Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
John Reith
“The BBC • along with everybody else • reported this information. What’s the big deal?”
I’ve been following this thread and I’m still confused by John Reith’s original interpretation on why the BBC chose to mention that the man was white. Contrary to this ‘it wasn’t just us’ rebuttal he’s now using.
Am I being stupid here by thinking that the words: “This is a not a terrorist incident” is quite enough to placate everyone into realising that it…erm…wasn’t a terrorist incident? How does the descriptor ‘white’ improve upon this?
However, I’m still waiting for J.R’s answer to Bob’s question on this subject:-
Bob:
“JR – I’m confused. Is it right to say that you are suggesting that if the police do not mention the subject’s ethnicity the BBC assume it’s non-white and if the police say it is white then the BBC assume the subject is not a terrorist?
If this is not correct, then how should we interpret your comment? Please elucidate.”
Umbongo,
Apologies. When it comes to interpreting non-verbal cues from text, sometimes I may as well have Asperger’s Syndrome.
Speaking of being obtuse, the BBC minions responsible for this dopiness are transparently thick, aren’t they?
John Reith | 03.08.07 – 5:10 pm,
I suppose we are making a big deal of it because the BBC’s anti-white racism represents a large chunk of its overall bias and because you appear to be genuinely unable to see this. Now you are moving the goalposts.
This –
The Police quite rightly acted to reassure the public by briefing the media that they did not regard it as a terrorist incident and that the driver had been a white man in his 40s…
The BBC – along with everybody else – reported this information.
– is not what johnj described in his 02.08.07 – 3:22 pm post. He indicated that the information that the driver was white came from the BBC, independently of the police spokesman:
Watching BBC News 24, a spokesperson for the police told us “I want to stress its not a terrorist related incident”
And then, most remarkable, given that an investigation is underway: the BBC flashed up for us:
Dead man is white in his 40s.
As johnj went on to indicate, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all if the BBC mentioned the race of others in similar circumstances, but it doesn’t.
If you wont be convinced by us that the BBC favours other races at the expense of whites, watch Peter Horrocks, head of Television News, interviewed on Newswatch on the lack of coverage of the Kriss Donald murder:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_5090000/newsid_5094400/5094482.stm
(Scroll down to 27 October.)
You’ll notice that though Mr. Horrocks spends most of the interview defending the BBC, and will not admit to bias (shock, horror) against white victims of crime, he does acknowledges that the BBC’s coverage of the Kriss Donald murder was deficient.
Now if he can do that, Mr. Reith, why can’t you?
Note that though Mr. Horrocks acknowledges that the BBC should have coverage the first day of the second trial and (when pressed by the interviewer) that the BBC should have covered the first trial, he does not explain the lack of coverage but insists that it is not a matter of political correctness.
Then what is it, Mr. Reith? Inquiring minds want to know.
David Preiser
No apology needed but thanks anyway.
“transparently thick”? Possibly. But transparent? Certainly.
From the BBC website in an article on how Gordon Brown has made himself the man of change “He has implemented a carefully contrived strategy aimed at making the Blair years seem an age away while making David Cameron appear lightweight, policy-free and irrelevant. ” Hmmm I wonder if any media organisation has been helping him with this strategy?
After Labour’s reforms of the BBC governors to the ‘BBC Trust’ it seems that nobody now knows who is actually responsible for the BBC. Which I suspect is just as Labour planned it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6928181.stm
The way Sir Michael Lyons was appointed BBC chairman has come under attack from an all-party select committee….
“It is no longer clear who is ultimately responsible for the BBC or what the role of the Chairman of the BBC Trust is.”
Will the BBC run a special report?
British Muslims admites killing 100s of Serbians on film.
Surely if the IBC wanted to reassure people, it should have said that the person was ‘not a Muslim’.
Van Explosion
John Reith | 03.08.07 – 5:10 pm
The Police quite rightly acted to reassure the public by briefing the media that they did not regard it as a terrorist incident and that the driver had been a white man in his 40s (not fitting the current terrorist profile). Shortly afterwards they announced that no trace of explosives had been found in what was left of the van.
JR – it does sound like you are saying that the declaration of skin colour was used to reinforce the statement by the police that they “did not regard it as a terrorist incident “.
