Week-day BBC-related comment thread!

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 also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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210 Responses to Week-day BBC-related comment thread!

  1. Lee Moore says:

    http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/105415/diff/0/1

    Yup. Looks like the reference to him being a Democrat lasted all of ten minutes.

    Meanwhile the Republican-ness of Senators Vitter and Craig remains up there in the first paragraph several months on.

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  2. deegee says:

    Like the rest of the World Service, it is being funded by Grant-in-Aid from the Foreign Office – not the UK licence fee – which has led some of our competitors to suggest the channel will simply be Western propaganda. It won’t.
    pounce | 10.03.08 – 7:10 pm |

    Unfortunately, nothing in the BBC output suggests the BBC supports Western values. I guess the editors aren’t lying.

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  3. Martin says:

    Hillhunt: There is MORE to the BBC than their poxy news website. There has been NO mention of the record snow fall on the BBC TV news (or radio) that I’ve heard.

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  4. Martin says:

    I’m sure Hillhunt will have a good excuse for the BBC removing Spitzers party allegience.

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  5. David Preiser (USA) says:

    DB | 10.03.08 – 9:23 pm |
    &
    Lee Moore | 10.03.08 – 9:25 pm |

    Oh dear, does this mean that a very, very young junior sub-editor trainee who is paid very, very low wages actually did their job properly for a change, only to be negated by an adult editor?

    I can’t wait to hear the excuses for this one:

    “Naming the political party would be taking sides.”

    “They did name the party. What’s your problem?”

    “It may have been temporarily removed from the exhibit for refurbishment. Anything else is merely speculation by B-BBC cranks.”

    “It’s still there. You’re just too blind to see it.”

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  6. Lee Moore says:

    Come on DP – you can do better than that ! It’s

    “There was no room for it – we just had too much other vital stuff to cram in.”

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  7. Anonymous says:

    The Spitzer story and the non-mention/deletion of his party affiliation is yet again an example of overt BBC bias.

    Always skewed this way, never the other – total bias.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Despite the discreet placement of the Spitzer story on BBC Views Online’s mainpage the piece is currently third on the “Most Read” section.

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  9. Anonymous says:

    Disturbing trend on HYS:

    This is obviously a troll – an Israeli would never say ‘canan (palistine)’:

    “The right of occupancy to the land of canan (palistine) etc, was and is given to the Isrealis by the creator and owner of the universe just like any other country in the world. “

    It is not that there are no religious nuts in Israel, but they would never formulate it with that terminology.
    Of course this is how BBC sees all Israelis (as religious nuts) so it didn’t even bother to check whether this might be a false flag.

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  10. Anonymous says:

    The link to HYS, with the above mentioned comment:
    http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=4422&edition=2&ttl=20080310210715

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  11. John Reith spins in his grave says:

    DB:
    Time stamp 19.26, party affiliation mentioned in paragraph 6:
    http://i27.tinypic.com/20zr48m.jpg

    Time stamp 20.03, party affiliation vanishes:
    http://i31.tinypic.com/2lbfddc.jpg
    DB | 10.03.08 – 9:23 pm | #

    This is once of the worst instances of bias I’ve seen.

    Leaving out the guy’s party in the first draft could be just unconscious, reflexive or instinctive prejudice.

    Going back to the article and deleting it is a positive, premeditated, calculated attempt to manipulate the news and deceive the reader.

    That must be an actionable breach of Section 44(1) of the charter agreement which requires the BBC to “…..ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output.”

    Yet again – you couldn’t make it up.

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  12. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Lee Moore | 10.03.08 – 9:54 pm |

    You’re right. I totally overlooked that old chestnut. Must remember to stick with the classics.

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  13. Hillhunt says:

    DB/David P:

    Sexy Spitzer’s party affiliation is now in para 3:

    New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer has apologised amid allegations of involvement in a prostitution ring.

    The married father-of-three said he had acted in a way that violated his obligations to his family.

    Gov Spitzer, a Democrat, apologised to his family and the public, whom he said he should have served better.

    You’ll have to harumph about something else, chaps…

    Martin:

    Re: Ohio Snow No-Show

    Check out the filmed report.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7287125.stm

    By the way, how’s your obsession with gay matters going?
    .

