Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
The Liberty website makes NO mention of either story.
Amnesty’s UK web site makes no mention of Gillian Gibbons. Pretty poor. Shame she’s not a UK asylum seeker; they’d have sent Nick Broomfield to make a documentary.
BBC, numeracy, and the markets. Jeremy Paxman, Newsnight, 28 Nov 07:
Now the markets:
The FTSE is up 165 points at 6306 and ooh, the Dow is up much more, 331 points at 13289.
Jeremy, those who have more than an infant’s knowledge of investment, prefer the 2.7% increase in the FTSE to the 2.55% increase in the Dow. Why don’t Newsnight just drop it?
Matt Frei’s propaganda broadcast just goes from strength to strength. It’s so low budget, it’s just him and Katty Kay, and we of course go to the scowling “Washington correspondent” for the latest update on the talks in Annapolis. Katty is not happy, as recent events in the region of dispute are not helping matters.
Apparently, Katty tells us, there was an air strike in Gaza by the nasty Israelis “killing two people”. Which two anonymous people, Katty? I think she means this incident:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/26/gaza.strike/index.html
It’s those incorrigible Israelis who just don’t know when to sit back and die so the rest of us can get on with the peace process.
Thanks, BBC.
George R:
In the case of the British woman schoolteacher in the Islamic Republic of Sudan, imprisoned, and threatened with 40 lashes, over the naming of a teddy bear, should we expect a British broadcasting authority to support the British schoolteacher or the Islamic Republic of Sudan?
Neither. I expect it to report the news.
Well, if the British broadcasting authority is Al Beeb, and the reporter is Frank Gardner (as on News 24 tonight) then it’s down to the schoolteacher who “made a silly mistake”. Really? Is Al Beeb unwilling or unable to criticise the inhumanity of Sharia law in the Islamic Republic of Sudan? In Al Beeb’s ‘multiculturalist’ mindset, our Western values are subservient to intolerant Islam.
Oh come off it – it isn’t for the BBC to criticise things YOU don’t like – as I said above it is there to report the news. And whatever I might think of the law of the Sudan (which may or may not be Sharia law, don’t know) I’m inclined to agree with the correspondent. This isn’t because I’m in any way pro-muslim or opposed to western values – I’m involved in Christian mission agencies working, under pressure and often threats and attacks, in muslim countries – but you don’t go out of your way to offend local people’s beliefs unnecessarily and if you go to work in such a county in 2007 you need to be sensitive to likely local concerns. Thus, I agree that she probably has only herself to blame for getting into the situation she is in. I DON’T expect the BBC to take up a position on the rights and wrongs of the law in the Sudan and I don’t object when it quotes what appear to be sensible judgments.
I agree that in its reporting, particularly domestic reporting, the BBC seems to be institutionally afraid of blaming muslims for anything – but even then I don’t look for a stance, I just look for objective reporting – but increasingly I get the impression that that wouldn’t satisfy many contributors to this blog.
They just had the usual bit of casual dishonesty from the BBC on the US propaganda broadcast.
As he was going into a brief segment on Google’s new effort to create a massive “green” energy source (from technology that is years away from being efficient enough to do what they promise, but never mind), Matt Frei said that “the US, along with China, is the world’s biggest polluter.”
Just like Snowden Mountain, along with Ben Nevis, is the highest peak in Britain; Saturn, along with Jupiter, is the biggest planet in our solar system; and the new documentary about the Queen, along with Coronation Street, was the most-watched show on British tv last night.
A very poor choice of words. The easy excuse is it’s just sloppy grammar, nothing more, blame the junior who puts the content together. Except Matt Frei chose those words. He’s the boss, he approves the final copy, not a junior copy editor fresh out of the broadcasting course in Bournemouth.
At least he mentioned China. Seems the BBC has been busted enough on that one that the memo has finally made the rounds. I’ll look at that as a pyrrhic victory, I guess.
bbc Farming Today food awards…judged by someone from the co op – an organisation loathed in the countryside for their links to nulab and anti field sports stance and whose stock is boycotted by farmers at marts up and down the country !!
