Duncan Smith weighs in with support for Tory bid to impose right-wing bias on BBC

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The Secretary-in-a-State about Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has joined Grant Shapps in attacking the BBC with entirely fictitious claims that it has a left-wing bias.

Smith, affectionately known as ‘RTU’ or ‘Returned to Unit’ by this blog because of doubts about his achievements in the Army, is a serial spreader of falsehood, as has been documented here many times.

It seems he missed his true vocation and should have been a farmer; he spreads muck so vigorously.

And this is the case today. The Daily Mail has reported in its usual bombastic style that RTU is angry because the BBC keeps describing his charge on social housing tenants who the government deems to be “under-occupying” their homes as a “bedroom tax”.

His “furious” letter states that the corporation has been misleading viewers because the phrase is “innately politically and indeed factually wrong”.

Oh, is it, Iain?

Let’s have a look at his reason for saying this: “A tax, as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear, is a ‘compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the  government on workers’ income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services and transactions’.”

That’s right – and the state under-occupation charge (to give it it’s correct title) is a compulsory contribution to state revenue, added to the cost of a service. In this case, the service is rental of a dwelling. There can be no doubt that the contribution is compulsory, and it is clearly the state that receives (or rather, keeps) the money.

It is a tax. And we can say that, since the number of spare bedrooms in a dwelling is used to apply the charge, it is a bedroom tax. It’s the same principle as was used to describe the ‘Window Tax’ of the 19th century or thereabouts.

Some pundits have stated that it cannot be a tax because it is not paid by everybody, but this is also nonsense. Does everybody pay Inheritance Tax, or Capital Gains Tax? No. Even the corporations don’t pay Corporation Tax any more, according to all the reports we hear about tax avoidance!

And it may also be stated that the BBC is simply reflecting public parlance in its use of the phrase. People do not talk about the “underoccupation charge” or the “removal of the spare room subsidy” – they talk about the Bedroom Tax.

So RTU can whine all he likes; the BBC is factually correct in using the phrase, and it also reflects public custom in doing so.

His letter continues by claiming the BBC has adopted the language of the Opposition, stating, “We do not believe it is the job of the BBC to use misleading terms and promote the views of the Labour Party.”

Again, he is wrong to claim that the BBC has a left-wing bias. You may get tired of reading this, Dear Reader, but research by Cardiff University has shown that “The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, Eurosceptic, pro-business version of the world, not a left-wing, anti-business agenda”. Read the report for yourself.

The Daily Mail goes on to report that former Immigration Minister Damian Green has been unhappy with the Beeb’s reporting of immigration data, saying it was “mystifying” that a 36,000 drop in migration was described as “slight”.

But it is Mail readers who should be mystified at this claim. Didn’t they read, only last month, that more than two million immigrants have been given British passports since 2000 – one every two and a half minutes? Was this not accurate? In comparison to that figure, 36,000 is indeed “slight”.

And Mr Green might have had a little more sympathy for the BBC report if he had bothered to read the latest information on immigration by the Office for National Statistics, which stated that a drop of 39,000 long-term migrants between December 2011 and December 2012 was “not a statistically significant fall”. This is the information used by his government.

Of course we all know the reason for this latest round of BBC-bashing – the Tories are putting out a ‘marker’ for the general election.

They are telling the BBC, in no uncertain terms: “Behave. We don’t want any trouble from you in the run-up to May 2015 – just nice stories saying how great we are. Otherwise it will go badly for you after the election.”

Considering the evidence that the BBC already has a right-wing, Conservative-supporting viewpoint, it would be perfectly understandable if any high-ranking member of the corporation, receiving that message, did the exact opposite.

These Tories are ungrateful. They should know it is impossible for the BBC to hide the vast amount of cock-ups, miscalculations and intentional harm they have inflicted on the nation in the last three years. Attempted intimidation can’t alter the facts.

But then, threats are a part of the Tory way of life – especially for Iain Duncan Smith.

That is clear to anyone who has spent a few months signing unemployed at a Job Centre.

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20 Comments

  1. Ian Cropper October 29, 2013 at 11:54 am - Reply

    Or you could see this as the start of the neo-nazi Tory attempt to take control of the state broadcaster.

    • Mike Sivier October 29, 2013 at 11:57 am - Reply

      Start? It started when Chris Patten was appointed chair of the BBC Trust!