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  14. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I was right!

    “It may have been temporarily removed from the exhibit for refurbishment. Anything else is merely speculation by B-BBC cranks.”

    No possible way it was brought to their attention or anything. Nothing to see here, move along.

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  15. Anonymous says:

    Imagine if instead of a Democrat like Spitzer, how would the bBC would have reported a Republican in the same situation:

    Headline: Republican Governor caught with pants down

    The GOP Governor of (fill in State’s name here) appeared today in front of the press to apologise for his connection to a prostitution ring.

    The first-term Republican, a married father-of-three, said he should have served his constituents better and been a better husband and parent.

    This is an embarrassment for his fellow Republican George W. Bush who has sought to improve standards of probity and conduct by elected officials.

    Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was unavailable to comment on whether this might damage his bid for President.

    By the way • the Governor of (fill in State’s name here) is a Republican.

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  16. DB says:

    Spitzer’s party affiliation is now in para 3

    Yup, thanks to us.

    And not before Newsbusters noted it:

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2008/03/10/bbc-removes-initial-democratic-label-spitzer-story

    The BBC – what an embarrassment.

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  17. DB says:

    And just for Hillhunt’s attention. I emailed Justin Webb about this and he replied:

    “you make a reasonable point — i will try to get it changed

    best jw”

    And he has.

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  18. David Preiser (USA) says:

    DB,

    Good job notifying Newsbusters. But maybe they should add that the BBC put the party name back in. At the very least, it’s evidence that they screwed around for some reason, and at best it’s proof that they screwed up and had to put it back in response to complaints. Or got the word from a Beeboid lurker here or at Newsbusters.

    Otherwise it’s just a passing moment in a Philip K. Dick story, and deniers can continue to claim it never happened at all.

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  19. DB says:

    “Good job notifying Newsbusters. But maybe they should add that the BBC put the party name back in.”

    I’ve emailed Ken Shepherd to let him know.

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  20. Lance says:

    Rob: A brief rant about BBC’s “WHITE” season:
    ………..

    This “WHITE” carry-on had me thinking it must be about the Arctic or polar bears or summat(or snow summits, even, ha ha).
    Turns out it’s about people: English working-class people. Who’d have guessed?

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  21. Steve Jones says:

    Hi Martin.

    You asked: ‘When will the liberal gay mafia that runs our media (and the BBC) wake up to the evil of Islam?’

    I asked that before discussing the ‘evil of Islam’, you explained a bit more about ‘the gay mafia’

    Someone else suggested Dawn Airey at ITV as maybe being part of this organisation.

    I wondered if you had any more suggestions. Do you have any friends who know stuff about the gay mafia that we don’t? Are a number of the leaders of the media secretly gay and we don’t know?

    It’s just that if this mafia doesn’t exist, it’s a bit hard for them to wake up to the ‘evil of Islam’

    And if they don’t exist, why claim they do? If they do exist, who and where are they?

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  22. Hillhunt says:

    Steve Jones:

    Give a man a break, SJ.

    Martin’s fully occupied monitoring the snowfall in Ohio and its non-non-non-non-appearance on the BBC.

    But in the interests of your research, Martin has already unearthed the vital info that Islington lettuce parties end with BBC people and their liberal friends going for “bottom action” on Hampstead Heath. http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/7873714298368192604/#387359

    In the face of that, could I tactfully suggest that you leave the floor to Martin, who clearly knows what he’s talking about?

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  23. Reverse Psychology says:

    Never in the history of the hidious entity, that is the BBC could there have been a more, Racist, biased, one sided, anti indigenous population programme ever screened by the despicable BBC.

    I talk of course about “White Girl”, which, would you believe, was part of a season dedicated to addressing issues that concern WHITE people in Britain today.

    Lets first address the BBCs version of the typically white underclass family, amongst our modern society today;

    From the programme, we are to assume that they are;

    Racist, illiterate, foul mouthed, drug loving, alcohol swilling, godless, violent, scratch card (gambling), moronic no marks that, the BBC at least, seem ashamed to be a part.

