Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


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.

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1,055 Responses to Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

  1. Biodegradable says:

    Fran | 30.03.07 – 1:48 pm

    Thanks Fran, and thanks also to the blog owners who permit us to discuss and share viewpoints here, which I feel is much more valuable than the few corrections we manage to squeeze out of the BBC.

    They are so minor and come so long after the fact (like the ‘health warning’ on the Barbara Plett tears for Arafat piece), that the majority of the BBC’s audience are probably unaware that anything has changed.

    I’m still waiting for a reply from Lord Reith:
    http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/5226604718258340207/#335441

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  2. xlr says:

    IiD. Can we add these:

    23. Jeremy Hardy
    24. SandybToksvig

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  3. IiD-Supporting our Troops!! says:

    Making sure that Iranian propaganda is given a good airing.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6507989.stm

    Of course the only people able to speak “freely” are probably members of MOIS /VEVAK

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/vevak.htm

    “Ministry of Security and Intelligence personnel are either attached as diplomats in Iranian embassies and consulate offices or as Ministry of Guidance and Propaganda representatives. Non-official covers include Iran Air [the official airline of Iran] or as students, merchants, mechanics, shopkeepers, bank clerks, as well as members of opposition groups. VEVAK has frequently relied on the foreign branches of Iranian state-controlled banks to place intelligence agents and to finance terrorist operations. In Germany, for instance, the most prominent is Bank Melli, which maintains branches in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf.”

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/vevak-ops.htm

    “Iran is the most active sponsor of terrorism in the world. Since the inception of the Islamic state in 1979, the country has used terrorism as an integral part of its foreign and military policies. Iranian leaders view terrorism as a valid tool to accomplish their political objectives. Terrorist operations are reviewed and approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government, and the President of Iran is involved in the approval process of all major terrorist operations. Iranian-sponsored terrorism has had two major goals: Punishing opponents of the Islamic regime and expanding the Islamic movement throughout the Persian Gulf region.”

    http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iran/vevak/ops.htm

    And a brief bio on the man who is making the UK a laughing stock

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gholam_Hossein_Mohseni-Ejehei

    Fran-Don’t expect anything from traitor Reith-he is probably having a conference call with his MOIS counterpart.

    BBC-Not in My Name.

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  4. BaggieJonathan says:

    Controversially it really should be 25 but we would have to get Al An Johnston out of detention in order to trade him…

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  5. Allan@Aberdeen says:

    “Yet the sailors and marines — including terrified mum Faye Turney — were operating as UN personnel, implementing a UN mandate.”

    Is it not a little perverse when our forces now allow women, indeed mothers, to serve in the front line? I had thought that the purpose of our armed forces was to protect people such as mothers: now, we put them up-front.

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  6. IiD-Supporting our Troops!! says:

    xlr:

    sure…

    i’m adding:

    25.Paul Reynolds
    26.Joe Campbell

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6506171.stm

    Obviously when MOIS agents are in your organization then you gain such insights.

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  7. IiD-Supporting our Troops!! says:

    BioD.

    Sorry I’ve been on a rant,but great work!!!

    Hat Tip for today!!

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  8. rightofcentre says:

    12.Nat Kaplinsky
    – sorry she doesn`t count as she is some sort of alien robot.

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  9. Robbiekeane says:

    I note that there’s nothing in the BBC report on the latest ‘admission’ condemning the abysmal curtains that Our Boys are forced to ‘confess’ in front of.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6509813.stm

    Where’s the comment from the Changing Rooms crew??

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  10. GCooper says:

    IiD-Supporting our Troops writes:

    “Making sure that Iranian propaganda is given a good airing.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talki…int/ 6507989.stm”

    Worse by far was R4’s lunchtime ‘news’ programme which allowed Dr. Ali Ansari to spout a load of moral relativism of the most disingenuous kind.

    He pushed the line that there is something in common between the US detention of a number of Iranians (which he misleadingly called an ‘abduction’) and the illegal capture of the British sailors.

    The Iranians were operating in a foreign country, Iraq, where there is a mass of evidence that their masters are directly responsible for terrorist activities. The suspicion is that they were part of this murderous activity – and it is not hard to believe.

    The British sailors, on the other hand,were in Iraqi waters carrying out a UN operation.

    Naturally, Ansari was not called to account for this nonsense.