If the van driver had been black – would you presume differently?
Kirsty Wark on Newsnight suggests to a supporter of a referendum on the EU draft constitution, that Cameron would recoil in horror as it would brand the Conservatives as Eurosceptic.
Maybe Eurosceptic, but wouldn’t he put his party in tune with a majority of the electorate?
Egyptians killed 4 Sudanese on border
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat…icle% 2FShowFull
Funny, this story has all the elements that the BBC usually rushes to publish:
*Israeli-Arab conflict
*Black Refugees
*Muslims
*Killing of defenceless innocents
And the story broke on August 2nd. So I’m amazed that I can’t find it on the BBC.
Maybe they tucked it away under Entertainment?
‘Kirsty Wark on Newsnight suggests to a supporter of a referendum on the EU draft constitution, that Cameron would recoil in horror as it would brand the Conservatives as Eurosceptic.’
It’s clear that the BBC are going to spin any Tory demands for the promised referendum as a mix of eurosceptic xenophobia and a panicked rush to traditional Tory ground in response to the ‘successes’ of Brown.
Did anybody hear the interview with that Scottish hero from Glasgow on this morning’s BBC radio 4s Today prog. I was patiently waiting to hear his well-known description of the suicide car-bomber screaming “Allah” everytime he fanatically hit out at the policeman and how he restrained him. What happened, was it stealth-edited out?
Strange, he didn’t say anything about this in the BBC interview, instead he became ecstatic about how great and what a fine chap Gordon Brown was, for sitting down with him at No.10 (what an amazing place) and giving him some time, knowing that he has 101 things to do, and do you know he was interested in me and asked questions about my life, etc. What a fine chap is Gordon Brown! Pass the sick bucket.
its an unelected “any questions” this afternoon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/anyquestions.shtml
The panel will include:
WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: Businessman and A List Conservative Candidate
unelected
MINETTE WALTERS: Celebrated Crime Writer
unelected
JOHN KAMPFNER: Editor of The New Statesman
unelected
SIMON HEFFER: Associate Editor The Daily Telegraph
unelected
The Great BBC which made some of the greatest TV programs ever shows it’s latest endeavour;
Great program BBC What next from my licence fee a make over for the evil BNP?
Black MPs spurn Boris mayoral bid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6931359.stm
Hm, this is cross-party, is it?
Er … no.
Conservative MP Boris Johnson’s bid to become London mayor has been condemned by black MPs.
Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott, Labour MPs for Brent South and Hackney North respectively, said his views on race harked back to the 1950s.
So a more accurate heading would be
Two black Labour MPs spurn Boris mayoral bid.
Strange to use the word “spurn” in that context. Of course they don’t support him!
I agree Purple Scorpion it’s another example of the BBCs left bias, and anti •Tory(sic) or should that be Toff sentiment.
“The comments came after the mother of black murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence criticised Mr Johnson’s bid. “
Despite knowing of the tragic loss of her son in a knife/drugs murder and some incompetent handling by the met, what an arrogant silly woman this is. Again she isn’t non political- she is on the council of “LIBERTY” is a paid up member and one of Shami Chakrabarti’s cronies. She was also given a bung by the Labour Party as well, the quaint sounding Order of the British Empire.
“there is no way he is going to get the support of any people in the black community.”
What I find astonishing is the insipid racism of her comments, so there are no “black people” who vote Conservative? Oh yeh, really? What is this utter racist codswallop, that the BBC broadcasts, and it is racist, believe me. What frightening arrogance to imagine that she speaks for the entire “black community” in London. What delusions of grandeur! How mighty she must think herself, she thinks she speaks for the black community. But just look at the respect the BBC gives her, how they are so frightened of even slightly contradicting this truly megalomaniac outburst. This isn’t cross-party, but nobody in the BBC corps will raise a word against what she was saying, or contextualise it, instead they present it as if it’s “universal”.
Objective news reporting, that maybe the BBC in an earlier age would have done, would have qualified these statements by pointing out that these are all the rantings of Labour politicians. A really unbiased BBC would have quoted a Black conservative politician (and there are quite a few) who support Boris. Instead this hysterical nonsense is allowed to stand. The BBC resembles at such times the gutter press.
