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Jack Hughes | 19.12.06 – 10:13 am:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/116595993263478419/#322759
You say:
“Very interesting discussion on “Start the Week” yesterday with Andrew Marx.
He was talking with Vanessa Whitburn editor of “The Archers”. This programme has had a lot of flak recently for two bizarre non-rural story lines. …
Andrew Marx asks her: “are you under pressure to be politically correct – do you get a phone call telling you to build a mosque in Ambridge?”
Her reply was very telling – like the Jeff Randall quote: “No its not like that – we just capture the spirit of the times – the zeitgeist – what everyone’s talking about”
That sums up everything that’s wrong at the BBC: they really do think that the whole country is 60 million fellow-Islingtonians sipping wok-fried latte and feeling vibrant.”
I assume you will enjoy the following clippings about the Archers’ PC agenda.
A hilarious letter to the Sunday Telegraph from March 2004:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5895/20040307stelegraphanevewu7.jpg
Plus a searing discourse by Stephen Glover in the Mail from last month:
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/7428/8287yf5.jpg
Enjoy
Thanks for that !
“Abused women offered ‘safe rooms'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6192039.stm
“A new scheme aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence has been unveiled by ministers” says the BBC.
“The “sanctuary scheme” will provide money to create a room in which women can be secure within their own homes and be able to call the police. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly announced £74m to fund the provision of rooms equipped with alarms and CCTV.”
It sounds like a waste of money, wide open to fraud, and probably utterly ineffective. I can see vast sums being unaccounted for, or unspent, resting in a bank account somewhere. I have visions of firemen carrying out the charred bodies of women who have been burned to death inside their safe rooms. And I have visions of minor staff members at some of the littler organisations listed here:
http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/about_members.asp
…using public funds to advance their miniature empires, to advance the cause of certain groups of people, not necessarily their stated target group, at the expense of other groups of people.
But lest you start to wonder about it, two hours later the BBC pops up a puff piece about this latest dubious government:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6193409.stm
“A £74m government plan to provide secure rooms in the homes of domestic violence victims will provide some abused women with much-needed refuge, says a mother who was forced to flee her own home.”
It’s a lengthy interview with this woman, ending with the happy news that she now has a safe room. The only note of caution is sounded right at the end, in a portion of the interview:
“”I think the sanctuary scheme is a good solution for a woman prepared to move away,” (she said) “but I think it could backfire if she remains in the violent home with her partner, as she could become a prisoner in her own home or he could find the keys and lock her in the room.””
This seems to be one of several major flaws with the whole scheme. The merits of otherwise of the scheme do not bother me as much as the process of integrating news and features in order to sell government social policy.
The BBC and not the Nine O/Clock news
Annan recalls Iraq envoy anguish
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said the death of his envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, “hit me almost as much as the loss of my twin sister”At his final news conference he said the loss of his friend and colleague was his worst moment in the job.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/6194755.stm
And how the UN report the same story
In his farewell news conference as the world’s top diplomat, United Secretary-General Kofi Annan today cited the failure to stop the Iraq war as the worst moment of his 10 years in office and made a fervent appeal that the Organization not be judged by the Oil-for-Food scandal but by its myriad humanitarian and development actions.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21042&Cr=annan&Cr1=
and how did the BBC report how Kofi Annan mentioned the invasion of Iraq;
“Mr Annan said other regrets from his time in office included the UN’s inability to prevent the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003, and what he said was the way in which the mismanagement of the Iraq oil-for-food programme was exploited to undermine the UN.
Actually BBC what was said was “Kofi Annan today cited the failure to stop the Iraq war as the worst moment of his 10 years in office” Now I wonder why the BBC had to add “US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003” when he clearly states failure to stop the Iraq war.
In other words BBC in his statement he places just as much blame on Saddam and his brinkmanship attitude (So Middle Eastern) as well as President Bush. But you never get the full picture from the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation.
The BBC and not the Nine O/Clock news
One wonders if Stephen Glover really does listen to The Archers or even live in the countryside.
It is after all a soap opera, so things need to happen. And it isn’t all grim, Ambridge has kept its shop, its village hall and a definate sense of community. Some people are gay, other characters go hunting and some even went on the Countryside Alliance March.