    Thus does the BBC do its work, carefully selecting spokesmen to promote its Guardanista agenda.

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  11. DAW says:

    Can we have number

    27. Tim Marshall and the whole Sky News team, or shall they be number 28?, plus the Iranian flag they are so proudly using as their full screen backdrop today.

    He must be the worst foreign correspondent on this issue at the moment, he is getting it continuously wrong by the minute, excuse after excuse for the Iranians and their continually referring to “The British” in the third person is really starting to grate now. I didn’t know they’d moved their head office to Dubai already.

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  12. Little L says:

    Could this list, once finished, be put onto the Downing Street website Petitions section in any way?

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  13. the_camp_commandant says:

    Shouldn’t that be Neboola Kaplinsky??

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  14. Biodegradable says:

    Sorry I’ve been on a rant,but great work!!!

    Hat Tip for today!!
    IiD-Supporting our Troops!! | 30.03.07 – 2:12 pm

    Thanks, been enjoying your rant too 😉

    I think the message is that it is worth complaining, and insisting.

    Perhaps we will succeed in re-educating them some day – I’d like to believe that a lot of their bias, at least as far as the Israeli/Arab ‘conflict’ is concerned, is attributable to ‘learned ignorance’.

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  15. Stuck-record says:

    Two events from the Arab league summit in Riyadh.
    One reported by the BBC. One not.

    What is enthusiastically reported on the BBC website is that the Arab leaders have unanimously agreed to resurrect the 2002 peace plan — that requires Israel to pull back to pre-1967 borders.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6501573.stm

    But the Arab leaders have also unanimously decided something else. It has all the right buzzwords, genocide, Africans, UN, ethnic cleansing etc.
    http://www.nysun.com/article/51417

    I wonder why I can’t find news of it anywhere on the BBC website?
    Could it be because it clearly shows the Arab ‘Umma’ complicit in genocide?

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  16. IiD-Supporting our Troops!! says:

    You hit the nail bang on the head.

    We are now referred to in the THIRD PERSON on every article that is vomited from IBC.

    Well I suggest that they no longer consider themselves British then perhaps out friends in MI5 can escort them all to Heathrow and on the Iran Air Flight to Tehran.

    http://travel.kelkoo.co.uk/browse/b/172201/t_Tehran.html

    And make it a one way journey so we can cut down on greenhouse gasses….

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  17. Rueful Red says:

    They’re British all right. When they’re taking money off people on pain of imprisonment, that is.

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  18. Biodegradable says:

    More on the Gaza sewage tsunami:

    How greed, hatred and corruption engulfed a Palestinian village in sewage

    It’s a pity Alan Johnston isn’t available to give us a first hand, unbiased acount of this latest ‘predicament’ the “Palestinians” find themselves in.

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  19. Stuck-record says:

    Another comparison.
    The BBC had been plugging this one like mad all week — even taking out adverts on mainstream television.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3581815.stm
    “Insurance could be such a difficult issue for the owners of slave ships.
    Take the case of the Zong, a British vessel out of Liverpool that transported a human cargo from Africa in 1781.
    Food and water were running low; some of the slaves were dying.
    So, what to do? Under the terms of the insurance, a death by natural causes would not receive payment, but a death by drowning would.
    The answer was clear to Captain Luke Collingwood: throw more than 130 slaves overboard to claim the insurance.”

    Completely evil, we can all agree. But funny that I aven’t seen any coverage of this more modern version though…maybe it’s not so evil if it’s not white capitalists?

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070326/ap_on_re_mi_ea/yemen_refugee_deaths
    “SAN`A, Yemen – Smugglers taking illegal migrants from Somalia to Yemen forced hundreds of Africans overboard in stormy seas in an effort to make a fast getaway from security forces, officials said Monday. Thirty-one bodies have been found and nearly 90 people remained missing. Passengers who resisted the smugglers were stabbed or beaten with wooden and steel clubs, then thrown into the water where some were attacked by sharks, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said, citing survivors.
    “Several recovered bodies showed signs of severe mutilation,” UNHCR said. “Survivors also reported that several Ethiopian women and at least one Somali were raped and abused by the smugglers during the voyage from Bosaso in Somalia’s Puntland region. Survivors also alleged that some Yemeni security forces confiscated their money once they reached shore.”

