Hat tip to Adam, who directed me to this link: BBC News Item or Death Race 2000 Remake? and added, “The Ministry of Truth springs to mind.”
The reporter, BBC Bristol’s Chris Kelly, or someone else concerned with the preparation of the original version of this story, failed to spot that a certain claim made in the body of the story and supported by a quote is ridiculous to anyone who knows about the subject. A blogger wrote in to set them right. Commendably, the mistaken claim of fact was corrected, although it remains on other BBC stories. But now, oh dear, the quote is no longer usable. What to do? Change the quote, of course.
It is reasonable to assume that the quote was changed with the consent of the speaker, as it would only take a moment to ring her up and ask for a new quote. In fact since her original words make her look silly I expect she was anxious to have the quote changed. Even so the whole procedure – an invisible rather than visible correction of both story and quote – lacks frankness. Bloggers do better.
This story is not political. (The blog from which it comes, Confusability, seems to be largely focussed on computer usability issues, accompanied by very occasional left-leaning anti-war comment, and a delightful post about tracking the popularity of knitting blogs.) However the tale of the appearance and subsequent disappearance of the Great M4 Massacre does not increase one’s confidence in the BBC’s treatment of matters of controversy.
The name of the spokeswoman quoted by the BBC is given as “Saira Khan” – As I recall that is the name of one of the two finalists on the BBC version of “The Apprentice”: Is she doing road safety for Sir Alan Sugar now?
I hope she wins, that other bloke shouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the final!
OT Jack Straw claims to be working his way through the collected works of Lenin at his foriegn office desk!
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/stra-n29.shtml
He also claims to have been inspired by Stalin :o( A little bit sinister perhaps? I wonder how many of the other ‘former’ communists who govern us (and Europe) have similar tastes?
THE STALINIST WING
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary Former Broad Left president of the NUS; branded “a troublemaker” by the Foreign Office when, on an NUS trip to Chile, his “childish politicking” aimed at embarrassing his right-wing opponents, was “nearly disastrous” for Anglo-Chilean relations.
Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for Education Former Broad Left president of NUS; led demonstrations for higher student grants, and was, he admits, “a strong opponent of the foreign policy of the USA”.
John Reid, Secretary of State for Health Former Communist and researcher for the Scottish Union of Students. Claimed he joined the CP because it was the only non-Trotskyist political group on campus when he was an undergraduate student at Stirling University.
Peter Mandelson, European Commissioner Former Communist and chairman of the British Youth Council. Led a BYC delegation to Cuba in the 1970s.
Trevor Phillips, chairman, Commission for Racial Equality Former Broad Left president of NUS, led sit-ins, went to Cuba with Mandelson’s delegation.
Alan Johnson, Work and Pensions Secretary Says he was close to the Communist Party in his youth, and gets agitated if you suggest he might have been a Trot.
THE TROTSKYITE WING
Gordon Brown, Chancellor Showed political colours by choosing to do his PhD thesis on James Maxton, the leader of the rebel Independent Labour Party in the 1920s and 1930s. The ILP was accused by Stalin of being a Trotskyist front.
Alan Milburn, Labour’s election planner
Before joining Labour Party in 1983, Milburn was the manager of a socialist bookshop in Newcastle, and a CND activist, described, by Roy Hattersley, as “incapable of writing an election manifesto without drawing the battle lines of the philosophical struggle.”
Thank you, Monkey. And let us not forget that Tony Blair and his lovely wife Cherie were rabid members of the CND.
Surely everyone comes out of university with ridiculous political views (left or right). Fortunately most have these knocked out of them when they run into the real world.
God I sound old.
Straw article: “Apparently unable to resist the urge to show off the lessons he had learnt under the tutelage of Ramelson, he added, “PS. Further reading Isaac Deutscher: Trotsky (3 vols). Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, V. I. Lenin 1919.” This latter book was, he claimed, “a prescient warning about Trotskyist adventurism.”
A week later, Straw was back in the letters column of the Independent on the same subject, responding to a number of letters attacking him. This time he accused Trotskyists of “revanchism, false consciousness and objectively counter-revolutionary tendencies.” He had, he said, been reading Lenin’s Collected Works in the Foreign Office library and found in Volume 17 an article Lenin wrote in 1914 entitled “Disruption of Unity under the Cover of Outcries for Unity.”
