When the BBC produces politically based articles it has a permanent tendency to have a bias against the Government above all else. This article is being presented as an insight into the people of Makerfield but has as its content more areas of national relevance, even international relevance, than of local issues - **bar one** (see below)The article goes into great detail about:
rats
illegal dumping
flooding
acrid smells
ceilings ripped out
nostalgia for coal mines
distrust of politicians
“broken Britain”
“left to fester”
kids’ toys floating in flood water
“only warehousing jobs”
economic strife
stepping-stone accusations
Elon Musk
a death-penalty referendum (Restore, not Reform)
Burnham’s leadership ambitions
national political stakes
But not the candidates’ actual plans for the area.
1/. There is no meaningful explanation of what Labour proposes to do for Makerfield.
2/. No explanation of what Reform UK proposes to do for Makerfield.
3/. No detail on what either party would do about the dump, the flooding, the jobs, the regeneration, the transport, the housing, or the local economy.
The BBC highlights the anger, always the anger — but not the answers, never the cause of the anger.
**And the most striking omission** As reliable as clockwork, the BBC chooses an issue that is strongly linked to one raised by the media's preferred next Prime Minister, Nigel Farage.
At the very same time the BBC is centring its whole article of the 'illegal dump' as the defining local issue, coincidentally, Nigel Farage is publicly talking about increased penalties for illegal dumping and waste.
Yet the BBC article makes no 'formal' reference to this political context at all - but it's there. It's not subtle, it's not 'by chance', it's political cold rage in action, and it's from the BBC and its journalists daily.
This is a pattern we see repeatedly:
1/. The BBC amplifies the issue, but removes the political actor associated with it, but the public knows who it is.
2/. The BBC highlights the problem, but avoids the policy debate.
3/. The BBC constructs a mood of decline, but withholds the competing solutions, and never refers to the previous 14 years of decline - ever, as its policy demands..
The result is not a balanced portrait of Makerfield. It is an assault on exclusively just 2 of the last 16 years.
It is a narrative of decay carefully arranged to support a Reform national political storyline:
a 'weakened prime minister', a volatile electorate, and a by-election with seismic implications.
GB2GB tracks media behaviour, not political positions, but cold hard 'political positions' taken by cold hard right wing media. And the behaviour here is clear:
The BBC selectively emphasises local decline while stripping out relevant political context — shaping the story through what it chooses to include, and what it chooses to leave out, deliberately.
Get Back To Great Britain (GB2GB) Fair and Balanced Media - Not Cold and Hard Rage and Anger?