Monthly Archives: May 2008

WORST BBC MOMENT?

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I was wondering if you have a special moment that embodies BBC bias? I have three that I wanted to share. The first was the absolutely depraved Question Time programme that followed the 9/11 slaughter. I’ll never forget the baying of that anti-American rabble in the audience even as the dead lay burning in the mangled debris of the twin towers. As most of us remained stunned as to what had happened the BBC’s biased audience showed its true colours. Then I recall the BBC’s coverage of the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Agreement here in Northern Ireland and the broad smiles and backslapping from the news reporters when it became clear that the establishment side had won the day. All notion of impartiality was discarded on that infamous day. Finally, I recall Barbara Plett’s words as she recalled her impressions of Yasser Arafat”When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry.” Quite – weeping over the imminent demise of an aids-raddled mass murderer, the BBC incarnate. So, what were your defining moments?

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SMOKING KILL JOYS

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. I don’t smoke – never have! But I defend the right of other people to smoke if that is a risk they wish to take – it’s called freedom of choice and it is a concept that sits uneasily with the BBC left wing intelligentsia . Take it’s enthusiastic reporting this morning of the proposals that government may ban vending machines, packets of ten and all branded logos from the front of packets of cigarettes. Not only that but government may also demand that retailers place cigarettes below the counter or in a locked cabinet. I listened to an interview on Today this morning with a spokesman for Independent retailers who made the fatal error of saying that he thought this “consultation” reeked of the Nanny State. You can imagine the chill from the BBC interviewer that greeted this observation. All his points concerning the impracticability of these draconian proposals were met with studied indifference – it is clear that the BBC fully supports the idea of more bans from the government. Why are there no interviews with Tobacco companies and those who gain employment from such enterprises? Why is there this all prevailing sense of “if it produces smoke, just ban it”? (Unless it’s illegal drugs producing the smoke of course, in which case it IS personal choice in Beebworld) To repeat, I do not advocate that anyone smokes but I do believe in the concept of personal choice. Given the BBC’s demand that we all pay it our money, I suppose choice is a dirty word for the BBC, maybe even dirtier than cigarettes?

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MOHAMED THE BRIT AND GITMO

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. Do you think it possible that statistically speaking ALL of the in-mates at Guantanamo Bay are innocent little lambs? That is the line repeatedly peddled by the BBC and I listened and read the latest items concerning the squealing from “British” inmate Binyam Mohamed. Mohamed follows Al Queda training manual instructions and claims he was tortured. When he was captured by US forces, this cleaner from West London was travelling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, trying to resolve his .. ahem.. personal drug problems. As you do. His only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and now those pesky Yanks have gone and charged him with conspiring to commit terrorist offences in the US, including plotting to plant a so-called dirty bomb to spread radiation. Naturally the BBC immediately undermines this by stating that a previous AQ terrorist suspect in the shape of Jose Padilla got off when the same charges were made against him. It deliberately OMITS telling us that Padilla was convicted by a US jury of conspiring to fund Jihad and the killing of people overseas. More BBC deceptions folk, giving you half the story in order to try and convince you that poor doe-eyed Mohamed is innocent. It strikes me that the BBC just loves providing airtime to the parasitic left-wing lawyers for these Gitmo captives who can then use this bully pulpit to further blacken the reputation of the US military and Presidency. In the case of this illegal Ethiopian asylum seeker – now labelled as “British” as they come – the BBC is merely continuing its own war on the United States. Don’t you agree?

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LET’S TALK

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. It is article of faith for the BBC that terrorism is best defeated through dialogue with the terrorists. Through the prism of leftworld, the idea that you might want to defeat terrorism by wiping out terrorists is a non-starter, hence the crusade against the Bush doctrine. So you can understand the delight of the BBC when the man tipped to become the next head of the Metropolitan police, Sir Hugh Orde, argues that we should be talking to Al Queda. Sir Hugh is the Chief Constable of the PSNI here in Northern Ireland and delights in the fact that convicted IRA bombers and bank-robbers now sit on his policing board. I’m guessing that his idea of the future for London might be when those masterminds behind the 7/7 attacks can be brought in from the cold and given a job running London transport. Orde’s views resonate perfectly with the BBC’ s views which is why he gets to make these outrageously craven comments with not one word of criticism from any other source. Perhaps the BBC could have asked the next of kin of those poor people slaughtered by Jihadists on that fateful July day if they share Orde’s enthusiasm for parlaying with deranged killers.

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TUTU IN A SPIN – PART TWO.

