General 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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237 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. George R says:

    How telling, except that, e.g., the BBC doesn’t tell it: Minister Hutton of the Disarray Labour Government, showing Labour’s priorities, was at a British Antarctic Survey meeting on climate change there, and what Labour should spend on the ANTARCTIC to reduce the globe’s climate problems.

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=461

    Hutton was brought back to home, and away from Labour’s ‘Green’ expensive, unilateral global priorities, thus:

    ‘Speculation over road tax rethink’

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7421171.stm

    Interesting ‘principled’comment by BBC’s ‘Greenpeace’ lobby chums there:

    …”The plan to bring in higher taxes on cars which people already bought ‘gives green taxes a bad name'”

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  2. Biodegradable says:

    Press Freedom In Gaza or, “Why Doesn’t The BBC Get Harassed?”
    http://www.israellycool.com/2008/05/27/hamas-continues-to-harrass-and-threaten-journalists/#comments

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  3. rightofcentre says:

    Reading this –

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7421005.stm

    Strange that this –

    “The victim and three of the suspects, two 15-year-olds and a 20-year-old, are all Asian, suggesting initial suspicions of a racial motive were ill-founded. The race of two others arrested is yet to be confirmed.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1021902/Three-arrested-Asian-boy-16-battered-death-race-gang-attack.html

    Isn`t mentioned.

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  4. Deborah says:

    I know this is off topic – but can anyone explain the agenda of the British Antarctic Survey scientists. I was at a Conservative fundraiser where Andrew Landsley was the speaker. I asked if climate change proved to be wrong did the conservatives have a get out? His reply was sharp – the BAS were definite that climate change was real and had met with David Cameron to tell him so.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    Deborah | 27.05.08 – 5:50 pm

    The website of the British Antarctic Survey goes into a lot of detail on this. Highlights:

    Antarctic ice cores reveal the clearest link between levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the Earth’s temperature. They show that the temperature of the climate and the levels of greenhouse gases are intimately linked.

    Much of BAS science is done on the Antarctic Peninsula – one of the fastest warming parts of the planet. BAS glaciologists are also studying the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, parts of which are thinning rapidly.

    Climate records from the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula show that temperatures in this region have risen by nearly 3°C during the last 50 years • about 10 times the global average, and only matched in Alaska and Siberia. British Antarctic Survey research has shown also that near-surface sea temperatures to the west of the Peninsula have risen by over 1°C over a similar period. It is now accepted that the waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current are warming more rapidly than the global ocean as a whole.

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/

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  6. adam says:

    i think Chris Rapley is the head of that.
    He has a relationship with the BBC, i think he wrote an environmental piece for them and did an interview.

    He is a Malthusian, thinks the earth is overpopulated and we need to do something about it.
    A tax on breathing would be right up his street.

    my post is based on memory but to the best of my knowledge is correct.

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  7. Biodegradable says:

    BBC mixes Jewish with Israeli, Israelis and Jews.

    “Criticism of Israel is not antismitism”, it is alleged that one can be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, some of one’s best friends are Jews, or Israelis, and it all gets a little confused at times.

    It’s so hard to know if the Egyptians dislike the Israelis, or is it because they’re Jews?

    Excuse me while I go lie down in a quiet corner…

    Egypt rumours disrupt Jewish trip

    A trip to Egypt by a Jewish group has been called off after rumours they were going to reclaim nationalised property prompted hotels to cancel bookings.

    But anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt is so strong that no business is willing to take any risk, particularly when it involves such a highly sensitive issue.

    The woman behind the trip, Levana Zamir, is an Egyptian-born Israeli who runs an organisation in Tel Aviv that seeks to promote better understanding between the two cultures.

    Ms Zamir, who speaks Arabic fluently, said she was one of a group of elderly Jewish people of Egyptian origin from all over the world who wanted to visit their ancestral homeland with their children, to see old neighbourhoods.

    […]

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  8. Anonymous says:

    adam | 27.05.08 – 6:15 pm

    Chris Rapley is the director of the Science Museum in London.