Meanwhile, later that day on the Toady programme : JH in full pompous mode to lower beeboid hack ” well we’ve relegated the story on our party’s little local difficulty with the finances, to the 15th slot, won’t it just wither away?” Hapless hack, “er no Sir John, there seems to be lots of evidence linking everyone in the party to it”. JH “Oh, well, moving on to sport.”
I nominate today’s piece on Iran for BBC Dhimmi Repiort of the Year. Basically it was an advert for Ahmedinejad, portraying him (via a government approved film-maker) as an icon of religious tolerance and freedom. By a stroke of luck a good American friend – a dyed-in-the-wool democrat and rather well-known academic – was with me when the broadcast came on. His astonished response was: this is the BBC?
Yup, I said. I hope he tells his friends. I suspect he just might.
In fact the more decent Americans that perceive the vile bias of the BBC, the better.
PS Reith… no reply? Go on, I’m not Jewish, you can talk to me.
Carolyn Quinn’s replacement?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
Today, 7.40am. BBC continue to pour money into convincing us that, well, Iran isn’t that bad. Let them have nukes, I say!
“0740 A popular soap opera on Iranian television has taken a surprising turn.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
Guido
Any objective person will recognise the truth in what you have written. John Reid has disgraced himself with this trashy attack – his venal display (not to mention his vulgar and nastily revealing parallel between the French riots and the Labour party funding scandal) suggests very developed apparatchik propaganda skills. Our little Johnnie must be rather high up in the Beeboid Command.
So this is what senior execs are paid to do. Mmmm. Nice.
MattLondon
” I’m involved in Christian mission agencies working, under pressure, and often under threats of attacks in muslim countries.”
” You don’t go out of your way to offend local people’s beliefs unnecessarily…thus I agree” (with whom?) that she” (the British schoolteacher) ” has only herself to blame for getting herself into the situation she is in.”
So, he is morally certain that the Islamic Republic of Sudan is in no way to blame for the British schoolteacher’s plight. This is a classic example of dhimmitude:-
http://www.dhimmitude.org/
This from someone who doesn’t know whether the Islamic Republic of Sudan operates under Sharia law.
I am reluctant to attempt to give advice to someone who may regard himself as a Christian-minded person, but who is prepared to publicly criticise a fellow imprisoned Briton in Sudan, and not to criticise her Islamic imprisoners; but the organisation, Muslims Against Sharia, has, as part of its mission statement:
” Sharia Law must be abolished, because it is incompatible with norms of modern society.”
He (and Al Beeb) could do well to direct their ‘morality’ against the inhumanity of the imposition of Sharia law. (Or are they in Pontius Pilate territory here?)
http://www.reformislam.org/
According to the BBC..
Black men are statistically over-represented among gun victims. Is this due to cultural influences, such as hip hop and rap music, which have been accused of using lyrics and images which glamorise guns?
What? What on earth does the kind of music you listen to have to do with your likelihood of becoming a crime victim?
It really is indicative of the kind of moral confusion and illiteracy of the liberal chatterati that they deliberately avoid the truth – that black men are far more likely to be pulling the trigger.
Furthermore, the BBC has its own spokesman on the matter…
But Radio 1Xtra presenter Semtex said: “Hip hop cannot be blamed for gun crime in the UK. The vast majority of sales are generated from people that live in middle class suburbs, whereas the vast majority of gun crime affects inner city areas. Society is to blame more than Scarface the movie or Scarface the rapper.”
So the BBC employs a man called “Semtex” who blames “society” for people shooting people!
Dr R:
“Our little Johnnie must be rather high up in the Beeboid Command.”
I’m so glad somebody has highlighted this truthful but alarming fact concerning J.R: That he can be nothing other than a senior executive at the BBC, being as condescending and bullish as he is.
What I find disturbing is that Reith revels in his Simon Cowellesque persona as pantomine villain of B-BBC without considering for one moment that he has probably single handedly solidified contempt tenfold for the BBC among bloggers.
But this demeaning, dismissive and vulgar snobbery of his isn’t reserved for this blog. I’m sure his sweetness and light is echoed off the walls in Al Beeb and directs many an underling in Broadcasting House.
