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Comment by mkdirp | Hacker News Reader

> especially its partisan news reporting on the current government

I just want to say that the BBC has had partisan claims by people from all the aisles. The BBC tends to be more left leaning and progressive with a lot of its coverage, I'm assuming that's mostly because journalists tend to be, however there have been certain "coincidences" when it comes to Conservative coverage.

I don't know whether or not they're partisan, but I feel when both left and right leaning people call the BBC partisan, it feels like they're less likely to be partisan.

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Most journalists have degrees and are aged between 20 and 50. That demographic is certainly "left leaning". The tory base is

* Old people who don't work

* People with little education, who aren't skilled enough to work as a journalist

https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/12/how-britain-voted-and-...

You (or whoever is downvoting) might not like that, but the fact is that in the UK context the country is left leaning, but elects the tories because of the split in the left

When papers like the Sun and Mail are the most popular in the UK I think it's hard to agree that Britain overall is left leaning

As for the BBC it's firmly establishment leaning rather than left leaning in my view, and they also carry a lot of the blame for promoting Farage's poltics e.g. more appearances on question time than anyone else

> When papers like the Sun and Mail are the most popular in the UK I think it's hard to agree that Britain overall is left leaning

"Left leaning" is of course relative. Some claim that Tony Blair is right wing, and Corbyn is the "middle ground". If you claim that then sure Britian is overall right-of-corbyn.

But if you take the standard "Lab/Lib/SNP/Green" is left leaning, and "Tory/UKIP/BNP" is right leaning, then as the left have have a majority every election it's quite reasonable to believe what the facts say.

Take one look at the election results and you can see there is a constant majority that's "left"

A lot of the complaints stems from a perceived view that UKIP were overrepresented on Question Time in the run up to 2015. That's no defence for the claim the BBC is "pro establishment", as Farage and indeed Brexit was quite clearly anti establishment.

Farage was a stockbroker, his dad was a stockbroker… he went to private school, he was a member of the Conservative party and a politician for decades

Yes, he might not be old money but he's as establishment as they come - look at his clothes he even wears the uniform of the establishment

One of his greatest tricks is that we was able to convince so many people that he was a normal person just like them

> As for the BBC it's firmly establishment leaning rather than left leaning in my view, and they also carry a lot of the blame for promoting Farage's poltics e.g. more appearances on question time than anyone else

As much as I hate everything that is Farage & co, I think that is rather a symptom of the BBC being less biased than other outlets. If you want to claim to be unbiased, you have to give both sides of any argument a voice in a place like the UK, regardless of how terrible or great one side is.

Find me another politician who's appeared one Question Time over 34 times in such a short space of time…

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