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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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I’m sure the BBC will soon downplay this AP report…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070102/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
16,273 deaths reported in Iraq in 2006
…And put the truth out.
Come on — everyone knows The Lancet reported 283 quintillion deaths in Iraq so this figure is preposterously low.
Just seen on News24
A report on the rise of TB in the US. (Heavily correlated with 3rd world immigration of course so how to spin it?) A spokeswoman from a Latino pressure group interviewed “musnt blame immigrants etc etc” Oddly no spokesperson from a white American pressure group could be found to comment. A Boston TB ward where everything is free, “its the only way to make it work”. ‘Free’ that is in the sense of paid for by largely white American taxpayers. But thats OK because that way thousands of people can come from overseas and be cured for free and live for the rest of their lives in the US.
Very next item. Germany paying mothers to have children, from January 1st. First beaming mother, why she would be an African, with an African name. Of course thats just what the German government and taxpayers were hoping for, more ‘German’ babies! Well maybe not but the BBC seems to think so.
Isnt it time for a new open thread?
.
Muslims Murdering Muslims in Iraq
I’m sure the BBC will soon downplay this AP report…
16,273 deaths reported in Iraq in 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070102/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Jonathan Boyd Hunt 01.01.07 – 2:21 pm
I’d like your answer please.
Of course it would be wrong for the BBC to keep an ‘enemies list’. It doesn’t.
I hardly need to tell you not to believe everything you read in the Guardian.
Clearly Hamilton was indeed defamed in the MMT programme and he deserved every penny of his damages.
You, however, are probably way off in pointing the finger at imagined ‘BBC lefties’.
Look at the BBC executives named: Alan Protheroe used his spare time from his job at the BBC to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a TA unit.
Michael Cockerell was married to the sister of the Conservative MP David Heathcoat-Amory. The material for MMT came from a leaked report prepared by the Young Conservatives for the Tory party chairman.
Now if you were to develop a conspiracy theory along the lines that Hamilton was a victim of High Tory grandees who disliked the cut of his parvenu jib, then I might almost believe you. But Trotskyist entryism? Chuck it.
As for this BNP ballerina you seem so keen on….well, so far as I’m concerned she can join any party she likes. And by the same token, NM Rothschild and other backers of the ENB should be free to take whatever view they like about one of the dancers they sponsor becoming a poster-girl for a party that denies the Holocaust and whose leader, Nick Griffin, has a criminal conviction for inciting racial hatred against jews.
Saddam Hussein’s death also puts other rogue regimes on notice that, however irresolute and intimidated the international community may seem, there are real consequences to be paid for fomenting regional instability, for sponsoring terrorism and for seeking to turn the Middle East into a playground for grand military and ideological schemes. At a time when Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be auditioning for the role of Saddam Hussein the sequel, this message cannot be emphasized enough.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26240
More fun with BBC headlines:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6224277.stm
‘Brawl at police Christmas party’
You have to carefully read the article to realise that the brawl in question was at a pub where police officers were having their Christmas Party at the same time. There’s actual no evidence that police officers played any part in the brawl, other than to break it up (despite being off-duty).
Um, that should be Jews, John Reith.
Watch your shift key.
Bryan | 02.01.07 – 9:58 am
Sorry, Bryan. Will do.
No problem, John Reith.
My Mendacious Campaign of Racist Vilification could well be on a par with that of Nick Griffin in your book.
I look forward to you exposing the aforementioned MCRV, as promised, on the pages of this blog.
Or, if not, at least to your examination of Alan Little’s Inside the Red Cross in order to clear him of my allegations of anti-Israelism.
Someone with plentiful colleagues in the BBC should surely be able to dig the series out of its bowels. I couldn’t this time round, but then I’m just an amateur trying to crank start the BBC’s ancient search engine on a freezing day. Even the Google tow truck broke down trying to help.
John Reith | 02.01.07 – 9:36 am
You, however, are probably way off in pointing the finger at imagined ‘BBC lefties’.
Look at the BBC executives named: Alan Protheroe used his spare time from his job at the BBC to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a TA unit.
I think that you have hit upon a very clever way of assessing whether or not beeboids are lefties.
