 |
|
|
|
|
| Greg
Dyke-BBC Bias 7 August, 2000 Mr Greg Dyke, Director General BBC Television Broadcasting House Portland Place LONDON W1A 1AA Dear Mr Dyke RE: Continuing bias by the BBC on coverage of issues relating to the European Union and the Euro under your Leadership I write to you, once again, to request an urgent meeting with you and your colleagues to discuss what I believe to be continuing and serious bias by the BBC in its coverage of issues relating to Britain's membership of the European Union and the Euro. I have written to you twice in the past few months seeking such a meeting, but you have neither replied to nor acknowledged my letters. On this, third occasion, I trust that you will agree to meet me and a delegation from my Party and some of those many organisations who represent the strong "Euro-sceptic" view of Britain's relationship with the European Union. You may be aware that, only last week, I met with your Steve Mitchell, Head of BBC Radio News, Ruth Unsworth, your future Head of Political Programming, and Chris Rybcyznksi, Editor of the 1 O'Clock News and representing BBC TV News programming. It was kind of them to meet with me, and Mr Mitchell undertook to respond, on behalf of BBC, to the many points we made during our meeting, and the detailed evidence we gave of political bias by the BBC in favour of the European Union and the Euro in our dossier (see below). Andrew Neil's confirmation of the existence of a BBC "Europarty" What has prompted me to write to you a third time, seeking an urgent meeting with you, is the report of Paul Donovan in yesterday's "Sunday Times". In advance of the meeting with you which I hope will take place shortly, this is what Paul Donovan says in his opening two paragraphs: "Is the BBC biased in favour of the Euro? Andrew Neil evidently thinks so, and he is one of the BBC's presenters. On his Radio 5 Live breakfast show recently, he said that the BBC's "Europarty" (without explaining what that was) had kept the results of a MORI poll from the BBC's news bulletins and even from its roundup of the daily papers, in which the poll had been prominently reported. It had shown that 72% of Britons wanted to keep the Pound. "This was not a quip that came from nowhere. Rather, it was one of a series of complaints that the BBC, the most important broadcaster we have at home and still the most trusted abroad, is distorting the debate about Britain's future with regard to the European Union". Paul Donovan goes on in his article to refer to the recent complaint about a biased piece of news reporting on the main BBC Nine O'Clock News, and a further upheld complaint against the "Today" programme for misusing a speech by Sir Winston Churchill. The state of British public opinion on the European Union and keeping the Pound On the issue of keeping the Pound, I note that the most recent opinion poll published in the national newspapers showed that 77% of British people now wanted to keep the Pound. Similarly, in a recent "Euro-barometer" poll of British public opinion carried out by the European Commission itself, and published last month, support for scrapping the Pound and joining the Euro had slumped to an all-time low of 22%. This is despite what we not only believe but know to be continuing BBC bias in its reporting of the European Union and the Euro on its news and political programmes. So far as Britain's membership of the European Union is concerned, the trend is strongly towards increasing scepticism about the value of Britain's membership of the European Union. I appeared on your "Today" programme in February when the BBC commissioned its own opinion poll. That opinion poll revealed that 34% of British people wanted Britain to leave the European Union altogether. On those figures, and assuming there are 40 million adults in the United Kingdom, that represents around 14 million people who believe that Britain should become, once again, a free, independent nation, outside the European Union. A number of opinion polls put that figure highe r than 34%, and a clutch of those opinion polls put the figure above 50%. Again, quoting the European Commission's own "Euro-barometer" poll, only 25% of those interviewed thought that Britain benefits from being in the European Union. The remaining 75% thought that Britain was harmed, or were unsure whether or not there was any benefit. As we revealed in our dossier, and we explained to Mr Mitchell, Miss Unsworth and Miss Rybcyznksi, the BBC is manifestly failing to represent that huge swathe of public opinion which is in favour of keeping the Pound, and wishes Britain to leave the European Union, or at least is firmly opposed to any further concessions of national sovereignty. The BBC's legal and charter responsibilities You do not need me to tell you what your legal responsibilities are under the BBC Charter and other legal requirements. However, please allow me to remind you of them. They were conveniently summarised in a letter sent in May 2000 by Janet Anderson, M.P., Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting, to Rt. Hon. Steven Dorrell, M.P. The key parts of Ms Anderson's letter were as follows: "The BBC's Royal Charter and its Agreement with the Government contains specific and detailed provisions on impartiality. A requirement has been placed on the BBC to treat controversial subjects with due accuracy and impartiality, both in the Corporation's news services and in the more general field of programmes dealing with matters of public policy or industrial controversy. "The BBC is also required to draw up and ensure compliance with a code of guidance on how it is to meet its obligations of due accuracy and impartiality, mirroring the requirement in the Broadcasting Act 1990 in respect of the commercial broadcasting sector. The Code was published in November 1996. It provides that programme makers should aim for accuracy, and ensure that, over a reasonable period of time, a proper balance of different points of view is achieved. The BBC Governors have a specific duty