The Labour annual conference which began yesterday is the most important during this parliament and of Sir Keir Starmer's leadership so far. Yet its deliberations are not being shown on BBC Parliament. Surely we citizens are entitled to see the working out of policy by the major opposition party at a time when the government appears to have no strategy for the future of the UK and is merely intent on rewarding its friends? Parliament has been suspended in order for these conferences to take place with full participation by MPs. Pre-pandemic, it was the custom to show the proceedings of at least the autumn conferences of all the major parties and occasionally the spring ones as well.
One can forgive the corporation for missing the Liberal Democrat AGM because it was cancelled this year. We had the misfortune to be overtaken by events. Conferences have to be scheduled well in advance and nobody was to know that the monarch would die and that her funeral and the period of mourning leading up to it would coincide with conference dates. There is no such excuse for the Labour, Conservative and the Nationalists' conferences.
Of course, there will be a showing of the leaders' speeches as BBC's journalistic values of personalising politics continues to match those of the redtop papers. That is not, though, a substitute for examining the detailed consideration of what lies behind the propaganda.
The executives who swell the BBC payroll will no doubt argue that conference coverage is too expensive. The simple answer to that is to trim the contingent which goes to the seaside to the minimum necessary to cover the conferences. It is not necessary to send half-a-dozen journalists who could be better employed elsewhere merely to have extra-conference arguments with leading lights. Let us see the ordinary delegates and representatives, who are the backbone of the parties, on their feet in the conference hall!
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