Bbc

Monday

Steerpike

Did David Cameron take a dig at the BBC’s Robert Peston?

After Mr S’s colleague Camilla Swift revealed how the BBC misquoted David Cameron as saying he loved foxhunting when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show, they were accused by some of showing ‘left-wing bias’. Now a new row is brewing between the Tories and the BBC. Perhaps still angry about the BBC’s behaviour two weeks ago when Marr interrogated Cameron about his ‘favourite’ sport, this morning the Prime Minister appeared to take a dig at the corporation’s economics editor. Speaking at the Conservatives’ small business launch, Cameron told small business owners: ‘You are responsible for turn around. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, the grafters. A really big thank you for what you’ve done. 5,000 businesses wrote in to

Christopher Snowdon

The dodgy science behind the claim that exercise doesn’t help you lose weight

You may have heard the news that the nation’s doctors have had a change of heart about physical activity and no longer believe it to be a sensible way of staying slim. Don’t be too quick to put your feet up. All is not as it seems. The doctors responsible (or, arguably, irresponsible) for this claim are Aseem Malhotra, Tim Noakes, and Stephen Phinney. Malhotra is a Croydon-based cardiologist who rose without trace several years ago, first attacking junk food and then climbing aboard the anti-sugar bandwagon. Now the scientific director of the wacky pressure group Action on Sugar, he explicitly tells people to eat more saturated fat and implicitly

Friday

Steerpike

Has the BBC painted its website red?

Dare Mr S suggest the BBC election website is a little skewed towards the red corner? Miliband’s foreign policy foray leads the hub, yet fails to give much coverage of the fact that his ‘attack’ has been criticised from all sides. Of all the top stories, only one could be construed as vaguely supportive of the Tories, while a call from a minor Welsh nationalist to organise an ‘anti-Tory’ coalition is considered more important by the editors than the launch of the first-ever English manifesto by David Cameron and William Hague. And one does wonder why ‘the abuse case’ peer’s party allegiances are not deemed headline worthy? For the record, he’s Labour…

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

Three cheers

The new controller of Radio Three, Alan Davey, was on Feedback this week (Radio Four) talking to listeners about his plans for the network. Roger Bolton, who presents, wondered if Davey was worried about ratings — Radio Three hovers around two million listeners compared with the 5.5 million boasted by its commercial rival Classic FM, or perhaps more alarmingly the two million lured to BBC upstart 6 Music. ‘Ratings aren’t a pressure for me,’ said an ebullient Davey, while admitting that he does want to find more listeners, and then to ensure they stay tuned. But how? Without going down the Classic FM route of more audience participation, more gimmicks,

James Walton

Target practice

Ever since the days of Tony Hancock, many of the best British sitcoms — from Dad’s Army to Fawlty Towers, Rising Damp to The Royle Family — have featured a middle-aged man convinced that he’s the only sane person left in an increasingly mad world. The frankly subversive twist in W1A (BBC2, Thursday) is that the middle-aged man in question might well be right. As the BBC’s Head of Values, Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) is surrounded by any number of jargon-spouting younger colleagues whose apparent aim is not to let anybody realise how stupid they are — or at least it would be if they realised it themselves. Head of

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 16 days to go

The Tories are partying like it’s 1992. Sir John Major is being wheeled out today to reinforce what Michael Fallon and others have said: the SNP are dangerous for Britain. Labour will continue with its ‘NHS week’ by promising more money and outlining what they will do on entering government. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Major moment While Tony Blair’s standing has gone down since he left office, John Major’s has increased. He is now looked upon fondly by many Conservatives, coming from a time when the party won majorities and didn’t have to worry

Monday

Camilla Swift

Exposed: the BBC’s ‘foxhunting’ smear against David Cameron

The Prime Minister’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday showed that despite claims to the contrary, Cameron isn’t lacking in passion; the PM was full of fight and his normal self-confidence. But there was one question he did falter over. ‘You told the Countryside Alliance magazine recently that your favourite sport was foxhunting’, Marr declared. ‘Is that really true?’. Cameron looked utterly bemused, but Marr was so keen on the question that he repeated it: ‘You said: “It’s my favourite sport which I love.” Is that true?’ Perhaps unsurprisingly, a Twitter-storm erupted at the news that Cameron had apparently ‘admitted’ to his favourite sport being foxhunting. But where on earth did

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

The BBC debate confirmed some unhelpful female stereotypes

If I were a nicer person, I suppose I’d have been rather more moved by what the Independent called the moment that summed up last night’s leaders debate, the ‘beautiful group hug’ by the three women leaders at the end while Ed Miliband looked on.  Rather, it summed up for me what I felt about the entire event, that it was a slightly embarrassing affair for women whose approach to politics is anything other than the sort of thing espoused by Greece’s radical left-wing party Syriza. If you take seriously the notion that the deficit is something to be addressed rather than put on hold, that the national debt is something to be talked

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Farage, the debate audience wasn’t left-wing but it was affected by groupthink

The BBC opposition leaders’ debate wasn’t great political theatre, but it did turn into a fascinating experiment in human behaviour. A third of the way through, Nigel Farage suddenly imploded, attacking the BBC for putting together a left-wing audience – which he then went onto to insult and dismiss as an irrelevance, the real audience being at home. On this occasion, Farage was almost certainly wrong about BBC bias. I am sure that David Dimbleby was telling the truth when he said that the audience had been put together by a polling company to reflect the balance of voting intentions. And yet Farage was right to detect that the audience,

