By the end of the week, BBC Verify published a new article conceding that the figures were contentious but without any reference to Neidle, although it still backed the government’s estimates and cited different sources to back up its analysis.
The BBC spokesman said: “Dan Neidle’s analysis wasn’t removed – the below 500 figure was taken out for brevity as it was repetitive. The new piece is a deep dive on the numbers using analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and CenTax to explore the figures as thoroughly as possible in the light of the discussion. This article is clear we stand by our original assessment and it explains why.”
CenTax is Advani and Summers. The very people who suggested the IHT changes in hte first place. They are not, in any manner, neutral arbiters. But that’s how they’re being used….
I suppose that the BBC in its arrogance has no idea of the reputational harm that Verify inflicts on it.
@Ottokring – BBC Verify has the benefit of clearly demonstrating where the lying bastards are lying this time.
Contrast this with Twitter/X “Community Notes” which are often quite funny in their corrections and have no problem calling out Elon on his bullshit.
Imagine BBC Verify doing the same with crisp mongerer Gary Lineker’s bullshit.
Yeah, no. The BBC ain’t for me.
If I want propaganda I will tune into Russian TV.
@Otto
Arrogance? Obviously. When has the BBC been anything but?
Reputational harm? The BBC’s reputation is already so far in the gutter with everyone who isn’t a fellow traveller that nothing — even Verify — can make it worse. However, for those whose opinion the BBC itself cares about (i.e. the Guardian-reading classes), it is something that they can all pat themselves on the back with.
And remember, kids: sucking up to the government so that they’ll allow the telly tax to go up is just fine provided it’s a Labour government. That putting up the telly tax fails to increase revenue because people switch to streaming is a neoliberal lie — and BBC Verify will happily confirm that the Laffer (Ibn Khaldun) Curve doesn’t exist.
As Matt points out, the BBC’s reputation can’t possible get any lower, so may as well splash and frolic in the gutter and ignore complaints.
BBC Verify? Isn’t it MiniTru?
The BBC does increasingly look like a stall set up by an entry slip road to a motorway selling buggy whips, hay & saddles.
Although it occurs to me, in light of the post down page about electric cars, someone actually doing that might be highly prescient.
“a deep dive”: from the Beeb? Only if it is sent swimming in lead boots.
Can’t we just sell it off while it has any residual value left?
Off topic, in that it doesn’t involve the BBC though it is about ‘the network’, Marc Andreessen was on Joe Rogan’s podcast yesterday.
Lots of the usual Roganbollocks, but Andreessen is interesting, especially in respect of Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Finance Protection Bureau – a supposedly independent US government institution.
Andreessen says it’s being used to prevent banking competition and to ‘debunk ’ political enemies of the Democratic Party.
He personally knows dozens of people who have been excluded from the banking system as ‘politically exposed persons’ (a la Farage) with no explanation and no recourse.
It’s unconstitutional for the government to restrict your speech in the US but obviously private companies can do what they like; all the government has to do is let Chase or JP Morgan know that they’d like you debanked, and voila.
As a bonus, the likes of BBC Verify get to slander you as ‘far right’, I guess, helping the whole thing to be self sustaining.
He describes it as ‘a privatised sanctions regime that lets bureaucrats do to American citizens the same thing we do to Iran’.
I won’t say they’re conspiring, because some people are allergic to such theories. I will say I very much hope Trump and his boys sic a giant team of hungry lawyers and straight cops on the bastards… though breath won’t be held.
If interested, it’s from about 1hr 32min on the Rogan YouTube page.