, just stepping in for today and tomorrow before I go on holiday.
What stopped me blogging? As I said earlier, first I was busy, then I was ill. However I have been pretty much recovered for the last week. The thing that repeatedly made me decide that I would get back online tomorrow rather than today was the fact that I was frightened of my by-now enormous pile of unread emails. Eventually I realised that the dragon that lay across my path had to be slain if I was ever to return to the blogosphere. So I deleted them.
You may rebuke me. Be assured that I rebuke myself. But it was the only way.
Meanwhile, I see that in my absence Biased BBC has been tackling high profile, controversial subjects and making national headlines. I too must do my part. I was sorry to see the other day that the actress Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Miss Ellie in Dallas, had died at the age of 82. Whoever wrote the Ceefax report about her life and death knew that the first priority was to tell us that she was a heavy smoker and that this caused her fatal lung cancer.
Those Ceefax boys never let a chance for moral instruction pass by. Incidentally, the US average female life expectancy is 80.67 years.
“hen in fact, Europe does have many severe social problems despite having big fat welfare states”:Susan
I would change “despite” to “because”. The welfare state rewards irresponsibility by punishing financial success. Incentives matter, you are incentivised to be irresponsible and not earn.
The BBC never seems to give this (basic) point of economics/view an airing.
F*ck arrogant elitist Tories who have never been raised in isolated employment blackspots devastated by the gutting of the manufacturing and other industries and who do nothing but condemn those less fortunate or able than themselves.
Perhaps Seamus could explain why some London boroughs which did not have any significant gutting of manufacturing or extractive industries have higher unemployment rates than northern coalfield and shipworking areas ?
But then perhaps Seamus knows damn-all about the real world and is just parroting his usual leftie slogans.
Seamus,
I’m a capitalist because I’ve seen first hand the damage done by supporting uneconomic industries. Proper capitalism supports a far more rebust long-tail economy.
Socialism is based around the concept of jealousy and only destroys freedom and thus wealth.
Susan:
[i]Germany is generally a pleasant place to live in, but a 13 percent unemployment rate is unconscionable. If the US had such a high unemployment rate there would be rioting in the streets.[/i]
Being unemployed in Germany is actually quite nice. Handsome social security benefits, funded by those in work. In return for the employeds’ generosity, the unemployed accept that it’s so difficult to sack anyone in Germany that companies avoid hiring wherever possible, and that the unemployed can expect to stay that way.
That’s why everyone’s quite happy with 13% unemployment.
Seamus
You are a cry baby. If industries are no longer viable, communities will suffer. That is a fact of life. Just because we used to mine coal does not mean that we will do so for all time. Get on your bike like I have had to, step out of your comfort zone and stop bleating for other peoples money.
Back to the subject of BBC Bias, could the BBC not have found a more flattering picture of Lord Tebbitt??
forgot the link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4163484.stm
America’s Founding Father’s weren’t trying for Utopia, they recognized Human Beings are imperfect and s**t happens and tried to create a system that allowed for those things, hence the checks and balances that so frustrate our modern utopians.
This realism probably explains why the American Revolution didn’t end in terror and tyranny like the French and Russian, etc.
ANyone else hear the egregious John Humphreys interviewing Lord Tebbit this morning at 7.50 on the Today programme. His sniggers whilst Lord T was expressing his views were clearly audible, and his contemptuous comments at the end of the piece inexcusable.
Lord Tebbit’s views on multiculturalism and homosexuality(he doesn’t believe in them) may not be pc. His view that more sex education as a response to the soaring teenage pregnancy rate is a sign of a decaying culture may be unfashionable.
However, his comments represent what a substantial number of people are thinking and deserve to be aired without being sneered at!
Unless BBC Editors invited him onto THE prime slot on the Today programme IN ORDER to take the p**s out of him.
Why are we paying for this??
Re: previous post
It was James Naughtie not John Humphreys. He of “if WE win the next election ….”
Seamus,
I was really enjoying reading through this thread until I came to your contribution. A pretty sad, childish rant in comparison to other posts.
“Arrogant elitist Tories”? So what have the Labour Government done to restore the golden age of coal mining, shipbuilding, textile manufacturing, steel making, and car building in the unemployment blackspots? Or can their lack of action also be blamed on the Tories?
Fran
Humphrys’ snigger may have been due to the realisation that Tebbit was (of course) right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4163484.stm
Just check out the photo of Tebbit! Is he alive?! Carumba, is that really the best one they have? The left has been wrong on everything, absolutely eveything. When events prove this why seriously discuss your opponent’s views when you can snigger instead?
