It’s Easter time, when the BBC gear up to cover the annual ritual that means so much to so many of the faithful – the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers.
This year, those teachers who want a national strike against Government education policy are being described on Radio Four as ‘committed activists’. Way back in December 2001, when I searched the BBC News website for occurrences of the phrase ‘far-left’ and ‘far-right’, the NUT, with its ‘various far-left groups’ was one of only five mentions of a British far-left.
The other four were in a Scritti Politti review, a story about Peter Hitchens having been a youthful far-leftist (how come we never hear that about Andrew Marr – or indeed any of the vast number of other BBC journalists to which it would apply ?), a story that the Animal Liberation Front had both far-left and far-right members, and a Peter Tatchell profile.
There were 32 stories about the British ‘far-right’ – of which no less than 11 involved the Tory party.
The overall figures were – ‘far-left’ 46 stories, ‘far-right’ 338. I repeated the search in August 2002 – 66 far-left, 502 far-right.
And one minute ago – Fascinatingly 97 far-left, 420 far-right. Is this an indication that the BBC is now reporting at a 1/4 ratio rather than 1/8, or does the BBC’s search engine needs its indexing looking at ? Fortunately I kept all the 502 search results, but further analysis will have to wait till I have more time.
Not needed – try the ‘advanced search’ option and drop down the date listboxes, while leaving the range at 1997-2006. You still get 97 far-left stories, while the far-right feature in a staggering 1,550. Looks like the ratio is 1/15. Anyone using BBC search is advised to use the advanced option.
If, like most human attributes, political views were subject to a normal distribution about a mean, you might expect far-left and far-right views to have a pretty equal distribution. Unless, of course, there’s bias in the measurement. The kind of bias, say, that doesn’t consider the Socialist Workers Party, who support the Iraqi ‘resistance’ while simultaneously controlling the ‘anti-war’ movement, to be far-left. After all, half their college friends were in it.
Henry
It is not racist not to want your country overpopulated by poor dependant people from other countries.
It is racist to believe that your race is in some ways materialy different or superior to another race of human being.
This is the real dictionary deffinition of racism.
Not the Orwelian BBC one.
Therefore I am not a racist and so proberly you are not also. Very few people I have ever met are real racists. The ones however that I have met, are all supporters of socialist parties.
Rick
Having read your comments 6 times I finally understood what you were saying. Yes very interesting. Did they get this stuff from university or does it just come with the job?
Has anyone heard this story on the BBC TV or radio ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4926114.stm
There are signs of a breakthrough in the impasse in Iraq – the obdurate PM could be stepping down, the obvious prerequisite to formation of a government of national unity involving all the three main blocks.
This should be the absolutely top story at the BBC. Why have they been burying it ? Because it is potentially very good news, rather than the quagmire stuff they prefer ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4928822.stm
The BBC line is that the Tories lost the election last year because they were seen as “extreme” – ie they had policies that the BBC liberals don’t like. The sort of stuff that makes people like James Naughtie froth at the mouth.
Rubbish. The Tories lost because the perception was that the economy was still OK, the NHS was improving or at least OK, and the Tories had still not shaken off the earlier image of sleaze and economic incompetence.
This new poll shows that Labour has slumped hugely on economic competence, the central determinant of most people’s vote. But instead of sticking to former policy principles while waiting for this to finally emerge, Cameron changed the tone of the Tory policy approach to “how wet can I get ?”. The poll shows how confused people now feel about Tory policies.
Net result – Labour now leads in the current poll in spite of the huge drop in belief that it is economically competent, plus all the bad NHS news AND the sleaze label now hanging round Labour’s neck. Meanwhile the BNP emerges as a real threat in the forthcoming local elections.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/04/21/yougov_large.gif
In the BBC discussion on This Week last night on the BNP issue, there was not a single person speaking up for the view of the oppressed white working class in Britain. Even when that is the subject of the discussion. Classic. No wonder they feel marginalised, they are forced to pay a huge chunk of the BBC licence fee income and their voice is suppressed.
As usual, Frank Field sounding more Tory and sane than most of the Tory leadership :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/21/do2102.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/21/ixnewstop.html
Why doesn’t the BBC call on Field more often ? And why hasn’t the BBC covered the Young Institute report on the East End – don’t the BBC liberals like the home truths the report reveals ?
The battle of the bulge was between the Americans and Germans, the British didn’t get a look in other than flank support.
Sarge….well since my uncle fought at Bastogne yyou have de-mustered him from the British Army…………
The Waffen-SS was the battlegroup the SS itself was part of the RSHA – which is Reichsicherheitshauptamt and included Schupo, Kripo, SD, Gestapo. Some people speak of SS Intelligence in France etc but these were actually SD – Sicherheitsdienst.
The Waffen-SS was a Party Organisation not a Wehrmacht formation. THey have such splendid battlehpunurs as Oradour-sur-Glane where they burned alive the villagers in their church, and Malmedy where they massacred Canadian troops.
