BBC Appoints Labour Activist Who Tweeted “I Love You Jeremy Corbyn” as ‘Political Fact-Checker’
In case there was any remaining doubt that ‘fact-checkers’ are just activists putting their own spin on events, the BBC has abandoned all pretence of impartiality by appointing a Labour Party activist who tweeted “I Love You Jeremy Corbyn” as a ‘political fact-checker’. The Mail has the story.
The BBC has been accused of “obvious bias” after its new political fact-checker was exposed as a hard-Left Labour activist who described Tory MPs as lower than “invertebrates” and said: “never trust a Tory”.
Oscar Bentley made his TV debut on Wednesday’s Politics Live, where he spoke on behalf of the broadcaster’s esteemed Political Research Unit, and was asked to analyse claims Rishi Sunak had made about crime during Prime Minister’s Questions.
He offered a critical analysis of the Tory leader’s use of statistics, saying Mr. Sunak had ignored figures for fraud and computer misuse and adding: “If you take crime actually recorded by police forces, that’s actually gone up.”
Mr Bentley, 25, joined the BBC in September and is expected to play a key role in helping to fact-check political debates in the run-up to the next General Election. The role requires absolute impartiality.
Yet the Daily Mail can reveal that he is actually a lifelong Labour supporter who canvassed for Corbyn at the last election and has repeatedly smeared Conservatives on social media – and at one point boasted about having shouted “Tories out!” at the gates of Downing Street.
Two months before polling day, Mr. Bentley used Twitter to tell followers “never trust a Tory”, and after that May’s local election in York he declared that “seven hours of door knocking yesterday paid off with three Labour wins in Hull Road Ward!”.
When Theresa May was attempting to enact Brexit, he wrote on Twitter: “Tory Government defeated in Parliament, what an early Christmas present” and in December 2018 said: “There are vertebrates, invertebrates, and then there are Tory MPs.”
The previous year he told followers how he’d visited Westminster, saying “shouting ‘Tories out!’ at the gates of Downing Street was immensely satisfying”, adding the hashtag “#toriesout”.
And in April 2019 he expressed “huge solidarity” with Extinction Rebellion, who were engaged in a demonstration in central London. He has also described Labour as “my lads”, and while at York University described himself as a “Lefty student journalist”.
In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, Bentley dubbed Anna Soubry, the remain supporting Conservative MP “literally the only Tory I actually like”. He also described the election of Boris Johnson in 2019 as a “f***ing car crash” and criticised “crusty tories” over education policy.
Mr. Bentley’s public Facebook page carries an image of him doctored to include Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign slogan “for the many not the few” and the words “Vote Labour”.
In a separate post, he uploaded an image of a terrier with a caption endorsing “dogs for Corbyn”, telling friends he was: “Spamming all of my social media with this pic because of the insanely cute doggy. Important politics too.”
On election night he posted: “please win Jeremy Corbyn, I love you so much, be my Prime Minister, please.”
Worth reading in full.
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What is somewhat surprising is that the BBC seemed to be quite anti-Corbyn – perhaps because they thought he was unelectable or perhaps he wasn’t quite the right kind of globalist.
Everyone who works for the BBC or any other organisation has political opinions of some kind, and being a political activist isn’t necessarily a measure of how strong those opinions are (in fact a lot of people involved in politics seem to have very few principles).
It’s patently absurd to expect a news organisation not to have some kind of bias. Newspapers are all biased in fairly known ways. Caveat emptor. Privatise the BBC.
Hey there downticker, what has triggered you? Think the site should have a feature – no downticks allowed without a comment to go with them. The Daily Sceptic is all about intelligent debate.
Not me BTW! I know you can’t comment here without a subscription / donation, but perhaps you can vote on comments without one? Maybe phantom downvoters are visitors riled up by something but unable to post a reply?
You may well be right – thanks!
I don’t believe that is the case. I followed this site for a time before I chose to support if financially, and was always able to participate as long as I was logged in.
