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.
Radio 5 lite 10am Sunday 30th
Rachel Burden programme. One of the topics is Britian’s sex education. What is going wrong and what we should do about it.
Dear Miss Burden read an e-mail/text to the effect that a lot of young girls (teenagers) get pregnant because it gives them a purpose and guarantees housing and income.
Dear Rachel then added. That in the rest of this programme will “expose this myth”.
Nice.
No bias there then.
I had intended this Comment to be a straight-forward note of praise for today’s BBC Radio 4 ‘The World This Weekend’ programme, and its useful contributions on Pakistan from writer, Husain Haqqani , and from US Ambassador, John Bolton; but, as that programme ended at 1.30pm, I listened to the next 30 minute programme ‘The Fishing Scheme’, in which one “Nica Pritchard introduces the art of fly-fishing to a group of Muslim women.”
Within minutes, there was the usual ignorance of Islam expressed by interviewer, Ms. Pritchard, and the usual superficial ‘religion of peace’ propaganda put out by the Muslim women.
More sickening, subsidised Islamic propaganda, paid for by BBC licence-payers. If you can stand it, find a BBC re-run online.
a fine post from a tangled web…
Did you happen to watch BBC Question Time last night? The panel were awful, even by Question Time standards. All shades of political opinion were on display, so long as they were LEFT!
Pompous old Labour buffoon Lord Roy “the boy” Hattersley was there, large as life and twice as useless. The oddly moon-faced Liberal-Democrat Sarah Teather was shockingly bad, preening her inept liberalism as if it had any value! Then we had Greg Dyke, former BBC Director General, who earned HIS liberal credentials by describing the BBC as “hideously white”. (Whereas Dyke is just, erm, hideous!) We had the token Tory – the drippingly wet Caroline Spelman, who did not leave me spellbound! And finally, we had TV historian Simon Schama – presumably they could not get a left wing enough comedian?
read the rest here…
http://atangledweb.typepad.com/weblog/2007/06/question_time_w.html
The BBC politics news-page makes for interesting reading. The three key stories are:
“Tories ‘resonating’, admits Straw:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7164461.stm ;
“Blairite offers PM olive branch”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7164757.stm
“Brown to ‘step up’ terror fight”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7163327.stm .
Obviously, senior Labour MPs are mounting an offensive to regain the initiative and appear strong, determined, competent, and all that jazz.
Jack Straw, Stephen Byers and the PM himself, we are told, realise that Labour must unify, learn lessons, take stock, etc etc. The usual sackcloth and ashes.
But it’s faintly amusing to see how Labour-centric these stories are. I always believed that Labour Party navel-gazing is the stock-in-trade of Jackie Ashley, Michael White and Polly Toynbee, not the BBC News page.
Hence, the Tories’ resurgence and their recent double-digit opinion poll leads (which are – and have not been – not mentioned in any of the recent coverage) are spun from a Labour point-of-view.
Moreover, the Straw article is not so much an account of the woes faced by the beleaguered Labour government but a vehicle to plug a “confident” (the BBC tells us) Brown’s New Year’s speech. Cameron’s speech earns a couple of paragraphs at the end.
Incidentally, the Related Internet Links (right-hand side) take you to the Number Ten and, er, The Labour Party websites.
When the BBC plugs The Radio Times, it adds a small disclaimer which informs us that “other TV listings magazines are available”. Perhaps it should offer similar advice – “other political parties are available”, for instance – on its politics page?
Update
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
Love this new BBC I-player. You can quickly find the all the last weeks radio and TV ouput from BBC and hear if it was a bad as you first thought it was.
So correction about Rachel Burden programme on Radio 5 live 10am Sunday.
Topic teenage pregnancies.
It starts 9 seconds in to the programme. Yes 9 seconds in.
A mentioned above, she read out a e-mail saying benefits are to blame for teenage pregnancies and if they were removed so would some of the incentives to get pregnant young.
Rachel Burden’s comment (and now I quote exactly)
“well that’s one opinion. I wonder if we will be scotching that myth in the next ten minutes or so….”
