Public Anger at BBC Bias Over Thatcher's Death

[Teddy Bear]

Knew the BBC wouldn't be able to resist reviling Thatcher on the occasion of her death. Shows again the typical hypocrisy of the left when even less than a week after they were accusing the government of using the deaths of the children killed by Philpott to score points on how the welfare culture contributed to it, and yet following the death of Thatcher they launch out at everything she stood for.

Public anger at BBC bias: Viewers hit out at lengthy coverage of poll tax and miners' strike after Baroness Thatcher's death

• Viewers complain bulletins gave too great an emphasis to critics
  
• Twitter users accuse BBC of 'shameless' bias against the former PM
  
• One viewer said: 'You name the socialist, they've interviewed them'
  
• Another said the coverage was 'an absolute Left-wing biased disgrace'
  

By Vanessa Allen and Alasdair Glennie

The BBC was accused of 'disgraceful' bias yesterday over its coverage of Baroness Thatcher's death.

Angry viewers complained its news bulletins gave too great an emphasis to her critics and to controversies such as the poll tax and the miners' strike.

Twitter users accused the BBC of 'shameless' bias against the former Prime Minister. The broadcaster also faced criticism because newsreaders did not wear black ties following the announcement of her death.



During her 11 years as Prime Minister, Lady Thatcher made clear her dislike of those running the BBC and complained about its 'Left-wing' bias.

In the hours following the announcement of her death, those feelings were echoed by many.

EF, London, declared: 'Shameless Marxist BBC, Ken Livingstone. Tony Benn. You name the socialist, they've interviewed them to try and ruin the memory of this great lady.'

Paul Wells said: 'The BBC 10 o'clock news coverage of Baroness Thatcher's death is an absolute Left-wing biased disgrace . . . I want a TV licence refund now!'

'Baroness Thatcher a great leader of 20th Century, BBC brings on the haters and emphasises insignificant disturbances. Angry about the bias,' tweeted Bazee@Bazee.

Ken Scott claimed: 'BBC News showing their left-wing credentials by dragging a load of Thatcher haters out for interview. All of them waste-of-time has-beens!'

Chris Latimer tweeted: 'I am beginning to see the point of view of those who think the #bbc is Left-wing. Their coverage of Thatcher's death has been disgraceful.'

Concern over the BBC coverage was also reflected on Mail Online, where Jiminy posted: 'The BBC allowed a union spokesman to be broadcast on Radio 2 news this evening saying that no tears would be shed in the North East following Margaret Thatcher's death.

'I consider this to be the most cynical, nasty thing the BBC has allowed to be broadcast in many years. I will be writing to complain. Sickened.'

There was also criticism that TV anchors failed to show sufficient respect. Huw Edwards, who was presenting a programme on Lady Thatcher on both the BBC News Channel and BBC One, was among those who did not wear a black tie.



Paul Wells said: 'The BBC 10 o'clock news coverage of Baroness Thatcher's death is an absolute Left-wing biased disgrace .¿.¿.¿I want a TV licence refund now!'

Paul Wells said: 'The BBC 10 o'clock news coverage of Baroness Thatcher's death is an absolute Left-wing biased disgrace. I want a TV licence refund now!'

One Twitter user said: 'Would it be too much for the BBC news readers to put on a black tie and show some respect!?'

Another user, MediaUK.com managing director James Cridland, tweeted: 'No black tie for BBC News Channel presenter? Surprising.'

However, other users noted that BBC presenter Mark Mardell was wearing a black tie, whereas Sky's Adam Boulton was not.

A BBC spokesman said he could not comment on whether there was any policy regarding black ties, but added: 'The guidance is to dress as appropriate, to dress soberly.'

The BBC News website made an embarrassing gaffe when it reported briefly that Lady Thatcher had died following a 'strike' rather than a stroke.

One Twitter user complained: 'Typical BBC left left left! The sooner the TV tax is abolished the sooner we can consign the Labour Broadcasting Company to the bin. This was no typo.'

The BBC also invited Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to give his views within hours of her death.

Speaking on the BBC World Service, he said: 'Working-class communities in Ireland were devastated by Thatcherism . . . her draconian policies prolonged the war here, she is most famously remembered for the 1980s hunger strikes.'

Critics said it was 'disrespectful' to air an interview with Mr Adams on the day of Lady Thatcher's death, given that the IRA tried to kill the former Prime Minister.

Tory MP Ben Wallace said: 'I think it's disrespectful to give such a significant amount of coverage to a man who belongs to an organisation which tried to murder her.'

One of Thatcher's arch critics – former Labour MP Tony Benn – was one of the first invited to speak on BBC 5 Live and BBC World Service and was given free rein to criticise Lady Thatcher.

He said: 'Margaret Thatcher taught us the meaning of class war, we have paid a very heavy price for it.

'She used the power she had to make war on the miners and the trade union movement . . . and it was a very divisive period as Prime Minister, but you have to recognise that was what she believed and that meant she was not just fooling and she did in a sense open up the meaning of the phrase 'class war” as she used her power to make war on trade unions and the majority of the population.'

A BBC spokesman said: 'The death of Baroness Thatcher was a big breaking story of considerable interest to our audiences.