Is there any way of finding out what percentage of beeboids are members of the TA? And how this would compare with ITV and Sky News?
/sarcasm off
Chuffer: Bob Dylan can’t sing. Suuuuure. Neither could Louis Armstrong (ever heard of him?). And Cherry Coke is a wonderful drink, too. Well, I guess this can be used to show that there is no group-think on this blog.
And I agree that it is time for a new open thread, but give Natalie a break – she is probably still coping with the New Year’s Day party leftovers.
John Reith
And by the same token, NM Rothschild and other backers of the ENB should be free to take whatever view they like about one of the dancers they sponsor
What a hypocrite, because of a difference of political view– which is a basic human right- you clearly suggest a calculated threat of removing funds or backing from the English National Ballet here! What you are advocating is a policy of financial blackmail simply because one of the ballerinas, “highly respected” as the BBC itself has previously written, is now found to belong to a political party you dislike.
Let me remind you that the BBC licence fee payers are not free to choose, despite the fact that they see the BBC daily engaged in astonishing political bias, both overt, & sometimes, worryingly so, subversive political activity, against, surprise surprise, the very party you clearly so detest. Remember the ‘BBC as cockroaches’ accusation outside a recent court case, where the BBC supplied the CPS with all of its film production material?
The very course of action you recommend for Rothschild(actually you don’t say withhold funding outright you veil it in weasel words saying free to take whatever view they like, this, let me remind you, is the same basic freedom denied to the rest of us, who are compelled- under threat of prosecution- to continue to support paying for the BBC!
There is something rather nauseating about how you combine both support for the BBC and encourage outright political acts of persecution. A genuine BBC ethos (which is what is in their bloody charter after all) ought to rise above party politics. You illustrate well the corruption and degeneracy in its ranks!
And what of the BBC ballerina, Deborah Bull, what political party does she belong to? Should the licence fee payers befree to take whatever view they like if they discover it is a party they don’t like?
Oh, about the BNP: of course anyone is free to be a member of any legal party. The treatment of silly Simone Clarke is both vicious and stupid; if she can dance, that is all that should matter. (Besides, who takes political leadership from a dancer?) However, I had felt rather too much sympathy for the thugs’ party developing, and too many people talking as though it was, exactly, the “nice” grouping I felt it was not. So I thought it was time for a little reality.
JR (aka the BBC) wrote:
“….that denies the Holocaust and whose leader, Nick Griffin, has a criminal conviction for inciting racial hatred against jews.”
Where does Mr Ahmadinejad sit an the scale of jew-hatred? Please vilify him and his cco-ideolgues as appropriate.
Sorry to see that FactCheckingPollyanna is stopping work.
http://factcheckingpollyanna.blogspot.com/
Fabio P.Barbieri | 02.01.07 – 11:07 am
Aren’t the bnp doing the same as new labour? Nobody now criticises nulab for supporting communism when it was just plain “the labour party”.
Perhaps we shall soon be seeing “New BNP”, since they appear to have ditched their hate-filled past as well.
I am not a supporter or member of the bnp.
John Reith:
I made two points, both of which you failed to address:
The first was this:
After seven months’ undercover research The Guardian managed to elicit nothing racist or even remotely nasty from this ballerina woman and BNP member Simone Clarke. So what does that tell us about the BNP? I am no supporter of the BNP and don’t know its policies, but if this is the worst that the Guardian can tell us about the BNP when one of its members is off-guard I think The Guardian is doing that party an favour by showing it to be supported by reasonable people.
That’s point one. Point two was this:
Though the BBC portrays itself as being staffed by reasonable and impartial people, its closest ally in Fleet Street, The Guardian, nevertheless felt sufficiently at ease stating in the full glare of a published article that the BBC’s journalists considered a Conservative MP whom they had wrongly defamed as being thereafter their “confirmed enemy”.
You didn’t address the logical conclusion of these two points • that The Guardian had effectively painted the BBC as being more bigoted than the BNP. This is quite an achievement when one considers the BBC’s promotion of itself as an icon of impartiality and the BNP as a party of bigots.
