(Realplayer, 224Kbps) spent its first seven minutes covering the Conservatives proposals for dealing with the problem of illegal traveller camps built in contravention of planning laws, both on their own land, and, more often, on other people’s land, often in the green belt.
All the usual leftie hot-button words were used – racism, bigotry etc., with lengthy Going Live! reports from Vikki Young in Essex (with Michael Howard) and John Kay in Worcestershire.
Between 5’35” and 6’58” into the broadcast the following exchange took place:
Anna Ford: “Our Chief Political Correspondent, Mark Mardell, is at Westminster. Mark, why have the Conservatives decided to focus on this issue?”
Mark Mardell: “I’m sure the fact that the powerful Sun newspaper is running a vociferous campaign on this issue doesn’t put them off, but there’s something broader than that, I think a lot of the political parties realise that there’s a sense running through British politics for a number of years now of respectable outrage at, uh, uh, uh, an injustice. Now, we’ve seen this with single mothers on benefit, we’ve seen it with asylum seekers, but the feeling that respectable people who feel that they’ve played by the rules see others really taking the mickey out of society and getting away with it and that’s what the Conservatives are tapping into here, and it also allows them to say ‘we’re listening to you, uh, uh, the Labour government is not'”.
Anna Ford: “Now some people are being extremely critical of the Conservatives policy aren’t they?
Mark Mardell: “One Labour MP has, in the last few minutes, said this policy has, [pause] the whiff of the gas chamber about it. Now those are very serious words indeed, and of course Michael Howard has made it clear that, uh, there is no hint of racism behind what he’s doing as far as he’s concerned, but more broadly than that, as I think we’ve heard already in the programme, the other parties, uh, feel that, er, the Tories have brought this upon their own head or upon society’s head, in that they, in 1994, er, er, abolished the, uh, need for councils to provide these sites and they say the problem is simply there aren’t enough sites legally available.”
Anna Ford: “Mark, thank you”.
My jaw dropped at the emboldened words. How about yours?
Michael Howard’s Grandmother was murdered at Auschwitz, as the BBC well know. To say such a thing about him without a shred of evidence is deeply offensive in a number of ways to a wide range of decent people.
It doesn’t surprise me that a Labour MP is stupid enough to say such a thing – but that Mark Mardell should repeat such offensive tittle-tattle without the decency of at least attributing it to the moron concerned shows, at best, a distinct lack of judgment on his part.
That apart, whilst smearing Howard and the Conservatives with talk of gas chambers, Mardell has a cheek to suggest the problem is all the Conservatives fault for changing the law in 1994. Well hello Mark, but T. Blair esq. has been in power since 1997, so if there’s a problem with illegal traveller camps now he’s had some time to do something about it himself.
On a related note, I’d like to see more detailed coverage of this issue, rather than simple political point-scoring all round. For instance, in Vikki Young’s report she mentions that there are 5,964 caravans on council sites, 4,813 on private sites, 1,855 on land without planning permission and 2,377 on other people’s land, again without planning permission. We aren’t told the origins of the travellers, where they come from and go to, how they make a living and pay taxes, how many of them there are in the UK each year (are there more now than before? if so, why?), how many vacant pitches there are (are travellers being fussy about their location?) and so on. At the moment the broadcast media are reporting this issue as if UK has a responsibility to provide legal pitches to roaming herds of nomadic travellers wherever and whenever they happen to pitch up in the UK, regardless of the available space or the concerns of local residents, which is not something I recall any public debate on.
Update: According to several B-BBC commenters, the above remark has now been attributed to Kevin McNamara – an old-time leftie retread who’s standing down at the next election.
Mike: “However, she is a mostly functioning human being and withdrawing her food and allowing her to starve to death is, frankly, barbaric. Michael Schiavo, his legal team (and, I suspect, the insurance company footing the bill) are effectively trying to sanction her murder. And a slow, grisly one to boot. I for one don’t agree with that.”
Me neither – starving someone who is conscious enough to breathe unaided to death by denying food and water is clearly wrong.
There’s a link from one of the BBC News Online stories to http://www.terrisfight.net, which leads to this interesting page of questions and answers.
Everytime they show Terri on the news, she’s looking around the room at people, blinking her eyes and even appears to be trying to smile. It looks to me like she is able to acknowledge people even though she can’t move or speak. Who’s to say she can’t think, hear or feel? I realize it’s not a good life to live. No one would want to be in that shape but how do we know she isn’t happy just to see her parents when they walk in the room? To feel them hold her hand and hear them speak to her? For those simple reasons maybe she doesn’t want to die? Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down. What if he hadn’t been able to talk or eat on his own. Would anyone have removed his feeding tube?
Cockney
Such a shame you seem to have misplaced your ‘right-wing personal responsibility hat’.
“Sorting out the education system to instill the intellectual ability not to get pregnant at 12 is the only hope.”
1) Do I have to repeat that it is NOT the responsibility of the education but of parents to instill such values?
