The Today Programme

I listened to the Today programme this morning and yet again found it in breach of its charter. The BBC is supposed to be impartial but odd isn't it that they interviewed in friendly fashion two europhiles, namely the idiotic editor of the Financial Times and the delusional Lord Heseltine. Heseltine made a reference to Churchill encouraging a United States of Europe to be set up but failed to mention that in his 1946 speech on the United States of Europe Churchill was not advocating UK membership. Heseltine implied that Churchill had done so though. It is quite clear from the speech that Churchill had done no such thing and saw our role as a sponsor of the United States of Europe alongside the Commonwealth, the United States of America and, he hoped, the Soviet Union. See the speech here. The BBC failed to point this out. The BBC then interviewed Osborne which as usual when it comes to a Tory was undertaken with maximum prejudice. At one point Osborne was put off his stride although he recovered later. Try complaining to the BBC about their systemic bias and all you get after  a week or two is some supercilious, dismissive reply. The attitude is appalling and it is impossible to understand why the government doesn't cut the institution down to size. Readers of this blog will know that I think the BBC should be abolished or that at least it should be split up so that part can continue as it is and the other part can be populated by those with a different political bias so that impartiality can be achieved that way. Antony Jay has written about cutting down the BBC in his foreword to Christopher Booker's report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation which foreword you can read in full in James Delingpole's Telegraph blog here.