Left wingers assume that the left wing worldview is the default and objectively correct way to view the world, and that anyone who disagrees is a bad person. This is what they mean when they claim reality has a liberal bias.
John Simpson shows all that is wrong with the BBC
“Politically motivated.” Those are the two words that threaten to accompany the BBC into the gloom. They have been used with great indignation by its top journalists, who appear to see the fabrication of footage, pro-jihadi bias and trans fanaticism as trifling concerns set against the corporation’s overall mission of Making Britain Progressive Again.
Last night, John Simpson, the broadcaster’s World Affairs Editor, posted on X, “the BBC is facing a coordinated, politically motivated attack”, linking through to an article in – you guessed it – The Guardian. Did he never stop to consider whether, given the atmosphere, that was a good look?
Section 2.4.12 of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines reads: “Presenters, reporters, correspondents and on-air editors are the public face and voice of the BBC; they can have a significant impact on perceptions of whether due impartiality has been achieved. Audiences should not be able to tell from BBC output – or anywhere else – the personal opinions of its journalists or presenters in news and current affairs or factual journalism on matters of current public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.”
The fact that Simpson’s post appeared to be in clear contravention of that commitment was in itself a showcase of how far the BBC has slipped from its original brief. And as Daniel Hannan argued in his Sunday Telegraph column this week, impartiality is the whole point of the BBC. Take it away and the logic of the licence fee evaporates.
Unspun World, the programme Simpson presents, is described by the corporation as “an honest, unvarnished review of the week’s global news stories,” in which “BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson and experts from across the world ditch the spin and get to the news.” Will anybody (aside from Guardian readers) watch it now?
As for its content, Simpson’s post summed up the BBC on several levels. Firstly, that its most senior journalists are simply unable to see the world as ordinary people see it. Politically motivated attack? Mate, the BBC literally edited footage and changed the meaning of the President’s words. This was no innocent error; as Janet Daley put it, this was “a professionally crafted editing job which has to have been designed to produce a calculated effect for a political purpose”. Your bleating is only making it worse.
Secondly, that the BBC considers a Left-of-centre worldview to be the definition of objectivity. The Guardian is its ideological ally because both assume they are the privileged holders of sanity, grown-up thinking and the truth, which must be defended against the fascist hordes. When the chips are down, the BBC won’t even bother to hide it.
Thirdly, that any criticism of the broadcaster represents a bad-faith attempt to destroy a great socialist project that aims to redistribute the news to each according to his needs. Here lies the kicker: in pushing such a conspiratorial Leftist worldview, the doughty journalists of the BBC have apparently dispensed with the need for evidence.
On the one hand, there is ample proof that the broadcaster has succumbed to systemic, progressive bias and has placed ideological warfare above the pursuit of fact.
So much evidence, in fact, that I need not rehearse it here: The Telegraph has placed in the public domain the internal dossier that lays bare the scale of the catastrophe.
On the other hand, what proof exists for the counter-argument, that the BBC is the victim of a “politically motivated” campaign of destruction?
The column shared by Simpson was written by institutional Guardianista Jane Martinson and laboured under the headline: “The BBC is facing a coordinated, politically motivated attack. With these resignations, it has given in”. So there’s no mistaking where the World Affairs Editor’s heart lies, then.
Martinson’s piece hinges on one extremely telling paragraph: “Leave to one side for now the direct allegations about specific failures of BBC coverage, and the BBC’s own baffling inability or unwillingness to defend itself over the past week. But the row obscures the context that explains what is, at the heart of the matter, a political campaign against the BBC that could act as a textbook example of how to confuse and undermine the kind of journalism that is, at the very least, aiming for impartiality in a sea of spin and distortion.”
Read that again. “Leave to one side for now the direct allegations about specific failures of BBC coverage.” Leave it to one side? But those allegations are literally the whole point.
It’s a bit like saying, “leave aside October 7, the hostages, continued threats from Hamas and Israel’s extensive attempts to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid, Israel’s campaign in Gaza was a genocide.” Hang on, that’s exactly the message we’ve been getting from the BBC, the UN and the rest.
The remainder of the column is built on two substantial points. Firstly, Martinson mentions how Prescott criticised the BBC for producing a major documentary on Donald Trump in the run-up to the presidential election, which was profoundly critical, but offered no such programme on his opponent, Kamala Harris.
This concern is dismissed by Martinson thus: “As someone who has spent years dealing with the issue of impartiality told me, this is an entirely wrongheaded and now discredited view of impartiality, the sort of view that led to airtime being given to climate denial.” Then she airily moves on, as if an assertion by “someone who has spent years dealing with the issue of impartiality” is enough to win the argument. Who needs evidence, eh?
Secondly, Martinson zeroes in on a section of the Prescott dossier in which he cited a 2022 report by a group called History Reclaimed. Martinson writes: “While some of its members are senior Oxbridge academics, History Reclaimed’s website makes clear that the group was formed to counter ‘culture war’ narratives in the media that suggest British history is shameful.”
She adds: “In its own review at the time, the BBC concluded that History Reclaimed ‘cherry picking a handful of examples or highlighting genuine mistakes in thousands of hours of output on TV and radio does not constitute analysis and is not a true representation of BBC content’.”
Yet in his dossier, Prescott has pre-emptively refuted the BBC’s standard “cherry picking” defence by emphasising his reliance on internal reports by David Grossman, Senior Editorial Adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board. Those form the brunt of his dossier. By comparison, his citation of History Reclaimed is negligible.
Prescott writes: “One of the defences often deployed by the BBC when criticised by external organisations is to claim the evidence presented is mere ‘cherry picking’. This is why David’s reports were so very important: they came from within the BBC and were produced by a very experienced and talented BBC journalist. Yet his findings were still, on the whole, dismissed or ignored, even after EGSC members tried to press home the case for full-blooded action.”
In terms of substance, that’s it. Seriously. Otherwise, Martinson indulges in the kind of dangerous mud-slinging that The Guardian loves to condemn in the Daily Mail. The BBC has to “deal with enemies from within”, she writes, evoking shades of the Mail’s notorious “enemies of the people” headline, which did not go down well at Guardian Towers. “Each criticism of BBC coverage comes from the anti-progressive culture-war playbook,” her rant continues.
So that’s the strength of the BBC’s defence: duck the substance and descend into spittle-flecked diatribes which claim to attack the “culture wars” while playing a leading role in them. They are so deeply in the woods that they think the woods are all there is. Well, now the woodsman’s coming.
