The IMF this week released a table of growth rates in GDP for the main economies of the world. It contained three years. The actual figures for 2022 and two forecast years, 2023 and 2024. The forecasts were changed from the previous forecasts for the same years, as they regularly do.
The BBC spent the day following the release running with the story that the UK is the poorest performing major economy according to the IMF. This was based on the IMF GDP forecasts for just 2023. It was usually presented as fact or news, rather than as one of many forecasts for the upcoming year which might or might not be right. So called experts were asked to comment on why we are the worst performing economy, not on the quality of the forecasts or why the forecasters thought that could happen. They were sometimes expressly asked if that was the result of Brexit.
The BBC could have led with the story that the IMF confirmed that the UK was the fastest growing economy in 2022 on the official figures, the only fact in the release. The UK’s growth rate of 4% compared with China 3%, USA 2.1%, Germany 1.8%, France 2.6% and Japan 1.1%. No expert was dragged on to be asked if that outperformance “was due to Brexit”.
They could have provided a more balanced account by saying the IMF’s 3 year figures combining actuals and estimates show the UK ahead of France, Germany and Japan but behind the USA and Italy. They could have asked experts to comment on how we could could be even closer to the US rate of growth and less like the German one.
The fact they did not choose to tells us the state of BBC economic commentary remains poor.
April 14, 2023
Good morning.
So the BBC gave you some bad PR. What’s new ?
It is your parties own fault for not dealing with the BBC in the first place. So often here we have said what we think needs to be done and, as always, the Tories sit on their hands and do nothing other than give those who hate them what they want in the hope of being liked.
Your party is stuffed full of Lefty deluded fools who are only too happy to help their enemies destroy them.
Jellyfish, the lot of you !
April 14, 2023
You’ve had 13 years to sort out the BBC, immigration the health service and much more.
Instead you have channeled all your efforts into making us poorer, less mobile and short of food.
You’re long overdue a speak in opposition to reflect on your failure to do anything positive for the taxpayer.
This saddens me as I should be one of your core voters.
April 14, 2023
The Conservative party clearly support the BBC’s propaganda in the anti-Brexit, climate alarmism, no vaccine damage coverage, left wing, woke direction and continue with their licence tax or you are a criminal model of funding unfair and anti-competitive funding. We also have anti-competition funding for the NHS, state schools, social housing, transport… can we have free and fair competition and real freedom and choice please? This rather than we have your tax already and you will get what we choose to give you or not to give you.
April 14, 2023
Then just to be belt and braces certain that the poor predictions come true, the Conservative Party raises taxes on business. Clearly working hand in hand with the BBC and blob. Frankly if you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem.
April 14, 2023
Information control is now in the mobile hands of individuals.
The BBC is obsolete, trying to stick like jelly nailed to a pay wall.
Truth is free on the other sides.
April 15, 2023
+1
April 14, 2023
@Ian wragg +1
April 14, 2023
Lefty deluded fools like Michael Gove who is now pushing the need for planning permissions before you can rent your property out as holiday lets. Also a man who wanted 20% VAT on private school fees it seems and to abolish charitable status. So as to make their user pay four times over rather than just three.
What are you doing in the Tory party Gove? Then again most Tory MPs are clearly LibDems or Socialists.
April 14, 2023
Well at least Mogg was right on this planning issue on GBNew yesterday. He was wrong on Junior Doctors Pay though. You simply cannot live on ÂŁ29,000 less interest on you huge student debts unless you live in the tent or live at a parental home for free.
Lord Taylor of Warick was also very much against the Junior Doctors. He gets ÂŁ322 per day tax free (just for signing in). A new junior doctor gets about ÂŁ88 a day after tax (then interest on the student loan commuting cost take about another ÂŁ50 off this). So how do you live on ÂŁ38 at day let alone rent a room to live in. Perhaps he should thing slightly before opens his mouth!
April 15, 2023
You don’t make payments on student loans until you earn more than ÂŁ29000 and then it is 9% of the excess.
A Junior Doctor’s pay jumps very significantly in the first three years.
Unlike newly qualified vets, they are not particularly useful given the level of supervision they receive.
Just a bit of balance!
