…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.
In Liddle’s defence, he has been very outspoken on the threats posed by large-scale Muslim immigration. No dhimmi he.
Clearly, Mr Begg has touched a raw nerve, judging from the first page of comments on HYS.
The BBC went to town over the Amnesty report that slimes British forces in Iraq as well as the US and Iraqis.
I have not heard a single word on UK BBC or the World service about this forthright rebuttal of the charges against Brit troops.
There is an old phrase about a lie being half-way round the world before truth can get its boots on. Time and time again the BBC publishes stuff anti the coalition without allowing any rebuttal. And the BBC literally does spread this stuff round the world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4777790.stm
There surely should be a standing rule at programmes like Today and Newsnight that a proper chance for rebuttal should be given. The lack of opportunity for rebuttal helped drop the BBC into the entire Hutton mess. Editors and reporters seem to want to publish the sliming without any checking. Yet on other occasions they say they need to hold the story back while the facts are checked – eg their appallingly slow response on 7/7. Total hypocrisy – much of the BBC is working to an agenda that is plain as a pikestaff.
So they have arrested 4 persons in the Bradford area – 3 at the Bradford University halls of residence……….Terrorism Charges…….wonder how they will be described by the BBC ?
Rick | 06.03.06 – 1:37 pm |
How about “Apprentice plumbers?”
Well, Jim Naughtie really savaged Margaret beckett on Today this morning. Well, perhaps he didn’t. Less of a “political interview” and more of “sit in the comfy chair, Margaret, and we’ll shake our heads sadly at the thought of one of our friends being attacked in the media”.
Rob | 06.03.06 – 1:34 pm |
Spot on Rob, it was sickening.
Crisis management
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1724126,00.html
“Jowell has been the BBC’s principal ally in the cabinet, a beacon of dependability, the best sort of critical friend in or out of a crisis. But, with the overdue white paper due next Monday, her ability to deliver the crucial next stage, a handsome ten-year licence fee settlement later this summer, looks ever more uncertain. That beacon seems to be flickering.
The significance of Jowell’s support for the BBC can not be overstated. In the past two years she insisted and got her way over the appointment of Michael Grade as chairman, to steady the organisation post-Hutton. She has stood firm against an array of the most powerful forces in the land, led by her own external adviser, who wanted to place the BBC under an external regulator as if it was a FTSE 100 company rather than the country’s premier cultural institution.”
“premier cultural institution”?!
Ho, ho ho!
Interesting article though.
Ritter,
Not the only comfy chair either. A similarly hand wringing piece with Estelle Morris provided a similarly ‘soft’ treatment. Glenda Jackson was far more difficult and actually asked some more difficult questions of the sort which the BBC panjandrums, so well remunerated through thelicense fee, failed to.
I notice a theme here. Just as Marr provides pat a cake questions for Begg we have to rely on more straightforward questioning from the public on the website. While the BBC wrings its hands over ‘Carmela’ Jowell it takes a labour MP to make a few glaring points. What do we pay these people for? Sorry, I forgot hard questions are for conservatives….
Hideously straight
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1724128,00.html
Stonewall don’t get it. The BBC has decided that Islam beats homosexuality (and race) in the BBC rankings of minority ‘victim’ groups.
Therefore you’ll not see much efforts at pro-gay on the BBC so as not to ‘offend’ their international muslim friends (race & religion in one – beats all others).
Look at the lack of tears cried on the BBC over Brokeback’s failure to get an Oscar. None whatsoever cause ‘Crash’ (racism) got an oscar, and that was deemed a ‘quid-pro-quo’ by the Beeb.
Bizarre, I know.
Ritter
I mentioned here yesterday that Jowell’s position as “supervisor” of the BBC is probably central to the way they are treating the story. They had her “captured”, going along with a long extension of the licence fee plus big fat increases, and very limited use of ofcom as an independent judge of political bias.
Imagine if the Culture Sec of State was not the compliant Jowell but someone cracking down on the BBC. They would have torn her to shreds.
The Guardian asks:
Is the licence fee too big?
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1724146,00.html
and the answer?…..
“However, in the emerging “on- demand” world where audiences become paying customers and advertisers have many more options, every viewer and listener represents cash. In this world, the BBC does not just compete creatively – it can, just by being good at what it is there for, damage or even destroy commercial businesses. The traditional approach to managing broadcasting as a happy balance between the BBC and the commercial sector, based on an underlying consensus about the licence fee, is increasingly threatened. If we want the BBC to be as good as it can, we may have to accept that a measure of commercial failure is a price that has to be paid.