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  20. JimBob says:

    zboy | 30.03.07 – 1:31 pm

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  21. JimBob says:

    zboy | 30.03.07 – 1:31 pm

    Yes. £250,000 to remember the lives of 250 Brtish servicemen and it’s too expensive.

    £3,000,000 into Jonathon Ross’ back pocket and there’s no problem.

    I think the BBC have chosen to ignore the Falklands because they would only try and portray the whole thing in a bad way. They know this would offend the vast majority of people so they decide to ignore it.

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  22. Ultraviolence says:

    “Channel 4’s shocking new film is described as fictional, but “inspired by real life events”.
    archduke | 30.03.07 – 12:47 pm | #

    SIT-COMS BASED UPON THE LIFE OF FRED WEST

    10. The Madman’s Family

    9. Are You Being Harmed?

    8. Gouge And Mildred

    7. Man Behaving Madly

    6. Dad’s Barmy

    5. Absolutely Stab-u-lous

    4. Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em

    3. It Don’t ‘Alf Hurt Mum

    2. Drop The Dead Daughter (In The Hole)

    1. Only Fred And Corpses

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  23. TPO says:

    archduke……..Thanks for your brief on QT. Sounds like it wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated.
    On a different channel did anyone catch John Bolton demolishing Jon Snow on News at 7.
    Snow tried to rope in the embassy hostage situation and was promptly holed below the water line by being reminded that the Oval Office incumbant at the time was the most limp-wristed failure ever to hold the office.
    It finished with Bolton inferring (without actually saying it) that Snow was extremely naive and immature.
    Sink one Jon Snow.

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  24. Oscar says:

    Stuck record:
    Re: Riyadh summit – and the different treatment of Israel and Darfur. This is testimony from a delegate to UN Human Rights Council on the day Hillel Neuer from UN Watch made his intrepid and censored speech (see Biodegradable’s post at 11.46AM to watch it) which explains a lot:

    “…Earlier that day you had the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories declare that, because Israel is a ‘Western-affiliated’ state, the West cannot expect the Developing world to do ANYTHING about Darfur, Zimbabwe et al until it takes care of the Israel/Palestine situation.

    In other words, the human rights of everyone in the developing world are being held hostage to the affairs of a few million people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

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  25. Oscar says:

    “On a different channel did anyone catch John Bolton demolishing Jon Snow on News at 7.”

    TPO – yes I did – wasn’t it a treat? Relished every word, including his rendition of “Negotiate Britannia”!

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  26. TPO says:

    IiD-Supporting our Troops!!:
    ‘Why don’t we exchange the fifteen for these enemies of the state:’

    May I suggest for inclusion in this list one Ali Dezai. Not only is he odious, an Iranian to boot but he surely meets the criteria to be classed (in the old parlance) as an ‘undesirable alien’.

    Bio

    Well done … a victory.

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  27. Anonymous says:

    Has Chakrabati been on the BBC yet to complain about these illegal detentions?

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  28. Anonymous says:

    WORLD’S MOST POPULAR SHOWS

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5231334.stm

    1. CSI: Miami
    2. Lost
    3. Desperate Housewives
    4. Te Voy a Ensenar a Querer
    5. The Simpsons
    6. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
    7. Without a Trace
    8. Inocente de Ti
    9. Anita, No Te Rajes!
    10. The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

    Source: Informa Telecoms and Media

    I wonder if any of the Beeboids could explain why the most well funded and alledgely “best” broadcaster in thw rold, can;t get a single show in the top 10?……..we’re told Top Gear is seen by 350,000,000 around the world…..is this just utter horse shit from the BBC?…….5 Million watch it regularly in the UK….so where do they they think the other 345 Mil are tuned in?…….

    Beeboids, Face it, you work for a fading PBS (tee-hee) broadcaster, that belings to a fading Empire…….

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  29. TPO says:

    rightofcentre:
    Not that I am a particular fan of The Iron Lady, (being a Miner at the time).

    As a matter of interest, were you on the picket lines, and if so, where. We might have come across each other.

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  30. Anonymous says:

    Oscar:
    I saw that this report was from the UNHCR. And I also saw the fantastic speech that Mr Neuer made that day (thanks Biodegradable). After watching the video of that I can understand why the UN wouldn’t do anything about murdered Africans — its obsession with Israel and Palestine is overwhelming, and drives all before it. (Last nights charade at the Security Council shows the UN for what it really is — as if anyone was in any doubt)

    My point was: why are dozens of Africans thrown to the sharks 200 years ago, news, when dozens of Africans thrown to the sharks today, aren’t?