Let’s see if BBC will post a story on any of this:
EU blasts `humanitarian aid abuse` after chemical for bombs found in sugar sacks (AP)
In connection with 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate being caught marked as humanitarian aid:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939493.html
Or the fact that MK Azmi Bishara received $390,000 from an enemy state.
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939796.html
Or will they only sob how big bad Israel is abusing Palestinians at checkpoints with no reason whatsoever.
George B,
I had the misfortune to catch ‘The Fishing scheme’ as well. Two interesting points were that the lady who had lived in Saudi for several years went on at great length on what a great place Mecca was without once mentioning that infidels aren’t allowed near the place. The BBC believes that this fact is so well known that it never seems to mention it – even when they have lengthy daily reports from the place during haj week.
I was also particularly impressed by the way the liberated, career-pursuing, well travelled Muslim ladies talked in some detail of how they would not be marrying infidels without mentioning that their religion specifically forbids them from doing so. It is almost unimaginable that one of them would have volunteered the information that Muslim men are, on the other hand, allowed to marry non-Muslim women.
As seems to be the invariable case, the BBC presenter is ignorant of basic Islamic tenets and the Muslims being spoken to do not go out of their way to be entirely candid.
A particularly striking example of this occurred a year or to back when one of those Jane Glover/ Victoria Derbyshire Radio 5 types was running a phone-in on mixed marriages with an imam permanently on-line to chip in now and again. It was half way through the programme before one of the callers mentioned that Muslim men can marry infidel women but Muslim women cannot marry infidel men. The BBC lady asked the imam if this was true (he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to mention the fact before) and he confirmed it. ‘But that’s sexist and probably illegal!’ the presenter was moved to exclaim and the imam had to go into some patter about Islam passing down through the male line. This was not an isolated example of how Muslim apologists go beyond just putting their best furniture forward in the public eye: they lie by omission and the BBC assists them in this out of ignorance or a misguided belief that they are promoting greater good will between communities.
And just to balance things up a bit – OK, that’s a joke – we had Dateline London today with
Bari ‘to be honest’ Atwan making things up as he goes along and anyway everything is always American/Israeli fault.
Polly Toynbee – self hating lefty.
A Pakistani journalist – lefty – though he did show some signs of supporting Bhutto’s Western position.
Stryker Maguire representing the US. He’s as much use defending the US as a wet fish, but then nearly all the the American ‘journalists’ on Dateline are of the Clinton persuasion.
Fortunately Dateline is to be scrapped.
Bryan: As someone who can spell and punctuate, you know perfectly well that my point about “arnt” isn’t having a dig at typos, which everyone makes.
Words and punctuation are absolutely central to the discussion here, because they are the currency of the organization we are discussing.
Every time some semi-literate launches into a tirade about “idiots” and “scumbags”, gobs off about people they disagree with about the politics of another country therefore supporting terrorism, misuses “vendetta” etc etc they are actually damaging your side of the debate and boosting “Reith’s”.
Whoever “John” is. I always suspect that people who choose male board pseudonyms are in fact female and vice versa.
I think it would actually be quite a crafty move if someone working for the BBC had created the persona of “Cassandra” to make posts here along the lines of his/her most recent efforts with a view to undermining the credibility of the blog this forum appends to.
FWIW where I stand is that I’m very pro-Israel, I think the BBC is too coy about the responsibilities of your Arab neighbours and in its approach to Islam generally but I’d be very surprised if it’s a conspiracy.
I think John Howard was a statesman of stature who just went on too long, and Kevin Rudd is creepily reminiscent of the young Tony Blair -whose party I voted for twice but not last time and not for the foreseeable.
I would like to see the licence fee replaced by a subscription, but I’d cheerfully pay more than the current total fee just for Radio 4.
Lurkingblackhat:
‘Dear Miss Burden read an e-mail/text to the effect that a lot of young girls (teenagers) get pregnant because it gives them a purpose and guarantees housing and income.
Dear Rachel then added that the programme will “expose this myth’.
