The Guardian commissioned an independent poll from ICM which found that Britons not only love the BBC, they think it is value for money and can, despite all the BBC fakery scandals, be trusted. Hell, the pollsters even found that the majority of the country thinks the BBC should keep secret what it pays Paxman and Wossie! Trebles all (secretly) round…

Those of you of a more sceptical hue might note that ICM is by coincidence also the BBC’s pollster.  The BBC’s other polling partner is, errm, the Guardian…

Even if James Murdoch is talking his own book it is manifestly true, as he says, that “the expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision, which are so important for our democracy. Dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the internet. Yet it is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.”

The BBC destroys the ability of competitors to make a profit. We would have a more vibrant culture if the BBC wasn’t destroying the hopes of start-ups unable to compete with a rival that has almost unlimited funds and no need to make a profit. The BBC simply should not be in a whole range of areas, why did it need to nationalise the successful Lonely Planet publisher? Why is it competing to crush the Virgin and Capital radio stations?

The Tories don’t really have a plan to deal with the cultural monolith that is the BBC.  A permanent freeze on the licence fee would be a start.

Guido was on the Today programme this morning talking about the formerly anonymous blogger suing Google for revealing her identity (under Court order). Just before we went live Evan Davies started Googling to see what had been written about him on this blog (“ego searching” is the term), Evan found a few references to body piercing.  Guido offered him, since he was there, a chance to quell the rumour.

He appeared not to hear, but he did smile…

Ring Ring Ring

BBC Hi I’m calling from the BBC
GF I’m on the beach..
BBC It is about Damian Mc..
GF in France
BBC Would you be…
GF No.
BBC OK
GF Au revoir

The BBC is viewed by many right-wingers as the broadcasting arm of the Guardianistas.  The Beeboids argue that this is unfair, and that the BBC is an unbiased, objective, public service broadcaster.  The BBC and the Guardian jointly sponsored an ICM survey into public opinion about the Iraq war.  Guido can’t recall a time when the BBC has got into bed with a newspaper like this – imagine the uproar if the BBC had co-sponsored a poll about immigration with the Daily Mail.    Birds of a feather flock together?

So in search of the truth and information as to what is really going on the British public turns to the state broadcaster, the venerable BBC, the broadcaster the people are involuntarily forced to fund.  Who, we want to know, is behind the attempt to oust the Prime Minister by email?

John Humphrys : …who’s behind it? Our political editor Nick Robinson, do we know Nick?

Nick Robinson : We do know, I am not entirely sure I am going to tell you on the Today programme…

(Listen online here.)  You pay taxes so Nick Robinson can report on politics.  Sky News says Charles Clarke is behind it, no taxpayers were harmed in bringing you that information.  Incidentally, Clarke was seen chatting to Hazel Blears at Andrew Neil’s sixtieth birthday party on Sunday…

Guido watched Have I Got New for You last night.  Gay Tory MP Alan Duncan was the fall guy,  it soon became clear he is no Boris. Watch it on iPlayer and cringe.

From the beginning when he pulled a bath plug out of his pocket to the moment when he threatened to murder Miss California he was trying too hard to be outrageously funny.  The camp jokes didn’t really work.  Guido recently declined an invitation to go on the Irish equivalent of HIGNFY.  Guido, like Alan Duncan, is well able to make an idiot of himself without the help of comedians.

UPDATE : Courtesy of Swiss Bob :

Guido was at the Index on Censorship Awards ceremony last night, deep in the bowels of the Guardian’s new fancy offices. The purpose built modern building will make a great museum when the paper eventually goes bust.

The event was packed to the gills with media luvvies and Islington’s finest. David Hare gave a splendidly acerbic speech. Chairman Johnathan Dimbleby raged against the “censorship” of the BBC’s Middle East reporter Jeremy Bowen, who was mildly criticised for his blatant anti-Israeli bias by the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee. Guido thought it a gentle rebuke to Bowen given how biased his broadcasts from the supposedly impartial state broadcaster seem. Hardly makes him a dissident, does it? He has been given no punishment, no demotion, nothing. Wonder if he had been criticised for anti-Palestinian bias would the room have been so concerned?

Stereotypically the auction fundraiser saw a week in a Tuscan villa get the top bid from the assembled Hampstead liberals and Guardianistas. No, it really did. Guido was very pleased to win the auction for a copy of the Charter 77 human rights manifesto signed by Václav Havel himself. The dissident playwright was imprisoned multiple times during the Soviet era by an authoritarian socialist Czech regime, his plays were banned and he was reduced to working in a brewery. After the Velvet Revolution he ended up being President of the freed Czech Republic. It went for a tenth of the price of that week in Tuscany. Guardianistas really do have different values…

Just for the record, since the Guardian is trying to make something of it. Guido is satisfied that  BBC Radio 5′s Nicky Campbell meant nothing malicious and it was a bit of early morning banter that went a bit too far. Campbell apologised on air there and then and later in person.  His apology is accepted.

It is indicative of the BBC mindset that it is often the case that Guido is pigeon-holed by way of  introduction, in contrast when say Will Hutton is on the BBC, he is not introduced as “the left-wing commentator”.  This is not the first time this has happened.  When Michael Crick referred to Guido as “the right-wing blogger” the immediate retort was to refer to “Michael Crick, the left-wing broadcaster”.  See how you like them apples…

Guido is on the BBC’s Daily Politics later today.  Originally the idea was that Guido would record a short video about Draper and Labour’s approach to blogging.  Guido’s view is essentially that LabourList is failing because it is just a spin and propaganda site, not a genuine independent initiative discussing openly the future direction of the Labour Party.  It is a top-down tool of Labour’s spin machine.

The second charge is that Draper is the wrong person to run a blog.  Good blogs succeed because they have good content and an authentic voice.  Draper is a shyster who is the embodiment of  New Labour’s spin and sleaze.  His supposed personal rebirth as a morally reformed psychotherapist is just spin.  He hasn’t changed one little bit.  He still spins his credentials just like he did in the past.

Guido went to California last week to get to the bottom of the story, what Guido discovered was shocking.  Guido has already revealed that Draper didn’t go to the prestigious Berkeley campus of the University of California, instead he went to a small institute, based in a house in the suburbs of Berkeley.

What Guido found out in Berkeley was even more surprising.  Guido has established as fact from reliable sources that in March 2004 Derek Draper was asked to leave the third year of a Clinical Psychology (PsyD) programme normally lasting 5 years.  Further that in April 2004 it was determined that he would not receive an M.A. from the Wright Institute.  So how does Derek come to have an M.A.?  Why was he expelled? Did he win an appeal?  Is it all the same old Derek with the same old spin?

The BBC say that this is off topic and they didn’t want to run a video from Guido on this subject.  Guido thinks it gets to the core of Draper’s character.  He spins the truth and you just can’t get away with that inauthenticity online.  Draper just isn’t the real deal.

Apologies for the sound quality – this is a rough excerpt from the video that Guido wanted to show on the Daily Politics:

[Updated video]