I’ve lived in a village for a long time and its a lot more like That Archers than Mr Glover apparnetly realises… I even know a gay farmer or two…
The BBC describes Ayatollah Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad’s old political rival, as a “moderate” and a “reformer”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6188207.stm
An older profile on the BBC website refers to him as a “pragmatic conservative”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4104532.stm
Matthias Kuntzel’s brilliant essay, ‘Ahmadinejad’s World’, gives us another perspective on this “moderate”.
Rafsanjani on the use of child soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war:
Rafsanjani, the current number two man in Iran, recounted the story of the children soldiers killed in Karbala: “the children pulled on their funeral shrouds, took the swords of their fathers, and they were ready to sacrifice their lives.” And then he ridiculed the commanders of the regular Iranian Army, because the latter wanted to prohibit the families from sending their children to the front. But the children, according to Rafsanjani, did not agree. Rafsanjani asked the public whether, in light of this “adult” attitude, one could really still consider such children as minors.
And here’s what this “reformer” thinks about using nuclear weapons against Israel:
In December 2001, then Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani broached this question. He explained that “the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything”. On the other hand, even in the case of a nuclear response on the part of Israel, it “will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” Rafsanjani thus spelled out the terms of a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It will not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering damage in turn. But for Islam the level of damage that Israel’s nuclear response could inflict is, nonetheless, bearable. Some hundred thousand or so additional martyrs for Islam • the price is not too high to pay.
Read it all here: http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-world
“Nato jets kill several Taliban in Afghanistan”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061219/wl_afp/afghanistanunrestnato_061219070910
But, of course, the Beeb isn’t reporting this. After all, a story with no dead NATO soldiers or Afghan civilians wouldn’t interest the British public, right?
Beeb being strangely quiet about the cop killer that fled UK wearing his sister’s burka as a disguise.
Funny that ain’t it!
“”I think the sanctuary scheme is a good solution for a woman prepared to move away,” (she said) “but I think it could backfire if she remains in the violent home with her partner, as she could become a prisoner in her own home or he could find the keys and lock her in the room.””
A certain group that treats women like chattels springs to mind here. The government will pay and help them to subdue their women even further…. yet another example of someone not thinking it through.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6193141.stm
This obviously “well researched” (quotes copyright BBC) article implies that schools don’t teach kids about personal finances. Funny that: at one school I visited during my training the Royal Bank of Scotland rolled up to give a presentation and spent the day there getting kids to make business plans, how to run current accounts etc and at every other school I’ve been to as well as my own they have finance etc as part of PSE (Personal Social Education) from S3 (14 years old)….
Anyone else catch the News24 interview with the neighbour of the first ‘suspect’ arrested during the Suffolk murder investigations?
‘Did you know him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you see a anything suspicious?’
‘No.’
‘Has there been a lot of police activity?’
‘There was a van round a few weeks ago.’
‘Did you see the police arrive this morning?’
‘No. I was getting my children ready for school.’
And so on, and so on, for about ten minutes. Desperate television.
The reports this morning about the arrests and criminal charges of men (or is that ‘men’) in Oldham for grooming for sex of girls aged 12 and upwards contrasts with the fevered revelations of the descriptions, names and backgrounds of those being questioned, but not arrested and charged, in matters related to the Ipswich murders.
The BBC omitted all mention of names and background of those ‘men’ so we can only use the BBC’s recent form in such cases. I would normally ask the BBC to give us a clue as to the background of these ‘men’, but I think that they’ve already done so.
My village is less like Ambridge and more like Little Britain – no gay weddings because we’ve got just the one gay in the village.
Better late than never. Last night’s BBC 2, Newsnight: had excellent
report, critical of closure of democracy at Iranian universities
by Ahmadinejad.
(Of course, BBC’s female reporter in Tehran wore hijab to fit in with Iran’s intolerant Islamist regime.)
Following on from Natalie’s reference to New York Sun’s recent
critique of BBC on Iran, etc,( see Natalie’s comment of 19 Dec. below),
has the BBC finally seems the light about
the Iranian regime?
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/20122006/325/u-s-forces-say-seize-top-al-qaeda-leader.html
U.S. forces say seize a top al Qaeda leader
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. forces have captured a senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader accused of killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians, including women and children, the U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday.
The military said the “terrorist leader”, whom they did not identify, was captured on December 14 in the northern city of Mosul in a raid which also netted five other suspects.
This very important good news hasn’t yet appeared on the beeb. Until it does appear I’m forced to think that Reuters made it up.