Pardon me, but I’ve lost count of the number of dreadful right-wing ‘myths’ that have been threatened with ‘exposure’.
And like Diana Ross, I’m still waiting.
It seems ‘John Reith’ has gone off somewhere, but I may as well add to what has been said already by Flawed Logic and Bryan.
Awareness of history is relevant to one’s view of Israel’s right to exist, but proof of the BBC’s objectivity towards Israel doesn’t only hinge on such things as whether or not the word “IN” was in Balfour’s original letter.
David Preiser’s helpful and impressive history lesson, and his subsequent examination of differing interpretations of the intent behind the Balfour declaration were illuminating.
Nevertheless ‘John Reith’ turns a blind eye to the negative thrust of the BBC’s attitude towards Israel.
No doubt he will eventually come back with something to trump David Preiser thus diverting once again from dealing with the BBC’s fundamental hostility towards Israel.
The underlying malevolence shows through more clearly every time he triumphantly scores a point. He still won’t acknowledge the indulgent way the BBC handles issues concerning Islam compared with the condemnatory overtones that accompany anything concerning Israel, or admit that different standards are being applied.
Whatever the reasons for the BBC’s antipathy to the Jews and Israel, be they ignorance, prejudice, a combination of the two, conscious or not, these need to be eradicated from BBC news-reporting policy.
One particular mistake is to assume that Jews and Arabs hate one another, that they’re equally bitter enemies. This equal treatment of the unequal misinterprets the Jewish character and overlooks something that has been described as the Palestinians’ secret weapon. The Israeli conscience. See http://www.peacewithrealism.org/headline/secret.htm
Rod Liddle ought to know something about BBC employees, so when he refers to “some marginally post pubescent PC BBC monkey” it explains, but doesn’t excuse, how such deviation could have established itself in the BBC psyche.
Someone asked what it would take to get the BBC to change its approach. Maybe thousands of Israelis coming here to live on benefit would do the trick. Somehow that doesn’t seem very likely.
Or a gigantic advert in the Sunday Times about how Jews love Jesus (peace-be-upon-him). It seems to work for some.
“For the next two months, I’ll be reporting for BBC News from the Esperanza as it journeys south down to the ice and searches for the Japanese whalers.
It is no free ride. We are paying our way and, of course, I have absolute editorial independence to say what I want without fear of being taken off air or thrown overboard. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7154508.stm
The BBC using OUR money to help Greenpeace…… “paying our way” my backside! For two months when there are several other ships down there and a German TV crew also on board who could sell the BBC clips? More wasted money that belongs to US not YOU Beeboids! Maybe when you start putting some of the reports already mentioned in this thread about world renowned scientists and their doubts about the global warming data then you can justify getting a licence fee. How come you are not asking the Japanese for their views to get balance? Why are you not asking the Chinese why they eat dogs, tigers and rhino balls and horns thus causing even more species to become extinct than the Japanese ever will?
BBC – we have an agenda but it doesn’t fit the real world…..
Roland Thompson-Gunner | 30.12.07 – 5:55 pm,
Thanks for that clarification. But I think it’s all too easy to dismiss a valid point due to poor spelling or grammar. In any case, Cassandra is not a serious offender in this regard. The internet is full of people who don’t know when and how to use there, their and they’re for example, but we should ignore these errors in evaluating the worth of the point they are making.
If we take your complaint to its logical conclusion, people with less than impeccable English would be precluded from expressing their displeasure with the BBC. And this site would be the poorer for it.
Contributors here have noticed lapses in grammar and spelling from many BBC people who have commented on this site and on the BBC website, believe it or not.
The great John Reith himself was recently observed mixing up course and coarse.
Let’s not get too bogged down in the details. We are not here to improve our English.
Why do the BBC still employ Abd al-Bari Atwan anyway? He’s effectively condoned genocide by saying, ‘If the Iranian missiles strike Israel • by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square, and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel.’
Kilroy-Silk got fired by the BBC for saying, ‘We’re told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?’