Ludingtonian,
During katrina it was obvious that at the very least the UK media was mis-representing how the federal system works. Maybe they don’t know how it works? Dunno, I suspect malice more that their own ignorance.
Either way they are using a disaster to mount an attack on bush. Let’s just hope that after the phone-in scandals the public are less inclined to swallow everything they are told.
Talking Politics on BBC impartiality –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/talkingpolitics.shtml
Includes comments from Robin Aitken and Anthony Jay.
What a fine chap is Gordon Brown! Pass the sick bucket.
johnj | 04.08.07 – 10:57 am | #
I too heard that interview with mounting nausea. It was resoundingly obvious that Brown met this chap in Downing Street as a blatantly populist stunt. Yet at no time in the interview did Edward Stourton even mildly suggest that it was ‘perhaps’ a shallow bit of PR by Brown. Instead the Scottish hero was allowed to repeat how ‘kind’ Gordon Brown had been so many times it became ever more embarrassing. Clearly of course the BBC (as ever) colluded with the Downing Street spin. What after all would have been the point of Brown meeting this guy without the gushing interview on the Today programme to let everyone get the message of Brown’s saintly qualities?
John Reith:
reith, please tell me why neither the “m” word nor the “i” word was mentioned a single time in this article
Because when someone is billed as the Secretary General of the Supreme Sharia Council of Nigeria it is as unnecessary to add the adjective ‘Muslim’ as it would be to append the epithet ‘Catholic’ to the head of the Spanish Inquisition.
John Reith | 03.08.07 – 10:14 am | #
————————————-
What rubbish, call a spade a spade, if the Catholic church was responsible for the Spanish Inquisition
then mention it.. Why does the BBC have such problems mentioning Islam when it has relevance to an article,
its like telling a story and leaving out bits and expecting the reader to piece it together themselves..
The BBC main radio 4 bulletins this morning trumpet the perfidy of our government in the mid-70s negotiating to give away the Falklands (being prepared, as a start, the establishment of an Argentinian sovereign base there). The then Foreign Secretary – Anthony Crosland – noted that this was an act of betrayal which the British public, had it known, would not take kindly to. No surprises here: the FCO is always first in line in betraying the interests of the UK and any of its loyal supporters (eg in Gibraltar or the Falklands). However, one word was missing from the BBC reports: Labour. Crosland was a Labour Foreign Secretary in a Labour government. Few casual listeners born after the mid 50s would know that. Why would the BBC omit the word?
One possible explanation is a wish to smear the whole Falklands saga of the 80s with an impression of Thatcher’s “hypocrisy” in defending a territory that the UK government had already agreed to give away. (Another possible explanation is sheer incompetence and crap journalism although explanations concerning BBC bias and BBC incompetence are not mutually exclusive.) This is not to exculpate Conservative Foreign Secretaries, in thrall to the “expertise” and “realpolitik” of the FCO, who also wished to dump the Falklands and Gibraltar.
The real villain of the piece is the FCO whose continuing struggle against the interests of Britain is echoed by its soulmates at the BBC.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/august2007/alanjohnston.htm
Was Alan Johnston a ‘friend’ of Hamas?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/69314/a-major-defeat-in-the-war-to-defend-the-free-world.thtml
The BBC, its defence of Militants and half a story.
Access ‘denied’ to jailed Briton
The British High Commission in Pakistan says that it has been denied access to a Briton imprisoned under suspicion of being a threat to national security. Rengzeib Ahmed, from Manchester, has been detained since April 2006 in northern Pakistan without charge.
………..
His brother recently wrote a letter to the BBC saying the family had only been told about Rengzeib’s arrest by the British police in 2006. “I am very concerned about my brother, his health and how he is kept in Adiala prison,” the brother, Mohammad Pervez, said. The letter says that Rengzeib Ahmed “was taken by the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence and the American Central Intelligence Agency to an unknown place somewhere in Pakistan”.
…………..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6927770.stm
So the BBC yet again promotes this vision of Sinister American dealings, British intransigence and of course Islamic victim status. Which is strange as the Independent has a slightly different story to tell.
Is Reingzeb Ahmed an extremely unfortunate traveller? Or is there another reason why the British citizen has spent more than eight years in south Asian jails – detained but not charged by the authorities?
……..
