Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest
Bookmark the permalink.
John Reith:
Further to my previous post, you could start by asking the staff of the BBC Programme The Conspiracy Files.
I mean, they could investigate the evidence and prove me to be a reckless conspiracy theorist IN ADDITION to earning £1,000 for charity. Surely, as I’m a critic of the BBC, this would be an attractive proposition.
So go on John, give the production staff a call.
I mean, it’s not as if the Hamilton affair wasn’t a major story. On last night’s Conspiracy Files doc on the death of Princess Diana, the narrator described how Mohamed Fayed had “helped bring down the last Conservative government” by “revealing” (not “alleging, note) how he had bribed Neil Hamilton to table parliamentary questions.
.
Government may order BBC to cut more costs
Ministers could force the BBC to make cuts twice as deep as it had expected.
Tony Blair and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell are both understood to support Gordon Brown’s
insistence that the corporation cut its operating costs by three per cent a year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=421774&in_page_id=1770
.
BBC bosses are ditching a Christmas TV trailer after church leaders complained its music was pro-SATANIC.
Auntie is using Christmas With The Devil — a spoof track by mock rockers Spinal Tap — in a 30-second clip focusing on villains and baddies in its festive dramas.
The tongue-in-cheek lyrics include: “The elves are dressed in leather and the angels are in chains” and “There’s someone up the chimney hole and Satan is his name.”
The BBC said it chose the song in honour of baddies including the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Evil Santas in Doctor Who. A spokesman said: “It’s meant to be fun.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2006570246,00.html
Touchy “church leaders” perhaps, but we still await having some fun looking at the Mo cartoons, or indeed any funny side of the many hilarious Islamic traditions.
From House of Dumb:
“The BBC at it’s finest. Haji facts:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6164337.stm
The Hajj is a ritual designed to show that everyone is equal.
A-huh.
Mecca is so holy that no non-Muslim is allowed to enter.
It’s official: they’ve now stopped even trying to make sense.”
Any comment, JR?
Sorry John, your answer just won’t do.
Your inability to find anyone from the thousands of the BBC’s news and current affairs staff who would be willing to spend a day doing nothing except listening and watching a demo of evidence which two freelance journalists claim proves that The Guardian perverted one of this country’s biggest parliamentary inquiries of all time, even to the point that they would turn down the opportunity to earn £1,000 for charity, happens to be the defining proof that the BBC is as inherently biased and corrupt as the founders and contributors to this blog contend.
The BBC and half the story
Karabakh voters back sovereignty
The people of Nagorno-Karabakh have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a constitution declaring a sovereign state, election officials have said. A preliminary count showed more than 98% of those voting in the disputed former Soviet territory backed the declaration, officials announced.
The people are mainly ethnic-Armenian and want independence from Azerbaijan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6166497.stm
So I wonder why the people of Nagorno-Karabakh wish to break away from Azerbaijan (which totally surrounds it) could it have something to do with the fact that the people there are all Christians and that the people of Azerbaijan are Muslims.
I wonder why the BBC forgot to mention that salient snippet.
Oh they inserted this;
“The Azeri government insists it must not be allowed to break away.
It said the referendum was illegal, and could damage the peace process.”
I wonder why it didn’t report on Bosnia, Kosovo and southern Thailand in the same frame of mind. I mean in those locations the minority populations who form the majority are right to cede from empire and country. So why not the same when the people wishing to leave Empire behind happen to be Christians? I mean the BBC even managed to leave out that because of Armenian support for NK the borders of turkey and Azerbaijan are completely closed to Armenia.. All movement must go through either Georgia or Iran. (And we all know how fickle Iran is)
The BBC and half a story.
America’s National Public Radio (almost as reliably left wing as the BBC, but they slip occasionally) interviewed an American businessman in Chile this morning, who said police had turned water cannons on crowds in the street because they were pretty evenly divided between supporters of Pinochet and protestors. They were afraid the two would clash, so they just cleared everyone out.
Switched over to ABC radio who had the BBC correspondant on the phone describing it as “clashes between the police and protestors.” Our radio often turns to the BBC for foreign reportage, incidentally.
Off topic, but of interest anyway. Now we understand. We understand why the middle east is a filthy hellhole without a decent plumbing system from the Atlas Mountains to the Hindu Kush.
Harry’s Place has published a short n sweet interview by Pierre Heumann of the Swiss newspaper Die Weltwoche with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief, Ahmed Sheikh, in which he spills the beans.
In short, the Arab male is hurt that a few million Jews regularly kick their arses. Boo hoo.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/12/11/middle_east_politics_redux.php
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 11.12.06 – 12:41 pm
…..er no it doesn’t. Since I’ve only so far asked one person….and he was tempted…it proves absolutely nothing.