April 14, 2023
I think some level of control should be welcomed. If I want to open a B&B or small hotel, then there are requirements to be met and the local authorites can withdraw permissions if I fail to maintain H&S standards. I would certainly be concerned if my next door neighbour suddenly started renting out his house at weekends (when he is often away). I’m sure most guests are very pleasant but unfortunately, some are not.
April 14, 2023
Indeed but deal the problems if and when they arise do not force everyone to waste time and money on planning application just for using a house as a house! We need more accommodation in use not less.
April 14, 2023
In the same week Twitter categorisd the BBC as Government funded. Shows the level of influence the Tories have on it if so many BBC stories slag them off.
Generally though I agree that the BBC will promote any poor economic forecasts as ‘fact’ and will not give time to any positive news.
April 14, 2023
unfortunately Elon Musk later accepted the BBC was ” publicly funded” – a complete travesty of the truth. The public do not volunteer their licence fee, the State takes it – a tax. Of course the Tory party has for years fallen into the socialist trap of using the words ” public spending” when they mean State spending. The only public spending is in the private sector.
April 14, 2023
Is the BBC saying that it is responsible for our present economic situation?
It has, after all, been a cheerleader for all the batty and spiteful govt. decisions.
I mean, I thought that mass immigration was supposed to deliver untold wealth.
And the BBC firmly debunked Liz TrussâŠ
Not to mention its incredible support of all plague measures.
Did the BBC get it all wrong?
Will it now just sling its hook?
Where is the Tory to stand up and berate our BBC?
April 14, 2023
The BBC is backward.
Select an alternative source.
Google offers 25.2 billion news choices in 0.51 seconds!
Tune away from BBC bias.
Why pay their stubborn 1930s donkey to deliver 405 lines in black and white?
April 15, 2023
+1
April 14, 2023
@Mark B +1 sort of
The Party? or an evangelical stealing of the Conservative Party by a Socialist faction â looking at the Conservative Government I would suggest they(Socialists) have had a success.
The Conservative Party, the troops on the ground nowadays seem to be excluded by CCH of anything that might lead to a Conservative Government. The Conservative Government in collaboration with some noisy MPâs and the CCH have disenfranchised the Conservative Voter
April 14, 2023
So did you ask the Cabinet of your party to ask the BBC to correct their skewed report? Or do they allow it to slide?
April 15, 2023
Good point.
Clearly by the lack of an answer they did not.
Jellyfish, the lot of them !
April 14, 2023
The BBC needs to be called out whenever opportunities arise. A bit like the NHS, it has ceased to serve the public interest at all well, yet a majority of the public still instinctively protects it.
If public opinion sways then politicians may finally have the guts to scrap the licence fee.
In the meantime individuals can only protest by cancelling their TV licence and going online for entertainment. I did that after the biased Brexit vote coverage. Easy to do, no inspectors came knocking on my door, and I miss it not one jot. It’s also satisfying to deny them money and viewing figures.
April 14, 2023
Indeed.
April 14, 2023
I think you are being unfair. I thought the BBCâs coverage of Brexit – at the time – was balanced, if only because they thought the referendum result was a foregone conclusion.
April 14, 2023
The BBC portrayed Brexiteers as racists and deliberately found Polish people to ask whether they had encountered racism. They played up the graffiti on a Polish centre, although some Poles said this was done by other Poles and the apparent murder of a Polish man, which later turned out to be accidental after an argument between a black youth and Polish drunks.
Because she believed the BBC, a Polish friend decided to leave the UK and no amount of persuasion that we actually liked Poles stopped her.
April 14, 2023
As did the Government and Civil Service, given the complete lack of planning and preparation that went on….
April 14, 2023
How many pro-Brexit panellists did they allow onto Question Time or Any Questions? 20% at best on average and even they were perhaps not very sensible choices – perhaps chosen as weaker advocates. It is hard to find anyone front of Camera at the BBC who is not pro EU and pro Climate Alarmism.
April 14, 2023
Yes that is the proper response. Defund the BBC; I too did that after the misinformation and propaganda pumped out by the discredited BBC in the critical run up to Brexit. Thanks to the alliance of the Government machine and the BBC most people donât know that this is a legal option.
