 With the crunch point of Brexit almost here, March 29th is just a few weeks away, coverage of the issue by the media, in particular the BBC, leaves a great deal to be desired. Rather informing the public as to the substance of one of the most important issues of my lifetime, they are so actively misinforming people, giving the incorrect facts and often about the most basic of assertions, one has to suspect their motivations. Just listen to this interview between Sarah Montague on the BBC's World at One with Labour's John Trickett. And we've been to Europe and we know that and so our argument was look, change the red lines, discuss them with others, let's see if we can create a consensus as a way forward because the country is completely impatient. My question was about the deal that has been struck with the EU, it's sitting there, it gives you what you want, a customs union, it actually doesn't even resolve the longer term thing and the short term thing, it gives you what you ask for, a customs union, why, why would Labour not support it? Now to be clear, the government's position is not for a customs union, if that was the case then the backstop in regards to Northern Ireland, a word we've repeatedly heard over the last several months, would not be an issue. One has to ask questions as to whether Montague is in receipt of these facts or if she's trying to lay a trap for the opposition when more than ever it's the government which needs to be held to account. That same day we saw something very similar between the BBC's Emma Barnett and Emily Thornberry, again on BBC Radio. The EU have said it's Theresa May's deal, that's it. Have you got any evidence to show that they are open to another deal? Absolutely, so we've been to, the letter that we wrote to Theresa May which is an alternative way of leaving the European Union is supported by the experts as being entirely viable and was when we were not supported by the EU. Yeah, when we published it. That's what Michel Barnier has said, actually I really like your plan Labour, I'd love to do that. Keep up, keep up, yeah, yeah, yeah, Michel Barnier said when we published the letter he said that that was an entirely reasonable way in which we could have an alternative negotiation. But the point, Barnett's assertions here simply are not true, the likes of Giverhoff's that Michel Barnier and Donald Tusk have all welcomed Labour's proposals. In fact it wasn't so long ago that Tusk, president of the European Council, even told Theresa May that Corbyn's plan could break the Brexit deadlock. Now poor coverage of what's going on right now isn't just limited to BBC Radio where the most basic facts are inaccurately reported and where there seems to be a greater emphasis on holding Labour to account rather than the government. If you were watching Newsnight the evening before that was on Tuesday, you may have seen Emily Maitlis with the Tories, Nadim Zahawi and Labour's Barry Gardner. Now just to give a bit of context what you're about to see, this was the evening where the Tories saw the withdrawal agreement voted down for a second time, it was the fourth largest parliamentary defeat in history, the first was of course in January and yet there was almost a tag team effort going on between Zahawi and Maitlis against Barry Gardner. What will be on your manifesto? What Brexit vision will be on your manifesto then? To negotiate the deal that we have set out? That's going to be on the leaflet. Well we will decide what our manifesto position is as we normally do, it's a democratic party, it's not made up by one person on Newsnight as you know. So we will decide that but what we have set out... We're just not fair enough at all, I mean people are literally pulling their hair out tonight. Sorry I didn't interrupt you Nadim. I'm not going to move on to him Paisley. Now I think that response from Maitlis, the eye roll is utterly unprofessional but it's perhaps not surprising that the Guardian wanted to focus on a completely trivial detail because it was attacking Labour. Now Emily Maitlis has form here, it wasn't that long ago in fact pretty much the start of the run into the last general election, she quizzed publicly whether there was still time for Labour MPs to dump Jeremy Corbyn, objective impartial analysis this is not and then there was the time she admitted that she doesn't really have that much time for democracy when push comes to shove. Which is that we keep on talking about you know the problem with democracy and the problem with the deficit but at what point do you say actually democracy is not as important as the future economy and stability and prosperity of the country right now? You would think that's something of a prerequisite for a journalist working in public service broadcasting, apparently not. Now on the same night of that vote the Tuesday the BBC was leading with the parliamentary vote and it had a live feed outside with at one point Andrew Neil. Now Andrew Neil, strong broadcast journalist we know his political tendencies but whatever, who are the guests? Because we know the BBC of course is so invested in a broad range of opinion and debate and in terms of holding the government to account and its brexit deal to account we would want voices from both the left and the right. And yet instead we got Anne McElroy from the Economists, Julia Hartley Brewer and Matthew