As for your suggestion that I “seemed keen” on this woman Simone Clarke, I assure you I’m not. She might look like Jo Brand or Rita Webb for all I know. As I have said, I merely observe that she had said nothing improper despite seven months of undercover research by a reporter who, clearly, was out to elicit from her some off-the-record utterance that would be to her discredit. In failing so to do The Guardian actually ended up establishing the very opposite of what it had set out to prove.
In the light of Channel Four’s decision to have their Christmas Day message presented by a female in a sack (did anybody see it by the way?) it’s interesting to note al-Qaeda’s view on the subject…
Any Muslim woman insisting on wearing the Islamic veil despite pressures in some Western countries (is) a “soldier in the battle of Islam against the Zionist-Crusader attack”.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20996258-1702,00.html
The BBC and half a story.
Yet again the BBC uses its News web site in which to retell a story in which to attack America.
Africa’s year of terror tactics
This was the year that the war on terror came of age in Africa, with the Horn of Africa simmering and a new regional conflagration looming.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6217895.stm
The BBC writes;
1)”The US’s war with al-Qaeda started in Africa when militants bombed US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998. The vast majority of casualties were African, none of whom have received any compensation.”
No Compensation BBC?
Here is a quote from the BBC written in 1999
“While many have received some compensation ranging from about $500 for light injuries to about $11,000 for loss of life, it is not enough for those unable to work, or for families that lost bread winners.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/413574.stm
2)”The Arab League was sympathetic to the Islamists in Mogadishu, and several of its members supplied them with arms. It is dangerously reminiscent of the Cold War era when the US backed Ethiopia in the Ogaden war against Somalia, which was then backed by the Soviet Union.”
Wrong. The US kept out of the Ogaden war. It was in fact the Soviet Union which first of all supported the Somalia’s invasion of Ethiopia then when as they were knocking on the door of absolute victory the Soviets switched sides and back Ethiopia. (I think you will find that the 12000 plus Russian and Cuban troops kind of helped Ethiopia win)
http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/oscar/ogaden1976.htm
3) “Until recently, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni rejected negotiations with the Lord’s Resistance Army, which he designated as mere terrorists.”
Ah yes the Lords resistance army (LRA) that band of merry men funded by Sudan in which to deny their own Christian groups, (whom they were fighting for real estate) from finding sanctuary across the border. You know BBC like they are currently doing in Chad and in CAR. As for making Uganda look bad by saying the President has rejected talking with these mere terrorists. Wish to explain the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for the leaders of the LRA
http://www.icc-cpi.int/cases/UGD/c0105.html
The BBC and (As usual) half a bloody story.
Fabio P. Barbieri writes:
“Chuffer: Bob Dylan can’t sing. Suuuuure. Neither could Louis Armstrong (ever heard of him?). And Cherry Coke is a wonderful drink, too.”
You know, for someone who has put forward the proposition that you can be objective about a sense of taste, trying to claim that Bob Dylan can sing looks like a bad case of logicial inconsistency.
Big men in white t-shirts with short haircuts??, only a problem if you also have a big beard (without moustache).
Happy new year. Not really bias, but…
Did anyone hear the Ed Stourton/John Prescott interview this morning on Today?
Was it my medication, or did Prescott make Stourton sound like a complete idiot, whilst successfully demolishing the quality of BBC reporting?
(or am I just showing my natural bias against Today?)
The article about which pounce was complaining
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…ica/ 6217895.stm
is an opinion piece by the editor of a publication called “Africa Confidential” not a BBC news report. It may contain some inaccuracies, but that’s not the BBC’s fault. They might however have flagged the fact that it was an opinion piece more clearly by giving some background to Africa Confidential in italics at the bottom (as they sometimes do with opinion pieces.)
Jonathan Boyd Hunt |02.01.07 – 12:06 pm
Your two points were extremely silly and anyway are predicated upon falsehoods.
First one;
After seven months’ undercover research The Guardian managed to elicit nothing racist or even remotely nasty from this ballerina woman
So far as I recall from a quick skim of Cobain’s piece, the Guardian didn’t spend any number of months investigating the ballerina. It looked to me as though she and the Guardian reporter had only had one brief conversation…..and that may have been on the phone.