Let me get this right. The public must be forced to fund a broadcasting bohemouth that snuffs out choice and innovation, increases the costs, skewes the broadcasting marketplace and puts other commercial companies out of business, and we should be pleased? -this a “price that has to be paid”?
I despair.
Ritter
Animal Farm logic. Some are more equal than others.
A propos the Oscars – Among the PC right-on leftist films jostling for the awards, I thought ‘Walk the Line’ was much better than Crash, Good Night etc and Bareback Mountain but I suppose that a redneck idol like Johnny Cash was never going to do it for The Academy. Reese Witherspoon was well worth her award but it surely deserved more.
Your questions to Moazzam Begg
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&edition=1&ttl=20060306143347&messageID=510731��
Check out the whole first page of ‘recommended posts’. Why can’t the BBC reflect the views of the majority of UK citizens, as displayed here??
Lets see what is put to Begg at 1800GMT this evening, I assume the Q&A session will be posted on the website.
It will be interesting if there’s a BBC disclaimer of “The questions put to Begg reflect the balance of opinions we have received”. Well, we know exactly what the ‘balance of opinions’ is BBC, so don’t try to do a ‘Question Time audience’ on us (ie blatantly skew the questions).
Ritter
The 6pm Begg World Service broadcast might be an acid test of BBC bias – refusal to take proper note of the overwhelming slant of moist of the questions people have posed, and the condemnatory tone of most of the comments.
But Begg is as slippery as an eel. I predict he will get softie questions – ie no follow-up, little challenging of his weaselly answers that he will have practiced off pat. And I bet they don’t challenge him with the fact that he used to be in the business of selling tracts and CDs and tapes that were violently jihadist.
Churchill speech a lesson for the present
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4776444.stm
Good article even if strongly focused on the cold war of ‘East v West’ and fails to consider future threats in a similar vein to Hitlers rise that Churchill foresaw.
It’s the last line that strikes home though, when he’s talking about Churchills speech:
“Yet such moral certainty is rare, and the authority with which Churchill’s expressed it is surely rarer still.”
Probably because speaking with ‘moral certainty’ in Britian today is pretty much illegal, unless it is so anodyne as to offend no-one.
eg if you are asked the question “Do you agree that Islam is a wicked, vile and dangerous religion”? – you’d better think long and hard about answering, as PC Plod will be listening and you’ll be up in court before you can say “but they’re all gay golliwogs, officer”.
dumbcisco
I’m just waiting for an announcement of a BBC ‘Question Time (For Terrorists) Special’. You know, with, I dunno, the 3 ‘Tipton Taliban’, with a live laptop link-up to the ‘Hook’ Hamza from Wormwood Scrubs, and maybe someone from Amnesty and say Chami Chakrabampot of (Taking Your) Liberty, you know – for ‘balance’. Of course the QT ‘audience’ would get the usual ‘treatment’ to reflect the twisted minds of QT researchers and would be hideously muslim.
Whoops, hope there are no beeboid researchers listing…this idea could have legs……
“you’d better think long and hard about answering, as PC Plod will be listening and you’ll be up in court ”
no doubt you’ll be arrested by about 18 coppers, with 10 in back up.
all on triple time. and all moaning about the paperwork that they have to do as they ferry you to court, past the graffiti strewn, vandalised no-go zone that is known as your “town centre”.
Ritter
You missed a couple of standby BBC favourites from the QT panel – George Galloway and Jasmine Alibi/Excuses-for-terrorists Brown.
“http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/…=510577??
Go along and vote, vote, vote! Clearly we are all very un-PC. How very worrying for the BBC.
Eamonn | 06.03.06 – 12:08 pm |”
this is what i got when i followed the link:
“The specified thread [0] was not found.
Useful links:
Forum Home — browse the forums here.
Search Forums — visit the search page to query all forum c”
any suggestions?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1237&&&&edition=1&ttl=20060306152519
amimissinsomething,
Is this the one you’re missing? All the straightforward questions Marr didn’t ask this morning and which probably won’t be asked at 1800.
Happily, Kate Hoey was less forgiving of Ms. Jowell on TWaO.
