Even if we no longer expect the BBC to have any role in - or indeed concept of - supporting the British national interest, you'd think they might take a more ... er, neutral tone in reporting the sale of a major UK strategic asset to a foreign government. Gosh. Decent of them, taking it off our hands like that. Of course the BBC could have used a headline like "Control of Britain's nuclear industry passes to French government", but that, while true, would have overtones of xenophobia, wouldn't it ? Isn't the French state just as valid as the British one ? And besides, as current BE boss Adrian Montague said in a Today interview (Ed Stourton, I think it was, well out of his depth - Montague often ignored his questions and answered ones he hadn't asked), "historically the UK has been extremely open to foreign investment". "Historically" as in "crime is historically low" - i.e the last twenty-odd years. Prior to that, UK energy generation was UK-controlled and for 50-odd years it was a state utility. No matter. Economics editor Robert Peston, whose BBC blog has some of the best and most insightful credit-crunch coverage, toed the party line as well. Bust ? I thought tractor production was going up every year ! Labels: anti British Comments: 14 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh # they would probably read like this. Generally, of course, the Beeb's fairly dismissive of polls, and won't lead news items on them, so when the Conservatives passed 50 per cent for their biggest poll lead since Thatcher, it was pretty roundly ignored - mentioned only at the bottom ofthis article. When Labour surge by seven per cent, mostly at the expense of the Lib Dems, though, it's crowbarred into the leading paragaphs of a story about Brown's trip to the US. It's a funny old world isn't it? UPDATE: Meanwhile, at the BBC, mention of the poll has moved a couple of paragraphs down in the story of the US trip since I wrote, but they've now also shoehorned it into the leading paragraphs of this piece about Ruth Kelly's resignation as well. Do you think they're going to try and mention it every time they write about Labour or Gordon today?"EDF agrees to buy British Energy"
"EDF's acquisition of our nuclear power industry can be seen as a powerful message of hope ... it's a spectacular vote of confidence from La Republique no less that the United Kingdom is anything but bust."
Thursday, 25 September 2008
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