"BBC's anti-war bias undermines its future"

Says Labour MP Gerald Kaufman in this Scotland on Sunday piece.

"The BBC is not a newspaper, but an independent public sector, publicly financed broadcasting organisation which should provide entertainment and news but should not have any opinions of its own on any subject of public controversy.

That was the key criterion laid down by the BBC’s first and greatest director-general, Lord Reith, and it is a criterion from which the BBC has been departing dangerously and increasingly. I do not mean that the BBC has a party-political allegiance in the way that both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have. I mean that, on issue after issue that figures in the news, the BBC pursues an agenda."

Couldn't agree more, old chap. On immigration, globalisation, crime, sexual politics, education, asylum, GWB, Kyoto, drugs, the BBC has the same liberal agenda that all right-thinking, comfortably off Guardian and Independent readers have. And I haven't heard Gerald Kaufman utter a peep about it before.

SonS is full of good stuff today - here's my nemesis Rod Liddle with "Terminal madness of regime hell-bent on saving its skin".

Damn - he means the Government, not Greg Dyke and Co. !