John Reith seems to represent nothing more than Auntie giving us the finger (anonymously), while the likes of Nick Reynolds endorse him with a bloggers back slap.
Yet another own goal scored by the Beeb in their sledgehammer attempts to ‘educate and inform’.
Regarding Ben, he seems to think that Islam has nothing to do with the French riots, that is about as stupid as saying that unemployment has nothing to do with it, or the basic criminality of these people either.
I happen to live in France in 2005 I seem to recall seeing a video of the rioters shouting Alla Akbar as they threw petrol bombs at the police, why would they do that, just having a laugh I guess?
For the past two years the youths in these estates have been ambushing the police to cause an incident that would allow them to attack the police, now why would they need such an excuse, could this have anything to do with the covenant not to attack the country in which you are a guest unless they oppress you, classic Islamic doctrine, following the example set by the perfect man?
As for John R commenting that there was a lower level of hits on the Paris riots, well who would you get news on riots from, people who hide the fact that the majority of the rioters are MUSLIMS, or people who don’t insult your intelligence.
I did not bother reading any of the BBC reports on the riots and it seems I am not alone in that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7116728.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7116728.stm
“FEATURES, VIEWS, ANALYSIS
A selection of extraordinary Christian-themed Christmas gifts from around the world, as gathered by Christian humour website Ship of fools. Kitschmas cheer
DIY Virgin Mary toast – send us your pics of kitsch festive gifts ”
It’s coming up to Christmas time – so the BBC considers it appropriate to mock the central figures of our holy religion? These are not Kitsch gifts they are for Catholics blasphemous and the BBC know it. What is wrong with the BBC – they tiptoe around offending other religions – for example they wouldn’t show Mohammed cartoons but are quite happy to mock Christ and his Mother with something that isn’t even a news item. By the fact of indulging in this gratuitous mocking you have just demonstrated yet again how biased and anti-Christian the BBC is.
“… the BBC has responsibilities you don’t”.
Is patronising, condescending claptrap your idea of intelligent debate?
“… Auntie should walk as if on eggshells when it comes to both Jewish … sensitivities”
No danger of that happening any time soon at Al-Beeb…
“If the Sudanese whip that teacher, we should send a gunboat.”
Again, is this meant to be intelligent debate, or just sarcasm. You sound quite indifferent to the poor woman. The gunboat would have a job hitting anything in Khartoum.
Also the BBC is missing the fact that there is a lot of anger in France that a 23 year old woman on the RER D, was stabbed 30 times by a Turkish immigrant rapist because she refused to submit, she managed to injure him and he was found to have a previous conviction in 1996 and had been let out early. She was murdered 2 hours after these youths killed themselves.
The BBC, its hatred of America and half a story.
Justin Webb’s America
I finally got on my plane to London and found myself face-to-face with the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, returning from his time at the Annapolis Middle East shindig, his ministerial red box in the locker above him.How wonderful and democratic and low-key and BRITISH it is that this is how Foreign Secretaries travel! I must admit I felt a real British pride as we hobbled late into London Heathrow and were forced to wait half an hour on the tarmac for a place to be found to park the plane… and all these inconveniences were suffered by all of us together, albeit at different ends of the plane
……………
I am a great admirer of the White House and State Department travel arrangements – I love it that they have big planes and they bring all their own fuel and they close down airspace and all the rest of it. I particularly like the US arrangement of journalists travelling with the pool not having to show passports to any foreigners on any occasion.But there is still room for the low-key British way of doing things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/
So Justin Webb has a surreptitious dig at how the Yanks travel. The funny thing is he links in to the Governments PDF file into how Cabinet staff travel. And it appears that the foreign Sec travels very sparingly with the plebs. (Albeit at different ends of the plane) in fact his predecessor used the services of private planes be it the RAF or charter flights. Out of 32 visits abroad. 20 were by charter or by use of 32 squadron. In fact 12 visits to Brussels used mainly 32 Sqn RAF.