I guess it’s for the same reason that they still drag that hyper-annoying-voiced pinhead, Tom Paulin, to give his opinion on Newsnight Review still, despite him telling Al-Ahram Weekly that Brooklyn-born Israeli settlers ‘should be shot dead’ and that ‘they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them.’
Why do I even bother to ask? It’s the BBC.
Fantastic website! I love parody – and this website is one of the best spoofs I have seen.
If I had doubts about the BBC, having seen your website they have evaporated as I see that any efforts to expose BBC bias are hollow efforts by right wing crackpots!
I do believe we are touching a nerve or two if the likes of SBS (Silly Beeboid Sister?) are crawling in here with their “attempts” at satire. Given the standard achieved methinks he must be a Beeboid who writes for Eastenders….
More of the same my brothers and sisters! The Beeboids are panicking!
So Kevin Greening, former BBC presenter, and open practising homosexual, has died aged 44 of AIDS.
How does the BBC spin it? How does it completely avoid the issue? See for yourselves…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7165356.stm
…yes, that’s right. Nothing. Apparently it’s perfectly normal for 44 year old men to “die in their sleep”.
More propaganda. More lies. More Bias. You are with the BBC.
any efforts to expose BBC bias are hollow efforts by right wing crackpots!
Yep! Crackpots R Us.
…….Now, could the BBC please release the Balen report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balen_Report because we crackpots like a good bit of investigative journalism.
After all, when not crackpotting we are out earning the cash to pay for the BBC, its reports and its habit of paying to hush them up.
Steve Edwards | 31.12.07 – 12:41 am:
Of course, the demise of anyone as young as 44 is a cause of great sadness, but what on earth makes you believe that the BBC Radio One disc jockey Kevin Greening died from AIDS?
I simply don’t believe it. The BBC is the world’s most trusted broadcaster – a broadcaster that prides itself on getting to the truth of any story.
So far I’ve come across several BBC reports on Kevin Greening’s sad death, and the only one that mentioned AIDS was referring to hearing aids. So how do you explain that, then?
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=%22AIDS%22+%22Kevin+Greening%22+site%3Abbc.co.uk&btnG=Search&meta=
Clearly, the terrible disease AIDS had nothing to do with Kevin Greening’s sad death. Get a life, Steve Edwards, and stop running down our wonderful BBC with smearing insinuations.
Steve Edwards: Of course lets not forget “open practising homosexual” and BBC presenter Christopher Price also died suddenly at a young age and that had nothing to do with AIDS or HiV at all.
Kevin Greening’s family haven’t released any further details and his cause of death isn’t being reported by anyone (including the BBC) because no one knows it.
While I’m not a big fan of the Pink Lobby ( or the BBC ) the exact cause of this guys death, whatever it might have been, isn’t really what I would call news.
Dear Roland Thompson Gunner,
So just becaause my spelling/grammer doesnt come upto your ‘high standards’ you think that I shouldnt be able to comment on this blog? It says much about your attitude to those who have not had a decent education! The BBC/leftist types who post on this blog have an almost identical(superior)way of picking at spelling rather than adressing the real issues.
Do I have to remind you that not everyone had the chance of a decent education? I left school at thirteen suffering from dislexia having learned almost nothing. I was a victim of the terrible socialist ‘education’ system that has failed so many people over the years.
My attempts at self improvement have been all the harder while trying to overcome my dislexia.
Ill give you a snapshot of how teachers used to treat dislexics in the mid60s, they used to stand you in the corner wearing a ‘dunce cap’! nice Eh?
And what help has the state offered me? yes you guessed it, nothing.
I would guess by your double barrelled name that you have had a top notch education? if so let me advise you that most people had a crap education, most people have had to struggle to get by with what the state laughingly calls a ‘comprehensive education’.
You will notice that most ‘anti BBC’ posters here never score cheap points by picking at someones spelling/grammer while most BBC appologists seem to delight in this pathetic and arrogant trick!
