied up to Gaddafi and every super rich despot to whom he would beg for access. Thus people feel, maybe the Blair creature was not that evil.
So i am relieved to at last hear Jeremy asking Starmer to stop hiding his bankrollers. Are the a foul congealed mass of Mandelson, Blair and the same Russian oligarchs paying THOUSANDS to play tennis with BloJohnson and watch cricket with Sunak? And thousands last year to mingle with THERESA MAY???
We must know the identities of the Russian Oligarchs and their puppets who may be funding Starmer exactly as they fund the other Tories. We will have more floods and we don’t want Sir Starmer doing just as Johnson did this week. Ignore the desperate flood victims while schmoozing the 1%.
STARMER ! If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear so TELL US – WHO IS FUNDING YOU
⁉️⁉️⁉️
Toffee, I went to a local CLP last year and McDonnell was the star attraction. Unfortunately, he rolled up with Liam Byrne, a born again member of the Labour Party giving the listeners the heart strings to try and convince us to support him in his electoral West Midlands campaign, and Mc Donnell swearing Byrne was the best thing since sliced bread deserving our undying support.
It was like an episode from Little House On The Prairie. If trying to get those gullible enough to swallow this tosh about Byrne, he was decidedly shifty and very nifty in evasive answers, when he was questioned about the Labour lord refuseniks in the 2nd chamber, throwing down the gauntlet and openly revolting against the overwhelming democratically leader of the Labour Party. His response was to a direct question was “ to abolish the House of Lords” rather than decry their behaviour.
Naturally, any questions about the AS fabricated witch hunt were studiously suppressed. Mc Donnell, sacrificed his principles on the altar of a mystical “ unity”.
”Toffee, I went to a local CLP last year and McDonnell was the star attraction. Unfortunately, he rolled up with Liam Byrne, a born again member of the Labour Party giving the listeners the heart strings to try and convince us to support him in his electoral West Midlands campaign, and Mc Donnell swearing Byrne was the best thing since sliced bread deserving our undying support.”
Now THIS I actually WAS aware of, and have made my disgust and visceral disdain (bordering on a pathological hatred) of byrne all too known on here. Mcdonnell also made a few other ‘transgressions’ in the election run-up, too. He has to shoulder his responsibility for his part in the defeat. There as a time I actually started to believe he could be a fifth columnist, despite (some of) his denials being plauisble enough to be put to ‘Adverse presss briefings’
@signpost
I’ve googled but don’t seem to be able to find anything. However, I’ve no reason to doubt you, therefore I’ll reserve judgement on mcdonald’s integrity. having read your brief outline of events.
That said, his oratorical skills have impressed me whenever I’ve seen or heard him. Maintains his composure and comportment well enough and has a better ‘poker face’ when the spotlight’s on him in interviews than many other labour mp’s.
As for Gardiner, his no-nonsense approach to these overtly biased interviewers has always been a plus point for me. Yes, I’m well aware he’s a lawyer and a london-based mp, but he sticks to the message he’s been briefed to give. I never heard him go off message once, during Corbyn’s tenure.
I also find his mien far removed from the passively conceited (but barely concealed conceit – in a word ‘snobbish’) thornberry – someone who’s always struck me as harbouring a grudge against everyone & everything that she’s not ‘top dog’ (And NEVER will be, thank feck) , while refusing to accept she’s just not good enough.
But where Gardiner’s loyalties really lie, though, is where I have trouble deciphering him. Could be a case of him being content to be the piper rather than the one choosing the tune…
Impartiality, what a quaint idea but………what criteria & who decides? The function of Public Service Broadcasting is to create consent for Gov’t & other dominant ideologies. S/he who pays the Piper…..?
Imagine a BBC that served democracy & asked awkward questions of our economic & political masters calling them to account? Imagine the BBC or Channel 4 showing programmes such as ‘The Lobby’ or an in depth interview with Miko Peled……mind you, imagine the Labour Party inviting Miko to speak @ Conference……don’t think Margaret Hodge would allow that.
Actually, it’s not black and white like that. The first programme about the Israel Lobby (that I know of) was on Channel 4 – Peter Oborne in a ‘Dispatches’ documentary in (I think) 2008. Y0u can still get it on YouTube.
Then the Beeb – the documentary about the Stephen Ward affair that vividly outlined the establishment network.
Just two examples.
I see no virtue in ‘leftery’ being associated with whining victimhood or frothing incontinence that exaggerates things in order to induce pity. Nobody is going to vote for it. The actuality of bias is bad enough without confecting a hyperbolic narrative that can be laughed at.
2 exceptions in the history of PSB……………mmmmm
Just 2 examples in the history of PSB………..mmmmmm you are having a laugh!
Another quaint idea…..’investigative journalism’ on BBC & Channel 4. Real journalism with BBC editors who said “publish & be damned”, John Pilger & Peter Hitchens rather than Laurta Kuennesberg & Emily Maitliss…..whoops, gender quota prevents that!
Toffee, if you recall prior to the 2019 GE, Mc Donnell said that both he and Jeremy Corbyn would be retiring after the GE which, when JC was asked about this gleefully by the MSM vigorously denied “ he had any intention of retiring after the GE “. Presumably, because he thought that perhaps the democratic Socialist Labour Party might not have been so badly mauled ( a forlorn hope I know when Starmer, Thornberry and Mc Donnell et al refused to accept the referendum result). McDonnell knew the game was up because of his and the others actions. By losing his way through the belief of “ broad church mystique “, he sided with the faction that cost the democratic socialist Labour Party so dearly.