Month: September 2010

A former Director General has stated that the BBC did have a “massive bias to the left”, He admits that many BBC journalists struggled to understand Margaret Thatcher’s popularity with many voters, refused to see Euroscepticism as a serious political position and did not want to handle issues like immigration.

He is right to say bias to the left rather than pro Labour. There were many interviews during the Labour years that put Labour Ministers on the spot, just as surely as the BBC put Conservative Ministers on the spot. However, they were attacked for the wars in the Middle East, for their links with the USA, for failing to spend enough on a range of services and projects. The BBC did not take seriously the attacks of those of us who said the government were spending and borrowing too much, or who provided a critique of their approach to the banks and financial crisis,seeking an alternative to nationalisation.

The BBC does have an institutional tendency to think that most public spending is good and more is better. It does have a wish to look for a government solution to every ill. It finds it difficult to understand that some of us are Eurosceptic not because we are little islanders but because we dislike too much government. We are sceptics of the Brussels bureaucracy and legislative machine, not of our geographical or cultural position.

The BBC can show its new enthusiaism for impartiality by ensuring some interviews are conducted from the standpoint that there is no government answer to a given problem, or that any likely government answer will make it worse. It can show it by exposing the waste, incompetence and excessive intervention that characterises so much EU government. If it does so it will find a large number of new friends.

Tony Blair was right about Gordon Brown. Today we have confirmation of the bitterness and disagreements at the top of the Blair government. All that spinning and all those stories turn out to have been well founded.

Tony Blair was wrong about the Middle East. He still thinks there are military solutions to Middle Eastern problems which the US and her allies can impose from without. At a time when both the US and UK administrations are learning the limits to the effects of military power in Afghanistan, Tony Blair tells us to prepare for the even bigger task of stopping Iran having nuclear weapons.

He may well be right that the world will be an even more difficult place if Iran holds nuclear weapons. That does not mean the west has the power or the right to bomb or invade Iran to stop her. The Iranian government may well be speaking for many people in the country in seeking such an armoury. Bombing installations will kill civilians nearby and may not remove all the offending stockpiles and work in progress. Invasion would entail taking on a hostile people as well as a hostile government. Bungling any such pre-emptive strike would intensify the feelings of hostility to the west.

Mr Obama is stressing again the short term nature of his surge in Afghanistan. Presumably the UK Coalition governemnt would agree in private that withdrawal from Afghanistan would be one of the most popular spending cuts they can make. The appetite for military adventure in the Middle East is waning in both the UK and the US. Over borrowed high spending governments need to rein back. They should heed their electors. Mr Blair’s views on this topic come from a different age. His belief in the efficacy of using force is an unhelpful guide to the future.

The Papal visit has given the media opportunity to debate the role of faith and Churches in our modern society.

The UK is formally a monarchy, with a democratically elected government and Commons legislature and with an established Church of England in the largest part of the Union. Superimposed on this ancient and evolving structure is the recent and revolutionary membership of the European Union, an unelected bureaucracy lightly supervised and directed by indirectly elected politicians through member state governments, and by directly elected MEPs.

One of the interests of the Papal visit was the Church of England response. The Church of England should be the repository of the Reformation in England. The purposes of the Reformation included breaking any recourse to Rome and the Pope for legal and criminal matters, putting all clergy under the common law of England; the ending of general Papal infalliblity and power in England; the wider publication of the Bible and prayer book in english to make the liturgy and gospel more open to the laity; a consequent reduction in the power of the priesthood; the sale of many Church lands to families who might farm and use it better; and allowing more individual conscience and interpretation of the Bible.

The Anglican settlement preserved Archbishops and bishops, some high Church elements in services, altar rails, and even incense and bells in some cases. Over the years the Church showed flexibility in the hands of many Vicars of Bray. In more recent times the Anglican Church has welcomed women priests, elements from the non conformist traditions, and shown more tolerance to minorities within the society. The Anglican Church accepts the Bible in english, a married and female priesthood, claims less moral and doctrinal authority than the Catholic Church and often chooses to debate social rather than faith issues.

Of all the disagreements between Canterbury and Rome, the one which was displayed most prominently was the difference over women clergy. The organsiers chose to let the Pope speak in Westminster Hall, under the shadow of Sir Thomas More’s impeachment for high treason, rather than inviting him to speak in the more neutral Royal Gallery. The Archbishop chose to highlight a less contentious Catholic Saint, Edward the Confessor, for their joint prayer session.

There was no public mention of Beckett, still perhaps a case too hot to handle. It will be interesting to see the struggle between the ecumencial impulses and the rivalry to recruit and retain Church members in the months after the Papal visit. The Archbishop could reply to the Pope’s famous recruitment message by welcoming in all Catholics who wish to see women play a bigger role within the Church.