…doesn’t mean the Beeb has to agree. This “story” is bogus. President Bush, after all, was not slow to declare a state of emergency along the Gulf Coast. Mayor Nagin’s reaction to this “news” is laughable and hypocritical but the Beeb is happy to serve us New Orleans sludge.
Update: DFH, one of our B-BBC commenterati has two very helpful posts here and here. Auntie can’t get away with what she once did.
On the BBC news has been reported a series of bomb explosions in one of Hindu India’s holiest cities with several killed. Any ideas who would have done this? The BBC don’t, or won’t say.
Nick Robinson I think has seen the light. Today he says that it is apparant that it is not “how much money you spend on the NHS” but “how you spend it.” I want to be the first to welcome Nick to the real world.
Do you think he will repay the British public any part of the £800 million “overspend”, out of his own pocket? The BBC is responsible for this overspend as much as the crooks we have in goverment. The BBC including NR helped put them there, and have helped let them get away with 9 years of criminal incompetence. We will be paying for this for the rest of our lives. This goverment has lost the last opertunity to save the NHS, for the people who have already payed for it.
dumbcisco
Your barnabas fund article I can imagine would have the bbc tied up in knots.
On the one hand, we have the Islam is a violence ridden faith underlying thread of the article, while on the other hand, we have the implication that this is the fault of colonialists.
Which way to turn? Aargh. It’s their fault, but it means saying modern islam is evil. Aargh.
It’s half tempting to point this article out to them and wait to see which way they throw it.
On the BBC news has been reported a series of bomb explosions in one of Hindu India’s holiest cities with several killed. Any ideas who would have done this? The BBC don’t, or won’t say.
The Plumbers have struck again.
Nick Robinson I think has seen the light. Today he says that it is apparant that it is not “how much money you spend on the NHS” but “how you spend it.” I want to be the first to welcome Nick to the real world.
Do you think he will repay the British public any part of the £800 million “overspend”, out of his own pocket? The BBC is responsible for this overspend as much as the crooks we have in goverment. The BBC including NR helped put them there, and have helped let them get away with 9 years of criminal incompetence. We will be paying for this for the rest of our lives. This goverment has lost the last opertunity to save the NHS, for the people who have already payed for it.
Gary Powell | 07.03.06 – 10:47 pm | #
I’m not sure that the NHS needs saving. From what i’ve read, the system that we had pre-NHS worked pretty well. Typical socialist policy. Does not work.
dumbcisco -> “Ranks have closed – because WE are the enemy.”
very worrying – and completely new territory i would guess for the cops/MI5.
in the IRA war , they could count on very high up informers. Sinn Fein/IRA was riddled with them.
This LA Times article linked above mentioned this “brick wall” that the cops have hit with regards to the 7/7 bombings.
“Purely out of interest does anyone know a Muslim coal miner in this country, you know, a hewer of coal underground, or maybe a farmer? looking after animals and mucking out?”
but thats work for the dhimmis Sarge – dhimmis who pay their jizya (tax) that keeps all those unemployed young muslim radicals in comfort.
please do try to catch up! 😉
archduke
It is an exquisite irony that we have to rely on the ultra-liberal LA Times to bring us the disturbing news that the police investigation into 7/7 has run into a brick wall. Why isn’t this on the BBC ?
Well supposedly the British police are going to arrest some of the disgusting cartoon protest leaders:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4784290.stm
Oh luvely! One wonders what “severe” sentence awaits them. 100 hours of community service at the local mosque?
dumbcisco -> indeed that is highly ironic. but then the yanks , even the liberal ones, arent as un-hinged as Al-BBC.
the big difference with the Yanks and Al-BBC is this – when you press either a left-wing American or a right-wing American, they BOTH will agree on one fundemental thing – the American constitution and the concept of “liberty and justice for all”.
