BBC’s Boris Johnson coverage shows it’s an anti-Brexit and anti-Conservative propaganda machine
THE BBC pounced with lip-smacking glee on its favourite victim this weekend.
Snooping neighbours had recorded Tory pin-up Boris Johnson in a spat with girlfriend Carrie Symonds.
There were shouts, screams and choice language. Police were called. They talked to the couple, found no offence of any sort had taken place, not even a breach of the peace, and left.
Let’s be clear. Had there been the slightest whiff of domestic abuse, BoJo would have been carted off in cuffs, his computer and mobile seized and the flat turned into a crime scene.
As we learned from the Cliff Richard shambles and the witchhunt over a non-existent Westminster child sex gang, our clod-hopping cops love to collar a celeb.
Instead, it was the sort of barney that might erupt at any time in any household in the land.
Except this one was taped by a spiteful busybody who, knowing beyond doubt no harm had been done, handed the recording to a scurrilous left-wing rag.
This form of eavesdropping, with no public interest justification, is banned under the newspaper industry’s Editors’ Code.
Yet the self-righteous Guardian decided to run it on Page 1. It was a gift from the gods to our publicly funded state broadcaster, whose mission is to ridicule the Tories, rubbish Brexit and, as a bonus, destroy Boris Johnson.
A flimsy tale of raised voices led every BBC bulletin for the entire weekend, while a genuine news story — a potential war between the US and Iran — took second place.
PROPAGANDA MACHINE
The national Press, including The Sun, went big too, but we are not a supposedly impartial public sector broadcaster with round-the-clock, 24/7 bulletins.
Radio 4 was saturated in sensation. Sonia Purnell, author of an unflattering Boris biog, was hauled on to the Today Programme to reheat tales of his volcanic temper.
It took Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson to inject sanity into the hyper BBC by reminding listeners this was a storm in a tea cup whipped out of all proportion.
How would the Boris squabble stack up, for instance, against White House fire storms during the Clinton presidency as First Lady Hillary hurled objects at bed-hopping Bill, she asked.
Barring more recorded bombshells, the BBC’s overt hostility towards Boris Johnson — and indeed the Tory party itself — risks backfiring badly.
In any case, nothing could be much more damaging than Carrie’s barb: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”
STAGE-MANAGED POLITICAL SABOTAGE
Snap polls are split over the reaction among voters, while grassroots Tories have given him a standing ovation.
Whether or not Boris becomes PM, the BBC’s hard-won reputation for fair and impartial broadcasting has been permanently stained.
It is now indelibly identified as a left-wing, pro-Remain, anti-Conservative propaganda machine. A crisis probe is underway, too late, into the “idiots in chinos” who made monkeys of Tory leadership candidates in last week’s TV fiasco, chaired — or heckled — by Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis. This stage-managed circus smacked of political sabotage, from the ludicrous bar stools to the blatantly partisan questions.
On Thursday, Radio 4 Today anchor Mishal Husain sneered at the ex-London Mayor’s £43million plans for a garden bridge over the Thames, arguably enhancing the landscape.
Yet her programme has never quizzed BBC Director-General Tony Hall over the decision to steal TV licence fees from millions of pensioners.
Boris Johnson often behaves like an overgrown student relying on others to feed him, clothe him and generally steer him through the chaos of his daily life.
MOST READ IN OPINION
You have to wonder why a 55-year-old would-be statesman is living in a tiny flat belonging to a girlfriend aged 31. A man who might be PM next month should surely have a home of his own.
But this is not really about Boris’s private life. It is about Brexit.
Boris is the only Tory who might deliver this prize. He is the only potential leader who could win an election. Two good reasons why his enemies are out to destroy him.
BOJO'S TEAM
EVEN friends of Boris admit he needs cool, calm, disciplined heads around him once he’s crossed the threshold into Downing Street.
“He requires a strong chancellor, a good chief of staff, a great chief whip and someone who can hold the whole operation together,” says one ally.
One surprising name that keeps cropping up in the final category is Eurosceptic brainbox John Redwood, one of the leading Downing Street thinkers in the early days of Margaret Thatcher.
A name to conjure with if Boris ends up as PM.