The BBC is, at last, being properly labelled as a propaganda and misinformation outlet by Elon Musk. He is doing the work of several Governments. The man deserves all the money he has and in addition, the respect and gratitude of growing numbers of the population of the western countries.
Macron, in Holland, was derided and shouted down by the August body he went to address. He was shocked! Seems he prefers to be anywhere other than France. But like the rest, he will have to face the music ⊠and âdanceâ.
We need to stop castigating the golden MPs like Redwood, Bridgen and the like. When the rest are cleared out – we need them and must add to their number. We must start protecting them.
None of the comments I have read so far this morning are as cutting as Redwoodâs article. Letâs remember that on a daily basis he is fighting our cause. Support the man.
April 14, 2023
Very well said.
My concern is with the apparent only economic number anybody looks at, the not very useful GDP. Look at trade balance, that’s the number that tells you if the nation is getting richer or poorer.
Sir J, care to give us the annual trade numbers under Tory management for the last 13 years….. thought not.
April 14, 2023
I have done this also.
Starve the BEAST.
April 14, 2023
As far as I understand it, you need a “BBC Licence” if you watch ANY live broadcast, be it a German satellite channel or even live sports on a steaming service – that includes the likes of Amazon Prime.
It’s about time the TV Licence was abolished…
April 14, 2023
Sadly Sir John there are great swathes of BBC production and presentation that are poor.
Despite all the feedback, public comments made about their short comings, inspite of the licence fee for many the corporation is not value for money and totally out of touch and not fit for purpose.
April 14, 2023
Good to see Elon Musk point out their misinformation on the vaccine harms, Covid, masks, funding model… in his BBC interview.
April 14, 2023
And very good too to hear this, from a former Prime Minister: “What I think weâve seen over the past few years is a new kind of economic model taking hold in our countries, one thatâs focused on redistributionism, on stagnation and on the imbuing of woke culture into our businesses. I call these people the anti-growth movement.” I think Liz Truss, giving the Margaret Thatcher lecture to the Heritage Foundation yesterday, got it right and I would have liked to see SJR give it some coverage.
Reply I am
April 14, 2023
Liz Truss was responsible for her downfall. She announced tax cuts and a massive energy price subsidy with nothing on spending and the markets took fright. Yes the BoE didn’t help. But she played into the hands of the blob. She was a very bad choice of leader, Sunak was quite clearly the more articulate and credible of the two. The Truss debacle took us from -5% to -30% in the polls. Just like the ERM fiasco, and for the same reason – it trashed the Conservatives’ reputation in the eyes of the public for economic competence.
Let’s hope we can recover electorally from the Truss debacle as we couldn’t from the ERM. It looks doubtful to me.
April 15, 2023
When as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rushi Sunak MP presided over a massive increase in our national debt resulting massive fraud which could and should have been prevented.
Neither were good choices. But Liz Truss MP won fair and square and should have been supported by her party. She was not and was deposed. The MP’s and the Establishment got their choice over its membership. Sunak, in my view, will always been seen as a usurper.
April 14, 2023
It is a continual battle to gain primacy of the truth. Myths are sticky. They are very hard to dislodge. The editorial liine of The Times is that everything is the fault of Brexit. If it can find something to support that, it prints it, if not it omits it.
Biden in NI and Ireland has reinforced another myth: that the GFA precludes a hard border. On the contrary, it requires a return to normal border arrangements. There is nothing in it to prevent additional controls on or near the border to meet the EUs and UK’s normal peacetime requirements. Nothing. What does prevent infrastructure is the UK’s own domestic EU Withdrawal legislation that specifically excludes any infrastructure being build on or near the border.
Another myth: Harry and Meghan’s accusations of racism in the Royal Family. Totally untrue but widely believed to be true.
The old saw that mud sticks is even truer today because it becomes fixed in the labelling of identities which increasingly determine the course of political debate. There was a time when the old saw was used to remind people to behave with decency. Now it is seen as a legitimate weapon.
April 14, 2023
The EU has a system in place so that goods which have not paid VAT at point of entry are tracked to their destination where they pay instead. This works throughout the EU and could work in NI.
Presumably it’s non-incorporation into UK’s Brexit arrangement was deliberate.
