There but for the Grace of the BBC...

Talking of news about the BBC, the Mail on Sunday had a rum story today headlined Left-wing 're-education camp' is accused of training journalists to flood the BBC's airwaves with pro-Corbyn commentators. 

The MoS reports that a far-left organisation called the New Economy Organisers Network (Neon) - seemingly a pro-Corbyn equivalent of Common Purpose - is training Corbynista pundits to appear on the media.

"When they appear," the MoS says, "they rail against the ‘mainstream media’ and traditional capitalism, and are taught how to ‘swerve’ difficult questions". 

So far, so good for Neon it seems. They are getting lots and lots of invites.

And the intriguing thing, for the purposes of this blog, is that the bulk of those invites have come from the BBC.

Neon pundits have made more than 60 appearances on BBC shows this year alone.

One of them is Grace Blakeley, who many of us will have seen many times already on the BBC.

The disappointing thing about the MoS article is that it only names Grace Blakely. I'm intrigued to know who the rest are.

It looks as if the Tories aren't happy about it. "Last night, the BBC faced calls from Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss to explain why it was seemingly co-operating with Neon’s propaganda push", the MoS says. The article contains a couple of juicy quotes too:

Liz Truss: The BBC is of course right to seek a balance of views. However, it should not be willingly or unwillingly taking part in a concerted anti- capitalism campaign worthy of George Orwell’s 1984 to poison people against traditional free-market economics. It’s not as if the Corporation can be unaware as these commentators go on Twitter afterwards to celebrate their appearance. 

'A Government source': The BBC is giving a platform to hard-Left activists posing as journalists and commentators groomed by their very own re-education camp. If they ditched these hateful idealogues, they might be able to produce better quality, balanced shows.

If anyone comes across more names of Neon pundits, please let us know. Is Our Ash one?