Parris, that allied with the later eye roll of Mateless and the subsequent days shenanigans by Emma Barnett and Sarah Montague would indicate I would submit a rather profound problem in regards to BBC's current affairs output. Simply put it is not good enough. Then there's BBC Question Time, the network's flagship current affairs programme. Now I know it's been subject to a minute and one jokes in regards to its terrible audience selection and it's terrible panel selection but the shenanigans of last week really took the biscuit, you may have seen Owen Jones appear on there. Now we know there is an ongoing issue in regards to right-wing activists, UKIP Tories getting access to not just the audience but also the audience questions. But last week they didn't just ask one question or two questions or three or four questions, they asked five questions. You have to think. The whole point of BBC Question Time is to offer a glimpse, a snapshot of the public at large and what they really think beyond the Westminster bubble. If the audience is infiltrated by Conservative Party activists to such an extent what is the point of the programme? Furthermore it's not just the audience that is the problem. In regards to the panel selection repeatedly you see often four to one in terms of right versus left. People may point to centrist figures like Yergin Mayer by the way he's repeatedly voted Tory but the reality is this in terms of people arguing for a broken status quo against socialists it's anything but a fair fight and almost always without exception there'll be a right-wing populist voice on that panel whether it be Isabel Oakshaw, Nick Ferrari, Julia Hartley Brewer and their point is very simple to drag the entire terms of the debate to the right. It's no surprise you almost never see people from the left performing precisely the same role. This ties into a broader conversation because some people think since the 2017 general election the mainstream media broadcast and print has had something of a recognition of their failings and that they wanted to at least acknowledge certain left-wing voices to redress a very clear imbalance. 40% of the electorate was barely represented on both television and in our newspapers. I don't buy that. I think changes we've seen since then are pretty cosmetic. Yeah you might see the occasional Navara editor here or there but in terms of the scripts, the producers, the news agendas, what's viewed as important and unimportant nothing has changed whatsoever. The primary reason why that is is that they still view Corbinism as a blip. They still think despite Brexit, despite Trump, despite the rise of the SMP, despite transformations in the Labour Party, despite the fact that neoliberalism is falling apart that somehow things are going to go back to normal. Well I can tell you if you're watching and of course you aren't, you're going to be in some nice Soho restaurant expenses that's not going to happen. Things are not going to magically go back to the way their things were before 2008. The economic structural basis of Blairism, growth which came out of financialisation, a favourable global economic cycle and of course inflated asset prices was a one-off. That was also the basis for centrist politics generally which means the shambolic re-rock we're now seeing with the independent group is genuinely destined to fail. More than that and this inability to even try to portray left-wing opinions, activists, policies, there is also something deeper going on here because you have to understand before 2017 the left for the mainstream media was a joke. They would have them on to laugh at. There was a sense for a short while afterwards, after June 2017 that had changed but now you're seeing a genuine close of ranks. You're now seeing class consciousness on the behalf of the establishment and they recognise the actual danger that is presaged by these people. They don't want them on. The radical left has made pretty much all of the right calls over the last 15 to 20 years. You'll see that in innumerable videos on social media of Bernie Sanders from the 1980s or Jeremy Corbyn from the Iraq demonstrations in 2003 or even Tony Bennett in the 1980s too. They got everything right really since 2000. They were right on UK foreign policy. They were right on the idiocy of Iraq. They were right on the limits of both neoliberalism and Blairism the former evidenced by the global financial crisis of 2008. They were right about the stupidity of austerity and they were right about the public at large being profoundly pissed off. Mainstream media journalists in print and broadcast generally speaking missed all of this. They made the wrong call every single time. They have a sunk cost. They want to be proven on right on at least one of these things which means they have significant incentives on ensuring that Jeremy Corbyn never comes to power and that a socialist government doesn't transform Britain and create an economy that's for the many not the few. Yes on the one hand this is about material interest preserving the status quo for the establishment but on a very personal level when you're wrong about loads of shit you want to try and be right about at least one thing for the likes of Emily Maitlis and her many colleagues. That's precisely what Jeremy Corbyn represents because it's just embarrassing to be continually proven wrong.