/sarcasm off
And here is today’s Baghdad blog:
Busy day in my manor (Al Mansur) Large Bomb at 0700hrs – nearby, rattled windowws of the villa, not sure of the target.
Baghdad airport is fairly busy with pilgrims heading off to Hajj.
A large bomb targeted Hajj pilgrims a couple of days ago here, sick fuckers.
Basra was busy with mainly mortar fire after Tony Blair’s visit.
There is some concern from my locals that the situation could worsten after the Hajj period ends.
The situation remains very dangerous here, but it is not civil war, or as bad as the BBC continually push.
Bank robbery also down the road today, a growing trend is recent weeks, perhaps the insurgents have funding probs from Iran?
OK, I will try to give a daily update from here, so get your news from me, not Left Wing, staying in the green zone, sandel wearing, guadian reading, “We’ve got an axe to grind against the US” BBC (so called) reporters.
I will be pleased to answer any questions about life in the red zone Baghdad (Security permitting)
Not Really BBC bias but interesting nonetheless given Mr. Carter’s recent publication –
“Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself “Lillian, you should have remained a virgin.””
— Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)
Often (but sometimes belatedly) Mum does know best
Yesterday I posted how the Beeb could not report anything about the fighting amongst the Palestinians without making constant reference to the international sanctions which were ‘crippling’ the Hamas ‘government’.
So what do we get today?
“Fighting between the factions has paralysed the Hamas administration, which has also been crippled by an international embargo against it.”
And to which story does this refer?
Al-Qaeda attacks Palestinian poll
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6195889.stm
Well, Tim, you certainly sound more plausible than (Round the) Riverbend that al-Beeb’s broadcasting again.
Wonder whether Riverbend gets paid royalties out of the poll tax I pay?
Tim | 20.12.06 – 12:11 pm
staying in the green zone
The BBC’s Baghdad bureau isn’t in the Green Zone. Nor do the correspondents live in the Green Zone.
JR,
Do not even try to lecture me about BBC reporters.
I have run many security teams for BBC crews in hostile areas.
I know the score, yes I know the hotels where the Beeb stay, and I know they have local sources, but I’m giving my view of living in Western Baghdad and working with local people.
And it ain’t the same as the constant crap pumped out by auntie!
I see that the beeb catalogue is available again. You can use it to check how often lefties get on the beeb compared to sensible people.
http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/contributor/56058
Alan:
Better late than never. Last night’s BBC 2, Newsnight: had excellent
report, critical of closure of democracy at Iranian universities
by Ahmadinejad.
But still a democracy according to John Simpson? e.g.
Is it true that a handful of religious extremists holds the entire population of Iran in thrall?
No. Iran is, within narrow limits, a kind of democracy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4800986.stm
Tim, thanks for the input. Although its clear that everything’s not fine and dandy out there, it’s reassuring that things aren’t as bad as the BBC likes (and I use the word “like” deliberately) to portray. I did suspect that was the case.
A couple of questions. The BBC is forever spinning the line that the American forces are making the problem worse, not better. I do not claim to have any inside knowledge, but I suspect this is a media lie used in order to hasten our retreat from Iraq. Indeed, my own view is that more troops are needed to counter the insurgency. From what you know out there, whose view is closer to the truth – mine or the BBC’s?
Hard to find much in today’s newspapers on the Chatham House report that provided the BBC with yesterday’s headlines.
Old news? Or ignored as, in addition to bashing the US, it comprised the usual FO boilerplate of adopting the Euro & (further) dismantling our border controls?
anon writes:
“I’ve lived in a village for a long time and its a lot more like That Archers than Mr Glover apparnetly realises…”
How are things in Little Camden?
Vanessa Whitburn (for reasons we can only guess at) has ruthlessly pursued the “liberal” agenda almost since she was nailed into the job. In so doing, she has made the Archers an everyday story of meejah folk’s fantasies.
Clearly, you have forgotten the serial misfortunes that have befallen the wicked capitalist farmer, Brian Aldridge: a daughter married to a black South African, who has left her own (hideously white) child behind in the village so she can bring up her (reassuringly black) baby in Mr Mandella’s wonderlnd, and a step-son who has just “married” the local chef.
No messages there! Oh, dear me, no!