I’m beginning to think you’d be keener on making a propaganda point than getting anyone to examine your stuff anyway.
“Further to my previous post, you could start by asking the staff of the BBC Programme The Conspiracy Files.”
Episode 1 – Royal family killed Princess Di.
Episode 2 – Russians/Jews/CIA committed 9/11.
Episode 3 – No-mark British MP didn’t get a few quid in a brown envelope.
Episode 4 (presumably) – Moon landings faked in TV studio etc etc etc.
Spot the odd one out?
Why people leave Great Britain, according to the BBC:
Clearly people don’t go somewhere unless they have a really good reason for wanting to go. Of all the people the BBC has spoken to, most say that they seizing opportunities that may never have come their way again. The contrary view is that people go because they think that the UK has gone to the dogs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5239054.stm
“Seizing opportunities that may never come their way again”?! Who on earth are they interviewing? Seizing the opportunity to get the hell out while they can, I should imagine. As someone said to me recently, if you’re gonna feel like a foreigner, you may as well feel like a foreigner in a foreign country rather that your own.
you still here Pete? don’t you get many entry points for being a professional fox hunter and complainer in that vastly sucessful Libertarian utopia of er…er…not much tax and law in Liberia maybe??
The BBC plays the controversial card when the public picks who they want as sportsman (woman) of the year.
Zara Phillips – A worthy winner?
Zara Phillips claimed a third of the public vote as she won the 2006 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. But as the equestrian star declared she was “amazed” to lift the famous trophy, her victory was already beginning to divide opinion.
Supporters heralded a deserved triumph for a young woman who has worked hard to reach the top of her sport. Opponents slated a success for privilege, and style over substance in a lean year for British sport. Here, we put the arguments for and against awarding the Queen’s granddaughter one of sport’s most coveted prizes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/6168191.stm
I wonder if the BBC would have displayed the same spoilt brat mentality if say a ex British army Lesbian had won the coveted BBC prize?
RB
Yep, I’m still here. I can’t deny that the thought of shipping out does cross my mind often but I’ve already spent plenty of years abroad, and you know what? It’s full of foreigners over there. Bloody loads of’em, nearly as many as in London, in fact.
So what’s keeping a commie loon like yourself in this country? Cuba would have you, you know.
pounce
Re. Zara Phillips. I agree. That’s a typically disrepectful piece by the usual BBC liberal ponces. It’s high time that they learnt a bit of respect and deference for their betters. What it comes down to is the fact that they hate what Zara Phillips embodies, and that’s the very best of English womanhood: honour, courage, duty, respect, a firm determination to prevail and lovely arse.
2006 Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award
The BBC ‘wins’ in two categories:
Worst Use of Props: BBC and Most Improbable Question of the Year: Is the BBC Pro-Israel?
Government may order BBC to cut more costs
Ministers could force the BBC to make cuts twice as deep as it had expected.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=421774&in_page_id=1770
I hope your job goes JR.
Didn’t the Beeb select a shortlist of completely undeserving clowns themselves for their sports ‘personality’ of the year? It’s a bit much to then get all snidey when one of them happens to win it. [deleted] though as Pete said.
Edited By Siteowner
I thought that she won the award because the public voted for her. So of course she’s a worthy winner. The BBC are basically saying “Well the public voted for her but we disagree with the public”. Now that would be unusual, wouldn’t it? Pete_London, Cockney, you are both spot on about her [deleted]
Edited By Siteowner
I was about to write here about the Zara Phillips piece ‘A Worthy Winner’, I’ve just seen on the BBC site but see people have already spotted it.
I can’t remember the BBC running this sort of article for previous winners! The winner is and always has been the one with the MOST votes. What problem has the BBC got with that?
Watching BBC News 24 on Saturday morning the ‘sports correspondent’ was holding a cut out image of Monty Panesar to his face talking about the Ashes, then in the same breath talked about the BBC sports personality of the year and ‘how you wight want to vote for Monty.’!!!!
News for you BBC, he is an okay cricketer, nothing more. Zara Phillips may be a ‘toff’ but you don’t get to where she’s got purely on being a ‘toff’, there’s a fair amount of hard work that goes into it.
The BBC really do make me sick.
OK this is my choice for most biased reporting of the year – so far:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6172230.stm
“…Most new HIV cases in 2005 were infected abroad…Two thirds of all new cases diagnosed last year were in people who contracted HIV in other countries where the virus is more prevalent”
The real problem is that two-thirds of new AIDS cases were immigrants who caught the disease in their home country, then came to the UK with it. Instead of saying this clearly, the article pussy-foots around the issue.
