BBC bias is ‘the eyes of the beholder’ – Yorkshire Post Letters

SIR John Redwood gave a very misleading account of a programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (Why the BBC needs 
to find a programme for 
change, The Yorkshire Post, September 4).

His opinion piece did prompt me to listen to it. It was typical BBC R4 – informative, interesting and the participants gave an honest assessment of where UK-EU talks currently stand.

Sir John’s complaint seems to be that the BBC should instead have aired a propaganda piece for his and other right wingers’ extreme anti-Europe views – presumably much like what he successfully got published in The Yorkshire Post.

Such “bias” is in the eye of the beholder. If that programme is the best example of so-called-bias that BBC critics can come up with then it clearly does not exist.

The rest of the article was full of claims I believe also to be nonsense – but so vague and devoid of context they are impossible to check.

This phrase was typical and meaningless: “Many of their (BBC) storylines come from The Guardian and from Labour and Lib Dem research.”

And many more probably come from the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Sun. Or the Financial Times and The Yorkshire Post. And from on and off-the-record briefings and leaks from Conservative party and government spokespeople.

You have proven nothing there, Sir John. Apart from possibly your own narrow-minded inability to recognise the BBC’s strengths and a dogmatic hatred for something a true patriot should be proud of and celebrate – public service broadcasting that is free of government interference and which is both admired and envied around the world.

From: Christopher Clapham, Nab Lane, Shipley.

I AM very much in agreement with Sir John Redwood – the BBC has needed reform for many years now.

It has long been the mouthpiece of the left wing who dominate the political output and content of most programmes. We need to open up the whole of broadcasting to new programmes from all round the world, along with ensuring our contribution matches the very best.

We need to put the public in charge of content deciding what they want to watch and the music, type and programmes they want to listen to.

From: John Senior, Skelmanthorpe.

SIR John Redwood does not usually mis-use words, but I think his description of the BBC licence fee as a ‘‘poll tax’’ was deliberate. Sadly, it is not a ‘‘poll tax’’, it is a ‘‘household tax’’. I say sadly, because if it was a poll tax, I, as a widower living alone, would pay half the amount that a couple would pay!

The present system is unfair to single people living alone – even local authorities give us a 25 per cent reduction in our council tax.

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James Mitchinson