Tim:
All the best to you out there in Baghdad. Here are a few articles that could explain why the locals are so fired up against the Americans and Brits laying down their lives over there to help them…
“BBC viewers vent their anger at ‘anti-US’ bias of Iraq coverage”
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/4648/1590wp7.jpg
“You’d think Bush had killed them”
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9484/20030518stelegraphyoudtzt0.jpg
“The danger of this infantile anti-Americanism
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/7807/20030515independentthedxj8.jpg
“Black calls on Press to ‘stop denigrating US’ “
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/733/20030613pressgazetteblajs8.jpg
“Why do you British think Bush is as bad as Stalin”
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/3662/231zb6.jpg
Plus a corking article (if I say so myself) from The Wall Street Journal Europe
“How The Partial Auntie Tilts Its News Leftwards
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/5857/97eg8.jpg
I hope you find these useful Tim • whether they will prove to be enjoyable reading I’m not so sure…
If you would like to print these out and distribute them to the squaddies under fire, they should all print out perfectly on A4 and 8.5″ x 11″ US letter paper. Right click and save to a folder then open them up with your preferred image viewer and print.
I’ll post up a few more tomorrow.
What’s the betting Castro’s death (hoorah hoorah! can hardly wait, get on with it Fidel you b*****) gets shoe-horned into a discussion of the price of, er, let’s call it sugar-beet?
John Reith:
Do you now see what happens when the BBC censors an important investigation of a political controversy? What did you and your biased colleagues expect me to do? Say to myself “tut tut, ah well, never mind, I’ll go and get a job driving a bus and be thought of as a conspiracy theorist for the rest of my life?”
If you did you obviously thought wrong, didn’t you?
‘JR,
Do not even try to lecture me about BBC reporters. I have run many security teams for BBC crews in hostile areas. I know the score, yes I know the hotels where the Beeb stay’
Good grief jr, you ran, full pelt into that one, just as my crystal ball predicted.
I remember the antics of the beeb in the 70s. Nothing changes.
again, the BBC has done no wrong
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/index.html
Heron,
It’s true Uncle Sam has/is doing himself no favours over here.
But it doesn’t really matter what nationality, the terrorist feed their spin to easily influenced locals and they hate anyone.
Example; Last year whilst I was running the elections for the UN, I asked the locals in a small town of northern Iraq
“Why do you allow the terrorist to keep blowing up the oil pipe lines’
Answer;
“Because the pipeline goes straight to Isreal, where the jews are stealing our oil”
With that kind of Borat style logic the insurgents brainwash the locals.
Yes it’s true that the Beeb spins only negatives about the US mil (or other forces)- The insurgents know this and try to create as much bad news as possible and the Beeb pumps it out, it’s a spiral of negativity and the beeb is fueling it.
Hope that helps
Thanks JBH
I’ll take a look.
I have very little to do with the British forces though, as I am a private contractor
I will spread the word on how they are being misrepresented by White City though.
Update;
I mentioned a bank robbery in my manor earlier today.
It was in fact an attempted hostage take of former soldiers queing at the bank for their pensions.
It was tharted by alert bank staff and arrests made (mind you the police are as corrupt)
So the terrorist don’t get it all their own way.
more from your B-BBC reporter in Baghdad later…
Thanks Tim, depressing. Of course the information war is of vital importance to the influencing of what the BBC calls “hearts and minds”. Sad that the BBC, along with so much of the MSM, has aligned itself firmly on the insurgents’ side. Every bit of bad news, or even just bad spin, is reported immediately and at length, the good news is either not reported at all, or just hidden away at 10.28 on the news bulletin, or 94 clicks into the website. If it does make it to air, it’s several days later.
Helping the enemy in the Information War… It’s what we do.
Dim Lib Lebit Opik intervenes to stop deportation of Cheeky girl.
A Dim Lib party spokesman said “Lembit acted with total propriety with regard to this matter. He did what any MP would do, and referred the matter to the appropriate Member of Parliament.”
(Well he would say that wouldn’t he)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/20/ucheeky120.xml
Meanwhile over at the bbc ………. a deathly hush.
DennisTheMenace | 20.12.06 – 12:32 pm
LOL!
Tim.
Thank you for your update. How John Reith has the chutzpah to try to correct you from the comfort of his office is beyond me.
Can’t tell you how interesting it is to hear from someone who knows what’s what outside the media circus.
Go carefully.
Nothing to do with biased bbc but worth a look.
