Smothered in Leftist Delusions: How the BBC and ABC Have Betrayed Public Trust on COVID, Climate, and Beyond, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)

The BBC, once hailed as a beacon of impartial journalism, has long been teetering on the edge of irrelevance, its credibility eroded by years of selective storytelling and institutional groupthink. As Toby Young's searing Telegraph excerpt lays bare (link below), for many, trust in the broadcaster "finally died during Covid" when it morphed into a "chief cheerleader for the lockdowns, with no dissent allowed." This wasn't an isolated lapse; it's part of a deeper rot, a pattern of Leftist delusions that permeates coverage of everything from pandemics to climate hysteria to political figures like Donald Trump. And across the Pacific, Australia's ABC mirrors this malaise, committing the "same journalistic sins" in its own deceptive edits and biased narratives. A reckoning isn't just overdue, it's essential if public broadcasting is to survive as anything more than a taxpayer-funded echo chamber.

Young nails it: The BBC's pandemic coverage wasn't journalism; it was "pro-lockdown propaganda," pumping out "nightly 'Covid porn'" with frontline reports that exaggerated the virus's universal lethality. Clive Myrie and others painted a picture of imminent doom for all, ignoring data showing the infection fatality rate hovered around 0.27% globally in 2021. This fuelled public hysteria, justifying £410 billion in UK costs, £6,067 per person, that ballooned public debt from £1.8 trillion to £2.35 trillion in two years. Overlooked were the lockdowns' collateral damage: surging domestic violence, mental health crises, undiagnosed cancers, and a widened attainment gap for children.

Epidemiologist Prof. Mark Woolhouse, a government advisor, eviscerated the BBC at the UK Covid Inquiry for "misrepresenting" risks, reporting rare deaths in healthy adults "as if they were the norm" to prop up the "we're all at risk" myth. This wasn't accidental; it was a "barrier to targeting interventions at the vulnerable," compromising Scotland's response and entrenching blanket policies that Sweden's lighter touch avoided, yielding Europe's second-lowest excess mortality from March 2020 to July 2022. Leaked emails reveal No. 10 even pressured the BBC to avoid the word "lockdown" early on, yet the broadcaster bent over backward to amplify fear, not question it.

The ABC wasn't innocent either. While less dissected in global inquiries, its coverage echoed the BBC's alarmism, downplaying lockdown harms like educational disruptions and economic fallout in favour of government-aligned narratives. Both outlets, funded by compulsory levies (£174.50 annually for BBC licenses; over AUD $1 billion taxpayer dollars for ABC), prioritised compliance over critique, turning public service into state-sanctioned scaremongering.

Rewind to April 2012, when BBC reporter Richard Knight last dared genuine scrutiny, questioning extinction claims against IUCN data showing just 801 species lost in 512 years. By 2022, Esme Stallard was unchallenged in honking about species vanishing "1,000 to 10,000 times quicker," peddling the "sixth mass extinction" without counterviews. This shift traces to 2006, when Roger Harrabin orchestrated a "secret editorial meeting" stacked with activists from Greenpeace and beyond, redefining "balance" to downplay natural forces and amplify anthropogenic warming, despite the claim's unproven status at the time. Leaks later exposed the bias: Sceptical views were sidelined, with 2018 directives from Fran Unsworth effectively banning regular sceptic airtime.

Attribution "science" — linking single weather events to CO₂ via flawed models — became BBC gospel, despite Roger Pielke Jr.'s condemnation of its "relaxing of rigour" for headlines and advocacy. Extreme weather reports ignore IPCC admissions of no discernible recent increases in most types, or how fossil fuels slashed weather-related deaths 99% in a century. Arctic sea ice? Stable since 2005, per even The Guardian. Yet David Attenborough and Chris Packham scream "fire!" unchecked, gaslighting viewers into Net Zero psychosis.

The ABC apes this: Cherry-picked alarmism, uncritical green financing plugs (e.g., Matt McGrath's €100,000 BBVA award from a bank deep in "green" investments). Retractions like the 2022 Italian Nature paper debunking crisis claims, torpedoed by BBC ally Frederike Otto and Guardian writer Marlowe Hood, highlight the echo chamber. Pielke called it an "egregious failure."

The BBC's latest implosion, doctoring Trump's Jan. 6 speech not once but twice, splicing segments 54 minutes apart to imply incitement, crystallised the bias. Newsnight's edit, flagged internally, was brushed off, per Telegraph revelations. Acting News Head Jonathan Monro shrugged it as "normal," a delusion rooted in anti-Thatcher animus from the '80s, now weaponised against Trump, climate sceptics, and Reform UK. Trump's $1B lawsuit threat? The BBC rejects compensation, but as X users note, it's less about cash than exposing the "rot."

Australia's ABC joined the fray with its 2021 Downfall doc, clipping Trump's "strength" call without "peacefully," straight to riot footage, mirroring the BBC's sin, per Sky News' Chris Kenny. ABC's defence? "No misleading," despite the narrative warp. X erupts: "Clear bias, propaganda," with calls to defund both.

Young's insider reminiscences paint the BBC as a '80s-'90s "social club for Left-leaning individuals," where Thatcher was "villain of the worst order," nuance suspect, and dissent silenced. This "Guardian-esque atmosphere" persists, amplified by antisocial shifts and "inclusive" hiring that fosters groupthink on migration (e.g., Harriet Sergeant's 2016 cancellation for linking homelessness to immigration). The ABC? Rated Left-center biased by Media Bias/Fact Check, with story selection favouring progressives on asylum, multiculturalism, and climate, yet high factual marks mask the slant. Critics decry it as "Their ABC," a conservative-free zone platforming Rudd's Murdoch vendettas uncritically.

Trust? Edelman's 2025 Barometer pegs UK media at 43%, up slightly but mired in distrust, with 64% believing journalists peddle "gross exaggerations." Globally, grievance festers: 61% see elites serving the rich, eroding faith in these behemoths. X sentiment? Overwhelming: "BBC's Left-wing clones have no idea they're biased."

MIT's Richard Lindzen calls the climate narrative "absurd," yet trillions prop it up, while Net Zero crumbles in Trump's America, leaving de-industrialising UK/Germany as outliers. The BBC's "climate science department"? Shut it down, as Young urges, it's not reformable. Same for ABC's partisan output. Compulsory funding breeds complacency; switch to subscriptions, as floated for the BBC, letting markets enforce impartiality.

Trump's suit could be the catalyst: Fight it, as Lewis Goodall suggests, to affirm impartiality, or fold, rewriting history on your watch. Public broadcasters must reclaim Popperian falsifiability: Question narratives, air dissent, trust audiences. Until then, they're not informing, they're indoctrinating, smothered in delusions that mock the very publics they claim to serve.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/12/bbc-covid-ruin-before-davie-prescott-dossier/