JF
April 14, 2023
Julian, as you correctly state it “works throughout the EU”. The UK chose to leave the EU. You don’t seem to understand what that means
April 14, 2023
The ‘zombie’ statistic that traffic pollution causes 40,000 deaths a year is another. So called because no matter how many times it is shown to be false, it gets up and keeps on going.
April 14, 2023
“The fact they did not choose to tells us the state of BBC economic commentary remains poor”
Never mind the economic facts, we should shoot the messenger (the BBC) – Really?
April 14, 2023
@ Sakara Gold – if only the BBC remained a messenger and not adopted the role of tendentious propagandist.
April 14, 2023
What economic fact did you have in mind? Did you actually read Redwood’s post?
April 14, 2023
They are not ‘economic facts’; they are one organisation’s estimates represented as fact that is the point.
April 14, 2023
So the 0.08% GDP benefit of the recent “deal” is trumpeted as highly significant, whereas the 7% upwards lost through soaring crime is never mentioned.
Yes, I think that the Tories should be extremely thankful to the BBC for their selectivity.
April 14, 2023
As usual you miss the point NLH – the TPP is about growth and the future.
The TPP is also simply a trade deal and not a political union. If Europe had stuck to trade rather than try to continually push greater political union, then I’m sure we would still be members of a common European market. But we can now see that the intent was always towards more and more federalisation and not greater trade. The EU is already a diminishing percentage of global trade (and this decline will accelerate) whilst the members of the TPP are a growing part of the world economy and one that makes no demands on our political independence.
Why focus on an a Europe that seeks to control and limit us through regulation (and with which we have a large trade deficit) when we can trade elsewhere in the world and have a trade surpluses. The EU has drained our national wealth whilst seeking ever more control. Look up and outwards for goodness sake!
April 14, 2023
Seems that load of the police are far to busy investigating other police officers or non crime hate hurty feelings incidents and recording of these! Far too busy to tackle and real crimes even if you do have a video of them stealing catalytic converters, shop lifting or similar crimes.
April 14, 2023
The police commissioner exercise has failed. The mayors in charge of policing cities has failed. It is an exercise in buck-passing that needs to be removed.
April 14, 2023
So, when will the Conservatives do something about the publicly-financed BBC? Or about the state-owned Channel 4 Filth? Drift, drift, drift – even when having the rare luxury of a comfortable majority.
April 14, 2023
All the main political parties want the UK to fail and let the eu ârescueâ us. The BBC is following government policy and briefing against the UK.
April 14, 2023
It’s that age old claim to be mind readers that we see endlessly from the Right.
April 14, 2023
Unbiased coverage of news is not what the BBC does, so no surprise if it slants reporting of GDP figures so as to call Brexit into question. That’s just par for the course. That said, I don’t see much to be pleased about as regards this country’s economic performance. I would follow this assessment from a HoC report:
‘For 2022 as a whole, UK GDP growth was 4.1%. This figure compares GDP in all of 2022, with all of 2021. The relatively strong rate of growth in 2022 is mostly a result of the continued recovery from pandemic-related weakness in early 2021. ( GDP growth over the course of 2022 in the UK was essentially flat.)’ The fact is that the covid over-reaction depressed GDP in this country far more seriously than with our many of our competitors, so any growth since 2020 is largely a matter of clawing ourselves back to where we were pre-lockdowns. Your government’s indulgent attitude to working from home, even now, continues to put a damper on productivity. I agree with many other comments on this site: it’s no good blaming the media messengers, when so much of the time what has gone wrong is to do with decisions this government has made (lockdowns, covid inflation), or failed to make (ending BBC licence fee). When you’re out of power, it will be too late to do anything that is still within your power, with a majority of nearly 80. When do you think, Sir John, the Tories will ever be in that position again, now you’ve dumped Boris?
April 14, 2023
Boris and the immeasurable âCost of Borisâ are the cause of the fall from Grace. The Tories will never again be in power without a true, tried and trusted anti-corporatist, capitalist Conservative at the helm.
We need somebody who does not need to declare that âhe loves his countryâ like May and Prince Harry, because his actions will make that obvious.
There is hope. Even the US Democrats have come up with and anti-corporatist, capitalist candidate. Robert F Kennedy.
