Some people write in to this site complaining that I am not on the national media enough. Some seem to think publishing things here is some kind of secret society, a way of me keeping things hushed up instead of putting them out there on the BBC. This is a silly way of looking at it. When I publish here anyone can read it. If I said something unpleasant or wrong it would soon be taken up by the better known media. Many in the media read this site without going on to quote it. It nonetheless gives them useful background. Some do quote it or use it.
It is a mistake to confuse being in the media a lot and being powerful. It is true powerful people with important roles will be in the media a lot. Any Prime Minister will be news, because the office confers great power which they will exercise. Lots of people who run departments, quangos and big companies are never in the media though their decisions affect many. It is also true people with important offices who in practice exercise little or no power will also be in the media. The media rarely probes why someone in office writes, speaks or acts as they do, though many people in such roles are but actors and actresses reading out other people’s lines. The media rarely probes this situation. There are then many people who get into the media a lot because they say controversial or difficult things, though they may have absolutely no influence over government and events at all.
It is popular with the media to report splits and disagreements within parties. They will both condemn a party for being split, and at other times complain it is brain dead if it does not have enough arguments about the best way forward. The media both says it wants more open debate, and tries to make that impossible by declaring anyone of us who holds a different view from our leadership to be disloyal. There are times when the media does more than report splits. They often seek to create them. It will invite two people from the same party who are not in disagreement to create a disagreement in a studio to illustrate some thesis they have of what is going on.
There are of course factions and splits within major parties and sometimes these matter and should be reported. Again there needs to be some assessment of numbers and influence. Today Anna Soubry is a much quoted and much interviewed MP, because the media expect her to be critical of the PM and of the Brexit policy of the government. She may be good box office, but it is difficult to believe she is influential given the difference between her views and those of most of the party.
I do not usually complain about the media. Some of it is just a freak show, seeking the extreme, the bizarre and the unimportant for greater drama. If I manage to stay off that it is probably good news. Over the last week I have produced at their request articles for the FT. Guardian and Sun. I have also been on several radio and tv shows. Some of these try to make it as difficult as possible for their guests to put forward an informed and sensible case. There seems to be a hatred of new arguments and facts at the BBC , and a wish to endlessly repeat the old, stale and often simply wrong.
June 27, 2017
Anna Soubry does herself no favours in running down her own party all the time. As you say John, one wonders where she is coming from half the time.. It just makes me loathe her even more every time I listen to her. She comes across as a complete toff too which doesn’t help matters. That’s my personal opinion and others may disagree.
The media only reports the versions of anything it wants to. They are pro EU all the way because they get funding, pro Labour and especially pro climate change and all that rubbish even though there are plenty of reports out there now saying that the computer models are wrong and there is a pause in any temperature rises. They are obviously anti UKIP. All these things have escalated so much recently that we have tended not to watch the news in our house. Question Time is a joke but should be there for licence payers to get a balanced view on all topics. The media in recent times has become a joke. Football and sport have become more important than real news. Where is all the good news about the economy and the fact that manufacturing has risen recently? As you say, I have been more informed by reading this blog than listening to the ‘news’.
June 29, 2017
fedupsoutherner
I find the BBC troubling because it starts off most of its commentary as though the nation is in crisis, that the government is in chaos and then asks questions from those as a collective premise. Therefore May was in crisis, now is in crisis, will be in crisis.
Mrs May should reply “Well if you think that, then move your media business to country more stable and fruitful for yourselves I am busy! Try the Central African Republic!”
June 27, 2017
It is plain and obvious to anyone who chooses to see that the BBC is now the main agent of change in the media and in a wider societal sense. It’s monopolistic power over the airwaves is unmatched. It is overtly political and its agenda is based on the identity of race and gender. It has become infected by a politics whose primary aim is to silence the majority view through shame, slander and inference.
The politics of victimhood runs deep through its veins and this allows the BBC to portray its enemies, and that includes the Conservatives, as bigoted, extreme and racist
All this then begs the question as to why the Conservatives, who have always rejected the notion of monopolistic power, have not (cut back? ed) this pernicious and loathsome organisation?
Why am I forced under the threat of criminal action to pay for a licence that then finances an organisation who then points the finger at me and screams ‘racist’ simply because I choose to vote Brexit
The aggressive hard left is on the rise and the BBC is doing all it can to promote its advance and yet the Tories sit around scratching their backsides and navel gazing
This country needs an aggressive Tory party to confront the cancer of Corbynism and that means confronting the BBC who promote this man and his acolytes.
Decriminalise non-payment of the BBC licence fee
Cut its funding by 50% and use the saving to set up a second state broadcaster populated by right leaning journalists
Dilute the BBC’s monopoly
And the Tories need to stop worrying about upsetting and offending people. Be who you are and dilute this organisation
Oh, and by the way let’s cut off funding to the left, labour and the unions by scrapping the opt-in system in the public sector. take away this taxpayer funded revenue and the left would slowly wither on the vine
June 27, 2017
Good morning
Quality over quantity me thinks.
I think as a body we the general public rely on people who have power or influence on power to get our message across. Apart from the internet we have no access to the wider world of mass media. The internet has had the same effect on the global society as had the printing press eons ago.
Now a message can be made and read by hundreds of millions with a click of a mouse. Real power to the people. Perhaps that is why done seek to control it. They want to be in control of the narrative. What people see and what they say. Not for any good but because out of fear of losing control, power and their own influence upon us.
Just a thought.
😉
June 27, 2017
Donald Trump has played social media brilliantly and outed Fake News with the bias of the respective media concerned. Direct contact with the public. It drives some mad. Why is ITV and BBC not having his extreme vetting success at the Supreme Court as main headline news, like they did when he lost?
Our host shows how social media makes valuable contact with the public. At the moment we have Bradley’s options instead of ITV news and Kuensberg rot for BBC news. We are now able to find out real news and facts without the bias filter of the lefty liberal media or political elite. People like Dennis on this blog site has given immeasurable insight to facts that we might not have have been directed towards as first staging post.
Well done JR and Well Done Dennis. And well done to Donald Trump for making the masses realise that news outlets are not accurate or impartial as they should be.
We have to put up with Tripe from Jerry, Newmania and PvL, but they are fake news.
June 27, 2017
So why is there (seemingly) “a hatred of new arguments and facts at the BBC”?
