A feature of the Today programme is the succession of Americans from the arts world who invited to tell us just how much they dislike George Bush. Today we were treated to this ‘Today’ interview (RealAudio) with veteran American director Robert Altman, in which he was invited to hold forth at length on American politics (‘the wrong war, wrong time, wrong leader’).
(One tiny note of reality intrudes, where interviewer and interviewee are discussing how a new wave of socially aware films (e.g. Bareback Mounting and .. er ..) reflects the changing political awareness of America. The interviewer points out that though critics loved them, the public weren’t quite so keen.)
UPDATE – Scott at the Ablution points out that this is a double – yesterday the Today programme treated us to a plug for George Clooney’s Syriana.
John Reith,
. . . . and that would have made an interesting and intelligent flow of commentary and/or journalistic investigation.
Which is precisely what we didn’t get.
As for the alternatives methods of getting answers out of Kevin Marsh, the problem is that the procedures you suggest invite the BBC to judge of its own virtue. And we know from the BBC’s own comments how highly they rate the editorial virtue of Mr Marsh before we start.
What, actually, is the point of “Feedback”. If Mr Marsh is willing to offer explanations of his decision making, there are ways in which he can have his say without fear of being edited out. Here, for example.
So, if you’re out there, Mr Marsh, I’d once again encourage you to justify why you saw fit to let Mr Sadr’s spokesman allege, unchallenged and unchecked-out, that the Americans were responsible for bombing the mosque. You ran the story, you’re big enough to look after yourself in debate, so why the silence?
Oh, I think Iran is behind alot of this. But the Bush Administration are clearly a bunch of half-wits judging by the fact they ignored the warnings about just such a situation transpiring. Much of what has been happening in Iraq was predicted by the CIA and State Department prior to the invasion, yet the folks in charge seem to have believed that all would be sweetness and light as soon as Saddam had been ousted.
A competent US Administration would have been out of Iraq by now, having planned the whole thing well ahead.
Iran is taking advantage of blunders, which is hardly surprising, and should have been anticipated.
Even if the BBC was genuinely and obviously unbiased and spin-free, how could anyone not doubt its impartiality, given that it is funded by the state?
In a far off land of etermal winter lives a man called Vladimir……Vladimir is a friendly Russian and everyone thinks he is their favourite buddy………he was able to get his favourite gas company Gazprom to buy a TV station and Mr Berezhovsky the used car dealer that owned it decided to live in London where Russians can live the rich lifestyle with Arabs and have poor English people run errands for them.
When Vladimir started appointing his own people to run the TV station- NTV – the Western journalists screamed “press freedom” and how awful it was that Vladimir was interfering in the TV stations.
Vladimir should have called his friend Tony & Cherie to ask how you get to appoint your friend Gavyn Davies and your other sponsor, Greg Dyke to head up the State Broadcasting Corp and not a sound out of the media about “freedom of the press”
Ah said ony…if you do it long enough institutionalised cronyism becomes a tradition
….”ony” is Tony with his head cut off
ot
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2056297,00.html
people wonder about deepcut think to themselves what on earth is going on here?
i have no idea, but it seems very strange…either the recruits are being bullied internally or some organisation on the outside is deliberately targetting them …either way.
why the MoD hasnt installed perimeter CCTV to record events i have no idea.
It would help identify those responsible.
Moreover, why the army, haven’t sent in to the barracks soldiers under cover as ‘recruits’ to find out what is really going on.
Because this situation isnt good enough.
As for the pay rise, well 3.3%, the US army soldiers have received 10% 4 years in a row…plus massive expenditure on new equipment.
Our guys/ gals havent even got that…and blair and brown try to make out they are tough on terrorism/ security..?
Why hasnt the BBC put that simple question to the PM, you’ve cut since you got into office, and never replaced.
Froze defence spending from 97 to 2003 and only introduced very minimal increases of late. ITs just not good enough. Why doesn’t someone ask these questions?
Gary Powell
As for radio. Talk sport has become the largest national radio station in Britain, by a long way, in only 6 years. It caters for working class men. For 70 years of BBC radio no such station on the BBC exsisted, and still does not. A hole in the market that the BBC must have know exsisted, but refused to cater for.