If you make a habit of confusing a single telephone call with ‘seven months of undercover research’ that might explain why now • after a full ten years of sleuthing • you are no farther advanced in proving your claim that Alison Bozek and Iris Bond are liars/perjurers. Maybe you should try making a second phone call to ascertain whether they are living high off the hog or enjoying freebies at the Paris Ritz. After all, if they did go out on a limb for Fayed, you’d think they’d get at least as generously rewarded as Hamilton was for asking a few PQs.
Second point:
The Guardian was wrong to claim that the BBC regarded Hamilton as a ‘confirmed enemy’.
So no ‘conclusions’ based upon any conceivable combination of these non-points is worth a moment’s consideration.
The ballerina meanwhile did her own reputation no good in the Daily Mail.
While you’re on • you may remember that just before Christmas I asked you about some important government papers that arrived at the offices of the Guardian’s solicitors just before Hamilton withdrew from the 1996 libel actions.
You hurriedly passed over this point • and there doesn’t appear to be any weight given to it on your website.
Could this be because the truth is that these papers contained evidence that would have seen Michael Heseltine • then the Deputy Prime Minister • being called as a witness on behalf of the Guardian to testify to the fact that Hamilton was a liar?
Hamilton himself later admitted that the prospect of Hezza appearing against him was a factor in his decision to throw in the towel. So why are you so coy about it?
John Reith:
Brilliant obfuscation JR. You really are an excellent example of the typical BBC News and Current Affairs employee: disingenuous and dishonest through and through. I’m not coy about anything, unlike you, who demonstrates himself coy about almost everything.
The reason I have no intention going down red-herring routes is because they are exactly that: red herrings. The “important government papers” which you’re so keen on bringing to the fore had nothing to do with Hamilton’s decision to withdraw from his first libel action and when you raised this a week or so ago I provided links to documents proving that. I’m not going to make the mistake again of clogging up this blog with minutia. I much prefer to raise the BIG issues that have you and the entire corrupt BBC N&CA over a barrel, such as the BBC’s steadfast refusal to instigate an official assessment of the merits of documentary evidence proving that Fayed and The Guardian perverted the Downey inquiry by enacting a sophisticated conspiracy.
For your information, for the umpteenth time, my colleague and I have already proved to the satisfaction of all those who have examined our research • including BBC journalists • that Bozek, Bond, Bromfield, Marvin, Benson, Fayed, Proudler, Robertson, Hencke, Preston, Leigh, and Rusbridger all conspired in a criminal cover-up that succeeded in perverting the Downey inquiry: a conspiracy that Hencke’s colleague Mullin was eventually persuaded to join for Hamilton’s 1999 libel trial.
The only thing that is stopping this story from hitting the MSM is the cowardice and/or dishonesty of the journalists – like you – who populate it, who prefer to avert their eyes and cover their ears.
John Reith:
Query please:
“When I first worked for BBC Television News in the early-Eighties, the editor, Alan Protheroe, was a serving colonel in the Territorial Army information department.
One of the defence correspondents, Chris Wain, was a major in the TA,
while another, Chris Lee, was a commander in the Naval Reserve. ”
http://www.richardsonmedia.co.uk/bbc%20gulf%20war.html
Ian Richardson.
Is this the same Colonel(TA) Alan Potheroe CBE DL TD who is now Deputy Lord Lieutenant for High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire?
Thanks.
John Reith | 02.01.07 – 3:28 pm |
Jonathan Boyd Hunt |02.01.07 – 12:06 pm
Your two points were extremely silly and anyway are predicated upon falsehoods.
First one;
After seven months’ undercover research The Guardian managed to elicit nothing racist or even remotely nasty from this ballerina woman
So far as I recall from a quick skim of Cobain’s piece, the Guardian didn’t spend any number of months investigating the ballerina. It looked to me as though she and the Guardian reporter had only had one brief conversation…..and that may have been on the phone.
jr
Before the Guardian decided to ramp up this uninteresting story I had heard of neither Ian Cobain nor Simone Clark. It would seem that, in certain circles, Ms Clark is quite famous and may enjoy celebrity status.