This is Mr Ahmed’s second spell in an Asian prison. In 1994 he was arrested by Indian authorities while on holiday in Kashmir. Mr Ahmed, then 18, apparently sought to join Muslim rebels in the region. Before his release in 2001, he told the Manchester Evening News: “When I was in England I heard that the Indian forces were doing wrong, killing children and burning mosques. I was told mothers and sisters were being raped by the Indians. It was my duty to go and fight them. I had to come.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2836107.ece
The BBC, its defence of Militants and half a story.
Intersting post on the BBC POV board
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/F1951568?thread=4438733
spot whats missing on the “surge” graph used on this BBC page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6928586.stm
quote:
Not really about BBC bias – more about quality. I’ve just spent half an hour listening on line to Minnesota Public Radio from Minneapolis/St Paul.
High quality news broadcasting. Complex issues carefully explained
Actually there IS a bias issue: public radio in the USA is, like the BBC, generally associated (its promoters and its listeners) with the liberal left – yet somehow it is so much more professional than the BBC!
MattLondon | 02.08.07 – 2:13 pm
MPR funding FAQ
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/support/membership/faq.html
all contributions are tax-deductible to the “fullest extent of the law”.
so therefore listeners are CHOOSING to send their tax dollars to MPR – therefore a feedback loop develops that encourages MPR to be less agenda setting and more in tune with the listenership.
as opposed to the “pay us or else you go to jail” Stalinist method of BBC funding.
the American way of funding seems to be so much more civilised.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
The link is –
Fourteen flee detention centre
Yip, they are fleeing those nasty immigration authorities who don’t want
them here…
Talking Politics on BBC impartiality
Anonanon | 05.08.07 – 9:01 am
I like the way they round off the program with Dennis Sewell throwing soft lobs to Helen Boaden.
They discuss the middle east reporting, omitting any mention of the £200,000 spent supressing publication of the Balen Report.
She tell us there is no insitutionalsed bias at the BBC because we constantly “challenge ourselves”
Sewell then says that Andrew Marr already admitted there was a cultural bias, to which she replies to the effect that she admires Andrew very much, but he’s wrong.
(So that is what’s meant by “challeging ourselves”).
BBC has turned into one huge gravy train – it’s time the party was ended.
I like the way they round off the program with Dennis Sewell throwing soft lobs to Helen Boaden.
They discuss the middle east reporting, omitting any mention of the £200,000 spent supressing publication of the Balen Report.
Bob | 05.08.07 – 2:43 pm |
Richard Littlejohn’s recent C4 documentary on anti-Semitism included a segment in which the former editor of the New Statesman Peter Wilby apologised for the magazine’s notorious ‘Kosher Conspiracy’ edition. The main article was written by Dennis Sewell.
Just listened to the Talking Politics broadcast on BBC impartiality. I found the defenders of the BBC to be – as expected – quite defensive. Prof. Monck clearly lives in the same ivory tower as Director Helen Boaden, although he was not presented as the staunch defender of the BBC that he is. Monck says straight out that if the BBC was altered to better reflect the opinions of the British public, it would be a BBC that he would like less than he does now. Why was he even allowed on? His and Helen Boaden’s comments alternated between an almost arrogant dismissiveness and willful obtuseness. It was in statements of the latter kind where I heard the following from Helen Boaden:
“…there’s often occasions where I think tonally we’ve leaned too far in one wrong direction or another, or we’ve sometimes framed a question in a way that I think isn’t as impartial as it might be…”
So then they have lots of reporters or presenters who behave improperly, or maybe a few bad apples who are chronic offenders. Either way, it says something about the makeup of the staff.
“…there are very many different cultures within the BBC”, she says, when challenged about the prevalent mono-culture. I’m sure there are lots of cultures there: socialist culture, anti-free market culture, anti-military culture, anti-monarchy culture, nanny state culture, anti-Conservatives (US and UK) culture, gay culture, Islamic culture, pro-Hamas culture…The truth is already out about which cultures are in a severe minority or absent entirely from the BBC.
Then Helen is reminded of her own anecdote about the BBC producer who felt obligated to ask if he was allowed to report on air a story that said that the majority of Young Offenders inmates were black, thus making them look worse than whites in the story. She protests:
“Well, interestingly the person who asked that was a reporter and he was a freelancer who had done very little in the BBC, and I don’t know where he got his attitudes from.”