WHY?
And let’s not forget Ian Collins in the morning, Mike Dickins the Angry and the Great One, Charlie Wolf.
John Reith 5 TV networks, 6 radio stations (including local) plus some digital extras AND what is probably the best website on the net
Perhaps this is good value for someone who watches a lot of BBC TV. But that bargain is obtained by leeching from people who watch little or none of it.
And what justification is there for a TV licence? Only that the BBC is advert free (ignoring the BBC & govt. ads)?
Tell me what BBC TV output exists that one could not see similar on another channel. Must we suffer the TV poll tax in order that the choice of soaps, junk sales, house purchase/renovation, makeovers is greater?
By the way, this from wikipedia about the Great One:
Charlie is Jewish , Right wing (Howlin’ Wolf, June 14, totallyjewish.com)and is described as a Zionist. Controversial figures from the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) appear regularly on his shows. He has periodically cut off callers who have opposing views to his own, describing them as Liberal “wackos” and “moonbats”.
What is there not to love? Catch him tonight. Dickin the Angry’s on at 10pm, Charlie at 1am on 1089 AM.
This just in from all round top fella and English hero, Neil Herron:
http://neilherron.blogspot.com/2006/02/give-these-jokers-millimetre-and.html#links
Story being covered on the BBC Six o’ Clock news tonight. Sky have it on their discussion slot later this evening. Done radio and tv today on this non-story. One BBC reporter, on a local radio station, gave the game away. He rang up apologising for not getting a chance to come to me and said that their switchboard had been inundated. Everybody had been opposed to the change but most of them didn’t have a clue and were talking about things such as sovereignty and freedom. As far as he was concerned the only realistic argument was in relation to cost. I think he believed that he was talking to the UKMA. His sneering attitude to those opposed to enforced metrication was all too apparent.
Littlejohn covering this in the Mail tomorrow as well. It is quite clear that the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund needs to be here and funded in order to maintain eternal vigilance. Give these jokers a millimetre and they’ll take our mile.
Press Release: Immediate
Metric Martyrs Defence Fund
Err, by the way, that piece above is in relation to Kinnock claiming that we won’t be a modern nation unless road sign change from Imperial to metric.
Archduke
Concerning the Celtic Tiger – yes the three factors Osborne quotes are important and shouldn’t be ignored, but it is the EU financing structure (not the Euro) which is the main factor in the Republic’s success. The Republic receives £3-4 billion net from the EU annually and has done so almost since its accession in the early 70s. If the UK received the equivalent per head , we would receive, say, £40-50 billion a year.
Off Topic: Urgent Breaking News
BBC Newspage http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Slap it on. Banana skins, custard pies & the belated comeback of slapstick
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4746822.stm
What could this be about I wonder?
Oh…. OK, its just the BBC promoting one of their TV series on the ‘News’ frontpage.
Slapstick is making something of a comeback, with two film seasons already this year celebrating silent comedy and a BBC series about the genre scheduled for the Spring.
Grimer, is that what John Reith ment when he said “…AND what is probably the best website on the net” – a “news” site using that “news” site to advertise its own tv programs?
And yes before anyone says it, Sky do the same yes but its my choice to pay and watch sky.
Off Topic (ish)
How important is a human life? It all depends.
Hold the front page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4737468.stm
(3 Africans murdered by Russian racists in the last six months).
Tucked away in a corner of the Africa page, with no update in the last 24 hours:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4743672.stm
(130 plus Nigerians murdered in sectarian riots).
umbongo:
lots of facts and figures here:
http://www.finfacts.com/printpage/commentpr27.htm
note how EU funding as a percent of GDP has actually *declined* during the celtic tiger phase from 1994 onwards.
EU funding has helped ,no doubt about it, but its not the main reason for the tiger economy.
in fact a ton of the funding was just squandered during the basket-case economy that we had in the late 70s/80s/early 90s
Still, its interesting that Osborne has visited Dublin to find out more.
Hopefully, some of what he has learned will filter through to Tory policy.
BUT – and i forgot to add this – the one big thing that Osborne left out, and Naughtie didnt pick up on , was the social partnership aspect of the tiger economy – this is literally the bosses, unions and government meeting up every few years to thrash out agreements (and heads get knocked together too). its sounds almost Stalinist, but its worked so far.