David Zucker (Director of Airplane) has produced this on James Baker’s Iraq study group report (No need to fight evil when appeasement will do)
He also did the Madeline Albright lookalike handing a basketball signed by Michael Jordan to Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader – an event that actually took place in 2000.
Both taken from Toby Harnden’s article in the Telegraph today
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/tobyharnden/dec06/liberalboot.htm
GCooper | 20.12.06 – 1:29 pm
Clearly, you have forgotten the serial misfortunes that have befallen the wicked capitalist farmer, Brian Aldridge: a daughter married to a black South African, who has left her own (hideously white) child behind in the village so she can bring up her (reassuringly black) baby in Mr Mandella’s wonderlnd, and a step-son who has just “married” the local chef.
I managed to wrench myself free from the archers some years ago when it started to go downhill and to the left as you point out.
As far as mandela’s wonderland is concerned, wouldn’t it be safer in Iraq? The SA murder rate is about 2,000 per month.
Cant see the beeb even making that connection, much less actually admitting it.
Here’s another story that we won’t be hearing any time soon from the BBC.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1754
The number of rape cases in Oslo is now six times as high per capita as in New York City.
“Two out of three charged with rape in Norway’s capital are immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study. The number of rape cases is also rising steadily. Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative.
The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”
Yep, err, couldn’t have put it better myself.
Next week: Rape Article “leading to an increase in Islamophobia”
John Reith, seeing as the BBC’s hacks are there within a microsecond every time a soldier so much as sneezes without covering his mouth, do you think there’s a chance that your organisation will be covering this shocking story?
Can’t find anything in the Europe section right now. Climaxing over the EU’s attempts to curb aircraft emissions takes centre stage, along with the joyous scenes at the release of the Holocaust Denier.
If you click on “Norway”, you are greeted by this paragraph.
“The Kingdom of Norway enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world.”
That would be unless you happen to be young, female and Norwegian, I guess…
O/T
The Politics Show is running this poll about political heroes. At the moment the divine Mrs Thatcher is being headed by a bloody fool of a left-wing aristocrat who was a disaster in the only government job he ever had. The Beeboids would be so thrilled were he to win, so can we do something about it? Please?
http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6161847.stm
BBC website headline world news:-
“Gaza truce holds despite violence”
?????????????
Further to The Archers
I met a Herefordshire Farmer out clubbing last week he was having a sex change. He drives a tractor, dressed as a woman, which taking hormones. He will have the chop in the next few months.
Makes The Archers seem rather tame!
” UK: stewardess banned from carrying Bible ”
Has al Beeb prominently reported this yet? ‘Telegraph’ has.
See report on bmi dhimmitude
towards Saudi Arabia on this:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/ (20 Dec.).
Surely the UK government should
reciprocate by banning all Muslims from carrying copies of Koran to UK.
Anon | 20.12.06 – 5:51 pm | #
Farmers get up to all sorts of weird things.
Only 136 votes in it at the moment…
This is what an ex-BBC World Service radio broadcaster, Srdja
Trifkovic, has to say about Islamist
Europe, including Britain.
Here’s a sample from a long
piece:
“…the revamped Tory Party…
has, under David Cameron, jumped on the multiculturalist bandwagon and come out in support of retaining and expanding racial, ethnic and sex-based quotas. Cameron’s colleague,
Conservative Party Chairman Frances
Maude, claims that immigration has been ‘fantastically good’ for the United Kingdom.
” Such inanities are light years away from Churchill’s warning, over a century ago, that ‘no stronger
retrograde force exists in the world’
than Islam…
” Churchill’s prescience could not envisage the possibility that the
invader would find his best friends and allies at No. 10,Downing Street,
at the European Community Headquarters in Brussels, and in the dozens of chancelleries and palaces across the Old Continent.”
Source: Srdja Trifkovic,
” Eurabian Nights: a Horror Travelogue” http://chroniclesmagazine.org/ (Dec. 2006).
Would that more BBC broadcasters would become ex- BBC broadcasters like this.
archonix:
Anon | 20.12.06 – 5:51 pm | #
Farmers get up to all sorts of weird things.
archonix | Homepage | 20.12.06 – 6:17 pm | #
_______________
They most certainly do…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm
Stop attacking farmers; I’m sitting here at my computer with my pet sheep Molly, to find I’m being ridiculed, don’t you know its bloody cold outside..