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  31. Stuck-record says:

    For anyone who didn’t watch Question Time last night. It was one of the least rabidly left-wing and self congratulatory editions of the show I’ve seen in a long time. Probably because it was coming from Bath.

    Watch for the moment when the (slightly dim) businesswoman Yvonne Thompson made her heartfelt plea that the West should offer apologies and reparations for the slave trade. It’s a hilarious moment, as when she finished speaking, instead of the rousing applause she expected, a single desultry individual clapped — then thinking better of it, shut up.

    You could almost hear the tumbleweed blow through the studio.

    It was also great to hear her highly educated claim (unchallenged by David Dimbleby) that between two and 12 million African slaves had been thrown overboard for insurance purposes. Wow!

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  32. Stuck-record says:

    Sorry.
    Anonymous 3:33 pm was me.

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  33. Jon Gregory says:

    Not so much a bias more agenda driven. On the BBC television news, a piece on motorcycling and possible government restrictions on a motorcycle’s top speed. The reporter went to the Ace Cafe North London ( a meeting place for bikers)they had a comment from one motorcyclist, and guess what it was a woman and she was black (good comments by the by. However they must have had to search high & low to find her.

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  34. rightofcentre says:

    TPO:
    As a matter of interest, were you on the picket lines, and if so, where. We might have come across each other.

    No I wasn`t, I fundamentally disagreed with a strike that was called on the basis of a vote taken months previously. What I think others on here haven`t grasped is that; when a strike was called it was “one out all out”, especially in my neck of the woods (Yorkshire). It was really Thatchers determination to do away with the NUM, not any pay claim, or “coals bad for the environment” argument.
    If I had chose to go picketing, I would have got a couple of quid a day for picket duty.
    But even at that young age, I knew we were going to lose, coal had been stockpiled for the previous year, gas was cheap and so on.
    Hence, we have no coal industry now, and have to buy gas from the Russians.

    Mrs Thatcher was good during the Falklands war, but in the end it was her own party that deposed her, not NULabour the unions or anything else.
    People who hark back to her reign as some sort of Utopia, clearly didn`t live through it.
    Rant over.
    Oh and the BBC were just as biased then as they are now, just not on air 24hrs a day.

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  35. TPO says:

    rightofcentre

    Thanks for the response. I’m being dragged off to Sainsburys now so can’t reply fully. Suffice to say I was in uniform at the time and spent seven months in Kent, Notts, South Yorks and Warwickshire.

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  36. archduke says:

    ” rightofcentre | 30.03.07 – 3:51 pm”

    it was a time of severe change, and change is always painful. but it had to be done.

    but thatcherite change was nothing compared to what happened in Russia a decade later.

    “Has Chakrabati been on the BBC yet to complain about these illegal detentions?
    Anonymous | 30.03.07 – 3:25 pm”

    err.. no.
    http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/index.shtml

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  37. BaggieJonathan says:

    Sky, Channel4, ITN, you name it, all seem to be following the IBC example of referring to the British in the third person as though we aren’t British.

    The quite ridiculous amount of airtime being given to Iranian moonbats and their fifth columnist friends over here is grossly insulting.

    I fear the IBC have set their loathe Britain and anything British at any cost agenda and woefully other news media seem to be accepting it and rolling on behind.

    Please tell me there is going to be a backlash against this crock of quislings because frankly I’ve lost patience with it and rant no longer begins to cover it…

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  38. IiD-Supporting out Troops!!! says:

    To the Members of the Iranian Parliament and people

    Thank you for you letters, I’m sure you’ll keep them coming.

    However the British people would like to offer a counter-proposal.

    In exchange for the 15 members of our Armed Services we would like to exchange 30 BBC Journalists. We fully understand that this might seem a bad trade of BUT this is the starting point for our mutual discussions.