(Is ‘forgiving of’ correct? Or is it ‘forgiving towards’?)
Posted on HYS:
“All comments been made for Mr. Baig show how desperate westerns are from Muslims. Almost everybody wants Muslims to leave west and live in Muslims countries. I would like to avail this chance to ask all these westerns to ask you stupid governments to call your army and companies back from our Muslim lands and let us live by our Islamic way after that we will fulfill your eternal desire to leave west and live in Muslims Countries.”
Nouman, Newcastle
Blimey: he is advocating the forced repatriation of Muslims. It is a little naughty of the BBC to allow such racist views on its website, isn’t it? 🙂
i havent listened to the Marr/Begg love-in yet.
is it worth transcribing and then blogging it , so that the entire world can see it in all its glory, much as i did last week with the Humphreys Gitmo-Gitmo-Hate-America Today “interview”…
TAoL
I think its ‘towards’. No surprise there – Kate Hoey is virtually semi detached from New Labour, indeed she seems to speak more common sense than the newly New Labourite Cameron tories most of the time. As for racism – It only applies to white people.
“our Muslim lands”
funny that. i thought that the earth belonged to all human beings, irrespective of whether you believed in the 7th Century L. Ron Hubbard or not.
oh wait. that’s my nasty nasty hate filled belief in freedom kicking in.
silly me – i’ll report myself to Sir Ian Blair immediately.
While the BBC wrings its hands over ‘Carmela’ Jowell it takes a labour MP to make a few glaring points.
You mean like John “Lordy” Birt getting his payback from McKinsey and working for Blair-Boy; but deciding to shack up with the head of the Probation Service; so they could both get unmarried…………..then Blair-Boy putting him up as CEO of Urenco at £400.000 pa.
Urenco you say ? German-Anglo-Dutch State Corporation making gas-centrifuges for enriching uranium U238 and supplier of technology to A Q Khan of Pakistan which allowed him to sell on this know-how to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq etc.
What does Birt know about nuclear technology……..zilch….but he knows Tony.
So the European company guilty of nuclear proliferation to basket-case countries is not mentioned in BBC broadcasts….
archduke
In a word – yes please. Begg and his “remarkable” book get a real easy ride. If you do a transcript, you might like to preface it with a selection of the top 5 questions the average Brit would want to put to Begg, and tick off how many of them were asked.
Archduke,
There are some quite good speech recognition programs available on the internet.
So long as things don’t descend into a Humphreys style slanging match, it should work OK.
Thank you, JH.
You also correct about racism: had, say, Nick Griffin said what ‘Nouman, Newcastle’ had said, he would be up before the beaks before you could say ‘double standards’.
Oops, I forgot. He already has been,
archduke
Any chance of recording/transcribing the Begg prog on the World Service at 6pm as well ?
dumbcisco -> yup. i’ll do that too. i should have it all up and blogged sometime later on this evening. ( i have to actually work for living, and pay taxes for so that Mr Begg can go on more jollies to his Taliban friends)
archduke
Thank you.
I think thwe only thing the UK authorities have done on Begg is take away his passport. I would prefer that they let some of these creeps trek off to Pakistan – then withdraw their passport, prevent their return.
A blogger writes – a good round up of the saga to date:
If nothing’s right, what’s wrong?
http://existingactually.blogspot.com/2006/03/if-nothings-right-whats-wrong.html
An informed rundown of the Mills/Jowell affair, 10 times better than your favourite £3Billion BBC can do – oh look its happy, happy jowell, isn’t she just lovely?
Jowell faces Commons with a smile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4777592.stm
dumbcisco
The ideal solution would have been in Dec 2001 for the Americans to hand their prisoners over to General Dostum and the Northern Alliance. We would never have heard of them again, there would have been no need for GITMO and it would be one thing less for Al Beeb and the usual suspects to whine about.
First page of top recommended comments preserved here for the usual reasons:
Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:02 GMT 11:02 UK
I remember reading about you flying to the aid of your brothers in Afghanistan, soon after 9/11.
My question is embarrassingly simple, I’m afraid. If you despise the West so much, why do you live here?
Martin Higham, Shaftesbury
Recommended by 89 people
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:06 GMT 11:06 UK
Heres a couple of questions for you
Do you intend to go back to live in Afgahistan? If not? why not?
Do you intend to renounce your UK citizenship? If not? why not?
Are you getting paid for this?
