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.
‘The BBC, however, try as hard as they can to elevate his position and to give space to his vacuous message.’
The BBC have their pets who they always report on or interview. Have they every had a week’s broadcasting that doesn’t feature Yasmin whatever Brown?
Ralph wonders:
“Have they every had a week’s broadcasting that doesn’t feature Yasmin whatever Brown?”
Or Billy Bragg?
“Has the BBC fallen down on the job?” by Tim Luckhurst, 11 Mar.
http://news.independent.co.uk
(go to ‘Business’).
First paragraph:
“From the General Strike of 1926 to Andrew Gilligan’s ‘sexed-up’ dodgy dossier exclusive 77 years later, the BBC has struggled to define its relation with government. The corporation’s most ardent admirers acknowledge that its independence has often been compromised by a reluctance to confront ministers.”
Today (Sunday) the newspapers and Sky News and ITN are all reporting, and sometimes leading with, the appalling standards of health care available to returning injured troops — some with severe mental problems are waiting 18 months for treatment, and despite Blair’s promises several months ago, made after a soldier received death threats from Muslim patients, others are still being treated on public wards. The Times, the Observer, the Independent, the Telegraph are all reporting this, but there is not the slightest mention of it anywhere on the BBC. It’s not on BBC 24, nor anywhere on the web site that I can see.
Once again, a classic case of censorship by omission from the BBC. They are extremely reluctant to report anything which reflects badly on the Labour government, and they have little time or sympathy for injured troops.
Judging from the comments from the article linked to by Anonymous | 11.03.07 – 7:04 am Boy Dave is going to lead the “Conservatives” back into the wilderness for many years to come.
“Reading the comments on this proposal, it seems obvious to me that this is a real vote loser.
I say that as a lifelong Labour voter (sorry folks) who is considering voting Conservative at the next election.
Memo to Dave: alienating your core vote AND potential new supporters is A BAD THING.
Posted by Rob Miller on March 11, 2007 11:00 AM”
“Cameron really is doing his best to lose the next election.The conservatives must ditch him now to stand any chance.
Posted by Alan Bent on March 11, 2007 10:56 AM”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opini…3/11/ dl1101.xml
Cringe over-drive
the BBC refer to black hip-hop group Pretty Rick as an “urban” band in regards to a shooting at a “music event”
http://drunkenblogging.blogspot.com/
Added to my post above concerning the standard of health care for injured troops;
I see now (2 p.m.) the BBC are featuring the story about the atrocious treatment troops have been receiving, except they are reporting it entirely from the government’s point of view. The headline is; ” The government insists that troops deserve the highest standard of medical treatment…”. The brief interview with the Minister later in the bulletin is simply an opportunity for him to issue the rebuttal, consisting of “there is no problem, and if there is it is due to the Tories” — the Minister is not challenged on any of the points he makes. And whilst every other news organisation in the country seems to have made the effort to track down and interview some of the people who are complaining about their treatment, the BBC obviously sees no need.
In other words, the BBC coverage of the story consists of little more than an opportunity for government minister to rubbish a story which the BBC didn’t report on in the first place.
It is a joke and absolute effing joke. The BBC has become nothing more than the PR department of the Labour government.
“Cameron really is doing his best to lose the next election.The conservatives must ditch him now to stand any chance.
Posted by Alan Bent on March 11, 2007 10:56 AM”
jon
I am delighted that Cameron looks like loosing the next election. He is a fraud and a Socialist and he rose to the position of leader by saying different things than he is saying now. Anyone interested in UK politics should welcome the fact that a pretty face and a pack of lies is no longer enough.
If it is to be the case that such a state of affairs throws up someone far, far worse than Cameron then so be it. The sooner the rout begins the better for us all.
The EURef blog has some of the best Cameron critiques going.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Climate Change Swindle full version
http://terrorpets.com/index.php?option=com_bookmarks&Itemid=1&task=detail&id=424
Curzon wrote:
Simpo says: “I like Vidal’s world view: he has a fierce, uncontaminated sense of what’s right and wrong.”
GWB has a strong moral sense of right and wrong, and he’s pilloried for it.
Michael | 10.03.07 – 6:40 am
I asked them what did the BBC report on WWII against the Nazi’s?
The BBC & other Western media concentrates on
1 Our casualties
2.Muslim on Muslim attacks portrayed in a way that appears to allow the Western anti-war faction to regard the deaths as being by our hand, e.g. the Lancet 650,000 were all apparently killed by the US.
