Public split over new hate laws reports a BBC survey purporting to show public support for the government’s proposed ‘incitement to religious hatred’ laws. Rottweiler Puppy has given the story, and the underlying survey, a thorough mauling in his post Religious Hate Bill Stalls: BBC Get Out And Push.
Given the BBC’s enthusiasm for helping the democratic process along with such polls I look forward to BBC News Online carrying out and publishing more polls to gauge public opinion on, for instance:
- Capital punishment: yes or no?
- Yobs: time for the birch again?
- Judges: time to elect them?
- EU membership: good value?
- Immigration: more or less?
- Paedophiles: throw away the key?
- Burglars: was Tony Martin right?
- Dangerous aliens: send ’em home?
- Road tax: spend more on roads?
- Railway subsidies: good value?
- Sunday shopping: 6hrs or 24hrs?
- Telly-tax, adverts or subscriptions?
- NHS: should entitlement be verified?
- Schools: ditto;
- 0870 customer service: a rip-off?
- Mugabe: time for regime change?
and so on and so forth! I’m sure between us and BBC News Online we can think of lots of issues where UK government and public policy is deficient or lagging behind or plain doesn’t match the will of the British people – ideal topics for BBC News Online to survey and document for the benefit of the people who are forced to pay for it!
I can set the ball rolling with the following:
Should TV glorify crime and anti-social behaviour by giving street plankton the oxygen of publicity ?
Should street argot and grammar be given equal status to English ?
Should Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra be monitored for being ‘hideously b***k’ ?
Mark,
It’s racist to monitor the priviledges of the more equal than white communities.
But the BBC has a superb reputation for presenting unbiased polls of “public opinion”:
MORI Finds BBC Public Consultation “Not A Reliable Guide To Public Opinion”
http://www.mori.com/polls/2001/consultation.shtml
Sorry about causing a mention of the R-word.
Last year, we went to two classical concerts at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, and in each case the lead performer stole the show.
In November, Sir Willard White gave a gloriously rich portrayal of Elijah (in the oratorio by Mendelssohn), and Wayne Marshall provided us with a splendid repertoire of seasonal organ music.
Those performances dented the Beeb’s own patronising stereotype, based on 1Xtra !
BBC Guy makes a good job of ‘fisking’ crime “statistics”
Crimes, surveys and statistics
By Danny Shaw
BBC home affairs correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3733542.stm
They should get him onto some of the Iraq death figure reports.
Back to crime, here is a couple of snippets from an actual policemans blog, of how to get your ‘solved crime’ figures looking much better:
“CRIME SCAM
I thought you might like to know about a new crime recording scam currently in vogue amongst many of our Police Forces (including the one that I work for). It is called “Ethical crime recording” and it works a bit like this:
1. Mrs X calls the Police call centre: “My sons Johnny and Davy ,aged 10 and 11 yrs, have been fighting again and they’ve broken the fruit bowl/T.V. remote, I want an officer here because I’ve had enough”. The Police call centre allocate three crime numbers for the following crimes:
i) Johnny assaults Davy
ii) Davy assaults Johnny
iii) Criminal damage to the Fruit bowl/T.V. remote
2. P.C. Jones arrives and does the following:
i) Takes a statement from Davy about getting assaulted by Johnny, records in his pocket book.
ii) Interviews Johnny about his assault on Davy and the criminal damage to the fruit bowl/T.V. & records in his pocket book.
iii) Takes a statement from Johnny about getting assaulted by Davey, records in his pocket book.
iv) Interviews Davey about his assault on Johnny and the criminal damage to the fruit bowl/T.V. & records in his pocket book.
v) Takes a statement from Mrs X to corroborate the above and find out who acutally damaged the Fruit bowl/T.V. Remote
3. P.C. Jones returns to the station and does the following
i) Reports all three crimes either over the phone or on 3 seperate 10 page booklets.
ii) Writes up his own report about each individual crime
N.B. THIS IS THE CLEVER BIT!!
iii) Fills in 3 ADMINISRATIVE DETECTION FORMS (one for each crime)
iv) Submits to supervisor
4. Supervisor then
i) Adds his comments
ii) Forwards to auditing section
5 Divisional auditing then
i) Review each case in turn
and either a) File as detected or b) return to P.C. Jones for further investigation
Conclusion: 3 Crimes detected !!!
