More of the Beeb's unflagging bias on display on the Today programme this morning. It's the underlying assumptions that are so telling, the premise that informs the way questions are phrased, not to mention the questions that are not asked, or the tone of voice used by the presenters.This morning, I caught two ripe examples. The first was in the high-profile 8.10 slot, when the chief of the Defence staff General Sir Mike Jackson, who is visiting British troops in Iraq, was interviewed by Sarah Montague. Her assumption was that the situation in Iraq was catastrophic, it was disintegrating into civil war, the whole of the country was being submerged by violence. Problem was, Sir Mike kept saying that this was not the case. Yes, there was appalling violence in certain places which he did not minimise. But, he said, the Iraqis were determined to defeat this, that as far as he could see the elections next year would go ahead as planned, and that much of the country was in good shape. Montague was incredulous. But surely, she insisted, everything was absolutely terrible? In vain did Sir Mike, palpably taken aback by this insistence and murmuring things like 'These are your words, not mine', doggedly stick to his balanced view. Eventually, Montague resorted to asking suspiciously why he kept saying 'according to the briefings I have received'. Briefings, eh? No wonder the man wasn't delivering the BBC line! No doubt Sir Mike was just parrotting what some propagandist had told him to say! After all, what does the mere Chief of the Defence Staff know compared to the superior intellects at the BBC? Couldn't he grasp that the real and only story was that Iraq is a total disaster and shambles, as the BBC told us it would be from the start?

Later in the programme (8.31) there was an item about why John Kerry's presidential campaign has gone pear-shaped. The assumption here was that, since no sentient individual could possibly support President Bush, and since therefore it was inconceivable that Kerry would not win the election, there had to be some extraordinary reason why Kerry was mysteriously doing so badlly. The fact that he is a rubbish candidate who has demonstrated over and over again his flakiness, inconsistency, flip-floppery, lack of principle and general untrustworthiness was unsayable.

True, the report from the US itself alluded to mistakes he had made, but the implication was still that the natural order was in the process of being overturned here. And as for Shirley Williams who followed on from this report, she could barely contain herself about the travails of 'brave' soldier Kerry, and told us that it was really all the fault of the evil Bush election team which was doing a vicious job in mincing her hero up. The idea that her side might actually be wrong and that the electorate can smell out weakness and poor character from a great distance is, of course, unthinkable to both Baroness Williams and the BBC. After all, how could anyone who is not clinically insane support George W Bush? That's not bias -- that's just plain fact. And that's the BBC's idea of objectivity and the centre ground.