BBC Response to my Complaint

I have received the following reply from the BBC:

“This is an update to let you know that we had referred your complaint to the relevant people and regret that it may take a little longer before we can reply. Please do not contact us in the meantime.”

Although we reply to most complaints within 2 weeks we cannot achieve this every time. It depends on what your complaint was about and how many others we are handling, or may sometimes be due to more practical issues. For example a production team may already be working on another programme or have gone on location.”

It seems rather odd that the “relevant people” are proving so hard to track down.  Other viewers may have noticed the army of people milling around behind the news presenter each night and wondered, like me, what they are supposed to doing?  Obviously not writing replies to people like me so, I suppose, I must be patient.  Although quite how hard it would be to say “sorry, we were sloppy in our use of statistics and regret that we skewed our interpretation to suit our editorial purposes,” is rather hard to imagine.

But I shall not be holding my breath!

BBC Response to My Complaint Awaited

As you know, I complained to the BBC about their Brexit reporting on 14 February.  This is what they responded:



YOUR COMPLAINT:
Complaint Summary: Inaccurate EU export figures. Selective statistics
Full Complaint: Kamal Ahmed claimed “nearly 50% of our exports go to the EU” on the BBC News on 14 Feb 18. According to the House of commons Library, in 2016, UK exports to the EU were £236 billion or 43% of total exports. The EU may, overall, be “our largest trading partner,” but that statement does not mean that the majority of our exports go there – the majority of our exports go to trading partners outside the EU (and this trend is increasing). I believe you should have made this clear. Ahmed then went on to lard up his message displaying a graph to show a comparison of GDP growth between UK and the EU from about 2007 to the present. The pattern displayed correctly showed the rate of growth diverging in favour of the EU over the last couple of years. This apparently reinforced the BBC’s consistent editorial line that leaving the EU will be an economic disaster. However, had he shown a growth comparison over a more statistically significant period, the graphic would have portrayed exactly the opposite to his preferred interpretation. In fact, between 1980 and 2007, just before the crash, the average annual growth rate was 2.1% for France, 1.6% for Germany, 2.4% for the Netherlands, and 1.8% for Italy. Meantime, growth in the UK averaged 2.4%. If you extend the period to 2012, the six original signatories of the Treaty of Rome grew at only 1.6% compared to the UK at 2.0%. Finally, as the graph did show, by the end of 2013 the UK was recovering strongly from the crash whilst the EU continued to languish behind. The source for these figures is “The Trouble with Europe” by Roger Bootle. Sadly, and to the detriment of the education of their audience, these statistical inconveniences appear to have been overlooked by Ahmed and the rest of the BBC editorial staff. In the interests of impartiality and balance, I expect the BBC to publicly acknowledge and correct the misleading impression they have given.
----------
Thank you again for contacting us,
BBC Complaints Team

Today is 23 February and the BBC promise a reply within 10 days so their time  is nearly up.  Doubtless they will begin their response by earnestly assuring me that they take all complaints from customers seriously.  That they have taken nearly 10 days to reply reassures me that they have, indeed, been taking my complaint seriously (unless it has been lost in their administrative system, of course).  I will report back to followers in due course.

Collateral Damage

I see that the sisterhood is up in arms about two acts of violence depicted against women in the second episode of David Hare's “Collateral,” currently being screened by the BBC. Mushroom is surprised that that is the least of the criticism being levelled. Anyone who has tried to watch this patronising water-torture of political correctness and class prejudice should be far more concerned that Hare and the BBC are allowed to get away with it, on licence payers' money!

Don't Let the Dog Decide

As young student pilots training at RAF Acklington in 1964, we were naturally concerned about what the future would hold in operational opportunities.  The type of aircraft to which we would be posted depended upon how well we did on the course as pilots.  Do well and a glamourous fighter pilots’ life on Hunters or Lightnings beckoned.  On the other hand, four-engine transports might be seen as the other end of the scale of excitement.  My Flight Commander had a very clever dog who could make the posting decision in an instant.  Just say, “do you want to join the V-Bomber Force or be a dead dog,” and, faced with the binary choice, the dog would roll over on its back and wave its paws in the air.

Brexit means Brexit! Remember that? If you were in any doubt, we are leaving the Single Market and we are leaving the Customs Union. So says the mouth music that comes from what we understand to be our government. Of course, that’s not really what the government thinks. Spearheaded by that ghastly Guyanese, Gina Miller, and cheered on relentlessly by the BBC, parliament, having surrendered the Brexit decision to the people through a referendum, has now nobly reclaimed control of the exit process. Of course, that does not deter our honourable members from continuing to mouth the Brexit mouth music. Meantime, difficulties, real and perceived, mount and Brexit, quite obviously, cannot mean Brexit anymore.  So, when negotiations with the EU conclude, parliament will decide, on our behalf, whether to accept the deal or not.

At this point we should remind ourselves of another piece of mouth music, “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But does anyone, honestly, expect our EU friends to have offered (and agreed amongst them sovereign selves) an attractive deal to the UK? Let us be in no doubt, the prospects of parliament considering a worthwhile deal in due course are negligible. The likelihood is that parliament will debate the merits of the recently negotiated thoroughly bad deal versus no deal at all. Of course, having voted overwhelmingly in favour of triggering Article 50 to leave, parliament would have no other principled choice but to vote for one option or the other. What a bind! But what an opportunity to honourably kill off the whole embarrassing process – offer yet another referendum? This time, we may be sure, we should not be offered a simple choice – leave under these terms of leave under these terms (but leave, nevertheless)? Much more likely is the offer of a choice to leave (whatever “leave” actually means) the EU under intolerably unfavourable terms or abandon the whole project and stay in? The Parliamentary hope would be that the electorate, faced with a rigged binary choice, would behave like my Flight Commander’s dog.

All this would be the considered recommendation of the venerable democratic institution that could not decide, in the first place, whether to leave the EU or stay in.  Spinelessly, they had asked the electorate to decide in a referendum and promised to be bound, as a parliament, by the decision. This wasn’t just a simple majority of members, by the way, the vote was effectively unanimous. Now they fight, with every constitutional device at their disposal, to frustrate and reverse the process by seizing back control of the implementation of the decision. And when they have made a hash of that, they would seek to slope their shoulders and off- load the whole can of worms to the people in the guise of a “meaningful” second referendum! Well, Mushroom’s message to parliament is simple, you got us into this mess, so you get us out. Don't come to me now wringing your hands and complaining that it has all become too dificult.  Interestingly, this is a constitutional standpoint that could be supported by both camps in the Brexit divide. And by the way, should my MP vote, with his conscience, for a second referendum, he should not expect to receive my vote at the following general election.