Comment by geremiiah
2 days ago
There seems to be a prevalent notion within UK establishment circles, "we are being attacked from both sides, therefore we must be right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it works. You see used for example to defend the supposed impartiality of the BBC.
The BBC has never been impartial to internal concerns - domestic politics in particular. Leveson Inquiry recommendations not being implemented is the tip of the iceberg in relation to the extent of client-journalism it engages in with regard to the Conservative party.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/bbc-under-sc...
The thing is, the BBC is incredibly partial, depending on which area of the BBC we're talking about.
BBC News on the web vs BBC News the programme, vs BBC worldwide (which is a seperate org inside the BBC), then there's regional BBC and the prime time talk shows (the hard hitting Andrew Neil and co).
So, when someone says "the BBC is biased against the left" or "the BBC is biased agains the right"; ironically they can both be right, and it's not an indicator of impartiality. It depends on which section of the BBC we're talking about.
And you're totally blind to the bits of the BBC you agree with; you will think those bits are the impartial ones.
The BBC is institutionally biased in two major ways:
* Pro the royal family since it is chartered by them.
* Against Scottish independence since it would lose 10% of its funding.
2 replies →
I used the BBC just an example. Starmer seems to have the same attitude. If both Farage and Corbyn, and Polanski and whoever is leading the Conservatives and LibDems are attacking me, then I must be super in the middle i.e. I must be so doing it all super right!
I don't think Starmer really knows what he is doing one way or another. The Island of Strangers speech out flaked Farage to the right.
Dominic Cummings had a bunch of interview appearances online. His experience in office when he was working with Johnson (and many Ministers in general) is that they don't actually understand what they can and can't do in the job. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar situation is present under Starmer.
21 replies →
> client-journalism it engages in with regard to the Conservative party.
BBC Caught Altering Budget Article to Be More Favourable to Labour - https://order-order.com/2024/11/01/bbc-caught-altering-budge...
When Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP that, among other things, attacked Musk for talking about Pakistani rape gangs, was arrested for pedophilia [1], this is the article they published - no photo, no name, no party affiliation, and no followup article - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg45y4r0yngo
BBC omits identity of Nigerian murderer from article about how he killed his wife [2,3], making it entirely about "gendered violence" instead. Readers can't make the incorrect inference if you simply withhold information from them.
BBC omits all criticism of Starmer from their reporting on his meeting with Trump [4].
The famous Trump capitol speech splicing: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/03/bbc-report-revea...
When Farage's private bank account was closed due to his politics, the BBC first simply took the bank's word that this was entirely due to financial considerations. When Farage obtained internal documents of that bank, explicitly saying he met financial criteria for an account, but it was closed despite this due to his politics, the BBC issued a correction article trying to imply his politics were merely "also" considered [5].
BBC uses all-white stock photos to warn about obnoxiously loud phone use on trains [6].
But makes sure to use a racially-diverse cast for the 1066 Battle of Hastings [7].
This is not the only such instance, nor a coincidence, by their own admission: Moffat even talks about the idea he mentions above — the excuse of “historical accuracy” that some people often give to justify an all-white cast — “[W]e’ve kind of got to tell a lie: we’ll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn’t have been, and we won’t dwell on that. We’ll say, ‘To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we’ll summon it forth.’” [8,9]
"Piers Wenger said failing to update the classics with diverse characters would be a dereliction of duty" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/bbc-drama-boss-d...
They cropped a photo to remove a weapon from a protester: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/bbc-cropping-out-weapon-black-...
They instruct white parents to teach their children about white privilege, and to examine their biases if their toddler has only white friends: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/articles/zrgcf82
They had and defended a no-whites-allowed internship (despite BAME-workers already being slightly over-represented at the BBC [10]): https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/19/bbc-criticised-for-banning-wh...
They censor their own shows to be more racially sensitive on re-broadcast - without mentioning it until pressed: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/the-bbc-quietly-censo...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Caplin
[2] https://www.surinenglish.com/malaga/benalmadena-torremolinos...
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyw7g4zxwzo
[4] https://x.com/chrismid/status/1950163250852540547 (contains links to full Trump-Starmer meeting and the BBC articles, on the off chance you don't trust a random tweet)
[5] "On 4 July, the BBC reported Mr Farage no longer met the financial requirements for Coutts, citing a source familiar with the matter. The former UKIP leader later obtained a Coutts report which indicated his political views were also considered." - https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66288464
[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce83p1ej8j7o
[7] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/07/racially-diverse...
