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On Boris and the myth of the BBC’s lefty bias

May 25, 2012 9:57 am

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A couple of weeks ago I noted that Boris Johnson loathes BBC News, despite previously having said that he doesn’t watch it much. Johnson said:

“the prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the Left.”

Today Boris Johnson has hired a BBC journalist as his chief spinner, replacing former BBC Chief Political Correspondent Guto Harri.

That follows David Cameron hiring Andy Coulson’s successor from the Beeb too.

Oh – and the political editor of the BBC is a former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and one-year National Chairman of the Young Conservatives.

They all did jolly well to succeed in an organisation “overwhelmingly biased to the Left” didn’t they?

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  1. Boris Johnson says the BBC is biased – but previously admitted he rarely watches it
  2. Boris Johnson – St Patrick’s Day is ‘lefty crap’
  3. That’s where Boris is!
  4. That famous Boris Johnson temper
  5. Boris – Part-time Mayor?
  • Malkomm

    Missed out Walden’s predecessor Guto Harri and that infamous left-wing rag the Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan

  • http://twitter.com/woodstockjag Graeme Cowie

    Uh fail. They’re the honourable exceptions.

  • KonradBaxter

    The left think that the BBC is biased against them.

    The right think the BBC is biased against them.

    They are both right depending on the time, the story and the government.

    Spinners are very, very flexible when it comes to their personal politics and i wouldn’t set a yardstick by that.

    Having a member of staff who was in a political association at university (20 years ago?) isn’t exactly a blistering response to Boris’ claims.

  • Jeremy_Preece

    If you look at many of the newspapers which look like they could have been written by Tory Party Central Office, then the BBC appears to be “left”.

    For me the real issue is how biased the media is as a whole against Labour. Would the press have allowed any one of the recent string of coalition failures go if they had been made by a Labour government. Yet however many papers favour the Tories just one criticism of the Tories however just and obvious, and the Tories whine on about fairness.

    • Lefties is besties

      Jeremy, did your mother have a strong influence on your life?

  • Lefties R Besties

    That’s right knob, he would hate the BBC baecause of the left wing biased……..

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