    He did once work for the BAS, but doesn’t any more.

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  9. max says:

    Apparently, BBC dhimmitude goes back to the 80’s
    http://houseofdumb.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#827171364951224514

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  10. Anonymous says:

    Deborah,

    international law prevents us stationing troops on either the artic or antartic so we have “scientists” there instead of troops to stake a claim on the place.

    global warming research is a great subterfuge to stay on the poles to carry out “experiments” and “research”

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  11. Martin says:

    Just listened to a couple of left wing losers on Channel 4 news (no doubt they will be on the BBC later) saying we have to get away from the car and oil.

    These areseholes are determined to kill the economy of this Country.

    Perhaps they should visit China and India where car growth is going through the roof and petrol is cheap.

    If the politicians keep listening to these camp left wing losers they will get an arse kicking off the people.

    Do they want 10 million on the dole?

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  12. Anonymous says:

    Re: Amar Aslam murder.

    Initially al-Beeb did make clear that PC Plod wanted to speak to a smartly dressed Asian man:

    http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/126042/diff/0/1

    But 20 minutes later this reference had been deleted leaving readers thinking that perhaps tattooed skinheads had done it.

    http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/126042/diff/1/2

    I suppose like with Damilola Taylor’s death once whites are exonerated al-Beeb’s interest in the case will wane.

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  13. bodo says:

    WRT the Dewsbury murder;

    Both the BBC and sky made lots of unsubtle references to the fact that the victim was Asian, and the BBC said that there were “suspicions” that there might have been a racial motive. They didn’t say where the suspicions came from, I suspect from within the minds of the BBC staff. This is before the race of the suspect was known.
    In fact there has been a lot of tension between Asians are Kurdish asylum seekers around Dewsbury for a couple of years, but I don’t think Kurdish people can be racist, can they? The Asian gangs that have become a regular feature of the area and targeting of white people can’t be racist either, I am sure.

    The recent stabbing of the 18-year-old actor in London received very different treatment. Nowhere was it emphasised he was white, and nobody has hinted at a racial motive, despite it being said that the suspect is black.

    Once again, we see that in BBC land, only white people can be racist.

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  14. Jack Bauer says:

    Do they want 10 million on the dole?
    Martin | 27.05.08 – 7:23 pm | #

    Err, yeah. The more the merrier. After all, it’s just a matter of taxing the rich!

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  15. archroy says:

    Did anyone see the BBC Parliament programmes last night (Monday) showing old 1960s documentaries and discussions about the ‘permissive society’? One discussion, about censorship, featured a particularly puritanical-sounding nerdy young clerk from Sheffield, called David Blunkett. He’s certainly grown up since then!

    I missed the beginning of this segment; did anybody notice whether it was pointed out that one of the people discussing the question of censoring sexual images on television was actually blind?

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  16. Garden Trash says:

    “I missed the beginning of this segment; did anybody notice whether it was pointed out that one of the people discussing the question of censoring sexual images on television was actually blind?”

    I’m surprised he didn’t marry Heather Mills.

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  17. GCooper says:

    In recent elections ‘Green’ candidates have polled at roughly similar levels to the BNP.

    Why, then, do R4 and other BBC outlets keep giving airtime to idiots like the FOE spokesman who was banging on about ‘global warming’ on PM this evening?

    Why is the BBC acting in this blatantly biased manner?

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  18. Oscar says:

    Priceless soundbite from R4s 6 o’clock news, where the reporter described the haulage industry as “capitalism red in tooth and claw”. How he loved saying that. I’ve got a better soundbite for him “Gordon Brown’s tax policy – red in tooth and claw”.

