Monthly Archives: April 2008

BROADCASTING FOR LABOUR.

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I’m not a fan of the Conservative Party here in the UK because I don’t think they act as conservatives under the leadership of Mr Cameron. However, I can understand the huge problem Cameron has to overcome when faced with the relentless pro-leftist agenda spewed out by the State Broadcaster and so I suppose it inevitable that he triangulates ever leftwards if only to escape the savage mercies of the BBC guardianistas. You see I don’t think the BBC will EVER bring itself to actually like the Conservatives and instead when push comes to shove, it will always cheer-lead for the Left. This is evident in a trio of stories leading BBC news this morning.

First up comes the news that despite the (now admitted) influx of 800,000 migrants from eastern Europe, (I thought Labour told us it was going to 14,000?) there is NO evidence that this has led to an increase in crime. Phew – what a relief for nice Mr Brown and his ten year long support for the multiculti nation without borders project. Yes, there has been the odd bit of bother here and there but let us be clear; overall crime has NOT risen despite this massive increase of eastern Europeans – those Romanians and Bulgarians are a law-abiding lot apparently – from the moment they hit these shores. The BBC runs this as if it were definitive. It’s not. The “investigation” is purely based on anecdotal reports from “detectives and community officers” and since the nationality of offenders is not even recorded, on what factual basis can any serious judgement be made?

Next up, good old Labour are showing how tough they are on cracking down on terrorism by announcing that 300 police officers “will be moved”into “helping dissuade” a small minority of people from being “radicalised.” How they will actually do this is left unclear and the BBC point blank refuses to tell us precisely which group this “small minority” might belong to. Ssssh – don’t mention ISLAM. Jacqui Smith’s so-called announcement is risible but the BBC are, in anything, worrying that it might be too tough and could alienate that “small minority.”! Last time I checked out a poll it indicated up to 10% of UK muslims supported Jihad attacks – with a UK population of at least 1.1.6 million British Muslims this means that up to 144,000 support terrorism. And 300 plods are going to sort this one out?? Really?

Finally the dear Leader himself is in the States today and preparing to tell Wall Street to “come clean” apparently about the financial losses they have made. Why doesn’t he do the same and why doesn’t the BBC ask this question? Also, in another PR makeover for Gordon the BBC is telling us that he is going to force a UN security council meeting chaired by Thabo “Crisis, what crises?” Mbeki to deal with Zimbabwe even though it is not an agenda item! The idea that Brown is going to get the corrupt African Union, and the even more corrupt UN, to do ANYTHING of substance here is laughable, and yet this is put out as if it were credible.

Labour is spinning like crazy these days and the State Broadcaster is doing as much as possible to help Brown and his dismal crew. There is little, if any, attempt made to query the substance of what the NuLabour masters put out. The more desperate Labour gets, the easier the ride given by the BBC. Preserving leftism in power is the number one objective at play here and you and I are being made to fund it through the taxation policy of the State Broadcaster.

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Italian Job

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A lot of people, including the (generally more junior) BBC journalists who sometimes visit this blog and take part in discussion, admire what one could call the “big beasts” of BBC journalism- people like Marr, Humphries, Simpson, and Mark Mardell. Urbane and intelligent, they are seen as figures of substance. That’s troublous to an outsider to this circle of admiration as they’re biased too.

Well, take a look at Mardell’s reaction to the Italian election [correction- have a look here. Thanks Max]. His first comments “With Italy’s elections complete, does the domination of the media by the political elite distort the debate, and will the internet change things?”

Coming from a “big beast” from within the unquestionable behemoth of British media, the hubris is comic.

But also clearly unfair when one thinks about it, however one may object to Silvio Berlusconi and his media empire. The first point is that this “empire” didn’t prevent Berlusconi losing power to Prodi two years ago. The second is that Berlusconi turned his narrow defeat into a victory by a 9% margin- quite a feat. The third is that Italians apparently made an historic sea change in their politics this election- they gave their communist party (a long-time political player) precisely no seat in either chamber. Wow. Oh, and the greens went too- analysis here.

So of course Mardell is at the front of the queue undermining the legitimacy of the Italian public’s choices by implying their thought processes were skewed. After more than ten years of Labour government, one might start to consider whether the status quo in the UK might have anything to do with the Labour-dominated BBC.

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30 MINUTES.

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What better way to start the week than by tuning in to the “Today” programme on BBC Radio 4? (Well, I can think of plenty actually but let’s just go with this for a few minutes) Between 6.30am and 7am I steeled myself and listened to the “news” from the State Broadcaster.

For openers we had an item on how the Conservatives were “exploiting” the financial woes that afflict poor Labour. Interesting choice of word that, “exploiting”. “Highlighting” might have been another less judgemental word that could have used I suppose? This item went on to discuss Gordon Brown’s disastrous personal ratings in opinion polls over the weekend but caveated these with the insistence that these polls may not be accurate. (The BBC, of course, regularly uses other opinion polls which are treated as Holy Writ when it suits them but hey, let’s not upset Labour too much)

Next up we had someone from the Howard League for Penal Reform (aka the abolition of prisons) on to whine about the amount of self-harm prisoners carried out on themselves. This. she pointed out, was not really connected to overcrowding in prison (A favoured BBC theme mind you) but to the fact that they were in jail in the first place. At no point was it suggested to this advocate for the abolition of justice that had they not committed crime these alleged self-harmersy would NOT have been in prison in the first place. Also is it not better they harm themselves than their victims? This was a public platform afforded to the Howard League of extreme leftists without ANY counter balance, disgraceful.