I’ve said it many times and emailed DS to ask them the same thing, no comment, no downtick available!
Don’t forget that little Oscar and his Terrier too, will be downticking for all their worth.
And the DS subs will be paid for by you, dear reader.
It’s really all about open, not just intelligent debate. Otherwise some of my contributions would not have passed the intelligent test! Your downtickers, 21 at 07:50 BST, are demonstrating that their intelligence is on a par with bottom dwelling pond life. The more downtickers I see, the more I find the original comment to be well made, even if I don’t agree with it.
Indeed, open, yes.
Possibly someone thought I was supportive of Corbyn, or of the leftist BBC?
23 downticks but not 23 apposing veiws in the debate? Something’s not right here!
“Everyone who works for the BBC or any other organisation has political opinions of some kind, and being a political activist isn’t necessarily a measure of how strong those opinions are (in fact a lot of people involved in politics seem to have very few principles)”
Perhaps a valid point in that political activism might not be a good gauge of authenticity or strength of political beliefs, but the kind of activism described in the article does seem to be a good indicator of propensity for ideological tribalism. When later in a position of power, it can mutate into something more self-serving (and even corrupt), as the political stratum shifts from one of pushing for change to one of maintaining itself.
Yes, I would agree with that. However I don’t think the solution is to have some kind of “you’re not an ideological tribalist” test for BBC employees, but to privatise the BBC so we don’t have to pay for it and so that it loses the stamp of “neutrality” it oddly seems to have with those not paying attention.
I suppose you could have a quota system whereby they employ equal numbers of lefties and righties in each strata.
Absolutely, a free market approach would remove the need for any absurd and unworkable tests of political allegiance. Of course, there’s something in arguments that privatisation of the BBC would be effectively throwing the baby out of the bathwater, but in recent times the BBC has become mostly bathwater and very little baby.
I think the BBC in its current form has to go if there’s to be any hope for this country.
I would ensure that the BBC’s back catalogue is put in the care of an organisation that can be trusted to prevent some of the past gems from being destroyed or tampered with.
There is much which must have commercial, as well of cultural value. Not a lot from this Millenium, obviously.
The rest of the BBC should be blown up and the rubble salted. Left as an awful warning for what needs to happen to arrogant, venal, lying woke monsters.
Good point about the back catalogue – some of the older stuff is priceless.
I think that the principal you were thinking of was, for the majority of MPs, personal enrichment. Perhaps I’m just cynical.
Personal financial and ego enrichment, yes. I don’t know why people trust them so much.
My guess is that he was perceived to be insufficiently enthusiastic about the GangGreen policies.
After all, Jezza’s brother Piers has long pointed out the absolute nonsense of “Climate Change” – and apparently made a living with his own weather predictions.
It’s more of a scandal that they’ve hired such a mediocre specimen. Go to any university town and throw a stone, and it’ll strike at least one of this kind of dullard: an Oscar, a Jeremy, a Maisie or a Poppy.
Don’t tell me Oxbridge, loaded parents etc.
I very much doubt if 25-odd years ago there were many working class parents in minimum wage jobs (whose only option for their kids was the local Comprehensive), who called their new-born son “Oscar.”
Middle class champagne socialist parents = middle class champagne socialist sprog.
Yes, point taken.
How’s that not offense archaeology? The newest of the tweets is from 2019, ie, from four years ago. We don’t know anything about the current opinions of this guy and we also don’t know how many of the juvenile fervor he expressed on the internet back then is still a feature of his personality. Further, even assuming his opinions and zeal for expressing them haven’t changed, that his private business as he’s certainly as much entitled to political opinions as everybody else. Even BBC employees have a right to vote and it’s very likely that some wouldn’t ever vote Tory.
How about waiting how this guys end up doing his new job and criticising him then if there’s a reason for it?
I’d agree, except that the very act of taking a job as a “fact checker” now we know the nature of the species from three years experience is condemnation in itself!