June 27, 2017
The doctrinaire BBC has taken the view that issues we,here,find contentious are “settled”.
June 27, 2017
Off topic JR, giving benefits to children who have never set foot in this country will not go down well post Brexit. Cameron promised us it would stop and failed. There is no justification for giving benefits to people who do not live here or have the same standard of living costs as here.
Secondly, the figure of 3 million EU citizens is being branded about. However, NI numbers three times higher than the estimated figures produced by Govt. We want the real facts not covering up for Cameron’s mass immigration policy implemented by one Teresa May, now Amber Rudd. We need changes from the HS Rudd to make us safe. I hope she will tell us what she has actually done to achieve this.
June 27, 2017
Enough is enough, said Theresa May. Then, as always, nothing. Stopping all immigration like Trump from known Countries with ideologies/practices very different from here? No. Stopping those from returning here from war zones? No. How many have had their citizenship removed? One. Banning the Burqa in public places to keep us safe? No. Making and educating ALL communities integrate, not just the English. No.
Nothing has or will be done except words and more of the cancer of political correctness from the legacies
June 27, 2017
Because of the people who dictate the narrative. It doesn’t suit their agenda to admit that anything good ever came out of the non-leftist side of life.
The BBC stopped being truly impartial years ago, as evidenced by the obviously hand picked audiences for programmes such as Question Time. I remember one where they had the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on the panel, and he wasn’t allowed to get a word in edgewise. Surely he had a right to be heard, since he had been invited, but he was shouted down at every turn, with no intervention by Dimbleby. Silly, really, because he would probably have shot himself in the foot if allowed to speak out.
If you employ people who seem to be solely readers of the Guardian, and don’t do anything to ensure that your employees represent a true cross section of the public, you get the BBC as presently constituted.
June 27, 2017
Time to make non-payment of the license fee legal, non-punishable.
June 29, 2017
It is weird when the BBC Question Time panel is partially composed of some unelected Lords or Peers or Baronesses speaking about democracy. Though it’s sometimes useful to get an outsider’s view. Why they do not have President Putin on the panel is possibly because he actually got more legitimate votes than any of them, even if it was one vote and he only voted for himself. There WAS an election!
June 27, 2017
Well they only seem to employ dimish art graduates with appallingly PC views, often a with a chip on their shoulders, who read the Guardian, believe in catastrophic climate alarmism “as settled science”, love open door immigration, think there is a gender pay gap (other than the one entirely dictated by gender choices and supply and demand). They think UKIP are contemptible racists, think Corbyn really does have a magic money tree, hate business people & all landlords (other than “social” ones) and want to see ever more tax and ever more regulation of almost everything. They even love the dire and totally incompetent free at the point of non deliverery NHS.
They see “equality” (regardless of merit and enforced by the state, as a jolly good thing) rather than the incentive destroying disaster it is.
June 27, 2017
To all replies,
Whether editorial policy or Guardian reading BAs, I still have to ask why? (Even arty Bryan Magee or Sir Kenneth Clark could model thinking and expect background.)
Why can’t the BBC investigate, listen and reason? Is it inability or objective?
June 27, 2017
A particularly inane line of questioning on the BBC to ministers and others is ‘is no Deal better than a bad deal?’. Is it really the case that Labour and pro Remain politicians want to say to the EU that however bad a deal is of course the UK will sign? What if the EU ups the demand to €200bn? Surely these people and their BBC interviewers have some concept of a cost-benefit analysis and some appreciation of basic negotiation tactics?
June 27, 2017
@Richard1
I haven’t seen any evidence of such.
June 27, 2017
Nor me nor do the Libdims, the remainers in all parties nor indeed the fools who thought wrapping tall building in flammable insulation to save a trivial amount of energy in heat loss was a good plan.
June 27, 2017
Made me laugh, Bob.
June 27, 2017
“Surely these people and their BBC interviewers have some concept of a cost-benefit analysis and some appreciation of basic negotiation tactics?”
It seems that the current tactic is for the BBC and other MSM TV channels, together with all the hard line remainers, to convince the country that Brexit will bring immense social and economic decline whilst the EU prepares to offer the UK a really bad deal.
They then plan for there to be another referendum to either accept this awful deal or remain in the EU empire, probably under revised conditions.
June 27, 2017
Off-topic, looking at the government’s proposals on the future status of EU citizens already settled in the UK, collected papers here:
http://facts4eu.org/news_jun_2017.shtml#eu_citizens_offer
it all seems pretty fair to me. I expect that there will still be some whining, much of it stoked by the mass media, and I expect some valid additional points of detail will come up and it may then necessary to make some refinements , but in general it’s OK. It’s just a pity that it has taken a year to produce this plan and so now it seems that it has only appeared because the fine upstanding EU dragged it out of a vicious and reluctant UK government.
I think the statement:
“The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will not have jurisdiction in the UK”
is perfectly clear and very welcome, but it could have been supplemented by:
“any more than the UK Supreme Court will have jurisdiction in the EU countries”.
June 27, 2017
The influence of the established, mainstream media is declining anyway.
June 27, 2017
Being powerful and being influential are different. Getting a message or indeed a presence to as wider audience as possible often is invaluable.
Robbie Williams, a fairly untalented musician has made a very nice living by being in the public eye often. Nigel Farage too made progress through visibility and repeated exposure.
June 27, 2017
At least Nigel Farage can stand up in his parliament and speak clearly, producing both a coherent argument and entertainment for his listeners, and not a little discomfort to those puffed up clerks who were his targets!
So sad about the BBC; a once great institution who now wants to make the news rather then report it.
June 27, 2017
Nigel had a popular narrative which the BBC didn’t like.
I think he’s waiting to pounce.
Conundrum. I’ve just renewed my gas and electricity contract.
The electricity price has risen 24% but the gas has reduced by 11%.
When I enquired as to why the operative told me it was entirely due to subsidies for renewable energy and smart meter roll out.
The gas is one quarter the price per mwh than electric and government policy is to phase it out by 2030. My bill would rise from around £85 per month to about £220.
Talk about eat or heat.
