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Revealed: Radio 4 Thought for the Day proven to be 65 pc anti-capitalist Negative commentary on outweighed positive commentary by a factor of more than eight to one

Negative commentary on outweighed positive commentary by a factor of more than eight to one Economic growth – the driver of improved living standards – was opposed and downplayed

Readers of CapX with either good memories or not enough to worry about will remember my brief campaign against Thought for Day, the religious affairs slot on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. At ten to eight every morning, Monday to Saturday, a vicar, priest, rabbi, imam, humanist or multi-faith commentator is called upon to make some spiritual observations relating to the news in the form of a radio essay. Billy Connolly did the best spoof of this in perhaps his greatest ever performance – An Audience with Billy Connolly for LWT in 1985 – which involved a vicar called Nigel taking his son, Nigel Jnr, to see a football match: “Daddy, did Jesus play for Tottenham Hotspur? And, you know, in a funny way… he did.”

But in recent years, particularly since the financial crisis, Thought for the Day has gone beyond being a joke. For those of us who think that commerce, markets and free trade are not entirely evil – indeed they are the engines of prosperity, growth and improvement – Thought for the Day sounds as though it might as well be produced by a committee run by Arthur Scargill, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Jeremy Corbyn and the Reverend Giles Fraser. When its contributors touch on economics, they seem invariably to approach the subject from a left-wing point of view.

Now, in a new book on the BBC, the Institute for Economic Affairs reveals the truth about Thought for the Day, with statistics and everything.

“In a sample of 976 separate editions of Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, 167 included discussions on economics, business and finance. Two thirds (65%) expressed a negative opinion on capitalism, markets and business, whilst just 8% gave any sort of positive perspective. Negative commentary outweighed positive commentary by a factor of more than eight to one.”

One of the authors, Ryan Bourne, a CapX contributor, wrote the chapter on allegations of wider BBC bias, and while I’m not sure I endorse every conclusion (speaking as someone who is invited on to the BBC regularly and likes quite a lot of the people there) it is a superbly well-researched analysis. On Thought for the Day, the findings are damning. With Ryan’s permission, here are some highlights:

As Ryan Bourne concludes: “While one might expect religious leaders to focus on certain topics – such as the conditions of the poor, inequality, business morality and the common good – this need not necessitate such stringent anti-market views as seen from the large sample examined. There is a clear bias in selection here against opinions that hold business, capitalism and economic activity not centrally planned by governments in a positive light. Thought for the Day, in its discussion of economic issues at least, overwhelmingly represents a world-view that, at best, is sceptical of capitalism and voluntary market-based exchange, and, at worst, disdains it.”

Iain Martin is Editor of CapX.

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