He’ll find himself in possession of enough rope to hang himself in his new position in this case. To a degree, he has even already started to do so:
He offered a critical analysis of the Tory leader’s use of statistics, saying Mr. Sunak had ignored figures for fraud and computer misuse and adding: “If you take crime actually recorded by police forces, that’s actually gone up.”
I don’t know what Sunak said but fraud and computer misuse are very likely not what people think about when they’re worried about the possibility of becoming a victim of crime.
It’s a good point about offense archaeology, also a good point that everyone is entitled to, and in fact has, political opinions.
The problem is not that they’ve employed some radical lefty but that our state broadcaster employs “fact checkers” at all, and that we have a state broadcaster at all, that pretends to be impartial but is not, and cannot be.
With the greatest of respect, we need “BBC fact checkers” like we need a bullet through the back of the head.
And, even if this young twerp has had a Damascene Conversion, as you suggest, we still don’t need him.
Someone who can arrange for the BBC to at least pay lip service to the ruddy Charter would be a start.
They could sort out the evil nonsense of the 28gate meeting, ensuring the total adherence to the Zero Carbon agenda, just for a start. Perhaps look at their enthusiasm for “Safe & Effective” experimental gene therapy?
The list is VERY long.
Offence archaeology is used to ensure that poorly managed organisations only employ ‘people like us’, vapid drones who won’t rock the boat and will be happy to see the organisation slowly decline into irrelevance. This is all very well in commercial concerns as they will deserve their extinction. The BBC is funded by all taxpayers, which makes them immune from this process. When the BBC was a news provider it was trustworthy. Becoming an opinion provider, with the opinions provided by 25 year olds with their massive amount of life experience, was the start of the current decline into irrelevance.
I once had an Oscar Bentley, 6.7 liter V12, when I was a champagne 🍾 socialist!
Judging from his tweets, posts, whatever I would suggest he is only JUST the right side of his nappies. No wonder the toerags at BBC gave him a job. He’ll fit right in.
He could share a pram with Mariana.
The Human Remains departments of all major organisations trawl through anti-social media as part of the selection process. So F Oscar was obviously chosen specifically to join Mariana in her pram
I don’t quite know how to reconcile these two sceptical opinions about the BBC.
One, it’s broadly accused of being left-leaning while continuing to press the illusion of impartiality of content.
Two, it is equally accused among sceptics of being the mouthpiece for the propaganda of the government. A currently right-wing government.
Perhaps, the label of “government mouthpiece” is overly simplistic, and what the BBC is really, is a mouthpiece for that faction of government that has shown cowardice for bending to the whims of left activists and collectivist global cooperation, stuff like that.. The Tories that aren’t really Tories, and would sacrifice all the real conservative ideals and sell their souls to push collectivism, globalism, authoritarianism. “We’re all in this together”… “Nobody’s safe until we’re all safe”, “Sacrifice your children’s welfare for the “greater good”” (might as well have said it!), and all those other vacuous slogans bereft of meaning would sound more authentic coming from the mouth of a communist despot, not from the press conferences of a right-of-centre liberal democratic government!
But they did say these things, made policy by them, and were quoted verbatim by the mainstream national broadcaster. Impartiality my LEFT foot!
Well this sceptic has never thought they were the mouthpiece of the government. They supported the government line on covid only because they loved the covid project, but were always wanting more restrictions. They opposed Brexit even after it was done. They support the government only when it coincides with their aims and agenda. They hate Tories, or think they do.
The BBC is the voice of the establishment, which can be somewhat left wing at times, e.g. Tony Blair, but not Jeremy Corbyn.
Authoritarian, contemptuous of the British people, plenty of brown envelopes….
That’s the type the Beeb loves best.
And if they are fans of the more excitable members of Hamas and Hezbollah, better still.
I’d hardly call the current government “right-wing”
Well, not these days at least