Paul Reynolds has an article about terrorism experts ‘floundering about’ in an attempt to understand suicide bombers.
He seems to think they are missing something:
‘I felt that the conference rather ignored some of the political influences on suicide bombers, like the world events -Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, Chechnya, Bosnia and others – that provide a basic motivation for many of them.’
Well I am quite prepared to accept that they are floundering, and missing something- the question is, what? Since, for instance, the West’s assistance for Muslims in Kosovo and Indonesia after the tsunami seemed to cause no softening of the “militant” rhetoric I would be inclined to agree with Peter C. Glover:
‘It is amazing how even the most intelligent and understanding among us sometimes refuse to countenance the plainest of answers when it comes to issues of faith. The root cause here is Islam’s teachings. As I have shown repeatedly on these pages Mohammed taught and the Koran and the Traditions teach openly that murder, violence is a perfectly Allah-given path to subjugating all other peoples, cultures and faiths. Moderate Muslims may well deny it by their overlooking of the innumerable passages that teach these things – something we should be thankful for (and encourage)…But it doesn’t change the reality. The ‘radicals’ not the ‘moderates’ are the ones living out true Islam. Until we grasp this key fact and understanding – as hard as President Bush and others find it – we are never really going to ‘get it’ entirely.’
Certainly political events have their impact, but the interpretation of them is the key, and that interpretation is provided by the extreme suspicion, negativity and contempt which can be drawn with a far amount of ease from the pages of the Koran.
In related matters, Ian Dale notes the BBC drawing back from calling terrorists terrorists, again.
I should add, I think, that over the course of time I’ve grown to like Paul Reynolds and his well-meaning work- aided no doubt by the personal encounters enabled by blogging and his own rather generous-spirited approach to us. Therefore I tend to see this kind of analytical weakness as a symptom of BBC malaise rather than a cause of it, in distinction to other BBC men.
Our own Laban Tall, meanwhile, notices another whitewashing of religion. I dare say he may post about it here sometime, but here is a link to the post, painfully funnily titled ‘Mr Clarke – Over Here !’. And here is a taste:
‘“Abdul El-Gharras, 31, was obsessed with decapitation and had downloaded videos of al Qaeda beheadings before murdering Marvin Gentles last June in an argument over crack cocaine, the Old Bailey criminal court heard.”
(Reuters)
Presumably a foreign national then – and with an unhealthy interest in the more robust manifestations of the Religion of Peace. Can’t understand why the BBC should have missed that’
BBC article here.
Mailer massaged all the BBC G-spots…rome…constant war the only way to avoid crisis of amerian identity feminism, homosexuality…emptyness of american consumer culture requires war to give them a sense of purpose…jesus…holy war…evil…blah blah
Back to bias:
Today: Interviewer of Lord Desai (member of Labour Party and ennobled at recommendation of Labour) on J K Galbraith was stunned into silence when Desai (a “safe” commentator surely) tore into Galbraith (the Beeb’s favourite leftie economist and allround good egg) as the “Jeffrey Archer of economics”; out of touch and just plain wrong although a gifted writer and populariser. I suspect Lord Desai will not be back on the BBC for some time to come and that whoever suggested him for interview has severely damaged his/her career prospects.
However, Today followed up this lapse by allowing an unchallenged 5+ minute anti-Bush anti (US) conservative rant by Norman Mailer. His credentials can be summed up by this quote from Woody Allen in “Sleeper” (1973) “This is a picture of Norman Mailer. He left his ego to the Harvard Medical School!”
Sorry for the double entry – my mistake
BBC reports more calls for two shags, two jags, three grace & favour pads and nil council tax, to go.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4961394.stm
What the BBC is not telling us:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2158097,00.html
Two shags ain’t two shags after all but multiple shags and gropes.
The BBC goes one step further in their unwillingness to label terrorists as terrorists:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4961464.stm
The headline reads:
‘Militants’ kill Kashmir Hindus
The scare quotes represent another deeper level of cultural relativism. I mean, who are we to judge others? Perhaps lining up people from three villages and then shooting them is perfectly normal in their culture?
On an unrelated topic, the council elections in Norwich gives the BBC another chance to plug the Greens:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4949756.stm
Naturally, they must be the largest party in Norwich so that would justify them headlining the article and getting generous coverage.