This guy represents us abroad!
… and it isn’t from when he was just out of university cockney. He wrote all that stuff only a few months back.
Monkey
Thanks for that. I’ve long known that we have a sixth form common room where we used to have a Cabinet but I didn’t realise that they’re STILL digging all that revolutionary stuff.
“Straw responded to Fisk’s factually incorrect aside like a man accused of a heinous crime, stating that to call him a Trotskyist was “a malicious libel.” Far from being a former Trotskyist, Straw indicated that his political sympathies and training could be traced back to Stalinism.”
This is pure parody. It’s like being governed by the People’s Front of Judea.
OT from the BBC Bias Rapid Rebuttal Unit or “NewsWatch” as it is more affectionately known in the BBC…
BBC rebuts anti-Tory bias claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4500000/newsid_4508100/4508105.stm
OT more and more bias….over at USSNeverdock
Iraq – 12 Terrorist Killed
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/05/iraq-12-terrorist-killed.html
Ah yes, the old insurgent/terrorist nugget. As USSNeverdock points out, in a democracy, where each man and women has a vote and fair & free elections have been held, how can anyone deliberately killing innocent civilians be labeled an ‘insurgent’?
“TERRORISM”
“The practise of coercing governments to accede to political demands by committing violence on civilian targets; any similar use of violence to achieve goals.”
Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
OR
“the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments”
Source: WordNet
“TERRORIST”
“One who commits terrorism”
Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
“INSURGENT”
Rising in opposition to civil or political authority, or against an established government; insubordinate; rebellious
A person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government; one who openly and actively resists the execution of laws; a rebel.
The key here is violence.
Surely, if a country holds fair and free elections and one takes up arms to KILL innocent civilians in the name of a polictical aim, that is TERRORISM – pure & simple.
Are the IRA ‘insurgents’ in the Beebs book? If not, why not? why are the “insurgents” in Iraq not labeled the same as in Ireland? – both countries are democracies.
Getting back to the subject in hand – The Great M4 Massacre – surely the problem here is the anti-car bias of the BBC. Most BBC journalists (even though most of them own one) see cars as an evil, Tory invention – they allow the general public to travel anywhere at anytime without permission from the state. Only someone who was rabidly anti-car would fail to question how 240 people (7% of total UK road deaths) could be killed on a short stretch of motorway.
OT – There’s a good article by Michael Vestey in this week’s Spectator – Westminster Tribe: http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=6056&issue=2005-04-30 (subscription reqd). It’s especially good on Andrew Marr who, on Radio 4, after hearing an item on political lying where a number of journalists pointed the finger firmly at New Labour declared that he was “Seething. Seething”. His outburst was significant in that it showed just how closely he has come to identify himself with politicians in general and New Labour ones in particular rather than the electorate who are forced to pay his wages on pain of imprisonment. Well worth a read.
American Thinker reports that a new man at the US public broadcaster is looking for a bit more balance.
As AT says, better if not tax funded in the 1st place. But as we have BBC for 10 more years there is a bigger job for the man over here.
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=2113
Iraq has finally sworn in its democratically elected new government but the only thing the BBC can do is carp about how the new prime minister hasn’t filled all his cabinet posts yet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4509961.stm
The (current) Beeb leaves no stone unturned, no matter how trivial, in carrying out its anti-war vendetta. They probably would have reported on the Normandy landings by emphasizing that not all the boats in the invasion force were filled to capacity, to wit:
“Wasted space on troop transport craft endangers latest Allied mission”
Happy VE day, folks, BTW!
Some headlines for the BBC to run.
“Europe STILL occupied! Americans linger on in force 60 years after WW2 ends”
“BBC Comment:Why Chamberlain should have stuck to his lack of guns”
“Churchill: Warmonger or Criminal?”
“The power of nightmares: Was the threat of Nazism exagerated?”
“Why the EU must implement Hitlers economic policy to avoid repeating the horrors of WW2”
Naturally, the BBC hate Cars and the freedom that they give to ordinary people, but they support the working class who build the cars?
The BBC detest free enterprise but rely on its proceeds to fund thier version of the Truth.
