Mirror Online: The intelligent tabloid. #madeuthink Handelsblatt Global Edition Home | Daily Mail Online Munich Security Conference Northern Ireland's Breaking News, Comment and Analysis - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Hard Evidence: How biased is the BBC? This article was originally published on The Conversation, where it forms part of Hard Evidence, a series of articles that looks at what the data say about some of the trickiest public policy questions we face. Academic experts will delve into the available research evidence to provide an informed analysis of current affairs you won’t get from politicians or vested interests. Here, Cardiff University Lecturer Mike Berry uses his research to tackle a question as old as broadcasting itself: is the BBC really impartial? If you are a reader of the right end of the British press you will be familiar with stories claiming that the Corporation has a liberal, left-wing bias. Only last week the Daily Telegraph reported a new study had found that the BBC “exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented”. Our research had two strands. Tories get more airtime than Labour A win for Euroscepticism City voices
Herald Scotland UK | UK Politics | Restoring devolution under Blair Every British prime minister of modern times has ended up dealing to some extent with "the Irish question", usually because political violence has forced it on to their agenda. The tone of their engagement has usually been reluctant, if not downright resentful. Politicians are bound to be suspicious of the demands of an issue where there are few, if any, British votes to be had, and whose roots stretch back to the reign of Henry II, who died in 1184. From his earliest days in office, though, Tony Blair was different. True, he was building on the work of his predecessor, John Major, who had opened secret negotiations with the IRA, but Mr Blair's engagement was to prove both longer and deeper. First-name terms It was enormously significant for a man with his subtle understanding of the power of symbolism that Mr Blair's first trip outside London as prime minister was to Belfast. The depth of his commitment to the search for a stable settlement in Northern Ireland was never to waver. Ceasefire