The quote of the year, however, comes from some vacuous bint towards the bottom of the article:
“Natasha Lay, 18, says she has enough “stress” with her college beauty therapy course to think about voting.”
Poor thing, life is a strain, isn’t it?
Thoroughly Pissed Off:
There is a lot going on, much of which the Beeb won’t mention.
I don’t care about Prescott.
I don’t care if he rogers all the secretarys in his office, sequentially, along the mile in Blackpool at midday (provided he infringes no by-laws).
Chazzer Clarke is the one who has failed in office and the BBC emphasis on Prescott, (and incidentally, on Rooney’s foot, on the headless chicken run for a new England Manager), are (or is)(I am afraid to say) a smokescreen.
The BBC gets stranger and stranger, day by day:
‘Militants’ kill Kashmir Hindus
Suspected Islamic militants have killed at least 22 Hindus and wounded 10 others in a raid in a remote area of Indian-controlled Kashmir, police say.
What’s with the quotes around ‘militants’?
Is this a rebellion in the ranks, and the writer actually thinks they are terrorists?
Or, more likely, is it in quotes because they are suspected of being militants?
PaulC
Totally agree with regard to Clarke, who, for a short while, was nominally my big boss.
Melanie Phillips has a say on him,
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001676.html
I don’t think that Prescott should be viewed as a smokescreen.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2158116.html
His department is running totally out of control and has been described as a pantomime horse.
I have to say that if someone in the lowly position that I occupied in the public sector had done even a fraction of what Prescott has been getting away with they’d have been sent of to one of the re-education camps that now prevail in the public sector.
What I find fascinating is the complete lack of perspective the BBC has on this. In the dying day’s of Major’s government (whichwere really just a warm-up for SanuLabour anyway, policy-wise) the BBC Wre going ape-shit over every possible hint of “sleaze”. Yet, within months of labour entering office I recall tiny hits of possible bad behaviour being reported in the newspapers, but quickly brushed over – and simply ignored – by the BBC. Labour started out bad and went downhill. Over the years we’ve seen labour ministers involved in affairs (practically orgies if you believe some accounts), bribery, corruption and general nastiness, yet barely a peep of criticism from teh national press. And, behind all that, we’ve had Prescott re-organising the country, bypassing the county councils with his regional development agencies and his new Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (which gave itself planning permission to knock down thousands of houses in the north and build thousands more in the south, without consultation), the Home Secretary’s office pushing ID cards, the ministry of transport pushing for a universal road camera monitoring system, the MAFF destroying our ability to produce our own food, the MoD removing any ability to cooperate with the americans in military matters by fording the procurement of european equipment that works on different standards, the ministry of “Culcher” destroying just about any culture we have, and all of it with the expressed aim of harmonising us with the EU. Thhis government has had one aime from the beginning: destroy the country. And they’re succeeding. A truly impartial BBC would have picked up on this and pointed it out a long time ago… but the BBC isn’t impartial about this. They want european harmonisation as well, because it guarantees their existence.
And for the record, the boy king Cameron is nothing more than Blair MK2. If the tories win, it’ll be in spite of him, not because of him. It should worry people that he’s toeing the BBC line so closely these days. They won’t get my vote until he’s gone.
The headline
“Militants” kill Kashmir Hindus
is surely a parody ?
Surely it is ? Please say it is !
All the links on the right hand side of the page are to stories about militants. Not “militants”. Maybe there is a new bunch, killing 2 dozen villagers but not definitely militant, let alone terrorists.
Strange, really. It seems there are no terrorists in Kashmir, never have been. Endless atrocities, people killed in their beds etc etc, but not a single terrorist around.
I happened to be chacking the Foreign Office site to check travel risks in Ladakh. The FCO has no difficulty calling a spade a spade – here is a page headed Risks of Terrorism, and another page that lists Significant Terrorist Attacks – including Asia and the Middle Mast :
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1044011304926
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1099137416102
And specifically, the FCO has a travel advisory about terrorism in India, warning against any travel in Kashmir becasue of “high levels of violence and terrorism”:
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390590&a=KCountryAdvice&aid=1013618387153
How dare the BBC, which purports to speak for the Brits, go to utter extremes to avoid the T word when everyone in his right mind uses the T word to describe that sort of atrocity ?