The confrontational approach endemic in the British body politic is alien to the Irish experience. But the low tax, low regulation regime is also crucial.
The moronic John reith shd best be ignored. In earlier comments he defended the BBC’s craven refusal to mention the racial aspect of Ilan Halimi’s appalling murder by koran-reciting thugs on the grounds that there was no proof the murderers were moslems. Generally, he claims that BBC bias is a figment of this (& many other sites’) imaginations, but has yet to produce any evidence of dozens of years’ worth of any RIGHTWING BBC bias… has it never occurred to him that the fact that the left has never accused BBC news or website of bias in recent years might not be the most eloquent proof there’s a problem?
The BBC needs the feedback mechanism of subsciption. People can complain all they like and be ignored by a entertainer funded by extortion, however when the cash flow dries up, people respond.
It is also the reason why capitalism allways beats the slavery based socialism.
EU funding has helped ,no doubt about it, but its not the main reason for the tiger economy.
No ? Well if Britain was a net recipient rather than a net contributor I bet our bulbs would glow brighter !
Ireland gets huge subsidies from Germany and then creates a tax haven over on the Docks in Dublin where software companies and invoicing centres can siphon profits outside high-tax regimes – Ireland has about 10% Corporation Tax.
So if you are Borland or another software business you have to have an EU footprint when selling online; so you do the invoicing centre in the Dublin offshore tax haven.
Then again with generous tax laws on farms it makes it an ideal retreat for a wealthy Briton to shelter his assets from HMCR.
The Cayman Islands and places like Lugano in Switzerland have done amazingly well with a similar strategy. It helps to have a small population so you do not need to waste too much on welfare payments
Rick
They don’t siphon profits from German firms.
They outcompete them because the German firms have more government parasites.
Archduke
Thanks for the interesting site re Irish finance – seems I exaggerated the actual funds going to Ireland. Even so by 2004 the Republic had received over EU40 billion (the equivalent for the UK would have been EU400+ billion). Nevertheless, don’t like the idea of CBI, TUC and Tony (or Gordo) sitting down and carving up the cake. Smacks too much of beer and sandwiches at no. 10 in the 70s – and look where the economy was by 1979. Sorry, in the end corporatist economics don’t work – although they might keep the peace for a bit.
Friday Night Chortle!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm
“Smacks too much of beer and sandwiches at no. 10 in the 70s – and look where the economy was by 1979.”
indeed. but then the politics of ireland is generally to the right of England. there has never been a majority labour government since independence – the two biggest parties are basically conservative.
theres a different dynamic going on – which wouldnt translate well to Britain.
Rob Read
Thank you very very much for the link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europ…ope/ 4737468.stm
(3 Africans murdered by Russian racists in the last six months).
Good grief! Russians are racists! After 80 years of socialism, no colonial empire and not a trace of the Tory Party however did they manage that?
BBC please explain….
“…but then the politics of ireland is generally to the right of England.”
Then why the bloody hell do they mostly vote Labour when they come over here? Do they hate us that much?
Rick ->”No ? Well if Britain was a net recipient rather than a net contributor I bet our bulbs would glow brighter !”
somehow i doubt it. just look at how the north sea oil wealth was squandered.
Education is where the british system has seriously failed. without that educated workforce no amount of EU subsidy will make things any better. it’ll just be wasted.
Osborne pointed that out in that Today interview – he mentioned that Ireland, according to some stats he had, was 3rd or 4th in the world, with britain are somewhere like 33rd.
“It helps to have a small population so you do not need to waste too much on welfare payments”
curiously, Irish welfare payments make up a sizable chunk of the budget and are quite generous.
but the big difference is that our health care is the american style system – its insurance based.
oh, and our defence budget is tiny.
we dont spend billions on Eurofighters that cant fly.
“Then why the bloody hell do they mostly vote Labour when they come over here? Do they hate us that much?”
very good point – and true may i add!
main reason – history & nationalism & empire which i wont go into here , as there’s loads of online reference material.
hopefully with boy king Cameron, that can begin to change.
Rick
They don’t siphon profits from German firms.