[8] https://www.themarysue.com/steven-moffat-on-doctor-who-diver...
[9] https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-on-diversity-in-doctor-...
[10] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-white-pe...
I've no idea what Dr. Who, murder-reporting, period dramas or stock photography choices have to do with the Labour party, but I'll pretend you're arguing in good faith and address what I believe to be the point in your copypasta.
The most empirical and robust study regarding bias was performed by Cardiff University in 2013. Its major finding regarded the dominance of Conservative party political sources in BBC coverage; in coverage of immigration, the EU and religion, they accounted for 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in 2012.
The data also showed that the Conservative Party received significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In 2012, Conservative leader and then Prime Minister David Cameron outnumbered Labour leader Ed Miliband in appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15), and governing Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15).
In reporting of the EU the dominance was even more pronounced with party political sources accounting for 65% of source appearances in 2007 and 79.2% in 2012.
In strand two (reporting of all topics) Conservative politicians were featured more than 50% more often than Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the BBC News at Six
This is evident right up to the 2019 election - BBC Question Time editing out audience laughter at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's fumbling responses, and soft-shoeing his ascendancy by excusing him from the tender mercies of Andrew Neil - unlike his opposition.
https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-...
4 replies →
Your bias is showing…
This is the same BBC that's put Nigel Farage on Question Time more than any other politician
Or frequently gives a platform to the various think tanks of the Tufton St mafia
The problem isn’t the balance, it’s the police state. I don’t want an authoritarian Left government any more than I want an authoritarian Right or Center government.
The problem is most Brits, at least on HN, seem to deny what is happening and/or support it. People being arrested for holding up blank signs at Charles' coronation was ridiculous and nothing like it has happened in the US, but anytime that's brought up they pivot to mass shootings in the US or some other whataboutism.
I was curious about the "blank sign" story because it's slightly different from what I remembered reading. As far as I can tell, this is the incident you're referring to:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/29/the-crowd-we...
1 reply →
I am convinced that a good bit of this is paid astroturfing and another segment is people who work in government or government contracting. Brits generally seem more open to government intrusion, it’s true, but in my experience they don’t go out of their way to defend things like this. It’s more of a passive acceptance.
17 replies →
Because it is massively exaggerated by those with an agenda to distract from the US.
But go on, tell me about how “free speech zones” are meaningfully different to this. You won’t be arrested so long as you stay in your zone down the street and round the corner and out of sight.
The UK has serious problems, but reading Americans catastrophising over this stuff as I have been for a couple of decades now is always incredible. Take the beam from your own eyes. And stop believing lies about the streets of London being a war zone.
9 replies →
> attacked from both sides, therefore we must be right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it works
Exactly. Also because this is easily gamed by attacking the media that is already biased in your favour to get an even more favourable treatment.
I believe US conservatives have done this since 1980s. I'm not sure it was deliberate at first: there's feedback. Loudly invoking "liberal bias" in 1975 most certainly got the press to reevaluate and attempt to mitigate any bias they might have shown. That was a reward for conservatives, which probably motivated more accusations of liberal bias, another round of press accomodations. It reinforced itself.
Indeed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45990786
Indeed – it's why the BBC platform people like Nigel Lawson when ever they have someone to talk about the impact of climate change or the Tufton St mafia
One thing that is often missed in this narrative is that the UK has a voting system which was explicitly designed to counteract this issue reaching definitive results with the minimum amount of consensus.
I agree with you but I think this idea of being "fair" is something that is said but no-one actually believes in. Most recent government is one of the most extreme examples of this: do things that annoys everyone, say you are just being "fair" because everyone is annoyed...it doesn't make sense.
To say this another way, there is genuinely an easier option: stop doing things that people do not want.
The obvious implication is that "balance" between freedom and surveillance just moves things away from freedom.
Of course, on the note of being attacked from "both" sides, there are often more than two sides to a story. Also, not every side has to be, or maybe even should be, considered with equal weight.
The "eating shit" fallacy as I like to call it.
Just because a fascist and a communist agree that eating shit is bad, doesn't mean that eating shit is a good idea.