The BBC's treatment of the Tories is not only wrong.
It is cowardly
STEPHEN GLOVER
All decent people should support the BBC. That includes Tories, if they can still be counted as decent. However dumbed down it may have become — a process that has accelerated on BBC1 since Greg Dyke, the new director-general, took up the reins — the corporation still produces some out- standing programmes which one would be unlikely to encounter on ITV.
Then there is the undeniable fact that the BBC is one of the few truly national, that is to say British, institutions. The armed ser- vices may have been cut back and the monarchy may have slid in public esteem, but the BBC still casts its net from Land's End to John O'Groat's and keeps alive the idea of Britishness. I always become a little misty-eyed when I hear a football report on Radio Five Live involving, say, Queen of the South or Brechin City. The outcome of such matches is of no consequence, but the mere mention of these places reminds us that we are British, and that this is still our family.
So I want to love the BBC. I do love the BBC. But I cannot deny that in recent months my ardour has faded a little. The reason is the tendency of some BBC news programmes to portray the Tories as though they are some reviled far-out sect. Of course, it can't be denied that the parlia- mentary party has on occasions acted in a rather odd way — e.g. the row after the party conference over on-the-spot fines for cannabis-possession. Some of the flak is richly deserved. But there is still no justifi- cation for treating the major opposition party as though it were largely made up of cranks and criminals.
Cast your mind back beyond the Christ- mas pud and seasonal family upsets and you may recall the enormous brouhaha occasioned by William Hague's remarks on policing and Damilola Taylor, the ten-year- old Nigerian boy killed in Peckham. One might have thought from the reaction of, say, the Guardian that Mr Hague was on a par with Jean-Marie Le Pen. But the Guardian is an independent newspaper and free to air its views, which are known by readers and non-readers to veer in a certain direction. The BBC is supposed to be even- handed. Of course, if Mr Hague had said something truly disgraceful, I would not have wanted his views to be respected. But I don't believe he did.
What he said about Damilola and polic- ing could certainly be attacked on a politi- cal level. Do we really believe that Damilo- la was less likely to have been killed under the last Tory administration, which presid- ed over a decline in the numbers of the Metropolitan Police? I don't. Where were the police in Liverpool when Jamie Bulger was snatched? Mr Hague was trying to make political capital, but this is what politicians do all the time. Bash him for that, if you wish, but do not treat him as though he were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. One episode of Newsnight began with Kirsty Wark saying, 'A desperate man who has made a terrible mistake,' before adding that this was Labour's view of Mr Hague. `The Conservative party is reeling from the fall-out,' she then informed us.
Everyone will have their own examples of bias against the Tories or right-wing causes in general. There was a good deal of it in the reporting of the Gore–Bush showdown. On Radio Four's Today programme James Naughtie could scarcely contain his grief when Al Gore was forced to throw in the towel. Then there is bias against the Eurosceptics, where Mr Naughtie again dis- tinguishes himself. During a recent edition he was ambushed by Lord Pearson, an enthusiastic Eurosceptic, who accused Today of being Europhile. Naughtie — the prospective biographer of Blair and Brown, and the man who interrupted Mr Hague ten times in a short interview some months ago — got on his high horse. 'The allega- tion that this is a Europhile programme is frankly absurd,' he pompously declared. Lord Pearson later produced figures which suggest that during a two-month period more than twice as many pro-Europeans as sceptics were interviewed on the pro- gramme Are we being paranoid? I don't think so. No doubt there are many examples of anti- government reporting — Alastair Campbell could probably cite dozens — but at the moment the preponderance is in the other direction. It is tempting to believe that Greg Dyke, a former Labour candidate and a generous benefactor of Tony Blair, has created a climate in which anti-Tory bias is tolerated and even encouraged. To appoint as director-general a man with such a polit- ical pedigree was a novel development. A couple of weeks ago Gavyn Davies, a pro- Labour City economist and close friend of Gordon Brown, was made vice-chairman of the BBC. The justification was that the chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, is a Tory appointed by the last administration, and so by convention the vice-chairman should be a Labour man. But Sir Christopher has turned out to be about as much of a Tory as Polly Toynbee. Mr Davies's appointment, coming so soon after Mr Dyke's, suggests that the government is packing the upper echelons of the BBC with its own men. Even the Liberal Democrat spokesman, a chap called Norman Baker, was alarmed. All this is undesirable in a democracy, but it does not really explain the witch-hunt against the Tories. The truth is that most journalists, even on a paper such as the Daily Telegraph, tend to lean to the Left. I would say that lefties often make better reporters than righties because they are more inclined to question the status quo, which is what journalists are supposed to do. Good reporters try to keep their preju- dices under control, and on the whole the BBC's political staff succeed in doing this. Even Andrew Marr, the new political edi- tor, for the most part manages to bottle up his strong Blairite sympathies, though one sometimes feels that he is about to blow up in rage and loathing against the Tories. The main problem is with the presenters Kirsty Wark, Jim Naughtie and, I fear, Jere- my Paxman, who recently looked at Ana Widdecombe as though she were something the cat had brought in. John Humphrys of the Today programme is even-handed, I would say. He may be less of an all-round Rottweiler than he used to be, but he is not noticeably unfair to the Tories.
I suppose most journalists think the Con- servatives are a hopeless bunch who are bound to lose the election. Contempt is added to natural prejudice, and the result is plain to see. But, if nothing else, is there not something rather cowardly about this approach? When the Tories criticised the BBC for bias during the mid-1980s, I was on the BBC's side, because the Tories were so powerful and carried all before them. Now things are exactly reversed. The Tories are weak and New Labour is strong. The Blairites have become the status quo, and the natural inclination of journalists should be to put them on the spot. Partisans will always go their own way, but true democrats in the BBC should proffer a helping hand to the Tories rather than kick them again and again when they are already down.
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