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  19. PeterN says:

    The wonderful Matt Frei on last Saturday’s travel programme Excess Baggage (radio 4)- last item lady on the problems of sticking to her vegan diet whilst travelling.Don’t have a problem – different strokes, different folks.General question at end something like “what is your worst experience of difficulties when travelling re veg / vegan diet” Up steps Matt ” I was on Airforce 1- about 200 yards from president Bush (they would have shot me dead if I tried to get too close), when they offered breakfast it was steak – STEAK on a plane!” This turned quickly to suggesting only steak was offered. Yes matt we believe you. I bet AF1 often runs out of Waffles / Syrup, Toast / Jam, etc for you poor hard done by hacks.
    Reason for this post – take it for granted anti Bush skew on News etc – but this is supposed (and sometimes is)a reasonably apolitical travel prog. much more insidious constant drip drip of the pro Brussels, Anti US, PC etc etc etc Beeb Agenda on all progs – previous posts on sport, etc

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  20. Peter says:

    “when they offered breakfast it was steak – STEAK on a plane!”

    Sheeesh! We would kill for that on Britain’s railways.

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  21. Martin says:

    The BBC see the ‘Green’ issue as a sort of right on thing and something to attack the Tories and America over.

    Notice the BBC themselves don’t partake in climate offsets for their air travel. In fact the BBC itself is probably the most ungreen organisation in the UK. It preaches a lot, but does nothing to set an example.

    When the BBC’s main Dr Goebels for the environment ponces off around the world first class in a Jumbo jet to tell us all of the dangers of flying, you know the BBC has lost the plot.

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  22. nadia says:

    Bio – this was the bit that made me gasp:

    Ms Zamir, who speaks Arabic fluently, said she was one of a group of elderly Jewish people of Egyptian origin from all over the world who wanted to visit [b]their ancestral homeland[/b] with their children, to see old neighbourhoods.

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  23. nadia says:

    html failed me, I see. I wanted to bold the ‘ancestral homeland’ bit. How generous of the BBC to acknowledge that Jewish people have an ‘ancestral homeland’. (Don’t tell the Egyptians or they’ll get even more paranoid than they are already).

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  24. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Isn’t it pointy brackets you want, Nadia.
    I get very lazy about html.

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  25. Anonymous says:

    BBC News at Ten sees an Orla-esque description of the lorry protest: “They came in their hundreds…” (yawn)

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  26. GCooper says:

    More rubbish from the BBC on its 10 o’clock news.

    In reporting the way the government has profited from rising fuel prices, while the increased revenue from oil companies was mentioned, not a single word was spoken about the massive windfall from higher VAT receipts!

    What is going on here? Are the BBC’s reporters ignorant, or are they deliberately downplaying the cash tsunami this government has lifted from our pockets?

    One thing is for sure. There are only two possible explanations. Either of them damns the BBC.

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  27. GCooper says:

    And, as if by the remorseless magic of clockwork, what does Newsnight lead on?

    A clearly troubled Kirsty Wark asking whether the ‘Green agenda’ has to go and one of the movement’s high priests lecturing us about why ‘Green’ taxes are good for us.

    So come on, Beeboids. Just how many votes did your friends in the ‘Green’ movement win in recent elections?

    By what right do you promote this fringe cult at every available opportunity?

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  28. George R says:

    The BBC has a strange way of doing things, political.

    Take tonight’s ‘Newsnight’ on rising fuel taxes, and car taxes. The excitable, gabbling, scatter-gun Scot, Wark got no change from Labour’s arrogant Environment Minister Woolas who bamboozled his audience about whether there will or will not be another U-turn on fuel/car tax.

    And then, ‘Newsnight’ gave its whole programme over on the issue for a kind of uninterrupted 5-minutes ‘party political broadcast’ for the ‘GREEN’ ‘Friends of the Earth’ (which is a lobbyist, and EU subsidised.)

    So what started out as an apparent discussion on popular protest about fuel prices, and government responses, was turned into more familiar BBC teritory, and for the BBC more desirable political territory: a ‘Green’ one.(It’s how we think.)

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  29. Martin says:

    Green taxes are nonsense. The “greens” claim that you should raise green taxes, but lower taxes elsewhere.

    However, if green taxes have the desired effect, then Government revenue will fall. So how does theGovernment make up that loss? Yep, it raises non green taxes to compensate.

    Why did Juniper get to do a whole piece to camera without his view being challenged?

