, Alan Connor of News Online (a sometime follower of Biased BBC), has written an interesting article about the relevance or otherwise of David Cameron’s privileged education and the ever-shifting public perceptions of class, private education and Old Etonians.
The following comment from the (Don’t) Have Your Say selection below Alan’s article caught my eye:
Old Etonians ruin the fabric of society. Oxford is infested with them like an old apple with maggots.
Gayrav, Oxford
Can you imagine such a thoughtless bigoted comment being selected for (Don’t) Have Your Say if ‘Old Etonians’ were replaced with some other social group (take your pick from the BBC’s usual roll-call of favoured minorities) and ‘Oxford’ with a correspondingly stereotypical place?
So do you disagree with the comment?
Presumably you’re going to stop using this site when the BBC “Have Your Say” turns into a discussion forum? People will have more exposure by posting comments about bias directly on the BBC site.
In your view what’s the least bias news service in the world?
Dear Readers,
You will be shocked to learn that the somewhat tetchy comment above was posted from an IP number that belongs to:
inetnum: 132.185.0.0 – 132.185.255.255
netname: BBC
descr: British Broadcasting Corporation
descr: *****************************************
descr: * This address space is used for BBC Staff members *
descr: * accessing the internet. In case of any problems *
descr: * with users of this address space (spam, attacks, *
descr: * illegal activity, etc) please email abuse@bbc.co.uk *
descr: *****************************************
country: GB
admin-c: BBC-RIPE
tech-c: BBC-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PI
mnt-by: BBC-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
The thing is, does this BBC comment count as an attack (as defined above), or is it a counter-attack?
Still, nice to know you’re out there and paying attention!
And no, I don’t agree with that (D)HYS comment. Just to be clear, I think that a comment like that is bigoted and thoughtless, though I thought I said that already.
Now back to work for your grateful public, you telly-tax scrounger!
(N.B. I’ve withheld the specific IP address to protect the guilty :-))
Maggots infest apples? I didn’t know that. Well, one learns something new every day.
What’s this guy got against Etonites anyway? Looks like he’s keen to get the tumbrils rolling again. Oh, hang on, that was France….
Come on, anon. You don’t really believe that the BBC would allow genuine discussion of their bias on their own site, do you?
Least biased news service? You mean bias is a given?
Andrew, funnily enough, as I was reading it I thought it probably emanated from that aforementioned august institution.
does this BBC comment count as an attack (as defined above), or is it a counter-attack?
anon posted more or less the same comment in the thread about the UN and the internet which shows a lack of imagination for one thing. If the same comment pops up again on another thread I’d say it would count as a spam attack.
Talking of spam, how’s the quality of the food in the BBC canteen these days anon?
What the BBC forget is it wasn’t Cameron’s but his parent’s choice of school.
As someone who lives in Oxford I suspect ‘Gayrav’ doesn’t.
There is a type of Right wing “socialist” that tends to get produced by public schools.
When you’ve been constantly told you’re an “elite”, you tend to develop a sense of entitlement; but if you don’t do very well in the real world, it tends to create a person who thinks that other peoples freely made choices (AKA capitalism) are to blame.
Theses types tend to find a job bossing people around in the extortion funded sector, mainly by leveraging their connections (cronyism).
I know, people just never stop marginalising those downtrodden Etonians.
How do OEs, or any well educated person, ruin the fabric of society? Are they the cause of drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, fear of crime, high rates of recidivism, lack of respect for the old and a general inability to critical analyse the claptrap that the media pours out? Do they create by their very presence the entitlement culture that is stultifying huge parts of society?
I rather think that Gayrav is more insulted by their arrogant belief that they will succeed at whatever they do and the braying voices that accompanies the tales of their achievements. This might ruin his night out in a wine bar but this hardly qualifies as the whole of society.
Hank Scorpio
Treat yourself to an Eton education and liberate yourself from whatever it is about you that makes you produce remarks like that.
