Tyldesley miners outside the Miners Hall during the 1926 General Strike.
In step with the rest of the British media, the BBC has in recent weeks afforded considerable coverage to allegations of pervasive antisemitism in the Labour Party. In itself the attention given to this issue is not objectionable. The crisis is real enough, in the sense that a cynical political campaign against the left of the Labour Party has proved fairly effective; that much at least is 'news'. The problem is that if examined in detail the evidence underpinning the slow burning political crisis, which itself has been systematically misrepresented, is not only insubstantial, but is plainly being advanced by right-wing interests inside and outside the Labour Party.
One would perhaps not expect a press that has either participated in this witch hunt, or is politically aligned with those who have, to interrogate the claims being so widely disseminated by Corbyn's enemies. But that is why we have the BBC. In theory a public service broadcaster should be able to stand above sectional interests and cut through the disinformation. It is after all constitutionally committed to educating and informing it audience. I am not in a position to judge the BBC's coverage of this rather sorry episode as a whole, but the performance of its flagship TV current affairs programme Newsnight, for example, in itself raises serious questions about its output, particularly in light of its previous treatment of Corbyn and his supporters. Moreover, the perception of BBC bias against the left have in the present circumstances been compounded by the lack of coverage the BBC has afforded the racist campaign of the Conservative London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, which has been supported by the Prime Minister, and even more so by the lack of reporting on allegations of electoral fraud by the Conservative Party at the last General Election – a topic which has received considerable attention online and has been covered extensively on Channel 4. What explains the apparent double standard?