'BBC News sensitively and respectfully reported the story as news of the death broke and continues to provide extensive coverage and analysis across TV, radio and online featuring a range of voices and opinions.' On the use of the word 'strike' instead of 'stroke', the spokesman said: 'This was an error which was quickly corrected.'

[Teddy Bear]

Steven Glover goes more into how the BBC has used Thatcher's death to launch an all out offensive against her policies and Conservatives. One can almost say they are stirring up the scum that are using her death as an excuse for anarchy..

Yet still our spineless government does nothing.

Weaned on the Beeb's hatred, no wonder the young rejoice at her death

By Stephen Glover

Because the BBC had a series of run-ins with Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and is hardly well disposed towards the Tory-led Coalition, I had expected it to pour buckets of cold water over the memory of the Iron Lady.

To begin with, I was pleasantly surprised. The tone of BBC News 24 on Monday afternoon was slightly awed, even reverential, as is befitting when any great figure dies. Some of the newscasters even wore a black tie. A picture of Margaret Thatcher was shown as silence was observed.

Of course, as was only right and proper, lots of people who did not at all admire Lady Thatcher were interviewed, such as Labour leader Ed Miliband and former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley, but they were almost always measured, respectful and reasonable.

Thank God for the BBC, I began to murmur to myself. For all its faults, the Corporation knows how to behave on these occasions. It is capable of setting aside its prejudices, and rising above party politics.

But as the evening wore on, and the new day dawned, I began to change my mind. In many of the television and radio news bulletins, it seemed that Margaret Thatcher was on trial, and the case for the prosecution was subtly gathering force.

Again and again we were shown the same footage of 1990 poll tax riots, and familiar pictures of police grappling with miners during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. The clear message was: This is how it was under Thatcherism. Words such as ‘divisive’, ‘polarised’ and ‘out of touch’ began to be bandied about freely by BBC journalists describing the events of the 1980s. Charges were made against her which weren’t explained or placed in context.

For example, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was interviewed stating that Lady Thatcher had inflicted ‘great hurt’ on Northern Ireland. Now that Mr Adams represents himself as a democratic politician it is right he should have his say. But shouldn’t the BBC have mentioned that at the time of the Brighton bombing in 1984, which very nearly killed Margaret Thatcher, and did kill five others, the judgmental and seemingly virtuous Mr Adams was leader of the IRA’s Army Council?

Equally, Lady Thatcher’s opposition to sanctions against ‘apartheid South Africa’ was repeatedly cited by BBC television news, and her isolation among Commonwealth countries over the issue dwelt on.

What was not mentioned, at any rate while I was watching, is that she opposed sanctions largely because she believed they would harm black people most, though the BBC did grudgingly concede that she wasn’t in favour of apartheid.

Nor did the Corporation recall that after he was let out of prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress, visited No 10 to thank Margaret Thatcher for her part in securing his release. These caveats should have been entered. Why weren’t they? I suggest the reason is that they do not accord with the Corporation’s historically distorted depiction of her as an inflexible extremist.

And then, of course, there were countless interviews of people who claimed they or their families had been victims of Lady Thatcher’s allegedly draconian economic policies which supposedly ‘decimated’ British manufacturing. The similar (or sometimes worse) experiences of other advanced economies were not mentioned.

I don’t deny she was a ‘divisive’ figure – not in the sense of intending to divide people, and deliberately setting them against one another, but because she sometimes had this effect. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to interview people who believe they suffered as a result.

But on such a massive scale so soon after her death? It was when I was listening to the BBC World Service in the early hours of yesterday morning, and heard a disgruntled Welshman having a swipe at her over the Falklands War, that I decided I’d had enough, and the BBC was being unfair.

If anything, radio was worse than television, despite the repeated use of TV footage implying that the 1980s were one continuous riot. On Radio Five yesterday, I heard a young woman being interviewed who had taken part in a celebration of Margaret Thatcher’s death in Brixton.

Although she admitted she knew virtually nothing about Lady Thatcher’s record as Prime Minister, and was relying almost wholly on what her Liverpudlian parents had told her, this ridiculous person was taken seriously.

Perhaps the nadir of radio coverage came yesterday evening when the BBC World Service unearthed someone called Mark, who had been promoting a song, Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead, taken from the film Wizard Of Oz. This was not simply unfair. It was in appallingly bad taste to give airtime to someone capable of pushing such a song about a woman who had died the previous day. Let him sing it in his bath, if he must, but this poison should have been kept off the airwaves.

God knows what foreign listeners to the often admirable BBC World Service will have thought when they heard a just deceased great stateswoman being referred to in this way. I don’t suppose it could happen in any other country on earth.

Nor can I remember any major political figure being so treated by the BBC so soon after his or her demise.

You may say Margaret Thatcher was unusual in being so divisive, and so is bound to be dealt with in an unusual way. But every statesman who has ever lived made lots of mistakes.

When Winston Churchill died, the BBC could have chosen to make much of his many cock-ups, and the evidence of his extremism: his controversial involvement in the bloody Sidney Street siege in 1911; the disastrous Gallipoli expedition, which he proposed in the First World War; his return to the Gold Standard when Chancellor; and his reactionary opposition to Indian Home Rule in the 1930s.

