The BBC’s ‘on the ground’ piece for the Christmas junior doctors’ strike is based almost entirely on uncritical quotes from two BMA officials who are not named as such. This is the award-winning journalism you pay for on pain of prosecution…
Yesterday’s article in the South of England section was titled “I am sleep-deprived, overworked and deserve more” and carried quotes from three people, one of whom was the chief executive of the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust in Reading. The only two junior doctors consulted were called Heather Gunn and Matt Bilton. Gunn said “I do not want to be strike, I want to be at work helping my colleagues. Unfortunately the reality is that many doctors like myself face the prospect of not having a job”…
Bilton said “The government… put an offer this past week but it was too little, too late, and so unfortunately we have no alternative.” Nice line that, wonder who came up with it…
Nowhere in the piece does the BBC care to mention that Gunn is deputy chairman of the BMA’s South Central Regional Council and Matt Bilton is longtime Chairman of the BMA’s Thames Valley Regional Resident Doctors Committee. Pop that piece in the bin would you darling…
Downing Street has been busy promoting a swish video of Starmer’s speech yesterday at the Jaguar Land Rover plant, including praise-filled testimonial from someone dressed like a local staff member:
“He could have done an announcement from London, in front of the television cameras, he chose to come to Solihull… He’s taking manufacturing seriously, I’m glad he’s come here today, I’m glad they’ve reacted quickly, and I’m really pleased to hear that they’re going to support manufacturing and the car industry. He’s going to have everyone’s back who’s employed in manufacturing in the UK.”
Imagine Guido’s shock on discovering that the anonymous layman is in fact Labour councillor Steve Evans, serving the party in his elected post since 2006 and currently Deputy Leader of the Wolverhampton Labour Group. No time to add that detail to the heavily-edited video?
A classic case of communications skullduggery. Can Downing Street find one actual member of the public who is a fan of Starmer?
UPDATE: Downing Street has deleted the offending video from Facebook, Instagram, and X.
Yesterday’s episode of Countryfile featured a segment on Labour’s farm tax. Steve Reed got to make his case…
Within minutes the programme introduced “tax expert” Arun Advani to discuss claims from “farming groups” that thousands of farms will be dragged into IHT payment. Advani peddled his own figures which effectively ignore one half of the Farm Tax’s relief removals…
Co-conspirators will remember Advani is director of radical-left think tank CenTax – which consistently pushes for broad and extensive tax hikes. The BBC programme failed to specify that Advani’s numerous reports pushing for the Farm Tax have formed the basis of Reeves’ policy – something admitted by the Treasury. The Countryfile producers also didn’t think it was worth specifying that Advani has pushed for the state expropriation of farmland that is sold as a result of APR’s removal…
The programme made no allusion either to the fact that Advani says Labour is “genuinely listening” to him, all while Treasury minister James Murray spoke at CenTax’s launch and said he seeks “to make sure that collaboration between CenTax, Treasury and HMRC continues for many years into the future.” Advani is writing Treasury policy…
As Guido has long documented, left-wing wonks political positions are rarely contextualised by the BBC on screen and in print. Imagine the uproar from the left if someone from the Institute of Economic Affairs got interviewed without it being mentioned that they were pro-free market…
Kemi Badenoch at the 1922-ConHome bash last night:
“I did praise [Burnham] for his stamina, it was amazing. All I had to do was sit back and lie there. I didn’t have to do anything at all…”