June 27, 2017
The BBC reports news in a way that reflects it’s Guardianista view of politics. It has a corporate message which irrespective of it’s charter it wishes to get to the public. By controlling it’s recruiting it ensures it’s own propaganda in perpetuity. It furthers it’s view by selectively inviting those who support it’s view to enhance this view. Those at the point of a gun that it occasionally invites to put the other side of the story are interrupted and over talked like white noise to ensure their message does not get across. Such participants need to be more robust if not blunt with their interviewers to the point of ridicule and direction to shut up.
June 27, 2017
Spot on! BBC political news coverage, interviews and opinion pieces are a disgrace with but a few honourable exceptions. The most notable honourable exception is Andrew Neill.
June 29, 2017
I used to think Andrew Neill was good. But having a research team coming up with pages of detailed documents on a topic and then catching a politician out because he does not have a computer database for a memory and then “cleverly” saying “You should know this if you are Minister of a million details “isn’t too clever. If you read the gush in the Spectator you will see it is not clever either. It should be clever if you are the Editor or Chairman or is it a new post?
June 27, 2017
‘There are times when the media does more than report splits. They often seek to create then.’
This is becoming increasingly evident in the majority of subjects the media report on, it’s not the media’s job to make the news it’s their job to report it, this behaviour is loathsome.
The BBC are fast becoming masters in this.
June 27, 2017
Indeed the absurd way the BBC (and Newsnight in particular) preframe any debate in the most absurd and contrived way.
Then they they use their lefty ex-employees (Paul Mason, Stephanie Flanders types) to come back on as “experts”. Worst of all is their climate alarmist propagandist in chief (A cambridge English Graduate). Who does not seem to understand anything about climate, engineering science or anything very much at all.
June 27, 2017
I think a lot of people here just get frustrated that the points you make and the facts you promulgate are not more widely broadcast. Nonsensical political views and economic illiteracy are often broadcast by MSM but there is never any rebuke from sensible sources such as yourself.
June 27, 2017
Indeed the politics of envy, Father Christmas, irrational belief systems, visceral emotion and gut feelings nearly always win out over science, logic and reason in politics and the media. Especially the appalling virtual state monopoly of the BBC.
June 27, 2017
I don’t understand your reference to Father Christmas. He’s a lovely old fellow.
June 28, 2017
And his sack is always replenished at the (optional) cost of a mince pie and glass of mulled wine.
June 27, 2017
Dear Dave–JR has done much better recently in getting in to the Media BUT, at great risk of failing Mods, on which I have much practice, I think he now needs somehow to develop a bit more pizzazz, excitement even, along lines of Nigel and Boris. It remains very difficult to elicit anything other than a blank stare asking people, anybody, anything along lines of, What did you think of what John Redwood wrote today?
June 27, 2017
“There seems to be a hatred of new arguments and facts at the BBC , and a wish to endlessly repeat the old, stale and often simply wrong. “
That is because the BBC is a campaigning organisation and it has its own agenda which include in no particular order:
1. High food prices
2. Organic farming
3. Large public sector
4. High taxes
5. High benefits
6. Open borders
7. There is no God but Allah and his prophet is Mohammad
8. Pro-EU
9. Anti-Israel
10. Anti-USA
11. Pro-IRA
12. Pro-SNP
13. Anti-UKIP
14. Anti-Nigel Farrage
15. Anti-Business
16. Ani-Rupert Murdoch
17. (Item deleted ed)
18. Pro-selective political memory: Brown? Blair? Callaghan? Wilson? Witch Thatcher!!!
June 27, 2017
Anti GM, anti Landlord, pro the dire state monopoly NHS, anti selective and private schools, pro religious indoctrination of young children at home and in schools, pro any green crap at all regardless of sanity, anti car, pro bike, pro train anti plane …..
June 27, 2017
Renewable nonesense. Showing windmills at every opportunity.
Anti England. Very rarely mentioning it.
Pro Corbyn and his communist mate.
June 27, 2017
Can we have a competition to guess what 17 was?
Pro- Greens, Libdems, US Democrats, windmills, solar, electric cars, LGBT, slebs, ludicrous sleb pay, sleb newsreaders, ‘comedians’ who think being offensive to anyone they disagree with is funny, hard landscaping in gardens, clean air exaggeration, actors who mumble, politicians who wear bright coloured trousers……
Reply None of the above.
June 27, 2017
misandrist?
June 27, 2017
stred
I know what 17 was
It was ( item deleted ed)
June 28, 2017
I wonder if we had the same guess. I put up what I thought might be the missing words alone. No sign of the submission at all.
June 27, 2017
Please add anti England to the list.
An excellent list of the BBCs political agenda, that everyone is forced to pay for but many of us don’t want. Wall to wall anti Brexit, sneering at the awful Tory government and no serious questioning of the Marxist socialist policies being peddled by the govt in waiting. The BBC must be made a subscription only service for most of its content. Many of us are tired of the “News and COMMMENT” role.
Do we have a Minister for a Culture Media and Sport. Time they earned their crust with major BBC reform. The time for a compulsary licence fee is long past, abolish it, fund a News only service say 4 times a day for 15 mins, genuine public service broadcasts in major emergencies. World Service a dept of the Foreign Office.
June 27, 2017
Number 4 is needed to pay for all those coming due to Number 6. Their lives have to be paid for by us – – and after throwing billions away in “foreign aid” ( despots spending money ) – and yet more and more cuts to services – taxes are the only way the govt sees of paying for them. Stopping them coming is clearly NOT on the agenda as we were promised the boats would be turned back – -LAST YEAR.
June 27, 2017
I think in general the BBC as an organisation is Blairite (in terms of policy preference), it represents the middle-class people on the right of the Labour party and the left of the Conservative party (Remainers all). I note that during the election Momentum supporters often heckled the BBC correspondent and they have also recently demonstrated outside the BBC offices so the BBC might be in for a surprise if Corbyn ever assumes power !
June 27, 2017
Broadly right I think.The British Establishment and it’s organs saw that a move towards socialism was inevitable and adopted the language and clothing of the creed in order to survive and avoid revolution.As a result,the ruling class morphed into a bureaucracy allegedly serving the needs of the people whilst continuing to draw its privileges via tax.Corbyn and McDonnell are Revolutionary Socialists in the Marxist-Leninist mould,mixing infiltration of institutions with direct action on the streets ,although some of their wilder supporters are probably what Lenin had in mind when he wrote “Left Wing Communism-An infantile disorder”!-An interesting pamphlet (1920)in which he gives advice to British communists and how they should work with the then new Labour party-famously “to support them as a rope supports a hanged man”.
June 27, 2017
On the BBC last night [Brexit: What’s Next] a commentator suggested that German manufacturers would “tow the EU line” and stick to the four freedoms dogma, over the jobs for German auto workers…we shall see.
June 27, 2017
True, EU and particularly German auto makers have been told to keep their mouths shut over Brexit. If not, they will end up breathing the actual diesel fumes emitted by their products, for the foreseeable future.
June 27, 2017
“There seems to be a hatred of new arguments and facts at the BBC”.
Indeed the BBC have their long tern agenda (pro EU, pro even more tax and government at all levels, pro disasters like the NHS and state virtually monopoly schooling (and TV) and endlessly pushing climate alarmism). Combined with a hatred of all Landlords and business people. See Brexit What’s Next on BBC1 last night as a classic example of bias!
They also have their short term ones such as it was “cuts and the nasty rich Tories” that caused Grenfell (it was actually daft expensive greencrap “improvements”) or their endless attacks on the DUP. All presenters (save Andrew Neil) seem to be fairly dim, chip on the shoulder, Guardian think, innumerate, lefty art graduates with little grasp of logic, economics, business and reality and zero grasp of any science.
£369 million just on “repairs” at Buckingham Palace I read. This would build about 2000 brand new four bedroomed houses. How much space does one 90 year old Queen actually need and this is just one of the many houses?
I am all in favour of the royal family (other than the lefty, quack medicine enthusiast and climate alarmist dope Prince Charles of course) but £369 million!
It is surely no coincidence that a belief in quack medicine, climate alarmism, being anti GM and a lack of any understanding of science seem to go hand in hand so frequently.
June 28, 2017
Buck House has 800 rooms apparently, is not a very inspiring building and could be replaced by homes for “ordinary people”. Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, to name but two local royal residences, should be sufficient.
June 27, 2017
I am sure you choose your media appearances carefully to avoid the blatant attempts at creating wider splits in the Conservative Party. Indeed I recall a post where you declined to go along with the producer’s idea to intensify and exploit such a split and the invitation from the BBC was then withdrawn.
Anna Soubry has done herself no favours in the party over the last couple of years and was the one Conservative PM I was hoping would lose her seat. However, she seems to have been strangely silent in recent weeks. Maybe I have just not seen her “contributions” to the interminable debate on Europe and membership of the so-called Single Market ?
Apart from the perennial presence of Ken Clarke, the current favoured choice of the BBC seems to be Lord Heseltine who was once the darling of the party but is now amongst its most extreme critics. He really should retire gracefully and spend his declining years spending a little of his vast fortune.
We are at a critical stage where the Country should be pulling together and showing a united front to the EU 27. Following the election debacle, the threat to the Conservative Party is so serious that the party simply has no choice other than to speak with a united voice. The consequences of not doing so could well be another election and the serious threat of a Corbyn Government.
In that event, Marxist doctrine will likely result in Corbyn being pushed aside and McDonnell installed as PM. However, it is uncertain whether he could do much more damage in No 10 than he would undoubtedly do in No 11.
As far as future Conservative leaders are concerned, we must support Mrs May through the Brexit negotiations but there has to be a smooth and undramatic change of leader well before the next election. I reluctantly agree that we need to skip to a younger generation to face off against Corbyn and McDonnell.
I really would have liked to have seen Dan Hannan move into the Commons earlier this month as I believe he would make the best leader from within that younger generation. He is a superb speaker and cuts to the real issues as incisively as a surgeon with a scalpel.
I fear he may well leave politics altogether when we leave the EU. That would be a great loss.
June 27, 2017
The media will always exploit each item it regards as “news”the way it wants ; seldom will it present information in a neutral fashion . This is particularly true when it conducts interviews – John knows this as much as anyone and has had to enforce his “presence” in order to be heard properly – like yesterday . Also on the 1 o’clock BBC news yesterday , interviews were mainly interested in the deal made with the DUP . Following the topic introduction there were 3 individuals contributing points against the deal ( including the has- been John Major ) and only one from the Government .
I was asked by the BBC about my views on the quality and content of its programmes 3 days ago . I responded by telling them how sickened I was at their bias – particularly over recent events and their inability to change . I added that I seldom watched their Channels . From a “Sports” point they have lost almost everything . I think it is time they were privatised and the public released from the annual licence .
June 27, 2017
If ever there was a body in crisis it is the Television people.
Professor Parkinson (remember his Law?) noticed that decadent societies always build huge buildings before they crash. Broadcasting House?
Emily Maitliss interviewed David Lammy about the Grenfell Tower. For once the truth was out: he clearly and concisely told it how it was seen locally. I am not sure I believe what he said, but I cannot doubt that he was repeating what he had personally heard. Where did I watch this video? No. On the web!
I watch the tv at the gym – Jeremy Kyle. I also try and watch between 9 and 10, but always something light. If I want politics, I go on the John Redwood blog!
TV is soooo yesterday!
June 27, 2017
Ditto on my source of politics.
The problem is the BBC and its persistent ‘scary background music’ even if you’re not the one watching it.
It is trying to demoralise and undermine.
June 27, 2017
It’s good that people express their views on sites such as this. I enjoy reading them, even if I find some in conflict with my own. The problem is that, with the exception of our host and, possibly one or two others, we all hide behind aliases. This devalues the expressed views as elsewhere on line there is no shortage of dreadful rubbish expressed anonymously.
Now, as always, I’ll hypocritically sign off with a nom-de-plume!
June 27, 2017
On the continuing subject of the BBC bias is it not time, this subject was aired in Parliament through some committee? Another example last night, a news summary with the DUP arrangement and Heseltine’s views prominent. The BBC does produce some excellent, educational, entertaining radio and TV programmes and whilst there is no commercial advertising there is potentially the same subliminal effect. For me the first change would be the removal of the 24 hours news channel.
June 27, 2017
Indeed. 24hr rolling news makes it seem as though we are in permanent crisis.
Mainly news anchors with nothing much to say but trying to entertain nonetheless.
June 27, 2017
In part, I lost progression from an old to a new company simply because I told my boss people were not at home watching TV as he insisted.