For the record, if someone wants to label another person as a small c conserative then that is what they say! they dont leave it to the audiences imagination.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL
Cassandra:
Dear Roland Thompson Gunner,
I would guess by your double barrelled name that you have had a top notch education?
——————————————–
Hmmm, probably more likely that he’s a Warren Zevon fan?
re. dyslexia. I can sympathise with you there. My daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic, but only as she was about to start the final year of her English degree! She did finish it and graduated with a 2:1 this past summer. And she’s cock-a-hope, as she beat her old dad who only managed a 2:2!
SJ | 30.12.07 – 9:02 pm,
I would like the BBC to explain why one of its “reporters”, broadcasting on the World Service from the shattered border town of Kiryat Shmona in the aftermath of the war said that he could see “four or five damaged houses” when the reality was that 2000 had been damaged and many completely destroyed.
Then I would like it to explain why it was necessary to fly Orla Guerin up from her post in South Africa to make her sly contribution by exaggerating the damage to a Lebanese village.
That would be a start. Then the entire motley crew, including Middle East editor, Jeremy “Israeli war crimes” Bowen, should be required to explain why they decided to opt for pro-Hebollah propaganda rather than straight reporting during the war.
The BBC, of course, will not do this. It would require some honest evaluation and introspection – and that’s something the BBC is completely incapable of.
Guys, keep the satire up! Sterling work as double agents, all of you!
Steve Edwards | 31.12.07 – 12:41 am | #
Nice and opportunistic that!
“You will notice that most ‘anti BBC’ posters here never score cheap points by picking at someones spelling/grammer while most BBC appologists seem to delight in this pathetic and arrogant trick!”
Cassandra | 31.12.07 – 7:21 am | #
That’s absolute rubbish actually. Still, I don’t believe that on a forum perfect spelling or grammar are an absolute necessity. I certainly don’t have the time for that.
While Cassandra occasionally omits apostrophies, here’s what the “professionals” writing for Have Your Say come up with:
This was the year when pro-democracy monks were brutally suppressed in Burma, victims of the Darfur conflict continued to suffer, Mexico experienced some of the worst floods in its history and American bad loans wrecked havoc to the global financial markets.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3959&edition=2&ttl=20071231095400
Has the BBC never heard of wreaked havoc on or wrought havoc on?
In case any of them are listening, here’s a good explanation:
http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/wreak%20havoc
Now while Roland Thompson-Gunner uses less-than-perfect English as evidence that people on this site are deluded about BBC bias, we don’t use it as evidence that the BBC is biased. We separate one from the other.
John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7163203.stm
“American public opinion has dismissed the Iraq war as a failure, and has moved on.”
Pew Research Centre
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/664/what-was-and-wasnt-on-the-publics-mind-in-2007
“For years, public views of the war in Iraq were increasingly negative and seemingly unlikely to change direction. But as the troop surge resulted in lower levels of violence in Iraq, public perceptions of the war improved markedly. In November, 48% of Americans said things were going very or fairly well in Iraq, up 18 points from February.”
Simpson is either biased or lacks basic knowledge of the opinion of almost half of Americans.
For a detailed analysis of US attitudes – both positive and negative – towards Iraq, of very much higher quality than Simpson’s piece, see:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=373
From the same report linked above by Ed:
“I didn’t expect that the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, for all his sharp intelligence, would make the so-called surge of American troops in Iraq look quite so successful.”
True, it has only brought the level of killings and explosions down to that of two or three years ago, and it’s likely to make the eventual civil war in Iraq fiercer than ever.
But it’s a success, even so.”
How begrudging of the Simpson buffoon! What does he mean by make the surge look so successful? Given the way the BBC and others have deliberately downplayed ANY success and pushed any failure no matter how small or simply ignored the great changes going on in Iraq this merely confirms Simpson’s stupidity and downright ignorance.
And how typical of his biased and slanted world view! Muppet!
I see that my “apostrophies” contains an incorrect ‘i’. I hope nobody takes that as evidence that I’m misguided about BBC bias.
We should just spell and let spell.