Then we had the topic of the meeting of those Southern African States concerning Zimbabwe. The line taken here was that whilst the “Crisis? What Crisis?” line had been put out by this august body of wise elders perhaps secretly they had been discussing a plan to establish a government of national unity? Sure. The BBC seems very reluctant to say anything bad about the catastrophic failure of Mbeke to stand up against Mugabe.

Then we moved on to, yip, climate change. Seems that it is getting warmer in Northern UK climes and this is causing all kinds of shifts of the animal population. Just one more little bit of green advocacy afforded to those geo-climate experts at…erm….The National Trust.

The triumph of the Maoists in Nepal received the BBC seal of approval, though the BBC reporter did seem a little surprised to see that the Maoist leader had images of Stalin and Mao on his wall. Nostalgia?

There were a few other items but after 30 minutes of this, I tuned out!

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General BBC-related comment thread!

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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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SHIRL THE PEARL

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. Can anyone explain why Dame Shirley Williams is so omnipresent on the BBC’s main political debating programmes? I note she has been on this week’s “Any Questions” and she was on “Question Time” but a few weeks ago. Have the Lib-Dem’s got no-one else to put up for these programmes? Personally I am sickened by the fawning reception that she is given by BBC hosts when she does appear and it makes me think that politically, the BBC and the far-leftism of the Lib-Dem’s are synched soul-mates, which may explain why Williams gets such disproportionate prominence.

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MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

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I fully accept that the Royal College of Physicians has every right to lobby for the view that the pub industry is acting irresponsibly by offering customers larger glasses for wine than they (the RCP) would like. Some 14% of licensed premises say they now offer only 250ml sized wine glasses – equivalent to a third of a bottle. Of course the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers is just as entitled to hit back claiming that it was in the business of offering customers choice. A balanced exchange of views, until that is, BBC correspondent Keith Doyle puts his pennysworth in by suggesting that there was “even anecdotal evidence that some pub staff were under pressure to maximise profits by encouraging customers to opt for larger drinks.” The evils of capitalism, eh? exposed by the BBC. Keith’s “anecdotal” contribution means nothing and it injects a bias we do not require.

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SHAME ON YOU.

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The BBC’s relentless hostility to the United States is evidenced once again in the faux headline that “US Shamed by Mandela terror link.” This concerns the news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for “embarrassing” travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa’s governing party and its leaders as terrorists. Now I realise that Mandela is the patron saint of leftworld and the ANC are immune to criticism in BBC land but the fact is that Mandela DID plan terrorist acts and there are plenty within the communist ANC who relished carrying out other terrorist atrocities. The United States has NO “shame” as the BBC puts it in trying to exclude terrorists, although of course here in the UK the opposite situation prevails where we cannot exclude terrorists as the Court of Appeal made clear the other day.

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Bushwhacked.

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Sometimes I read a report and wonder why it is there. Nothing existential, just the non-sensical logic behind it. This morning the BBC headline runs ” Bush ‘is avoiding Iraq decisions'”- top billing for this story.

Let’s leave alone the fact that this headline immediately promotes a subjective, politicised point. Let’s question its very newsworthiness. Why is it there? Perhaps, I thought, because yesterday Bush was hailing Iraq progress and (as the BBC put it) freezing any “pull out” from Iraq. That’s newsworthy, really.

Yet what about today’s headline? Ah, well that’s the Democrat response. We’ve moved from reporting a decision arising from concrete events to the political strategy of one US party. Not cricket, BBC.

You can often tell the BBC position because they reiterate a certain rhetorical line in an article, underlining a particular soundbyte.

In this case, we first of all get the warm-up line from the Beeb, “But his opponents say the people want answers from this president, now.” (which certainly has a rhetorical ring to it inappropriate to a factual news item), and then the main event from Nancy Pelosi:


“”The president has taken us into a failed war, he’s taken us deeply into debt and that debt is taking us into recession,” she said. “We need some answers from the president.””

It’s like the run-up before the penalty kick.

What’s really funny though is the fact that the BBC headlines a story Bush “avoiding Iraq decisions”, when in fact he has just decided something- which was yesterday’s news. Today’s news is that he’s declined to follow-through with a decision that the Democrats wanted and want to intensify and speed up. This is rather more nuanced and requires the BBC’s special news skills (arising from its unique funding) to bring to our attention.

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MILITANTS.

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Even Islamic killers are clear that they engage in premeditated acts of terrorism. “This was a martyrdom-seeking [suicide] operation aimed at kidnapping Zionist soldiers,” the Islamic Jihad spokesman said. But to the BBC it was an “attack” by “militants.” I am sick of the witless BBC equivocation on this subject. These Palestinians are JIHADISTS, they even call themselves this. They enjoy taking the life of innocent Israelis. They are, by any standard, engaging in act of terrorism, so why will the BBC not call it like it is?

I also hate the way in which the BBC buries away another little lie in this same report. It innocuously states ” Fighting had subsided since early March, when the Israeli army launched an offensive that killed around 120 Palestinians. ” It conveniently leaves out the fact that a/ This Israeli strike followed the terror attack on Israel that resulted in the death of young teenage Jewish students in Jerusalem and b/ The 120 figure quoted includes a significant number of Hamas terrorists with others dying because they either voluntarily or involuntarily provided sanctuary to Hamas terrorists. What justification have the BBC for calling Islamic killers “militants” when even the Islamic killers boast of their terrorist ambitions?

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General BBC-related comment thread!

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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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