How Right-Wing Is Brillo?

The BBC has felt the need to make cuts to some of its programming. Contrary to rumour - well, it was spun by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog - Politics Live is not being scrapped. But The Andrew Neil Show is, although the Corporation claims it is still open to using his services for set-piece interviews and one-off events like General Election coverage. This prompted a variety of comment.

One of those commenting was Femi Oluwole, who offered up his honest opinion, telling “I think Andrew Neil is biased and scarily Right-wing but he is such a heavy hitter when it comes to Paxman-style interviews, including when holding his own side to account, that I am genuinely disappointed to see him go”. The Great Man was not best pleased.

“We've never met or talked. You have no idea what my views are on any major issue today, tho you think you do. To call me scarily right-wing’ is inaccurate, a smear and a hard left trope. You should withdraw it”. Oluwole most certainly should not; he expressly prefixed his comment with “I think”. And in any case, evidence is on his side.

Take, for instance, this quote from Brillo’s own memoir Full Disclosure: “On many of the biggest struggles of [Margaret Thatcher’s] decade in power, the Sunday Times [edited by Himself] stood shoulder to shoulder with her … Thatcher’s battles were our battles”. Then there are a number of observations made by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News.

Long-term participant in the Murdoch project ...

Referring to an article in the October 1984 Political Quarterly, he notes “What Hugo Young was seeing was the outcome of Rupert Murdoch’s standard behaviour: for the sake of his business interests, he had forged an alliance with Margaret Thatcher; and in order to maintain that alliance, he had imposed a right-wing framework on the [Sunday Times], a framework which well suited the personal politics of the editor whom he then appointed, Andrew Neil”. He also called Neil “a key figure in the demise of Fleet Street”.

... "Thatcher's battles were our battles"

Discussing how the ST and its Insight team were manipulated to smear Thames Television’s Death On The Rock, concerning the Gibraltar Shootings of March 1988, Davies tells “[Andrew Neil] was deeply opposed to anything left-wing or liberal, including apparently left-wing or liberal journalism, and, as a former member and employee of the Conservative and Unionist Party, he was even more opposed to Irish Republicanism”.

The rock on which the Insight team's credibility foundered

Davies later adds “Andrew Neil … had strong political views which helped him to maintain his alliance with Margaret Thatcher … Where Harry Evans was an enthusiastic hirer of talent, Andrew Neil was a delirious sacker. He dumped so many people for being leftish that the reporters discreetly conducted a poll and found that at least half the newsroom were Tories”. Coming right up to date, we move on to Neil’s Spectator role.

Behold the medium of inclusivity and tolerance

Here, he has overseen a publication which has become a by-word for bigotry, a cesspit of prejudice, excused only by the routine trumpeting of the mantra FREEZE PEACH. Whether it is rabid Islamophobia, irrational Europhobia, climate change denial, or the tolerance of a known anti-Semitic columnist, the impression of selling a product on the back of hate speech is inescapable. Which leads to an inevitable conclusion.

There is also his using the Sunday Politics to push climate change denial. Small wonder he took such exception to Owen Jones calling him out. Femi Oluwole was right.

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