The right and left in America has different approaches to attaining “liberty and justice” , but they all go back to the Constitution – that is utterly sacred to them. Its what they are. That provides them with a rock so to speak. A definition of what America is , and what it is about.
what the fuck do we have?
regarding what sarge said above – ever notice that one of the london bombers was a “teacher” and one of the other bombers worked in a “bookshop”. And Mo Islam Mo Beg , ALSO worked in a “bookshop”, and wanted to open up a “school” in Afghanistan.
i’m seeing a pattern here…
susan -> note the get out clause
“in the near future”
also note this weirdness:
“The Crown Prosecution Service, after receiving evidence from Scotland Yard, said there were grounds for arrests on suspicion of public order offences.”
hang on a minute – the cops ARREST people.
then they send the case to the courts or CPS.
this is just back to front.
and it goes on:
***************************
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We have been advised today that there are sufficient grounds to arrest individuals for offences under the Public Order Act.
****************************
so, what you are saying Mr Met, is that you have to wait for the CPS to TELL YOU that its ok to arrest people.
lets think about that – the only conclusion i can come to is that somebody TOLD the cops NOT to arrest people on the day.
it other words – police decisions were politically interfered with, rather than being based on the rule of law.
I bet most British folks thought that they’d never see the day that their police force would be an arm of the executive. thats just smacks of “gestapo” or “kgb” doesnt it? not terribly “english” is it?
well, there you have it.
its there – its real -and its happened. you no longer have a police force that will impose the rule of law.
He no longer needs a bookshop, has Andrew (socialism snot dead) Marr and the rest of Al Beeb pushing the book he wrote across the airwaves to anyone who will listen.
when you press either a left-wing American or a right-wing American, they BOTH will agree on one fundemental thing – the American constitution and the concept of “liberty and justice for all”.
Not true, archduke, sadly the left in the US is working away like a busy beaver to co-opt our Constitution for the purposes of destroying it. The latest word on “freedom of speech” for instance, from our lefty friends, is that freedom of speech is meant only for “speaking truth to power” or “promoting social justice.” In other words, freedom of speech as long as your speech agrees with my political opinions. I’m sure that some day the left and its toady judges will find some way to “interpret” our constitution to “discover” that meaning of freedom of speech “hidden” somewhere in the First Amendment.
Things aren’t so bad over here as it is in the UK, but the Gramscians are happily working away at destroying our society, same as with yours, and getting a lot done too.
That’s one reason why British people aren’t welcomed as immigrants by the US BTW — because the last thing the Gramscian left wants is a bunch of educated, native English speakers moving over here. Destroying our unifying language is tops on their list for dividing and disrupting our society — and they are doing a very good job of it. Not just with pushing Spanish everywhere possible, but also with pushing “ebonics” — black ghetto patois — for blacks to speak over real English.
Soc -> if its any consolation, Stephan Pollard has also had enough of Start the week thanks to that Mo Islam Mo Begg interview.
thats good – its not just amateur blogger types that have picked up on it – its media types like Mr Pollard.
On a side note, Melanie Philips has been firing on all five cylinders recently. Check out her website.
Its a pity Peter Hitchens hasnt figured out this blog thing yet. Somebody should volunteer and help him out.
“Not true, archduke, sadly the left in the US is working away like a busy beaver to co-opt our Constitution for the purposes of destroying it.”
yeah -but thats the looney left. Equally some of the looney right want to replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments. I was talking about the average American.
the thing is , in America, these looney ideas eventually whittle out, or die down – the checks and balances are too great.
Lets look at it – in England, we’ve had lots of rights removed – far more than in America.
Bush couldnt do that because of the consitution – and that is why Gitmo is there.
So, when this war on Al Qaeda is over, we’ll still have police state laws in the UK – and all the Yanks have to do is just shut Gitmo down. Therein lies the difference. And its a big one.
Hah, you are behind the times your grace. Peter Hitchens does have a blog:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2006/03/cameron_a_suppo.html
hat tip – drinking from home
if you ever get in despair of some Al-BBC report just give this a blast
its the short version of al pacino “scarface” film , with any word besides “f**k” edited out.
susan – > cheers!
couldnt find it on google on a search of “peter hitchens” because that blog is part of mail on sunday.
he should go the whole hog and just have his own domain name.
but thanks! i’ve found one more voice of reason. much obliged.
oh dear – mr hitchens is still got shades of the old Trotskyite tendency in him, with his rantings on cannibis.
