BBC balance

James Harding (Director [sic] of news) defends the BBC coverage of the referendum in the Observer today in an article revealingly subtitled '...don't blame us for Brexit'.That indicates the intended audience pretty clearly.

The general public liked the BBC coverage, Harding claims but notes some complaints from Brexiteers -- rather mild complaints it appears:

On the one hand, some Leavers have said the BBC reported impartially and accurately through the course of the campaign, but, since the vote of 23 June, we have returned to what they say are our true EU-luvvie colours and our reporting of the prospects for Brexit Britain has been gloomy or hysterical.

So no Brexiteers complained during the coverage? I know I did. Or some did but they are not to be mentioned? Harding says the BBC will report the debates in future with impartiality:

In the months ahead, our job is to understand what Brexit actually means – without relish or alarm.

 This is the attempt to pose as impartial after the event, as in Newsnight's coverage noted earlier. As for the recent past:

...inasmuch as the EU referendum was about the economy, it was about forecasts more than facts. It was not a contest of hard truths but an argument over whose predictions of the future you preferred. The BBC was abundantly clear that the overwhelming weight of expert economic opinion advised people to vote Remain. But the BBC, at all times, should be open to those who may challenge a consensus – not all such opinions stand the test of time. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, that does not mean any crank heretic can come along and think they can take a pop at a point of historical, scientific or social fact.)...

No one who watched the BBC during the campaign could have been left in any doubt that President Obama, the governor of the Bank of England, the IMF, OECD, IFS, CBI, prime minister, chancellor and, yes, both David Beckham and Jeremy Clarkson believed Britain should remain in the EU.

The bulk of the piece then focuses on Remainers's complaints. Here it is the issue of 'false balance' that is addressed -- the way opinions are given air time if they are false or wacky (as in climate denial -- an episode from which the Beeb learned about false balance says Harding). Harding is able to cite 5 examples of aggressive 'forensic' interviewing of Brexiteers in defence. One includes 

Kamal Ahmed on the 6pm and 10pm bulletins saying: “The economic consensus is on one side of this debate.” I could go on and on.

There are no examples of forensic interviewing of Remainers. The BBC was not open to those who may challenge the particular consensus that Ahmed announced. But then Harding only said it 'should' be open, not that it was.

The piece ends with the usual stuff that the BBC is not saying it is perfect and it will try harder in future. Having chucked its hat in the ring,no doubt speaking 'for the nation',  and got egg on its face (mixing metpahors), it now wishes to pose as detached expert again.

to report, to host the argument and to interrogate the participants. We aim to inform our audiences, not seek the approval of politicians or pundits.

There is no need to seek explicit approval, of course, if you share the same ideology.

Remainers go for objectivity

Both the BBC (Newsnight) and el Gruadiano covered the latest news on the economic front showing that there has been no disaster so far. Even the OECD says so. How to cover our remainer backs?

Let's get objective. Evan Davies, none other, began his Newsnight coverage by saying both sides had been guilty of exaggeration (none more than him, but that was in the past and he hopes we have fogotten). He interrogated some experts (two remainers to one leaver), and asked a leaver to restore his confidence. This was after the leaver had said that the devaluation of the pound by about 10% was not particularly disastrous and was a response to longer term problems anyway.

The other remainer was able to suggest that relative economic stability would still be dangerous if it encouraged the British Government to get stroppy with the EU and demand a hard Brexit. Presumably, this would be worse that economic instability which would have us whimpering for a good deal and the EU getting stroppy?

Finally Evan was able to divert the issue from his own earlier hysteria by saying that we still have not left the EU so the long term is still in doubt, and secondly, that economic predictions were notoriously unreliable. His remainer ally said that was because governments, and/or the Bank of England had taken action to forestall any immediate crisis -- fancy that!

They did manage to agree that lingering uncertainty was the  harmful residue of Brexit. We can't have buccaneering, risk taking entrepreneurs put off by uncertainty can we? Nor did recession and the Great Crash provide any harmful uncertainity, it seems. Why, if it were not for Brexit, all would be set for an entirely smooth transition to broad sunlit uplands with affluence for all.

None of these reservations had been aired by the BBC before, of course. We were assured doom was imminent and that all reputable economists had said so.Nor can the relative failure of these gloomy forecasts (so far) be explained by anything other than unfortunate imprecisions in the very science of Economics. 

No one said ideology, even the BBC's version of it -- bias. The English ruling class when confronted with failure has always opted for incompetence rather than blundering ideology.