Do the Governors know about this ? Do they care ?
dumbcisco writes:
“Do the Governors know about this ? Do they care ?”
It’s an interesting question. Perhaps, in the face of ZaNuLabour’s plan to get rid of them altogether, they’ve simply given up caring and are just enjoying the perks until the job goes.
Then again, the choice of BBC governers, being in the gift of government, means they are usually selected from the same pool of soft-Left worthies that is used as a header tank to feed most of our ‘great institutions’.
That said, this refusal to use the ‘T’ has now become so extreme that it’s bordering on farcical. You can’t help wondering if it hasn’t become some sort of game for bored hacks in the newsroom – to see just how far they can contort the language.
No doubt Reith in one of his incarnations will be along in a moment with some cock and bull story trying to justify it.
Coming soon, the BBC headline:
“Alleged ‘militants’ allegedly detonate ‘bomb’ to allegedly harm in some way U.S. forces of occupation and torture”
As sport on the BBC shrivels year by year, why shouldn’t the licence fee shrivel a bit in parallel ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?menuId=1588&menuItemId=-1&view=DISPLAYCONTENT&grid=P8&targetRule=0#head4
Now we are going to be compelled to vote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4961532.stm
The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has issued a report stating a case for compulsory voting, supported, of course, by labour vermin.
What the BBC has missed out, of course, is that the IPPR is a left wing think tank (if that’s not an oxymoron).
If Civitas had issued a report you can bet your bottom dollar that the BBC would add the ‘right wing’ label.
Just another little bit of bias from the BBC.
TPO
Radio 4 has been referring to the IPPR all day as an INFLUENTIAL think-tank.
Not as a bunch of lefties transparently yakking about how to increase the leftie vote.
Strange that. No other part of the media seems to be paying the IPPR recs any attention whatsoever.
So the IPPR is influential just at the BBC ? Preaching to the choir ?
as an INFLUENTIAL think-tank.
It is…it is a conduit for funding the Labour Party as businesses know its founders were on the inside track with the regime leadership and that it can arrange meetings with Ministers for a contribution
Now we are going to be compelled to vote.
1st. You will be compelled to vote
2nd You will be compelled to vote for the ruling party
Result – increasing voter turnout…………..increasing percentage of the vote for the ruling party
Consequence – prison population explodes and fine revenues displace income tax as revenue-raiser
Militants’ kill Kashmir Hindus
Mohammedans surely ?
I wish they would return to the more traditional description of “militants” as “Mohammedans” –
Nick Robinson toys flying out of pram alert!!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ nickr…covering_1.html
I tried to post a comment on Robinson’s ‘fully moderated’ (where have I heard that before) site where he says he’s not covering up for Prescott, but was rebuffed by the great man.
I merely wanted to point out that the BBC was losing its credibility and was destined to go the way of the American left biased media and TV, which was ignored by most of the population who were increasingly turning to blogs for real news. And that, sooner or later, the BBC poll tax would be in jeopardy.
The last posted comment was from a ‘Crispin’ who was ‘bored by the week’s events’ and liked to quote Ramsey Clark.
Is Crispin angling for a lucrative Beeb role, or is he already there and sucking up to Robinson?
Perhaps I should have called myself Tarquil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/engla…don/ 4959980.stm
Scroll down to the “artists’s impression” of the man they want to question, and then tell me that the Police don’t have a sense of humour!!!!
That link should be:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4959980.stm
General Election 2009
BBC Headline
In a 99.999% turnout our Dear Leader and Helmsman, Chairman Blair (pbuh) polled 99.998% of the vote.
The 0.001% who did not vote for him have been identified and shot.
Long live the Socialist Peace-Loving Peoples Democracy of Ruritania.
I have never ever heard references on the BBC to Bernard Lewis, the most important historian dealing with the problems of Ismaist fundamentalism. Deeply knowledgable, a reral expert – and also someone whom the US President pays attention to.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008313
Yet John Simpson can quote Prof Juan Cole as an “expert”.
It would be funny, if it was not so serious.
There really is a huge degree of ignorance at the BBC.
