Jeremy Hunt. Rhymes with something, can't quite think what it is

Jeremy Hunt, Conservative Culture Secretary, has decided to take a leaf, nay a whole branch, out of the Fox News handbook, and outright accuses the BBC of liberal bias.

Hunt said it was clear to most people that more BBC employees would vote Labour or Lib Dem than Conservative. He also said that the corporation had been out of touch with public opinion in the recent past and shown leftwing bias on issues such as Europe, immigration and Northern Ireland.

 I don't think he could be seriously suggesting that the BBC commission a public survey to determine what issues it covers. In any case, with correspondents like Nick Robinson and Robert Peston, I think BBC news coverage is far from being biased to the left.

Unlike America, we benefit from having a television media that is obliged to cover a variety of opinions, and that's a good thing. Otherwise you end up with crimes against humanity like Fox News, which shamelessly twists news into its own selfish agenda.

But the classic move of conservative politicians, both here and in the USA, is to try to whip up a storm against the alleged "liberal" media, and masquerade as the injured party. Poor right-wingers! No-one wants to let us spout our lies unchallenged. And this is what Hunt wants to do. It was always on the cards that the Tories would try to harness the BBC fir their own purposes. The opening salvoes have already been fired, and expect more attacks in the future.

Al Franken skewered the whole liberal bias myth in his book Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them. We are fortunate to have a mass media that at least tries to create the appearance of being non-partisan. Let's not let these Jeremys spoil it for their own ends.


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