BBC Eye is a Beebwatching blog by “Cerdic”, who started the Beebwatch blog before blogs existed. His post for today says:
Five Live Drivel continues to not surprise. In awaiting Charles Kennedy’s statement (no, not ‘mine’s a pint), they said that the Shadow Cabinet was split over his possible departure. Since the Shadow Cabinet is currently Conservative (I know the BBC hopes the LibDums will become the official opposition, but really), I suspect they’re fervently hoping Good Time Charlie stays put. The LibDem Frontbench are another matter entirely. But then, facts and the BBC…..
Interesting how little prominence this story is currently being given on the BBC News front homepage. Bad news being buried perhaps…?
The BBC thinks Michael Barrymore is more controversial than George Galloway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4584056.stm
“The inclusion of Michael Barrymore is controversial”
They tell us all about Barrymore, but don’t seem to give us much on Galloway.
Y’know ‘War on Want,’ Oil-for Food,’ etc.
Wonder why?
Is that homophobic?
🙂
The BBC currently has a story titled: “Kennedy admits struggle with drink”. I nearly choked when I read that. In other news, Pope found to be Catholic, Sun rises in east, etc. Then I realized they weren’t talking about Teddy, but some other fellow.
O/T.
The Israeli PM is critically ill and the Palestinian elections take place in four days. The Middle East is facing a crucial and uncertain few weeks.
And what is the self-appointed leader of the UK’s anti-war movement, the indefatigable campaigner for the Palestinian people and the Arab world, and the man who gives voice to the disenfranchised and angry British Muslims, doing?
Yes: George Galloway has entered the Big Brother house.
Not the BBC News – World roundup –
IRAN: HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE SOON IN TEHRAN
Tehran, 5 Jan. (AKI) – Iran has decided to rewrite and revise the history of the Holocaust.
IRAN: ISLAM CAN SAVE THE WORLD SAYS HARDLINE PRESIDENT
Qom, 5 Jan. (AKI) – Iran’s recently elected hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed on Thursday that his government’s number-one objective is to reach beyond national boundaries to reedeem the world in the name of Islam.
Jerusalem, 23 Dec. (AKI) – As the Vatican and Israel prepare to meet in January in a fresh attempt to resolve a long-standing tax dispute, Jerusalem officials said this week that the Catholic Church owes most of a 65 million dollar debt in unpaid property taxes in the city.
a radical Palestinian leader in Damascus called Sharon’s health crisis a gift from God.
“We say it frankly that God is great and is able to exact revenge on this butcher. … We thank God for this gift he presented to us on this new year,” Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Syrian-backed faction Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small radical group, told the Associated Press.
Here is an article where the BBC clearly refers to his shadow cabinet rather than the showdow cabinet.
So if the Beeb did refer to it as the shadow cabinet, what was their motive? What could they possibly achieve by doing that given that everyone knows that it is the Conservatives that make up the opposition in parliament?
Perhaps the blogger simply misheard what was being said, or the presenter simply mispoke? I can’t see what other conclusions that can be drawn from this that aren’t preconceived.
this is brilliant (see Today Proram)
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2006/01/today_fails_aga.html
BOLTON Wanderers were embroiled in a dispute with the BBC last night after Sam Allardyce withdrew from a Radio 5 Live programme in protest at comments made by Alan Green, the station’s controversial commentator
Oh dear, what’s the fuss about?
The postbag of yesterday’s Bolton Evening News only highlighted the antipathy within the town towards Green, ….. David Wilson, of Leigh, wrote that Green should “provide an objective and unbiased service to the listener rather than warped opinions“
Where have we heard that said before?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,281-1972516,00.html
Jeez, if that’s not an “evil” picture of Kennedy I don’t know what is:
Picture
Roy: I also think that Big Sam is a whining **** – he’s mastered the art of intimidating the opposition (incl. the refs). I detest their “arse-licking” of Abramovich’s Chels**** as well.
That’s the Beeb’s “arse-licking”, of course. Russian bloke come good… etc
So George Galloway has turned up in the Big Brother House along with the likes of Michael Barrymore and Dennis Rodman. Questions include: is Galloway donating his fee to charity and if so, will he be able to prove it? Will he continue to draw an MP salary whilst sitting around the BB House? How the heck does he think he represents his constituents when he is never in his area?
Add this to the ‘You canna mak it up’ files…..
Type in black cock in google images..
goto page 3
gus smith from eastenders appears under the bbc’s url:
goto the page and view the source code.
it cleary states black cock in the source
it seems as though someone inside the bbc doesnt like gus.
this is brilliant (see Today Program)
http://conservativehome.blogs.co…_fails_aga.html
Socialism is Necrotizing | 06.01.06 – 1:18 am |
Nice to know that someone here also reads the stuff we talk about over there 🙂 B-BBC had some good plugs on that thread yesterday and I’m looking forward to reading what’s been said overnight.
As St James of Smug Naughtie mentions (again) that Ariel Sharon is thought of “by some people” as a war criminal, I wondered how many times St James referred to Arafat as a “terrorist”?
Does anyboy remember this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2801955.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4586434.stm
i feel sorry for Charlie boy.
Simon Hughes & Co are clearly the cause of most evil..
OT
I’d respect the BBC even more if they covered stories like this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1972459,00.html
Respect is due http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4585302.stm
Cockney,
The BBC doesn’t mention that this is being treated as a murder enquiry.
It also would be nice if they included contact details for Detective Chief Inspector Steve Strong.
I hope they catch the scum who did this. I’m pessimistic that justice will be done when a judge sentences.