But the BBC rightly dwelt on his wartime achievement (itself not without blemishes) and left it to historians to write about his failings. That is the natural, humane and sensible thing to do when a great figure dies. So it should have been with Margaret Thatcher.

For all her faults and errors, it is widely agreed, even by people such as Tony Blair, that she managed to save Britain from economic calamity. That is a wonderful thing to have done.

She would not have received such treatment from the BBC had she been of the Left. No, the shortcomings of Leftists are usually indulged. On a much smaller scale, when the ex-Marxist historian and former sympathiser of Stalin, Eric Hobsbawm, died, the BBC kindly drew a curtain over his support for a totalitarian regime.

My submission is that an intelligent young person knowing little or nothing about the 1980s, who watched and listened to as much BBC coverage as I have, would come away with the false impression that she was a destructive leader who did more harm than good.

I would like to tell this young person that she won three elections, two of them with very large majorities, and that she achieved some great things, not least of which were liberating many working-class people in Britain, and helping to destroy Soviet communism. This democratically elected leader was not such a divisive and polarising person as the BBC pretends.

But that is how it often represented her when she was Prime Minister. The BBC hated her in life. The evidence of the past couple of days is that it still hates her in death.

[Teddy Bear]

The complaints are now addressed to the BBC's online negative coverage of Thatcher's death.

Readers' fury at 'biased' BBC website: Corporation accused after negative articles appear about Baroness Thatcher

• Readers reacted angrily to BBC's coverage, branding it 'terrifically biased'
  
• Corporation has received more than 700 complaints over its coverage
  

By Alasdair Glennie

The BBC was accused of more ‘leftie bias’ in its coverage of Baroness Thatcher’s death yesterday after its main news website was filled with negative articles about the former Prime Minister.

At one point, the corporation’s online home page contained seven stories emphasising the controversies of Lady Thatcher’s time in office and repeating accusations made by her critics, including the suggestion she was ‘racist’.

Readers reacted angrily in a second day of fury at the BBC’s coverage, accusing it of being ‘out of touch’ and ‘terrifically biased’.



So far, the corporation has received 766 complaints over its coverage of Lady Thatcher’s death.

Instead of focusing on the tributes flooding in from around the globe, for much of the morning editorial chiefs chose to give top prominence to an article about left-wing anger over the prospective cost of her funeral.

WILL THE BBC PLAY SONG DRIVEN BY HATEFUL ANTI-THATCHER MOB?

The BBC says it has not yet decided whether to play a Wizard of Oz song driven onto the charts by a virulent anti-Thatcher hate campaign.

The track – Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead – has risen to No 10 in the midweek charts on the back of a Facebook and Twitter campaign by those revelling in Baroness Thatcher’s death.

If it is still in the official charts at the weekend, the BBC will be forced to decide whether to give it airtime during its weekly top-40 countdown on Radio 1.

A spokesman said: ‘We will make a decision when the final chart positions are clear.’

Beneath it, prominence was given to an article reporting Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, who had described Baroness Thatcher as ‘unabashedly racist’ in a television interview.

There was no corresponding article reporting her many fans.

Another piece, entitled ‘She never really understood sport’, accused Lady Thatcher’s Conservative government of presiding over a series of ‘devastating sporting disasters’.

A fourth article focused on her celebrated ‘Right to Buy’ scheme, which allowed council house tenants to buy their properties, extending home-ownership to millions across the country.

But instead of celebrating the policy’s achievements, the article, entitled ‘Right to Buy: A Tainted Gift?’ gave prominence to critics who said it led to a shortage of social housing.

Writing on political blog Guido Fawkes, one reader said: ‘Even the Biased-BBC’s headline “Hague justifies cost of funeral” – is terrifically biased. No other paper is even questioning the cost.

‘They are as out of touch and as doomed as the Guardian.’

Another said: ‘The BBC has become a case for privatisation.

'Then these lefty fat cats feeding greedily off the public will see whether we want to pay for their propaganda, or their endless interviews with yesterday’s loony left. And we’d get the proceeds of the sale towards debt.’

A third added: ‘The only mistake the Lady made was not to sell the BBC to the highest bidder.’

Richard Christopher tweeted: ‘Still the Anti Brit BBC gets away with leftie bias.’

Yesterday, a BBC spokesman said the news website displayed a selection of ‘recent stories’ chosen by an editor and the ‘controversy’ over the cost of the funeral was ‘the top story at the time’.

He added: ‘A variety of news stories about Baroness Thatcher, exploring a number of angles and featuring a range of voices and opinions, have been displayed on the home page throughout the day.’

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC have decided to play a 5 second clip of the song 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead', following an anti-Thatcher campaign, who's followers purchased over 20,000 copies of the song to launch it to number 3 in the charts.

My view on this, regarding the free speech aspect, is well expressed by James Delingpole, in particular that it more reflects the vileness of the mindset involved.
(Links available on the webpage)

We're in love with Margaret Thatcher
By James Delingpole

For what it's worth I think the BBC has no business censoring the music charts – even if it involves a song as insensitively timed and crassly-chosen as Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead!

a) we should do everything we can to discourage this idea the BBC has of itself as a branch of the Nanny State

b) I think it's a good thing that those dancing on the grave of our greatest post war prime minister are properly exposed in all their vileness
c) Relax

But it's OK. We have an even better chance of getting our own back, now. By going head-to-head against the scuzzballs with a song of our own: I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher originally released in 1980 by ska-punk band The Notsensibles.