They outcompete them because the German firms have more government parasites.
Rob Read | 24.02.06 – 6:00 pm | #
Well I can only answer BS.
Ireland’s chemical industry has a higher Value-Added Per Employee than Germany………….but Ireland does not have a chemical industry.
It is used as a tax haven much as the Dutch Mixer companies are used to warehouse taxable profits. I guess Rob Read you have no idea of how German business functions…….
Siemens for example warehouses all profits from its overseas businesses in a Swiss holding company; many MNCs invoice through billing centres in Zug in Switzerland; but Ireland is a real little tax haven.
http://www.escapeartist.com/international/ireland_0300.html
Now Ireland is a tax haven for anyone starting a business. But unlike most Caribbean tax havens, it’s also an industrialized country where you can comfortably live and run your business.
The tax savings for these companies are amazing.
Say, for example, Microsoft makes I£1 million in profit on its Ireland operations. Unlike the United States, where it would hand over about 35 percent of this profit to the tax man, in Ireland, they pay only 10 percent. That’s a difference of about I£250,000 a year! Plus, under the IDA’s scheme, the government gives a large reimbursement for every employee.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2004/0917/2884987887HM1SEAN.html
Ireland is most profitable tax haven for US firms
Ireland is the most profitable country in the world for US corporations, a detailed analysis of global tax havens has found, writes Sean O’Driscoll in New York
“In low-tax Ireland, for instance, profits of subsidiaries of US multinationals have doubled in four years, from $13.4 billion to $26.8 billion.
http://newsweaver.ie/ernst/e_article000085041.cfm
The reason given for removing Ireland from the list is that the UK Inland Revenue is finding it hard to distinguish between companies which have been set up in Ireland for genuine commercial reasons and those which are set up for the sole purpose of diverting profits from the UK. The change has effect for accounting periods commencing on or after 11 October 2002.
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003988.shtml
The Sunday Independent reports today that top executives at Dell Computer’s Irish operation – including Vice President of Services and Operations in Ireland, Nicky Hartery – shared nearly $3.8m in tax-free dividends since 2003.Britons buying a home in the republic and spending less than 90 days a year in Britain can claim an artistic tax exemption. It means they can avoid paying tax on royalties from albums, scripts, books and paintings.
The scheme, designed to help struggling Irish writers and poets, costs the Irish state at least £20m a year. Now pressure from the European Union and public opinion has forced Dublin to review it.
The Irish government is setting up an inquiry team to examine tax breaks given to artists and others.
Native beneficiaries have included the Corrs, Samantha Mumba and U2, while Britons who have latched on to the scheme have included the novelist Frederick Forsyth, the rock bands Spandau Ballet and Def Leppard, and the singer Lisa Stansfield. The latter still has a home in the republic.
John Simpson, the BBC’s foreign affairs editor, has returned to Britain after seven years’ “tax exile” in the republic during which he wrote three books.
Irvine Welsh, the Scottish author who wrote Trainspotting, has moved to Dublin to write his next novel, Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chef, while his girlfriend studies at university there.
An insider said: “It is one thing to support artists struggling in a garret and another to let pop stars like U2 off the hook for album royalties.”
The inquiry team is likely to recommend that tax breaks are capped at a realistic level above which nobody can be said to be struggling. This could mean paying taxes on royalty payments on records and books once they have reached €100,000 (£68,600) a year. Proceeds from the sales of paintings and sculptures would be similarly taxed.
The artistic tax exemption scheme was introduced in 1969 by Charles Haughey when he was finance minister. Its supporters say its legacy has been to give Ireland a worldwide reputation as an artistic centre. Critics say it is open to abuse.
Joan Burton, a member of the Irish parliament and finance spokeswoman for the Labour party, said:
“There has been quite a flow of British people who have come here. Some have just resided here during the high point of their earnings and then returned home. The major earners are people who have royalties from songwriting like Bono.”
The Department of Finance in Dublin confirmed that the tax exemption was to be reviewed. Under the scheme, the republic’s taxmen have to determine whether books, records, paintings and plays have “cultural or artistic merit”.