    And Muslims:

    This time in the cloud cuckoo land that revolves around BBC mind set, they are seen to be;

    Perfect, Socially coherent, organised, family orientated, forgiving, all embracing, good, wholesome, genuine, caring, wonderous folk, that ever strode among us, on this here planet earth.

    Oh glory be Islam, in line with al-beeb.

    Is it not true that the 7/7 bombers came from this very community?.

    Or do the BBC prefer us to forget this “problematic evil”, and concentrate on seeking the wonderous Allah for our worthless selves?.

    In this missnoma of a programme, and on moving to the Islamic eutopia which apparently, according to the BBC is the Muslim area in Bradford;
    the “white” family at first had a dog.

    Now as anyone that has ever lived around an Islamic area well knows, Muslims, as a rule, abhor the beast, as, like pigs, in certain situations dogs will eat their own faeces.

    How are the beeb going to get around this little problem I wondered?.

    Then low and behold, the “evil” white father re-surfaces to take the pet dog away. Self rightious problem averted, on with the Indoctrination, (sorry) show.

    Every time our “white girl”, was feeling sad or depressed, I noticed depressing Western pop music soundtracking these dark moments, yet happiness was a place called Islam and the chanting of Koranic verse.

    Could it really get anymore surreal?.

    Oh yes.

    The final igmony of this BBC propaganda, tells us that the “evil” white father is also a pedophial.

    Perhaps this irony missed the BBCs Allah like bubble, but Mohammed – hello!!! – six year old wife – ring any leftist bells?…..

    I’m struggling, in an attempt to somehow justify this bile.

    Infact I cant, for me, its just a step too far.

    We should’nt have to take this leftist crap in the name of racism or political correctness or social cohesion, or for that matter, what-ever the Marxist buzzword is this week.

    It utterly stinks…..

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  24. Shug Niggurath says:

    All day on the Beeb we’ve had people broadcasting from Brighton. They are almost being blown away in the wind.

    Except, I checked, and it was only this morning the weather was so bad and it actually brightened up a bit later on.

    What are the BBMC really trying to tell us? Hopefully it’s just that they can;t be bothered going to Cornwall.

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  25. Benny says:

    Reverse Psychology | 11.03.08 – 12:24 am

    I didn’t watch White Girl and from your description it sounds even worse than I expected it would be, so no need for me to watch it on the iPlayer.

    On the subject of BBC drama, I just watched the 3rd episode of Ashes to Ashes today and it featured a maniac Christian ‘weirdo’ holding a knife up to a prostitutes throat, threatening to kill her whilst quoting passages from the Bible like some sort of religious psychopath about how “impure” she is etc etc. Is this typical of the BBC’s anti-Christian bias? Surely such negative portrayal of Christians is bad for social cohesion isn’t it? Or is it that in BBC land, only negative portrayal of Muslims is bad for ‘social cohesion’?

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  26. max says:

    Saudi Arabia- The most conservative country in the Middle East.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7287247.stm

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  27. Anonymous says:

    Poor BBC – their Science section has a report that says
    2007 floods ‘no link to climate’
    (imagine the gritted teeth of the Beeboid who wrote that) and remember the wonderful European space truck that the Beeb lauded prior to its launch? Well, it’s developed a fault. Drat!

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  28. Reimer says:

    David P wrote – ”

    If their countries didn’t suck, they wouldn’t be moving here in droves, your white villages wouldn’t be overrun with Muslims who won’t learn your language, curse your customs, and want you to remove yourselves and your culture from the premises”

    Their countries are their own affair. I want my armed forces back here, helping secure my country’s borders and assist in forcible repatriation of hostile aliens, NOT in participating in some hare-brained scheme to incorporate the Third World into the First.

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  29. Martin says:

    Brighton is a second home for Beeboids. All those gay bars.

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  30. finchy says:

    I have to agree with you, what a load of old tosh,how they have the nerve to serve up this crap is beyond belief.No mention of Muslim youth’s forcing young white girls into prostitution and drugs in the Bradford area, what a surprise maybe because it might have spoiled their script about islam being the peace loving religon, that they continue to push on us.

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  31. finchy says:

    Sorry above post directed at Reverse Psychology.

