Minister lashes out at BBC star over ‘bias’ row
A MAJOR row erupted last night after a Cabinet Minister accused BBC Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders of showing a pro-Labour bias by undermining the Government’s jobs claims.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has made a formal complaint to the BBC about its ‘carping and moaning’.
He singled out Ms Flanders over her coverage of figures that showed unemployment and welfare handouts are falling in spite of the slump.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, he claimed that the BBC backs the economic stance of Labour leader Ed Miliband and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and seizes every chance to ‘dump on the Government’.
He accused Ms Flanders of ‘pouring cold water’ over the rise in employment and ‘peeing all over’ British business.
He said the BBC had ‘set up’ an interview with a selfemployed nurse who agreed when Ms Flanders suggested that she was among the ‘hidden unemployed’.
Last week’s recession-defying leap in jobs in the three months to June surprised experts.
Mr Duncan Smith claimed it was evidence that Government policies are working.
He was furious when Ms Flanders questioned the figures in the BBC Six O’Clock and Ten O’Clock TV news on Wednesday – and did not screen an interview with him proclaiming the Coalition’s success.
On screen, she said: ‘Britain’s jobs numbers are a puzzle which keeps getting harder to solve. Of course it’s good news . . . but it is not necessarily good news for us or the Chancellor if we are needing more people as a country to make less stuff.’
Ms Flanders claimed ‘hidden unemployment’ could be ‘lurking behind the statistics’. She interviewed nurse Jacqui Connell, who was made redundant last year and is now selfemployed, taking her off the dole register. Ms Connell said: ‘I do think I’m a hidden figure.’
Mr Duncan Smith told this newspaper: ‘The BBC is locked to the reading of the economy that is run out of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls’ office. They think if only you spend and borrow more money you can create growth everywhere. This is the general tenor of everything that comes out of the BBC.
‘They expected the figures to be flatlining. They convinced themselves youth unemployment would continue to rise, but when it fell they were in a complete quandary. Stephanie Flanders poured cold water over the whole thing.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘BBC News is confident our coverage of this story was impartial, fair and balanced, reflecting a wide range of views. Mr Duncan Smith expressed his position on several BBC outlets. Stephanie interrogated numerous aspects of the figures in her analysis. She echoed questions raised by many experts, as well as noting the rise in the number of people in work was good news.’