Peter -> please do calm down. Some of us agree with you, but some of us , like me, are of the libertarian wing.
On the one hand you rail against the state encroaching into our lives (quite rightly), and then on the other hand, you agree with socialist policies, such as banning cannibis.
its banned purely from a social engineering/do gooding point of view.
thats socialism. that is not letting people make their own decision.
And as with other socialist policies, the law-of-intended-consequences has reared its ugly head and created drug wars in our cities.
Mr Hitch – you are either for freedom or your not. Have you got the balls to do so or are you all unsure about what freedom really means?
i sense a latent Trot in Mr Hitch. We should do our best to drag him away from the dark side. His recent C4 docu on TV was a tour-de-force.
With around 572 posts to this thread so far, it appears that guests to this site work a lot harder than its authors. In any case the guests seem to cover more serious abuses; and appear to unearth a lot more. So please, leave things as they are.
something you’ll never see on the bbc
Robert Spencer interviewed by Fox News – video on youtube.com
archduke – surely your insistence on drug liberalisation is, in itself, a form of social engineering that many would shy away from. Sure you havnt got some trot in you as well? 😉
archduke
I think you sum up Hitchins to a tee. You either believe in freedom with personal responsibility or you dont.
I wonder what amazing unintended consequences, the poposed smoking ban is going to have. The mind just boggles. It will take at least 10 years to find out the true horror. How about an even more divided disfuntional sociaty than we have now. You could make a long list but for sure no one would get them all.
Lurker
FREEDOM works OK. One day, if you try hard, you might understand what it means, and then why it works.
It appears the BBC is still trying to spread the message that the Religion of Plumbers is still a victim. Even those banged away are getting a hard time;
>>”The chief inspector of prisons has raised concerns about the treatment of Muslim inmates at Belmarsh maximum security jail in London.
Anne Owers says there is evidence of bullying and the prison is struggling to deal with the large proportion of Muslims held on terrorism charges.
She said prison officers did not understand the social and religious behaviour of Muslim inmates.”
Sorry Anne/BBC we understand them only too well. That is why they are banged up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4784768.stm
I wonder what amazing unintended consequences, the poposed smoking ban is going to have. The mind just boggles. It will take at least 10 years to find out the true horror. How about an even more divided disfuntional sociaty than we have now. You could make a long list but for sure no one would get them all.
Gary Powell | 08.03.06 – 3:49 am | #
OT I know, for which I apologise, but banning smoking in public places you think is removing a freedom, but I see it as gaining one. I am now free to visit a pub without being assaulted with the smoke of some selfish smoker.
Freedom is one thing, but imho it should not impinge on the freedoms of others.
archduke
lets think about that – the only conclusion i can come to is that somebody TOLD the cops NOT to arrest people on the day.
So there I was, working from home and watching the Old Bill, live on Sky, providing a protective cordon around 500 hundred muslims threaten death and destruction to all. So I rang the Old Bill and spoke to two coppers. One was at Scotland Yard and one was at Kensington and Chelsea HQ, on whose patch it was all going on. Both told me (in that exasperated, what-is-this-place-coming-to-kind-of-way) that orders had come down from on high – one said to me “I repeat, from on high, I think you can see what I’m saying” – that no arrests were to be made. Both said that only in extremis were the Old Bill to do anything and even then it would be the bare minimum.
Susan
At the time I predicted no arrests. I still predict no arrests. A few days after the demonstrations, when the criticism was coming at the Old Bill thick and fast, they said then that they were close to arrests. They’ll just hang on and hope everyone forgets about it.
In other news … My ears must have been deceiving me. I just caught the end of an interview on Toaday with Julian Fellowes who sounded like he was given the BBC a good going over in it’s use of Left/Right labels. I caught (IIRC) “And all of a sudden all that was good was Left wing and all that was bad was Right wing.” This was followed by Fellowes’ criticising the BBC for describing Soviet, communist, throwback Generals as ‘Right Wing’ following the collapse of communism.
But then I could have imagined he said.
Mike,
“Freedom is one thing, but imho it should not impinge on the freedoms of others”
No Mike, Freedom is THE thing. And your opinion isn’t humble.