Are you bieng supported financially by any Muslim groups?
Are you claiming benefits?
Did you claim them whilst in Afgahistan?
Are you sueing the American or british government for your detention?
If so who is paying for that?
Thanks
OM, UK
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:58 GMT 10:58 UK
Why does Moazzam Begg want to live in Britain? Would he not be much happier in a Muslim country where the views of the majority of the citizens are much more in keeping with his views?
Tina McPhail, Glasgow
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:46 GMT 10:46 UK
Can you ask him if he hates this country, its values, its culture, its history and its direction so much, why doesn’t he go and live somehwere else?
Jonathan McIver, London Uk
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:57 GMT 10:57 UK
I just want to know why Muslims never come out unequivocally to denounce beheadings, sucide bombings and other atrocities committed in the name of Islam. I would have thought that moderate Muslims would have come out strongly to denounce such things. All we ever seem to see are extremist elements bent on hijacking the religion, and the moderates keeping silent about it.
Gbenga Williams, London, United Kingdom
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:54 GMT 10:54 UK
This man has admitted going to two terrorist training camps, but he did not take up arms against Britain. Why? Because he was caught before he had the chance. He fully deserved to be locked up and still should be. As for torture, quite frankly the majority of people in the world would like to see terrorists tortured, preferably on live television.
Tom Stevenson, london
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:25 GMT 11:25 UK
Would you attend a meeting with the families of those who sadly lost their lives in London and explain why you attended terrorist training camps?
Andy Johnson, Liverpool
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:06 GMT 11:06 UK
How can you attend two training camps to learn terrorism, and then claim that you have no gripe with the UK ? If it is a holy war you are fighting how can the boundaries be geographical ?
Alan, Brighton
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:22 GMT 11:22 UK
In my opinion by just going to the training camp you got what you deserved and perhaps should have been detained longer, whether you took up arms or not is irrelevant as you still went there with the intention of becoming a terrorist. So my question is why are you trying to get sympathy from people when you should be treated as any other common criminal?
Tony
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:47 GMT 10:47 UK
Why is the BBC giving a self confessed AlQaeda supporter/activist/terrorist a platform to spread their propaganda and lies. Torturing scum like him is going to save lives, not nice but it is a fact, Viva Guantanamo !
alex, london
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:54 GMT 10:54 UK
So you where a terrorist then!! What did you expect … a pat on the back.
JS
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 10:46 GMT 10:46 UK
ITS SERVES YOU BLOODY WELL RIGHT FOR GOING THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU REEP WHAT YOU SOW
ross mckinley, alicante spain
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:18 GMT 11:18 UK
Do you feel relieved that you were not executed for being a traitor? As a British passport holder you trained with the enemies of this country, why are you still resident here?
Alan Wynne, Maidstone
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:44 GMT 11:44 UK
I have no question for a person who trained to be a terrorist. The only reason he is not considered one is most likely due to this incarceration.
I have a question for the authorities though. Why is he allowed back into Britain free? Wy don’t we ban TRAINED terrorists? Or do we need to wait until he blows up a building (filled with people from all walks of life and religions) in the name of a PEACEFUL religeon?
Nick
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Added: Monday, 6 March, 2006, 11:42 GMT 11:42 UK
why were you being trained in a country where muslim people were being tortued and murdered by other muslims, where women were not given basic human rights, where people were imprisoned without charge to then say you wanted to fight oppression? and why should you recieve compensation off anyone when the people who trained you and who you supported still kill,torture and imprison muslims and other faiths worldwide?
alex, stoke on trent
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“Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey To Guantanamo And Back”
It’s the “back” bit that grates
Rick | 06.03.06 – 12:19 pm | #
Yes, Gitmo could do with the insciption in Dante’s Inferno “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’intrate”(Abandon all hope, ye who enter here) Too much culturally appropriate feeding & prayer mats, etc Begg is suffering from withdrawl symptoms:-) Despite Andrew Marr & the BBCs disgusting product placement gesture (published by Free Press on March 6 at £18.99) , there is already online a hefty chunk from this book. Only fools would seek out more….
My years in captivity
Moazzam Begg was abducted and handed over to US forces. Here he tells of endless interrogations, of torture – and one bright moment
Saturday February 25, 2006
The Guardian
http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1717386,00.html
Are conditions in Guantanamo so much worse than in the rest of Cuba ? How do American sailors survive in Guantanamo without the ability to have R&R in Cuba ?
