Nick Robinson's report on Gordon Brown (BBC 1, 10 O'Clock News, Wednesday May 14th) appeared to be a straightforward piece of character assassination rather than reputable journalism.

I've reported that the BBC misunderstand and misreported Alistair Darling's commons answer on Northern Rock nationalisation, and had to make an apology of sorts on Today. It now turns out a Tory press release with this truncated Hansard quote was issued 2.5 hours before Nick Robinson used a similar quote on Sunday night on Radio 5. The following morning Today ran with it heavily as well, as did The Daily Politics. Could Nick Robinson have followed the Tory press release without proper independent research?

This morning I listened via the BBC radio website “play it again” facility, to a translation of the infamous book “The Prince” by “Niccolo Machiavelli”.

This was last week's BBC Radio 4 “Book of the Week”. The “play it again” facility lasts a week, so you can still hear it in full until I suppose tomorrow morning’?

This version had been translated by Peter Constantine (Amazon £7.69) and was read by Peter Firth.

Machiavelli is someone who you hear being referred to quite often but no-one you know has ever read his books (or maybe no-one wants to admit it?). Cromwell apparently owned a manuscript; Napoleon had a copy of the book at the Battle of Waterloo, while Hitler boasted that he always had a copy on his bedside table.

Just a thought. From the 2005/6 annual report of the BBC, I note the licence fee brings in £3.1bn from 25 million people.

It costs £153.4m to collect.

What would be the implications of abolishing the licence fee, funding the BBC from a direct government grant and saving the £153.4 million?

The Tories are fudging wikipedia for their own gain. Here is the evidence.

Comrades,

I'll be joining the BBC tonight trying to pick out interesting blog stories to tell Emily Maitlis on camera.

Please blog your experiences (and results) on labourhome or any other blog that you write on BUT YOU CAN ALSO EMAIL ME

alexhilton@gmail.com

And good luck to comrades everywhere!

Am I the only Labour supporter who wants to throw a brick at the TV during BBC politics and news programmes?

This morning Andrew Marr in his Sunday morning politics show referred to the Prime Minister's `So-called' War on Terror.  There was nobody to rebut him.

Yet, just a few minutes later, when interviewing Hillary Benn he referred to it as The War on Terror.  No 'so-called' there then.

Once you see this you see it on every news item.  

I am no psychologist but I bet any psychologist worth his or her salt would describe this as leading the audience.

Is this all part of the BBC's `War on Labour?'

The BBC reception last night was an exclusive event. Sadly, I had already blagged my way in, when I discovered my name really was on the list.

Writing for the Mail on Sunday the Lib Dem MP Norman Baker has questioned the death of David Kelly. He would like the circumstances surrounding the death re-examined as he casts doubt on suicide being the cause.