What does all this say about BBC hiring practices? Apparently they seem mostly to hire people who can’t help but be biased reporters, people who fit into certain favored categories, or people prone to “sneer” (Boaden’s word) when reporting on President Bush or Republicans. They also have such odd standards that they will hire – even if on a freelance basis – someone who comes in with the beliefs that the BBC would not want them to broadcast a report that does not fall within certain politically correct guidelines.
With hiring standards that produce results like these, the result is inevitable.
Oscar did you notice how Edward Stourton, pushed the magic button “What did you think of Downing Street?” A rather strange question from a Radio 4 Today presenter, don’t you think?
I agree it was obvious collusion between the BBC and Downing Street, Stourton had been told to push that button,and ask that question.
That whole programme wants dissecting carefully, there were so many questions just begging to be asked that weren’t.
H Boaden gaves Jon Ware’s Panorama prog on Muslim extremism as evidence of them ‘confronting the issues’, but didn’t mention that for years he was blocked by BBC bosses for fear of offending Muslims.
A few months ago when Channel 4’s dispatches programme was revealing the hatred that was preached at several so-called moderate mosques in Birmingham (mosques hailed as an example of tolerance by the government) the BBC was castigating society as a whole over the Big Brother Shilpa Shetty racism affair.
She said that anyone who reported in a “sneering” tone about Bush or America in general would be rapidly pulled up about it. I wonder what happened to Matt Frei and his much criticised hate-filled reporting on hurricane Katrina — well we know don’t we, absolutely nothing.
Her only slight admission of guilt was on matters such as the reporting of immigration. She admits that the BBC were “late”. Quite what she means by this isn’t clear, but I see precious little sign of them catching up. Their recent reports on the housing shortage didn’t feature the impact of immigration at all, and although they report the yearly increase in AIDS figures, they still claim it is as a result of people practising unsafe sex in this country — when in reality it is almost entirely due to immigration from Africa.
In its determination to prove itself indispensible to the middle-class and middle-brow, the Oxbridge dominated BBC seems to be making the same worthy programmes again and again to ensure that salaries are paid. Yet more Coast, wildlife programs and celebrities tramping round the same beauty spots and the same architectural gems is what we get for our cash. Why doesn’t the BBC adopt the ‘Watch with Mother’ approach and just show the same program for year after year, or do we have to indulge every new intake of BBC staff with their own unique, publically funded interpretation of what has been done, with public funds, so many times before?
Why do I have to hear this news from the other side of the Pond. According to the BBC we are still getting our arses kicked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The BBC, pro terrorist propaganda and half a story.
Afghans ‘wounded in air strike’
About 50 Afghan civilians have been wounded in an air strike by US-led forces on a group of Taleban leaders holding a meeting in Helmand province. Witnesses have told the BBC that a large number of civilians were killed.The coalition gave no word of casualties, but a BBC reporter in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, says about 50 people were admitted to hospital there with injuries.The injured said they had been at a market when the bombardment happened and that there had been a large number of civilian deaths.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6930292.stm
So according to the BBC 50 innocent civilians were wounded in yet another cluster by the yanks. Which is strange as more recent reports from the region say otherwise.
Reuters
The following day, Afghan authorities said they were checking reports of civilian casualties in the raid and said some 20 wounded had been brought to the main hospital in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.British forces said 17 adult males and an eight-year-old boy were in hospital in Lashkar Gah suffering from blast injuries.
…..
“It is interesting there were no females,” said British Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Mayo, suggesting the wounded adult males may have been Taliban fighters. “We are very confident we hit a large meeting of Taliban and they are very sore about it.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL7315720070804?rpc=401&
The New York Times
The doctor on duty at the hospital in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said at least 18 wounded civilians were being treated there, including an 8-year old boy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/world/asia/04afghan.html?fta=y
NATO
Several media reports quoted the Taliban extremist who claimed up to 300 civilians were killed during this operation. In addition, Taliban claimed civilian casualties were taken to Mizani district, Zabul province. “For these individuals to receive treatment in a Zabul hospital, the injured civilians would have had to be moved over 180 kilometers of extremely rough roads in mountainous terrain through the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul,” said Lt. Col. Bridget Rose, Regional Command South spokesperson. After checking local hospitals in the general vicinity, Task Force Helmand officials found no civilians admitted for treatment.