You and your ilk have impinged on my freedom.
I should be free to go to a smoking pub.
You should be free to go to a non-smoking pub.
What is the problem with that?
Why do you have to be a totalitarian?
TomL
Don’t want to get into a big thing about this, so I’ll leave it with this:
The smoking/non-smoking pubs doesn’t work for the same reason that if you have a group of ten people where one of them smokes, he’ll smoke when with them. If you have a group of ten people who go to a pub, if one of them smokes, they’ll go to a smoking pub. That means non-smoking pubs are always going to struggle, unless they are all non-smoking pubs.
There are laws in this country to protect people’s freedoms from others. For example, notice all the talk about arresting those demonstrators. All they did was hold up some placards and shout some stuff. What is the problem with that? Is calling for the police to arrrest them totalitarian?
For the record, I think those people should be arrested and if I had my way, deported.
By the way, my “ilk” happens to be the majority, which is how democracy works. You are still free to smoke to your hearts content. You are just now prevented from forcing it on me. I wonder how you would feel if I took a swig from my pint, swallowed half of it and spat the rest all over your jacket. Whose freedom would that impinge?
Here follows the World Service’s in-depth, cutting-edge report on the recent murderous Muslim rampage in Nigeria. [My translation of BBC gobbledegook in brackets.]
WS: The violence flared in reaction to the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.
[The cartoons provided the fuel and the violence sort of spontaneously combusted. Muslims perpetrated the violence? You’d never know that from this report.]
WS: In such a volatile climate [which just sort of drifted in from Denmark] the Christian Association of Nigeria …issued a strongly-worded statement warning that Muslims did not have a monopoly on violence and that it might no longer be able to restrain its own Christian youth.
I asked the archbishop…. if the Association’s statement was rather provocative.
[Words fail me.]
Archbishop: No, if anyone’s provocative it’s not the Christians.
[Truth revealed on the BBC! The planet wobbles on its orbit.
The intrepid World Service then turns to a Muslim professor of Islamic studies who maintains that the “friction” is the result of the minority Christians being favoured by government and getting high positions in government.
Then the opinion of a writer on West Africa in canvassed. He finds the professor’s assertion difficult to digest and says that the opposite is most probably the case – i.e. Muslims are the ones favoured by government.
In the end the WS steps briefly – and timidly – out of character, asking the writer if he thinks that the Christian minority in the north has been “alienated” by those states that have imposed Sharia law.
The writer ducks and dives and dodges this question, acknowledging that Christians in the north have been on the “front lines” but then saying that Sharia law doesn’t apply to them, so it shouldn’t matter and that the traditions, in both Christianity and Islam, of peace and coexistence are taken seriously by Nigerians.
On that comforting, morally-equivalent note another BBC abdication of journalistic responsibility is neatly parceled up and mailed to an unsuspecting public.
Likewise with this bit of newspeak headlining the BBC news report on the Muslim riots]: Nigeria cartoon protests kill sixteen
And meanwhile the global Caliphate edges closer.
TomL
I’m loathe to jump into an issue which has been gone through before on a thread which is up around the 600 mark, but here goes.
In Mike we have someone without the awareness to see that principles are everything and policy matters nothing in comparison. He believes in the rightness of Parliament banning smoking in pubs becasue he believes the matter is one of Parliament banning smoking in pubs. He cannot see the principle is actually one of Parliament banning a perfectly lawful activity on private property. He cannot see that smoking and health are not the issue at all. He cannot see that a principle must be defended, even though he doesn’t like certain outcomes of that principle. Voltaire’s dictum about not agreeing what someone says but defending his right to say it must leave Mike and his ilk perplexed. They are people who cannot conceive that they can approach the owner of the property to petition for smoking to be banned on the premises. No, we want it and the state must force it.
Mike doesn’t see that private property and the exclusivity which is it’s essence is a pillar of our civilisation. He doesn’t realise the existence of private property is one of the very few tangible things preventing us from falling into tyranny. But this is all of no consequence because Mike wants the state to use it’s monopoly on force-backed law to compell the owner of private property to do what Mike wants done.