Here's the Facebook page where you can register your support.
Go on! The song may not necessarily be the greatest song ever written. But think of it this way: if it goes to number one it will make at least one drama teacher from Worthing, Sussex deeply unhappy.

As Delingpole writes, there is a counter campaign for Thatcher supporters to purchase a copy of the 'I'm in Love with Margaret Thatcher'. There is also another one according to the Mail: Supporters of Lady Thatcher urged the public to download Madonna's song True Blue – the Whitehall codename for the preparations for her funeral – instead.

Now in the BBC article confirming that they will play a 5 second clip of 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead', they also mention the fact that 'Rival campaigns are under way to get a song considered to be more favourable to Lady Thatcher into this week's countdown as well.'

So in the interest of balance, why couldn't they name the particular tracks involved?

Even in their ‘reluctance’ to play the ‘Witch is dead’ track, they still prefer to advertise that than any other.

[Teddy Bear]

Richard Littlejohn with a tongue in cheek and very humorous 'send up' of the upcoming funeral coverage.

For an impartial view, it's over to Arthur Scargill...

By Richard Littlejohn

The BBC has been finalising the arrangements for Mrs Thatcher’s funeral. Let’s hope the coverage is more balanced than the predictable Left-wing propaganda pumped out in the wake of her death. And that it manages to rise above the level of the Corporation’s dismal performance on the day of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pageant. So what can we expect? This column has been leaked a copy of a confidential memo to staff from the BBC’s Acting Deputy Assistant Head of Ceremonial Affairs (Vision) . . .


Item: Funeral of the Lady Thatcher, Wednesday April 17. Draft schedule.

The eyes of the world will be on the BBC next week and it is therefore imperative that we uphold the Corporation’s global reputation for excellence and impartiality.

Lady Thatcher was a divisive figure, however, and we have a duty to reflect all shades of opinion. We also have a sacred mission both to explain and entertain, so it is vital we take pains to make this event relevant to all licence-payers.


What to expect? The BBC has been finalising the arrangements for Mrs Thatcher's funeral. Let's hope the coverage is more balanced than the predictable Left-wing propaganda pumped out in the wake of her death

As those of you who have been involved in the planning of our coverage over the past five years, ever since we first realised the old bat had completely lost her marbles, our original intention was to have the broadcast anchored by a much-loved television personality from the world of light entertainment.

Unfortunately, Jimmy Savile is no longer available and Clare Balding is doing the racing on Channel 4. So the steering committee has decided unanimously that our lead presenter will be the ever-popular Tess Daly, from Strictly, who will reach out across the audience spectrum and attract younger viewers.

She will be joined on the BBC’s bouncy castle at College Green, Westminster, by a rotating panel of completely impartial commentators, including Glenda Jackson and Polly Toynbee, who will be able to offer valuable insights into how Mrs Thatcher advanced the role of women in the workplace and where Pippa Middleton bought her frock.

Back at New Broadcasting House, Jeremy Vine, from the Jimmy Young Show, will be in our brand new virtual reality studio, providing his usual expert analysis.

Unfortunately, Jimmy Savile is no longer available. So the steering committee has decided that the lead presenter will be Tess Daly, who will reach out across the audience spectrum and attract younger viewers

Jeremy will be dressed as a Twenties coal miner and will ask Arthur Scargill for his considered view of the devastating effect Mrs Thatcher’s evil economic policies had on millions of working people.

I have instructed our computer graphics department to mock up Thatcher, in full battle-dress, driving a tank through a typical Northern village — Durham, Stevenage, anywhere ‘Up North’ will do — blasting homes and factories, and crushing screaming women and children to death.

(Memo to Sound: must remember to mix Hovis theme with Ride Of The Valkyries.)

As the funeral cortege makes its way along Whitehall, Matt Baker from The One Show will mingle with the crowds as they jeer Thatch on her final journey.

Can we put a bid in for that student from the ‘savage cuts’ demo and ask him his opinion? You know, that rock star’s son who was sent to prison for swinging on the Cenotaph. Bryan Ferry’s boy wasn’t it? No, on second thoughts, he’s the pro-fox-hunting oik. We don’t want him on.

When the procession reaches the re-enactment of the poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square, the Blue Peter team will be on hand to demonstrate how to make a petrol bomb out of a washing-up liquid bottle, some sticky-backed plastic and a litre of four-star. Tess will then cross to Belfast where Gerry Adams will lead the armoured division of the Provisional IRA in a 21-Kalashnikov salute to start the celebrations.

(Memo to Talent: can we book Riverdance for this?)

As the cortege continues down the Strand, it will pause briefly to allow members of the Tufnell Park Stop The Cuts and Hang The Bankers Collective to smash in the front windows of the Queen’s bank Coutts — where Thatch is believed to have stashed billions of dollars in bribes she got from rich American oil barons in exchange for destroying the British coal industry.

