BBC - too pro-Tories and too much UKIP

Admittedly, I haven`t seen or heard all of the recent BBC broadcasts, but it seems to me that the Beeb is contributing hugely to May`s apparent popularity in the polls, and the alleged increasing support for Ukip.

      Why is the BBC giving so much coverage, especially in its news and current affairs programmes, to the proposals made by Theresa May to reform corporate governance? The ideas that the pay ratio of CEOs and the average earner be published, and that shareholders vote on executive pay be binding, are hardly new, revolutionary, and perhaps most importantly, likely to make any significant change. Already the tried and tested pledge to force businesses to have at least one workers` representative on their boards has been dropped, not because of pressure from the bosses` organisation, the CBI, of course, and not a U-turn either!

      Co-determination of this nature has been seen to work in other countries, especially in West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s, but May appears to prefer solutions which might look as though they make a difference, but in reality do nothing of the sort; in other words, "window dressing " reforms, common with all Tory PMs since Disraeli in the late 19th century.

    All the Beeb`s attention on the pay ratio is unwarranted, to say the least. If it is so important why hasn`t the corporation focused in the past on the fact that the pay of the average FTSE100 chief executives has risen from 47 times that of the average worker in 1998 to 128 times last year? And, of course, it`s still rising.

Now that May and her ministers want the pay ratios to be made public, it`s suddenly big news, apparently. It shouldn`t be; it`s just another method of naming and shaming, and we all know how successful that`s been. Greedy fat cats don`t care if people know how much they are paid, they just want more.

    The BBC hasn`t exactly gone overboard on top executive pay before, otherwise it would be common knowledge how obscene pay levels for bosses lead to low investment in technology and training , and, therefore, contribute to low productivity. But now that the Tory government wants to adopt an obviously useless method of reducing executives` pay, the BBC gives it the full works!

      If May promised to legislate to bring the ratios down to socially acceptable levels, 20:1 for instance, now that would be something to headline with!

      It`s the same with Ukip and its new leader. We have become accustomed to the Beeb giving maximum opportunity to Farage to spout forth his right-wing nonsense, but the fuss the Corporation made over Nuttall`s election was simply OTT. Did the same happen when the Plaid Cymru and Green leaders were elected? Of course not. The BBC could not even bring themselves to denounce Nuttall for his right-wing policies, or mention his desire both to privatise the NHS, and to introduce a flat tax rate of 31%.

 They did, however, announce his intention to challenge Labour for working class voters, the very people who would be most interested to learn that Ukip thinks they should pay 11% more in income tax, whilst higher earners should have theirs reduced dramatically!

   If the very existence of the BBC is under so much threat from the government it should say so, as it would explain its current bias. Regardless, viewers and radio listeners deserve better, and Labour should be shouting about this from the rooftops!