He said: ” All the evidence of surveys state that more adults are home between 5pm and 6pm than at any other time. ”
I replied “All the people behind me and in front of me in traffic indicate not. Plus full hospital, and supermarket car parks…and… unanswered doors to callers and darkened rooms.” His secretary giggled. I think it was the giggle rather than what I said which was the real mother of my fate.
Also,people tend not to watch, when they watch, as intensely and with moment to moment continuity that some loser bosses believe.
June 27, 2017
I agree to some degree but the amount of misinformation my children are fed on social media is becoming ridiculous I am forever sending them articles from the real media to allow them a better-informed more rounded opinion of the events around them.
I used to watch C4 news every night now I don’t even switch it on. They more than Nigel Farage were to blame for the incessant nightly reporting on illegal immigration through the EU getting out of hand at Calais for months we saw how dangerous and unstoppable the people were. C5 shows on benefit’s Britain and other shows about how immigrants get into rental problems and landlords find out they can’t evict them and have real hassles getting their properties back in one piece just reinforce how out of control our institutions are and just how many rights the EU have conferred on people coming to the UK.
Power is nothing to do with media presence but GO thinks it has or he wouldn’t have transferred to his new job. Plus we saw nothing but Nick Clegg and Tim Farron on every channel for months pre-election but where did that get the Remain party!
Your blog would be read by lots more people if you used interactive social media channels just think about it.
Reply HIghlights do go out on twitter
June 27, 2017
Doesn’t it tell us something that, despite the relentless leftie propaganda pouring out of the BBC supported by all the usual suspects in the arts and tax-eating world, Labour have lost a general election for the third time running ?
Blair managed to drag unelectable Labour into the real world by scrapping Clause 4 and continuing with Thatcherite economic policies. That kept them in power until Brown lurched back to the left and lost again. Old-style socialist policies haven’t given them a majority since Harold Wilson in 1974
Despite all the media babbling I can’t see that Corbyn’s gang of amateurs will ever fool the majority of voters.
June 27, 2017
That and the fact that the outgoing Conservative government (1997) bequeathed them an economy that was on the up ! 1997 – 2007 boom had nothing to do with Labour and GB. But the fact that the Labour / EU created FSA were told to go easy on the banks fuelled a credit and derivatives boom and then bust.
June 27, 2017
“Despite all the media babbling I can’t see that Corbyn’s gang of amateurs will ever fool the majority of voters.”
Worse than that,according to a survey on ChannelMum.com more than half of respondents would consider naming their offspring after Corbyn.Theresa only gets 4% and Boris 5%!
June 27, 2017
@rh
Did you foresee May’s election debacle? Remember, JC couldn’t obtain enough signatures to get in the leadership race? The Blairites/neoliberals patronised him and signed his nomination forms, so that they could give the left a good hiding – they couldn’t see him winning! – What an own goal! Then we had a Welsh wizard stand against him on a ticket of a second referendum – he was crushed! Then the Blairites decided to bide their time until after the GE, then they would strike when JC was trapped under the rubble of a massive defeat! You know how that turned out. The gang of amateurs has been confounding everyone.
I make these comments to show that wishful thinking is no substitute for evidence. The social media generation is not schooled in political history, and it is swelling the electoral registers day by day. It is possible that the JC bubble will not be burst until the ‘movement’ runs full course and JC wins a GE.
June 28, 2017
What makes you think that everybody who uses social media is left wing?
I see plenty of hostile comments about Corbyn on various blogs and online media including the Guardian. Labour expected to lose and they did, yet again.
He is offering a socialist model that failed forty years ago and the Conservatives had better start educating the electorate about that.
July 2, 2017
“and the Conservatives had better start educating the electorate”. What about the Conservatives had better start educating themselves about the electorate.
The recent GE was on a large number of topics a complete failure. This in turn seems to be due to the PM’s originally presidential style campaign soon followed by a lack of clear and steady messages, all complicated by the seemingly impossible task of pleasing the various factions in the Conservative Party.
It is to be hoped that the next GE campaign will be better organised, with the people in charge of the EU referendum campaign being asked back.
June 27, 2017
Anna Soubry is not at all good box office. She is a tedious, wrong headed bore (and yet another Lawyer to boot). Parliament and public life needs far, far fewer lawyers and PPE graduates and far more engineers, sound economists and decent scientists.
One sensible engineer in charge would have prevented all this flammable insulation cladding and all the green crap agenda in general.
June 27, 2017
I look upon her ramblings as a, ‘Cry for help !’
June 27, 2017
Three engineers are named on the planning application along with medium FR5000 insulation. So far no-one seems to have thought of naming the type of insulation board used in the tested blocks, even though the manufacturers label every board with the grade and the lower boards at Grenfell are still in place. The longer this goes on the dafter it seems to become. It is not necessary to set fire to the board to find out whether the wrong grade was installed- just read the name.
June 27, 2017
She is quite rational in what she is doing. She is attached to huge business interests in Free Movement of People and makes no bones about representing business.
June 27, 2017
I think this goes without being said , however perceptions of power enhanced by the media , create an image of power which is powerful in itself. If we look at MI5 andMI6 they would want to be anything else than in the media . If we look at executive discussions they may be front runners for many ideas.
Your stance is more popular though due to TV presentations and articles , a position which not all back benchers can boast .This blog site is in itself a media type of venture and many do read it and have the opportunity to jump on the band waggon if they can see sufficient support.
Powerful individuals can be a target for ill will though and if not backed up with body guards and the like they open themselves up to danger .
June 27, 2017
Of course the BBC doesn’t want to hear your ideas. It has its own political agenda.
Today, in a statement that is coming mainly from the point of view of the eu, the BBC is proposing a joint UK-EU arbitration panel on citizen’s rights.
Here is today’s political statement by the BBC:
“The British side insists that the ECJ will have no jurisdiction in the UK after Brexit. The EU insists that the ECJ must continue to offer legal protection for their citizens in the UK, just as it does now.
The obvious answer to this conundrum is to create a joint UK-EU arbitration panel that will ensure that the terms of an agreement are respected under international law. But this will require both sides to alter fairly entrenched positions.”
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40413041
As far as I know we don’t give any other foreign power such a say in our governance so this appears to be quite an extreme political position. Mind you, the BBC does appear to hold some quite extreme political views.