Do they feel “oppressed” by having putaive terrorists sharing their naval base ?
JH-> “We would never have heard of them again”
trouble is , we wouldnt have got the intelligence out of them.
what the BBC never documents are the cases where real, hard , intelligence has come out of Gitmo and foiled Al Qaeda attacks.
Posted on HYS:
“All comments been made for Mr. Baig show how desperate westerns are from Muslims. Almost everybody wants Muslims to leave west and live in Muslims countries. I would like to avail this chance to ask all these westerns to ask you stupid governments to call your army and companies back from our Muslim lands and let us live by our Islamic way after that we will fulfill your eternal desire to leave west and live in Muslims Countries.”
Nouman, Newcastle
Blimey: he is advocating the forced repatriation of Muslims. It is a little naughty of the BBC to allow such racist views on its website, isn’t it?
TAoL | Homepage | 06.03.06 – 3:48 pm | #
………
“…after that we will fulfill your eternal desire to leave west and live in Muslims Countries”
Why wait – he personally should do it now.
O/T
Joan Baez is appearing on the Johnnie Walker show tonight on Radio 2 – what are the odds on him asking her about Iraq (with presumably an anti-Bush rant guaranteed)?
New Blog
http://friendsoftessajowell.blogspot.com/
Ritter
“Jowell faces Commons with a smile”
– WTF?!
By tomorrow it’ll be “Tessa’s lovely, leave her alone”
BBC News 24 1801 hrs.
Jon Sopel refers to the marriage “breakdown” of T.Jowell. Two minutes later it’s back to “separation” on the voice over.
Does Jon Sopel know something? or is he just being sloppy?.
A propos the Oscars – Among the PC right-on leftist films jostling for the awards, I thought ‘Walk the Line’ was much better than Crash, Good Night etc and Bareback Mountain but I suppose that a redneck idol like Johnny Cash was never going to do it for The Academy. Reese Witherspoon was well worth her award but it surely deserved more.
The Oscars were much more fun back in the day. I remember the year Vanessa Redgrave won and predictably gave some idiotic speech about “Zionist hoodlums.” A few minutes later a pissed-off Paddy Chayevsky (well-known playwright and screenwriter of the era) told her off good on live television and everybody clapped and cheered. Then there was the time the naked guy ran across the stage past David Niven, and Niven made some witty quip about the inadequate size of the naked guy’s willy. Also, what’s with this stupid “And the Oscar goes to. . .” when of course everybody wants to hear “And the winner is. . .” Just more stupid socialist PC crap.
What was most interesting to me were all the speeches begging people to go the movies instead of watching DVDs at home. They don’t seem to understand that in many cases it’s the content of the movies (as well as the ticket price) that’s keeping people out of the theaters.
BBC News 24 17.53hrs.
Guys, you’re missing something, Brokeback Mountain is described as “epic”
Here’s the dictionary definition:-
very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); “an epic voyage”; “of heroic proportions”; “heroic sculpture”
epic poem: a long narrative poem telling of a hero’s deeds
constituting or having to do with or suggestive of a literary epic; “epic tradition”
The epic is a broadly defined genre of poetry, which retells in a continuous narrative the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or group of persons. In the West, the Iliad, Odyssey and Nibelungenlied; and in the East, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Shahnama are often cited as examples of the epic genre.
It appears that
Straight cowboys are just cowboys while gay cowpersons are:
heroic or mythological person or group of persons.
Re my last post, and the BBC tells us that English is not being taught proper in skoll?
sarge -> its not been exactly “epic” at the box office.
Hollywood always uses the word “epic” to describe movies that have endless shots of North American rural scenery.
Regarding the “Mills-Jowell case as seen from Italy” link above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4774464.stm
I note that the writer comes out in the very first paragraph and states that Italy’s politics are thoroughly corrupt and have been for centuries. It’s odd that the BBC and so forth are generally so hip on Europe – although quieter now that the French have turned down the constitution – when so many of Europe’s governments are dodgy as all hell. I would expect an unaccountable union that involves the governments of France and Italy to be more rather than less corrupt, but what do I know?
Don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical flourish.
Italy’s politics aren’t as discreetly corrupt as Britain’s just more overtly so.
Ashley Pomeroy,
Are there any vacancies for an MEP?