The Irish Revenue Commissioners have published a list of 1,512 people who did not pay any tax on their artistic earnings between 1998 and 2002. It includes Welsh, Simpson, the singer Sinead O’Connor, the singer Elvis Costello and his former wife Cait O’Riordan of the Pogues. Pauline McLynn, the actress who played Mrs Doyle in the Father Ted comedy series, claimed the exemption on four works of fiction.
Bob
‘the left have never accused the BBC news…of bias.’
Have you read Lance Price’s diaries Or Peter Oborne’s biog of A Campbell or Nick jones on the sultans of spin? Not a day passes without the Labour party/govt press officers complaining. The BBC is constantly being accused of bias by the Left…..from soft left via Respect to Respect’s backers the SWP
andrew neil versus dimbleby
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article346923.ece
A fortnight ago, Neil wondered if any viewers of QT, which featured all three of the Lib Dem leadership candidates, had managed to stay awake, declaring: “What a yawn!”
JR
Since when were Lance Price, A. Campbell or New Labour “the left”? Respect are misogynist Islamo-fascists (who terrorised a black jewish soft labour sitting MP to win their seat). When the Guardian/Independent/Universities/Legal establishment start to weigh into the BBC then you can stop needing to defend them
There’s something humourous about the blinkered John Reith popping in here insisting that the BBC is unbiased while all around him the site is flooded with evidence of bias that can’t be denied.
It is so biased it will allow a henchman of that thug, whatshisname, Moktada al Sadr to spread anti-American conspiracy theories unchallenged. As if psychosis should be given the same weight and afforded the same respect as genius.
As long as it’s anti-American psychosis, the BBC happily disregards journalistic standards. As their ‘journalists’ did when they rushed to condemn Bush’s response to Katrina, without even bothering to find out where the original responsibility for hurricane relief lay.
And of course, anti-American obsession is not the only bias to which the BBC will give free rein:
If you are a ‘journalist’ and are
*anti-Christian
*anti-Israel
“anti-rightwing
*anti-capitalism
“anti-neocon
*anti-white
*anti-war
you’ll fit in just fine in the BBC.
But Reith can’t acknowledge this.
Maybe he has a reading comprehension problem.
That said, to be fair there do appear to be slight stirrings of sanity within this unaccountable and unreachable organisation. It took weeks, but the BBC did eventually make some attempt to play fair on the Katrina issue with a World Service report that dwelt on the failure of state and local government to respond to the crisis.
And once in a while it will produce an in-depth report on Israel free of snide innuendo and outright condemnation.
And it will even on occasion challenge mealy-mouthed cowardice as Judy Swallow did when she responded to The Independent editor’s claim that he didn’t publish the Mohammed cartoons because the quality wasn’t good enough by telling him that his statement was a “cop-out.”
And it will sometimes steer clear of small-minded political posturing as in Robin Lustig’s recent programme on energy.
But these refreshing deviations from the norm are few and far enough between to stand out like little beacons of light in the overall BBC darkness.
Since when were Lance Price
I keep thinking he was a Conservative when at Exter College, Oxford
John Reith,
“Jewish journalists,Catholic Journalists,Ulster Protestants{journalists?}……”
Jewish Guardian reading journalists,Catholic Independent reading journalsts….
If the BBC is so popular as you insinuate why doesnt it become subscription based?
Rick I disagree with the idea that a government is entitled to a fine a company based on its profits.
The german government parasites off industries, this parasitism is killing them.
If any BBC-niks are reading this, here’s a few things the BBC needs to do if it really has any interest in being impartial:
*Stop bowing to Islam. You are not broadcasting from a mosque and the majority of your audience is not Muslim. Or, if you insist on unquestioning obeisance to Islam, show the same obeisance to other religions, especially Christianity.
*Stop treating terrorists as if they are nobility. And stop mangling the English language. Terrorists are not ‘militants’ or ‘extremists’.
*At least make an attempt to show the same respect and concern for white victims of racial violence as you do for Asian and black victims of racial violence. And stop obfuscating and hiding the fact of racial violence when the victim is white.
*Stop downplaying and/or ignoring the worldwide daily mob violence and murder visited by Muslims on anyone in their path, especially Christians. And while you’re at it, stop being so coy about the well-documented aim of Muslims to establish a global caliphate.