Back at the bouncy castle, Alastair Campbell and Russell Brand will give a reasoned perspective on the Thatcher years and explain why she should have been imprisoned as a war criminal for invading the Malvinas

Campbell will produce a dossier of new evidence, which he has just downloaded off the internet, about the sinking of the Belgrano.

(Memo to Producers: we should try to balance this with a Tory MP, preferably that mad one with the bad wig who wants to bring back hanging. The viewers will hate him. Better still, put a bid in for that loony racist from UKIP. Porridge, or whatever his name is.)

After that, it’s a live link to the garden party in Battersea Park where Fearne Cotton will talk to a spokesperson from Trans Media Watch about the influence Thatcher’s distinctive signature fashion style and extensive range of handbags had on members of the cross-dressing community.

Fearne will also talk us through some of the souvenirs on sale, including a novelty Mrs Thatcher sick bag into which you can vomit at the mere mention of her name.

Tess is then joined on the bouncy castle by Ken Livingstone who will explain how Thatcher’s deeply divisive privatisation programme and council house sell-off forced some residents of Broadwater Farm to burn down their own estate and murder a copper. Don’t forget to play archive footage of Bernie Grant saying the police got ‘a bloody good hiding’.

Ken will then draw parallels with the ‘savage cuts’ being introduced by the Coalition which caused the protests in Tottenham and across Britain two summers ago.

(Memo to Sound: something by The Clash should do it.)

By this time the cortege will have reached Fleet Street, which was reduced to rubble by Thatcher and the evil Rupert Murdoch. Let’s have the usual police brutality at Wapping stuff and an interview with someone from the print unions. Tony Dubbins, is he still alive?

As the cortege climbs Ludgate Hill, we go over to Zippy and Bungle from Rainbow with a pack of Girl Guides in ‘Say No To Page 3’ T-shirts, all wearing grotesque Mrs Thatcher Spitting Image masks.

The coffin is carried into St Paul’s Cathedral past the recently reinstated Stop The City protest camp. Stephen Fry and Frankie Boyle take up the commentary. That vicar who writes for the Guardian explains why Thatch was the Devil Incarnate.

After the choir sing Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead, the Right Rev George Galloway will read from the Book of Twitter, Psalms 3, Verse 4: ‘May she rot in hellfire.’

Tony Blair will take to the pulpit and proclaim: ‘She was the People’s Prime Minister’ before being yanked off with a bishop’s crook by Gordon Brown.

At the end of the ceremony the congregation will file out to that well-known hymn Tramp The Dirt Down by the composer Declan MacManus, son of the bloke who used to sing on Thatcher’s favourite TV commercial I’m A Secret Lemonade drinker.

But even though this is solemn occasion, it is also a day of celebration. Our cameras will be there as effigies of Thatch are burned on hillsides across the nation.

In the evening, we will stage a Jubilee-style concert in The Mall. We had hoped Johnny Rotten would top the bill but he has inexplicably turned us down.

UB40 and Morrissey have accepted, but unfortunately Rolf Harris is not available on Wednesday.

[Teddy Bear]

This Daily Mail Comment touches on the hypocrisy evident in the BBC decision to air the song. It is clear from many examples that when it suits their agenda they find reasons to 'bury' it.

Craven BBC wants to have its cake and eat it

By Daily Mail Comment

What a sorry, unedifying mess the BBC has got itself into over the hateful campaign by sick Left-wing zealots trying to bounce the song Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead to the top of the music charts.

First the Corporation – with its countless overpaid commissars of political correctness – let it be known that, on Sunday’s pop chart show, the song would be played in full.

Then, faced with a barrage of complaints from MPs on all sides on the disgrace of giving airtime to a song viciously celebrating the death of a great Prime Minister before she was even buried, a re-think was ordered.

The result? A fudge where the BBC condemned the stunt as ‘distasteful’, declined to play the song in full – but said it will still broadcast a ‘short’ segment to the nation on Sunday evening.

The BBC’s excuse is that it would be wrong to ban the song.

How utterly disingenuous. The cold brutal truth is that – when it suits its own ideological objectives, or serves to cover its back – there is no more censorious body in public life than the BBC.

For a decade, the Corporation effectively silenced all debate on mass immigration, labelling critics as ‘racist’.

Anybody who dared question the new political orthodoxy on global warming or the merits of the euro was demonised.
Decision

The BBC, under new director general Tony Hall, has fudged the decision about whether to play the song

To protect itself, 90 pages were shamefully redacted from the Pollard report, making a mockery of the pledge to be open and transparent over the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal.

Similarly, a report into claims the BBC was biased against Israel was suppressed.

Even light entertainment has not been safe from censorship – with an episode of Fawlty Towers doctored to remove supposedly ‘racist’ content, and countless pop records banned over the years.

The past week has been the first big test of the BBC’s new director-general Lord Hall, who faces no greater challenge – after years of innate Left-wing bias – than to ensure that its coverage is factual and fair.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion he has funked it.

He lets it be known he finds the record distasteful. Yet – as he has his cake and eats it – he is not prepared to intervene.

[Teddy Bear]

Hmmm….
So no ‘ding dong’!

The BBC could have been a bit more creative with their headline.

Big Ben to be silent for Baroness Thatcher’s funeral

[Teddy Bear]

It was clear in last week's Question Time that Charles Moore, Lady Thatcher's biographer, was well aware of the usual BBC bias, and it was good to hear a panellist speak out loud about it on the programme.