Its a classic elephant in the room case from the BBC.
Allan@Aberdeen, superb.
The Hajj is a ritual designed to show that everyone is equal.
.
Mecca is so holy that no non-Muslim is allowed to enter.
The BBC are so obtuse it’s obscene,
I wouldn’t wait for JR’s answer on that one.
That’s a typically disrepectful piece by the usual BBC liberal ponces. It’s high time that they learnt a bit of respect and deference for their betters.
bollocks to that.
the prime candidates for the award were welsh and irish, and the BBC couldn’t stand it, so Zara made the shortlist. She shouldn’t even have been a contender.
Could we nominate her for “Rear of the Year” as well?
Nice piece of BBC captioning in relation to Iran’s Holocaust Conference:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6167695.stm
Evidently the Iranian President “regularly speaks out against the Holocaust” – what a nice chap he must be!
I’m sure it’ll be gone soon (that caption that is) but it’s up at my blog.
Frank Grimes
That’s what I love about you Celts, you’re such great losers. Now, Joe Public has rightly voted for a prime piece of English tottie. Your Welsh and Irish champions turn out to be a Welsh boxer who’s actually Italian, and a golfer who (let’s be honest) did little sporting-wise but gets the sympathy vote. Well, he did until the News of the World revealed that he’s already knocking off a mother of six.
The only serious candidate apart from Our Zara was the great Theo Walcott.
Mr Frank Grimes wrote;
“the prime candidates for the award were welsh and irish, and the BBC couldn’t stand it, so Zara made the shortlist. She shouldn’t even have been a contender.”
Last I looked the first ‘B’ in the BBC stands for British.Wales,Ireland and Scotland belong to the British Isles. Lastly Miss Zara Philips is the current European and World champion in her field. Only the third person ever to have done so. Credit where credit is due.
in all seriousness it should obviously have been Calzaghe but the Beeb has decided that boxing is a nasty sport and watching showjumping and bowls is far better for our impressionable little souls.
did the horse get a prize?
oh and loving the flow of this thread from Zara Phillip’s [deleted] to holocaust denial and back. Deliciously surreal.
Edited By Siteowner
John Reith | 11.12.06 – 1:45 pm
I hardly think that the term “propaganda point” is valid. Regardless, I would much rather you managed to find a couple of BBC staff to take my £1,000 to donate to a charity of your choice – it is the time of year for such acts of kindness – for spending a day with me going through the evidence of The Guardian’s pervertion of the Downey inquiry, than have you provide me with the continuing opportunity to remind contributors to this blog that you can’t or won’t.
The reason ought to be obvious: having endorsements of our research from two more BBC staff is exactly the sort of thing that will enable me to bring pressure to bear on the BBC to broadcast with appropriate coverage the evidence of the Guardian’s forgeries and lies that my colleague and I unearthed. This is my prime objective. So do keep trying to find someone please.
The BBC and it’s hatred of America.
The BBC and it’s hatred of America.
Indo-US astronaut follows Kalpana’s footsteps
Almost four years after the death of first Indian-American astronaut Kalpana Chawla in the Columbia space shuttle disaster, Nasa has sent another women of Indian origin into space.
——————————–XXXX————————————————————
She has been in constant touch with her Indian roots, and has visited India several times. She loves to eat Indian food, especially samosas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6169111.stm
How f-ing patronising can you get BBC, The girl is American, she was born in America, she grew up in America, she’s done time in the American forces, She’s married to a white American bloke and her mum is also white. Yet because she loves to eat Indian food that means she keeps in constant touch with her Indian roots. Using that analogy every sweaty sock I see on a Saturday night on Sauchiehall St having a ruby is keeping in constant touch with their Indian roots.
Err BBC I know you love to hate the Yanks. But lets be bloody honest here it is a nation built by the cast offs of the rest of the world. You know the people who in Europe, Africa and Asia were looked down upon by the elites of their respective nations. They cast aside religion, bias and bigotry and built a new nation. One which surpasses the old world in everything. And still the liberal elites of the old world look down on them. The last I looked it was America which came to Europes aid in WW1 and WW2. It was America who protected Europe from the Russian bear. It was America who put a man on the moon, who placed the Hubble in Orbit and who gave the world the computer as we know it today. In fact BBC it is America where you make a lot of your Non-UK tax money from and still you despise them.
On that note BBC pray tell the last time any Non •American country gave the world as much as the US has given and still be hated. I mean France is loved and what did they f-ing give us? World War 1 and World War 2. The BBC hating the US as always…
BBC Radio 5, the ‘ Drive’ programme today (Monday).