Here are the corresponding pages from the Governments Web page on the foreign Secs past travel arrangements.
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/8678/image1pg9.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5223/image2xu6.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9981/image3zo5.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8445/image4st5.jpg
The direct link is here;
Click to access travel_2006-2007.pdf
Page 16 – 19
Strange how he leaves out that America is sided by two huge Oceans and it makes Economic sense in which to transport every man and his dog in the same plane. However Brussels which is what 2 hours away from London has the British using the RAF every time. Why on the 11th-12th of Feb this year saw the FS pop over to Brussels for a party held by the European Socialists he used the RAF at a cost of £1383. And Justin Webb finished his article with;
“But there is still room for the low-key British way of doing things.”
The BBC, its hatred of America and half a story.
“alarming fact concerning J.R: That he can be nothing other than a senior executive at the BBC”
Very unlikely.
The mysterious JR is most likely a BBC employee paid to troll on websites like this – or as they would no doubt say “Put the other side of the story.”
He also probably slips in other comments under other names both supporting his JR persona and also putting the opposite point of view but in a site discrediting manner.
At least, that is the way I would be acting if I had the resources of a national broadcaster behind me and wanted to defuse what is becoming a PR disaster. All very deniable of course.
Just looking at his posting frequency and the research necessary to support the posts indicates someone with several hours a day available. That doesn’t indicate a Beeb employee at a high level. But wasn’t it the Democratic party in the States that introduced a ‘rebuttal unit’. The Labour Party has certainly used something similar. Why shouldn’t the BBC have its own? With the amount of money & careers riding on its continuance, that’s a logical speculation.
Ben,
presumably, you believe that the prominence of any story depends on the GDP rating of the country concerned?
On that basis, we can safely ignore Myanmar.
Mick McDonald | 28.11.07 – 10:38 pm | #
Of course not, there are multiple reasons why anything happening in the US would/should gain more coverage (if on the same scale). Let’s not play ignorant.
Additionally, I don’t really think there’s much comparison between the recent isolated riots in Paris and the horrific crushing of a widespread popular revolt against a military dictatorship (remember, it was merely stated if the same was happening in the US as France)
David Presiser, I’ll try get back to you today but I’m pretty busy. This comments thing isn’t the easiest format!
Andy
“The gunboat would have a job hitting anything in Khartoum.”
Clearly you haven’t read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_War
Abandon Ship
I knew the existence of the Nile, it’s just I don’t see Reith’s suggestion happening somehow. Interesting read however. Churchill’s 1899 comments seem prophetic:
“… the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”
Abandon Ship!:
Andy:
Very interesting indeed, I post just a little more of that text as it is so apposite, with regard to the rights of Women and the possible outcome to Western Civilization, now that Jihadists are also turning to Science.
“The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
George R:
MattLondon
” I’m involved in Christian mission agencies working, under pressure, and often under threats of attacks in muslim countries.”
” You don’t go out of your way to offend local people’s beliefs unnecessarily…thus I agree” (with whom?) that she” (the British schoolteacher) ” has only herself to blame for getting herself into the situation she is in.”
So, he is morally certain that the Islamic Republic of Sudan is in no way to blame for the British schoolteacher’s plight.”
Hey, George, ever read read Robert Thouless’s Straight and Crooked Thinking? Your response to my comment would provide a useful set of examples of the sort of crooked thinking of which Thouless was warning us.
I didn’t imply “moral certainty” on my own part – I suspect I’m not as morally certain of anything as GR seems to be of everything – I just agreed with the BBC correpondent’s view. And whether one likes or dislikes the law and attitudes of the Republic of Sudan (has it changed its name to call itself “Islamic – can’t find any evidence of that) a visitor to such a country needs to be very careful and be aware of potential sensitivities. Think how careful teachers in this country have to be in almost everything they do not to offend susceptibilities or bring disciplinary or even criminal charges on themselves – all the more reason to be careful in a country like the Sudan.
This is a classic example of dhimmitude
I really don’t know how you work that one out. I’m simply saying that having chosen to work in Sudan and, I assume understanding the nature of the country, she should have been more sensible.
