Category Archives: The BBC

Lord Reith would be spinning in his grave!

27 Monday May 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Lazy journalism, The BBC

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Over the past few years the quality of journalistic standards at the BBC has come under scrutiny. The corporation’s obsession with ‘balance’ is just once example. The Beeb gives far too much credence and easy passes to tinfoil hatters and shady lobby groups like the Taxpayers Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs without once asking “who funds you and sets your agenda”?

It’s the same with their flagship programmes like ‘Question Time’ where the audience is routinely packed with so many right-wing plants the programme really should be hosted by a presenter from ‘Gardeners World’. Balanced it ain’t.

Today, this tweet appeared from the BBC in the North-West.

BBC tweet

Really? The entirety of the House of Lords wants a ‘rethink’ of HS2? No. It’s complete bollocks. Ignoring for a minute there’s not even a link to a story, just a tweet that has no context or content and this isn’t even ‘news’. Let’s have a look at what the BBC didn’t say.

Twelve days ago the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee (which is made up of just 13 out of the 800 members of the Lords) delivered a report which was critical of Hs2 – although it did not call for its scrapping. The report was widely criticised around the regions for its laxity and the fact it ignored large chunks of the country and the positive impact Hs2 would have on them.

The Committee is hardly representative of the Lords as a whole. When they voted on the Hs2 phase 1 bill the Lords passed it by 386 votes to 26, giving the project a massive majority of 360. Funnily enough the BBC neglected to mention any of this in their tweet, so forget the Reithian values that the BBC should “educate and inform”. The BBC’s tweet is nothing but spin.

It’s desperately sad to see the national broadcaster brought down to these levels, but that’s a sad reflection of the sorry state much of the media is in now. Nowadays, facts are what you make up. On seeing this tweet, Nigel Harris of RAIL magazine was moved to say this in response to Railway Magazine Editor Chris Milner.

nigel H

Guess who hasn’t responded to any of this? The BBC. I’m writing this at 21:13 and the tweet’s still on their website.

 

 

 

HS2: the story the BBC managed to miss.

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Railways, The BBC

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This morning the BBC has reported that Hs2 Ltd have spent £600m buying up properties on the route of the new railway. As is usual with a lot of BBC reporting nowadays, their superficial reporting only tells half the story. Here’s a link to the piece by the BBC’s Dan Rhodes, which has the headline “More than 900 properties worth nearly £600m have been bought by the company responsible for delivering High Speed Rail 2 (HS2), figures show.”

The piece contains all the usual predictable stuff, an interview with someone who claims “we was robbed” because their home was allegedly undervalued and a few comments from those opposed to Hs2 to satisfy the BBC’s unhealthy obsession with ‘balance’. But Rhodes fails to mention several things. One is that this process has been going on since 2011 (although that’s obvious from the chart he uses) and in that time Hs2 has actually made tens of millions for the taxpayer by renting out the properties it’s bought – as the Times reported way back in December 2016.

FT

Imagine what that figure must be now, several years on!

Another thing that Rhodes fails to mention is that many of the homes purchased aren’t scheduled for demolition, they will be resold at a later date – at a profit, to people who really aren’t bothered about living near a railway, just like all those people who buy new homes on old railway goods yards right next to railway stations!

The other thing that has escaped Rhodes attention is there’s another story here. That of a dying anti Hs2 campaign. Let’s look at the chart.

homes bought

The anti Hs2 campaign has always been strongest in the Chilterns and one or two other locations on the phase 1 route. Essentially, it’s always been a Nimby based protest (with a few political types trying to exploit the issue for their own ends). But those Nimbys have been bought out in their hundreds – and not just on phase 1. By buying them out, Hs2 has poured weedkiller on the grassroots of the campaign which is running out of people and money. As a consequence, many local Stophs2 ‘action’ groups have shut up shop. This is reflected on their social media presence as people stop Tweeting or posting on Facebook as Hs2’s no longer their concern. As each month passes, more are bought out and move on and the lifeblood of the campaign drains away, never to return…

Forget the bluster of the few remaining activists who claim opposition to Hs2 is ‘growing’, the real numbers tell a very different story!