Since defecting to the Conservatives last September, the Sun has become the party’s most full-throated supporter on Fleet Street. Today the tabloid publishes an absurd “investigation” which, it claims, unearths evidence of an “alarming” BBC bias against the Tories.
Here’s the charge sheet in full:
BBC News gave disproportionate coverage to the row over Tory donor Lord Ashcroft’s tax status.
Labour panellists were given more time to speak on flagship political show Question Time.
A poll on The One Show ignored issues with Gordon Brown to ask only, “Is David Cameron too much of a toff to be PM?”
The Tory leader was stitched up when footage of him adjusting his hair was sneakily fed to all broadcasters.
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And (this one is the clincher):
The Basil Brush Show featured a school election with a cheat called Dave wearing a blue rosette.
Taking these from the top, the BBC’s coverage of the Ashcroft scandal was in no way disproportionate. The Sun protests that “controversy over the similar status of up to eight Labour donors got just a fraction of the coverage.”
But none of the relevant Labour donors (such as Lord Paul) enjoy anything like the influence of Ashcroft, nor had they ever previously promised to end their non-dom tax status.
On Question Time, it’s absurd for the paper to cite the fact that “Caroline Flint got SIX minutes more than Tory Justine Greening” as evidence of favouritism towards Labour. Could it not be that Greening’s answers were simply more succinct? That certainly seems more likely than the idea that David Dimbleby, one of the corporation’s most genuinely impartial broadacasters, is a Labour stooge.
It’s hardly surprising that The One Show produced a five-minute piece on the background of the man who wants to be prime minister. Until recently, Cameron received only a fraction of the scrutiny that Gordon Brown, as head of the government, attracts.
As for that amusing video of Cameron fixing his hair, didn’t it actually originate from the News Corp-owned Sky? Yes, it did.
I think I’ll let the claim that the BBC is using The Basil Brush Show to pump out anti-Tory propaganda speak for itself.
The Sun’s jihad against the BBC, like its decision to endorse the Conservatives, is based on little more than crude commerical considerations. The paper’s editors fear that the corporation’s vast online presence will destroy any hope that Murdoch can charge successfully for digital content.
When the Sun came out for him last year, Cameron said he was delighted to have the support of a “really important national newspaper”. But even he must wince at its degeneration into little more than a Tory Pravda.
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