Why are the BBC actively amplifying Lib-Dem lies?

Last night on BBC Question Time the Lib-Dem MP and party leadership candidate Jo Swinson told a blatant lie claiming that just 4% of kids from Govan in Glasgow end up going to university, blaming "lack of aspiration" and "lack of investment".

The real figure is that 22.8% go on to university or higher education colleges, which is not particularly high compared to more affluent areas, but 570% higher than Swinson's unsourced claim.

The worst thing about this Lib-Dem lie isn't that Swinson used fake statistics, it's the pure classism of making out that kids from poor areas like Govan are less likely to succeed academically because of "lack of aspiration".

The lie also seemed to be motivated by a desire to terrify middle class English voters by raising the awful caricature of the terrifying working-class Govan shit hole (which is a bit like using Moss Side's fearsome reputation to terrify southerners about the whole of northern England).

Then there's the fact that the Lib-Dems actively helped their Tory mates to absolutely trash investment in education between 2010 and 2015 resulting in an unprecedented collapse in per pupil funding.

Furthermore the Lib-Dems helped their Tory chums to significantly lower infrastructure investment in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the north of England, while massively boosting investment in London and the South East.

This means that that any kids from working class communities who do overcome the odds to succeed out of austerity-ravaged areas will end up being drawn away to London and the South East if they want the best jobs and opportunities. A brain-drain scenario that leaves abandoned northern communities even further behind.

And let's not forget that Swinson and her Lib-Dem pals' broken promise not to hike tuition fees, resulting in English students facing the highest fees in the world to study at public universities (Scotland escaped this grotesque Lib-Dem betrayal thanks to devolution and the SNP government's commitment to education as a right, not a commodity to be traded by the rich).

Even more concerning than Swinson's classism, lies, and white-washing of her own party's track record in government is the way the BBC uncritically amplified what she said.

Of course nobody expects the host Fiona Bruce to know precise higher education attainment statistics for every local area in the UK off the top of her head, but we could at least expect the BBC to check that statistics aren't lies before they tweet a clip of the lie, with an uncritical repetition of the lie written in the actual text of the Tweet!

If the BBC had any intention of actually holding the political class to account, they'd fact check the all of the Question Time clips they're thinking about tweeting to make sure they're not amplifying lies, and then publicly call out people who get caught lying on their show in order to actually hold them to account.

But far from calling this lie out, the BBC actively helped Swinson spread it even further by uncritically retweeting it.

Middle class Brexit-sceptic Lib-Dem types are often the first to complain when the BBC actively helps to amplify Brexiteer lies and false promises, but in order to avoid being total hypocrites they also have to complain when one of the darlings of their pro-austerity, pro-student debt, pro-privatisation, anti-investment, welfare-vandalising Lib-Dems spouts made up statistics. Especially when the made up statistics are intended to push the classist trope about kids in poor working class areas "lacking aspiration", as if it's their own fault for having severely reduced life opportunities, when in reality it was the Lib-Dems and their Tory mates who spent five ruinous years slashing education funding and deliberately rigging the UK economy against kids from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the north of England.

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