There is one relationship that has of late been rekindled,
with the turbulence of the MPs’ expenses scandal forgiven, and that is the
again unshakeable bond between the Telegraph
titles and the Tory Party. Thus it has come as no surprise to see the ruckus
caused by Paul Dacre’s personal attack on the memory of Mil The Younger’s late
father expertly converted into an attack on the BBC today.
What the hated Beeb has done, in addition to its being
insufficiently conservative, is to report the Ralph Miliband row. This is a bad
thing? Ah well. It’s all about the amount of coverage, which the Tel has deemed to have been excessive,
which may bring a wry smile to those who recall the attempts by this paper, and
others, not to mention Phonehackgate and make it go away.
So first comes the flagrantly dishonest headline “BBC
accused of becoming Ed Miliband's mouthpiece” (no such accusation has
been made), followed by the sub-heading “The
BBC is facing calls for an inquiry into the extensive coverage it has given to
Ed Miliband’s dispute with a newspaper”, which would more accurately be
described as call singular, as only
one MP has made it.
And the Tel, for
some reason, takes its time even pitching the name, but asserts confidently “One MP has written to the BBC Trust, the
governing body, to ask it to consider whether the corporation, led by Lord
Hall, the new director-general, has breached editorial guidelines with the
quantity and tone of its broadcasts”. And that is the basis for a
front-page lead? You betcha, says Sarah.
“Mr Miliband has been
given extensive personal coverage ... Labour figures also featured prominently
on the BBC, giving the party huge amounts of publicity ... an analysis by The
Telegraph found the story took up almost 49 minutes of the 12 hours of
broadcasting by Today, BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme, over
the four editions between Wednesday and Saturday” it drones on.
And how much for the Tory Party conference? We don’t get to
know about that, but there are the usual anti-BBC talking heads lined up to
carp and whinge to order. Then there is a grotesque rant from Bruce “Brute” Anderson, who declares “The
BBC has come to loathe those it serves ... A great organisation has grown too
Leftie and too big”. Yes, if only they had listened to Himself
Personally Now.
Then he lets slip the real agenda by whingeing about climate
change coverage, and then press regulation, although the latter has hardly been
mentioned by the Beeb of late. Anderson claims that it is the BBC that is
trying to embarrass the Daily Mail,
thus making the Corporation a player rather than a reporter. But this is just
another lame attempt to drag the Beeb down to the gutter where the Tel now resides.
And, with the Royal Charter coming closer, there’ll be more.
No change there, then.
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