As the BBC are 100% funded by government and as 80% of oil and fuel revenues go to the Chancellor, the BBC like to say “no blood for oil”,but never do you hear “no blood for oil for BBC bias”. (no, its not a hypothocated tax, its a poll tax).
Diane Abbott, last night on the Andrew Neil/ Portillo Love-in. “I have never known people to be so distrustful of Politicians”. Could this be because la Abbott flies in the face of Party Policy and sends her child to Private school rather than a “bog standard” government issue school?
And heres the final irony, we pay the BBC pay Diane Abbott enough to send her kid to Private school so that she can then tell us (by now somewhat poorer) that she cant believe its margarine.
Theres an old saying
“you should be able to spot the sucker at the table right away. And if you can’t spot the sucker? That is because the sucker is you”.
I have posted an article about Galileo, the EU satellite system. The BBC is trying to say that GPS, the US system is out of date, which is why we need the EU’s white elephant. Unfortunately for them, the reality is somewhat different.
http://eu-serf.blogspot.com/2005/05/galileo.html
“Naturally, the BBC hate Cars and the freedom that they give to ordinary people”
“Most BBC journalists (even though most of them own one) see cars as an evil, Tory invention”
Chaps – seriously – you need to get out more. If not to stop you spouting such faux-victimisation rubbish as for your own mental health.
OT
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/03/iraq/main692777.shtml
This story on CBS website makes interesting reading – It suggests that ‘insurgent’ morale may be wavering. Can’t think why the Beeb hasn’t carried the story. Maybe because it doesn’t quite match their usual litany of doom and gloom?
I note Tory chairman Liam Fox snapped a bit Montaguue on Today programme this morning hinting at BBC bias – You can’t blame him. The tories aren’t just fighting against Labour and Lib Dems they face the entrenched hostility of the liberal media as well.
Anon
That old “get out more” tag is getting a little old.
the BBC has swallowed whole prevailing soft left orthodoxys with regards the public/private debate and the debate around the causes of global warming.
with regards car ownership, the BBC line is that “public transport is preferable to private”, I disagree, that Big Oil companies are Evil, I disagree. That motorists should be restricted and charged wherever possible, I disagree.
The success of the United States is due in large part to an attitude that it is governments role to enable, the European model is more about how to restrict.
The BBC only has any relevance in this debate because it is the Governments own Broadcaster and I am forced to pay for it.
Get out more if you want to but there is an issue here.
OT
Google eyes better news searches
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4508637.stm
Oh how I laughed…..
“The system means a news story written by trusted sources such as the BBC or CNN could be outranked by a more obscure publication if the latter is a more current story.”
“trusted”???
I’m emailing Google HQ with a suggestion for a “How do you like your News?” Bias slider when searching… 3 options. left, impartial/unbiased, and right.
How BBCNews would be categorised…..?
Miam
the whole point of Google News was that it was unedited.
Seems the temptation was just too much to resist.
OT:
Can anyone briefly explain why Sky subscriptions are not compulsory?
I confess I cannot.
Because you can watch football down the pub and the rest of Sky’s output provides no benefit whatsoever for the nation other than keeping stupid people indoors and off the street.
Are you a camp commandant as in effete?
Sorry Cockney, I still don’t understand. Why, simply put, are we compelled on threat of imprisonment to pay for the BBC, but not for Sky? Why is there no satellite licence like there is a TV licence? I feel sure there is a really compelling reason, but I honestly can’t see what it is.
I think it’s all part of some sinister plot against freedom, democracy, the Conservative party and the United States of America.
OT There was a discussion a while back about the amazing success of Arab Americans, and how they were now the number 1 ethnic group in terms of education and wealth (a story you won’t see on the BBC since it contradicts the ‘Americans are racist’ ‘white male power structure’ fallicies)
Here are the stats:
http://www.aaiusa.org/demographics.htm
I’d love to see a comparison between Arab Americans and Arab Europeans. I suspect that the results wouldn’t reflect very well on our continent.
It is evident from checking the site indicated that the Arabs in the US are majority non-muslim, probably escapees from Islam, particularly the Egyptians (Copts?). Compare their progress in the US to the Arabs in Europe, almost all muslim. The Arabs in the US integrate easily and have little in common with arabs in Europe. One can now conclude, if it were ever in doubt, that Islam is a backward, retrograde system which is ill-suited to modernity – but the BBC doesn’t see this.