So he’s smug right right now. He and his ilk (those who cannot see that democracy is not supposed to be about the majority getting it’s way, as opposed to minorities being protected) egg on Parliament and state intrusion into private life and civil society advances relentlessly on. But there’ll come a day when the state has Mike in it’s sights and he’ll squeal like a bitch. He’ll stamp his feet and tell someone like us about it, declaring the rightness of his case and how outrageous the state is. And that person like us will shrug their shoulders and tell him to sod off, because Mike had his chance to defend the liberty of the individual to carry on with a perfectly lawful activity on private property but Mike jumped on the side of the state.
“Freedom is one thing, but imho it should not impinge on the freedoms of others.
Mike”
mike -> the main point , i think , that freedom loving folks are trying to make , is that it should be a matter for market forces. if customers demand smoking free bars, then you’ll get more of them.
using the government is a blunt instrument – i’m am sure that you would agree that having an after dinner cigar in a PRIVATE club would be ok. you dont need to join that club. but thats also been banned.
little by little , by a thousand cuts, you are losing your freedoms – because the government “knows best”.
Pete_London -> you put it better than me.
Pete
A pretty good point and well put. I have to lay down my cards and accept that I do agree with what you say. I would far rather that we were significantly freer than we are and having things imposed on us by government is wrong. That’s what I think. I think (I must admit, having read your comments) that the government banning smoking was a bad thing. I can see that this is another chip, chip, chip at the freedoms our ancestors fought for. Will I weep that smoking is banned? No. I would however vote for someone who would remove the ban, if that formed part of a reduction of government type approach.
This ban will make my life better. In a microcosm of itself. The implications of what the ban means may well make my life worse. It wouldn’t have come to this if smokers weren’t so keen to inflict their habit on the rest of us.
An analogy if you will. I am against the death penalty. I think it’s wrong that the state says it can kill someone but you can’t. However, when a murderer gets executed, I don’t cry about it. I think they got what was coming to them. I can think of the state as wrong for doing something, but not weep for the something which happened.
Democracy is about the majority getting their way. That’s why what is happening here is happening. There should be checks in place – like the House of Lords. The current government marches rough shod over that though. Banning foxhunting, which the Lords turned down and then they forced through was one of the worst examples of government I can recall. However, the “people” will not vote them out, for whatever reason. That means that they have the people’s blessing to do that. They certainly don’t have mine, but because someone decided that “the people” must have their say, my voice is ignored.
This is a long thread, on a couple of points. 500 Police for a single demonstration. It is well known that the more Police required to Police a demonstration, the more marginal, minority and ineffective the demonstration is. The Police are there to prevent a breach of the peace and the fear is that the message being promulgated will raise such intense counter demonstrations that a riot may ensue. (Mosley in the East End for example)
On Freedom, Solzhenitsyn summed this up with the example of a starving dog chained inside a compound. Eventually he grows so thin the dog slipped his collar and bounds free. The dog sees a plate of delicious food in front of him but at the same time notices a hole in the fence. He leaves the food even though he is starving and bolts through the hole in the fence. He is free! Freedom over starvation.
I grew up in a rural area. Lots of village pubs (what’s left of them), are family businesses.
If the Landlord wants to smoke in his pub and allow customers to smoke in his, he won’t be able to. The goverment has banned it. Who the fuck are the government to tell that landlord what he can and can’t do in his own property.
This new law is bullshit.
Now the Health Nazis have won this round, they’ll move onto the next great danger of society – Alcohol.
Just like the anti-foxhunting brigade have started moving against pheasent shooting. Once they ban that, they’ll try and ban fishing. If they manage to ban fishing, they’ll move onto animal testing, zoos, livestock farmers and finally meat.
These puritanical busybodies don’t care about anybody but themselves. The original law put forward to parliament was going to ban smoking in places that served food. Why do you think that was? Because Middle Class puritan busybodies wanted to be able to go out to posh restaurants without ‘the awful smell of smoke’. It was a middle class law for middle class socialist twats.
As far as I’m concerned they can go and fuck themselves. But of course, they’ve introduced harsher penalites for Landlords that allow smoking, than shoplifters get for theft.
Bullshit.