  2. aussieeh October 29, 2013 at 12:01 pm - Reply

    Throwing, Teddy’s, and Prams come to mind. From what I’ve seen and heard from this shower of Tory idiots over the last three years, awarding them with the thinking power and memory of a three year old would be about right. Hissy fits and stamping feet for not getting their own way. In fact I don’t want to upset any three year old, a single cell amoeba is probably more apt.

  3. Yosserian Hughes October 29, 2013 at 1:14 pm - Reply

    From the same blert that accused BBC journalist (Stephanie Flanders??) of: “urinating over the statistics”

    How much has UC cost again, blert?

    Also, I read somewhere that dummkopf-scmidt had been described as: “worse than useless” by the political section of journalists within the beeb AND other broadcasters

    His ‘siege mentality’ is just great. He hets far too easy a time on Tv. Why oh why can’t we have a journalist ready to savage his miserable record (throughout his life) on live Tv – just to watch his head explode.

    Even an interview like the one on LBC’d do the trick. Just to show him up as the abject failure he is.

    • Marian Standen October 30, 2013 at 4:11 am - Reply

      Makes me wonder what IDS (RTU) has on Cameron that after so many failures and cock ups he hasn’t been sacked. Oh wait a minute Cameron never really sacks anyone, he gives them his support. It’s like in most businesses if your crap at your job you get promoted.

  4. PendanticGeek October 29, 2013 at 1:54 pm - Reply

    Watch the BBC drag the skeletons out of the cupboard.

  5. Ian Duncan October 29, 2013 at 2:06 pm - Reply

    Also behind this is the fact that the BBC is getting an increasing amount of stick for it’s pro-Tory bias, even if it’s often bias by omission like not reporting what’s happening to disabled people and the NHS. The Tories are fighting back to make sure they don’t lose the BBC’s tacit support by accusing it of left wing shenanigans to put it on the defensive.

  6. Editor October 29, 2013 at 2:47 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on kickingthecat.

  7. Johnno October 29, 2013 at 3:30 pm - Reply

    We’ve been here before. I well remember the Conservatives complaining that the “Community Charge” was repeatedly, and in their view incorrectly, being referred to as the “Poll Tax”. Everybody of a certain age remembers the Poll Tax but next to no one remembers anything about the Community Charge. Same with the Bedroom Tax. Everybody will remember the iniquitous Tory Bedroom Tax but no one will remember anything about the Spare Room Subsidy.

    Not even if Iain Duncan Smith stamps his foot and makes a moue.

    What an arsehole.

  8. Joe Smith October 29, 2013 at 5:11 pm - Reply

    Sorry Johnno, but to describe IDS as an A……E Is a gross insult to the Anus. Ian Duncan Smith possess neither the intelligence wit or personality to be an a……e. I’ve been looking at the Army list, although vague, I seems that an IDS did fail the OTC course at the dates known. He was then sent back to his unit (RTUD) there is a intimation that he was a pay clerk in either the RCT or Pioneers. So he’s still a bullsh….g lying SOB

    • Mike Sivier October 29, 2013 at 5:36 pm - Reply

      Joe, if you can get in touch to explain how where you found this information (or how you were able to interpret it that way), I’d be very grateful. It corresponds to what I understand but if there’s corroborative information that I don’t have, I’d like to have it. Just send us a comment; I’ll keep the information but won’t post it unless you’re happy for me to do so.

  9. Nick October 29, 2013 at 5:40 pm - Reply

    the BBC is Tory albeit not extreme like IDS and co and always has been

  10. […] The Secretary-in-a-State about Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has joined Grant Shapps in attacking the BBC with entirely fictitious claims that it has a left-wing bias.  […]

  11. […] The Secretary-in-a-State about Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has joined Grant Shapps in attacking the BBC with entirely fictitious claims that it has a left-wing bias. Smith, affectionately…  […]

  12. watermelonbloke October 29, 2013 at 8:24 pm - Reply

    The many welcome pieces detailing the faults of this stain on humanity often miss out these points;

    After leaving the army he worked in trades equally associated with death – some grim arms company and Jayne’s defence magazine (like porn for killy scum)

    He also had a laughable attempt at a novelist career.

    Finally, more well known but undersung, none other than John Major was well ahead of many of us in nailing IBS as a bastard nearly 20 years ago.

    Quite recently JM said something close to “It was wrong to call members of my cabinet bastards, but in my defence they were bastards”

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