Do I ever think of Giving Up in Despair? And Other Questions

A number of people have posted here in recent weeks wondering why I put up with the low level of some comments, their utter missing of the point, their personal spite, their claims (from a state of ignorance) that I have never examined topics which I have examined, or that I have said things that I haven't said.

Do I ever, as I contemplate this dismal swamp of incomprehension and malice, think of packing in the whole blog? Well, yes I do, about five times a day. But the response to my BBC posting has brought me pretty close actually to doing so. After years of debating the question of BBC bias, I finally obtain a documented and recorded instance of this indisputably happening. I provide links, transcripts and careful analysis. And what do I get? Thought? Reason? Acknowledgement by those who have hitherto denied BBC bias that I may be on to something? Considered criticism of my point? Articulate defence of the BBC?

Or might there be intelligent comment on my research into what actually happens in this country when a person is caught in possession of Cannabis, under the alleged 'War on Drugs'?

Well, not entirely.

A number of people posted as if I had written this contribution in search of sympathy or to complain about my lot. I said no such thing, and I desire no such thing. I have had redress (as I state) which is what I thought I was owed in natural justice. I am of course interested in the rules which govern who is invited on to the BBC about what and when. I tend to think that, compared with a left-wing equivalent (my friend Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has an almost exactly parallel career trajectory, and frequently presents Radio 4 programmes, and good for him) or even a female 'right-wing' equivalent (my Associated Newspapers colleague and (sometimes) ally Melanie Phillips is on the regular panel of the 'Moral Maze' and good for her) I get measurably fewer broadcasting chances than I might reasonably expect. I won't here trouble readers with episodes known in detail only to me and certain BBC executives, which in my view offer solid proof of a bias against me that is not personal, but political. But I will state that they happened.

But when I wrote: 'I don't actually mind having to conduct these fights, because I am used to them', that is precisely what I meant. Likewise, when I wrote: 'I don't at all object to Mr Webb's adversarial treatment of me. He should do it to everyone', that too is exactly what I meant. How is this read (except in a mind blurred and fogged by malice and wilful misunderstanding) as self-pity or a plea for sympathy? It is the *wider significance* of these events that is important, not my individual feelings.

Nor do I agree with some posters that it is futile to analyse this and complain about it where the inequity is measurable and undoubted - as was so in this case. Perfection's not available. But improvements are sometimes possible - and the BBC, under a long bombardment of criticism that it slants to the Left, is slowly beginning to acknowledge that this is true. Eventually, this may have a practical effect, especially if the argument is pursued (as I have sought to do here) with carefully-assembled evidence and reasoned argument. I am told that Mark Thompson, the present DG, is deeply unpopular among BBC establishment people for his recent admission that the Corporation was biased to the left in the 1980s. They realise that this cat can never now be stuffed back in the bag.

Some contributors here don't seem to know (though the information is readily available on the web) that I did some years ago present a programme on the then Talk Radio, during which I sought to demonstrate in practice my theory that adversarial presenters were the best route to impartiality. I should like to do so again, but if readers here believe that all I need to do is to approach the present management of 'TalkSport' with such a suggestion, for it to be granted, they reveal a deep lack of understanding of how such things take place.

The arrangement (in this programme) worked pretty well with Derek Draper because he was *morally and culturally* on the left, the true divide. On good days it was a very effective programme. But it was not a success with other partners, Paul Routledge and Austin Mitchell, because in fact they shared some of my conservative positions on non-party issues. It is all very well saying that my suggestion of adversarial presenters on the BBC is foredoomed. Maybe it is, but it remains a workable and sensible idea, and if the BBC fails to implement it, then it demonstrates the nature of its problem. What alternative do these critics suggest? A British Fox?

To those who wrote as if I was in some way objecting to people being rude about me, and as if the matter was about my hurt pride. a few notes.

Anyone is free to be rude about me on this blog, a freedom many take advantage of. Their contributions are almost invariably posted, where coherent. In fact, the moderators used to come to me to ask about such things, as they are well-brought-up people with good manners who personally felt that such rudeness shouldn't be tolerated. But I insisted that it should be. Lies, as some contributors have found, will not be tolerated. That is a separate issue. But plenty of ad hominem stuff is.

And, as I frequently have cause to say, I have in my life been insulted by experts. When I stood out against the Left among the industrial reporters in the late seventies and early 1980s, I was personally vilified in many unpleasant and lasting ways. When I angered the Left in the 1992 election, and when I did it again over Cherie Blair's attempt to stand for Parliament, various journalists of the Left came after me in uncomplimentary and personalised ways. My books have been reviewed in vituperative and abusive ways (one of these so bad that the author later apologised for it) often by people who have not troubled to read them. And so on.

I don't pretend to enjoy this. But I accept it as a necessary and inevitable part of what I do. As Enoch Powell remarked, a politician complaining about the press is like a sailor complaining about the sea. A columnist complaining that people are rude about him is in the same fix. I doubt if many of those who accuse me of having a 'thin skin' could endure a week of what I have put up with for years. Few who make this sort of accusation have any idea of what they are talking about. What I object to is not the rudeness, but the dim incomprehension.

Should I smile more? There are extant photographs of me smiling. Anyone who has seen them will understand why I try not to do it anywhere near a camera.

Bored beyond measure by accusations of 'humourlessness', I once sat down to measure the laughter I won from audiences on 'Question Time' and 'Any Questions' (see particularly one broadcast from East Dorset in the late summer of 2009). I found it usually outdistanced that given to the other panellists. Sad, I know, but it seemed strange to me that the reputation could coexist with the facts until I understood that some reputations are so powerful that proof of their inaccuracy will simply be ignored.

I am officially humourless. Thus a person who laughs at one of my jokes is quite capable of saying, five minutes later, that I am humourless. This is yet another illustration of the problem that when people's opinions are challenged by reality, they don't change their minds. They shut down their perceptions.

Maynard Keynes famously said: 'When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, sir?'

He knew that the answer, in most cases, was that person involved would ignore, deny or suppress the facts.

The purpose of the long analysis, the quotations, the transcripts, the links to broadcasts and to learned research on (for instance) the dangers of cannabis to mental health, was to explore the issue of BBC bias, whose existence is in my view proven absolutely by this episode, in a way never achieved before. It was also to make readers think. In this, alas, I have plainly failed with a number of contributors here. But is the failing in me? Or in them?

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