Working to Net Zero?

[gradus]

Quite

[Serial_Apologist]

I feel duty-bound to draw attention to the disgraceful interviewing of Ed Miliband (Secretary for Energy, State Security and Net Zero) by Nick Robinson on this morning's Today programme on Radio 4. Robinson takes Miliband to task. Firstly, over the government's proposals to extend the electrical supply system nationwide by means of extensive overhead cabling to meet its fossil fuel reduction targets by 2030, Robinson resorts to that stale old canard used to stir up popular feelings that planning of any sort for net zero will be rendered meaningless unless other polluting nations come on board, but especially once Trump is elected. In effect amounting to, why if all my neighbours are shop lifting should I not join in? Secondly over its record on combating Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria. On the first matter Robinson belligerently and wrongfully accuses Miliband of barring public opposition to the government's energy production plans; In responding Miliband politely answers the points raised simply and straighforwardly without avoiding the questions - Robinson tells him to drop "the jargon": there was no jargon - adding that no one is to be prevented from voicing their opinions. On the second Robinson picked on a comment quoted from Wes Streeting on last night's Question Time, that the previous Labour administration had been wrong not to have taken action against al-Assad, as a pretext for accusing Miliband for not having supported physical intervention at the time - assumedly meaning military intervention to remove Syria's stockpile, although this was ambiguous, quite likely deliberately so to trap Miliband. The latter simply states openly and honestly that he did not agree with Streeting and had not agreed either with Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the consequences of which were clear.

I would cite this interview as by no means not atypical of the disrespectful manner in which politicians, especially of the Left, are treated by the Today programme, especially when Nick Robinson is the interviewer, or perhaps rather one should more accurately say cross-examiner for the Establishment. While no apologist for Ed Miliband, who nevertheless I think was maligned and ridiculed more for his manner than his politics while leader of the LP, on the evidence of the recording of this morning's programme I think he conducted himself admirably and with a decency I would have found it hard to find were I myself subjected to the tirade of miss accusations and miss attributions blasted at him.

I have been on about BBC bias and political imbalance on the forum before. I urge people, please, to scroll to 2 hrs 10 minutes into the programme on the Sounds link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025w17

If it leaves you fuming and wanting to throw your radio through the window, you will not be alone!

[Pulcinella]

And of course the Tories used to complain about the left-wing bias of the BBC.

[french frank]

I have been on about BBC bias and political imbalance on the forum before. I urge people, please, to scroll to 2 hrs 10 minutes into the programme on the Sounds link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025w17

If it leaves you fuming and wanting to throw your radio through the window, you will not be alone!

It's strange but I think we all filter such exchanges through our own beliefs. I don't listen to the Today programme and nothing of the bits that I heard while searching for that interview would induce me to listen: trivial, uninformative, several 'snippets' of stories quite inadequate for people to understand what's going on in the world. But Nick Robinson (I've never listened to him) came over to me as a silly man, siding with the countryside NIMBYs over whether they should be allowed to veto national plans for energy reform. (One thing Miliband could have said is that taking cables underground or offshore would not only be expensive - but they, the people, would be the ones footing the bill, wiping out any possible savings.) On Syria, Robinson seemed to imply that all the Syrian people who had lost their lives since 2013 would somehow have been saved if we'd agreed to bomb the country.

I don't think Miliband is a particularly strong performer, but he came over as reasonable and knowledgeable, while Robinson's hectoring wasn't very effective.

And as for the need to hear Harshita Brella's mother in Delhi weeping loudly over her daughter's murder - are people really so stupid that they don't understand that the news is 'entertainment' in this country? Choose the style of entertainer that appeals ...

[Serial_Apologist]

And of course the Tories used to complain about the left-wing bias of the BBC.

They do. But a number of leading hosts and presenters have gone on to be advisors to right wing think tanks, international banks and in one case whose name I can't presently remember to join Reform. It's getting more and more to resemble Fox News in America. And it's across our broadcasting networks - the only opposition coming from the confusing mixture of verified and unverifiable opinion streaming from social media sites.

One programme I have watched for years now, the Jeremy Vine Show on CH5, appears now to have a waiting list of right wing and far right commentators and red top reporters on retainers on their regular payroll - loudmouths perennially given to over-talking other guests, or over-shouting more like, and then accusing them of so doing; these other guests rarely come from left wing equivalents since the pseudo hapless Vine took over from Matthew Wright, a much more informed intelligent host; the few that are are presented with innocuous chatty subjects for talk which they are too polite to mention, the rest Starmerites, and the show has become a right wing jamboree and magnet for any inarticulate time-hogging Tom, Dick and Harriet to spin their sick prejudices and delusions, and repeat the same old same old tropes in the tabloids and now social media that keep the fires stoked by grooming "the tax payer" to believe all this garbage must comprise the general consensus of public opinion so you are forced to go along with it. And all this on prime time TV, from 9.15 to 12,50 am week daily.

Surely anyone with an iota of conscience must see this going on? I only watch this as a private witness to the eternal lies perpetrated by the bosses and the simpering yes people hosts of complaints channels (which as Radio 3 critics well know are ignored by those at the top) when issues are raised regarding broadcasting impartiality. It is this surrender to insincerity and bad conscience that is changing this country, like America, from being the place we remember from our post-war childhood, not immigrants, different cultural norms or workers striking to maintain if not better their threatened living standards and public provision, or people from all walks protective over what is happening to the living environment.

[oddoneout]

Several people I know have given up completely or partly on the Today programme, due to Robinson.

[gradus]

Several people I know have given up completely or partly on the Today programme, due to Robinson.

I didn't hear the Miliband interview but I seem to recall that similar criticism was aimed at John Humphreys for his sometime hectoring manner. I see no harm in BBC reporters challenging the prevailing political dogmas of the day, whether or not I agree with the line of attack.

[french frank]

I didn't hear the Miliband interview but I seem to recall that similar criticism was aimed at John Humphreys for his sometime hectoring manner. I see no harm in BBC reporters challenging the prevailing political dogmas of the day, whether or not I agree with the line of attack.

I think that would be my main point. It doesn't matter how aggressive and hectoring the interviewer is if listener sympathy then lies with the interviewee. I had no problem with Robinson interviewing in that way - it just put Miliband in a better light. As an interviewing style, though, it's probably counter-productive more often than not. I wouldn't be certain Robinson is anti government policy and is attempting to attack it.