Time was, the BBC could write entire chunks of its website about terrorism :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/war_on_terror/investigation_on_terror/default.stm
The whole don’t-use-the-T-word obsession on Middle East and Asia reporting has been driven by prominent BBC reporters like John Simpson, Orla Guerin and Caroline Hawley – and Frank Gardner. Lesser fry just follow suit.
dumbcisco, have you noticed what country, regular victim of terrorism, is missing from that “in depth” report?
Hint: it starts with “I” and ends in “L”.
Bio
I noticed that. As I think I implied in an earlier comment, the root of the BBC’s unwillingness to use the T word is that it simply cannot see outfits like Hamas and Hizballah as terrorists. (Or Arafat.)
As far as I can see, that is the prime cause of the BBC’s moral equivalency – its moral quagmire.
Funny, the BBC never presents this side of life in Afghanistan :
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008307
Especially the results of its own poll showing that 73% of Afghanis regard the Americans as good guys.
Thoroughly Pissed Off.
The Times article was good and Melanie Phillips’ analysis was very interesting;
Nothing to disagree with in either of them.
However I note one worrying point toward the end of Melanie Phillips’ piece.
“Public disillusionment with the whole political class has now reached dangerous proportions. At this week’s local government elections, the danger is that people will say ‘a plague on all your houses’ and stay away.”
So much for the right/left argument if people don’t see enough differences to make a clear choice.
Apologies to all;
Off Topic (again)
dumbcisco, they can’t see the terrorists as such because they actually work with them.
The BBC has actually advised the Palestinians on how to advance their narrative in the media – google “Lyse Doucet” and Passia to find such gems as:
http://www.stephenpollard.net/001426.html
This quote by Ms. Doucette (BBC anchor for World Service):
“Ms. Doucete, who refers to homicide bombers as “honor” killers, believes “her job is to translate” rather than simply report the news, because “Israel is led by a Prime Minister who believes that it is not Israel’s policy that is wrong, just that they have to explain it better.” And so she admonishes the Palestinians, “if you want to beat the Israelis, you have to beat them at their own game.” Thereupon follows eight pages of clear instruction on how the Palestinians can manipulate the press to their own advantage.”
shows the arrogance at play in the organisation and one needs to try and understand how the BBC has duped the world regarding all issues and not just the ME.
It seems that when they did not agree with something they created their own reality.
The above quote comes from a document used by PASSIA which was covered in Frontpage Magazine:
This week, in response to a question from our news agency, the U.S. government has finally acknowledged that the U.S. Aid For International Development (USAID) indeed funds the Palestine Academic Society For the Study of Academic Affairs (PASSIA), the PLO lobby group in Jerusalem which trains PLO media professionals.
While the BBC is understandably cautious and does not wish to speculate on who might have been responsible, its “‘Militants’ kill Kashmir Hindus” scare quote is very silly. It is as silly as “‘Murderer’ strangles baby'” or “‘Cannibal’ eats person”.
“‘Italian nuns’ kill Kashmir Hindus” might warrant a scare quote or two if the local police had made such a claim. The scare quotes would simply be the BBC’s way of implying that there was doubt over the identity of the killers.
But this was a murderous attack by people who are, er, militant, surely? The nature of the attack was such that militants of one hue or another must have been responsible: if the BBC were reporting a claim that the attack was mounted by separatists or Islamists, the the scare quotes would apply.
That said, even if there were no doubt whatsoever this atrocity was the result of good ole Kashmiri mujahadin swinging their pants for Allah, the BBC would still avoid all mention of the I or M word.
Why force people to vote? What we need is a voting licence which entitles the holder to vote for anyone but goes to fund a political party that is unbiased and impartial, and produces policies of excellent quality, as judged by that party itself.
1st. You will be compelled to vote
2nd You will be compelled to vote for the ruling party : Rick
Rick,
I think they won’t be that obvious, however I think “they” will crack down on parties that are not part of “The Program”.
Maybe they aren’t really militant. Maybe they are just restive. Kinda fed up. Stroppy. Bad-tempered.
Misguided, even.
Next we’ll have boisterous. Over-excited.
Or ‘boisterous’ !
Forcing people to vote is the left’s attempt to gain near-permanent power. I’m sure they have worked out that it is those at the lower end of the social scale who are more likely to abstain from voting. By compelling these people to vote they hope they will vote for the Left, despite being held in benefit dependency and educational failure by the Left itself!