16.15 — Peter Allen interviews David Cameron about Tory proposals to encourage marriage and/or stable relationships of some sort. Throughout the interview Allen hectors, sneers, condescends, criticises and eventually resorts to simply shouting over David Cameron and rubbishing his proposals.
17.15 — Peter Allen interviews David Milliband about his proposal to introduce a personal ‘carbon allowance’ for everyone in the country. Allen listens attentively throughout, not one interruption, no shouting. Much worse, no questioning of the proposal or its effectiveness. The minister is simply allowed to put his case with no form of cross-examination whatsoever.
Why do I pay for such pathetic cowardly bias reporting?
Oh that’s right, because I’ll go to jail if I don’t.
The programme will be available on “listen again”, probably sometime after 7 p.m.
Worth a listen as an example of just how far the BBC has fallen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/drive.shtml
Bobo wrote;
“Why do I pay for such pathetic cowardly bias reporting? ”
On the One O/clock news the BBC opened with the deaths of those 4 poor ladies in Ipswich. They allowed the female police spokesperson to speak then they gave 5 minutes to some old woman who represented ‘The French consular guard element’ to pour out a load of crap about how it is all the polices fault that those 4 poor women were murdered. Hang on we are talking about some nutter going around murdering women and the BBC finds somebody to blame the police. Talk about bias reporting.
(I suppose if the culprit is a plumber the BBC will go out of its way in which to say that the poor fellow has mental problems and that it is all our fault)
In view of the penalties for treason future mentions of the nether reasons of persons of noble rank will be deleted.
Knights, baronets and similar riff raff may have their nether regions referred to in veiled terms.
The comment by Pete_in_London will be allowed to stand in view of being first with the joke.
The BBC and half a story;
Pakistan deals ‘aiding Taleban’
Peace deals between the Pakistani government and pro-Taleban militants have encouraged a surge in cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, a report says. The policy of “appeasement” had allowed militants to regroup and rearm, said leading global policy think-tank the International Crisis Group.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6169355.stm
And how that report should be have been written;
BBC deals ‘aiding Taleban’
Peace deals between the BBC and pro-Taleban militants have encouraged a surge in cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, a report says. The policy of “sucking-up” had allowed militants to conduct a propaganda campaign in the UK, said leading global policy think-tank the International Crisis Group.
Freudian slip of the day:
Subject: US partially freezes Turkey talks
From: BBC Breaking News Alert
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:42:20 +0000 (GMT)
EU foreign ministers have decided to partially suspend Turkey’s membership talks because of its failure to open its ports to Cyprus.
For more details: http://www.bbcnews.com
…
Subject: EU partially freezes Turkey talks
From: BBC Breaking News Alert
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:47:37 +0000 (GMT)
EU ministers have decided to suspend part of Turkey’s membership talks after its failure to open ports to Cyprus (Note: corrected headline)
For more details: http://www.bbcnews.com
————————————————
Pounce said:
“I suppose if the culprit is a plumber the BBC will go out of its way in which to say that the poor fellow has mental problems and that it is all our fault”
Only if its an immigrant plumber.
bodo writes:
“- Peter Allen interviews David Cameron about Tory proposals to encourage marriage and/or stable relationships of some sort. Throughout the interview Allen hectors, sneers, condescends, criticises and eventually resorts to simply shouting over David Cameron and rubbishing his proposals.”
Indeeed. And Eddie “Silly” Mair gave a similarly histrionic performance over on R4.
Is there something peculiarly offensive to BBC presenters about the suggestion that hetrerosexual married couples make, on average, the most succesful parents?
Or is this deemed disrspectful of Archers script editors, or something?
Perhaps, in his capacity as the corporation’s representative in the real world, Reith could explain to use what is the problem?
Meanwhile the BBC give a flowing report on their mate Kofi Annan the worst UN SecGen ever in which they quickly brush over his involvement in the Oil for Food scandal (which has NOT been fully investigated yet and charges may still follow…) in order to enable them to have another pot shot at the Yanks who pay the vast majority of the funding for the UN in any case and yet somehow all those reporters cannot find out anything about a UN report saying that Iran is currently STIll trying to get their hands on uranium in Somalia via their Taleban like friends there…..and they have been for over a year now.
The BBC – slag off the Yanks at every opportunity and ignore the real evil in the world…this is what we do all the time. Twits.
G Cooper:
Please, please don’t distract Reithy right now. He ought to be spending what spare time he’s got trying to find a couple of BBC staff who would be interested in examining evidence of the world’s biggest story of press corruption and thereby also earn £1,000 for charity.