Do you notice also that Simpson NEVER allows comments just in case they point out how wrong he is yet again? The self proclaimed Liberator of Kabul can’t take a few pointers to keep him on the balanced and unbiased path of the BBC Charter!
“A final flier: China will snatch overall victory at the Olympic Games, defeating America. ”
Is this Simpson bloke for real? China has got no chance of beating America on medals in the Olympic Games. Everyone knows that Black African men and women are stronger and faster than any other race on Earth, and America have plenty of such people. This just to me sums up Simpson in a nutshell, his Anti-Americanism is shining through clearly, not just here, but through the whole piece on his 2008 predictions. He just wants to give America a bloody nose at every opportunity, such as here:
“Throughout 2008 America will continue to leak prestige and strength. ”
Simpson is so biased that quite frankly I am sick of reading and listening to his left wing bile on the BBC. Sack him now. He was so wrong about so many things last year, the only prediction one can make from his predictions for 2008 is that he will continue to be so wrong about things! John Simpson is a complete muppet.
Re: the bizarre Simpson ramblings.
The most bonkers point isn’t the success or otherwise of the surge – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that Iraq is going tits up PDQ after a US pull out.
But what the hell is the Olympics stuff at the bottom??
“In reality, though, the true victors will be the European Union, but you’ll have to add up Europe’s medals yourself to spot that. No one else will bother to do it for you.”
Last I saw the European Union wasn’t a state which could be a ‘victor’ so is he suggesting it should be? Indeed to the extent that anyone gives a toss about the Olympics (which I suppose they might next year given Euro 2008 qualification failures) it’s our German cousins who vie with the Americans and Russians as the nationality we least want to win.
Cassandra | 29.12.07 – 11:02 am
Bryan | 29.12.07 – 5:55 pm
deegee | 30.12.07 – 6:35 am
You say that the BBC demonstrates ‘bias’ by calling John Howard a conservative; or….in deegee’s case, it could be ‘at best sloppy….’
Interesting.
Given what follows, I think it’s clear we needn’t take any other of your accusations of ‘bias’ or, indeed, ‘sloppiness’ too seriously in the future.
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
John Howard was the first elected Australian prime minister to identify himself as a conservative…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/25/2100432.htm
The Melbourne Age
Howard, famously self-described as the most conservative leader in the history of the Liberal Party…
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/07/1022982767360.html
The Australian (R.Murdoch, prop.)
Thatcher and Howard were the dominant conservative conviction politicians of their time…. They rebuilt their conservative parties, winning election after election after election…..
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22402812-7583,00.html
The Australian Review of Public Affairs
Howard is a proud conservative…….Howard’s agenda reads like the list of conservative ‘hot-button’ issues that have helped rebuild Republican fortunes in the United States: family values, small government, Christian morals, and the virtues of free enterprise and self-reliance.
http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2006/02/meagher_wilson.html
Daily Telegraph (London)
His {John Howard’s} conservative coalition government has presided over a halcyon spell of high employment, low inflation and an economic boom….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/24/woz624.xml
New York Times
The conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/aborigines/index.html?query=HOWARD,%20JOHN&field=per&match=exact
Ah but John, why then does the Beeb continue to describe the Liberal Democrats as liberal given that economically the majority of them are far from liberal?
John Simpson should join the comedy department of the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7163203.stm
Others have already commented on his rambling, but I found this priceless;
“True, it has only brought the level of killings and explosions down to that of two or three years ago, and it’s likely to make the eventual civil war in Iraq fiercer than ever.”
So the violence comes down, but in reality this is a bad thing because the eventual civil war wil be fiercer. So I suppose that Simpson was rejoicing when the voilence went up because the eventual civil war would be less fierce.
I think it says a lot about the BBC that this is their star reporter.
Mike_s | 31.12.07 – 12:09 pm | #
He doesn’t say what he bases that view on unfortunately, but I would presume it’s due to the arming of the Sunni’s by the coalition, as they’ve sided against A-Q (as far as I know). Enemy of my enemy and all that…could backfire in the long run.
