Former Scottish National Party MP for Ochil and South Perthshire
When the mid-term review of the BBC was published, one commentator described it publicly as a “great big hard hammer, badly disguised inside a not very velvet glove” used to batter this key public institution. There was much criticism of the report over the BBC’s perceived failure to achieve balanced coverage. The sight of some right-wing Conservatives attacking the BBC over its record...
Hold the front pages! The hon. Gentleman thinks that right-wing Brexiters are fundamentally good things when they appear on the BBC. That is a shock to us all, is it not? I agree with the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who he said that the recitation by the hon. Member for Stone of the events of one particular editorial meeting showed a journalists’ office operating well:...
Hear, hear.
I think the hon. Gentleman has somewhat lost the House. None of us understands what the connection is between expenditure by Parliament and expenditure by the national broadcaster. Can he further develop why that is relevant?
We are about to have a debate about BBC bias. I was a young correspondent at that time and I recall just how biased a lot of the coverage was. We constantly saw things from the police’s point of view, but never saw things from the miners’ point of view. What lessons does my hon. Friend think there are to learn from any inquiry on press and media coverage during that strike?
Since we last met, the media regulator Ofcom has again reprimanded GB News for breaching impartiality rules. Ofcom says that news programmes should not be presented by politicians. The Tory Benches host a plethora of Ofcom rule-breaching MPs who leave this place to freelance as pretendy news presenters on a channel that spreads conspiracy theories and disinformation, and that undermines...
Coverage of yesterday’s Commons chaos showed how desperately we need good-quality journalism, so I am concerned about BBC Scotland’s request to Ofcom for a reduction in its broadcast news output, especially the loss of “The Nine”. BBC Scotland’s TV news had something of a couthie image until “The Nine” came along, placing Scottish news in the context of UK and international...
How do I find words in my allotted three minutes for the tragedy that has engulfed the Palestinian people? Israeli bombs have killed 30,000. More than 10,000 children have died. The death toll per head of population is greater than in any conflict since the second world war. Gaza lies in ruins. People are starving. Women are enduring caesareans without anaesthetic. And yet this House has been...
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of civil servants on temporary contracts in her Department are women.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of SCS2 civil servants on full-time equivalent contracts in her Department are women.
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she is taking steps to support (a) Backstage At The Green in Ochil and South Perthshire constituency and (b) other grassroots music venues.
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to make (a) the Music Venue Trust and (b) other charities statutory planning consultees.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many lecturers at UK universities teach courses on video games.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students have graduated with a degree in video games in each year since 2010.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the recommendations made by the Ending Conversion Practices Expert Advisory Group in Scotland on 4 October 2022.
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment the potential impact of the mis-selling of fibre broadband products on consumers; and if she will make a statement.
