The BBC's establishment bias

A lot of people have blogged about the decision to drop Jo Swinson from Question Time.

Interestingly, I had a similar reaction to when Nick Griffin was on, "At least we won't be the ones to be patronised and rudely cut off and not allowed comeback by a smug establishment-biased Dimbleby"

(It has been pointed out elsewhere of course that we were still maligned with no comeback by at least one panelist - this time Nicola Sturgeon, usually Caroline Lucas can relied upon to fulfill this role)

It has been suggested that we all complain more. I completely agree (although I have been remiss on this count in the past). I see that someone has set up a group on ACT to protest against Jo's dropping. Maybe there should be a general "The BBC have done it again" group to co-ordinate (but in a completely individual way!) complaints to the BBC everytime they do somthing similar (misrepresent or omit us).

We all know that famously we have people timing our coverage during the election campaign so we can prove the discrepancy to the BBC and make them make up for it during the rest of a GE campaign. I know some might argue about the downsides of p*ssing off the BBC. But I think relentless pressure is the only way to go.

Further evidence of the BBC's indefensible position (WARNING: about to use the Daily Mail as evidence!), is that after Nick's excellent performance at PMQs where he genuinely raised a point of wide interest which skewered the Prime Minister, the BBC decided that it obviously wasn't worthy of wider reporting. Nick Robinson's PMQ report doesn't even mention it. Then I go shopping yesterday and what should I see i the supermarket but the front page of the Daily Mail:

"Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg ambushed the Prime Minister in the Commons, angrily accusing him of trying to 'suffocate' the Chilcot Inquiry"

and goes on to mention Nick 6 times including in pictures and pull-out quotes.


Oh, so it did happen and somebody thought it might be worth reporting...

hmm...