IN 2014 the main entrance at the BBC’s Scottish head-quarters in Glasgow rang with the constant squeak of travel trolleys as a succession of London-based producers and “talent” made their temporary home at Pacific Quay. Their ignorance of the underlying dynamics of the campaign was matched only by a barely concealed predisposition towards the Union. If you were being kind you might even say that some of this was understandable.
The BBC is an arm of the UK Government and thinks of itself as a unifying presence in the land, using its vast resources to convey a sense of Britishness and of us all being in it together for the greater good of the Union. Faced with an unprecedented constitutional event that threatened the UK and, along with it, one of the distinctive and defining hallmarks of the BBC, the corporation instinctively went into attack mode. Three years later, at the 2017 General Election, it became clear early on that this organisation, top-loaded by the produce of Eton and Oxford, was in the vanguard of the Stop Jeremy Corbyn campaign. I wouldn’t have believed it until I observed its subtle innuendo and insinuation almost on a daily basis.
On one occasion near the end of that election Corbyn had just finished his 90th rally in a seven-week campaign and it looked like he had a chance of pulling off one of the biggest shocks in UK electoral history. A report at the top of the BBC’s 10pm news bulletin described Theresa May as “the incumbent” while portraying Corbyn as “the insurgent”. Earlier, the BBC had decided that Labour’s manifesto was “red in tooth and claw”. This wasn’t reporting; it was a hatchet job.
This year, the appearance of impartiality seems to have evaporated entirely. Pictures of Boris Johnson looking dishevelled and unkempt at the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday were replaced bizarrely with footage from a few years earlier showing him looking slightly less like Worzel Gummidge.
READ MORE: BBC apologises for odd decision to use old Johnson wreath footage
Last week it emerged that the BBC had doctored the sound of laughter that greeted a Question Time participant’s query to Boris Johnson about trust in politics. It’s also emerged that senior BBC executives have deliberately avoided asking hard questions about why the official report into possible Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit campaign has been concealed until the election is safely out of the way.
The line-up of its heavily self-publicised Brexitcast looks eerily familiar. Then you realise it resembles the Oxbridge team in The Young Ones’ famous University Challenge sketch.
What follows are the contents of a leaked document purporting to be specimen questions for aspiring BBC political journalists. We immediately dismissed it as a spoof, but how can anyone be sure anymore?
1. You have been handed a leaked document from inside Conservative Party central office outlining emergency measures for the maintenance of law and order. Among them are: stop and search powers for anyone carrying a Scottish saltire with intent to unfurl; limiting the size of public gatherings of Yes supporters to phone-box proportions; conferring special militia status on Tommy Robinson-trained squadrons of young Unionists to assist the police in dispersing illegal gatherings of nationalists. As a senior BBC producer you must decide what weight to attach to this story and how to cover it (if at all). Do you …
A) Clear the top of the news schedule to make room for this astonishing scoop and send Laura to doorstep Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson?
B) Push it further down the news schedule and accompany it with footage of mass civil unrest and genocide in Rwanda in 1994 as an example of how extreme nationalism can easily spin out of control?
C) Quietly contact Dominic Cummings and tell him he has a traitor in his midst and request an exclusive sit-down with Boris as a reward?
2. A vacancy has arisen in your politics team for a broadcast journalist with a track record in breaking stories and providing sharp analysis across all network platforms. You must choose from one of these candidates. Will it be …
A) The eager young thruster from BBC Birmingham who broke the tale about a secret Masonic temple and illegal dog-fighting ring at the top of the West Midlands Police?
B) The truculent Glaswegian with the bad attitude who nonetheless exposed the existence of a giant Ponzi scheme operating within the upper reaches of RBS with links to the Russian mafia?
C) Whichever of the above has a degree from Oxford and has lost their regional accent?
3. You’ve been made aware of documents collected by MI6 that prove Boris Johnson is a North Korean spy who underwent laser facial surgery to alter his appearance just like that James Bond baddie in The World Is Not Enough. Do you ...
A) Devote a special early evening news programme to unveiling the spymaster at Number 10 while exclusively filming him having his collar felt by an elite SAS squadron in the manner of the Iranian Embassy siege of 1980?
B) Report the story with a straight bat but cobble together another one about Jeremy Corbyn’s sinister links to an Iranian satanist death cult?
C) Ditch the story but organise Korean language lessons for all senior BBC personnel as a matter of urgency and seek a world exclusive interview with Kim Jong-un?
READ MORE: Here's an exclusive sneak peek at the Conservative manifesto
4. You have been handed grainy footage of an elderly man wearing a cardigan pottering about a shed on a vegetable patch in Croydon. Facial recognition analysis shows that there’s a 99% chance it’s Jeremy Corbyn. Do you ...
A) Approach Mr Corbyn and ask him if he’d like to make a guest appearance on Gardeners’ Question Time?
B) Invite him to the Chelsea Flower Show as a guest of the BBC in an effort to build bridges for past misunderstandings?
C) Expose his hypocrisy in possessing a second home while he preaches about homelessness?
5. At a gala night featuring exotic dancers and Bulgarian dwarf-throwing to raise funds for the Brexit Party, a clearly tired and emotional Nigel Farage makes a startling revelation to cheering supporters: he’s been offered the post of Minister for Trade and Industry with special responsibility for selling off the NHS to the US pharmaceuticals industry. Do you ...
A) Go big on the story with an in-depth analysis of resultant price rises in essential heart and cancer medication?
B) Use the story but get Donald Trump to tweet that “this will make the NHS great again – so, so good”?
C) Mention the story but say that it’s part of a Labour dirty tricks campaign as they continue to languish in the polls?
Candidates who choose mainly C for their answers in this section will automatically go forward to the next stage of the selection process.
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