Sir Patrick Moore, who Queen guitarist Brian May once described as the “father of astronomy”, died over the weekend, as many will have no doubt already heard. As I wrote something by way of a tribute to his work on Twitter and Facebook I was speedily reminded that he also had very hairy political views. I want to briefly explain why I think we can distinguish the two things.
People who deal, professionally, with sets of objectively analysed data – economists or scientists, say – play two often inharmonious roles: analysts and people with opinions, good and daft, just like everybody else.
Is the BBC in thrall to the liberal establishment? Do right-wingers take to the telly in disproportionate numbers? Does it really deserve its Tory epithet, ‘Buggers Broadcasting Communism’? Or is the BBC getting it about right in striking an impartial balance? Whichever way you look at it, these are not a set of questions likely to be settled by a single blog post.
One of my least favourite newspapers has to be London’s Evening Standard, also known as the Evening Boris, because of it’s slavish devotion to our ‘Mayor’.