    The names hereby are:

    1.Mark Thompson
    2.Kevin Bakehurst
    3.Kevin Marsh
    4.John Simpson
    5.Kirsty Wark
    6.Jeremy Bowen
    7.Helen Broden
    8.Micheal Crick
    9.Nick Robinson
    10.John Humphries
    11.Frank Gardner
    12.Nat Kaplinsky
    13.Sophie Rainworth
    14.Matt Frei
    15.Sadeq Saba
    16. Barbara Plett
    18. Feargal Keane
    19. James Naughtie
    20. The MontaQinn
    21. The QuinnTague
    23. Jeremy Hardy
    24. Sandy Toksvig
    25.Paul Reynolds
    26.Joe Campbell
    27.Ben Brown
    27.David Dimblby
    28.Tim Marshall
    29.John Sweeney
    30.Craig Oliver

    The BBC will be more than happy to reimburse you for the flight.

    We shall also be sending a delegation of our most esteemed leaders as well to ensure we have a permanent presence in Iran.

    I’m sure your Government are familiar with these enlightened individuals:

    George Galloway, Kate Hoey, Joan Ruddock, Tony Benn, Jermy Corbyn, Ming Campbell, Charles Kennedy.

    Sadly we couldn’t get David Milliband to go because he is too young.

    We believe in “giving peace a chance” and “fighting war not wars” so in the spirit of Islam and multicutralism I hope we can settle our differences.

    Yours truly,

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  39. rightofcentre says:

    TPO:
    Although I never held any grudge against the police at the time, not actually coming into contact with them, can I ask if you felt you were being used for political reasons, or just purely public order?.

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  40. archduke says:

    just heard on the radio:

    remember that “teaching assitant” veil story up in dewsbury? went to appeal and she’s lost the appeal.

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  41. Ralph says:

    ‘I wonder if any of the Beeboids could explain why the most well funded and alledgely “best” broadcaster in thw rold, can;t get a single show in the top 10?’

    Or show any of them.

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  42. archduke says:

    ” IiD-Supporting out Troops!!! | 30.03.07 – 4:06 pm”

    and that list shows our inherently generous nature. 2 for 1. how could they not take it on.

    i’m sure the americans could pitch up to bump up the numbers to a 3 for 1 deal.

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  43. IiD-Supporting Our troops!!! says:

    Give it 15 minutes and there be another ‘press release’from the IBC.

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  44. archduke says:

    no scare quotes in the subheading
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/
    “A second member of the Royal Navy crew apologises on Iranian television for trespassing in Iranian waters.”

    full story:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6509813.stm

    first sentence:
    A second member of the Royal Navy crew captured in the Gulf has apologised for “trespassing” in Iranian waters, in a broadcast on Iranian television.

    now, here is how the telegraph reports it:
    headline:
    Outrage as sailor ‘confesses’ on Iranian TV
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/30/wiran930.xml

    first sentence:
    Tony Blair has expressed a “sense of disgust” at the broadcast of footage showing a captured British sailor “confessing” to illegally entering Iranian waters.

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  45. Rueful Red says:

    What about that Mark Wossname who’s supposedly an alternative comedian but never makes anyone laugh? He’s on all the time.

    I know he’s not a journo and is I suppose non-political, but I really think Bill Oddie might enjoy trip too. He ain’t half irritating.

    Oh, and the Hairy Bikers cooking duo who managed to visit Vietnam and not metion what a buunch of brutes the communists are.

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  46. IiD-Supporting our troops!! says:

    Rueful-

    I know the feeling.

    So many quislings-so many lamp posts……….

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  47. IiD-Supporting our troops!! says:

    Mark “I get my jokes from George because Qusay told him” Steele.

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  48. Rueful Red says:

    That’s the one! IiD, I salute your indefatigability!

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  49. JimBob says:

    Rueful Red | 30.03.07 – 4:22 pm

    Mark Steele,

    I was just about to suggest him, just below Jeremy Hardy

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  50. Biodegradable says:

    IiD-Supporting out Troops!!! | 30.03.07 – 4:06 pm

    Orla Göering seems to have slipped off the list. Please, please, please send her too. Although she’s been relatively quiet of late I’d rather not hear her Oirish lilt never, ever again.

    Given the interest in the video of Hillel Neuer of UN Watch’s speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council here’s a link to the UN Watch web site:
    http://www.unwatch.org/

    Here are some guidlines that I’m certain the BBC will be more than glad to adopt:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/30/wislam30.xml

    The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.

    Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers “non-offensive” phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks

    Of course when being attacked by terrorists we must be very careful not talk about those attacks in a way that the terrorists may find ‘offensive’.

    What?!

    Melanie Phillips, The appeasement of Iran

    End of transmission.

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