*Insist that your reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shelve their pro-Palestinian bias and become acquainted with the basic difference between propaganda and journalism.
Stop censoring and fiddling with readers’ responses on ‘Have Your Say’. Don’t try to hide the fact that a powerful majority of respondents don’t follow your agenda on most HYS topics.
Don’t claim that you have mechanisms in place to respond to readers’ complaints and then ignore them. Either deal with them or acknowledge that you can’t/wont respond to complaints.
There’s a lot more, of course, all dealt with at length on this and other sites. But you could make a start with the points outlined above.
Er… that was me.
brian – may i add to your list:
* And stop obfuscating and hiding the fact that Muslims engage in anti-semetic violence against the British Jewish community.
(case in point: newsnight a few weeks ago – constantly mentioned “Asians” in a piece about rising levels of attacks on British Jews)
The BBC is very poor value for me.I pay it £126 for nothing except the right to watch football on Sky. As I am not an international jet-setter Sky enables me to watch 2 or 3 football matches per week that I do not have the time or money to be able to attend in person. I watch no other TV most weeks, and never any BBC TV. If Sky Sports shuts down, or I ever lose my interest in football, I will not need a TV at all. Sky Sports is made unecessarily dearer for me by the TV licence. Why does the BBC need to get involved with my transactions with Sky?
Archduke, all additions welcome – and and that’s a very pertinent one.
The BBC gives us so much material, the list could eventually fall off the bottom of the page!
Simon,
Who’s got the rights to broadcast the World Cup soccer?
Bryan
Amen to all that, and we all know you could, as we all could, go on for weeks, and they still will not ever get the message. All we will get in reply, is patronising spin.
Er….shucks that was me again.
Problem with cookies or something.
Gary, well I guess we’ll have to just keep pushing them.
I like to think that if sites like this and others didn’t exist the BBC would feel a lot freer to bullshit everyone and their output would reflect that freedom.
Maybe, just maybe, we are making a difference.
A BBC article critical of the UN
There are still too many complaints of sexual abuse against United Nations troops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4746216.stm
But the UN are rushing to stop it
Briefing the UN Security Council on how the problem was being addressed, the ambassador said it could take three to four years for the reform programme fully to take hold.
Is that when the troops become incapacitated through STDs?
But for those who just take in headline, pictures & captions, the BBC summary is “The image of UN peacekeeping has suffered in recent months”
So that’s recent months as in
.. sexual exploitation … in the Democratic Republic of Congo two years ago
& the loss of image a bit longer ago at Srebrenica?
John Reith
As for your assertion that the left is critical of the BBC. This is because the left is very organised and much more clever than Tories. Have you not noticed that this site is to record bias on the BBC? It is not restricted to people that only vote Tory. Even the lefties that do contribute to this site do so to defend the BBC. When they are exposed to people that are FREE to express themselves, they just dont have an argument that stands up on any issue.
I can not remember even one lefty that has made an anti-BBC statement ever on this site, but then I do have a poor memory. People that would kill rather than pay the poll tax, carry on paying the TV tax because it is their TV channel, and believe me, they know it. Even if you are in a state of denile. Thats a nice way of saying ” talking bull-shit”
But the whole debate of BIAS would not matter one jot if the BBC was just closed down. If the lefties and the righties REALLY do think it is that bad, closing it down will be very easy. In fact it would have already happened.
I came across this site and must say I’m smiling by the fact that I’m not the only one who thought of the BBC as being biased.
I come from manchester where most of the people I know don’t care or actually believe the BBC on anything they report.
I too have sent in various complaints to the BBC and it’s like talking to a brick wall with them.
BTW I will be checking into this website every day now and will be using any examples of BBC biased to spread the word
Is there any other websites out there which has instances of BBC biased so I can send them E-mails and show them how wrong they are.
At the risk of repeating myself. the BBC by its very nature is a product of left and extream left wing thinking. In a middle of the road country, never mind a right-wing one, the BBC could never come into exsistance, as it has.
“I can not remember even one lefty that has made an anti-BBC statement ever on this site, but then I do have a poor memory.”
Gary -> i’m a left winger (always have been) and even i can see the bias.