Are you suggesting that during the course of this ‘expose’, that Cobain was not aware of who Ms. Clark was?
I would venture that he was fully aware of who she was, in which case are you seriously suggesting that, as a supposed ‘journalist’, he would have left it at one perfunctory telephone conversation. That just doesn’t ring true (excuse the appalling pun • not intended). I mean if Joe Nobody from Mablethorpe visits massage parlour, that’s not news. If Tony Blair visits massage parlour, now that’s news.
Secondly you state: The ballerina meanwhile did her own reputation no good in the Daily Mail.
I may be missing something here but would you mind explaining to me how you arrived at that conclusion. You accuse JBH of being extremely silly, but aren’t you being a tad daft yourself on this one.
By the way • happy new year.
A New Year Spot the Ball style quiz from the BBC’s education pages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6204457.stm
Pupil tests ‘should be replaced’
Tests for primary school pupils and 14-year-olds in England should be replaced with teacher assessments, a think tank says. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said “too many” pupils left primary school unable to read and write and do mathematics well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6224801.stm
Majority ‘back selective schools’
More than three-quarters of people believe bright children would do better if taught separately, a poll suggests. More than 1,000 people were surveyed for a report by right-wing think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 02.01.07 – 4:09 pm
The “important government papers” which you’re so keen on bringing to the fore had nothing to do with Hamilton’s decision to withdraw from his first libel action
JBH • for some months I have been gently probing to see how truthful you are being and whether there might be • after all • any merit in the serious accusations you make.
Now here’s an example of why we shouldn’t rush to trust you. Contrast what you say above with what your patron Neil Hamilton told Sir Gordon Downey:
{Nigel Pleming QC} Mr Hamilton, ….what you are saying to me is that you deliberately decided to keep back that which you had remembered. It was not a question of having forgotten all about the commission payments. You knew that that could be damaging in opening up another front….this would be a very damaging document to you in the libel proceedings. Would you accept that?.
(Mr Hamilton) It would certainly have been a damaging document. It would have been a hurdle which we would have had to jump, certainly.
(Pleming …..This would have meant that Michael Heseltine would have been called to give evidence, you would have no doubt answered the way you have been answering my questions, and that would have put you in a pretty difficult light before a jury in a libel action.
(Mr Hamilton) Yes, it certainly would have been a difficulty. There is no disguising that.
(Pleming). Was that a factor in the decision not to take another course, which is a lengthy adjournment, which could well have been granted by a sympathetic judge, if they exist still, even beyond May of 1997?.
(Mr Hamilton) I think I can categorically exclude this as a deciding factor.
(Pleming) No, not a deciding factor; a factor.
(Mr Hamilton) Well, obviously.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmstnprv/030iii/sp0101.htm
jr
Iv’e just caught dave t’s post where he writes:
“When I first worked for BBC Television News in the early-Eighties …….
Presumably this is from one of your earlier posts.
Forgive me, but did you not say, in response to one of my questions about six months or so ago, that you were under forty.
If that is the case then in the early 80s you must have been one of the youngest tea boys in the building and I suspect that the bbc were in contravention of the laws regarding child labour.
just read that bnp ballerina story. certainly does look like a witchhunt – and anyway, its not as if she’s the head of the met police or MI5 or even a minister.
she’s just a ballerina for gods sake.
Laban Tall on the ballerina and the elephant in the room…
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-elephant.html
Jonathan Boyd Hunt (thanks).
” CAN WE TRUST THE BBC?”
by ROBIN AITKEN
This new book is due out in
hardback (224 pages) 10 Feb 2007;
publisher: Continuum International
Approx price: £10 (discounted).
SYNOPSIS (http://amazon.co.uk)
” This book asks a big question:
can we trust the BBC? The BBC is the most famous media brand in the world and it is growing bigger and more powerful every year. Its reputation
depends on honest and accurate journalism. But this book argues that the Corporation’s own pervasive
left wing political culture imperils
its impartiality. It demonstrates how some groups and viewpoints get favourable treatment while others are left out in the cold. The book
examines the concept of ‘public sector broadcasting’ and asks if that
has come to mean simply radio and television free of commercial bias. It argues that there are other ‘hidden persuaders’ that we the audience should de alert to. Drawing on the author’s twenty five
years as a BBC reporter and executive, the book blends analysis
and sharp polemic to paint a vivid
picture of life inside the news machine from a uniquely privileged
point of view. It also tells the story of how the BBC responded to a dissident in its own ranks.With the future of the BBC now the subject of a government White Paper, this book will be a timely contribution to the debate about public broadcasting.”