The main thing with the Waffen-SS was not to take them prisoner – the RONA division of the Waffen-SS tied women to the front of tanks in Warsaw and bayonetted babies, even blowing up a hospital with patients in the Wola District.
There is no redeeming feature about the Waffen-SS and it is surprising that so many survived the war.
Rick
Having read your comments 6 times I finally understood what you were saying. Yes very interesting. Did they get this stuff from university or does it just come with the job?
Gary Powell
Sorry Gary, didn’t mean to give you an identity crisis ! This is exactly how they think – in part its is because of their own personal journey and being able to connect up with fringe groups at university. There are lots of people only wanting “to join” something.
Why do you think Labour goes on about “Education” ? It is because they want to shape New Soviet Man. The Socialist Perfectionist wants to create the New World Order and believes in Forced Evolution.
The main attraction of fighting the SS
Frankly I doubt this very much. I have not met many soldiers who found the risk of dying worth a piece of German militaria whatever modern generations shopping on EBay may think
Rick
It is always enlightening to find the exception to the rule. On the Battle of the Bulge the German Army targeted the weakest sector of the front held by the ……Americans.
Further enlightenment is afforded by the abililty of those such as john reid (and yourself) who are able to reel off a long list of nazi atrocities at the drop of a hat.
When this happens I ask them to list other countries atrocities and they usually start to stammer.
Communist Russia (the soviets) started thier reign of terror by murdering the Russian royal family, which included young girls, that must have been hard work.
The example that springs to my mind is the infamous mass shootings of prisoners of war during World War II which did not occur in the heat of battle but was a cold-blooded act of political murder. The victims were Polish officers, soldiers, and civilians captured by the Red Army after it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939.
The victims were Polish officers, soldiers, and civilians captured by the Red Army after it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939. Strictly speaking, even the Polish servicemen were not POWs. The USSR had not declared war, and the Polish commander in chief had ordered his troops not to engage Soviet forces.
Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 NCOs, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, and 131 refugees. Also among the dead were 20 university professors; 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 pilots. 7 It was their social status that landed them in front of NKVD execution squads. Most of the victims were reservists who had been mobilized when Germany invaded. In all, the NKVD eliminated almost half the Polish officer corps–part of Stalin’s long-range effort to prevent the resurgence of an independent Poland.
For 50 years, the Soviet Union concealed the truth.
Russians cannot look at Katyn without seeing themselves in the mirror of their own history. Thus official Moscow resists using the “g” word (genocide) to describe the atrocity. When Gorbachev’s advisers warned him in 1989 that Poland’s demand for the truth contained a “subtext . . . . that the Soviet Union is no better–and perhaps even worse–than Nazi Germany” and that the Soviet Union was “no less responsible” for the outbreak of World War II and the 1939 defeat of the Polish Army, they were also thinking of undercurrents in their own country.
German concentration camps over run by the Soviets were kept running up to the 1950’s.
The nazis were defeated in 1945 over 60 years ago.
Time for a list of the countries who have committed genocide since. then
20/4/06 BBC1 This Week
News Review and the late night chat about the BNP. At least Diane Abbott had the grace to mention that “There are no white working class representatives here tonight”
Representing we know not who were
Andrew Neil
Michael Portillo
Oona King
Piers Morgan
Diane Abbott
what a load of balance
Snake oil salesperson
Cameron pledges to firm up green credentials with carbon levy
· Tory leader’s dog-sleigh ride to melting glaciers
· Brown aides scorn ‘back of a fag packet’ proposals
First you create the scare, instil fear into the minds of the gullible then you step forward with a solution.
Special offer not £100 not £50 but only £10 a day to you (you suckers)
Over 100 Spanish died on the roads over Easter, most were not driving SUV’s or 4×4’s which could have saved thier bacon, no the Spanish drive green cars, little buzz boxes with small engines. Admittedly they drive at max revs in every gear to get some speed up for a dodgy overtake but hey they are not in gas guzzling monsters.
Going green Going clean ooops Hail Mary!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4155674.stm
dumbcisco “Frank Field sounding more Tory and sane than most of the Tory leadership”
He’s still the idealist. E.g.
Linked to this should be the roll-out of ID cards so that NHS treatment was strictly linked to people’s residency in this country.
Doctors paid by the taxpayer have high ethics, would continue to treat all comers & would be supported by the BBC & others in resisting efforts to limit “free” treatment . I’m sure they would reconcile themselves to a different standard if they worked in an insurance based system & only got paid if treating qualifying patients.
Same applies to schools, they admit foriegn children “holidaying” in the UK.
Sarge
Andrew Nei8l was not on that totally unbalanced panel. Piers Morgan was inthe chair.
will
Yes, Frank Field cites IDs – but at least he wants some form of control on who gets access to our welfare system. And that article would NOT be written by most current Tory toffs – who don’t even recognise the problem.
The Today prog was all over Michael Ancram like ants over rice, a Tory hasbeen, jus because he has called for withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.