Cockney – I’ll bet the camp commandant has some really cool uniforms.
Re Arab Americans being the number one ethnic group – from what I read, yes, but they are Christians – many of them from Lebanon.
Britain and Europe get the [derogatory comment deleted by administrator] from Pakistan and N Africa – not quite on the same level of achievement – and from the religion of peace, which means a lot of time is spent sitting around fretting about what’s wrong with their host countries.
err i just spotted this on bbc news online
http://www.linuxfarm.co.uk/err.jpg
(it disappeared a few minutes later but caught a screen shot).
looks like the beeb already know the results lol.
I think some of you are wrong on Sky. YOu can be put in prison I believe if you watch Sky without paying the subscription i.e. if you use an illegal decoder.
>I think some of you are wrong on Sky. YOu can be put in prison I believe if you watch Sky without paying the subscription i.e. if you use an illegal decoder.
It wasn’t a difficult point that was being made, David, but somehow you’ve still managed to miss it.
OT – News alert for fat, Grim Gordy. I just saw on the Drudge Report that the prim minister says, if elected he will “serve” (ha ha ha ha – help himself is more like it) a full term.
Verity
Yep, Blair said that the other day. I half expected Brown’s head to explode. Noticeable by its absence was a follow up question from any journalist to Brown asking for his view on this. As Gordy has looked cool and unflappable since I wouldn’t be surprised if Blair comes in for a nasty shock following a victory tomorrow.
Hmmmm … Brown’s head exploding fills me with mixed emotions. Good humour and a sense of wellbeing, certainly, but honestly, just a touch of revulsion. I really don’t want to know what’s in there.
OT. This isn’t the Beeb, but it’s Polly Toynbee, so it’s close enough. Here’s what she said, talking about the election, in al-Gharday-een today: if people choose not to vote labour, but still want to vote left, multitudes may vote for the Lib Dems “accidentally delivering a surge in Tory wins. Without winning a single vote beyond their core, a whole new phalanx of hard-faced Tory boys could shift the Westminster chemistry perilously …”.
Bring it on!
David,
What does it matter whether or not I watch Sky? Why shouldn’t I be compelled to pay anyway?
Not all of those Arab-Americans are Christian. This building is about an hour and a half’s drive north of me. Quite an impressive structure in the cornfields of Ohio. The picture doesn’t do it justice.
I’m also curious about how many Generals of Arab descent are in the various (or any) armies of Europe. I know of at least one in the U.S. Army, but, yes, he’s a Christian: John Abizaid.
Back OT: It seems to me that they could put two police cars with doppler radar on the highway for every one of those moving camera outfits. That would slow the traffic more effectively, I’d think. Of course, the revenue stream would be impacted sooner.
How on earth did they get planning permission? It’s foul.
“Without winning a single vote beyond their core, a whole new phalanx of hard-faced Tory boys could shift the Westminster chemistry perilously …”. Oh Polly, Polly. How sad does your life have to get? Labour lose anything they scream fix…..Labour win (by fixing postal votes and gerrymandering the system so that even if Tory and Lab have 34% of the vote Lab still end up with 140 seat majority!) but not a peep from Polly. Labour sleaze? More prevelant (or should that be ‘rampant…’ than Tory sleaze yet only regarded as ‘froth’ by the likes of Blair and Polly….
And why no Tory girls? Aaargh! I cannot wait until Friday morning!
“And why no Tory girls?” Interesting point. BTW, who approved the spine-tingling term Blair’s Babes?
Look forward to four more years minimum of tony ‘n’ cher, by which time no young person will have any memory of ever having lived in a free country. And Imelda (whoops!) Elena – whoops! seriously! I meant to type: Cher Blair will continue to accept free designer clothes, free shoes, free handbags, free hair-styling (seriously, she’d be well advised to go private in this area), free property advice from Ozzie conmen who have served prison time on three continents (that’s THREE continents) and pose as a “human rights/transgendered” activist lawyer paid for out of Brussels.