This from someone who doesn’t know whether the Islamic Republic of Sudan operates under Sharia law.
Here we go again: “Islamic Republic of Sudan”. On its own Website Sudan just calls itself in English “Republic of Sudan”. I said I didn’t know if the law was Sharia or not because I didn’t – and even now after looking into it a little it is not absolutely clear to me: the legal code appears to describe itself as Islamic and parts are explicitly described as Sharia but the history of the development of and changes in Sudani law appears quite complex.
Andy | 29.11.07 – 10:47 am
The gunboat would have a job hitting anything in Khartoum.
Is it my fault that you don’t get a historical reference, perhaps have never heard of Palmerston or Don Pacifico and cannot conceive of any other sense of the phrase ‘send a gunboat’ than a plonkingly literal one?
I don’t think it is.
You sound quite indifferent to the poor woman.
Blimey, you really must be quite seriously cognitively challenged to construe ‘if the Sudanese whip that teacher, we should send a gunboat’ as an expression of indifference.
If the underlying cause is social, economic or environmental, then all I can say is that I’ve always paid my taxes towards your education.
If the problem is hereditary, then I sure ain’t responsible for the rotten hand of alleles that fate dealt you.
“… the BBC has responsibilities you don’t”….Is patronising, condescending claptrap …..
No it isn’t. It’s a simple, straightforward statement of the truth. The BBC has responsibilities to each of its licence-fee payers: not singling out their faith or ethnic group for insult is one of them. It has specific responsibilities • such as impartiality • imposed in its charter. An independent blogger who doesn’t charge for his service has no such responsibilities. He can say what he likes, so long as it’s within the law.
is this meant to be intelligent debate?
You talk about intelligent debate, but don’t appear to be equipped to handle it. Maybe you should go away and actually acquire the knowledge you profess to own. Until then our exchanges are bound to seem a bit de haut en bas – not because of any hauteur or arrogance on my part, but because of your own culpable ignorance.
I knew the existence of the Nile…
Well, at least you won’t be starting from an entirely blank slate.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/7117747642476064655/#376183
Really incisive questioning from Victoria Derbyshire on 5 Live to a Sudanese diplomat:
“Do you think this teacher has been insensitive?”
When discussing Today the Teddy Blasphemy and related issues John Humphries asked one of the participants … but are you ready to unreservedly condemn Isra… Saudi Arabia …
Talk about the Freudian slips
MattLondon
I see you continue to be non-critical of the Islamic Republic of Sudan, non-critical of its practice of Sharia law, and non-supportive, in any Christian moral way, of the British schoolteacher imprisoned in Khartoum.
(On the nomenciature of that benighted country, I am using that adopted by the Anglican Communion here:)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2004/5/26/ACNS3834
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7118579.stm
Preacher jailed over £51m fraud
The mentioning of this man being a lay preacher, including sticking it in the headline, is perfectly reasonable as far as I’m concerned. His preaching is completely irrelevant to his crime, but it’s interesting background on him. My only reason for drawing attention to it is to demonstrate that this is perfectly normal, reasonable and sensible journalistic practice of giving “background.”
When the BBC refuses to mention that a criminal is black, or Muslim, or an immigrant and its apologists fall back on the “it’s not relevant to the story” line, that is just nonsense. What’s going on is deliberate suppression of the normal journalistic “background”, for political purposes.
Reith,
Goodness what an outburst! Easy to get your back up isn’t it Reith?
What a tender inner weakness you have, reeling at the slightest bit of censure…
Lee, the obvious difference is is that as a lay preacher he is viewed as being in a position of responsibility and the public is expected to have a higher degree of trust. When police get caught committing crimes they generally have a harsher penalty, they’re abusing that position
hence why a witness must be :- a professional person or a person of standing in the community, e.g. Bank or Building Society
official, Police Officer, Civil Servant, Minister of Religion, Teacher, Accountant, Solicitor, Doctor etc.
Whether a lay preacher is classed as a Minister of Religion, I can’t be sure
Can I say that quite apart from pests like Andy, who despite my genuine efforts to sit here like Patience – strong and upon a monument, manage to waste too much of my time, there are people contributing to some really interesting and worthwhile debates on this thread.
