BBC shills for EU

The BBC, that beacon of impartial reporting, has published a list of 10 ways in which the lives of every British citizen have been enriched by EU membership.

(Hat-tip: Donal Blaney)

This list is part of the 'celebrations' of the EU's 50th anniversary. Another page on the BBC website has the comments of four 'average' people about the EU. Despite the Euroscepticism commonly found across Europe, the Beeb somehow managed to find three of the most fanatically pro-EU individuals imaginable. What a very great surprise! The only respondent not wholly enthusiastic about the EU is an Albanian in Kosovo, and his 'opposition' is solely motivated by the fact that he wants to be in the glorious EU, but isn't.

Even for the BBC, this is blatant liberal bias of the first water. Commonly, when the Beeb does something like this, they at least maintain the pretence of impartiality. In this case, even that seems to have been scattered to the four winds.

Nonetheless, the public seems to have realised the essential truth about al-Beeb: while it remains a decent source for purely factual information on current events (and I often use it as a source here, for that reason), the moment it starts to express opinions, you can safely start ignoring everything that is said. Here are the comments of ordinary people on the EU's 50th birthday, published on the "Have Your Say" section of the Beeb website, and ranked by popularity. It can be seen that you have to go to the 22nd most popular comment (7 down on page two, if you're interested), before finding anyone with anything remotely positive to say about the EU.

Update, 23rd March, 3.15pm: The most popular pro-EU comment at "Have Your Say" has now slipped to number 42 overall. I think that this gives something of an indication as to how the average Briton feels about the EU.