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Sorry to be so repetitive, and I’ll leave it after this for a while BUT I was outraged at the BBC’s reporting of Israeli reaction to Desmond Tutu’s UN sponsored visit to Gaza the other day. Having given that smirking South African clown the opportunity to demonise the Jews for their treatment of all those poor entirely innocent Palestinians, the Israeli government was allowed to respond and rightly (too kindly, I would add) suggested that Tutu had been “mislaid” by Hamas as to the nature of what is going on in Gaza. In many ways had it been left there, one could have said fair enough but the BBC was NOT prepared to leave it there and so this morning on the pro-Hamas Today programme around 6.55 we had an International Professor of Law interviewed who had accompanied Tutu on his grand tour of Hamasland and she was allowed to have another go at Israel, with the BBC interviewer helpfully bringing up the issue of “war crimes”. Naturally, this time round there was NO opportunity for an Israeli rebuttal. The BBC is determined to ensure that Tutu’s anti-Israeli spin prevails and this is what was driving this anti-Jewish agenda this morning. The complete lack of any discussion on the sheer savagery that drives Hamas – elected by the moral degenerates that live in Gaza – is blithely ignored at all times. Still the Jews deserve all they get – right? – and the BBC is here to make sure they get it. We talk about BBC bias here but in a way this is worse – it is the serial demonisation of a people by the British State broadcaster and it leaves me angry.

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All the bad news…

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I don’t know whether the BBC will devote a report to the fact that May has been among the least violent of the Iraq war- it could be confirmed as the producing the lowest US casualty figures depending on events today and tomorrow. I don’t know if they’ll register that the six month figure for that is the lowest for any period since the fighting began in 2003 source. Iraq could be arriving at peace.

What I do know is that the BBC will report this against the backdrop of bad news, pre-announced bad news– covered in some depth. Somehow the BBC’s attitude for statistics tends only to work in selected directions.

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COLLABORATORS.

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Another day another BBC spin for “Palestinians”. I caught a “Today” story at 7.20am or so about the way in which Palestinian “collaborators” are badly treated by Israeli state. We got to hear several comments from one of these “collaborators” based in Sderot balanced by ONE SENTENCE from a Jewish inhabitant of that much bombed by Hamas city. Don’t you think the use of the word “collaborator” a bit odd by our ever-so-impartial BBC? It reeks of that much-feared judgementalism that Al-Beeb tries to avoid in most other circumstances and one would almost expect it to be the term of choice used by Hamas for those who betray its nasty little secrets. What’s wrong with the word “informers”? Is the BBC now reduced to using the Hamas terminology, just like it did the IRA terminology? Given that Sderot has suffered such a pounding from Palestinian rocket bombardment, it’s quite amazing to find the BBC nonetheless churning out these stories continually portraying Palestinians as the victims of Israeli ingratitude. Shame on them.

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SHILLING FOR THE NHS

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. Just watched the BBC Ten O’Clock News and was intrigued by the breaking news that there has been a fall out between the NHS and one of its primary IT suppliers Fujitsu. What really stunned me was the BBC assertion that “The estimated final overall cost of computerising the NHS in England is currently £12.7bn. While the NHS’s Connecting for Health programme has overrun, tough contracts have so far kept it broadly within budget.“ What? The alleged “tough contracts” have seen the cost of this IT farce jump from £2.3 billion to £6 billion, then £9 billion and currently £12.4 billion – it is by any standards MASSIVELY over-budget anfd with little prospect of attaining the time-scales promised by the NHS. I find it staggering that the BBC thinks it can get away with such unmitigated propagandising on behalf of the NHS. This is not just bias, it is lies.

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THE WRATH OF KHAN.

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Amnesty International is one of those organised hypocrisies to which the BBC swears fealty and so when Secretary General Irene “Gulag of our times”Khan decides to grace the State Broadcaster with an interview, you know that she is going to get an easy time. And so it was this morning, with her 7.25am interview on Today. Ostensibly there to chastise “the world” for its failure to meet the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the conversation naturally turned to that great abuser of Human Rights – the United States and provided the fragrant Irene with an opportunity to once more call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. To add emphasis, the BBC illustrate these global human rights abuses on its news page with a picture of..Zimbabwe? NO. China? No? Iran? No? Guantanamo? YES. Come to think of it, seeing as how UN peacekeepers are quite keen to gang-rape kids in foreign lands, wonder why the BBC didn’t ask Irene how she felt about the UN not meeting the UN’s Human Rights obligations? Must have slipped their mind, I guess….

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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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