3.Civilian deaths caught in the cross fire.
As Michael notes, how on earth would we have succeeded in WWII with daily reporting only of our casualties & mistakes, with many, many dead French etc, let alone dead German civilians?
The Observer today reports how the Iraqi (& presumably Afghan) insurgents take advantage of our commanders fighting this war with one eye on the media.
Other officers said coalition rules of engagement were being used against the forces fighting the insurgency. ‘They know when we can and cannot shoot, and use that against us,’ said one officer, reflecting the comments of US soldiers in the field.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2031172,00.html
GCcooper
No doubt we can now expect a string of hard-hitting, investigative programmes from the BBC, delving into the murky business of recycling, exposing the lies, corruption and incompetence that runs through the programme, like letters in a stick of rock?
It’s interesting that given the BBC’s compulsive reporting about Israel that they seem to have ignored the connection in Israel between bottle recycling and organized crime. Apparently without a Palestinian angle the Beeb isn’t interested.
Let us never learn from Israel’s experience in anything. AMEN.
“”Cameron really is doing his best to lose the next election.The conservatives must ditch him now to stand any chance”.
Your views are important. Make them count with the Conservatives.
Contact them by email
https://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=contact.us.page
Anonymous writes:
“Your views are important. Make them count with the Conservatives.”
You know, I’m starting to think the proper place to complain about Cameron is the BBC. He is, after all, the BBC Party candidate. Every policy he advocates seems designed to pander to BBC meejah dahlings.
Or perhaps ‘The Newsnight Candidate’ – that sounds about right.
I quit the Tories last week. Cameron has been a disaster and the twits who run Central Office in Edinburgh are buffoons.
The problem is: who the heck do I vote for? None of the Above means that The Usual Suspects get back in.
Help!
Vote for one of the minnows? The minor parties are starting to pick up rather a lot of votes in elections these days.
Talking of Cameron. Yes I agree that his policies seem based around what the BBC will allow him to say without jumping down his throat.
He seems to have forgotten something, in his obsession with his Notting Hill focus groups. We have secret ballots. The idea of these is you can say what you really think in a ballot – you do not have to vote politely or vote for what is modish or politically correct.
Cameron has had an open goal in front of him for several months. But each time, he just trips over the ball instead of hitting the back of the net.
“”Cameron really is doing his best to lose the next election.The conservatives must ditch him now to stand any chance”.
By getting to the best poll position for 20 years?
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=tories-go-11%2D-clear–%26method=full%26objectid=18736083%26siteid=62484-name_page.html
Jack Hughes writes:
“Yes I agree that his policies seem based around what the BBC will allow him to say without jumping down his throat.”
I genuinely believe that the blue rinses appointed Cameron largely because they believed he at least stood a chance against the BBC and the rest of the ‘right on’ media.
Previous Tory contenders had been routinely savaged by the BBC et al and rendered unelectable in all but a landslide caused by public revulsion at the incumbents.
Ironically, something of that sort might be about to happen, in which case they would have been far, far better off with David Davis.
These are dark times and the BBC has played much too great a role in them.
Ralph writes:
“By getting to the best poll position for 20 years?”
See my comment, above. A sock puppet would stand a chance against ZaNuLabour at the moment.
That said, there’s plenty of time yet for Brown to capitalise on Cameron’s cluelessness. He seems intent nmaking it easy for them.
OT but has anyone heard from our Tim in Baghdad recently?
Is he back in dear old Blighty and enjoying well deserved R & R – or taking a rest from commenting?
Are you out there Tim?
That said, there’s plenty of time yet for Brown to capitalise
Talking of capital, Brown will be looking for dramatic policy announcements on becoming PM – just like his 1 claim to fame with the BoE in 1997.
How about he sells off the BBC & Channel4 & cuts his debt figures at a stroke?
the tories have lost the plot. completely off their rockers with their air tax proposals.
still waiting for their tax reduction proposals. i guess i’ll be waiting and waiting on that one. i guess the uk now effectively has three socialist parties.
“i guess the uk now effectively has three socialist parties.”
Not icluding the greens, the snp, plaid cymru – It is how the BBC like it – the only race is now who can go the furthest to the left.
Could anybody give a rough percentage estimate of the BBC’s market ‘penetration’ (titter titter).
But yeah, a few months ago I just took it for granted that the BBC was sort of soft left.
Now I want it dead.
Interesting fact about the Channel 4 documentary on global warming.
