The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has attacked BBC newsrooms for being ‘overwhelmingly biased to the Left’and said the new director-general should be a Tory.
In his weekly column for The Daily Telegraph, Johnson claimed his ‘chief opponent’in his recent election victory was the local BBC news, adding:
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The prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the Left.
He also criticises the BBC’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry:
In all its lavish coverage of Murdoch, hacking and BSkyB, the BBC never properly explains the reasons why other media organisations – including the BBC – want to shaft a free-market competitor (and this basic dishonesty is spotted by the electorate; it’s one of the reasons real people are so apathetic about the Leveson business).
Johnson said that the ‘non-Murdoch media have their guns trained on Murdoch, while the Beeb continues to destroy the business case of its private sector rivals with taxpayer-funded websites and electronic media of all kinds”, adding:
I have sometimes wondered why BBC London never carries stories about dynamic start-ups or amazing London exports – and then concluded gloomily that it just not in the nature of that show.
It’s not in their DNA. Fully 75 per cent of the London economy is private sector – and yet it is almost completely ignored by our state broadcaster.
Johnson’s solution is for the Government to
‘appoint someone to run the BBC who is free-market, pro-business and understands the depths of the problems this country faces.
“We need someone who knows about the work ethic, and cutting costs. We need a Tory, and no mucking around. If we can’t change the Beeb, we can’t change the country.
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