He now tells what he thinks of BBC coverage subsequently following the funeral.

BBC 'behaved badly' over Margaret Thatcher's death, says official biographer

Baroness Thatcher's official biographer and former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, says the BBC has "tried to stir up controversy" about the former prime minister in the days since her death.

In an interview with the BBC News Channel, he said that the corporation's coverage of Lady Thatcher's death had focused too much on "non issues," whilst concentrating "on a very small band of trouble-makers".

"There are plenty of people who wish to be critical, and of course Lady Thatcher was a controversial figure and it's perfectly right, but the number of people who seriously want to be rude and nasty is a tiny, tiny minority," he said.

"I have been very frustrated all week by how the BBC has constantly put up malcontents, and very rarely talked to ordinary people all over the country who respect and admire her, whether or not they always agreed with her."

He added that the BBC's coverage had caused "a lot of upset abroad, because people simply can't understand what's going on, that the national broadcasting corporation would be saying these things when she's so enormously admired across the world".

[Teddy Bear]

Hypocrisy reveals that what was professed to be important and part of ones belief system is simply a tool to make others believe that about themselves, but is in fact unimportant.
The BBC use women's rights and equality as a pronouncement of their moral and ethical stance in society. We have seen them pretending to be addressing it within their own organisation, which already smacks of a certain hypocrisy to what they profess to believe.

But where we see this hypocrisy the most is in their disdain for Margaret Thatcher. Regardless of what one might think of her policies, this woman achieved the highest political position ever in this country. But because she represented a political view far removed from the BBC's own, they can't do enough to vilify her.

Not content over the public backlash over their promotion of 'ding, dong, the witch is dead' at the time of Thatcher's funeral, they've now found another way to demean her memory.
Now if she would have been a Labour woman PM.... Hilary Mantel wouldn't be finding space on the BBC, but then again, she wouldn't have written the book she did.

Thatcher 'murder' is BBC's Book at Bedtime: Radio 4 ignores protests to give author's 'sick and perverted' fantasy a coveted broadcast slot

• Radio 4 has selected the book for its prestigious Book at Bedtime slot
• The story imagines the assassination of former PM Margaret Thatcher
• It was inspired by Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel's own fantasy
• BBC's decision to broadcast it has fuelled accusations of Left-wing bias
• Critics have called on the BBC's director general to stop the broadcast

By Chris Hastings Arts Correspondent For The Mail On Sunday

The BBC provoked fury last night over its plans to broadcast a ‘sick’ story imagining the assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

The fantasy, by bestselling author Hilary Mantel, was condemned as ‘perverted’ and ‘distasteful’ when it was published in September.

Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Radio 4 has selected the story for its prestigious Book At Bedtime slot – sparking a furious backlash.

Supporters of the former Prime Minister accused the broadcaster of being deliberately provocative with a move that will stoke accusations of BBC bias against the Tories. ‘It is a sick book from a sick mind and it’s being promoted by a sick broadcasting corporation,’ former Cabinet Minister Lord Tebbit said.

Ms Mantel’s story depicts the callous murder of the former Prime Minister by an IRA gunman and was inspired by the Booker Prize-winning author’s own fantasy about assassinating Lady Thatcher, who she admits to ‘detesting’.

The broadcast on January 9 will increase tensions between the BBC and the Government after David Cameron and George Osborne accused the Corporation of bias in its coverage of spending cuts.

The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher will be read by Shakespearean actress Dame Harriet Walter in a 13-minute broadcast understood to have been commissioned by Caroline Raphael, the executive responsible for comedy and fiction on Radio 4.

Last year Ms Raphael came under fire after critics claimed there was overt Left-wing bias in the station’s comedy programmes.

Lord Tebbit – whose wife Margaret was paralysed when the IRA tried to murder Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet in the 1984 Brighton bombing – called on the BBC’s director-general to stop the broadcast.

He said: ‘The serialisation should never have gone ahead and, if Tony Hall was worth his gigantic salary, he would stop it. It would be interesting to know how much the BBC had paid for the book.’

The Corporation declined to reveal that figure.

Lord Bell a former adviser and friend of Lady Thatcher also criticised the decision

He said: ‘If the BBC had any real sensibility it would leave that subject alone with an Election just five months away. It is inevitably going to be accused of political bias. If it really was independent it would avoid doing things that were provocative.’

Tory MP Conor Burns, Lady Thatcher’s closest confidant and adviser in her final days, added: ‘Given the public controversy that surrounded Hilary Mantel’s original publication of this twisted little story from her disordered mind it seems calculating of the BBC to choose it for Book at Bedtime.’

He added: ‘Leaving aside the distastefulness, it certainly seems to me to be an unfortunate choice for people who are on the verge of a restful night’s sleep.’

Ms Mantel – who was unavailable to comment on the BBC’s impending broadcast – has previously spoken of her assassination fantasy, saying she was once so close to the Prime Minister she could have pulled the trigger herself, saying: ‘If I was someone else she’d be dead.’

Her story features a middle-class housewife who unwittingly lets an IRA hitman into her home and then becomes complicit in the murder.