“Democracy is about the majority getting their way”
but in a free society – no. a free society is more than just mere brute-force democracy.
James Madison, U.S. President, and the Father of the Constitution:
“It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.html
Perhaps I should then have said our current bastardised form of democracy. That guarding against the oppression of the rulers is certainly not happening here.
Grimer…in the days of local government it would have been a matter for local byelaws.
In fact this issue should have been subject to a) local referendum or b) when the licensee renewed his licence he should have specified whether it would be Smoking or Non and bev told to display a sign outside the premises.
Then again I think the German system of displaying menu and drinks prices outside should be implemented here.
The trouble is that The Regime is centralising and won’t allow local autonomy, and Parliament is just a municipal chamber with no real power or importance and too many MPs.
Yes chaps but the Middle Class who preserved freedom had their own businesses – now the Salariat depends upon public spending for its income.
Just think how many lawyers would be unemployed without public funding – they are just outsourced clerks nowadays filing government documents.
Pre about 1914 no-one who was a paid public employee or on welfare could vote. Not a bad idea.
“If the Landlord wants to smoke in his pub and allow customers to smoke in his, he won’t be able to.”
thats the case in California. they have exemptions from the smoking ban over there where if the owner smokes, the ban doesnt apply – its down to him.
i did notice that the smoking bars were packed with students – obviously “rebelling” against the health nazis.
the law of unintended consequences was rearing its head.
Mike
There is a “free” way of doing things and there is the Labour parties socialist way of doing things. The first way, might work. The second is an affront to your civil liberties, and has direct implications for future laws and freedom of the individual. Socialists change things,for the sake of change, and just to establish their radical credentials. To divide and rule. Hitler would be proud that his legacy is alive and well in the only country in Europe he did not control.
A conservative changes things,only because they believe it will make the country a better place to live.
One type of thinking ends up in dictatorship the other in a liberal democracy. You choose which you want.
Some one elses freedom has a habit of ending up as YOUR freedom, much quicker than you might like.
An interesting point on the smoking front.
Opinion polls frequently tell us that a majority of people object to smokers in pubs, restaurants etc.
Pub restaurant owners are perfectly entitled to ban smoking in their establishments if they see fit – there are lots of perennially empty, presumably failing pubs. Yet it’s easier to find a Chinese Elvis tribute restaurant in London than it is a non smoking pub.
Not that I’d ever visit such an establishment unless compelled, but if the apparent market demand for smoke free boozers was satisfied then presumably the non smoking Nazi’s could shut up about their right to lack of lung cancer and leave the rest of us to get on with it.
Strange.
Gary
Most notably my freedom to spend my money how I would like to spend it. I feel my freedom vanish every time I look at my payslip.
As an aside, your second para there, does that mean that banning smoking is okay if it makes the country a better place to live?
I should also point out that having read Pete’s post, you are now preaching to the choir.
The Labour party is only good at being liberal when in opposition. They are very good at, making the country ungoverable, by anybody but themselves. In power however they are more dangerous to this country than Bin-Larden could ever be.
To any body still blinkerd enough to believe that there is such a thing as a liberal left goverment. Not only take off the blinkers, but smell the roses.
Mike
No it means their is ways of doing things that can keep every one happy. This goverments instincts is to choose a way that “wont work”. Dictatorial goverment answers never do. They also are not intended to. They cause more dislocation and divistion. Meaning more goverment intervention in the future. They bugger up sociaty, then make you pay more for them to put it right again. the cycle gos on untill you have no individual freedom at all. The brilliance of ordinary free human beings always impresses me. The power of goverments to bugger everything up is incredible.
“Meaning more goverment intervention in the future. They bugger up sociaty, then make you pay more for them to put it right again. the cycle gos on untill you have no individual freedom at all.”
case in point :
1. politically correct treatment of Islam with kid gloves
which led to
2. Londonistan, Abu Hamza
which led to
3. London bombings
which led to
4. Tearing up of habeas corpus, “control orders”, civil contigencies bill and the reversal of 800 years of English Common Law.
now the thing is, point 4 would never have happened if point 1 didnt happen. of course, this never occurs to our idiotic politicians.