Of course nobody wants to go to court or “press charges” but who cares? P.C. Jones has easily exceeded his target of 1 detection per week, and the force has pushed up it’s detection rate even higher. The three burglaries that P.C. Jones went to that day will never be detected, and he’ll never find out who robbed that boy’s mobile phone yesterday. P.C. Jones never goes anywhere on foot and is never able to reassure anyone because he’s too busy with his “administrative detections” but just think, out of the 7 crimes I’ve just mentioned (3 burglaries, 1 robbery, 2 assaults and 1 criminal damage) 3 have been detected, a detection rate of 43%!
Just who is really “wasting Police time”?”
and
CRIME SOLVER
I read this with smug satisfaction. My own personal detection rate is just over 30% (according to in-force statistics) and I think I will soon get a letter thanking me for my efforts or a badge that simply says “TOP COP.” For any young, inexperienced police officers reading here are PC Copperfield’s top tips for a good detection rate:
1. Go to domestic burglaries: Although you are the first officer attending, they are dealt with by a specialist squad, so although they’ll probably never be detected, they will not affect your detections.
2. Go to domestics: Yes, I know they’re a pain, but there’s every chance the offender will still be there and CPS advice will always be to charge. Remember charge=detection.
3. Stop search for cannabis: Find cannabis, ask for crime number, crime solved. It’s that simple folks.
4. Nuisance phone calls: can be a pain the neck, but the offender is usually an ex-boyfriend. Try and persuade the Injured Party that she doesn’t want to prosecute and just wants you to “have a word with him”, this means you won’t have to complete the Application of Communication Data (RIPA) form.
Speak to the offender and get him to admit it “just for my figures mate.” Remember admission=detection.
5. Steer clear of criminal damage: If two cars are damaged, it’s two crime numbers and they’re both on you and you’ll never find out who did it.
6. Get the allocation right: Find out exactly where the crime took place; there’s every chance that if you look at it in some detail the crime actually occured in another county or borough.
So, that’s six tips and if you have any more ideas, let me know. Just remember it might take CID months to detect a murder. You can detect loads of crime simply by getting the paperwork in the right order.
More by PC COPPERFIELD here
http://coppersblog.blogspot.com/
The BBC is here to tell us what we should be thinking, not to waste time and money on finding out what we are thinking. That cash is beetter spent on bonuses for the management.
Via LGF:
UK Gay Leaders Receive Death Threats From Muslim Fundamentalists Group Says
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/07/071805london.htm
I don’t recall spotting this on BBC Online. Did anyone catch it? I can’t imagine that such threats would be ignored by the BBC.
We must campaign to get the BBC off the air immediately. They are already trying to put a positive spin on today’s incidents in London that are unfolding right now.
BBC Report “incident in central London nothing to worry about at this time, no reports of any explosions” Reuters “Nail bomb explodes in Warren Street” need I say more
Fox news are reporting that HAZMAT teams are entering London Hospital and Warren St tubes. I’ve just looked this up on the web and it means hazardous materials. The BBC now think that maybe the bombs were a bit of a joke and that they had explosive in them and were never meant to hurt anyone. Are they just full of chemicals instead???
We’re being kept in our building in Old Street. Helicopters are going mental, police cars are screaming down the road.
BBC quotes police as saying:
“We are not treating this as a serious incident at this time”
Rob – the helicopter is probably the Skycopter – you’re Live on Sky just now! Probably best to stay where you are for now anyway, in case the TVL people get a fix on you!
Martin Brunt on Sky News just now quoting Met. Police saying three bombs, Oval, Warren St. & Hackney, detonators have gone off, but nothing else. No one injured. Possibly something else at Shepherd’s Bush. Victoria line re-opening either side of Warren St.
If these things keep happening can the BBC please confine the extended, very detailed reporting to the local, regional BBC London news? A quick mention on the national news will do. In Lancashire I don’t really need a minute by minute account of which street is open, which tube line is closed etc, etc. These are local matters and should be shown locally.
But Ed, if this is like the last lot then it’ll very possibly be some of your neighbours that are involved… 🙂
How about,
Should the BBC describe the London Bombers as Terrorists, Yes / No
Should despicable Imams who glorify violence be deported, Yes / No
Is the Human Rights act a travesty of Justice, Yes / No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Laura, what you need say is that maybe the BBC are right not to breathlessly report unsubstantiated rumours and cause wholly unnecessary mass panic.
Are Rights to other peoples money really rights? Yes/No.
Money for nothing? Who do I sue?
Miam
I don’t think Danny Shaw’s report is much of a “fisking.” I bet, says I to myself, after reading the first few paragraphs, that The Crime and Society Foundation (from whom Danny has filched his analysis) is a lefty pressure group. And so it proves. Paragraph 1 of their website says they are “an independent think tank for progressive crime policy.” Unsurprisingly, while Danny mentions the “independent” he omits to mention the “progressive.”