Why didn’t John Simpson link to his predictions for 2007?
So here are his predictions for 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6175079.stm
Ben:
“He doesn’t say what he bases that view on unfortunately, but I would presume it’s due to the arming of the Sunni’s by the coalition, as they’ve sided against A-Q (as far as I know). Enemy of my enemy and all that…could backfire in the long run.”
You can assume what you like but his statement is completely illogical. Furthermore the BBC has been telling us that Iraq was completely swamped with weapons because the Americans didn’t guard the weapons depots after their invasion.
“New York Times
The conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard”.
The NYT is as left wing as the BBC,moreover,the paper is in conflict with the Bush Administration,so any ally of America is an enemy of the NYT.
To the leftist the word (C)conservative is always pejorative.
Lord Wraith,of course knows this.
Mike, why illogical? He’s never stated that when vioence goes up the civil war would be less fierce
David Preiser (USA) | 28.12.07 – 7:31 pm
David Preiser (USA) | 29.12.07 – 7:53 pm
While I don’t think we should take over the whole thread with a debate on the Balfour Declaration, I do think some exchange is helpful because some persistent critics of the BBC here appear to me to be actuated by a worldview in respect of Israel that is founded on serial misreadings of the historical facts • and this leads to them finding ‘bias’ where none exists. (We have seen this with Bryan’s claim to the Hashemite lands…)
Let me illustrate with some remarks about your own contributions on this point. You write:
Lloyd George had Zionist sympathies, having worked with and on behalf of Zionists prior to his rise to power. He would also have contemplated a Jewish state with similar boundaries.
It seems to me that you are implying that the Balfour Declaration was issued freely, even enthusiastically, and basically was a recognition of the merits of the Zionist case.
You are doubtless aware that there are a number of other interpretations doing the rounds. One is that the Declaration was more or less extorted from the British as the price of access to war loans from Jewish-owned banks.
Until 1917 some banking families which had branches in both Germany and in Britain were funding both sides in the war. And some German-Jewish bankers in New York were enthusiastically backing Germany. This has produced a ‘Protocols’ strain of anti-Semitic writing that casts the ‘evil opportunist Jew’ as a hard faced man making money out of prolonging the war. This is, of course, nonsense and Jewish backing for Germany can be easily explained by a perfectly understandable Jewish antipathy to Tsarist Russia • which had persecuted them. Once Kerensky (himself Jewish) had been installed, Jewish funding of the German war effort stopped. (This was the ‘stab in the back’ that so upset Adolf Hitler and was a major theme of his own anti-Semitism).
However, prior to the Russian revolution this was a problem for the British Government. The initial idea of supporting Zionism had been put forward by Herbert Samuel, but was squashed by Asquith. The idea was revived by James Malcolm in 1916 and he can be seen as the true ‘father’ of the Balfour Declaration.
Malcolm later explained his motivation to Lord Peel in these terms:
The first object, of course, was to enlist the very considerable and necessary influence of the Jews, and especially of the Zionist or Nationalist Jews. to help us bring America into the War at the most critical period of the hostilities. This was publicly acknowledged by Mr. Lloyd George during a recent debate in the House of Commons.
Our second object was to enable and induce Jews all the world over to envisage constructive work as their proper field, and to take their minds off destructive and subversive schemes which, owing to their general sense of insecurity and homelessness. even in the periods preceding the French Revolution, had provoked so much trouble and unrest in various countries, until their ever-increasing violence culminated in the Third International and the Russian Communist Revolution. But to achieve this end it was necessary to promise them Palestine in consideration of their help, as already explained, and not as a mere humanitarian experiment or enterprise, as represented in certain quarters.