“Kashmiri Hindus Die in Killing” has a nice BBC ring to it, I think.
Am I to understand that compulsory voting could well fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights?
I seemed to recall this was discussed by someone somewhere on t’Interweb some time ago.
Am I to understand that compulsory voting could well fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights?
Doesn’t appear to in Belgium
So why is the BBC The Labour movement the MSM and the BNP anti-semitic and anti-israel and anti-American.
It is because they are all socialists. Which means they are anti-capitalists. They see all 3 as linked together just like National socialism, communism and Muslim fundermentalism have always done.
The Jews relationship with free moving money, and BIG unaccountable governments inability to control the power of it, is at the centre of all their political believes.
This may seem an obvious statement, that does not nead making. However some on this site do appear to have forgotten.
All dictators are socialists. Whether it suits their purposes to call themselves right or left wing or not.
Dictators all nead to control money and therefore the peoples freedom, to prolong their power.
Free people nead a liberal free market, for their personal value to sociaty to be reconised and respected. Without it we are all dangerously vunerable to the whimms of the political system.
I can assure all of you that the Conservative Party and all its varied membership have not forgotten these facts. It is the prime reason most are members in the first place. It is the members that voted by a large way for DC, so believe me they will not put up with ANY socialist bullshit once he is elected. Or he will be thrown out of office by the party. No-one at my branch meeting thinks this is at all likely. I have no reason right now, not to agree with them.
As you have been listening to Tony Blair pretending to be a Tory for the last 12 years. While your country has now 90% of parents on government handouts, and the highest % or workers employed by the state in living memory. Dont you all just think that really believing that DC is a Communist, just because he TALKS about the enviroment, is a tad ignorent? Not to say deliberately missleading, and dishonest.
Compulsory voting is surelyb something that is innately un-British.
No wonder apparatchik-style people like Peter Hain and the ‘B’BC appear to favour it.
The fact that the ‘B’BC gave prominence to this item today is just another sign that they are often merely an amplifier for their favourite pressure groups and NGOs. There is no sign of the IPPR report on any of the front pages today, I think, but the BBC gave it third-item prominence in their headlines on Radio 4 and 5. A thin weekend for other news to let them limit the Clarke/Two-or-More-Shags stuff.
Why, time after time, do the BBC turn to the LibDems for a comment first – and often seek or broadcast no comment whatsoever from the Tories ?
Isn’t David Cameron still the leader of HM Loyal Opposition ? Shouldn’t the Tory spokesman speak first, before the LibDems.
They are doing it right now on Charles Clarke. No comment from David Davies – the Shadow Home Secretary. That is absolute boXXocks, of course Davies has a current quote on Clarke. Why are the BBC suppressing Davies ?
Bias by omission, as usual.
dumbcisco
“Why are the BBC suppressing Davies?”
Perhaps – purely by accident – the BBC is taking the Tories at their word. According to DC the Conservatives are into “constructive” opposition. As we all have found out constructive opposition=no opposition.
Although DD has been quite effective on the air in the last few days, it was a lone Conservative MP (ie not the official opposition) who forced Clarke to make public the details of his complete failure as Home Secretary. Frankly, I have little time for the LibDems (policy = “the answer’s yes now what’s the question?”) but, whatever their failings they pass the litmus test on civil liberties in that they are rock solid against ID cards. This is more than you can say for the Boy King or DD. In fact DD voted in favour of ID cards after a meaningless compromise with Clarke was agreed by the Tories.
The deeply unpleasant Gavin Esler was it at it again this afternoon, on his vapid, radio 4 multi-culti love-in, ‘Four Corners’.
The discussion (such as it was – it was really more of a group grope) was about immigration, spurred by the illegal immigrants’ attempts to strongarm the US government into another amnesty.
Three speakers, plus Esler. So was there a single whisper of a hint of a suggestion that there might be perfectly valid (even humane!) reasons why immigration might not always be a good thing?
Not, as the saying goes, on your life!
No, of course the BBC isn’t biased – perish the thought!
Biased BBC strikes again.
Al Beeb reports on how the US embassy has run up the most fines for not paying the conjestion charge.
“US tops ‘congestion charge debt'”
1. US £271,000
2. Nigeria £202,150
3. Angola £127,150
4. Sudan £94,250
5. Switzerland £52,300
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4960308.stm
But hang on somethings not quite right as it appears that those figures are only for the last six months.
Angloa actually owes more than 1/2 million.So why does Al Beeb report that the US is in number one spot?
dumbcisco writes:
“Why, time after time, do the BBC turn to the LibDems for a comment first – and often seek or broadcast no comment whatsoever from the Tories ?”
I’ve been saying since before the last election that, clearly, at some point a decision was taken by BBC news supremos to endow the LibDems with some sort of spurious authority, no doubt to help destabilise the Conservatives.
As the LibDems moved even further to the Left under Kennedy, it became transparent that the party was receiving preferential treatment out of all proportion to its representation in Parliament.
This is another of those examples of BBC bias that has received a lot less attention than it deserved to.
This hysteria about compulsary voting is a little overdone. Australia has had it since Federation and somehow escaped turning into a police state.
In practise compulsary voting means compulsary attendance at a polling station (or one of the many alternatives). No one checks what, if anything, you have placed in your sealed envelope.
If you do ‘fail’ to vote, a good story gets you off punishment. Tammie Fraser, wife of former PM Malcolm Fraser is said to have escaped penalty for not voting by claiming, please, picture her innocent face that she wanted her first vote to be for her husband.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-05-01T135045Z_01_L01688891_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-MEDIA-THREATS.xml&rpc=22
Journalists being threatened, to report favourably on Hamas
Curiouser and curiouser.
The source of the report of the 22 Hindu villagers killed in Kashmir looks like Agence France Presse. Like AP, Reuters and the BBC, they use the weasel word militant rather than terrorist.
But their headline did not have the word militant in quotes, it seems. (Yahoo does not edit stuff from the wire services – it simply posts them, I believe.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060501/ts_afp/indiakashmirunrest_060501124615
Someone at the BBC stuck the quotes round the word Militant in the headline.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4961464.stm
G cooper
Yes . But I dont think I could be accused of not paying it enough attention. The BBC seeming to also convince many that the Conservative Party is in some curious way unelectable, and that Tony Blair is a Tory, is also part of the plan. It also might help explain why the Tory leadership are trying a new tactic.
Remember that there are 14 year olds now, who will be voting in the next election. Many of which, and much older, have been subjected to a lifetime of ” The Earth is dieing ” state school propergander. Also that capitalists and their nead for profits are the root of all evil. David Cameron is a public school and university educated person, so he might be a little out of this planet, but he is ambitious, and not stupid. He wants to get elected,and become prime minister. Because he knows quite how little a TORY party can achieve in oposition, Which is as much as they ever do in oposition. Which is sweet bugger all.
I think the reason why a lot of you lot dont understand politics in Britain, is that you are mostly all to young to remember the Tory Party in oposition in the 1970s. They were every bit as marginalised and un able to influence event as they are now. In fact it was even worse then. Nobody had any idear what Thatcher intended to do in power, the BBC was so distracted by counting strikes and talking to trade union leaders, Thatcher seemed to pass the BBC by compleatly. Thatcher got into power because the country was finished and she did not say or do anything to wake the BBC up, in the run up to 1979. Cos if the BBC had seen what was coming, we could have ended up with the likes of Tony Benn and Michael Foot running the show. Whatever it took. Most of us by now would be living in Zimbabwe in search of a more free and prosperous life.
dumbcisco The source of the report of the 22 Hindu villagers killed in Kashmir looks like Agence France Presse. Like AP, Reuters and the BBC, they use the weasel word militant rather than terrorist.
& given that the quotes by senior Indian politicians all use “terrorists”, I wonder whether AFP have taken liberties with the “quotes” of the local police chief, changing his words because they can.
Good point Will; something didn’t add up about that. I would have got a bit more excited about that quote issue if it hadn’t been presented as the words used by the police chief.
Interesting. I suspect that they really do fall over themselves to try and use disarming language: anything to downplay the idea of a war from and on terror. Whether the police chief was speaking English and, if not, could be creatively translated, is an intriguing possibility.
G. Powell. I sympathise with many of your observations, fwiw. Not old enough to remember the 70’s labour govt (just), I nevertheless got an earful of it from my parents as they dwelt on the prospects from Kinnock et al in the 80’s.