April 14, 2023
L.A. It would be marvellous if we had a Robert F Kennedy type figure here. Even if they didn’t get power (RFK is unlikely to chosen by the Dems – look what happened to Bernie Sanders), they could rock the boat and give the public some truths and hope.
I credit our host with valiantly doing what he can, but he is obviously working within various constraints. As you say, LA, the Party leadership needs to change.
April 14, 2023
The BBC’s commentary isn’t poor. It’s biased; carefully selected to give the impression that the UK is doing badly compared to competitor nations; and underneath it all is the drumbeat “Brexit is to blame.”
Your Government has had 13 years to instigate a change of culture at the BBC – it’s done nothing. Your Government pledged to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC’s Poll Tax and again, nothing has been done.
The BBC is a law unto itself – and believes, with good cause – that it is untouchable.
April 14, 2023
I suspect that time and technology shifts will solve the problem Donna.
April 15, 2023
+1
Let it wither on the vine.
đ
April 14, 2023
But surely Sir John, this would have been checked by the BBC fact checkers and the BBC Trusted News Initiative!
The BBC is a propaganda spreading outfit where the truth is always sacrificed for the message. Nothing demonstrates this more than the constant baseless and false claims made regarding climate change.
We have to pay for this abuse through the licence fee.
April 14, 2023
BOF +1
Compulsory money grab from everyone whether watched or not, with no voting rights
April 14, 2023
We have to pay to have our brains indoctrinated with total clap trap and lies from the the BBC.
April 14, 2023
As ever you attack the wrong target. As other correspondents have pointed out you have had umpteen years to change it. As usual lots of ânoiseâ but zero political courage to push back against the elites. Paul Dacre was your choice yet you ran away when some one said âbooâ.
And in other news Heat Pump take has demonstrated what we all knew, your Ministers and advisers totally out of touch with reality.
We now read the extra weight of electric vehicles may cause structural problems in older car parks, what will they do to the already abysmal state of our roads? I bet no Ministers etc factored that in.
You couldnât make any of this up.
We also read that plans are in place to ration electricity when all these planned heat pumps kick in because of a capacity shortage. So get a heat pump as a substitute for gas, except it wonât and at a ridiculous cost.
The new government slogan âgo green go cold, go brokeâ
April 14, 2023
Hilarious interview by some BBC journalist with Elon Musk. Needless to say the BBCâs own report left out the guy being taken to pieces by musk for lazily asserting that âhate speechâ on twitter had increased. What he meant of course is that right wing views are not automatically censored, and of course leftist bile never counted as âhatredâ. Time to ditch the license fee.
April 14, 2023
Iâve ditched mine. Have you?
April 15, 2023
I’d doubt he has. How else will he get his, Rushi fix ?
đ
April 14, 2023
@Richard1 +1
The actual interview is now up on ‘youtube’ for everyone to gauge the quality of the BBC – hilarious
April 14, 2023
+1
April 14, 2023
The Blu-Green Socialists in Government find the BBC far too useful to cancel the BBC’s Poll Tax.
April 14, 2023
+1 Richard 1.
Elon Musk demonstrated why he is such a successful man, but he is at odds with the dark forces looking to control us. Long may it last. We need many more like him.
April 14, 2023
Thirteen years to deal with a politically biased BBC. Thirteen years to deal with incredibly generous and ridiculous contracts for very tedious, so-called best in world presenters. Thirteen years to deal with legally required Licence fees for just owning a device that some don’t want to use for BBC transmissions. Thirteen years to deal with regular ‘news’ or opinion based programs which are aimed at informing the public of their bias. BBC news is rarely fact but what they wish to happen.
In summary the Government should end the Licence Fee and allow BBC to determine what payment system to be used for their services, just like other media providers. Only then will the actual loyalty to them become apparent.
April 14, 2023
Held back again for speaking the truth? Painful reality, isn’t it!
April 14, 2023
The whole course of different countries’ GDPs 2020-2024 has been more determined by their level of panic to an infection than by anything else. The fact that your party in government panicked and printed cash 2020-21 more than most then overly tightened 2022-3 made you hostage to these stories. Had maturity and common sense prevailed 2020-21 you wouldn’t be even facing these commentaries. Challenge the root cause, not the commentary.
April 14, 2023
The BBC knocks our Country and blames the Conservatives once again, is anyone really surprised.
