Transport Union RMT today slammed the BBC’s Question Time for “outrageous political bias” after an invitation to General Secretary Bob Crow to appear on the programme this evening with London Mayor Boris Johnson was withdrawn at short notice. It seems that Bob Crow has been replaced with Mark Serwotka of the PCS union.
Question Time editorial staff cobbled together the pathetic excuse that Bob Crow was pulled from the show “because he appeared on Any Questions?” last week – even though Johnson appeared on exactly that same show where Crow wiped the floor with him
RMT believes that, in the week when he announced a lethal package of £7.6 billion in tube and transport cuts, it was Johnson and his officials at City Hall who demanded that Bob Crow be dropped from the programme. Johnson is notoriously afraid of public debate with Bob Crow and once ripped off a microphone and stormed out when Channel 4 News attempted to bring the two together.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:
There is no question that I’ve been pulled from this week’s Question Time because of a political intervention at the highest level within the BBC which is yet more evidence of the Corporation bending the knee to this Government and the Tory Party.
The argument that this is about me appearing on Any Questions? last week is total garbage. Boris Johnson appeared on the same Any Questions? and yet he is still on the Question Time panel. It is clear that there is one law for the Old Etonian Johnson and another for a working-class trade union leader when it comes to the BBC – that stinks.
The week after more than half a million people marched on the streets of London the people of this country have a right to hear the London Mayor and the tube union leader debate and discuss his cuts plans. Boris is running scared of that debate and the BBC executives are holding his coat – that is disgraceful bias and makes a mockery of the BBC Charter.”
While shocking – not unexpected from A BBC with an inherent right bias, not to mention kowtowing to its bosses – the Tory party.
If anyone still believes the BBC is impartial now needs to come off their cuckoo cloud.
The producers of Question Time obviously wanted Crow and Johnson to appear together -it would have made a great spectacle.
But the BBC are as vunerable to these cuts as any other group. I expect the organisation to keep a very low profile over the coming months…
‘The government has announced that due to cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off.’
It’ll be interesting to see how Bob’s replacement, Mark Serwotka of PCS, gets on. I doubt he’ll do a lot of kowtowing, if I know him.