Brexitwatch: a letter to the BBC

I am tired of the constant pro-Brexit bias and the inaccuracies about leaving the EU that I keep seeing and hearing on the BBC, a broadcaster I used to admire. This is what I have written to them. Please feel free to borrow, adapt etc if you feel the same.

This is the link for complaints 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/contact_us/making_a_complaint.html

I have held my tongue since the EU referendum, but I can do so no longer.

For decades I have defended the BBC and the licence fee, but, in view of the Corporation’s blatant pro-Brexit bias, I no longer feel I can.

During about 30 minutes on the ‘Today’ programme of March 29 on Radio 4, there were a series of examples of this. First shortly before 0800 Nick Robinson said that Remainers were demanding a ‘Second Referendum’ on the Brexit terms. This is completely inaccurate. There has not yet been a referendum on the Brexit terms, so any referendum on them would plainly be the first. To describe it as a ‘second referendum’ is likely, by accident or design, to undermine support for it by implying falsely that it is a re-run of or an attempt to subvert a referendum that has already been held.

Then, around 0815, Brexit supporter Liam Fox was allowed to claim without challenge that the UK economy had been doing well since the Brexit vote. This is completely untrue. The government’s own figures show the UK’s was the only major economy in the world to slow down last year, the fall in the pound that the Brexit vote caused has made us all poorer, real wages are still declining etc, etc. Why did your interviewer fail to put these points to Dr Fox?

Sadly, this is not an isolated instance. While pro-EU interviewees are usually given a hard time, Brexiters are allowed to spout their untruths without challenge. When a handful of Brexit campaigners set up a stunt the BBC covers it. When tens of thousands march against Brexit across the country, the BBC ignores it.

 The EU referendum was advisory and non-binding on MPs. The BBC constantly ignores this etc. etc.

Bhopal + 30

On the 30^th anniversary of the Bhopal explosion, hundreds of protesters have gathered outside the Indian factory which was the scene of the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. They burned effigies of the plant’s owners, held up banners, and shouted ‘We want justice!’

In the early hours of the morning, 30 years ago today, about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide factory owned by U.S. multinational Union Carbide and was carried by the wind into the surrounding slums.

The government’s official total of deaths is 5,295, but activists say the true figure is about 25,000 and that many people still suffer from cancer, blindness, respiratory problems and immune and neurological disorders, and that they have received inadequate compensation. They also complain that toxic waste around the plant is still contaminating water supplies for 50,000 people.

Union Carbide’s present owners, Dow Chemical has denied liability, saying it bought Union Carbide a decade after the firm settled its liabilities to the Indian government by paying $470 million. (see also my blogs of March 17, 2010 and Dec 3, 2012.) For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Bloody football

More than 100 people have now died as a result of a football rivalry in Egypt, and many more deaths could soon follow.    The disaster began with a riot in Port Said last year at a match between al-Masry and Cairo’s al-Ahly, in which more than 70 fans died. 

Last weekend, a court in Port Said sentenced 21 people to death for their part in the disorder.  Following the verdicts, protestors clashed with police, and more than 30 more lives were lost.  

But there is also a political dimension to the trouble.   At the time of the original riot, the Muslim Brotherhood alleged that the violence was orchestrated by supporters of the ousted regime of President Mubarak.

Now the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi is president, and the football protests have become mixed up with demonstrations against what opponents see as his undemocratic approach, leading to dozens of deaths across the country.   (See also my blog of 2 Feb, 2012)

*Another review of Historia mundial de los desastres.  http://www.tiempo.com/ram/29343/historia-mundial-de-los-desastres/