The reporting, and sometimes exaggeration by the BBC presenters (they are not reporters) of anything bad happening to or in the UK follows the trend of many decades now, the joyous self loathing of our Country is promoted almost non stop, no matter if it is fact or fiction, indeed one wonders if our Country is so bad, why do 500,000 immigrants arrive here every year from elsewhere.
April 14, 2023
The problem as I see it is there is nothing your party thinks is worth fighting for. You believe in nothing. So trim, retreat, be all things to all people, your mantra.
First rule of politics surely, embed, protect your core vote, draw the centre to you. You have thrown it away.
April 14, 2023
Iâd say:
The fact they did not choose to tells us the state of BBC economic commentary remains BIASED.
April 14, 2023
Totally agree with you.
April 14, 2023
The BBC says it all the Brexit Bashing Corporation. That said, numerous entities under control of this Conservative Government in that they (The Conservative Government) hand over the taxpayers money for them to exist all spout the same unfounded nonsense and call it a prediction.
The other day the ONS (their figures are historical so should be precise but never have been) had to admit their efforts to âsexâ the UK population were flawed. They gave attention to asking non-English seeking people as to what sex they were, for them to answer they were âtransâ. That was then extrapolated to apply to the whole of the UK. The point being you get the result you want in these taxpayer funded outlets by whom you ask and the question asked.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/transgender-population-uk-inflated-ons-census/
April 14, 2023
@Ian B The real point being, if the taxpayer is having money taken from them by Government they have a right to expect Government to be managing the performance and return on that money. This Conservative Government not only neglects that duty but refuses it.
The BBC Licence fee is paid not for watching the service, but for having a facility that could receive it. So in reality a compulsory Tax
April 14, 2023
TV has been an extremely useful left-wing tool.
April 14, 2023
What is âTruthâ, what is âNewsâ?
We all used to believe those very things had something to do with real hard facts â not opinion.
Reading out a Press Release from one faction or another and claiming as your own is neither truth or news.
April 14, 2023
The BBC has moved on from Lord Reith. They are now like any other news outlet, they have their own agenda, left of centre, Islington, Guardianista, call it what you will. I have no quibble with them as a biased source of information on news and current affaires. They even suffer this left wing and woke mindset letting it creep into their drama and sport output. You just have to accept that they exist in a parallel world. The crime in my opinion is that through goverment weakness they tax the general public for the freedom to watch this propaganda. Long ago they should have been cast to the commercial world to be dependant on advertising and subscription. The only part I would retain under the title BBC would be the Overseas Service.
As to the veracity and accuracy of international forecaster, I equate them with rival gambling companies. The weakness is that central banks, treasuries, and chancellors, of a group think mindset, base their financial policy on these predictions, and like all computers the rule is shit in shit out, leaving the tax paying public to pick up the tab.
April 14, 2023
I am surprised to hear anyone was listening to BBC News or indeed to Sky News, I don’t and many people I know don’t. I have heard a BBC presenter apologise for being “technical” when reporting on interest rates so perhaps it’s just the case that “news” presenters have a low opinion of their audience.
April 14, 2023
Something else we will not hear on the BBC is the forthcoming takeover of health policy and finance by the World Heath Authority, due to be debated in Parliament next Monday. This is the biggest power grab by the UN yet and could mean compulsory vaccination, vaccine passports and lockdowns for national governments along with removal if taxpayers money to pay for it. Please oppose this during the debate. It seems that the usual suspects will be trying to slip it through.
April 14, 2023
Like the Covid modelling, these forecasts are always reported as fact ‘The UK economy WILL be the only major economy to shrink this year’. The reality then emerges later when the actual results come in. Often we turn out to have done okay. This out-turn barely gets any airtime.
Forecasts that fit with the narrative are considered newsworthy – the fact that most previous ones turned out to be inaccurate is rarely, if ever, mentioned.
But by the time the truth emerges it’s too late – the public still think, for instance, that trade with the EU is down since we left the EUCCP and that we had the worst death rate in the world because ‘we locked down 2 weeks too late’ for instance.
I no longer think this stuff happens by accident. The BBC and IMF (to name but 2 of many) are campaigning organisations and they are trying to change the direction of the world in a way that I fundamentally disagree with. Ignore both would be my advice.
