CEP: BBC bias against mentioning England and the English

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Monday, 11, Aug 2008 12:00

'WALES & WELSH' OK. 'SCOTLAND & SCOTTISH' OK. 'BRITAIN & BRITISH' OK.

BUT 'ENGLAND & ENGLISH'? NOT IF THE BBC CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT!

'Nicole Cooke wins a gold medal -and wins it magnificently- in the Olympic 68 mile road race. 'The Princess of Wales' Gabby Logan, a former Welsh athlete herself, calls her over and over again. 'The Welsh rider' the BBC Ceefax sports page calls her. 'The first gold for Wales in 25 years' says the BBC commentator as Nicola dramatically gets across the winning line.'

'But what is about the BBC.' asks Michael Knowles, Head of the CEP Media Unit, sending out one of his regular media bulletins to the CEP membership. 'that it will never use the words 'England; and 'English' unless it has to? It regularly calls Andy Murray 'the Scottish tennis player' and repeatedly lets us know he comes from Scotland. It cannot refer to it enough. And it hasn't the slightest hesitation, as we have seen, in thumping home that Nicole Cooke is from Wales. But Tim Henman? For the BBC he was British, never English. In her BBC1 report in the 7pm to 8pm round-up of Olympic events for Sunday August 19th Gabby Logan spoke at some length about the 14 year old swimming prodigy Tom Daley and with his family at a meal in a restaurant in Beijing. Throughout it all not once did she describe Tom as English, from Plymouth in Devon. Not once. There can however be no doubt whatsoever that if he was from Swansea or Aberdeen, she would have mentioned Wales or Scotland time and again. As indeed would any BBC reporter.'

'The bias is instiutional,' stated Mr Knowles in his bulletin. 'it runs right through the whole corporation. It refuses point blank to have a BBC England when it has a BBC Scotland, a BBC Wales, a BBC Northern Ireland, an Asian Network and a BBC World Service. It discriminates consistently against England and the English nation by a policy of mentioning them as English as little as possible. I have raised this matter with the BBC Trust many times. I might as well speak to a brick wall. However, when I listen to the BBC on the radio and watch it on TV unhesitatingly describing Welsh members of the GB Olympic team as Welsh, and Scottish members of the GB Olympic team as Scottish, when I hear it loudly calling a GB Team member 'the Princess of Wales' and bringing home her gold medal 'to Wales', knowing it will never speak in that way about an English team member and only describe him or her as British, I feel deep anger at the bias against our English nation'.

Contact:

Scilla Cullen: CEP Chairman

Tel: 01438 833155 Email: scilla.cullen@thecep.org.uk

Michael Knowles

Media Unit

Tel: 01260 271139 Email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk