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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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sorry. TPO….scrambled sentence should read:
in detailed terms about the scandalous way Oil Company B (Company A’s main competitor} had behaved in breaking international sanctions against a certain African country.
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TPO | 06.11.06 – 3:24 pm
Your niggling feeling is wrong.
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John Reith:
I take the point about your desire for anonymity. If this is a real problem for you I wouldn’t object to someone standing in your place. All you would need to do to earn £1,000 for charity is obtain the attendance of two nationally-known senior BBC reporters to take part in a demonstration of the evidence of The Guardian’s perversion of the Downey Inquiry. Say, one from Panorama and another from the Political Unit at 4 Millbank will do nicely, thank you. If you can get Nick Robinson I’ll find another £100 from somewhere.
Here’s the link to the Accuracy in Media piece about Liz Forgan, Michael Grade, and John Willis:
http://www.aim.org/aim_report/A4723_0_4_0_C/
It concerns The Guardian’s campaign during 1990 to defeat the adoption of a precisely-worded clause into the 1990 Broadcasting Bill strengthening broadcasters’ legal duty to report political controversies with “due impartiality” (i.e. the law the BBC has flouted for the last nine years with respect to the N.H. CFQ affair).
This campaign was instigated and driven by Channel Four’s then Director of Programmes Liz Forgan, and then led from the front by Forgan’s boss, C4’s then chief executive Michael Grade, with the eventual voiced support of C4’s then controller of factual programmes John Willis.
The campaign was kicked off and orchestrated by The Guardian. Every time Forgan and Grade opened their mouths to voice opposition to the proposed legislation, The Guardian reported it. The Guardian also corralled opposition from elsewhere, with heavyweight op-ed pieces by academics and journalists like John Pilger. A platform was given to the issue at the 1990 Guardian Edinburgh TV Festival. And all the time it was Forgan and Grade that did the running.
However, what The Guardian and Liz Forgan kept strictly to themselves, was the fact that throughout the time she voiced her seeming self-motivated independent opposition to the new law, and throughout the time The Guardian championed her seeming independent opposition to the new law, Liz Forgan was also a (presumably highly paid) member of the Guardian’s board, the Scott Trust, on which The Guardian’s then editor Peter Preston and senior political columnist Hugo Young also sat (by her side?).
Not once, repeat, not once did the Guardian or Liz Forgan disclose her dual role as a member of the Guardian’s board. Their silence over an entire year’s articles could not have been accidental.
The irresistible inference one is invited to draw from the facts set out in the piece is that Forgan had mounted her opposition to the law in secret collusion with Preston and Young. In other words, the whole campaign was dreamt up by The Guardian in secret to prevent the law from being adopted.
Now then, though the unarguable facts leave the reader in no doubt whatsoever that Forgan’s and The Guardian’s silence about her seat on The Guardian’s board must have been deliberate and a function of a clandestine scheme to torpedo the proposed legislation, I don’t accuse her of corruption. Frankly, there’s no need to.
TPO was merely voicing a commonsense conclusion.
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BBC considers local papers link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6121838.stm
Wait a minute. Before local newspapers get hooked onto the teat of state subsidy, could licence fee payers be consulted please?
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J B-H and TPO
Re: finding J B-H an audience.
I will get onto it when I get back from my travels. (contrary to speculation here, I haven’t been near the BBC – let alone an army of imaginary researchers – for some time. And I probably won’t be back in the meejah village ’til December.)
Re: Forgan
As I understand it, the Scott Trust is a charity. I don’t think trustees are allowed to be paid for just being trustees. And their status is a matter of public record. As I say, I’m not sure – but you better check it ‘cos that last comment might be defamatory.
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It is with great pleasure that Newsnight will tonight cover
And Neo-Cons have been starting to recant over the whole Iraq
campaign in Vanity Fair.
Vanity Fair has not yet published the report as it obtained the interviews with the evil neo-cons on the understanding that they would not be published until after the US elections.
But slippery Vanity Fair has published a preview taster indicating that Frum & Perle & co all now criticise Bush.
So Newsnight rushes in. But Frum states
“My most fundamental views on the war in Iraq remain as they were in 2003: The war was right, victory is essential, and defeat would be calamitous.
And that to my knowledge is the view of everybody quoted in the release and the piece: Adelman, Cohen, Ledeen, Perle, Pletka, Rubin, and all the others. ”
Vanity Fair then set my words in its own context in its press release. They added words outside the quote marks to change the plain meaning of quotations.< http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-frum/vanity-fairs-inve_b_33251.html
If the Vanity Fair preview does prove to be unrepresentative of the views of these folk what will we hear from Newsnight?
Whistling wind & tumbling tumbleweed.
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The end of the American dream?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/busin…ess/ 5303590.stm
I can attest that the ‘American Dream’ has been ‘ending’ in the wistful minds of the Liberal Left since the ’70s at least.
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I say good for the kiddies! I hate health food too. How about their *parents* deciding what the kids should eat? or is that too radical??
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John Reith:
For the first time in a long time I’m prepared to accept that you posted your last contribution in good faith.
That being the case, I inform you in good faith that you’re mistaken on a couple of points.
First, the Scott Trust is not a charity. It is an entity that has a certain special tax status about which I’m unclear but it is most certainly not a charity. There’s no record of it at The Charity Commission in Liverpool. I’ve been there and checked their records.
Secondly, whilst the members of the Scott Trust have been published in recent years (for which, if you forgive my vanity, I take some small credit after exposing its secrecy) that was most certainly not the case in 1990.
If you doubt me visit your local library and access the CD of The Guardian from 1990. A search of the word “Forgan” produces 17 results. A search for the phrase “Scott Trust” produces 2 results. A search for the word “Forgan” combined with the phrase “Scott Trust” produces no results.
And yet it was during 1990 that Scott Trust member Liz Forgan instigated and led the Guardian-orchestrated opposition to the strengthening of the “due impartiality” law.
Go figure.
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The wife is home and looking after my little bundle of joy so I’m back again.
This is what the BBC are reporting:
Tory suspended over racist e-mail
Note they haven’t bothered to with their usual quotation marks to make it:
Tory suspended over ‘racist’ e-mail
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6121646.stm
Apparently some lib dim tosser takes exception to a sign on the white cliffs of Dover which reads ‘piss off we’re full’. A sentiment I heartily concur with. Am I a racist. No
However the BBC is still failing to report the biggest story in British politics today, the fact that a Tony-Crony who goes by the name of Lord Goldsmith is going to involve himself in any decision to prosecute Blair for the cash for peerages corruption scandal.
I have to point out that Goldsmith has been instrumental in conducting a witch-hunt against British service personnel in Iraq.
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John Reith:
TPO | 06.11.06 – 3:24 pm
Your niggling feeling is wrong.
John Reith | 06.11.06 – 4:17 pm | #
How wrong jr?
On the oil issue and the sanctions busting, surely your anecdote strengthens my point.
I will say that the biggest sanctions busters against Rhodesia was the Soviet Union.
I was once working in The Oman in 1970 when an RN Frigate called into Muscat on R & R from the Beira patrol.
Over a few drinks, the full story of how ineffectual the whole charade was came out.
Whilst I was in the RAF in the 60s I was also aware of the of the near mutiny by British service personnel in Zambia (never reported by the BBC).
They refused (quite rightly) to fire on their own, men and women who had volunteered to fight for this country in WWII. The verminous Wilson regime (which included many politicians in the pay of the KGB) had to back down.
Interestingly, when the RAF patrols took off from Lusaka they would have to contact Salisbury ATC (now Harare) to declare their flight intentions.
Some older contributors here may recall that the party of twits, the young libs, (Lib Dims) voted at an annual conference to bomb Rhodesia.
That presumably would be Jenny Tonge and her ilk. Remember she’s the one who wanted to bomb the Taliban with food parcels.
Sorry – rant over – I just despair for what used be a country that I was proud to be a citizen of.
JBH will get back to you soon on the link you provided me with.
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Pete-London
Sorry meant to say thanks for the link to Guido. must dash now – my turn (as always) to cook.
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Mr John Reith wrote;
“So what’s your beef? ”
Exposing the lie that is the BBC by posting the facts that they somehow refuse to print.
An added bonus is getting under your skin.
Allah ackba BBC clone.
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Well JR, I suggest your arguement stinks as ever. Just look at the article again.
A Muslim convert planned to detonate a dirty bomb and launch an attack on London’s Tube, a court has been told.
Former Hindu Dhiren Barot, 34, from London, plotted “massive explosions” in the US and UK and synchronised attacks.
Couldn’t wait to insert the Hindu connection could they, second paragraph, must have been the editor having a moan about the first draft. Quite weird you got so excited about this earlier, perhaps you are just a silly twerp after all.
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The BBC and half a story;
Closing speeches in Kriss trial
Schoolboy Kriss Donald suffered a “lonely, frightened death”, a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh has heard. Norman Ritchie QC, the last of the lawyers for the three accused to give his closing speech, said Zeeshan Shahid was not involved in the crime. Shahid, 28, his brother, Imran Shahid, 29, and Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq, 27, deny the murder of 15-year-old Kriss in Glasgow in March 2004.
The judge Lord Uist will complete his closing speech on Tuesday. Jurors are then expected to retire to consider their verdict. The charge against the three men alleges Kriss was abducted on 15 March, 2004, from Pollokshields, stabbed and set on fire.
Mr Ritchie said: “Kriss Donald was abducted in a public street in front of members of the public. “He was forced into a vehicle and taken away in that vehicle and he was later found stabbed repeatedly. “He must have died a lonely, frightened death.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6121784.stm
So the BBC opens with sympathy from one of the lawyers defending this RACIST HATE CRIME Then makes out that his client is in fact innocent.
(Yeah right and the Popes a duck, quack,quack)
And here’s how the Scotsman reports the case;
Kriss trial witness ‘got away with murder’
A KEY prosecution witness in the Kriss Donald case lied to save his own skin and got away with murder, a court was told yesterday. In their closing speeches to the jury, defence lawyers rounded on Zahid “Ziggy” Mohammed, 22, and said he should be serving a life sentence instead of being a free man.
http://news.scotsman.com/glasgow.cfm?id=1633192006
Oh silly me the BBC did report my last;
” Mr Ritchie said: “He’s a man who is incapable of telling the truth.”
What really galls me about the coverage on the horrific murder of a child by a bunch of racist bigots by the BBC is the fact that they have gone out of their way in which to hide (by deceit) that this murder was a “RACIST HATE CRIME”
Why I can look on the BBC web pages and find plenty of examples of racist hate crimes, but strangely enough every one concerns white people berating non whites. Nick Griffin (an odious thing if ever walked the earth) is rightly exposed as a racist.
The BBC is currently covering the story of an E-mail from Ellenor Bland as racism.
Yet none of the above abducted a child, threw him in the boot of a stolen car. Drove him around locked in the boot. Took him out, beat him Stabbed him numerous times as he was held down, then afterwards these 4 men poured petrol over this child of 15 and set fire to him. His crime? He was white. Yet the BBC refuses to class this as a RACIST HATE CRIME Look at the BBC link above not one reference to race is made. But as much as look funny Hijab wearing woman and you are a bloody racist.And the BBC wonders why people are starting to question their so called impartiality.
Any BBC Editors wish to explain to little old pounce why they have steadfastly refused to use the ‘R’ word in this story. I know you look in or are going to remain silent on this one?
The BBC and half a story.
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theguardian links to the offending “Tory racisr e-mail” & very kindly leaves all e-mail addresses available to be read by anyone.
Click to access 1106poem.pdf
Like Griffin & co those deemed racist (in this case merely being the recipient of an e-mail) must have no protection, must be exposed.
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Am I here all alone?
Chief Foreign Commentator of The Times points out one of the downsides that the BBC will have to accept if it gets its wish to see Democrats gain & Bush “humiliated”, “humbled” (or whatever term they are preparing).
IF THE Democrats win back the House of Representatives today, that is the end of the enthusiasm in the US for free-trade deals — to its own cost, to that of developing countries and, most certainly, to Europe.
Not that enthusiasm has been high. The Administration, to its credit, has been keen on free trade, but has pushed it with failing energy at an unwilling and distracted Congress.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-2440737,00.html
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Hi Will
7th November 2006: The biggest political scandal in Britain for decades.
Pressure on Goldsmith to step aside
By Graeme Wilson and George Jones
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 07/11/2006
Lord Goldsmith was under growing pressure to stand aside from the cash-for-peerages investigation last night after the head of the Metropolitan Police confirmed that he had distanced himself from the inquiry.
The Attorney General • a close ally of Tony Blair’s • has robustly defended his “constitutional responsibility” to decide whether the Prime Minister or his inner circle are prosecuted over allegations that Labour traded peerages in return for multi-million pound loans.
But his stance was undermined last night after Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, confirmed that he had decided it would not be appropriate for him to be involved in the inquiry because of his close links to Number 10.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/07/npolitics07.xml
‘Someone is guilty • and it ain’t Her Maj!’
By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN Last updated at 23:18pm on 6th November 2006
It’s difficult to find a senior legal figure who isn’t bought and paid for. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is a Labour stooge. Even though he insists he will not step aside, no one believes he is impartial.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=414948&in_page_id=1787
WHAT IS THE BBC’S TAKE ON THIS?
Bugger all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=goldsmith+%2B+%22cash+for+peerages%22&scope=all&edition=d&tab=all&recipe=all&x=60&y=13
What are they still puffing up:
A Tory town councillor suspended for an alleged ‘racist’ email. No its not, it’s funny.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6121646.stm
Obviously they’re getting phone calls from Jowell to ignore the Goldsmith story.
Is the BBC corrupt? You bet it is.
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RE the Kriss Donald trial and the BBC.
I will say that, and almost as a repost to those who can see the wood for the trees, the BBC did have a small piece on five live specificly calling it a racist murder (or an alledged racist murder, I was busy at the time) on Simon Mayos program.
A small piece perhaps 10 minutes in length which did bring up the shock that the police and others find in racist crimes beeing comitted to white people and how journalists can find it difficult to wrap their heads around the concept.
I can’t say what conclusions where drawn but it all felt a bit tokenistic as the parents seem to have been complaining about the imbalence of reporting as well as those on BBBC …
That was the last I heard of the trial on radio 5 by the way.
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.
I decided to visit the infamous “torture center” to see for myself.
A Trip to Guantanamo
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25332
.
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Sorry JR – did you say the BBC had called him a terrorist?
Ritter | 06.11.06 – 2:19 pm
The BBC called Barot a terrorist (and not in quotes) on the BBC 1 10 O’Clock News and so did Paxo in his intro on Newsnight.
Mmm… no mention of that here. It would appear that the often brandished ‘fact’ that the BBC never calls a terrorist a terrorist is only a ‘fact’ on this blog.
Interesting to note that when real-life refutes your bogus claims, the entire B-BBC chorus suddenly turns mute.
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.
What a Surprise
“Muslim PC taken off Blair guard duties claims discrimination”
Muslim policeman is claiming religious discrimination after being removed from guarding Tony Blair because of fears he has links to extremists.
PC Amjad Farooq was dropped from an elite firearms unit after it emerged his children had attended a Mosque associated with an Islamic preacher linked to a suspected terrorist group.
More.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=414971&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5
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Roxana
I say good for the kiddies! I hate health food too. How about their *parents* deciding what the kids should eat? or is that too radical??
Well, no, it’s not too radical, it’s too traditional and conservative. It’s too British and therefore the government must erode parenthood. Am I right in thinking you’re American? If not then apologies for telling you what you already know. But anyway, Roy Hattersley. Hattersley was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party throughout the 1980s. He was often seen as a figure of fun and was lampooned often, most often by a TV show called Spitting Image.
This is the real Roy Hattersley:
http://www.kdwebserver.co.uk/~celeb/prod_pictures/roy%20hattersley.jpg
This is the Spitting Image Roy Hattersley:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/gallery/2005/03/23/Roy-Hattersley.jpg
http://www.sheffieldwednesday.com/pictures/splattersley.jpg
I mention him because as much as he was a figure of fun he also did his damned best to keep the left wing flame alive for decades. You don’t become Deputy Leader of the Labout Party without being a believer and spreading the creed. He’s now retired from front line politics but he’s still a Labour figure and he writes many newspaper articles. One is here, from 2004:
Children do not belong to their parents
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1361615,00.html
Just have a look at that headline again. That is what the left believes – that children do not belong to their parents. That’s not ideology, that’s evil, pure and simple.
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Barker John | 06.11.06 – 8:27 pm
No need to be rude.
If you start a story “Muslim convert….” then common sense requires you to get on pretty quickly with supplying the information to the question soon forming in the reader’s mind: ‘convert from what?’….this is particularly the case if the name is not one the average person will recognize as being associated with a particular religion.
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The lesser spotted Goldsmith has now surfaced.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to be quick, the story ……
PM refuses comment over peerages
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6120494.stm
….. is buried on the politics page, on the sidebar to the right.
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….. is buried on the politics page, on the sidebar to the right.
Pete_London | 07.11.06 – 9:53 am
….so buried that it was the subject of a long illustrated 2-way between Paxo and Martha Kearney on Newsnight.
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Anyone hear ‘thought for the day’ this morning. A bishop using his time to question the wisdom of iraq and then played the anti-american, anti-bush card.
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An article highlighting the plight of the “Palestinians” has all the standard characteristics of BBC propaganda.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6122138.stm
[b]Palestinians gripped by fear in Gaza[/b]
..
It has been under the very tight control of a large force of tanks and troops who have ordered the tens of thousands of local people to stay off the streets for all but very brief periods.
A senior United Nations official, John Ging, has described the atmosphere in Beit Hanoun as one of “death, destruction and despair”.
[b]People are living in constant fear.[/b]
…
The groups that launch the missiles have a Jihadi-type agenda, and they dream of Israel’s eventual destruction.
But they often say that their rocket attacks are simply retaliation for daily Israeli raids and killings in Gaza, and over in the occupied West Bank.
And Mahmoud sympathised with that view.
“If someone attacks you, wouldn’t you attack them?” he asked.
[b]And all Palestinians would argue that Israel grossly over-reacts to the missile attacks from Gaza.
The crudely made rockets often cause panic and minor injury, but they very rarely kill.[/b]
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….so buried that it was the subject of a long illustrated 2-way between Paxo and Martha Kearney on Newsnight.
Great, so the BBC puts two of its own talking heads onto the case. I’m sure they subjected themselves to a grilling.
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Like John Simpson, who this week leapt to the defence of BBC “impartiality”, I began my near 40-year broadcast career in BBC TV news. It was impartial then; it certainly isn’t now.
i suppose this guys just delusional
as well.
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/11/bbc-news-pc-stalinism-urban-bias.html#links
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A “Human Rights Watch” report the BBC won’t be telling us about:
Palestinian women often abused
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John Reith:
Sorry JR – did you say the BBC had called him a terrorist?
Ritter | 06.11.06 – 2:19 pm
The BBC called Barot a terrorist (and not in quotes) on the BBC 1 10 O’Clock News and so did Paxo in his intro on Newsnight.
Mmm… no mention of that here. Reith | 07.11.06 – 9:35 am | #
JR – I almost spat out my tea watching News Twenty-Bore last night – they did indeed call him a Terrorist. Good.
Sadly the Beeb suffers from its PC-multi-culti schizophrenia leading to a complete lack of consistency across it’s output. Today on the BBC News website they are calling him a ‘Bomb Plotter’.
Bomb plotter faces life sentence
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6123236.stm
I guess the BBC cenor software that runs every night to ‘tidy up’ articles at the BBC is working well. The program is simple, if it finds a ‘banned word’, for example ‘terrorist’, it replaces it with a suitable liberal/PC approved (doubleplusgood) alternative word eg ‘Man’, ‘Plotter’, ‘Asian’, or ‘Plumber’.
Scare quotes are also being used as if there is doubt or the statement is still an allegation made by the prosection and denied by the defence eg
“Dhiren Barot, 34, a former Hindu from London, plotted “massive explosions” in the US and UK, aiming to kill hundreds.
Why the scare quotes here? There is no doubt Barot plotted massive explosions and he has admitted his plans and has been convicted in a UK court.
Oh, and on the BBC News Twenty-Bore 8Oclock news last night, I did a time check when the Kriss Donald story appeared – you know what time it was? 8.28 Thats 28 mins into what is pretty much a half hour of main news. Given the shocking nature of this racist hate crime, why did it appear as the penultimate item on the news bulletin?
It says to me the BBC are ‘institutionally racist’ when it comes to non-white on white crime.
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Well, it’s a start I suppose…..
BBC strike targets state opening
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6122518.stm
The biggest Christmas present BECTU could give us this Christmas is a complete BBC blackout.
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Tim almond:
Anyone hear ‘thought for the day’ this morning. A bishop using his time to question the wisdom of iraq and then played the anti-american, anti-bush card.
Tim almond | Homepage | 07.11.06 – 9:58 am | #
Yup, heard it – it was kind of ‘Anti-American Thought for the Day’ really wasn’t it?
Here it is if anyone wants to listen:
Anti-US Rant for the Day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_tftd_20061107.ram
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So the Prime Minister of The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland is wholly immersed in a corruption scandal involving the funding of his political party by wealthy businessmen who seek positions as peers in the upper chamber of our legislature, and the man who will oversee any prosecutions, the Attorney General, is his pal.
The role of the Attorney General:
The Attorney General, assisted by the Solicitor General, is the chief legal adviser to the Government. The Attorney General has overall responsibility for the Treasury Solicitors’ Department, superintends the Director of Public Prosecution as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland. The Law Officers answer for these Departments in Parliament. The Attorney General has public interest functions in which his responsibility is as guardian of the public interest.
NOTE: ‘his responsibility is as guardian of the public interest’
There is a flagrant conflict of interest here.
There is nothing of this on the BBC website. I have heard nothing on BBC radio about this, nor have I seen anything on BBC TV news. That is not to say that there hasn’t been. The point is that it is not being given the attention that such a situation demands.
For jr to say …’so buried that it was the subject of a long illustrated 2-way between Paxo and Martha Kearney on Newsnigh.’ is risible.
The BBC’s offering is to give us a self confessed socialist, employed by the BBC, talking to another BBC employee, who is still in the closet about her socialism, on the graveyard news programme about a corruption issue surrounding the Prime Minister of this country who is a socialist. Is that it?
Now we have to consider the licensing implications for the BBC, bearing in mind that any increase in license fees will be determined by a political crony of the Prime Minister, one Tessa Jowell, whose husband is himself immersed in corruption with Silvio Berluscone, and who gets an amazingly easy ride from the BBC.
Now, had anything even remotely resembling this coming to light in the US, we would have had wall to wall collective masturbation from the BBC.
What does the BBC dish up instead, the emails of Mrs Grimsdale from Chippings-on-the-Road, a local council member of the party in opposition.
Brillo …….. That’s impartiality for you.
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Mr John Reith wrote;
Barker John | 06.11.06 – 8:27 pm
No need to be rude.
I’m a little surprised Mr John Reith how you of all people can berate anybody for throwing abuse on this forum. A bit rich or what?
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Can the R4 Today programme get done under the Trades Descriptions Act? This piece was billed as:
“The business news with Greg Wood.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today5_business_20061107.ram
As with much so-called ‘business news’ on the Today programme, the word ‘business’ is applied in the sort of eco-warrior/Chris Martin (he of Coldplay) ‘capitalists are pigs’ kind of way.
Todays anti-business rant was against a power company, N-Power who have published some fairly standard advice about keeping warm in winter eg ‘wrap up well’.
http://www.npower.com/health_through_warmth/index.html
This is of course an excuse for a not so thinly veiled attack on a profit making company for not giving away it’s products for free.
The BBC just can’t see the irony. They berate ‘big business’ for making profits in a market full of competition where customers have many choices of where to buy their energy, with the position of the BBC, who have by law the right to enforce payment of a fee for their services on every household in Britain, whether one chooses to use BBC services or not.
Bring back Randall!
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“I don’t think trustees are allowed to be paid for just being trustees.”
AFAIK regarding pension trusts I’m sure that’s not true.
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Those Beastly Jews – part 5881
Jerusalem’s gay march to go ahead
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6119512.stm
This one doesn’t appear to have been updated since Sunday, and I doubt it will be:
The Israeli attorney-general has given the go-ahead for a gay pride parade in Jerusalem planned for next week. Menachem Mazuz said there was no legal justification for banning the march. Mr Mazuz’s comments came after talks with senior police officers who had sought the ban because of concerns about public safety. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have been holding angry protests against the parade and have threatened more violence if it goes ahead.
Only ultra-orthodox Jews? I’ve been hearing that this is one issue which has brought Jews and muslims together:
Jews and Muslims unite against gays
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/index.jhtml
Religious groups in Jerusalem have found common ground in their fierce opposition to a gay rights rally due to be held in the city this week.
That Telegraph link takes you to a different story, so until they correct it that’s all you get. But anyway, what we have are Jews and muslims protesting against a gay march, and the BBC tells us it’s those Jews again.
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jr
just caught this one from a previous thread:
There is an important difference. Melanie Phillips, Charles Clarke, Amanda Plattell – whoever – are invited on the BBC to give their own opinions……effectively to say whatever they like.
James Naughtie, Kirsty Wark, the 5-Live team et al are expressly FORBIDDEN to do that.
They have to operate within strict editorial guidelines. They have a duty to be impartial.
John Reith | 03.11.06 – 1:03 pm | #
Priceless.
Naughtie to fellow socialist “When we win the election ….”
That impartiality for you.
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TPO | 07.11.06 – 11:16 am
‘is that it?’
No. Blair dodging the question was on the ten o’clock news.
PM’s press conferences are usually covered live by News 24. I didn’t see it, but it probably was.
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TPO
The fact that you keep coming back to one slip by Naughtie in heaven knows how many outings (a slip, by the way, he’s never been allowed to forget) shows how well the system works 99.99999% of the time.
re: ‘how wrong?’ – totally wrong in all particulars.
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Tim Almond, Ritter
Thought for Today
And did you notice the equivalence angle used by Bishop Butler?
Paraphrased:
“Bush, Blair and Saddam will all be gone from the political scene in two years.”
Said in a way that implies “the ones equally responsible for Iraq”.
Still, it makes a change from Tom “how could the Israelis do that?” Bell of the Iona “that’s 10 copies of the Independent please when you next cross to the mainland, and no Telegraphs” Community.
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‘is that it?’
‘No. Blair dodging the question was on the ten o’clock news.’
What about the Attorney General.
‘The fact that you keep coming back to one slip by Naughtie (a slip, by the way, he’s never been allowed to forget)’
I think this is the first time I personally have raised it on this site. But either way, quite right too. He should never be allowed to forget it. People in other walks of life who make mistakes often get fired.
‘re: ‘how wrong?’ – totally wrong in all particulars.’
I’m ‘retired’ what’s your excuse for loitering around this site all day long?
Must dash now other duties are calling.
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JR
Naughtie this morning referred to “One of the Right’s Ideologues” referring to a political analyst in a discussion about the US elections. You _never_ hear him refer to “The Left’s Ideologues”.
Note that the definition of “ideologue” is also rather derogatory.
Main Entry: ideo·logue
1 : an impractical idealist
2 : an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology
Worse, he concludes that much of tomorrow’s Today programme will be focussed on the US elections. More evidence, were it to be needed, of the rather different focus about what people in the UK think is important than what some editors and journalists at the Today programme think is important in a leading UK current affairs programme.
So I wouldn’t say 99.999999% OK.
I’d say you need to listen a bit more.
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‘Enemies of the internet’ named
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6124420.stm
Strange that the BBC reporter here fails to point out the rather obvious connection between all these countries who appear in the top 10 ‘enemies of the internet’:
Belarus
Burma
China
Cuba
Egypt
Iran
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Can you guess? ALL these countries are either communist dictatorships, socialist or islamic states. SO the left is the enemy of freedom. I knew that all along, and I’m not surprised that the Beeboid who wrote this doesn’t see what is staring him/her in the face.
(I’m still surprised that this ‘human rights group’ didn’t find a way to put the USA at the top of the list. Still, it didn’t stop the BBC reporter mentioning a US company in the piece, Yahoo!)
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BBC reporting
Jurors considering Kriss verdict
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6123014.stm
Sky reporting
Jury out in race-hate trial
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13550736,00.html
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TPO
an interesting distinction.
assuming that most people have not heard of the Kriss case or do not specifically connect it with the tiltle of the case, the BBC does us a disservice and seeks to mask the nature of the crimes involved.
Had the victim been non white I am quite sure that the BBC would have used the Sky Headline as they do here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6105946.stm
and here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/5412558.stm
and here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/4161202.stm
Race Hate at the BBC – A one way street.
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Media election bias?
Telegraph article today concerning the mid-term elections.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/tobyharnden/nov06/bias.htm
Under it in the comments section is this:
‘BBC and US politics
The BBC didn’t publish my e-mail in which I suggested that, if a farmer in Iowa standing in his cornfield was killed by a meteorite, the BBC correspondents would somehow find a way of blaming Bush.
Robert Hirst at 07 Nov 2006 10:21 ‘
Then this:
‘BBC and US politics
That’s a ‘no brainer’, of course it would have been Bush’s fault – the Democrats would have ensured that the farmer was on welfare and sleeping in his armchair and not standing in a field. Please give the BBC a hard one to pin on Bush.
Harley Hall at 07 Nov 2006 12:13 ‘
Then this:
‘BBC Propaganda
I knew it must be election time in the USA when I heard a ten minute eulogy on the rising black presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Clinton’s ex vice-president, Al Gore, on the BBC yesterday morning. I am surprised that they have left it so late. Normally there is a two month period of intensive denigration of the opposition but as they have been doing that for three years now they probably thought it wasn’t necessary.
Ped at 07 Nov 2006 12:34 ‘
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Are we expected to read this with a wry smile?
But Mr Ortega says his revolutionary days are behind him – and his main priority is to secure foreign investment to help to ease widespread poverty.
Mr Ortega has been endorsed by left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6117704.stm
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