Andrew Marr will get sick from happiness. Ola Guerrin, Stephen Sackur, Fergall Keene, Bridge Kendall and the rest of them, in employment for four more years.
Actually, in employment forever. At the end of four years, the British voting system will have been destroyed and ceded to the EUSSR. I think this is the last basically free election in the United Kingdom. It will be a long, long time before the British feel the bracing wind of democracy against their faces, but as they don’t want it, who cares?
Verity,
You just have to have faith that there are more people like you in Britain than you realize. And those people have to learn how to take a stand and quit letting the system run all over them. One day they’ll get tired of the way things are going. Surely, that little rebel deep inside will eventually come out, heh, heh. There will be a day of reckoning. As long as there are people like you over there, then I still have hope for you. You’ve just got to stick together and hang in there. I know it’s easier said than done but it is possible.
Dave T,
There was no Tory sleaze. That was just the first of many big lies.
‘Look forward to four more years minimum of tony ‘n’ cher, by which time no young person will have any memory of ever having lived in a free country……At the end of four years, the British voting system will have been destroyed and ceded to the EUSSR. I think this is the last basically free election in the United Kingdom. It will be a long, long time before the British feel the bracing wind of democracy against their faces’
I’m going to stick my neck out and predict that this won’t happen.
Anyway, any bets on the result? I’m going for a 70 seat majority for the present incumbents.
Denise, your string of vapid platitudes was almost as irritating as anything Tony Blair might say. Do you know anything at all about British politics and the major players? Do you know anything at all about the BBC?
Verity
I’m sorry if I sounded as irritating as Tony Blair. God knows I don’t want to do that. But I think you might have misunderstood what I was trying to say and I’m sorry if I didn’t get it across. Maybe I misunderstood your comment, too. The way I took it is that you want your country back, you’re sick of the way things are just like others here and I’m saying that hopefully a lot of other people in Britain are just as discontent with the way things are and will eventually get up off their arses and force a change. I was just trying to tell you and anyone else here not to give up, that’s all.
Verity
One more thing. I was also trying to pay you a compliment. I was saying that I have hope for your country as long as there are people like you and others on this blog in it. I hope I’ve made myself clear this time and I sure hope I didn’t sound like Blair again.
Denise
There are a few stout bulldogs left and over the last few years I have detected stirrings of dissent under the radar. By that I mean the results of my completely unscientific reasearch of chatting in the pub, hearing people on radio talk shows and so on. For example, the British National Party here has long been outside located of respectable company. Although they have tried to tone down their image they are still at heart a racist, pro-white party. Their support has crept up a little in recent times but what I haven’t heard anyone remark upon yet is how more and more people are beginning to reject the PC jackboot on their speech and have increasingly been talking about immigration in terms which only the BNP would have dared use in the past. It’s a slow awakening but we’re not dead yet.
It is also unremarked that these are extraordinary political times. The Labour Party has never before had this sustained run of success in elections. If any party is the natural party of government it is the Tories. They have spent two thirds of the last 125 years in government. A tired, washed out, hopeless and discredited Tory Party, which had been in office for 18 years until 1997, met a Labour which had been turned into an extremely effective election winning machine. 1997 was an inevitable and real destruction of the Tories. The Tories were never going to win the 2001 election and this one has been about nothing more than clawing back some ground.
As long as we can prevent Blair from doing too much damage until he goes before the next election I think it’s all to play for in 2009. Of course if Blair has his way we may not have an election in 2009. Blair will be gone, the consensus is that Labour will have to defend a failing economy and they will have reverted to a more traditional, socialist party. The key to it will be the Tories rediscovering their balls. Michael Howard seems to have found their rough location but they haven’t quite got them yet.
Thanks, Pete. I see that Blair has a reduced majority. I guess we’ll see what happens now.
Denise W – If Britain had more people like me, it would be empty. I left the first time Blair won.
Pete_London – Five more years of Bliar doesn’t derange me as much as it did before the election. With such a small majority, and such a humiliating defeat, he won’t be allowed to steamroller the destruction of Britain through any more. I do,though, feel it’s a tragedy for people with children in the state school system. They can’t stop their children developing for five years. Those children are going to be exposed to undisciplined classrooms, ignorant, chippy teachers and learning junk subjects for five irrecoverable years. That is a tragedy.