The two characters make no secret of their hatred of the former Prime Minister who is criticised for her ‘fake femininity’, ‘her counterfeit voice’ and her ‘philistinism’.

The story ends with the terrorist taking aim at the Prime Minister and remarking: ‘Rejoice, F****** rejoice’ – a crude echo of comments made by Mrs Thatcher when she was announcing British victories during the Falklands War of 1982.

Its publication provoked a huge political row in September and the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph cancelled plans to serialise the story for fear it would offend its readers.

Even readers of the Left-wing Guardian newspaper, which did publish the story, found it distasteful. One complained: ‘Thatcher was in very many ways a disaster but she deserves better than this.’

Another wrote: ‘Disgusting – so easy to use Thatcher to get attention... It’s lazy writing... Hilary Mantel should be ashamed of herself.’

The controversial assassination plot is one of ten short stories in an anthology of Mantel’s work, also called The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

The BBC which plans to serialise four of the stories across five days beginning on January 5 describes the collection as ‘wickedly witty and mischievous’ in publicity material.

Ms Mantel, whose Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall has just been adapted by BBC Two, has made no secret of her dislike for Mrs Thatcher. Shortly after the publication of the anthology she described the Prime Minister as ‘anti feminist’ and a ‘psychological transvestite’.

She said: ‘When I think of her I can still feel that boiling detestation. She did long-standing damage in many areas of national life.’

Ms Mantel also accused Lady Thatcher of acting too much like a man. She said: ‘There has to be a model for women in public life that is not generated out of a male model. We had... Mrs Thatcher in a mythological guise of Britannia wearing her breast plate and having a good war to prove herself more masculine than the men.’

Ms Mantel sparked another controversy last year when she said the Duchess of Cambridge was a ‘shop-window mannequin’ whose only purpose was to breed. She later said her comments had been taken out of context but did not deny saying them.

A spokeswoman for the BBC last night confirmed it would be serialising the book, including the controversial story about the plot to kill Mrs Thatcher. She said: ‘Book at Bedtime offers the best of modern and classic literature and, in doing so, presents a wide range of perspectives from around the world.

‘The work of Hilary Mantel – a double Booker Prize-winning author – is of significant interest to the public and we will not shy away from the controversial subject matter that features in one of the four stories read across the week.’

[Teddy Bear]

Steven Glover at the Mail contrasts the difference between how quickly the BBC approved this hate fest against Thatcher with another book submitted that was pro-Thatcher.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Would BBC broadcast such hateful tripe about an icon of the Left?

By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail

The audience of Radio 4's Book at Bedtime numbers a few hundred thousand at most. The slot is a civilised little backwater which makes few waves in our national life.

But don't imagine that the Beeb's decision to broadcast in the new year a Hilary Mantel short story, which gleefully imagines the assassination of Margaret Thatcher, is an innocent afterthought by a junior producer.

Coming so soon after the Chancellor attacked the BBC for its skewed coverage of his Autumn Statement, it's a provocative attempt to poke a stick at the Tories before the election. And it follows in a long tradition of Thatcher-bashing by the Corporation going back nearly 40 years.

The story, which first appeared in The Guardian little more than two months ago, is a fantasy about a woman very like Hilary Mantel who lets an IRA killer into her flat to shoot dead Margaret Thatcher.

When this tripe was published, Mantel told the Guardian of her 'boiling detestation' of the former prime minister, whom she described as 'anti-feminist' and a 'psychological transvestite'.

In short, it is a work of unashamed hatred, in which the normally mild-mannered Mantel associates herself with – and appears to endorse – the murder of a democratically elected leader.

Of course, the BBC denies any historic animus against Margaret Thatcher, just as it insists it has no institutional bias against the Conservatives. Both assertions are demonstrably false.

Compare the Corporation's rapid promotion of Mantel's slight and contemptible work with the fate of a play sympathetic to Thatcher by the writer Ian Curteis, which had to wait 15 years before it was finally aired on BBC2 late at night.

Curteis, having been commissioned by the Corporation to write a piece about the Falklands War five years after the 1982 conflict, produced something which showed Margaret Thatcher in a human light.

After he refused to make what he later called 'highly tendentious' and 'actionable' additions ordered by the BBC, the £1.7million project was abruptly cancelled. However, Curteis did not give up, and eventually revived his play on a tiny budget.

He had committed the unpardonable sin – unpardonable, that is, in the Thatcher-hating confines of the BBC – of not depicting the former prime minister as a cold-hearted monster. Hilary Mantel has done exactly that, which is why her distasteful story has been embraced with such alacrity.

Curteis was censored in the 1980s when the BBC had, in the words of its former director-general Mark Thompson, who stood down in 2012, a 'massive Left-wing bias'. The Beeb's behaviour after Margaret Thatcher's death last year proved the old bias has not diminished.

Hilary Mantel's story seems to be saying that bumping off Margaret Thatcher as though she were a deranged South American dictator would have been a good thing to have done

True, the Corporation did its best for a few hours to set aside the run-ins it had with the Tory leader in her heyday. One or two news- casters wore black ties, and a photograph of her was displayed as silence was observed.

But it didn't take long for the old prejudices to reassert themselves. We were repeatedly shown footage of the 1990 poll tax riots, and of police grappling with miners during the 1984-85 miners' strike. The message was: this is what life was like under Thatcherism.