under the Charter to ensure that the Corporation complies with the Code. "The Government believes it is important that the broadcasters are responsive to viewers' and listeners' concerns". One of the difficulties in dealing with the BBC over the past few months, quite apart from your failure to reply to my letters, has been that no-one we have been in touch with at the BBC has accepted any responsibility for ensuring that the BBC is free from bias on these issues. Clearly, it is a vital part of your remit. It is clearly also the duty of the BBC Governors, who have a specific duty under the Charter. For that reason, I am writing separately, and individually, to each of the BBC Governors, because I believe they also must take immediate and effective steps to end what Andrew Neil has revealed - namely a group of people at the very top of the BBC who are able to manipulate news and political programmes so that listeners and viewers hear only one side of the arguments relating to Britain's membership of the European Union and keeping the Pound. I believe you personally must consider your position. There was very considerable opposition to your appointment, because of your obvious connection with New Labour. Right at the top of New Labour's agenda is giving up more of Britain's independence and sovereignty, and yielding it to the European Union. It is well known that both Tony Blair and the Cabinet are strongly in favour of Britain giving up the Pound after it has been our national currency for over 1,300 years, and are deliberately attempting to manipulate public opinion in order to achieve that result. You helped to finance Gordon Brown's Research Department for several years, helping New Labour to achieve victory in 1997. You were a member of New Labour and were and remain very close to New Labour. If you could demonstrate a track record of achieving impartiality on issues relating to the European Union and the Euro, all of that could be set on one side. Unhappily, as Andrew Neil has now revealed, you have not only failed to end BBC bias on the European Union and the Euro, but it appears you have allowed it to develop. I cite in particular the removal of Robin Oakley as the BBC's Chief Political Advisor and his replacement by Andrew Marr. I believe you should now also consider the position of Andrew Marr. He has a long track record of promoting the European Union, and the progressive loss of Britain's sovereignty. He played a key role with the European Round Table of Industrialists, an organisation which, by the way, was accused of breaching its legal obligations to the Charity Commission. I would have thought that the utmost care should be taken by the BBC in selecting its Chief Political Advisor. An indication of the prejudices of Andrew Marr comes from his latest book entitled - not without significance - "The Day Britain Died". On page 186 of that book, he describes a man, Derick, whom he interviewed for his book. He opens his description of Derick by writing: "Derick looks like the kind of guy who would sign up for the UK Independence Party". I trust you will understand the significance of that remark. You have appointed a man with clear prejudices about the kind of people, like myself, who are prepared to argue the case for Britain to be free from the European Union. Our Party members have been appalled to learn that the BBC's senior political journalist could make such a comment about Britain's fourth largest political party. It is small wonder that the UK Independence Party is being denied an opportunity to be represented on BBC TV and Radio news and political programmes. Andrew Marr is not the only appointment you have made which we question. Keeping the results of a MORI Poll off the BBC's news bulletins, and from its roundup of the daily papers. When you look at the dossier we provided to Mr Mitchell, Miss Unsworth and Miss Rybcyznksi, you will see that the third issue we sought to raise with him was the BBC's selection of news items. We pose this question: "Why does the BBC invariably select pro European Union and pro Euro news stories, and ignore many that give an opposite angle? " That is precisely the allegation that Andrew Neil sustained on the Radio 5 Live breakfast show recently. In what must be the most sinister reference to date about the extent to which the BBC is prepared to go in suppressing information and arguments against Britain's membership of the European Union and against joining the Euro, he describes how a group of people at the top level of the BBC, whom he calls the "Europarty", conspired (a) to keep a very significant MORI Poll off the BBC's news bulletins, and (b) then went on later in the day to ensure that the results of that poll were kept off its roundup of the daily newspapers. I would like you to take the following action. Andrew Neil clearly knows who are the members of the BBC's "Europarty". I think you probably know as well. I believe that all of those who played a role in keeping that news item off the BBC's news bulletins should be formally investigated by yourself. You need to investigate whether powerful people within the BBC are indeed manipulating your news and political programming. If so, there can be no place for them in the BBC. Any employee of the BBC who deliberately attempts to manipulate the news would clearly be violating the BBC Charter, the Agreement with the Government, and the November 1996 Broadcasting Code. Programme "The World this Weekend", 30 July 2000 It is perhaps not without significance that the very day before I and my M.E.P. colleague Nigel Farage, M.E.P. met with Mr Mitchell, Miss Unsworth, and Miss Rybcyznksi, one of the most biased programmes on the Euro ever to be transmitted by the BBC was transmitted on "The World this Weekend". Mr Mitchell admitted to me the following day, when we met, that 71 people had already complained about the programme. I am writing separately to Mr Fraser Steel, your Head of Programme Complaints, and fully anticipate that my complaint on this programme will be