SiN – the “whatever it is about” our friend Hank is something called “envy”, a trait shared by nearly all Leftists….;-)
nearly?
Envy/Jealousy is THE central core of the mental illness we call leftism.
That’s why there’s allways a victim group.
National Socialism => Jews.
Communism => Owners.
European Socialism => Entrepreneurs.
What the BBC forget is it wasn’t Cameron’s but his parent’s choice of school.
Er, I wrote the article, not the comments.
Actually, when I saw the piece had been linked to, (it didn’t show up in Technorati, for some reason), I thought it was going to be the “that BBC lot are all public school Oxbridge types” objection. The article certainly attracted a lot of emails to the site – still is.
descr: *****************************************
descr: * This address space is used for BBC Staff members *
descr: * accessing the internet. In case of any problems *
descr: * with users of this address space (spam, attacks, *
descr: * illegal activity, etc) please email abuse@bbc.co.uk *
descr: *****************************************
Like Shaggy says, it wasn’t me. (Except it was him when it was Shaggy… you know what I mean.)
OFF TOPIC
Anybody see last night’s report by Tom Heap on how foxhunts are getting round the ban by exploiting the various loopholes in what must be the most ramshackle Act ever passed?
He ended with a reference to “hidden lawbreaking” without offering any evidence at all that the law is in fact being broken.
While it’s fair to say that hunts aren’t acting within the spirit of the law (and, let’s face it, why should they?), they are it seems acting within its letter. But, because hunts, and hunt supporters are on the Beeboids’ approved hate-list, this “reporter” knows he can get away with calling them criminals, even though the crime is “hidden”, and he offers no evidence that a crime has been committed. Tendentious, or what?, as they’d say on FiveLive.
Alan, I was making a general point about the BBC’s attitude in general but as the BBC screen comments why allow such a hate filled one to appear?
Everyone knows it was Old Etonians who blew up the tube trains and that bus.
Stop press: US Government bans Old Etonians from taking flying lessons as “a security precaution”.
Rob – if that had indeed been the case, no doubt the Beeb would have been perfectly happy to describe them as “terrorists” 😉
Alan, I was making a general point about the BBC’s attitude in general but as the BBC screen comments why allow such a hate filled one to appear?
Glad to hear it! Well, I don’t add the comments, but the one I guess you’re talking about is pretty mild in context.
In terms of balance, I hope my own writing is responsible, but so far as I’ve seen, the topic of state/public schools always brings up shouting voices from all sides… …from Roger Scruton to the idea of “Alan B’Stard” (which could be BBC too, but I remember it as ITV and Sundays)?
In fact, that was the point of the piece, I suppose: is schooling still a senstive area?
Hi Alan – just in case there’s any doubt, my post was about the selection of that particular (D)HYS comment – I enjoyed your article and most of the comments were interesting too.
The comment that I highlighted in my post though should never have been published by the BBC – it is mindless hate speech, nothing else, and wouldn’t have been published if it was referring to, say, gay people or gypsies or any of a range of other groups.
I can’t speak for Hank Scorpio but I think he might have been saying that the BBC is full of a certain type of jealous Public schoolboys who have developed a socialist chip on their shoulders. So his comment doesn’t automatically merit a standard leftie/envy kneejerk IMO.
Don’t worry about the Etonian accents in the UK. The BBC’s bias toward colloquial English, much of which we all have trouble understanding, will be the laughing stock of the big outside world. Just listen to the present day English spoken in mainland China and India. They quite often have other advantages such as speaking several languages.
Yes, BBC keep the rubbish coming then you might be in the unique position of broadcasting to yourselves while we all watch other channels. Oh, but isn’t that what is already happening? I wonder if Auntie has noticed yet?
‘the one I guess you’re talking about is pretty mild in context’
So ‘BBC writers ruin the fabric of society. Britain is infested with them like an old apple with maggots’ is fine?
Victory in our time. Over a month after they published ‘Gayrav’s rant the BBC have upheld my complaint and it has been removed.