I’ve just heard that Mo Mowlem’s kicked the bucket. I trust we are all on standby to send the BBC our ‘tributes’ and not our ‘comments’. As I listen the Today programme is turning into the Mo-fest. At this rate they’ll be suspending programming and broadcasting three days of somber music.
Update – Well that took all of two minutes to arrive:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4739555.stm
Fran,
I’ve just listened to the Tebbit interview via the Radio 4 website and I couldn’t hear any sniggering in the background.
Personally I thought he got a fair shot at expressing his views and he put them across very well.
Pete_London,
I agree about the Tebbit picture! But he must be getting on a bit… and he was right about the “cricket test” – to quote:
“If you’re say, a Pakistani youth and you’re jeering at Nasser Hussein as the captain of England, then you’re not quite integrated into British society”
Alan
Agree that Lord T put his views across well. Listened to replay on Beeb and couldn’t hear the snicker, which was quite distinct this morning (although incredulous sneer at end is still audible. This is par for the course,though).
I did call the Beeb and register a complaint to them about it as soon as the interview was over, but techno-minded people would be the ones to say whether it’s possible to edit out a second or so or not.
Fran
I also heard whispering/suppressed sniggering during the interview. I couldn’t tell whether it was disbelief and shock (that anyone could hold such views, which are actually mainstream outside the BBC bubble) or just due to some technical problem in the background.
Tebbit – pleased that he addressed the BBC interviewer as “Mr Stourton”.
I hate the creepy way that politicians usually use a first name to an interviewer who obviously holds the politician in contempt.
The muttering by Stourton comes when Tebbit states that unlike extreme Muslims, he doesn’t advocate execution for homosexuals. Stourton mutters something like “well thank goodness for that”.
Stourton gives the impression of slight panic when Tebbit starts to detail the long term failings of the Muslim world & quickly concludes the interview.
Mowlam – watching TV coverage, it was noticable that all the clips of Mowlam was silent. Strange for a politician, surely their words should be their main claim to fame.
Meanwhile back at the ranch:
Washington Post:
“The key for the antiwar movement is to use Sheehan as a symbol but not to make the movement about her. Last night was an effort to broaden beyond Sheehan to other parents. That’s why MoveOn told people to bring pictures of children even if they aren’t in the military, and organizers handed out stickers saying ‘mom’ and ‘uncle’ and so forth, even if the ‘son’ or ‘nephew’ wasn’t in Iraq.
Says it all really…looking at the Beeb report they didn’t pick this up…
Last night’s Newsnight had a piece about Mother Sheehan. At least Gavin Esler challenged the Dem guy by saying that Sheehan and her family had already met Bush, at his invitation, so there was no proper cause for her to be demanding another meeting. But Esler did not say that on that occasion Sheehan was very satisfied with the meeting. Also, Esler did not challenge Sheehan herself with the earlier meeting. Nor did he mention that she has been mixing with outright antisemitism and with people who approve of “insurgent” attacks in Iraq, and has totally bonkers views about Bush being a fascist dictator. A screeching moonbat, to be blunt.
And Esler did not give the fll flavour that there are a lot of other grieving parents who are incensed that Sheehan should work with people like Michel Moore and others even further over the edge to use her son’s death as a political weapon. Other parents are saying “not in our name” to challenge Sheehan’s grandstanding.
Apropos Mo Mowlem – sd deth, nd she ws ndobtedly a forthright and energetic politician. But there was a strong tinge of appeasement in her approach to Sinn Fein/IRA. The BBC does not much question appeasement, whether on Northern Ireland, on Middle East affairs, or on kowtowing to demands from new communities in Britain. So Mo Mowlem will get entirely uncritical reviews by the BBC – just like Robin Cook. Adulation and no awkward questions asked. Stand by for another load of mawkishness.
Mo was a nice lady but totally the wrong one to be in NI.
Note there’s not a lot being said about the fact she had no bodyguards unlike Mandelson who STILL has his roaming around Europe with him and Blair with his Presidential entourage…even Lord (Roy) Mason has bodyguards etc 20 years later!
Yes, it’s sad when someone dies, but Mo Mowlem was a disgrace as Northern Ireland secretary. She was pro-IRA and anti-unionist. Even Mandelson is considered higher than Mowlam in NI, and to be fair, he did do a good job in that post, picking up the pieces left by his predecessor.
“Mo Mowlem was a disgrace as Northern Ireland secretary. She was pro-IRA and anti-unionist.”
Maybe that’s why she didn’t need bodyguards?
Did any of you Brits watch the Panorama programme concerning the MCB?
From what i gather, the beeb has been running quite a few programmes now on muslims and the war on terror. Is the bbc finally waking up to it?
Did any of you Brits watch the Panorama programme concerning the MCB?
It’s being discussed extensively in the thread above this one.