    There has been no global temperature rise for at least a decade and even the pro climate change scientists admit that there won’t be for at least another decade?

    Doesn’t sound like a disaster to me. Notice as well no mention of the millions of cars being (and going to be) produced for the ever increasing numbers of middle class Chinese and Indians.

    The greens just want to drive us back to the stone age.

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  30. Biodegradable says:

    How generous of the BBC to acknowledge that Jewish people have an ‘ancestral homeland’. (Don’t tell the Egyptians or they’ll get even more paranoid than they are already).
    nadia | 27.05.08 – 9:44 pm

    That’s very ambiguous though isn’t it?

    It’s correct in the sense that the ancestors of those Egyptian Jews (now Israelis) probably had lived in Egypt for many generations, so in a way Egypt was their ‘ancestral homeland’, but using that phrase could also work to challenge their right to Israel as their ‘ancestral homeland’.

    My grandparents immigrated to the UK in the late 1800s/early 1900s from Latvia. I don’t consider myself a Latvian refugee and don’t demand a right of return to the land my grandparents were forced out of, but as a Jew I do regard Israel as my ‘ancestral homeland’.

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  31. dave s says:

    Ancestral Homelands-a very odd phrase for the BBC to use.Surely an outdated terminology.After all millions of us English must not be encouraged to think of England as our “ancestral homeland”.That would never do.It is part of the BBCs remit to disabuse us of such outdated notions.We must have no ancestors therefore no history and thus can have no future-which is just how they want us to see it.The BBc fawns on those peoples it sees asserting their nationhood and identity-you know who I mean-but as for us.No identity no nationhood.Somtimes bias becomes something much much worse.

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  32. nadia says:

    Bio, my point exactly.The BBC would only call Israel your ancestral homeland with a qualifier like: “Biodegradable believes that present-day Israel is his people’s ancestral homeland”.

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  33. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    “The BBc fawns on those peoples it sees asserting their nationhood and identity”

    and ‘those peoples’ are selected according to racist criteria.

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  34. George R says:

    “Listeners blast BBC as ‘publicity machine’ for Cherie’s memoirs…but sales still struggle”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1022302/Listeners-blast-BBC-publicity-machine-Cheries-memoirs–sales-struggle.html

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  35. George R says:

    “Kirsty Wark’s skirt is too short, Newsnight viewers complain”

    (The least of the complaints?)

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2039505/Kirsty-Wark%27s-skirt-is-too-short%2C-Newsnight-viewers-complain.html

    “Kirsty Young” (who would know?) “Crimewatch not dumbing down”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574292/Kirsty-Young-Crimewatch-not-dumbing-down.html

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  36. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    More relevant:

    Kirsty Wark’s brain is too small – and she is a shameless liar.
    (cf. her comments on the war in the former Yugoslavia: ‘the [British] army chiefs promised us this would be a piece of cake’).

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  37. gharqad tree says:

    The BBC would only call Israel your ancestral homeland with a qualifier like: “Biodegradable believes that present-day Israel is his people’s ancestral homeland”.
    nadia | 28.05.08 – 3:00 am |

    This whole article reminds me of the irony and stupidity of the grafitti seen on a synagogue wall in Venezuela (linked to recently by someone on this site re. Chavez):

    Jews go home

    and

    Long Live Free Palestine

    “We don’t want you here – go back to where we say you don’t belong”.

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  38. Bryan says:

    How generous of the BBC to acknowledge that Jewish people have an ‘ancestral homeland’.
    nadia | 27.05.08 – 9:44 pm

    Could this be the first faint stirrings of recognition from the BBC that Jews in Israel have a history other than “brutal occupiers of Palestinian land” and that Jews were dispossessed and driven from Arab lands through no fault of their own?

    If so, it’s quite remarkable.

    Or maybe ancestral homeland refers to the Egypt in which Jews were enslaved. That would fit the BBC’s style a bit better. Coupla Jews could go back to Egypt to live as dhimmis with the approval of the BBC. Hell, they could even work in construction there, unpaid of course.