Jane Garvey on 5Live this afternoon – “The terrorists, or whatever they are”. They are terrorists Jane. No other word will do, even at the multi-culti, PC BBC.
“progressive crime policy” translated from leftspeak means Pro-Criminal.
Two more ideas in a democracy
Abolish car tax and charge foreign trucks for the use of our roads.
Civil servants forbidden to use obfuscation as normal policy.
As of 20:00hrs the BBC Online world addition version of its news service is still carrying the ‘minor explosions’ story as its headline.
So many people in the world will be getting their news about today’s terror attacks from this, and it utterly downplays it.
.
Why surmise? the BBC have a “have your say” on their website “Should the settlers be allowed to march to Gaza?”. You can’t help but be utterly stunned at the whole notion of inviting comments from every rabid anti-Israel crackpot who inhabits the planet who most probably lives in a country where the right to protest does not even exist opining on whether Israelis have the right to demonstrate. And yes you guessed it every rabid enemy of israel has had their say replete with claims of ethnic cleansing and every other lie under the sun – which presumably was the BBC’s intention all along. Don’t you just love it?
PJF – you what? As of 8pm yesterday, it was clear that the incidents were indeed very minor explosions (and that the Beeb’s overall coverage had been more accurate and more responsible than the hysterical scaremongering from the commercial media).
The BBC analysis of the BCS figures is pretty stupid, though: levels of murder, sexual offences and fraud are negligible compared with levels of BCS-measured crime…
Miam, thanks for pointing out the MORI article:
Presumably they decided that demonstrating ‘public value’ was out of the question, so they rigged an opinion poll instead. The rigged poll was submitted to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. From their (inactive) ‘have your say’ page:
If the government is so vocally pro-BBC, and the BBC must appeal to a government department for renewal (and, as always, expansion) of its charter, in what sense is the BBC ‘independent of government’?
Unfortunately all the ‘have your say’ submissions are in rtf/pdf format, making it rather inconvenient to quickly browse a sample. The first one I happened to click on was this one, obviously from someone at NASA:
Click to access Day_Wendy.pdf
The next one was from a Mr Dearden:
Click to access Dearden_Bryn.pdf
Pretty well sums it up doesn’t it. Except for the last paragraph. The BBC wastes billions of pounds.
I’ve only browsed a few of the D’s, even so I soon found this.
Can this really be the opinion of a viewer, or have BBC staff been allowed to stuff the poll? Shouldn’t they have been excluded? Given that there are only 4,500 submissions, isn’t it possible that BBC staff have significantly biased it in their favour? It would be interesting to do a thorough study of the responses, to see how many Pawan Danes have ‘had their say’.
JoC,
I want to know how “Dane” thinks trying to extort 120GBP out of every household in the UK is called universal access?
That Dane sounds like he’s writing a sales brochure. Very suspect.
Yes, the Dane comments mostly parrot what the BBC hs been arguing in the Charter review. No-one could believe he is a typical viewer.
john b:
“As of 8pm yesterday, it was clear that the incidents were indeed very minor explosions (and that the Beeb’s overall coverage had been more accurate and more responsible than the hysterical scaremongering from the commercial media).”
As of that time, it was quite clear that the UK had escaped the diabolical consequences of another major terror attack by sheer luck. This was a major incident. The BBC should have represented the truth of this to its international online audience sooner rather than persisting with the nothing happening here, move along style coverage from earlier.
Not long after I posted the above the headline story on the World Edition changed to the one that been showing for hours on the UK Edition:
London attackers ‘meant to kill’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4705117.stm
This is more appropriate to reality; matching the “commercial media” – and hardly hysterical scaremongering.
Clearly, reality is a concept to which you are a stranger.
.
And if my auntie had balls she’d be my uncle. In real life, nothing happened; you and I don’t yet know whether anything would have happened; you’re welcome to run around screaming that the sky’s falling, but meanwhile I’m quite happy to laugh at these useless would-be theocrats and their pathetic attempts at terror…
john b, there is no point in engaging with you in matters outside of BBC bias because our world views are too different. I see murderous terrorists; you see moderately annoying moths. Some people believe in pixies and fairies; I see no benefit in attempting to dissuade them from that view.
On the subject of BBC bias, do you feel that the BBC, in updating its World Edition headline story in the manner I described, was running around screaming that the sky’s falling?
.
They changed the headline to include the quote “meant to kill” after Ian Blair gave a speech including that quote. This seems reasonable; he’s the head of the police and the BBC has a duty to report what he has to day…