But Reithy’s problem is pretty intractable, of course, because said enormous story of press corruption happens to implicate the BBC’s unofficial think-tank, The Guardian, and it also exonerates the BBC’s enemy of old, the hated Thatcherite former Tory MP Neil Hamilton.
So be kind and cut John Reith a bit of slack will you? Please? I await his response eagerly.
Re: the David Cameron families proposals.
I heard an interview with some tory prat on “PM” on Radio 4.
The interview was fair and good. The interviewer pointed out that the new definition of “family” seems to include anybody at all – couples married or not married, with or without children, widows, widowers, single people, monks, nuns, dead people, animals, inanimate objects – you name it.
Jack Hughes writes:
”
I heard an interview with some tory prat on “PM” on Radio 4.”
A sentence which perfectly explains the opinions that follow it.
Newsnight on Iran’s Holocaust Conference (from their e-mail preview)
In the face of international condemnation, President Ahmedenijad has
hosted a conference in Tehran entitled “Review of the Holocaust”.
We’ve been speaking to some of the delegates who include the former
Republican congressman and one time Grand Master of the KKK David Duke.
In Washington? No, he was a congressman in the Louisiana state government.
(Willful misrepresentation by Newsnight?)
& all Republican’s are closet KKK men? Well see who Duke overcame to win his state seat
In 1989, he ran as a Republican for a seat representing Metairie in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. He defeated fellow Republican John Treen, the brother of David C. Treen, the first Republican to be elected governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction, by a narrow margin of 51-49 percent. Duke’s victory came despite visits to the district in support of John Treen’s candidacy by President George H.W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other GOP notables.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke
… Tory family stuff continued.
The damage was done years ago. Tory policy right now seems to be “agree with BBC values”. This is a tactical policy – they do not want to take on the BBC and the labour party at the same time. So we have all the “hug-a-hoodie” crap and DC’s climate change B.S.
They really are running scared of he BBC. The guy on “PM” tonight seemed scared to say anything – he seemed scared that if he tried to stand for anything at all, the interviewer would have a go at him. He was very limp and flaccid. Who was he ?
Jack Hughes writes:
“He was very limp and flaccid. Who was he ?”
It was the Boy Wonder himself, the man Richard North (rather accurately) calls Camoron.
However, his inane performance aside, when did you last hear Eddie “I’m so smart I’m in love myself” Mair interview a LibDem or ZaNuLabour politician with such sneering condescension?
This site is here to discuss the BBC’s bias, not to dissect party policy (however hopeless) and Mair’s interview was, clearly, an example of the BBC’s metrosexual bias in this area.
As, by the sound of it, was the R5 interview reported by another correspondent.
Struth.
evan davis on beeb 10 o clock news tonight – concluded that for every 200,000 leaving britain, 100,000 are coming back.
its more a question of churn, wealth, and other factors. and i can testify to that – i emigrated back to ireland. didnt like it , and came back.
its world of cheap travel, and internet… i work as a web developer, so during my stint in ireland, i still kept my web development job in england. of course there are underlying factors that the BBC will never mention, but the key aspect to realise is that the internet means that Brits abroad are never out of contact with their families at home – that, i think, is really spurring the emigration idea.
Radio Times
Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday
Several contributors have asked why I don’t advertise my broadcasting appearances in advance. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, because I am such a bad person (on the official measure of these things) that I am debarred – by an unwritten but iron law – from having any regular presenter’s slot, or regular membership of any panel, on any BBC programme. Perhaps if I were a woman, I might get such a slot, because the quota which insists on female panel members on any programme, trumps the other quota which says that liberals must predominate on every programme.
This means that my appearances are irregular, infrequent and often at very short notice. And also that they can be withdrawn at even shorter notice, if the ‘balance’ of the programme shifts in any important way and my presence suddenly conflicts with the complex formula which governs these things. Which leads to the second reason. I regard it as tempting fate to publicise any of these appearances in advance, even if I have more than (as happened recently) 36 hours notice of being on. So, no advance announcements. I should add that, these days, many of these programmes are available later on the web, often for some time afterwards.
But if you really want to alter this, then you must take it up with the BBC, which still (honestly) believes that it is unbiased. If you can find some way of convincing it that it isn’t, let me know.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
gcooper -> agree with what you said there – and Mr North could do with a bit of a reality check.
who came up with the idea of “compassionate conservative”?
why , none other than uber-hawk George W. Bush.
Mr North is getting electioneering mixed up with actual policy.
(much as i love his blog and his writings, which , by and large, are spot on when he talks about the military and the EU)