The discussion between George R and MattLondon is really crucial.
So far, I’m tending to George’s view, despite MattLondon being so reasonable and committed to Gospel values.
George gets to the heart of it with the question:
should we expect a British broadcasting authority to support the British schoolteacher or the Islamic Republic of Sudan?
You could put it another way:
should the BBC be impartial between human rights and Shariah?
Or perhaps:
should the BBC be culturally relativist and entirely even-handed between radical, political Islam and Western values?
Personally, I believe the BBC should be inspired by (and live-out in all its practice) what some would call ‘Western values’, others ‘Judeo-Christian values’ and others ‘Enlightenment values’. I don’t think it particularly matters what we call them • we all know broadly what we mean.
The BBC would not be relativist about cannibalism. Or genocide. Or torture.
Whipping a woman for an offence that should not be an offence seems to me to be something of a similar order.
During the Cold War, the BBC (particularly the World Service) certainly did not take a neutral position between totalitarian communism and the values of a free and open society.
But tactically it found the best course was not to propagandize or preach so much as ‘embody’ or ‘exemplify’ key Western values such as free speech, pluralism etc.
Quite how the BBC should approach the contemporary challenge of an equally totalitarian ideology (political Islamism) is something that does need careful thought and rational discussion.
BBC and hatred of Republicans:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7118397.stm
“eight candidates who were so reluctant to engage the youthful, online generation that they had turned down an earlier invitation from YouTube”
Love the use of the word “youthful” here.
Oh yes and on the front page:
“Republican presidential hopefuls turn on each other as race heats up”
Like dogs.
Reith
LOL. I’ve nailed what really gets to you Reith – it’s when people don’t take you seriously.
Only someone full of shit and full of himself, could possibly think of himself as sitting
“… like Patience – strong and upon a monument”
People don’t appreciate you for the grand, highly evolved being you imagine yourself to be, and you hate it!
The puzzle of Mr Reith continues. Just who are we talking to here? Who has the BBC appointed as its lofty, urbane, arrogant unofficial Defence Counsel?
Well, I suspect Mr Reith is pretty senior, but probably, like most people in the BBC, on the slide. The faux “de haut en bas” contrition suggests Oxbridge which immediately puts him on the top floor (in some ways Al Beeb is marvellously traditional). Further evidence comes from the recent menacing “libel alert” threat (so quickly followed by the cowardly retraction of his crude “anti-semite” slur against Guido) – this does suggest some experience in the Zdanov-like nastiness that occupies much BBC senior management work.
But, as I suggested earlier, I suspect his star is waning. I base this purely on the fact that Al Beeb now appear to employ Comrade Reith to insult the likes of us. Surely, even for the supine, aid-junkied BBC, there are more productive ways to employ senior staff?
Then again, perhaps not.
C’mon John, we pay your no doubt handsome salary – surely we have a right to know who you are?
BBC World Service Movie Review – “Enchanted”? “The Mist”? Of course not, an interview with Jamil Dehlavi about his new thriller “Infinite Justice”. 9/11 from the Pakistani perspective, we are told. Fair enough but should the cosy gently lobbed questions continue after Dehlavi tells us that on 9/11 “the US had it coming”?
Dr R
Reith
“de haut en bas” indeed! [cue sound of large audience laughing]
‘The BBC has responsibilities to each of its licence-fee payers’
Don’t patronise me John. You and the rest of the BBC have no responsibility towards me. I pay you so that I can watch football on Sky TV without getting a fine and a criminal record. That is the full extent of my relationship with the corporation.
You can keep Eastenders, Flog It and all the rest of the trash you are responsible for. I have no repsonsibility for it. I’d be ashamed if I had.
John Reith.
you really are full of it. The problem with the BBC is that in ANY discussion of Islamic values, those of us that oppose any influence of Islam on our society are cut out of the debate.
