But, I noticed a profound shift in BBC News post-Dyke. From news anchors becoming more vapid and photogenic, a la Sky et al, to what appears to be breathless repetition of the government line. Even though the BBC is a state organisation, it should still provide checks and balances to the regime du jour if it is to fulfill its obligation as a fourth estate institution.

As a professional journalist (god, what a phrase… I get paid to write on a newspaper - suddenly I’m a “professional”. Sound’s like Maureen Lipman’s old BT advert “You’ve got an ‘ology - with an ‘ology, you’re a scientist!”) I think you’ve absolutely hit the nail on the head about the dangers of the likes of Dale and Staines and their take on the mainstream media.

I remember reading similar stuff a few years back on the US blogs in the run up to the elections. Dale and Staines are using the same misdirection tactics. It just annoys the feck out of me that the sycophants are falling for it, while the MSM gets targetted as a bunch of lying shites. (Saying that, some of them are. But fortunately, I work for a regional newspaper so I can bask in the glow of not being as bent as the nationals.)

Dale is nothing more than a inept and failing would-be MP who clearly sees being a local councillor for his party as something which is beneath him and has decided that where it’s at is to be a TV/Radio/Newspaper columnist on behalf of his party. But seeing as he has no real skills, talent or ability, he has set up the ultimate vanity production company - blog plus internet telly channel.

Frankly, he gives us Essex boys a bad name, he really does. But then, he’s probably the Harlow end… not a real Essex Boy, more a London wannabe.

Bias is a relative thing - in fact the surest sign that the Beeb has got the balance right on a story is if both the left and right are complaining about a story at the same time.

I wonder has the BBC really aired pro-government propaganda since Hutton, or if one looks closely has it simply pulled its head in and limited the extent to which its prepared to editorialise in favour of a stricter line of reportage of a kind that will generally appear to favour the government, which does, after all, effectively lead the political news agenda.

For example, one of the regular charges of bias I’ve seen from the right is that the BBC fails to give sufficient attention to policies such as like tax cuts, but as I noted when last debating this, its not actually for the BBC to promote policies at all, that’s the job of the opposition. So if the BBC isn’t running storys about tax cuts its because opposition parties are working sufficiently hard to put that issue on the news agenda.

It;s the same with complaints that the Beeb doesn’t ask hard questions about public spending and whether money is being spent well. Again, that’s not the role of the Beeb, unless its running a specific investigation - and I do know of one thing that is being looked into, although what the outcome may be is uncertain, so I’m not going to say what - that’s for the opposition to pose the hard questions, so the BBC can report them.

So the question is here, are you asking the right questions of the right people? Or to put it another way, to what extent is what you interpret to be pro-government bias a reflection of the failure of the Tory Party, in particular, to mount an effective challenge to the government over a significant number of years, leaving the government to command the news agenda?

Great post, but are you serious about the remark above? The BBC has aired shameless, and unwatchable, pro-government propaganda since Hutton. I’m specifically talking about the BBC news, but comparisons to Pravda could equally be levelled at that once-great institution. Sure, there are programmes like HIGNFY and Mock The Week, but it seems that the meatiest dissent is reserved for Doctor Who!

I have received some rather interesting confidential emails from Iain Dale since Tim and Unity posted what has been happening to me. Having recently watched the Long Good Friday again on television, a phrase sticks out in my mind “You can’t deal with these people. They’re fanatics”.

I don’t think it was too much to expect an explanation and an apology from Iain Dale. However, his “explanation” somehow became twisted into an accusation against me, and I don’t think that it would stand up to scrutiny given Tim and Unity’s posts to the contrary that I am less than upfront about my past. Would it really hurt him to apologise?

I think that it is hypocritical for Iain Dale to accuse Tim of seeking to be the internet police, and yet from the emails I pointed out to Iain that he is trying to police me!

For interest, what he’s used here is a well known and understood tactic of trying to close down discussion on uncomfortable subjects in the hope of creating the perception that the criticisms levelled at him are unimportant.

This kind of thing is commonly used to manipulate, amongst other things, focus group studies.

Temporal perception plays a considerable psychological role in weighting arguments - i.e. within focus groups, the more time is spent on discussion of a particular point the more weight participants tend to attach to its importance, relative to other matters that may be raised.

If one is seeking to lead a group by the nose to pre-defined set of conclusions then the one thing one does not do is give weight to contrary arguments by debating them at length, however valid those points may be - arguing the toss only reinforces perceptions about their value, which is precisely what you don’t want.

So - faced with an argument you like and want to emphasise, you talk about it at length and encourage debate. Faced with one you don’t like, you shut down discussion as quickly as possible, because the perception is that if its not discussed, then its not important.

You can see this approach very clearly across numerous recent issues. Take the government’s response to the LSE analysis of ID cards - rather than engage in debating it finding, the response was to dismiss it out of hand with a simple ‘I don#t recognise this as valid’ - i.e. it’s unimportant and the guy behind it is an obsessive anti.

I’m afraid they teach this kind of thing at candidate’s school, which is why I’m was completely unsurprised by his response.

Dale’s just being a politician when he pulls off stuff like this…

Its called analysis. you might like to try it some time.

Busy one today. You’ll have to ’settle’ for three items of interest: Obsolete - The blogging counter-revolution Ministry of Truth - Freedom? What Freedom? Not Saussure - An interim announcement……

Says it all, really. Well done, Iain.

(golf clap)

I always enjoy it when someone who’s up to no good suggests that it’s a waste of time keeping an eye on them.

And I especially enjoy it when you personally dodge the same issue again and again and again and when someone continues to press you for a straightforward answer, you scream “Stalker!” at them.

Nice article, Unity. Of course, as we both know, I wrote it for you, because only this lone obsessive cares about what Iain Dale says or does.