Anyone who thinks the BBC isn't biased should have talked with Ewan MacColl or Charles Parker while they were still alive, about the way they had to cut anything contentious or remotely left wing out of the radio ballads.

Yes, I know the Travelling People sparked off fires of controversy and quite right too. However, MacColl and Parker both knew this would be the last of the radio ballads. So they decided they'd got nothing to lose by telling it like they saw it.

Peggy Seeger told me once that the three of them were sitting in the BBC canteen when a highly inflated BBC bigwig came up.

"Ahh", he said "the radio ballad team. What interesting topic have next for us?"

MacColl, who must have been relishing this, said "Miners".

"Oh God", said the BBC bigwig, "not another bloody working class epic!"