Apr 16 2007
Peter Hain and the BBC should apologise
On Any Questions this week Peter Hain decided to condemn me for a speech I made 14 years ago, without clearly having bothered to read it.
Uncorrected by Jonathan Dimbleby – who is usually careful about panellists making false and disparaging remarks about others – Hain claimed I had made a savage attack on single mothers.
The speech was entitled "There aren’t many fathers around here". It put the case for fathers to be asked to make a financial contribution where they were not living with their families, a policy which both the Conservative and Labour parties subsequently took up.
What did I say about single mothers? I said "Everyone would wish to help the young family that has suddenly lost their father through death,or if the mother has been badly abused or badly treated by the father and the relationship has broken down" – savage stuff, Mr Hain? I went to say that if no relationship between the mother and the father is being tried the state should pursue the father – not the mother! "It would be better for the child and better for the family and better for the state if more fathers assumed their natural responsibilities". Doesn’t Peter Hain think exactly the same on that matter?
Come on BBC, do your job – be impartial for change – stand up to the appalling Labour spin machine which makes up myths about opponents and then never stops spinning them. The BBC allows endless comment on me about things I have never said or done which Labour?? wants them to discuss, but seems more reluctant to engage with the 2 million words I have published.
4 Responses to “Peter Hain and the BBC should apologise”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
You’ve no chance: the BBC are incurably institutionally leftist throughout. This does huge and demoralizing damage on a daily basis. The institution needs privatizing and the TV licence fee abolishing on the first day of the next Conservative govt. People should not be forced to subsidise middle-class leftists indulging their prejudices.
JR: “Peter Hain decided to condemn me for a speech I made 14 years ago..”
There is nothing good to say about Peter Hain, he should return to South Africa and try his luck in politics there.
It’s even worse than you may think, I listened to the most recent episode of
John
I suggest that the problem with the BBC is that it has PRESENTERS not qualified interviewers on a particular subject.
The reason why you do not get invited to contribute is that you know your subject, and they know that you know your subject, and they do not (as well as you) and they are thus terrified that they will be exposed by your knowledge.
Presenters clearly are briefed before any interview, but when you introduce many facts to back your case, they are then to a degree on their own, and they must then feel uncomfortable with massive promting going on in their earpiece.