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  32. Martin says:

    Finchy: Stephen Nolan did an interview with a Muslim woman last night who had been sent to Pakistan to be married at 14, then raped, pregnant, treated like a slave then hundred by her family.

    What amazes me is all the excuses that the BBC still come out with for Islam. If a white family did that to a child they’d all be in prison.

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  33. max says:

    No alternative views, critics, or buts to balance this unabashed EU climate change propaganda.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7287168.stm

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  34. Reverse Psychology says:

    Benny;

    The words “social cohesion”, are spouted predominantly among the two leftist entities in this country.

    Nu Liebour and the BBC.

    Too close for comfort?.

    A pact with the devil?.

    Perhaps their think tanks have finally forseen, that their much vaunted “Social cohesion” is a gibbering wreck, and doomed to fail, and so in true leftist fashion they side with anybody but their own.

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  35. Anonymous says:

    This just in, for all the Beeboids wandering about the Parsi translation of “Isreal must be wiped of the map”:

    Here is an AFP pic from the streets of Teheran:
    http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080310/photos_wl_afp/f1d8157b6d45aa4b03d9b99c4a24affc/

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  36. silvershadow says:

    We all mock Al-Beeb but it gets worse.

    BBC to launch Arabic TV channel

    And there was me thinking it was the British Broadcasting Corporation!

    And we’re paying for this. It really does make me reach for the sick bucket.

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  37. Zevilyn says:

    In the past, dramas about the white working class were actually written by working class writers.
    White Girl is written by a middle class writer, someone who is very much part of the London chattering classes and as such unlikely to upset her contemporaries.

    When you portray a group of people in a totally negative way, and the other group as all wonderful human beings, there’s a word for it.
    Propaganda.

    Portraying any social group or race as either saintly or evil is stupid and bigoted.

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  38. Anonymous says:

    The BBC – “Is a complete ignorance of economics and business actually a requirement for working for the organisation? Or is this a happenstance?”

    http://timworstall.com/2008/03/10/idiot-bbc-question-of-the-day/

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  39. George R says:

    When will the BBC put out an anti-Islam, anti-multicultural drama to show a victimised Muslim girl, rebellious of Jihad and Sharia indocrination, becoming so hostile to Islam and its persecutors of her – through forced marriage, wearing the veil, and her apostasy, that she abandons it all?

    In such a story, an alternative version to the BBC’s pro-Islam, anti-white working class ‘White Girl’, the heroine of this alternative story, fearing for her life, she goes to live in secret with a sympathetic, well-adjusted white working-class family in Bradford.

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  40. gjm says:

    I not the following paragraph embedded in a report on the internet site of the BBC about thousands of girls who disappear from British schools apparently to be married by force:

    “BBC Home Editor Mark Easton said enforced marriages used to be prevalent in many cultures – in Britain they were often described as “shot-gun weddings”.”

    A shot-gun wedding, of course, is one in which a man is forced to do the right thing by a girl who has become pregnant. This has nothing to do with the issue described in the report except as a way of saying “all cultures” do this.

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  41. Hugh says:

    Yes, that really is a poor bit of editorialising. You wonder whether Asian readers actually appreciate being patronised like this. I suspect that if your IQ is in double figures and you support a secular society it grates a little to have the BBC helpfully provide an excuse for this practice among your compatriots.

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  42. George R says:

    James Walton’s review of BBC 2’s ‘White Girl’ (‘Daily Telegraph’ today):-

    “For any members of the white working class watching BBC2’s season about them, White Girl will surely have come as an unpleasant surprise. As I understood it, the idea of the season was to dig beneath the demeaning stereotypes. Last night’s drama, though, was entirely based on them.

    In the first scene, we saw 11-year-old Leah (Holly Kenny) running a drugs errand for her thuggish, blinged-up stepdad Stevie (Daniel Mays). In the second, as Stevie settled down for his tea of chips and lager, Leah and her mum Debbie (Anna Maxwell Martin) did a runner, driving off to a new start in Bradford • but not to any reduction in the stereotyping.

    advertisementInstead, the fact that they settled in a wholly Muslim area meant that racism was soon added to the rich mix of scratchcards, pizzas, booze and fags already on display. Next, Stevie tracked them down and gave Debbie a walloping.