upheld, just as my complaint about the BBC news item on 15 March was upheld. Here, of course, is an immediate opportunity for you as Director General of the BBC to correct the obvious bias of that programme. You gave 15 to 16 minutes to a group of people who presented arguments for giving up the Pound without challenge. You should now allow a similar 15 to 16 minutest to those of us who would like to have an unchallenged opportunity to explain why Britain should keep the Pound. Representation of UKIP on the BBC One outstanding feature of my meeting with Mr Mitchell, Miss Unsworth and Miss Rybcyznksi was that none of them were able to answer the evidence we presented of BBC bias on the E.U. and the Euro, and none of them could offer an explanation as to why the two of us and other senior members of the UK Independence Party had not been invited on to your programmes. In particular, we produced a letter written by a senior member of the BBC giving a cast-iron promise that Nigel Farage, M.E.P. would be invited to appear on "Question Time". Despite that, he has been invited twice to appear on "Question Time", but each time you have cancelled his invitation. One step you can take immediately to correct the lack of representation of the UK Independence Party is to ensure that Nigel Farage is invited at the earliest possible opportunity to appear on "Question Time". Further Action I am hopeful that this letter, coupled with a separate letter I am sending personally to each of the BBC Governors, will help to bring about a decisive end to BBC bias on the European Union and the Euro. In my judgement, drastic action will have to be taken however. I refer you to the opinion of the Chairman of the Norfolk Campaign for British Independence, Denis Smith, which was included in the dossier I handed into Mr Mitchell and his colleagues. Denis Smith outlines what he believes is a long-standing culture of "pro-Euro-ism" - similar in nature to the allegations of "institutionalised racism" made against the Metropolitan Police, for example. One ongoing discussion amongst some "Euro-sceptics" is the possibility of a legal challenge to the BBC about its breach of its Charter obligations. That is partly why I included in my dossier a letter from one of my Party members, Mr Idris Francis (Item 8 in the dossier I handed in on 31 July). It is only fair to say to you that Mr Francis and several others both within and outside my Party are actively considering bringing legal action against the BBC for its continuing breach of its Charter obligations in relation to reporting issues relating to Britain's membership of the E.U. and the Euro. Therefore this letter is to be treated as an open letter and I reserve the right to pass it to Mr Francis or indeed anyone else who may subsequently bring legal action against the BBC for breaching its Charter duties. I would also refer you at this stage to the statements made by several of you senior colleagues, summarised in my dossier, including those of Lindsay Grist, Carolyne Syme, Mhairie Dow, and Denise Tattersall. All of them confirm that the BBC has a clear duty to report the facts honestly, and to give due balance to the relative arguments on either side of any issue. Finally, I will be publishing this letter on the internet. I am doing so partly because of your previous refusal to answer my letters, and also because this is an issue which, after all, concerns our very nation and its continued existence. There are many people now calling for the licence fee to be abolished, and for the BBC to be privatised. Up until recently, the BBC has had a proud record for independent reporting on all issues. Under your leadership, this reputation, carefully built up over many years, is being destroyed. Indeed, the very nation of Britain is under threat. When we joined the Common Market, by passing the Single European Act, and by treaties at Maastricht and Amsterdam, we have already yielded a great deal of our national independence. If we should ever be so reckless as to give up the Pound, we would give up our economic independence, as all those who wish to drive the European Union integration agenda forward acknowledge. I conclude with the words of Paul Donovan in his timely piece in the "Sunday Times" yesterday: "But most people who reject the notion of Britain joining the Single Currency do so not because of economic arguments but through gut instinct. They want to keep the Pound. They do not want to surrender any more national identity and sovereignty. They do not want to see our gold reserves being transported to Frankfurt. "These ideas receive short shrift at the BBC, which regards them as primitive and jingoistic. And that is why we do not hear any talks, plays, series or documentaries made from those points of view. There is no plot; there does not have to be. There is simply a large group of broadly like-minded, dedicated, progressive, liberal people who will marginalise and ignore that which they regard as xenophobic. But there is likely to be a referendum on this issue, and, even if there is not, the BBC still has a constitutional as well as a moral duty to be impartial." The one concession that Mr Mitchell did make when we met him is that there had been a serious lack of informed debate on the European Union and the Euro, in particular the aspect of our loss of independence and sovereignty (see Point number 4 which I raised in my dossier). You have a very clear responsibility, I believe, to the British people, to ensure that full and frank debate about the continuing loss of Britain's independence, and the threat to its economic and political independence by giving up the Pound, is placed before the British nation. It is no exaggeration to say that a large section of the nation to which the BBC broadcasts will be intensely interested in your response to this letter. I look forward to your reply as soon as possible. Yours sincerely Jeffrey Titford M.E.P., Leader UK Independence Party cc: Each member of the Board of Governors Eurosceptic organisations Top |