BBC 2 Newsnight, have a very strange conception of a British institution.
OPEN ALL HOURS
Our own Hardeep Singh Kohli reports on the demise of a great British institution, the small family run Asian shop on a street corner near you. I haven’t seen Hardeep’s film yet, but it made me wonder whether in 30 years time Newsnight (or its successor) will run a film entitled:
“The demise of the Tesco Express in 2037.”
Mr. Singh Kohli clearly believes that ‘Open All Hours’ was about an Asian shop on a street corner.
Sorry to disappoint Newsnight researchers but the BBC series with Ronnie Barker & David Jason was a very English affair: a small grocer’s shop in Balby, a village in South Yorkshire near Doncaster. Yes, this was a classic corner shop and it was a British institution in decline. I’ll pass on Asian shops, I never liked having to pay 20-30p more per item, only to be instructed by Guardianista types that this was simply a community convenience.
The demise of Tesco,
I doubt it, it’s growth in Europe is considerable. Personally, I love shopping there, it’s very cheap, very green(facilities for recycling, etc.)and a good choice of food items. Strange that Newsnight are clearly reluctant to see Tesco as new British institution. I wonder why?
Asian corner shops- why don’t they invite Richard Dawkins on and talk about survival of the fittest?
John, I think the “Open All Hours” reference was due to the fact that corner-shops tend to be open when others are shut (late evening, Christmas Day etc.) If they’re trying to use this to extol the virtues of corner shops they’re not very convincing, since Tesco is open even more frequently (24-7 apart from Sundays and Christmas in my town).
Liked the Dawkins comment though.
Lee Moore wrote;
The article about which pounce was complaining is an opinion piece by the editor of a publication called “Africa Confidential” not a BBC news report. It may contain some inaccuracies, but that’s not the BBC’s fault.
Thank you for highlighting that said article wasn’t written by the BBC but by the editor of Africa Confidential. However I will not accept how you say that it “May contain some inaccuracies”, but that’s not the BBC’s fault.
Correct me if I am wrong, but nowhere on that article does it say that Patrick Smith is not a BBC man. Those inaccurate statements on the BBC website paints the image that all the current problems in Africa are the fault of the US and the US alone. The mere fact that nobody at the BBC bothered to proof read that article for inaccuracies tells me that it was given the nod in its campaign of US bashing.
Now please explain how somebody can claim that the US supported the Ethiopians during the Ogaden war when it was in fact the Russians, how no compensation has been paid to the victims of the bomb blast outside the Americans Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania when if fact it has been paid. And how the BBC allows somebody to pour scorn on how a president refers to a bunch of terrorists as mere terrorists.
The fact remains the BBC hosted it that tosh without checking it, I mean would they allow Nick Griffin to post an article about the habits of the ROP™ without ensuring it was first checked for inaccuracies and secondly ensuring that it was made quite clear that Nick Griffin has nothing to do with the BBC and is in fact the leader of a bunch of inbred idiots (something I agree with)
The BBC and its leftwing pro revolutionary agenda.
Anybody else notice how the BBC (As does the majority of the MSM) sucks up to the revolutionary causes around the world.
Saddam had the blood of millions on his hands. He built numerous palaces while his people starved and he blamed the US. Yet because the people he oppressed had a say in how he was hung well it is almost a war crime.
The Tamils blow anybody up who don’t agree with them and have been doing so for donkeys. But hit them back and there is hell to pay from the MSM.
The Taliban have no problem killing those they object to. Be it School teachers, crowded markets or even hospitals. But hey hit them with a 500 Ib bomb and they suddenly become victims according to the BBC.