Microphones were shoved under the noses of anyone in public life or simply in the street with something nasty to say. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was allowed to opine that Margaret Thatcher had inflicted 'great harm' on Northern Ireland.

It wasn't revealed that Adams had been a leading light on the IRA Army Council, which in 1984 very nearly managed to kill the British Prime Minister – and did kill five others – in the Brighton bombing. Would Hilary Mantel have been happy if it had succeeded?

Needless to say, there was very little mention made on the BBC after Lady Thatcher's death that during her 11 years in office the long decline of the British economy was reversed, rampant trade unions tamed and national pride restored.

I ask, in a spirit of fairness, whether the BBC would mark the death of any prominent Left-wing politician by reawakening old hatreds and stirring up old controversies.

I certainly don't recall the Corporation letting loose streams of vitriol when former Labour leader Michael Foot died in 2010, or when Tony Benn passed away earlier this year, though there were plenty of criticisms that might have been made in either case.

Nor do I believe it is imaginable that the BBC could ever broadcast a short story fantasising approvingly of the assassination of a Left-wing hero – say, Aneurin Bevan, the former Labour minister and firebrand, who once described Tories as 'lower than vermin'.

Such double standards don't merely confirm that the BBC retains the Left-wing bias which Mark Thompson located in the 1980s, and wrongly believed had ended. They also suggest it is not a truly national broadcaster.

The sensibilities of the millions of people who respect Margaret Thatcher have been ignored. Did it occur to anyone at the BBC that many – and, most of all, her family and friends – will be offended by a short story extolling her imaginary assassination?

Of course, I don't dispute there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the former Prime Minister, or that the BBC is entirely within its rights to provide a platform for them – so long as it even-handedly does the same with Left-wing figures (which it usually doesn't).

Murder, though, is a different business. It's not funny. And it's particularly not funny when Hilary Mantel's story seems to be saying that bumping off Margaret Thatcher as though she were a deranged South American dictator would have been a good thing to have done.

The timing of the Radio 4 broadcast in early January is surely not accidental. Relations between the Tories and the Beeb are rocky after George Osborne took exception to the coverage of his Autumn Statement, most notably a BBC reporter's suggestion that planned Tory cuts risked taking Britain back to the sort of Depression-era politics George Orwell wrote about in his 1937 book The Road To Wigan Pier.

This fatuous and ignorant statement was subsequently described by James Harding, director of BBC News, as a 'tad strong', though he added that the editorial judgment of Norman Smith, the reporter involved, was 'exactly right'.

About as right, I'd say, as the Corporation's constant misrepresentation of the scale of the cuts we've already had. Never, ever, do you hear a BBC reporter say that overall public expenditure is very nearly the same as it was in 2010 when the Coalition took power.

I completely agree with Mr Harding that the BBC mustn't be beholden to any government. But a fair-minded broadcasting organisation wouldn't make the ludicrous allegation that the Tories are taking us back to the 1930s (that's now Labour propaganda), and it certainly wouldn't seize on a low-grade short story which celebrates the idea of murdering a great Prime Minister.

Is there no one at the BBC who can see that such grotesque bias is most of all damaging to the Corporation, and that it risks losing friends when its future, and the licence fee, are under discussion?

As for Margaret Thatcher, she is beyond hurting now, and I've no doubt she will be revered after Hilary Mantel and her ghastly little tale have been long forgotten.

[Teddy Bear]

I must confess I didn't like Thatcher very much and didn't agree with many of her policies.
But I detest the stinking cesspool that is the BBC.

House of Cards creator reveals rift with BBC over ‘insensitive’ Margaret Thatcher plot
Steerpike

The third series of the American adaptation of House of Cards, which stars Kevin Spacey, will see the programme go in a different direction to the political trilogy on which it is based. Despite this, the House of Cards author Lord Dobbs is confident that he will be happier with the end product than he was with the BBC adaptation, which aired in the nineties.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Dobbs says that he fell out with the production team during the final series over their treatment of the death of Baroness Thatcher. Dobbs was so appalled by the BBC’s changes to his political thriller that he asked for his name to be removed from the end credits.

‘It bore so little resemblance to my book; in fact I don’t think my book had anything to do with it. I started reading drafts about the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, with ‘how much better if she had gone by the bomb or by the bullet.’ Having recently walked out of the ruins of the Grand [the Brighton hotel housing the 1984 Tory conference that was bombed by the IRA], I was rather sensitive and I thought it was not right.’

After Dobbs asked for his name to not be included, a senior executive told him he would never work for the BBC again.

However, things are looking up for the 66-year-old author. He is working on a Westminster thriller that the corporation have expressed an interest in. Mr S imagines that the huge success of House of Cards, on the online streaming site Netflix, will have helped the BBC to forget their previous threat.

[charmbrights]

... However, things are looking up for the 66-year-old author. He is working on a Westminster thriller that the corporation have expressed an interest in. Mr S imagines that the huge success of House of Cards, on the online streaming site Netflix, will have helped the BBC to forget their previous threat.

He'd better be very left wing in his script to get it actually broadcast, and that doesn't sound like Michael Dobbs to me.