2) The education system has been so taken over by the sick, perverted disciples of the left that the education system actually encourages sexual activity in the young. It is no coincidence at all that as sex and drug education have increased so have rates of sexual activity and drug use in the young.
3) Do try to understand that your life can never benefit when the state intrudes on it.
Andrew,
Thanks for the links.
Seeing as I’ve now made one post on the subject I’ll follow it up by offering a possible explanation for the “glib reporting” by the UK MSM on the Schiavo case you remarked about elsewhere (in another comment thread, IIRC).
I think it’s primarily down to perspective. Put bluntly: Terri Schiavo’s case is in a health and legal system separated from ours by a national border and a couple of thousand miles. It doesn’t affect us and we don’t affect it. It’s a “Human Interest” story that would have got about three seconds of sound byte before cutting to the football – had it not been for the extent to which it has risen up the US legal food chain. After all, it’s been going on for years; How much coverage has it had here in the past?
I’d never heard of Terri Schiavo before the story hit the headlines the other day, and I’d suggest most people in the UK are the same. I’ve only gone into the details because of comments posted here. As it’s “across the pond” it’s nothing more than a curiosity over here: the MSM are watching the to-ing and fro-ing and awaiting the result either way. The details are irrelevant as the UK doesn’t have a stake in the outcome. We’re watching fish in a bowl.
I don’t mean to belittle the obvious tragedy this must be for the people involved, I’m just suggesting it’s become a major story here by proxy. As far as I’m concerned, if it takes GWB cutting his holiday short to save her being starved to death then I’m all for that. It’s just a shame their legal system has failed so badly that it’s had to get to that.
***
On an obliquely related point, and this may be a dumb question but… when people write “(D)HYS” could someone please explain what the D stands for? I’m sure it’s blindingly obvious but it’d be nice to know.
Pete_London,
putting on my “devils-advocate” wings for a moment…
“Do try to understand that your life can never benefit when the state intrudes on it.”
So Bush should presumably get back to Texas then?
I remember first hearing about Terri’s case many years back (but I’m a bit of a news junkie, even though I say so myself).
I wasn’t aware though that she’s actually breathing of her own free will – that to me is the kicker here – as you said earlier, if it was a machine keeping her alive the question of switching it off wouldn’t be nearly as morally dubious – but the fact is, she’s currently being starved and dehydrated to death – which is no way to treat anyone.
As you say, the fact that she’s far away and not under our jurisdiction tends to put her story into the quick headline category – rather than where the salient points are obtained and analysed – my own opinion is that the Beeb’s coverage of this typifies mainstream media’s ignorance and frequent lack of industrious enquiry, rather than bias per se.
As for (D)HYS, the ‘D’ stands for Don’t – because the selection of those who get to have their say seems, at best, somewhat partial! 🙂
The other (D)HYS related theme you’ll see is ‘moonbat bingo’ – the idea being to submit some moonbat-style blather – the more obviously sarcastic the better – and see if it gets selected for (D)HYS. It often is!
Mike Eagling
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. In any case as I live in the UK the place of residence of the US Commander in Chief is od no consequence to me. Now, the question is, should Blair and Broon crawl back under their rocks and refund the £535billion that they stole from us last year? Oh I think so. £535billion spent by individuals exercising free will and discretion is spent far more effectively than by any bunch of politicians.
Andrew,
“As for (D)HYS, the ‘D’ stands for Don’t”
As I thought. 🙂 Can’t say I’ve ever tried the moonbat bingo route, I’ve only ever tried to get “serious” comments posted – still that does explain some of the more oddball comments I’ve seen in the past!
“still that does explain some of the more oddball comments I’ve seen in the past!”
No, I don’t think you can put many of those down to moonbat attempts.
Pete_London,
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
Just a mild piece of sarcasm re: the Schiavo case, in which the Bush boys are leading the US state in a direct intrusion into her life. Only to save it, of course, nothing that would benefit her.
mike wrote:
“As for Terri Schiavo, I don’t care how brain damaged she might be. Nor do I care how much cash her husband stands to gain from her death. If her life functions were being maintained by machine I could see an argument for switching it off. However, she is a mostly functioning human being and withdrawing her food and allowing her to starve to death is, frankly, barbaric. Michael Schiavo, his legal team (and, I suspect, the insurance company footing the bill) are effectively trying to sanction her murder. And a slow, grisly one to boot. I for one don’t agree with that.
Mike Eagling | 23.03.05 – 9:10 pm | # “
Good for you, Mike. One of the (very) few decent lefties I’ve met on this blog!
(D)HYS was ahem the humble contribution of moi to this blog. I am glad to see the term has stuck.
This is the same BBC that accused Milosevic of being “another Hitler” & used his Kosovo speech as a justification when they knew this speech was a plea for tolerance (there was a translation in BBC files at the time). They also called the Bosnian Izetbegovic a “moderate” despite the well known facts that he was a WW2 SS auxiliary & publically calling for the genocide of all non-moslem communities.
The problem is that when such deliberate lies are allowed to stand for 15 years as the highest standard of journalism of the Beeb it becomes difficult to object to anything else these liars say.