“Among those who attempted to prevent the film being shown at all was the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the environment, Chris Huhne, who, without having seen the programme, wrote to Channel 4 executives advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast it.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0GRTEIURPPNPXQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/03/12/do1201.xml
It more than ever convinces me that the “science” on gobal warming put forward by these political parties is a sham. How can anyone, if they agree with the aledged man made global warming or not, seek to gag any opposing views, unless they are certain themselves that what they are advocating is deepley flawed?
“Scientists with impeccable credentials, emeritus professors and acknowledged experts in the field being hounded and professionally discredited for their reservations about an established orthodoxy: not a pretty sight.”
Carl Sagan warned about this in his 1979 documentary “Cosmos”. It was a segment about a guy who theorised that Jupiter was spat out of the Sun. the scientist was vilified and hounded out of his profession. Sagan pointed out that hounding out folks is NOT science – we should argue, debate – but not ruin peoples lives. a hive mind is a bad thing for science.a nd if that takes hold, then you can say bye bye to real science.
decades later, his dire predictions are now coming to fruition with “climate change” hysteria.
archduke: Just as a matter of interest is Cosmos available on DVD?
Yep – I was right – Boy Dave is losing it.
“Will someone from the Tory party please get rid off this jumped-up little lunatic? I have voted Tory all my life but I don’t think I can vote for this raving looney. He forgets that the “green” electorate are mainly bearded sandal wearing lefties. Climate change is not all about CO2 emissions. It is time for the Tories to talk to the “other” scientists and not the one the government wheels out and endorses. Our scientists are often being denied a democratic freedom of speech. Cameron out!
Ex Tory Voter, London
Recommended by 95 people ”
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=5765&edition=1&ttl=20070312022223&#paginator
And this is not the only dissenting voice.
Another way to generate mony for the government?
“Dog lovers in Camden who walk more than four animals at a time face on-the-spot fines under a council crackdown.”
“Fixed penalty tickets would mean we would not have to resort to the courts and people would not get a criminal record,” he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6439581.stm
I wonder if Dave latches onto this one?
God how I hate this country.
.
“Patients risking MRSA in crowded wards”
Thousands of patients are at risk of contracting MRSA and other deadly “superbugs” because more than half of NHS hospitals are overcrowded, it is claimed today.
New figures show that 216 trusts in England – about 52 per cent of the total – have bed occupancy rates of 85 per cent or more – well above accepted safety levels.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/12/nmrsa12.xml
“The Tories are on about airfares yet again. This week, David Cameron and Gordon Brown will conduct a Dutch auction in how much to penalise you for environmental crimes. There is something oddly familiar about all this. Perhaps I am sceptical about the climate change campaign because its exponents remind me so much of the people I knew years ago on the Marxist Left: repressive, self-righteous, and inherently totalitarian”.
“Green lobby must not stifle the debate”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/03/12/do1201.xml
bbc news bulletin on the radio.
cameron wants to tax us more. gordon brown perfers to educate us on ecofascism. so the Tories are the taxation party now. well, thats the impression i’m getting from the news headlines.
“archduke: Just as a matter of interest is Cosmos available on DVD?
Jon | 12.03.07 – 2:23 am ”
i think there was a 20th anniversary edition that might be still available. but you can find it on all the major bittorrent sites.
the episode i refer to above is episode 4 – and the scientist in question is Immanuel Velikovsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage#Episode_4:_.22Heaven_and_Hell.22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky
Oops! C4 picked a bad title for their climate change programme. The programme makers seem as bad as the hysterics from the other side of the argument.
LGF has extract from The Independent
Professor Wunsch, One of the scientists who appears in the Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle now claims his views were misrepresented
“The movie was terrible propaganda. It is characteristic of propaganda that you take an area where there is legitimate dispute and you claim straight out that people who disagree with you are swindlers.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24764_Oceanographer_Cries_Foul&only
Another leftie gives the thumbs up to Adam Curtis’ The Trap – Mad Bunting in the Guardian. Good response from “pedrito” in the comments:
I haven’t watched this latest one, but have watched and studied all Curtis’s previous documentaries (the Power of Nightmares, the Mayfair Set etc).
Despite covering quite differing subjects, they’re so similar that they end up revealing more about Curtis himself than anything else. He’s obsessed with the idea of men behind closed doors/in labs/in bunkers in the 50s and 60s pulling strings. Their powerful concoctions merged with reality and confused us all, but there’s hope because now we understand that we’ve been duped.