April 15, 2023
Great post.
April 14, 2023
The problem with BBC economic commentators is not that they remain poor, it’s because like the rest of the BBC, it’s determined to undermine the government in the hope of getting Starmer and Co into Downing Street.
Selective use of the economic statistics is fair game for a political party but not for an organisation like the BBC whose charter has objectivity written into it. I recommend you take this matter direct to the DG who has committed himself root out bias.
April 14, 2023
“The BBC could have led with the story that the IMF confirmed that the UK was the fastest growing economy in 2022 on the official figures, the only fact in the release.”
Except, according to the figures in the table that lists UK growth as 4.0%, that statement is simply not true.
The table also shows, for example, Spain 5.5%, Netherlands 4.5% Austria 5.0%, Ireland 12.0%, Portugal 6.7%, Greece 5.9%.
Reply I was citing the G7
Maybe it’s not just the BBC who are highly selective with figures?
April 14, 2023
The BBC majors on presenting forecasts or models as facts.
It does the same with the climate.
By definition this is fake news.
April 14, 2023
In my opinion the BBC news editors and their staff are hell-bent on driving the morale of this country to rock-bottom. There is never any optimistic or good news, it is all doom and gloom punctuated with several stories of illnesses and complaints that will strike us down and send the NHS into chaos.
At 1830 each evening BBC South was a proper news broadcast with a host of interesting items. Now it is story after story of illnesses and medical tragedies and it takes a landslide or major fire to get an item of news.
The World service is heading off down the same path and when it merges with BBC news it will just be back- ground noise and of little value.
April 16, 2023
I agree George I think this is part of the reason there is so much general unhappiness and mental health problems with children, when I was a child I never saw such doom and gloom repeated daily on the tv, in fact there wasnât that much tv for us, and we were much poorer, had a lot less opportunities to do things in our local area and had to make our own fun often outside playing kerby or street tennis, or building dens in the local woods, we didnât realise we had no money because we didnât have to compare ourselves daily with people that do and all the other kids around us were in the same situation, no phone connections in fact its a bit of a laugh that we tried to string two tin cans together with a piece of string once to throw up to the neighbours kids to see if they could hear us, life was much simpler for children.
We didnât realise there were kids age 10 who could play Chopin because their parents could afford piano lessons from age 5, or that children were in shows on stage or even being taken to theatre because there were no stages to go to or even watch plays that our parents could afford. When we went on holiday it was within the UK and usually the same week that our regions fortnights holiday was scheduled so we usually bumped into people just like us.
April 14, 2023
BBC is biased, anti Brexit, woke and uninterested in popular opinion.
I regularly complain to the relevant BBC department online, the first answer is inevitably a fob-off i.e. âthe event didnât happenâ, when you provide the program, and the exact time, they claim that it isnât bias.
In my experience of 17 complaints, not one was upheld and obviously no acton to correct was taken.
The BBC tax must be abolished, meanwhile management and âtalentâ pay restricted to below 6 figures.
Elli
April 15, 2023
Join the rest of us and STOP paying the Telly Tax.
There is YT, Nebula and Netfix to name but a few to choose from.
April 16, 2023
You canât watch them on a tv though Mark and most people want the big screen experience at home.
April 14, 2023
âThey [the BBC] could have provided a more balanced account by saying âŠâŠ.â
The BBCâs use of selective data is one of their main tools for their activism. But the BBC stray far beyond mere selectivity when it comes to reporting on CAGW and Net Zero.
The BBC know theyâve been rumbled which is why theyâve needed to create the âTrusted News Initiativeâ organisation to give them some cloak of respectability.
The BBC doesnât represent the views of the country, but then neither does Parliament, which is why Parliament is so keen for the BBC to continue with their activism.
I would far rather the BBC was honest and dropped its pretence that it was impartial and allowed all staff, particularly those who work in news and current affairs, to report and comment freely and not leave it to the sports presenters to inform us of its views.
April 14, 2023
The BBC are biassed and no longer represent themselves as a reliable source of news . For some time now I have used Sky for relevant information ; attached to its news programme there is the up to date detail of the Stock Exchange progress – always truthful .
