(but you knew that).
What is it with them? As our Canadian friends pointed out (see below post), they ignored a press conference at which the current and fully elected President of Iraq stated that ‘civil war is out of the question and… the Iraqi people will not accept [for] a civil war to take place’ in favour of Mr Allawi, the former President’s comments about civil war being emblazoned across the BBC website all through Sunday.
Then, today, they report Bush denying the case stated by Mr Allawi, as though that were more logical than demonstrating balance with comments from Iraq’s current and elected President. Just who do the BBC think runs Iraq? Bush, from the Whitehouse? Why, he must be a clever chap! There’s something both lazy and patronising in bypassing the elected President’s comments in favour of the former and unelected President’s comments, partially, one feels, because Allawi deigned to make his to the BBC directly.
It’s not balanced reporting to only allow the news to be filtered through the BBC’s own favourite caricature-politician, saying ‘He said there were many voices that disagreed with Mr Allawi’s view, including President Jalal Talabani and top US commander Gen George Casey.’
Look Beebies- we know about these voices disagreeing with Allawi, but no thanks to you! Bush’s comments were not themselves news, but referring to news. They are not opinion expressed by the President of the USA, but facts that the BBC should merely have acknowledged. Some people accuse Bush of failing to state his case, but often all he fails to do is to rip into the sensitive media souls who fail to paint the picture truly and can’t understand why that makes some people, interested people, angry. Bush refers to shadows and the public disbelieve him, and whose fault is that when the shadows in fact are real yet go unrecognised and unreported by the farcical MSM?
See also: The Belmont Club’s analysis.
Yes because he excludes Council Tax and puts in lots of electronic goods whose prices fall while services go up in price.
I bet he doesn’t put prescription charges in the CPI index either, nor student tuition fees
Exactly Rick. We don’t have to buy Taiwanese and Chinese electronic goods but we have to pay for gas, electricity, council tax, and the hidden inflation in our public sector, the latter in particular claiming the scalps of communist eastern Europe. Brown is deliberately falsifying real inflation, and not once will the BBC challenge him: a Panorama on Brown’s destruction of our pensions?
Susan,
Do you really think they are dicking around with the “recommended post” system to make it “better”? Nothing’s wrong with it now, except that the “wrong” results keep showing up in the voting.
I agree 100%. After I made that comment I was wondering why, if it ain’t broke, they want to fix it.
I suppose it’s because they think it is broke – since the vast majority of people recommend comments that go against the flow of their agenda on so many of the topics they’ve aired.
But I’m still going to reserve judgement until it becomes clear what they’ve got up their voluminous sleeves.
Ian,
“One’s standards shouldn’t drop simply because one is not encountering opposition to one’s point of view. ”
I agree entirely. You’re mistaking an observation (“this *does* happen”) for an exhortation (“this *should* happen”). My experience as a writer is that you’re sharpened up by being opposed, and that standards slip if you’re not held up to scrutiny. That’s true for the BBC, which is why this site is valuable, and it’s equally true for this site itself.
You’ve made a common category error, and I can only assume that either I wasn’t clear enough or you were deliberately misreading me in order to score rhetorical points. Which is it?
I’ll engage with you in debate if you do me the courtesy of answering the question I’ve put to you twice now on this thread.
Ignoring it (as the BBC is so expert at doing) wont make it go away.
Ian Betteridge
Sounds like a good idear. However if people were allowed to opt out. The cost per subscriber would be in the region of £500-£800 per year. This, is not a compeditive price. Any subsequent rises would fall on an ever decreasing audience. The BBC and the Labour party are compleatly aware of this . So there is not ” a Humphreys not talking crap” chance, of it happening.
As for propergander in other countries, the BBC would have to go commercial to get revenue. The BBC running advertising !! That would defeat the socialist principles it was founded on. Guardian readers and the civil service would have a fitt. So there is not a ,”BBC loving anything Republican American” chance, of it happening.
Socialism is necrotising
Why do you think Tony Blair is better than any Tory MPs?
I can not remember Thatcher as being a great asset to the Tory Party when in oposition. In fact I cant remember any Tory politicians in oposition….ever.
She got elected by shutting up, and not saying or doing anything to upset the media.Because she was a woman, she had one big advantage. In that the BBC had a problem being to nasty and sexist to her.
This country is not a republic. Tony Blair is only a prime minister. He must keep his partys support. That party is a socialist party. Any, and I mean any, Tory PM would run this country better.
Will they get elected a second time? So that real change is possible. That is a different matter.
A warning to DC would be what happened to Edward Heath. The most socialist Tory PM we have ever had.
Well Gary, call me old fashioned but I expect a Conservative to say Conservative things.
Tony Blair has very good Conservative instincts. I know that because I`m a Conservative and I think that he`s often right.
I think that Cameron is often wrong.
That Davis is right but not electable.
I think that Fox is excellent but equally not electable.
History does not repeat itself, Cameron is fencing himself in with positions he will come to regret, sadly he is no Thatcher.
Nobody regrets all of this more that me.
Re: the HYS ‘recommended post’ thing.
I guess it has to be a considered a possibility that there is no work being done on the system at all, and that the paragraph announcing testing on the system was just added when people here noticed the votes disappearing.
Given the BBCs usual attitude towards criticism, it can’t be that unlikely.
Moriarty,
Could be. But the BBC usually acts in a much more covert way.
Be interesting to see what their new, improved ‘Readers Recommended’ page looks like.
Mr. Hossain the convert to Christianity is no longer the top post, and he seems to have lost a lot of votes since yesterday:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=1359&start=15&tstart=0&edition=2&ttl=20060323143544&#paginator
amazing. votes just go “missing” at the bbc.
rather like Nu Labours “posting voting”
aargh – typo – i mean “postal voting”
Soc is nec
Tony Blair is not anything other than a second hand car salesman. He is quite capable of believing anything that he thinks is in HIS interests to believe. This is a man that deaply believed not long ago in CND. He still believes that Jesus is the son of GOD and that his mother was a virgin. All politicians believe in only one thing. Staying in power. The only thing that should matter to you is . Are their interests your interests.
A wise man looks at the real product on offer. Not the salesmans bullshit.
I think Tony Blair rightly believes he and G bush are saving the world. He thinks that one day this will become obvious. He will then be a great hero. This is his gamble. He wants to be the first president of Europe. He does not give a toss how messed up this place gets, he has got his eye on bigger things.
With the help of Americas long term policy in Europe,and you, so it seems, he might well succeed.
Well I never, I agree with most, if not all, of Gary Powell’s rantings above.
Either Gary’s gone mad and has started talking sense or I’m having a temprpary abberation.