He also a master propagandist and manipulator himself. His use of imagery and sound is mesmerising, blinding the viewer to wildly simplified and exaggerated theories of influence.
Still, I’ll watch it and see if this one is any great departure. Sounds like more of the same. I find the BBC’s solid endorsement of his work troubling.
On the evidence of last night’s first part it seems to me that Curtis has wandered into the realms of self-parody. The use of foreboding music was laughable – I half expected Thatcher’s appearance to be accompanied by the screeching violins from the shower scene in Psycho. He may as well go the whole nine yards and flash up subliminal messages such as “Capitalism Evil” and “Socialism Good”. And as pedrito says, the BBC’s endorsement of this stuff is indeed troubling (but not surprising). No doubt it will be showered with awards by the leftie luvvie community.
Third World Britain | 12.03.07 – 7:54 am |
Private Eye has a good cartoon on page 12 of the 2-15 March 2007 issue.
A patient lies in bed with a sword above him labeled MRSA. The cartoon caption is ‘The Ward of Damocles’
(sorry no link – can’t find it on line)
Well I thought it was funny. IGMC.
‘Insurgent’ ‘leader’ ‘held’ ‘in’ ‘Iraq’ ‘.’
His use of imagery and sound is mesmerising
Really! It was “The Day Today” cliche. E.g.
“Mr X went to the USA” (video of any old plane landing any old where)
“The results were analysed by computer” (video of old mainframe tape drives whirring)
etc etc
These stock images accompanied each (part) sentence. Terrible
Cameron interviewed at length on the Tory green taxes by (an unusually non-confrontational) Naughtie on “Today”. The only time Naughtie gets animated is when he tries to embarrass Cameron by quoting John Redwood’s blog to the effect that global warming on Mars seems not to have an anthropogenic cause. Cameron laughs it off as a Redwood joke (“it’s only a blog Jim!”). Naughtie refuses to go down the road of questioning whether the reaction to (possible) anthropogenic global warming is a bit, well, overdone. Instead, Naughtie indulges in a wankfest with Cameron over the invitation to the Great Hypocrite (Al Gore) to appear before Tory front benchers (Redwood would be welcome to come along and listen says Cameron).
The BBC – in the person of Naughtie – refuses to engage or even acknowledge that 1. there are respectable doubts about the anthropogenic cause of global warming (particularly the causality relationship between CO2 and climate change) or 2. even if the climate change Gestapo is correct, the possible destruction of UK-based global aviation might not be the most effective way to go.
More on The Trap at Samizdata.
Guy Herbert’s comment is particularly good. It includes this line:
“Why the BBC chooses to produce such tripe is more interesting than the tripe itself.”
GCcooper,
Cameron’s best policy at the moment is to be bland because everything he says will be misrepresented by the BBC et al. If the goal was as open as you claim Michael Howard would be PM.
Will,
Get past the Dependant’s spin and you’ll see Professor Wunsch’s claims are specious in the extreme. He didn’t like being shown on a programme that criticised Global Warming, that’s all.
Another thing about “The Trap” was the way in which Curtis seemed to treat the computer as an infallible, Big Brother machine.
The computer analysed responses to questionaires & came up with the answer that most of us are mad.
Were we, as an intelligent audience, expected to think, ah but the results only reflect the opinions of the programmer? Perhaps, but the ponderous Curtis never made that expicit & his repeated depiction of the machine itself (mathematical, cold reason etc) leaves one wondering.
“Professor Wunsch, One of the scientists who appears in the Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle now claims his views were misrepresented”
Maybe he’s been threatened – or applying for UN funding – I wonder if the BBC will pick up on this one?
archduke – thanks
sweet jesus. talk about an own goal.
noon news and the bbc leads on the tories green taxes.
so , the end result is the impression that Tories are all in favour of even more tax than Gordon Brown.
wonderful. who are the dunderhead idiots running the Tory party nowadays? Brown must be laughing his head off.
ArchDuke and Will,
Thanks for your response. It happens in America too ABC, CBS, NBC and cable CNN who I now call CutNruN. Fox runs stories of progress thankfully.
Another place to check out Iraqi progress is USAID and USACE:
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/
http://www.grd.usace.army.mil/
Check out weekly from USACE.
It is boring reading. But it is so important to the future of IRaq.
You’ll see a massive effort to rebuild a country from scratch. Its the new Marshall Plan of the Middle East.