What were these ‘subversive schemes’ he claimed the Jews were involved in? He spelled it out:
The Jews in the hope of obtaining relief from intolerance, engaged in the intensive and subversive propagation of materialistic doctrines productive of ”Liberalism,” Socialism, and Irreligion, resulting in de-Christianisation.
http://www.swans.com/library/art12/letter103.html
Mr Malcolm, it seems, was pro-Zionist not out of liking for Jews, but because he wanted them to stop backing causes he didn’t like in Europe. But his point • that the Balfour Declaration was essentially a political ruse and not some gesture on the part of a pro-Zionist Lloyd George is supported by the secretary of the Joint Zionist Council:
The best and perhaps the only way (which proved so. to be) to induce the
American President to come into the War was to secure the co-operation of
Zionist Jews by promising them Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilise the
hitherto unsuspectedly powerful forces of Zionist Jews in America and
elsewhere in favour of the Allies on a quid pro quo contract basis. Thus, as
will be seen, the Zionists, having carried out their part, and greatly
helped to bring America in, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was but the
public confirmation of the necessarily secret ” gentleman’s ” agreement of
1916 made with the previous knowledge, acquiescence and/or approval of the
Arabs and of the British, American, French and other Allied Governments, and
not merely a voluntary altruistic and romantic gesture on the part of Great
Britain as certain people either through pardonable ignorance assume or
unpardonable illwill would represent or rather misrepresent.
http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond/kk-f/2005/0036.html
So the ‘Zionists’ managed to bring America into the War, according to JR, because of the Balfour Declaration- a bribe in other words.
And so?
If true, it possibly prevented a German success in WWI.
Was that a bad thing?
And even according to your post JR, the 1916 agreement was made with the approval of the Arabs.
Or have I misunderstood?
Edna | 31.12.07 – 1:34 pm
If true, it possibly prevented a German success in WWI.
Was that a bad thing?
Hard to say, really. You could mount a pretty plausible ‘what if’? case along the lines that a German victory would have meant:
1. No WWII
2. No Holocaust
3. Little impact on Britain or its Empire
4. Soviet Communism might have been quickly squashed
5. The brunt would be felt chiefly by the French and Belgians
sounds almost attractive 🙂
…..oh and Edna….
There’s really no need to put Zionist in distancing quotes. That is what they called themselves.
And while we’re on the general subject of historical promises and pledges – did you know that Alexander Herzl himself promised the Pope (via the Papal Nuncio in Vienna) that Zionists would never seek to incorporate Jerusalem, Bethlehem or Nazareth into any Jewish state?
Should that promise be binding on his political heirs and successors? Discuss.
PeterUK | Homepage | 31.12.07 – 12:48 pm
Ah but can you plausibly claim that Rupie’s Australian is as left-wing as the NYT?
Or find any pejorative sense in:
Thatcher and Howard were the dominant conservative conviction politicians of their time…. They rebuilt their conservative parties, winning election after election after election…..
No, thought not.
Another frivolous and vexatious complainant whose false allegations of bias can be safely ignored during 2008.
When are you guys going to find an example of ‘BBC bias’ that actually stands up to scrutiny?
I thought we’d escaped the BBC climate Change nonsense over Winterville. But no, good old Phil Williams (he who stands in for the dud Mayo when he can’t be bothered to turn up for work) had a nice piece of BBC “balance” on Climat Change today.
We had three leftie losers on + plus that awful Scottsih woman who does the BBC money bit, but appears to know nothing about commerce (Pauline something or other) and Phil himself.
It was a real liberal leftie love fest on recycling, how the scientific debate has been won and so on. Not a single voice of opposiiton was allowed.
Martin | 31.12.07 – 3:10 pm
It was a real liberal leftie love fest on recycling, how the scientific debate has been won and so on. Not a single voice of opposiiton was allowed.
What are the scientific arguments against re-cycling?
And who is the anti-recycling movement’s best advocate?
Thanks JR. Your views are interesting. Maybe the BBC could make a documentary-‘What if the Kaiser had won WWI’
I believe Theodor Herzl was trying to get support from the Vatican for a Jewish state. It was a useless promise anyway. The Vatican was never a big supporter of a Jewish state- on the contrary. “Herzl received a brushoff, and the Vatican remained icily hostile, even when a Jewish state was established” (Daniel Goldhagen ‘The role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust’.)