I won’t give my own views of Islam here as the post will be removed, but I believe that ALL religious groups should be treated as barking mad. Would the BBC take seriously any politician that practiced witchcraft? Of course not, so why does the BBC bend over backwards to give “certain” religions an easy time?
It’s not just the BBC, but the liberal press in general.
Iran has been hanging homosexuals for years, yet you neve see and condemnation in the liberal press. Yet when America executes a few scumbags, the BBC spend hours salivating over the “evil” that is America. WHY?
George I don’t think being supportive of Ms Gibbons and appalled at the possibility of her being flogged (a barbaric practice) and suggesting that she might have been a tad naive are mutually exclusive.
If you choose to go and work in a foreign country, be it France, Japan or the Sudan, it behoves you to be aware of, and sympathetic to, the laws and customs of that country.
If we continually call for immigrants to be more willing to fit into our culture and way of life when they come here, we can hardly refuse to acknowledge our obligations to do the same when we choose to live in another country.
“If we continually call for immigrants to be more willing to fit into our culture and way of life when they come here, we can hardly refuse to acknowledge our obligations to do the same when we choose to live in another country.”
It’s not the same at all. This is typical cultural relativist mindset. If an immigrant made a small slip like this in our country, they would NOT be threatened with public whipping or imprisonment. The worst they would get is a rebuke.
The demands we make on immigrants are things like at least making an effort to speak the language and refraining from honour killings and other violence. In no way can you compare this to the naming of a toy.
Martin | 29.11.07 – 4:11 pm
You complain that the US is held to a higher moral test than Iran. Don’t you think that’s a compliment to the US? In fact, wouldn’t it be rather insulting to one of the most developed societies in the world to have the same expectations of it that one has of a backward, Islamic republic?
I believe that ALL religious groups should be treated as barking mad.
You’re entitled to your view, but I don’t agree and I don’t think most other people do either.
Ben | 29.11.07 – 11:55 am | #
Thanks for the sophistry, Ben, it still doesn’t address my point.
“Really incisive questioning from Victoria Derbyshire on 5 Live to a Sudanese diplomat:
“Do you think this teacher has been insensitive?”
Dr Cromarty | Homepage | 29.11.07 – 1:42 pm ”
Try this anagram:
“Dreary British Voice”
Rob Clarke
There is the problem of ‘moral equivalence’ with your position.
The Islamic Republic of Sudan has been imprisoning a British woman schoolteacher for 4 days so far, under Sharia law. There is the danger of not concentrating on the inhumanity and violence of this act, incidentally, against one of our fellow citizens, which appears to count for little.
There should be clear, outright condemnation and opposition to the Islamic Sudan government, on moral and legal grounds.
Sharia law is inhuman.Here’s one small example:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=496844&in_page_id=1811
Jonathan: Well the thing is, you might consider it trivial in the extreme and so might I, but some muslims do not.
Given that this lady was working in a muslim country clearly being attuned more to muslim sensitivities would have been sensible.
John Reith: Please explain why some religions should be taken seriously?
Do you think Witchcraft should get treated the same as Christianity?
Also, many people take my view not yours. The Churches in the UK are hardly bursting at the seams are they?
Religion has no place in the 21st Century. It is there to be laughed at, not taken seriously. None of the main reliigons have a single fact to base the on. Not one.
So it’s OK to hang homosexuals in Iran then? You think because Iran is a barbaric Country we should just except it? This is just typical of the liberal media types who work at the BBC.
Human Rights should have the SAME STANDARD across the world if hanging homosexuals is not acceptable in the UK or the USA then it should not be acceptable in Iran or Saudi Arabia either.
I had a reply from the BBC regarding their failure to report Nigel Wrench’s rape charge. They suggested that his rape charge was irrelevant and that Nigel was not newsworthy enough.
Funny that. He’s back on air, but we don’t know if the charge still hangs over him or he’s been acquitted. But how will listeners ever know if the BBC is employing convicted rapists if they won’t tell us?
Andy | 29.11.07 – 2:50 pm
Andy | 29.11.07 – 3:30 pm
Okay, so far you’ve shown that history, psychology and wit aren’t your strong suits.
Are you holding any talent cards at all?