Good heavens, a geezer of 95 and he still put up a fight! That’s the British spirit I have always so admired. Poor man.
Of all the criminal scum in society, I hate criminals that prey on the elderly the most. I’m from a small village in Wiltshire. An 86-year-old lady opened the door to the ‘gas man’. He punched her in the face and kicked her while she lay on the floor. Luckily a neighbour heard her screams and came to help. Unfortunately, the scum escaped, as the neighbour was more concerned with ensuring the victim was OK.
Personally, I’d give any bogus caller 20 years. In this case, where the victim has died, minimum sentences of 30 – 40 years seem appropriate.
I’d recommend a short story called “The Veteran” by Frederick Forsyth. Almost exactly the same thing happens in the book and I challenge any reader not to agree with the justice handed out at the end.
Nick Robinson’s blog has a thing about Charles Kennedy being a raging drunkard:
http://blogs.bbc.co.uk/nickrobinson/
The thrust of his post is that the BBC knew about this for ages and covered it up; but they were moved to mention it explicitly because they were going to be scooped by ITN, who “were to run anonymous allegations that he was undergoing treatment”.
The next paragraph begins:
“Believe me, until then, that wasn’t simply a secret we’d not thought it right to tell you.”
In my experience when someone says “believe me” they are not actually telling the truth, to put it as Roy Walker might put it. Elsewhere Nick justifies his silence – he could have been a crusading journalist, but no – by saying that everybody else was silent too and that it wasn’t worth mentioning and didn’t impair Kennedy’s ability to do the job. Although from what I remember it *did* impair his ability to deliver speeches and make public appearances, but presumably he must have been fully in charge of his sobriety when he was in meetings and so forth.
For those of ypou who want to bait lefties about Gorgeous George in BB – don’t bother.
GG has always split the left – some seeing him as a brave, eloquant man speaking out against an unjust war and others on the left who see him as a vainglorious, egotistical idiot who does the left and teh anti war movement no good. Following his astounding decison to appear on BB there are very, few lefties who would defend this fool.
GG has managed the unique trick of uniting the right AND the left in their opposition and loathing of his. Let’s ceasefire for just a momnet celebrate this amazing feat.
To pick up the point made by Ashley Pomeroy, I find it deeply disturbing that no one in our wonderful media had the integrity to report the truth about Kennedy.
Had (and I admit it was unlikely) the LibDems won the last election, Kennedy’s finger would have been on the metaphorical button.
Does no one at the BBC, ITV or in Fleet St really not consider it their duty to have warned us how unsteady that hand would have been?
For once ON TOPIC!
Radio 5 done the same 2 mins ago…. “Leader of the Opposition”
mmm?
And how many other secrets are they keeping from us, because they think we don’t need to know a certain thing about a certain politician? This kind of thing is common in the pop tabloid world – no-one had a bad word to say about Take That, Michael Barrymore, George Michael etc when positive coverage of them was guaranteed to sell newspapers, even though everyone knew that they had committed greater or lesser transgressions which would have had them crucified if they had been cabinet ministers. The Beatles had a safe ride; I’m sure this kind of thing goes back to Roman times and beforehand, the media tends to gloss over things which it would rather not deal with. The BBC’s problem is that it is supposed to be better than that.
And suppose, as GCooper mentions above, Kennedy had led his party to much greater success? Would the BBC have come out and told us that all the people voting for him were voting for an unreliable, self-deluding alcoholic? Or would that not have been worth mentioning? “We don’t need to trouble the public with that kind of thing.”
Further on the topic of Kennedy’s drinking, this shocking admission was made in Nick Robinson’s blog: “The BBC received information that Mr Kennedy was undergoing treatment for an alcohol problem. This was put to Mr Kennedy’s office who issued a flat denial. With that – and without independent evidence – the BBC decided it could not run the story.”
Since when did the BBC decide to publish stories after trying to obtain independent evidence? They certainly did not, for example, when it came to allegations of Israeli brutality towards Palestinians.
A Lurker ” Following his astounding decison to appear on BB there are very, few lefties who would defend this fool.”
How do you know? Are you someone important?
Actually, Rob Read, I think it may have been unfortunately misleading in that the least satisfactory article was linked:
This one was better, found in the links to the one Cockney linked
Murder is the first word.
Anonymous writes:
“Further on the topic of Kennedy’s drinking, this shocking admission was made in Nick Robinson’s blog:…”
The implication there is that, had the BBC run the story, it would have risked libelling Mr Kennedy because it couldn’t prove it to be true.
However, other Press reports (including some from BBC sources) suggest that Mr Kennedy’s problems were well known by the Press.
Someone is being economical with the truth.
Contact details
Contact Details and tell them what?
Lurker
Did you see Big Brother last night?
Priceless
Galloway – “A politician once said, ‘a politician complaining about the press is like a ships captain complaining about the sea.'”
Barrymore – “That’s very good – who said it?”
Galloway – “err…Enoch Powell”
Barrymore – “Ah, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
🙂 too funny.
Comment from a newbie to this site. Sorry if it’s in the wrong place
Friday 6 Jan, Toady Prog, Nick Robinson on Charlie Kennedy’s drink problems, said that the media hacks at Westminster had known that he had a problem for years, but hadn’t wanted to stir it up as he was such a nice guy.
Bet they would have stirred it up if he was a Tory, nice guy or not.
John,
I totally agree. I can’t see Michael Howard getting let off by the press. Although, he’s obviously not a nice guy in the BBC’s eyes because he’s a Conservative.
5 Live seems to be more and more like Radio Caroline………….I suspect it is a pirate radio station offshore with a crew unfamiliar with English institutions and culture……………..