Friday 18 April 2008

BBC bias on immigration

On the BBC website, the corporation's Home Affairs Editor, Mark Easton, has penned a rather bland piece on the debate over immigration, apparently prompted by the news that nearly two-thirds of British people believe that inter-racial violence is likely to erupt in the near future. The article itself merely rehashes themes which should be familiar to most reasonably well-informed people, and I would not mention the piece, but for the first few sentences, which provide a textbook example of the subtle bias for which the BBC is renowned:

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. So what does it say about race relations in Britain?

We have witnessed in Britain over the past decade a level of immigration greater than at any time in our history.

A million have recently come from Eastern Europe, but the migration to our shores has been from all parts of the globe.

Yet this extraordinary social change has been conducted with remarkably little hostility or public opposition.

Our experience is testament to the tolerance and adaptability of the British people.

Two points:

First, Easton's assertion that there has been "remarkably little...public opposition" to the colossal increase in levels of immigration that we have seen in the last decade is a blatant lie. As has been demonstrated time and time and time again, approximately 80% of the public believe that immigration levels are too high, and that they should be heavily reduced. If that is "remarkably little opposition", then I can only guess that to achieve the status of "significant opposition", the figures would have to be at least equal to Kim Jong-il's share of the vote in the last North Korean elections!
Admittedly, the public have not manifested their opposition to immigration by rioting, or by lynching immigrants. But that does not mean that opposition is any less prevalent, or any less strongly felt. Indeed, one might almost imagine that Mark Easton regards the general public with something bordering on contempt, given that he apparently believes that the British people invariably respond to anything they disagree with by getting aggressive and "hostile".

Secondly, I would be interested to learn precisely what Easton means by his statement that "our experience is testament to the tolerance and adaptability of the British people". Perhaps he simply means that the fact that the public have abstained from violence is testament to their tolerance, in the same way that Muslims were praised for their "restraint" for only rioting a tiny little bit over Fitna.
But given the close proximity of his statement about "tolerance and adaptability" to his (false) claim that there has been no significant opposition to the present levels of immigration, it is hard to avoid drawing the inference that the (alleged) acceptance of unlimited mass immigration by the British people is what proves their "tolerance and adaptability". And of course, this, almost necessarily, implies that opposition to immigration is intolerant, and indicative of an inability to adapt.
Maybe Mark Easton did not mean to imply this. Maybe he really does believe that tolerance consists of refraining from violence when you're upset or angry. But more likely, he simply regards it as axiomatic that support for mass immigration equals tolerance, while opposition to mass immigration equals intolerance and bigotry. This is the usual nature of BBC bias: not conscious or deliberate, but simply an expression of the subconscious liberal assumptions that may be shared by the overwhelming majority of Beeboids, but which are not shared by the public at large.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

BBC home editor Mark Easton says Powell's words, spoken to a small gathering in Birmingham's Midland hotel, still echo down the decades. He says the effect of Powell's speech was in fact to force the issue of immigration off the political agenda, with any politician who ventured to broach the subject risking being accused of playing the race card.

Yes, it was all Powell's fault. The left didn't WANT to fling those accusations and force immigration off the political agenda, but what choice did they have? In other words: "It wasn't me, mummy! A big boy did it and ran away."

Anonymous said...

Easton is right - when the chips have been down and in the poll that really matters, time after time the British have voted for immigration. Whats more they will do it again in 2009. Mind you I would say that its not tolerance and adaptability but cowardice and stupidity....(and thats just the men)