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LaurenceHodge

Listed below are comments made by LaurenceHodge between Wednesday, 8th July 2009 and Monday, 5th October 2009.

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Monday 5 October 2009 11:48pm on 05 Oct 2009 Ineffably tiresome encounter twixt Paxo and Boris. To fall back on cliché - repeating the Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club stuff again and again - is weak.

Dreary interview with Theresa May too who seemed genuinely and understandably perplexed at the mutton-headedness of her interrogator.
Newsnight's Politics Pen 00:11am on 09 Jul 2009 Accusations of bias by others make me (and others too, I'm sure) more sensitive to the possibility of bias. I posted earlier to say that I never got as far as considering the lack of balance on this wretched panel, I simply didn't want to watch an "entertainment" in lieu of a current affairs programme and so I turned off.
The accusations of bias in other posts strike me as pretty compelling and not just as they relate to Newsnight but regarding BBC news output more generally. Why, I found myself asking, did Martha Kearney (R4, World at One, July 8th) interviewing a panel of politicians so pointedly avoid using Lord Adonis's title?
I dare say that the answer is innocent enough but this minister has been reshuffled out of his ministerial job at education to which he was appointed because he was supposedly an expert in that field and he has now washed up at transport for which he had no special previous gift. More importantly, of course, he is also yet another unelected member of a government rich in unelected members and by calling him 'Andrew Adonis' I felt that Martha Kearney was perhaps trying to deflect us from this uncomfortable reality.
All of which is to say that there is the risk of a cumulative effect for the listener or viewer when a bit of intentional BBC bias here combines with a bit of BBC editorial sloppiness there. Where the crticism on a blog such as this tends to be predominantly all in one direction, a little rethink by executives is in order and an apology would not go amiss either. Failing that an admission that the majority view might have some validity would be a compromise.
Newsnight's Politics Pen 08:21am on 08 Jul 2009 I don't watch this stuff and that's not on account of real or perceived political bias. It's because it's rot. There must be a gaggle of analysts at the BBC who could pinpoint the degree of overlap in their audiences between Newsnight and Dragon's Den.

For my part, I would never dream of watching Dragon's Den so to see Newsnight borrow that format makes my heart sink and turn off the TV.

I do not watch The Weakest Link but why not give that a try? How about getting the Cabinet doing the Weakest Link with Michael Crick as Anne Robinson.

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