Tony Curzon Price (London, openDemocracy): So, ConservativeHome has discovered that the typical BBC employee who also has a profile on facebook has "liberal" political views - they out-number conservatives by 11-1 in the BBC, versus 2-1 in the country and 3-1 in London.There are lots of flaws in the conclusion that this means there is an anti-Tory bias in the BBC. Listing yourself as "liberal-minded" won't stop you from voting Conservative, for example. In fact, much of Cameron's repositioning can be thought of as making sure that more such self-describers consider the Conservatives an acceptable vote.
But methodology aside, I feel there is a real question here for Conservatives that ConservativeHome does not pick up on. Almost 200 years of UK political history has been about Liberals and then Labour forcing change on reluctant Tories, who, twenty years later, become great defenders of the new status quo. Think of everything big, from Free Trade to Universal Health Care, from the extension of the franchise to the acceptance of equality as the underlying axiom of public policy - it all fits this mould. In other words, the system the Tories are so keen to preserve is one in which the left produces the change and the Tories eventually defend it. Which naturally raises the question, for Tories, of how to keep the reservoir of radicalism and liberalism alive - which they must in order to have something to defend in 20 years' time. In this light, the BBC is not such a bad "nature reserve".