    At first, Leah enthusiastically joined in with the racism. Yet, the more she noticed how lovely all the Muslims were, and how well they treated their daughters, the more she found herself drawn to their religion. Before long, she was reading a book called A Child’s Guide to Islam in her bedroom while her mother necked vodka downstairs.

    Eventually, Debbie got plastered enough to take Stevie back. The couple then had drunken sex in the bathroom as Leah • by now a hijab-wearing member of the local mosque • looked on. After that, she went off to live with the saintly family next door.

    The trouble with all this wasn’t just that it felt so simplistic (chavs bad, Muslims good). It also led to a drama that managed to be both unbelievable and boringly predictable at the same time. And, because the characters remained locked in their preordained emblematic roles, their dilemmas never seemed either real or engaging.

    White Girl was written by Abi Morgan, who once brought us the brilliant Sex Traffic. Here, the sense of superficiality continued right up until a happy ending that wasn’t merely glib, but appeared to be based on the belief that Muslim women can divorce their spouses as easily as Muslim men can. Before that, however, any of the white working class still watching had to endure a little sermon on how they should pull their socks up and put their booze down.

    In a way, I suppose, last night’s drama did prove a useful addition to the White season • by neatly exemplifying all the prejudices that the old working class now have to put up with. Sadly, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the aim.”

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  43. bob says:

    gjm:
    Bullseye! Naturally, they didn’t take long to “contextualise” this story. Nice to see the BBC social workers drawing up their own “non judgmental narrative” (excuse me while I vomit…)

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  44. Jack Hughes says:

    George,

    Thanks for the posting. Someone on this board has suggested that the plot line was originally submitted as a spoof – a piss-take of the BBC’s pet fetishes. Then sadly the BBC did not get the joke and went ahead with the film.

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  45. Darius says:

    OMG I watched ‘White Girl’ last night and it proved exactly how I expected it to be. Virtually a marketing campaign for Islam. It showed white people in very stereotyped roles and of course Islam was shown as the benevolent and loving and inclusive religion that we all know it is. Why bother making a programme about the white working class when its basically just an advertisement for Islam? Is Islamism a working class struggle? Its good to know my tv tax pays for such well, written, high quality drama ;s

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  46. Martin says:

    I see the BBC is “spinning” for the Government again. Standard mode. McLabour leak a story late in the evening (British citizenship again!) and this morning 5 lite are going mad over it.

    I wonder what “bad news” McLabour are sneaking out?

    Perhaps a report that the flooding last year had sod all to do with Climate Change (as the ones who don’t work for the BBC here have explained numerous times)

    Oh and the Budget is coming up tomorrow along with massive tax rises.

    Good old BBC.

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  47. DB says:

    “White Girl” was even worse than I had imagined – a truly sickening piece of propaganda (and I mean that literally – I felt sick watching it).

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  48. George R says:

    Scoop! ‘Conservatives’ likely to win in elections in Iran, senses BBC’s John Simpson, World Affairs editor:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7288290.stm

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  49. Hugh says:

    Yes, from that Simpson piece: “Going round the vast, cavernous Grand Bazaar, which is as crowded with shoppers as the roads are crowded with cars, I came across people again and again who believed that voting in Friday’s parliamentary elections was a waste of time.”

    Well they’re right aren’t they? The religious authorities won’t let serious reform happen. Simpson does make the point that it’s “far from being a full democracy”, but he almost makes out that this is some sort of voter apathy akin to the UK where we complain all the parties occupy the same ground.

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  50. John Reith spins in his grave says:

    Perhaps a report that the flooding last year had sod all to do with Climate Change (as the ones who don’t work for the BBC here have explained numerous times)…….

    Martin | 11.03.08 – 10:46 am | #

    It has made it onto the BBC website – and only a “three clicks away” job, under Science & Nature:-

    2007 floods ‘no link to climate’
    By Richard Black
    Environment correspondent, BBC News website

    Desparate (and totally illogical) attempt to muddy the waters, though, with the highlighted quote:-

    Climate change predictions mean we can expect to see more extreme weather events such as flooding in the future

    Environment Agency

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7287988.stm

    Your BBC – tailoring your news to fit our prejudices

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