    Here’s an interesting case of Jews trying to claim just compensation for property stolen in Egypt:

    http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/49431.html

    (Glad I don’t drink Coke.)

    Doubt very much that the BBC has shown any interest in the story.

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  39. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    My reading is that Egypt is the ‘ancestral home’.

    Hey – is the BBC claiming that Egypt belongs to the Jews and that the rest are interlopers?

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  40. Bryan says:

    The BBC would probably push for compensation from returning Egyptian Jews for the descendants of Egyptian soldiers who were swallowed by the sea while chasing the escaping Jews.

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  41. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    😉

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  42. adam says:

    i laughed at newsnight, its so pathetic, trying to convince us we want green.

    this is not new territory for them, we had what seemed like a year of ethical man teaching us to go green. As if that rubbish is why someone watches newsnight.

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  43. George R says:

    Two reports on same story. Compare and contrast:

    1.)BBC report:

    “Couple in court over girl’s death”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7423178.stm

    2.)’Social cohesion’ report:

    “How not to produce community cohesion”

    http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/blog/2008/05/how_not_to_produce_community_c.html#more

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  44. Jack Bauer says:

    Bryan:
    The BBC would probably push for compensation from returning Egyptian Jews for the descendants of Egyptian soldiers who were swallowed by the sea while chasing the escaping Jews.
    Bryan | 28.05.08 – 10:01 am | #

    Funny.

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  45. GCooper says:

    adam writes: “As if that rubbish is why someone watches newsnight.”

    Newsnight’s editor clearly has a major ‘Green’ agenda. The BBC as a whole is biased in favour of ‘Green’ politics but Newsnight takes it to absurd lengths.

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  46. Martin says:

    Perhaps the Burkha should become standard issue for females at the BBC?

    God knows what the complainents would think of Fox News then!!!!

    They seem to have an endless number of cute blod mini skirt wearing presenters. Yep and I love every minute of it. (oh dear how can I take news seriously read by a cute woman in a short skirt. Well actually I’d take any piece of news seriously that isn’t read out by some camp BBC twat)

    http://www.foxnewsgirls.com/

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  47. George R says:

    It will be ironic if it’s partly because of the economically ignorant, politically masochist ‘Green’taxes on fuel and cars which puts an end to the unpopular, political ideals of the ‘Greens’ the BBC and Labour. In
    wonderfully hesitant, indecisive, self-destruct mode, Chancellor Darling, on BBC ‘World at One’ bidding to outdo the ‘Greens’, disagreed with the ‘Greens’ that the retrospective road tax increases would make ‘Green’ taxes unpopular.

    So, it will be interesting to see how far Labour will go in pursuit of its ‘Green’ agenda, and how much further Labour’s unpopularity will increase as a result. A lot, I’d say.

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  48. Martin says:

    I commented that on the Radio 5 live phone in with VD she had some leftie veggie on the phone for ages attacking the truckers etc about the fuel duty. She did the very same thing today, except the prat she had on started making political comments (like I don’t want the Tories back in power, taxation is good – the beeboids in the studio must have been jacking themselves off hearing that crap) and comments about truckers (basically they are all right wing thugs). Funny as I always thought of truckers as being white working class people. Labour supporters?

    The leftie was getting very upset that they might blockade the oil refineries. Hmm bet he had no problem with the miners, or the protests at Grunwick or the print unions.

    It’s quite clear that the BBC are really trying to stir up the whole thing with the truckers. No one has said anything about blocking oil refineries yet.

    I always remember that two faced lying shit Blair saying during the last fuel protest that “violence won’t be tolerated”. There was never a single incident of violence during that protest. But the BBC NEVER picked Blair up for it.

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  49. GCooper says:

    George R – sadly, Canmeron’s no better, a stance adopted to appeal to the Newsnight mindset.

    That’s how we end-up with government by the BBC.

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  50. Peter says:

    As it has cropped up from time to time, and I haven’t seen it mentioned here, this might be of interest:

    Balen Report FOI battle goes to House of Lords

    http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=41266&c=1

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