Over 100 kilometers away, they found a total of 19 adult males and one 8-year-old child wounded in Lashkar Gah hospital. Over night, three of the adult males died. And in Kandahar hospital, they found wounded 14 adult males and three 10-11 year old males. There were never any women admitted with injuries, and none are reported injured or killed at Lashkar Gah hospital or any other local hospitals in the area.
http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2007/07-july/pr070804-585.html
Seeing as that BBC geezer at Lashkar Gah reports that around 50 people were admitted to hospital. Could one of the BBC clones please explain what happened to the other 32 people as reported by him that turned up at that hospital.
But hey let Lt Col Claudia Foss of ISAF (NATO) have the last word.
” “Over the past weeks, several media have reported erroneous information on numbers of casualties from ISAF operations following Taliban extremist propaganda. But rushing to deny causalities is not the way ISAF communicates. We refer to confirmed facts, not hear-say and that obviously takes time. Unlike the Taliban extremists, we value the truth and our credibility.””
The BBC, pro terrorist propaganda and half a story.
Check this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm
At the bottom right corner,
MOST POPULAR NOW
From Have Your Say
The 2nd Most Popular Have your Say Item NOW is:
How can cartoon crisis be resolved?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1011&sortBy=1&edition=2&ttl=20070806061545
The last comment was posted on Added: Tuesday, 14 February, 2006, 03:03 GMT 03:03 UK.
It seems that BBC are deliberate at provoking bringing Cartoon Issue again.
For the record, the most popular HYS Items NOW (London Mon 6:20 AM) are:
MOST POPULAR NOW
From Have Your Say
Foot-and-mouth outbreak: Your reaction
How can cartoon crisis be resolved?
Is breastfeeding falling out of fashion?
What hope is there for peace in Darfur?
Should the UN have a bigger role in Iraq?
“Big cars” and “Gas Guzzlers” is the pharse du jour on Radio London when describing the putative extension to the LEZ from HGVs to cars. Nice friendly Green party representatives Sian (?) are being given time to spout nonsense whilst Edmund King from the RAC is challenged by the stand-in presenter and the Green. Maybe the BBC presenters will start to realise that this affects them, because although BBC White City is outside the Congestion Charge zone it is inside the LEZ, there are some LEZ cameras just along the A40 west of the BBC complex. Radio London is based on Marylebone High Street of course. Callers are calling this a stealth tax, which it is. Read more here – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2007/08/identified-cameras-pt-2.html
The World Service’s Newshour with Julian Marshall. Saturday 04/08:
….The son of Libyan leader Muamar Gadaffi was believed to have played a major role in the release of the foreign medics. The BBC’s Alan Little spoke to him about the torture charges.
I’ve omitted the son’s responses as he was mostly trying to wriggle out of the hold Little was clamping on him. But here are the questions:
*All the international expert opinion said that the children were infected even before the Bulgarians arrived in Libya and that the cause of the infection was shoddy hygiene in the hospital. So your father was trying to deflect the anger that was boiling up around the hospital.
*This is the BBC?
*Why were they tortured in jail?
* Is torture common in your jails?
*[The Palestinian doctor] said it took his family ten months even to find out where he was being held.
*He said he was trussed up by his hands and legs….rotated like a chicken on a spit….electrodes attached to his genitals….attacked by dogs
*One of the women lost the ability to speak. Another tried to commit suicide.
*The Europeans are not going to let you off the hook so easily. They say that the pressure on Libya must be sustained because of torture in Libyan prisons and people being held incommunicado.
Hats off to the BBC. Could be that it was stung by fierce criticism over the fawning attention it lavished on Gadaffi senior during the recent Have Your Say programme. But whatever the reason, that was tough treatment of someone who not only comes from a group the BBC treats as a protected species 99,99% of the time, but is also the son of a leader.
So thanks for that 0,01%, BBC. Now lets see more of the same.
I see they no longer have the cartoon topic up under Most popular now on the main Have Your Say page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm
It was probably put up by one of the BBC’s jihadi infiltrators who doesn’t know the difference between now and then.