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Listen: The Spectator’s verdict on the opposition leaders’ TV debate

Ed Miliband managed to surpass expectations in tonight’s opposition leaders’ debate. In this View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the final televised debate with the party leaders — minus David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Did Nigel Farage target  his core base once again? How successfully did Nicola Sturgeon deal with Ed Miliband’s attacks? And did Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood manage to have their voices heard? You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s gamble paid off but the Scottish question still haunts him

Ed Miliband took a risk by turning up to this debate and until the last question it looked like it had definitely paid off. Miliband avoided conceding too much to the anti-austerity alliance to his left of Nicola Sturgeon, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood and parried Nigel Farage’s attacks on Labour pretty effectively. On Trident, he sounded statesmanlike as he explained why in an uncertain world, Britain needed to renew its nuclear deterrent. All the while, he got in regular attacks on David Cameron both for his record in government and not being at the debate. But the last question was about hung parliaments and it is this which caused

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 21 days to go

Now that all the manifestos are in the public domain, we are back onto more conventional campaign territory. The big event of today is at 8pm this evening, when the ‘opposition leaders’ will debate each other on the BBC in the final televised debate before polling day. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Here come the insurgents Tonight’s TV debate represents an opportunity for the smaller political parties to give Ed Miliband a good kicking. Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood will all relish the chance to turn on Miliband — the

Kate Chisholm

I, Bette Davis

It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by not one but two men: George Coulouris, with whom she co-starred in Hollywood, and a BBC producer. ‘It’s a little sad for some of us who adore your work that a lot of your best performances have been in fairly trivial films,’ said the producer, Peter Duval-Smith, as if to tempt Davis into dishing the dirt on the directors who made her what she became. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Davis replied, not a woman to be tricked into anything. ‘Who do you think made you a star?’

Tuesday

Steerpike

Jeremy Clarkson causes more problems for the BBC

The BBC appeared to have put an end to their Jeremy Clarkson woes when they made the decision not to renew his contract following a ‘fracas’ between the Top Gear presenter and a show producer. Despite this, the Clarkson saga continues to cast a shadow on the corporation. The presenter’s untimely departure has meant that the producers of the BBC mockumentary W1A have had to re-edit a series plotline. Hugh Bonneville, who plays the BBC’s head of values in the series which airs next week, admits that they had to ‘tweak the voice-over’ to keep up with events. A plotline written before the incident saw Clarkson get the BBC in trouble by writing an

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

Keeping the faith | 9 April 2015

There was no shortage of Easter music and talks across the BBC networks with a sunrise service on Radio 4 followed by much fuss and fanfare for the ‘live’ relay of Libby Lane’s first Easter sermon as Bishop. A significant milestone for the C of E as women are at last allowed to don mitres and wield a bishop’s crozier. Three, not to be outdone, invited the Revd Lucy Winkett (who had to outride the brouhaha caused by her appointment as the first woman priest at St Paul’s Cathedral) on to Private Passions, where she proved herself an insightful musician and theologian. Her impassioned explanation of the Easter message, the

James Walton

Comics’ trip

Who says British television lacks imagination? You might have thought, for example, that every possible combination of comedian and travel programme had been exhausted long ago. After all, it’s now 26 years since Michael Palin set the trend by following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps (sort of). In more recent times, we’ve had Stephen Fry going round America in a London taxi, Billy Connolly going round Australia on a Harley-Davidson trike and — perhaps drawing the short straw — Ade Edmondson going round Britain in a caravan. There’s also been Paul Merton in India, Sue Perkins in China, Sean Lock and Jon Richardson in the Deep South and… well, you get

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

Trans activists are effectively experimenting on children. Could there be anything more cruel?

Can you think of anything more cruel than telling a five-year-old boy who likes Lady Gaga that he might have gender dysphoria? Or telling a nine-year-old tomboy who hates Barbie and loves Beckham that she might really be male – in spirit – and therefore she should think about putting off puberty and possibly transitioning to her ‘correct gender’? Saying such things to kids who are only doing what kids have done for generations – messing about, discovering their identity – turns playfulness into a pathology. It convinces boys who aren’t boyish and girls who aren’t girly that they must have some great gender problem, a profound inner turmoil that

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Ed Balls running scared from debating George Osborne?

When Ed Balls appeared alongside George Osborne on the Andrew Marr Show earlier this year, the Shadow Chancellor told viewers how much he wanted to have a TV debate with the Chancellor. Balls was so keen that he made Osborne shake on a debate live on air. ‘In fact I’d like to go further,’ he cried. ‘George and I do not need the broadcasters to sort things out. George is not a coward.’ Indeed Osborne is not a coward, but could it be that Balls is a chicken? Mr S only asks as word reaches him that plans for a Chancellors’ debate this week have been shelved after Balls demanded

Tuesday

Steerpike

Journalists jeered for asking Tony Blair questions at Labour press conference

Labour have continued their bizarre war on the media with aplomb. As Mr S has reported in the past, pesky journalists that have the audacity to ask awkward questions are given the full hairdryer treatment from the audience at Labour’s set piece events. Today’s speech by Tony Blair was no different: This Tony Blair event very nostalgic. A member of the audience even called me “Tory scum” for asking a question. — James Landale (@BBCJLandale) April 7, 2015 Modern trait of crowd booing journalists who ask the most relevant questions. Expect more of it to come. #Blair — Chris Gibson (@ChrisGibsonNews) April 7, 2015 All stirred up by the party’s