Not so much in denial as in Fairyland

A truly splendid piece in the Grunaid today by one Hugo Dixon ,already a lobbyist for Remain, on why Britain might be able to stay in the EU after all. Apart from the usual bleats about how we woz all lied to, he offers several possibilities:

(1) Lots of Leave voters will change thir mind now that May has ruled out a points system for immigration
(2) More people will be attracted by Gordon Brown's view [such a popular figure!] that we could lead Europe into making fundamental reforms that would address economic slowdown and reveal that it was the UK Government that produced all the problems [including Brown's?]. Dixon's new campaign group will offer hope that the whole system can be reformed -- not just Europe but the world!
(3) Those in charge of negotiating Brexit will make a total hash of it and May will disown the whole thing
(4) Labour will elect a pro-EU leader OR will split and the righteous will join with pro-EU Tories in a new pro-EU party to demand a new referendum
(5) The legal challenge to the referendum will succeed
(6) The EU will reform its own policy of free movement of labour, especially after the unpopularity of the immigration policy [for people outside the EU, of course -- Dixon hopes the two cases will be confused by populist politicians]
(7) Changing public opinion --see (1) -- will force May into a U-turn

All these are admitted to be slender possibilities with only a 25% chance of succeeding:

But no Brexit is a good Brexit except, just maybe, the pure fantasy one promised by the leave camp [hilarious pot calling kettle black] . Some things are worth fighting for even when the odds are long. This is one of them.

This is actually one of those symbolic political gestures so Dixon can claim some moral high ground, like voting to oppose evil.Why did the Graun print this stuff? The first few comments are largely hostile, I am glad to say, despite a few agreements.

Postures and pledges

It seems  the Japanese Government has issued a memo warning that they will pull out of the UK if certain basic requirements are not met on comptability with EU regulations. This was dressed up in the usual shock horror style in the article in he paper version,but is more moderate on the website --saying that Nissan is unlikely to disinvest (apparently because it is 43% owned by Renault and VW -- who knew?).

Obama has also said that the UK will have to wait for a trade deal with the US because TTIP with the EU will take precedence. If Brexit means we will not be in TTIP than that alone will be worth it. I think the US will also have to wait a long time before the EU countries accept it too

Meanwhile the other story is that May has not yet committed to a points system for immigration nor to spending the £350/100m on the NHS. At least the lower (net) figure is given now as an estimate by Leave, but these are still 'promises', 'pledges' and of course 'lies' , and Brexiteers were naive to believe them.

But could believers not work out that for them to be implemented, the Leave Party would have to gain power first, somehow? Was there going to be a new General Election? Would Leave dominate the Tory Party and all the Remainers resign their seats? The only people who thought that would happen were those in Project Fear who asked us would we want to be ruled by Johnson and Farage (the latter somehow without even being an MP)?

The issues are at least a bit clearer. If there is still excessive exploitation of short term immigrant workers, and a failing NHS, the UK Government is clearly to blame and will not be able to hide behind 'Europe'.

BBC balance and banality

Some Remainers are still cross, some even in denial. Keegan in the Guardian is still in denial, still insisting the referendum was only 'advisory', that accepting the result would be 'craven' and a disregard of the sovereignty of Parliament (surely the oddest argument of all from an EU admirer). He feels bad personally as people he meets on holiday in Europe laugh at him --maybe he needs to meet more people because even the BBC now manages to meet a few Brexit supporters. He is predicting long-term crisis despite the recent optimism about the UK economy

Catherine Bennett in the Observer is still hurt too. She still thinks it was all based on the £350 m per week 'lie' and Gove's  appalling rejection of expert economic advice -- even from Nobel laureates she points out.

This time she crystallises another theme that has been bubbling under -- the BBC's responsibility for not exposing these lies. 'Balance' is not enough, she says, if a lie is allowed to balance a truth. One example is when creationism is given equal time with evolutionary theory.

There are obvious problems here:(1) Bennett sees the case for Brexit as a lie, deserving no exposure or ruthless critique --but not the case for Remain. Luvvies will determine what is a lie? (2) Balance,what balance? Brexiteers were routinely slagged off and yelled at on the BBC, especially if they were not professional politicians (3) Experts to be allowed full rein,especially if they have prestigious prizes?

Nevertheless,there is a grain of sense in what Bennett says.The BBC has played its part in dumbing down debates and patronising the audience, 'enabling an often asinine level of argument', as she puts it. The experts that appear tend to be asked to speak in soundbites, to adopt different positions so as to have a lively debate,and to turn into arm-waving enthusiasts. Some people are introduced as experts even though their credentials are dubious -- Bennett mentions Steve Hilton who suddenly appeared as a Brexiteer.

Interviewers are allowed to be populists, to take sides and to demand simplification. If they are specialists in anything these days, they are not expected to reveal this. They often ask experts to comment on things outside their expertise too --notoriously what other people might be thinking. They freely summarize and simplify for us thickos.

As a result we get 'balance' between two artificially contrasted sides, not allowed to explain anything without rapid interruption,expected to 'communicate' in the apprpriate BBC manner,and likely to have their 'debate' preceeded and followed by some trivial item about a new rap star, a chatty interview with a novelist or a review of an exhibition available only to Londoners