Good heavens Bryan, can this be the same Allan Little you’ve been accusing of pro-Arab bias for the past ten months?
This morning’s press round-up on the “Today” programme carried a piece of froth taken from “The Independent” about how the wet summer is proving just great for truffle-hunters. Fine. The Daily Telegraph ran excactly the same story last week which would seem to indicate that the Beeboid researchers either 1) don’t read the Telegraph in any great depth or 2) don’t regard a story as being interesting until it’s appeared in “The Independent” (I don’t know whether it ran in the Grauniad).
THE BBC is to reveal a major move into computer games –
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=1223102007
Industry sources expect the corporation to beef up its output and start creating products which will be taken more seriously in the gaming community.
………………………………..
nintendo call’s emergency meeting to all shareholders 😆
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6931359.stm “Conservative MP Boris Johnson’s bid to become London mayor has been condemned by black MPs.
Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott, Labour MPs for Brent South and Hackney North respectively, said his views on race harked back to the 1950s.” Surely the pertinent word in that passage is not “black” but “Labour.
Good heavens Bryan, can this be the same Allan Little you’ve been accusing of pro-Arab bias for the past ten months?
John Reith | 06.08.07 – 11:07 am | #
The very same one, though I have consistently accused him of an anti-Israel bias, so you’ve tweaked the facts a bit there to suit your argument.
However, I accept the possibility that Little is not a champion of the Arabs in general – though if you finally condescend to listen to Inside the Red Cross you will discover that he has at least as soft a spot for the Palestinians as does Alan Johnston and a host of other BBC-ites.
Could even be that Little’s departure from the BBC’s habitually respectful approach to Arab tyrants has something to do with the fact of the Palestinian doctor being tortured.
Remarkable. There is currently a Reactively Moderated topic (on Heathrow demos) on Have Your Say. To the uninitiated, that means your comment gets published right after you post it and is only deleted if it’s found to break the rules or if someone complains about it – in which case the moderators might just delete it even if the complaint is unjustified.
Still, RM debates are rare creatures indeed, so I’m going to take a look:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=7065&sortBy=1&edition=2&ttl=20070806145223
Have to hurry, though. When they take a break or go home, it reverts back to Fully Moderated.
In about twenty minutes the BBC is going to have some egg on its face. It’s running the following story at 1.30pm…
the bbc say’s..
One of the authors of the Welsh Conservative manifesto from May 2007 elections has defected to the Labour party. 26-year-old school teacher David Anstee, former vice chair of the Rhondda Conservative party and member of a Conservative Policy Group said.
iain dale says…
There’s a bit of a problem here, though, as David Anstee was not one of the authors of the Conservative Party Manifesto in the Welsh 2007 elections. Indeed, he was not even a contributor to it.
full story….
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/labour-overplays-26-year-olds-defection.html#links
from eu ref……
If the Tory Party and their little groupies have not understood the significance of the changes to the European Council proposed in the new treaty, sucking it into the maw of the Union as a fully fledged institution, to become part of the supreme government of Europe, the “colleagues” certainly have.
They must, therefore, have been wetting themselves over Booker’s outing of their scheme is his column yesterday, so much so that they had the BBC Radio 4 Today programme rushing in this morning with a damage limitation exercise, attempting to minimise the impact of the Booker analysis.
To do so, they enlisted the ever-willing Sarah Montague who, in the typical fashion of the BBC, used the two-handed interview in the attempt. First up was Gisela Stuart, “a Labour MP who was part of the group that drew up the European constitution.” She was followed by Robert Jackson, a Tory renegade who joined Labour “because of the Tories’ opposition to Europe”.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/08/those-are-words-on-paper.html
From the Newsnight preview e-mail
Peru may seem utterly remote from the War on Terror. In fact it’s linked
in a way that appears to be quite shocking.
What is this? Is there a Lima branch of al-Qaeda? No
Young Peruvian men are being recruited to help protect coalition staff
and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are attracted by the relatively
generous salaries
Naive mercenaries. These 3rd world people are like children you know, incapable of assessing risk & reward.
And Peruvian Army experiences with the vicious Shining Path group counts for nothing I presume according to the non military expertise of the BBC…. Peru and Colombia regularly exchange officers with other South American countries and worldwide in order to spread their anti terrorist expertise.