If the BBC gets a campaign going around this idea – and the BBC has proven to be a powerful political force – it will set a dangerous precedent allowing foreign powers to override our democracy.
It is such a pity these people have been given powerful transmitters and a lot of our money to promote their own agenda completely outside of – and with contempt for – our democratic system.
June 27, 2017
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum”
+++
The goal is a society in which the basic social unit is you and your television set.
Chomsky
June 27, 2017
This is why every patriotic MP must vociferously oppose any attempt of May’s paymasters and others to close down the exchange of information and opinions on the internet which simply lie outside the ‘spectrum of ‘acceptable’ opinion’, ie outside of their control, by labeling it ‘extremism’. We already have a law under which someone who is not, in point of fact, English can get an Englishman locked up for saying something that the former subjectively purports to be offended by and we dont need any more such laws especially as the purported offendees would most likely be trawling the internet assiduously in order to find something to be offended by.
Once freedom is lost, it might take a revolution to retrieve it and there is no freedom without freedom of speech.
June 27, 2017
Fortunately for us and unfortunately for the media moguls the public are getting the raw information they need from many different sources now, so we wont have to rely on only one or two avenues to compare when it comes to making decisions about any political or economic matter.. witness recently the phenomenon of the young people turning out in droves for jeremy corbyn.. people in the public eye will ignore that change in lifestyle at their peril.
It’s really a grubby business and very few would like to see their names and photos in the papers on a daily basis so i well understand why our host JR would rather take a slightly off centre way of flying his own flag..he’ll get there just the same
June 27, 2017
It would greatly improve the quality of the MSM if serious politicians simply declined to appear on the BBC at all. Then they might reform themselves.
June 27, 2017
They decline almost every lunchtime when there is something wrong with their sphere of influence. I guarantee most days on the World at One you will hear the presenter say ‘we asked for a minister to appear, but no-one was available’. When they have something they think is wonderful you can’t keep them away. Personally, I’d ban all politicians appearing – we never learn anything useful from them and they just do it for self aggrandisement.
June 28, 2017
I cannot think of anyone who does not try and make their point more clearly and want to further their career or influence in some way. This in human terms is survival of the fittest . We don’t now only think of muscles and physical health , we think of political influence , personal influence, how I appear to others , how I appear to my children , will I get attention ?
will my genetic line continue as one of importance , will by saying they are in it for self aggrandisement give me the support and therefore the influence to look at reality , does what I say matter ?
If we look at history , the marrying of offspring , the manoeuvres to keep power and aggrandise self; it is nothing new. If we look at packs of animals who can shout loudest or thump their chest in defiance we see how what they say or do is nothing else other than self aggrandisement.
June 27, 2017
I can’t see the socialist Libdems or Labs doing that. The BBC plays on their team.
Nor would the likes of Clarke, Heseltine, Blair etc ever turn down the chance of putting out their selfish venom.
June 27, 2017
The “Andrea Leadsom / be a bit more patriotic” furore was a good case in point, illustrating someone who need not have been on TV but the BBC probably thought that her candidature for PM last year was worth them stirring the pot again. Fact is I was shouting in agreement when she said what she did, not least because the BBC is acting as though it wants the Brexit negotiations to fail and that narrative is all-pervasive in their output.
Would a BBC football commentator take the side of France or Germany in an international match or are they allowed (rightly) a little patriotic bias? Of course they are and we expect it, the same goes for this historic moment in the UK’s future in Europe. The BBC rarely if ever questions anything that Tusk & Juncker say and they rarely give prominence to more supportive comments made recently by leaders from the Netherlands, Ireland and even Germany.
June 27, 2017
The fact is that the interviewer was already angry. One gets the impression she was angry on behalf of the EU.
As Mrs Leadsom pointed out – the country has chosen a course and now we should all support it, especially after a referendum, a court case, a Parliamentary vote and a general election all supporting Brexit.
Not to do so is now unpatriotic.
June 27, 2017
Apropos your comment about Anna Soubry, I would add Lord Heseltine in the case of any discussion of Brexit.
June 27, 2017
By all accounts you answered Derbyshire very effectively the other day (when she repeatedly interrupted you to ask another question) by politely but firmly asking her ‘Do you want me to answer the question?’ I’m not 100% sure I have quoted you EXACTLY on this but that is more or less what you said. That was followed by a pause (very very effective) whereafter you went on to answer the first question. It’s not only Derbyshire that shows herself up in this way many of these supposedly top flight journalists and political commentators suffer from this malfunction in that they want to ask the question but they DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO REPLY as that is not the point of you being there. YOU are there for OVERKILL. Back in the day many sat in front of Robin Day expecting BRUTALITY if he/she did not seem convincing in their reply and he didn’t ever appear to destroy people before they even sat in the chair. He heard them out as far as I can remember but destroyed their answer IF it didnt make sense. We have lost that art – we now have a bunch of no hopers and clowns out to make a name for themselves by bombardment not from intelligent, well constructed debate. Mind you Day was a first class brain and therein lies the answer. Those at the BBC don’t care what you say about them – much of the time they don’t even read it. I think we have to move on from this until we have left the EU and deal with them (BBC) and the House of Lords when we can focus more carefully and objectively and reach a wise decision. Experienced Senior Politicians can make short work of these Bozzoz who interview them.
June 27, 2017
‘Some of these try to make it as difficult as possible for their guests to put forward an informed and sensible case’.
John I keep shouting at the screen urging you guys to deploy a far better more arresting retort, which would be along the lines of some sort of shocking Trumpesque shaming tactic – along the lines of “I’m here today to combat the fake news you are seeking to peddle, your constant interruptions are a sign of infantile desperation”
June 27, 2017
Dear Richard–I agree that a few arresting retorts and shocking tactics would be good–JR used to be called Vulcan because, as I understood it, of his apparent lack of emotion. Being cool calm and collected is necessary but maybe not sufficient.
June 27, 2017
Yes, – After Trump’s inauguration, the BEEB had a programme, unofficially called “A Hundred Days to Rubbish Trump”. When this failed, they extended the programme and gave it a new title “A Hundred + However Many Days it Takes to Rubbish Trump!”
