THE REAL BBC BIAS
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| Nick Robinson BBC's Political Editor |
THE ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND MR ROBINSON'S QUESTION
The SNP’s attempt to intimidate the BBC in the run up to the referendum vote this Thursday would do credit to Vladimir Putin. The catalyst for the Yes campaign’s attack on the BBC was an exchange between Alex Salmond and the BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson. In all the acrimonious exchanges that have followed on from this exchange, which culminated in protests outside BBC Scotland calling for the sacking of Nick Robinson, one aspect of Nick Robinson’s question seem to have gone unremarked. That is its inherent disrespect for elected politicians per se.
“Why should a Scottish
voter believe you, a politician, against men who are responsible for billions
of pounds of profits?”
To understand the ideology underlying this question you need
only turn it around.
“Why should a Scottish voter believe men whose only concern
is profit over an elected politician?”
As it happens my answer would be it all depend on who the businessman
and who politician was and also as it happens Alex Salmond would not rank high on my
list of convincing and credible politicians. However that voters should trust
businessmen[1]
automatically over politicians seems to me a curious assumption coming from the
BBC’s most senior political reporter.
Politicians of course can be untrustworthy, merely engaged in the pursuit of power, and of
course power itself, can corrupt; but a significant number of people enter
politics for idealistic reasons, their motives are to make the world a better
place, unlike businessman who are primarily interested in making money.
Being ‘responsible for
billions of pounds worth of profits’ carries with it many concerns, such as
keeping tax payments and the wage bill as low as possible, the overall welfare
of the shareholders [theoretically] being the primary concern. The welfare of the Scottish
people as a whole is unlikely to feature very highly, if at all, on that list. The
‘business community’ hold a very distinct agenda and this will often conflict
with the interests of the wider society of which they are a part.
So when asked if I would believe the head of the tax dodging
outfit Vodaphone, the head of G4S or Amazon UK over say politicians such as Jim
Murphy, David Davies or Caroline Lucas, I would trust the politicians word
every time.
As to the BBC its bias has nothing to do with Scottish Independence,
nor is it some kind of conspiracy with the British ruling elite to cheat the
Scottish electorate.[2] No it is
the unconscious bias of a prevailing culture that holds that the ‘the bottom
line’ trumps all. To get the flavour of this culture you need only listen to
Radio 5 Live’s hideously titled ‘Wake Up To Money,’ or the first half hour of
the Today Programme on Radio 4. Compare the tone and style of the interview of
a leading industrialist with that of a leading trade unionist- on the rare occasion
one gets interviewed this days. The former fed soft questions and allowed to
make contentious statements unchallenged, the latter grilled and constantly
challenged. As Robert Peston the BBC’s Economics Editor has pointed out it is
an agenda increasingly dictated by the middlebrow tabloids such as the Daily Mail.
Whether he was aware of it or not Nick Robinson was putting
into words the assumptions at the heart of this culture.
[1]And
it is invariably men who are ‘responsible
for billions of pounds worth of investment.’
[2]
As Nick Cohen points out the Yes campaign are already preparing their ‘stabbed
in the back’ legend should they lose the vote.
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