The idiots who went to Afghanistan and found themselves locked up in Cuba for getting caught with an AK47. Why the BBC has no problem erasing certain parts of their CVs in making them out to be victims. (P.S last I looked the Taliban banned computers kind of pisses on the Computer courses copout)
Beslan was a disgusting act which highlights the depravity of the religious bigoted mind. And who did the BBC try to blame for the incident. Why only the families of the victims saying they fired first. Yeah right BBC.
And the BBC wonders why people are starting to ask questions about just how how impartial its news reporting is.
John Reith | 02.01.07 – 9:36 am |
reith, you may well be right, but how on earth can you speak so categorically, with so much authority? surely, the most you could say would be something like, “i sincerely doubt it, and find it ricidulou” – since you don’t directly work for the bbc
if someone at the bbc actually told you this, surely it’s not too much to tell licence payers who? why should you be privy to such a direct line?
I’ve just been drooling over Melissa Bell presenting BBC Parliament’s review of the year. A quick bit of work on Google reveals (if I’ve got the right one, of course) she’s a strong Labour supporter. Why am I not surprised?
On the hounding of the ballerina, I must ask JR whether her political inclinations have in any way influenced her output and, if so, how?
What would have caused her to join the BNP?
Allan@Aberdeen
I visited this site http://www.yschang.co.uk/
and saw some video clips of her dancing. Saw some Martha Graham like moves that I guess Lee Jaspers might interpret as fascist, but even he would probably melt at her Juliet. According to an interview in Ballet magazine:
Simone is that rarest of human beings these days: a “home grown” Principal. Hailing from Leeds, she joined the Royal Ballet School at 11 and went all the way through to graduation.
I’m still waiting for feedback on the BBC ballerina, Deborah Bull. And can’t find anything on the BBC about this news story. Strange, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Telegraph, Times, a TES forum, all see this as news, except the BBC?
BBC-this is what we do, with your money! A £3 billion news org. and sweet FA. Sometimes it isn’t bias its just plain incompetence.
Speaking of what is ‘news’, I heard on Radio 4 news as a lead item, that Oprah Winfrey had funded a $20million school for orphan girls outside Johannesburg.
Has the BBC been appointed Oprah Winfrey’s agent? Why is this a lead item?
John Reith | 02.01.07 – 4:47 pm:
You imply that I’ve been untruthful and misled you, and, by extension, the people of this blog.
You’re a clever sod. You leave me the choice of: a) ignoring you and leaving myself open to being thought of as dishonest, or b) going into detail as to why it is you who is being dishonest, not me • which risks me incurring the displeasure of those who have an understandable aversion to the very name ‘Hamilton’.
I’ll go for the second option and take my chances.
You reproduce a statement I made within my post of 4.09pm of today, where I addressed your eagerness to create a blog-clogging dialogue about the so-called “Hamilton lie to Heseltine” • a clear Guardianesque tactic whose purpose is to divert attention away from two issues:
1) the hard proof that The Guardian perverted the Downey Inquiry through lies and forgeries.
2) the BBC’s deliberate, illegal, sustained censorship for the last nine years of 1) above.
This is what I said to you and what you repeated:
“The “important government papers” which you are so keen on bringing to the fore had nothing to do with Hamilton’s decision to withdraw from his first libel action.”
My statement was absolutely 100 per cent true and it contained not one single atom of dishonesty. Hamilton had indeed announced his decision to withdraw his libel action against The Guardian well before Hamilton’s and Greer’s solicitors were furnished with Cabinet Secretary Sir Robin Butler’s unhelpful note recording his [i.e. Butler’s] erroneous understanding of a telephone conversation that Michael Heseltine had had with Hamilton two years earlier.
The transcript extract from the Downey Inquiry that you cited merely shows that Hamilton had the grace to concede that Butler’s note was not helpful, and that it had helped consolidate his decision to withdraw. However, as well you know, it did not provoke nor contribute to his decision to withdraw because he had already made it and his decision was irreversible.
As for your remark:
“JBH • for some months I have been gently probing to see how truthful you are being and whether there might be • after all • any merit in the serious accusations you make. Now here’s an example of why we shouldn’t rush to trust you….”