June 27, 2017
German car industry worried about a no deal WTO SCENARIO;
The hit to German carmakers from a “no-deal”, so-called “hard Brexit”, characterised by the introduction of WTO tariffs on imports, could be as catastrophic as the impact of the financial crisis and lead to a massive reduction in its trade surplus and huge, politically traumatic job cuts in its core industry.
That, at least, is the message from a devastating study published by Deloitte’s German unit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/22/europe-waking-impact-hard-brexit/
June 27, 2017
“There seems to be a hatred of new arguments and facts at the BBC…”
Haha! Very good.
Is there any chance you might ever feel tempted to put it slightly stronger than that? 🙂
But then I suppose there’s always room for doubt — it’s just possible we might be missing something. I can’t imagine what that could be though!
By the way, yesterday I enjoyed watching a YouTube video of This House Believes New Labour Ruined Britain, a 2013 Cambridge Union debate in which you spoke for the motion — well, no surprises there! 🙂
I have to say you were much more entertainingly animated than I have ever seen you on, say, al beeb’s Newsnight.
But then I guess it was a pleasant change for you. It must have been a lot easier to gather your thoughts and communicate without being encumbered by the mandatory flak jacket and hazchem suit and all the while having to dodge a constant barrage of randomly aimed mortar fire.
When confronted by someone who doesn’t share their progressively retarded worldview, I have noticed that Newsnight interviewers’ mode of argumentation has the all cogency and coherence of a screeching fishwife. The only difference I can make out is that they don’t use coarse language.
The BBC should have been broken up and sold off years ago.
June 27, 2017
OT.
The PM spoke about communities being changed without their permission, now she says all EU citizens can stay in the UK and move their families over. Is this families beyond immediate? Who will finance all the med and pensions she’s promised? The woman is turning out to be an utter disaster as a PM.
June 27, 2017
I would agree DM. She also had a very poor record at the Home Office, I understand. The Daily Telegraph article around the time of the leadership election was very revealing, but it was pulled rather quickly, but not before Guido and others had a copy.
June 27, 2017
@DaveM
It’s a shame that the media hounded Andrea Leadsom out of the leadership contest when quitter Cameron left.
June 28, 2017
Many Tory MPs were compliant in this “hounding” of Leadsom and the media’s treatment, I think. They have only themselves to blame for the May fiasco, but if they achieve Brexit fudge then maybe that was what they wanted after all?
June 27, 2017
I do not know why people are always on about the BBC. The BBC has no control over government policy at all, it only has influence over you the votes, and that’s if you switch on to watch there crap. Most people under the age of 40 do watch the news on TV or buy newspapers. Do politician have any influence over there own party, none at all unless they have the numbers to vote down there own party on something they do not like as you saw with the EU ref in the con party, which also had support from the people, other wises it all on the nod. Doses the PM have any influence, very little if anything. Like john says, just actors & actresses with best speakers with presence being picked for the cabinet to win votes for the party. In government the treasury, home office, foreign office and the environment office have most influence in government with quangos, lobbyist, bankers and pension funds, but not the MPs in charge of departments. Nearly everything you see is about making money. So where do the ideas come from that most people dislike, international organization, and the west neo con libs with neo libs with billionaires with influence and big world wide companies. Most you never seen or heard of and not belong to parties, but dictate to them. The new labour leader is one of the biggest threats to this group of organization and people of the neo libs have come across in modern times in the west. If the idea takes hold it could spread like wild fire into other western countries, just like the 5 star movement in italy. That’s why the media & neo libs are doing everything they can to stop them as you have seen with bailout of two banks in italy. They call it peoples power. These organization with neo con libs and neo libs have bought this on themselves by putting people in the west out of work and cutting there wages, also the policy of putting the young people who go uni in to debt to try to finance there own failed system of kicking money up to the already rich by offshoring jobs to earn more profit and leaving the money offshore so they do not have pay tax.
June 27, 2017
What yesterdays Cm 9464 should have been titled :
The United Kingdom’s Exit from the European Union – Safeguarding the Position of UK Citizens Living in the EU and EU Nationals Living in the UK
June 27, 2017
The latest media catch phrase regarding Brexit is the ‘cliff edge’.
Nobody cares to point out that, with a year already gone, both sides have had more than enough time to obtain and test all the best abseiling gear.
June 27, 2017
The cliff edge took place whilst in the EU.
My highly (HIGHLY) qualified kids cannot afford a house and will not until at least their forties, if ever.
I was unqualified and bought my first in my twenties in London – easily !
June 27, 2017
There is also a very simple way of avoiding a cliff edge. We offer the EU27 continued trade to the existing standards, tariffs and controls that they and we have conformed to for years. They do likewise and we sail off smoothly into the future. All that remains to be discussed is the “price” of this cliff avoidance strategy.
June 27, 2017
They will never change voluntarily. They abandoned any pretence to integrity and fairness long ago because they know they can get away with almost any depth of behaviour.
It’s wasting intellectual effort appealing to their better nature. They don’t have any such sentiment. Ofcom seems afraid of taking action.
June 27, 2017
Mark Carney has issued an amber warning. It appears that his making it easier for banks and other financial institutions to lend has resulted in greater consumer debt. It’s not something a high ranking banker would expect is it. It’s a rum go, so it is.
June 27, 2017
It is worth having a read of http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/fsr/2017/fsrjun17.pdf
Actually, you could have read a similar “sit-rep” back in 2006, a year before the start of the GFC (Great Financial Crash of 2008). If you were a follower of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) back then. You would have taken appropriate defensive positions with your families assets.
The BoE and the Treasury know, that if the BoE decides to raise interest rates to defend a falling Pound Sterling; or, some idiotic idea of “normalising” interest rates; or, as a consequence of some headline Brexit nonsense; mortgage holders will be grasping for aqualungs.
Those mortgage holders will be shortly followed by the Banks and Building Societies that didn’t manage to “securitize” all their mortgage accounts and flog them off to some dumb arsed punters. It will be a repeat of the Great Financial Crash of 2008.
June 27, 2017
Off-topic:
http://www.cityam.com/267371/treasurys-economic-models-have-grossly-overestimated-cost
“The Treasury’s economic models have grossly overestimated the cost of Brexit”
One crucial defect being:
“… the Treasury used an average trade gain across all 28 EU members, but neglected to say that the gains to the UK alone were much smaller. This vital point was omitted even though an earlier Treasury paper acknowledged its existence.”
