© BBC / AFP / Jeff OversLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn
In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today program on Monday, McDonald was asked by presenter Justin Webb whether he thought the public service broadcaster had "consciously" contributed to Corbyn's loss. "Consciously, yes," replied McDonald.
The 61 year-old conceded that his own party had to take a lot of the responsibility for the heavy election defeat, that saw huge swathes of long-held Labour seats in the midlands and the north, turn Tory blue, but suggested the BBC's 'biased' reporting was also a factor.
McDonald highlighted the example of a BBC News reporter who talked about Boris Johnson getting "the majority he so deserves." A charge that was rebuffed by Webb, who insisted that it had been a "slip of the tongue."We got this wrong, but if the BBC are going to hold themselves out as somehow having conducted themselves in an impartial manner, I think they've really got to have a look in the mirror.
The BBC have been widely criticized for a number of "mistakes" that happened to benefit the Conservative party during the election campaign.
In November, the broadcaster apologized for a "production mistake" involving Johnson. They aired a 2016 Remembrance Sunday clip of Johnson - and not the 2019 footage where the PM made an embarrassing gaffe, laying a wreath at the cenotaph in London the wrong way up. It led to accusations of a cover-up.
Comment: This must have been a mistake too:
Even the hat of British opposition leader Corbyn was photoshopped by BBC Newsnight to make him look "Russian".
(If RT would do similar it would immediately lose its UK license.)
(If RT would do similar it would immediately lose its UK license.)
The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg came under fire on Twitter days before Brits went to the polls after tweeting, without evidence, that a Labour activist had punched Health Secretary Matt Hancock's adviser outside a Leeds hospital. The 'incident' turned out to be fake news.
Comment: The UK media has piled on Jeremy Corby since the moment he took leadership of the Labour Party. He was a voice for real change for the ordinary British citizen and represented a shift in Britain's foreign policy. There was no way he would every be allowed into power.