As former head of BBC Television News, Roger Mosey was the most senior executive to admit what most of us have known for a long time: the corporation leans so far Left, it often topples into propaganda.
Mosey, who left the national broadcaster in 2013 and is now Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge, laid bare the Beeb’s bias in his book Getting Out Alive.
This week he is on the attack again, particularly over Brexit coverage.
He’s argued for years that the BBC has failed to give sufficient prominence to Leave voices and he now seems equally appalled by its obsession with Boris Johnson’s ‘letterbox’ comments on burkas.
Boris Johnson is subject to a formal disciplinary investigation following his burkas comments
He writes in the New Statesman magazine: ‘Compare and contrast days of headline coverage for Boris Johnson’s view on the burkas with no equivalent scrutiny of his plans for the single market or free trade. The corporation knows it needs to sharpen its act.’
Mosey recalled a 1980s bulletin explaining in depth — about half the bulletin — how perestroika and glasnost were helping bring reforms to the Soviet Union.
‘Shouldn’t there be a similar commitment to examining issues such as what leaving on World Trade Organisation terms would mean for this country?
‘And when there is a reckoning about what happened to our politics, the broadcasters cannot and should not be exempt.’
He may look shambolic, but Boris Johnson has what it takes to be the next Tory leader, according to Sir Bernard Ingham who was Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary.
‘If the world can get used to Donald Trump it can surely cope with Boris’s mop and dishevelled self. Like so many tramps in high places, with the notable exception of the profoundly ignorant Jeremy Corbyn, he is highly intelligent, a classical scholar with both feet on the ground.
‘He has the priceless ability to talk to people in their own language, give or take a Woosterish ‘crikey!’ or two.’
Labour MPs who raged about Boris Johnson’s comments on the burka — which he doesn’t want to ban — should check out a hard-Left guest speaker at the World Transformed Festival, which runs alongside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool next month.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the French socialist veteran, says of full-face veils: ‘The complete concealment of the face is problematic … it prevents any recognition of the persons concerned, which disturbs public order.’ He adds a veil ‘puts into question the person’s dignity’ and suggests the law might have to ban them.
Will howls of Lefty rage follow?
EU wouldn’t believe it…
All internet domains ending in EU will have to be terminated in Britain when we leave the EU next March.
Could make life tricky for Leave.EU or www.leavemeansleave.eu. The only way to preserve the addresses will be to move the servers to the EU.
Nigel Farage will not be happy.
Is UKIP now holy acceptable?
Is Brexit now an official religion? Fluttering this weekend above historic Ely Cathedral was the distinctive purple and gold flag of Ukip. The flag was put up to mark a Ukip conference held nearby.
‘Ely Cathedral usually only flies church and national flags, but has made a special exception to show support for inclusivity in the community,’ says Canon Stephen Bourne.
Peter Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, spluttered with outrage at the decision, talking darkly of ‘blasphemy’ in the cloisters. But if church leaders had the passion of Brexiteers like Nigel Farage, there wouldn’t be such a crisis of attendance in the pews.