We’re liberating millions for the first time in their lives in over 35 years. Many grew up not ever knowing how to live free. Thank about that for a minute. Brainwashed to either live by what a Cleric tells them, or oppressed under Saddam.
Things are slowly turning around.
Medias irresponsible actions are costing lives. By essentially being a puppet of the left and associating more with terrorist than with free countries. They’re playing with fire.
Report bombs. But report with the same disgust as with London, Madrid, Bali, and New York bombings. And then report the heroic actions of our sons and daughters who fight these murderous thugs.
Instead they twist it to be American’s fault that terrorist are murdering innocent people.
We’re at war.
What did they expect, pudding and pie? Tea for two with crumpets? We’re winning and the terrorist run from our soldiers, then blow up innocents about 90% of the time to either strike fear into our media or public, or to create a larger war between Sunnia and Shia.
Check out Ralph Peters column. He rips apart the Saudi and Islamic leaders hypocrisy.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03082007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/killing_muslims_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm
We need more Churchills, time to put the Chamberlains back in their appeasement box. They can all “come out” again after the wars are over.
“Four-year-olds will get gay fairytales at school”
“Schools are teaching children as young as four about same-sex relationships to comply with new gay rights laws, it emerged yesterday.
They are introducing youngsters to homosexuality using a series of story books in preparation for controversial regulations coming into force next month.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441542&in_page_id=1770
Oh and he rips the Left as well:
“American leftists, who raved that Abu Ghraib was another Auschwitz, didn’t offer a single word of pity for the Muslim victims of Muslims.”
He nails them for their utter sniveling hypocrisy. Out of millions of soldiers, a few bad ones misbehave, making fun of prisoners and some people, even in our own Congress compared them to Nazi’s.
I think its time Conservatives join hands across the pond and around the world. I’m tired of the leftist mentality and especially the fact that the Media is largely run by the left.
NewsCorp is doing OK. But there’s need for a more indepth, serious, conservative News Program that attacks all these issues head on.
All the best! By the way… Been to your lovely island during the week old Saddam’s rule fell! Stayed in London, went to a wedding in Hereford, then toured the Lakes, up to Scotland and back down again, staying in a hotel evidently owned by Muslims near Hyde Park.
They were glued to the Tube. And the day Saddam fell, I was saying a happy Good Morning to them from Texas!
I’ll never forget we went to Buckingham later that day and they played several American march tunes in honor of our victory from Suza. Wow, what a feeling to be part of history.
And yet today, because of our media. The people don’t even realize how important this battle is.
Hang together guys. Write your leaders. Tell them they’ll lose your votes! Find those leaders who will listen and support them. It actually works if you make it a concerted effort. The days of complaining are over… Time to fight back on all fronts. Just like this Blog.
Thru Media, Education, business and politics. We’ve allowed the left to infiltrate all areas, teaching our children, and then rule the Media airwaves of our society for too long. People trust media without questioning its bias, unless it is extreme. They certainly do not question “omission” of truth.
As a result, people fear global warming more than they do Islamic radical terrorist groups. The ones who actually murdered our people. In a million years, maybe our offspring will die from global warming.
By printing, TV, or internet. If the whole truth is not told, if there is no other source to look at, people follow like sheep.
I know I did until 9/11, 2001.
Islamic Terrorists warn Austria, Germany
“CAIRO, Egypt – Islamic militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria unless the two European nations break ranks with the U.S. and withdraw their personnel from Afghanistan, according to a Web statement.
A video posted by the group calling itself the “Arrows of Righteousness,” shows the abducted woman, identified as Hannelore Marianne Krause. She was wearing a blue scarf over her head and eyeglasses and is shown seated on the floor, next to her grown son.
“I am here threatened by these people, they will kill my son in front of my eyes, then they will kill me if the German forces do not pull out of Afghanistan,” she sobbed, speaking in German as an Arabic translation scrolled over the screen.
The woman appealed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to respond to the kidnappers’ demands.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_on_re_mi_ea/afghan_militants_tape
“I think its time Conservatives join hands across the pond and around the world. ”
Hear Hear……
Quick before we end up in an Islamic State run by gay lesbian socialist fascist EU Paradise……..christ what a mess they are making…do they even realise this will all lead to war……
Socialists…Hitler, Stalin…now the BBC……bloody morons who will cause the deaths of millions.
France and the UK reinforcing security measures after the defection of Iranian Vice defense minister
http://counterterrorismblog.org/