It’s possible that such gross posturing might convince the feeble-minded, but I know of no such people who contribute to this blog. Indeed, you merely reveal the same bluff and bluster methodology by which the Guardian helped convince the nation into believing that honourable and honest people [Ian Greer, Neil Hamilton, Baroness Turner, and others] were in fact anything but.
All the time you play into my hands. Keep at it John Reith. Without you I would not be able to demonstrate just how inherently rotten the BBC is, for while you prattle on you allow one glaring fact to be rammed home time and time again • and I suspect more and more people are realising its acute oddness. Namely, that despite the BBC’s constant trumpeting of its supposed eagerness to air all points of views (i.e. Taliban, Moslem radicals, thieves, paedophiles, anti-Christian blasphemers etc), there’s an investigation by two journalists into the political controversy that helped bring down the last Conservative government, which, for some reason, the BBC steadfastly refuses to even evaluate, still less broadcast news about.
Chuffer:
I’ve just been drooling over Melissa Bell presenting BBC Parliament’s review of the year. A quick bit of work on Google reveals (if I’ve got the right one, of course) she’s a strong Labour supporter. Why am I not surprised?
Chuffer | 02.01.07 – 9:24 pm | #
A Labour supporter working for the Beeb? Like James “When we win the election” Naughtie or Kirsty “Villagate” Wark? Shurely shome mishtake!
Evening pounce
I don’t think they’d allow Nick Griffin on to do an opinion piece, period. As I said, I think the principal fault in this case is failing to highlight that it’s an opinion piece from a non BBC source. I don’t know whether they would normally fact check opinion pieces from outsiders, but I doubt they would, except perhaps to correct obvious howlers such as getting well known names or dates wrong. Perhaps one of the John Reiths will turn up and let us know.
dave t + TPO + Lee Moore
davet: I suspect it is the same Protheroe but am not 100 per cent sure.
TPO – no that quotation wasn’t from one of my posts but from an article dave t linked. Also. I think you’ll find I said nothing about my age – merely expressed wry amusement at your ‘not a spring chicken’ remark. A belated Happy New Year to you.
Lee Moore
Well, the article did have Africa Confidential in the by-line. And there was a link to Africa Confidential’s site in the column immediately to the right. Maybe a different livery could be used as an aid to the feeble-minded. It’s a thought.
PS is well known to be the most experienced journo covering Africa and few would presume to second-guess him.
In this case a pedant could pick him up on irrelevant detail. As you’ll no doubt recall the US did back Ethiopia at the start of the Ogaden dispute while Russia backed Somalia. The Russians changed sides as Ethiopia emerged as fully Marxist and the Americans adjusted accordingly. The writer in this piece was merely trying to point up the fact that local disputes in Africa can have an international superpower rivalry dimension. Had he said ‘dispute’ instead of ‘war’ he’d have been insulated against pounce’s nit-picking. A small mistake compared to the more glaring one of failing to note the peice was written by an outside contributor. By the way – apart from an imposter who’s posted a couple of times under my name – there’s only one JR.
there’s only one JR.
But worth every penny for lines such as
Now if you were to develop a conspiracy theory along the lines that Hamilton was a victim of High Tory grandees who disliked the cut of his parvenu jib, then I might almost believe you.
Morning jr
Hate to labour the point but could you respond to my earlier query(4.33 pm yesterday)
‘Secondly you state: The ballerina meanwhile did her own reputation no good in the Daily Mail.
I may be missing something here but would you mind explaining to me how you arrived at that conclusion.’
Many thanks. Doubt if I’ll be able to come back until much later .. busy day today.
TPO
“I joined about 18 months ago,” she says. “Yat and I were watching the television. As usual I was moaning about something that I had seen on the news and he just said, “Well, stop moaning and do something about it.”
“I didn’t really know anything about the BNP but they had come up in conversation a few times because they had just won some local council seats.
“We went on to the computer and we looked them up and I read their manifesto. I’m not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head but some of the things they mentioned were the things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes. Those three issues were enough to make me join so I paid my £25 there and then. …..”I’m not a particularly political person but I read the manifesto and I took it on face value.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=425586&in_page_id=1770