Which is similar to a point I have repeatedly made in the past, that a German study found that the creation of the EU single market had increased collective GDP across the EU by about 2%, corresponding to the estimate accepted by the EU Commission – but the gross economic benefit for the UK was only about half that average.
The conclusion of this new study being:
“Our own worst-case prediction is that per capita GDP could be 2 per cent lower by 2025 than would otherwise be the case, but by 2030 would be higher than it would have been without Brexit. If UK firms find new markets more quickly than the slow rate we have assumed, the outlook could be more optimistic than this.”
Recalling that the UK economy has a trend growth rate of about 2.5% a year, at worse in 2025 UK GDP would be just 20% higher than now rather than 22% higher.
June 27, 2017
Change of subject.
Having generated lots of debt via the banking system because of his recklessly ultra-loose monetary policy, the Governor of the Bank of England is warning the banks not to lend to much and individuals not to borrow too much. If you want to know who has caused people to borrow too much and who has caused rapidly rising inflation, Mr Carney, look in a mirror.
Why is Carney still in office, Mr Redwood? The man is out of control and it’s the job of MPs to put an end to him, or at least his influence over base rate. It needs to go up.
June 27, 2017
Mr Redwood, sir – every time I see the phrase “left-wing bias of the BBC”, either plastered across the front page of the Daily Mail or repeatedly echoed in this blog, I read “a potentially influential media outlet which the right-wing of the Conservative Party does not yet control”.
The effects of a political pressure group selecting its “facts” exclusively from a news organisation whose views mirror its own can be seen all too plainly in Donald Trump’s reliance on Fox News for formulating his own uniquely warped view of the world. If however the Tories wish to follow his example, let them ring up Rupert Murdoch and invite him to establish such a network over here. You can all then appear on it as often as you wish, and without having to worry too much about being asked any questions during your interviews that you don’t want to answer. You also won’t need to worry about anyone complaining about it, because nobody other than your own supporters will be watching it.
This is the last time I shall visit this blog. I merely wished to make you aware before I leave that there are people out there – and I suspect there are actually quite lot of them – who do not share the views of the right-wing of the Conservative Party on this subject, and who are quite simply turned off by being repeatedly subjected to them. Please feel free to post this or not as you choose.
Yours faithfully etc.
Reply I am happy to answer questions. I object to being asked a second question one sentence into answering the first one!
June 28, 2017
I too think ‘left-wing bias of the BBC’ is a lazy simplification of what happens on a regular basis. I’ve started to time how long the BBC allow the ‘left’ representative to talk uninterrupted and then when the ‘right’ representatives returns to answer the points raised the BBC interview interrupts within seconds. I personally think the Tories need to up their game when pointing out the ‘bias’ incidents they refer to, I also feel women interviewers do this more than the male interviewers and I feel this reflects badly on us.
June 28, 2017
When I was a leftie in the 70’s I knew the BBC and the broadcast media were on our side.
I was also a Guardian subscriber for many years – and even I could see their coverage was unbalanced.
Here I am 45 years later and their bias is more blatant than ever.
What concerns me is that you can’t see it.
I just hope that you are never in a position where you have to rely on your own judgement to make a living.
June 27, 2017
Sir, I am an avid reader of your blog as I find it both informative, well argued, balanced and inciteful. I will say that when you make a convincing argument, which is frequently, I make use of your comments by sharing them on Facebook to my friends and family with the relevant acknowledgement of source when appropriate. I am sure that from the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ that I get after posting these comments, many many more people get to see your comments than the small number of ‘friends’ I have on Facebook.
June 27, 2017
The headlines of TV newspaper reviews tell us what our priorities of the day should be. We had a fire in a tower block. Though most of do not live in such places. . Has anything else happened in the world? Of course not.
So it is with persons “in the news”. I’ve never heard of many of the famous people the media go on about, “Terry J B Actdaft has walked out on his partner Janet Libertine Pickled-smartie” and I must worry about their rift, and revisit it when Janet says he hit her whilst shouting about who should put the cat out.Terry demands custody of the goldfishbowl full of tadpoles shock-horror. “. One of them is dead due to Brexit.
June 27, 2017
Many hearing Hammond had got his oven views on Brexit and at odds with Boris would not take much interest but would be glad he had appearently recovered from his most recent car crash in Switzerland. Had Jeremy Clarkson visited him? Not heard anything!!
TV interviewers broadcast persons they meet in the street ..the ones they can con into doing it and the ones who have an opinion, even slightly one way orthe other..which, is a very slim minority of real people.
June 29, 2017
In the week when former police officers are being arrested 30 years after a tragic event for ‘thought crimes’…Mob rule and anarchy hang in the air…
Never has a strong conservative voice been needed more.
John Redwood in the Sunday papers (The Sun on Sunday) government.. ‘It is easier to do without the distraction of long arguments’ (what isn’t frankly) . A cynic might suggest the party is so stuffed with mp’s that are devoid of a single conservative principle finding a unity candidate would be impossible.
So lets just keep quiet and pretend everything is okay that;s Redwoods answer. la la la I can’t hear you ….
It is this unwillingness to ever have an argument that has brought us to this mess. May’s brand of politics has all the appeal of a bag of cold sick. Banging your head harder on a brick wall isn’t going to make it fall down. Credit to her she managed to make an IRA sympathising old loony with a Marxist sidekick look good. Yet some are determined to look through the rose tinted specs.
What are these long arguments ?. The right of the conservative party have rolled over to make way for the liberals with barely a murmur of protest. Reading your piece it is as though Mays election was a triumph!. There May stood and told you to your face you were the nasty party and you just needed a good dose of diversity and political correctness from Dr May. How is that working out…….
Piffle sir, piffle!
June 29, 2017
Most media report what fits the narrative they want people to believe. Is this the notorious big lie concept, or are they really this out of touch? By the media’s views no one would vote Tory, yet we have a tory government and no one would vote for Brexit, but a majority did.
Your article does highlight one problem though. If the electorate does not know who really has the power and who makes the actual decisions, how can the decision-makers be held personally accountable? Otherwise you end up with scapegoats being removed, and the problems continuing e.g. politicians kicked out at the ballot box while the civil servant who made the poor decisions remains and keeps making them.