April 14, 2023
Would that be the same BBC thatâs either taxpayer funded, public funded, government funded or licence fee (tax) funded âŠ.no matter how you describe this quango, it isnât funded by choice, by the customer âŠits funded by tax, its just another levy
April 14, 2023
The Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation as ever.
April 14, 2023
The BBC cannot be trusted in any way to deliver honest reporting of anything.
It’s not just the warped interpretations they make, it is a fact that the BBC have their own socialist agenda.
We’ve had enough examples of corruption within the BBC over the years, but HMG refuses to close them down, which is what should happen.
Even the TV tax is still with us which is a total injustice – HMG are responsible for this abuse of power by the BBC and yet they do nothing, except to use the expertise of the BBC to brainwash the masses.
April 14, 2023
I see ‘defund the BBC’ used in the comments.
Here’s a relevant site of a campaign group. https://www.defundbbc.uk
April 14, 2023
John, when the BBC put out a tweet with this information represented as fact, couldn’t your party alert Twitter so they put one of those corrections and warnings they so like to do?
I don’t understand why the Conservative party stands for your supporters to be constantly accused of being racist, and scum and posters saying they should be strung up; people around the country take serious risks putting up ‘vote conservative’ signs, or attending your conference now; the nastiness from the other side has been allowed to take hold so much and is supported by high ups in the Labour movement.
April 14, 2023
Agree with most of the comments made. Not paying the BBC license fee should be a civil, not a criminal, offence. But as has already been said, the Government just drifts along & lets the BBC pump out anti-Brexit & anti-government propaganda. We even learn that the government gives money to charities that directly oppose its immigration policies!
Still, at least the PM knows what a woman is!!
April 14, 2023
Worried about the cost of living crisisâŠ.no need to worry, with the UK contribution to the European Space Agency, theyâve today sent a mission to Jupiter âŠyour tax dollars being put to good use
April 14, 2023
The problem with BBC economic commentators is not that they remain poor, it’s because like the rest of the BBC, they are determined to undermine the government in the hope of getting Starmer and Co into Downing Street.
Selective use of the economic statistics is fair game for a political party but not for an organisation like the BBC whose charter has objectivity written into it. I recommend you take this matter direct to the DG who has committed himself root out bias. You could not have a more blatant example
April 15, 2023
Gary Lineker needs sacking, he’s been very biased and often…. I made a complaint to BBC over his recent Nazi slur reference to HMG … all they said was he’d been ‘asked to step back’ from MOTD and they were now running an independent review into ‘freelancers’ social media reporting in the summer blah blah blah… kicking the can down the road.
Any/all business to business contracts contain clause/s which protect the parties from infractions / causing the other party to be in breach of their obligations. The BBC Charter is clear, the BBC shall be impartial and thus their most expensive broadcaster needs to comply, it’s not material whether he’s an employee or a freelancer. The latter is another story for HMRC investigation.
He’s been not compliant many times and thus in breach of both the BBC Charter and his B2B contract.
End of, cherio Gazza.
April 16, 2023
They donât have to sack Lineker or make him redundant, just donât renew his next contract, heâs not an employee and has no employment rights he claims to avoid millions in tax each year. Why pay regular employees redundancy pay when they should just move people around and axe the expensive sub-contractors? It is well reported that he could work for any of the free channels for more money so heâs not going to be bothered. The show was just as popular without any of the usual presenters too.
The BBC should also be a launch pad for new talent, new faces, not the same old people all the time on every show. They could trial more new people alongside existing personnel.
April 15, 2023
Why do we contribute money to the IMF when it apparently serves no useful purpose?
April 16, 2023
I thought the IMF was like an insurance policy? A lender of last resort.
April 15, 2023
So . . . . Cancel the T.V. licence! Isn’t it obvious?
April 16, 2023
The biggest problem for me is WASPI women claim they werenât informed about Blairs change to their pension age, way back in 2005, well the BBC is the public broadcaster with a remit to inform that is why we pay them out of a compulsory tax not a subscription. I saw all the articles in the newspapers and on news programs but now they need to jusify just how much public information did they give about this big change that people needed to top up their private pensions to bridge. I like the BBC, I would pay the licence fee voluntarily but I think they could make some big changes and paying out big redundancy fees isnât one of them.