Is it just me or do you also detect that the BBC has been spinning madly wildly and deeply for Mr Brown in regard to his serial mutterings over Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Not a day goes by without some new headline on the BBC expressing the Great Leader’s “outrage” at just about everything the thug Mugabe is doing. Now don’t get me wrong, I would like to see Mugabe meet his maker right now -( in whatever way would facilitate such a meeting) – but I suspect there is a cynical hand at play here and even as Labour disintegrates in front of our eyes Brown gets fawning coverage on this issue from the BBC, He makes lot of noise about Zimbabwe whilst actually doing NOTHING of any substance. Why does the BBC not query why Labour has sat back over the past decade of Mugabe’s violence against his own people and done nothing? I suppose when it was just white farmers and their workers being ethnically cleansed and murdered there was little need for the BBC to stir from mute complacency?
SHADOW BOXING.
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Its obvious that the BBC comrades are pushing Brown the international statesmen because his failure at home is total and complete! Brown can do nothing about Zimbabwe as we all know but while the BBC is filling the slots with Zim they can minimise the terrible home news . The BBC cares nothing for Zimbabwe but it is very usefull as a shield for their leader? Heard any BBC news on the NuLabour ministers under investigation for fraud? Heard any BBC reports on the FTSE crash(700 odd points in a couple of weeks) and the economic meltdown/job losses? In fact the BBC are trying the old ‘dont look over there look over here’ type misdirection! Corrupt African dictators killing and starving their people are ten a penny but while Gordon Brown is in trouble the BBC will search araound to bring you anything but what is happening at home, of course any Tory story that comes up the BBC will fill the airwaves even if the story is ten years old. There is a steady flow of ridiculous ‘eco’ stories making the rounds on BBC-W and no story is too pathetic or groundless BUT what do they care? As long as they can pump it out and deny any rebuttal or contrary opinion then who is going to bring them to book? The eco lie can be as big and groundless as they like because nobody has the chance to answer it!
David Vance, the BBC sees the handwriting on the wall. They are jumping on the bandwagon, albeit late and through the back door.
The U.S. and every country not run by a leftist leader has already denounced the clown Mugabe, and the clock is ticking. Not until it was PATENTLY OBVIOUS that the real leaders of the free world were not going to stand silent did Brown or the BBC get in on the act.
They’re leftist cowards.
But then you knew that.
It`s a win/win situation for Dear Leader. While Mugabe is in power GB can denounce and look the democrat. If Mugabe falls then Dear Leader certianly had a hand in it, if not actually toppling the geriatric tyrant by making an announcement about it.
Meanwhile, back at the EU Lisbon Treaty referendum….
Hi David
You write:
“I suppose when it was just white farmers and their workers being ethnically cleansed and murdered there was little need for the BBC to stir from mute complacency?”
How far back do you want me to go?
What about this one:
Last Updated: Monday, 29 August 2005, 15:15 GMT 16:15 UK
Close encounter with Zimbabwe’s secret police
By Justin Pearce
BBC News website, Zimbabwe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4185140.stm
This one:
Last Updated: Tuesday, 21 December 2004, 11:07 GMT
Bleak view of Zimbabwe’s decline
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4105349.stm
Or this one:
Last Updated: Saturday, 28 June, 2003, 11:30 GMT 12:30 UK
Zimbabwe’s brutal police tactics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3027072.stm
Well, or this one:
Tuesday, 5 February, 2002, 15:43 GMT
Freed Zimbabwe reporter ‘unbroken’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1802554.stm
But look for yourself, David. You will probably find a lot of nuggets of left-wing bias from the BBC in their Zimbabwe reporting.
I guess the reason, why they are banned from reporting from the country is also propaganda plot or a conspiracy, so that the BBC can promote Mugabe without “the hard working british people” noticing it.
It’s all so simple, once one comes to think about it.
I wouldn’t have said the BBC had been quiet about Zimbabwe recently (if anything, rather too noisy – there are plenty of other outrageous governments around the world).
What they are, however, is wholly inconsistent, along with most of the rest of the Left.
Like the intellectually challenged caller to Any Answers today, who had been put through to chant the litany about ‘Bush ‘n Blair’ ‘n Iraq’, they were on quite the other side over Bosnia and have spent years telling us why we shouldn’t have dangled Comrade Bob from a rope a long time ago.
Now they are starting to press for action. But wouldn’t that constitute what these idiots call an ‘illegal war’?
The BBC will look for ANY story that can be spun to divrt attention away from the utter meltdown of Nu Labour.
Think about it. Nu Labour got beaten into 5th place in an election and it went almost unreported by the BBC.
Expect an increase in the following over the next few weeks.
1. More anti Boosh stories
2. More climate change crap
3. More anti Tory bile (especially Caroline Spelman). In fact I predict this. If Spelman is forced to resign, we will see a torent of BBC crap about her (Pamorama specials and Newsnight investigations)
4. More pro EU stories
5. Articles on how great Gordon is
worst PM ever
Amazing parallels between Britain and Zimbabwe. Unelected leader,police state and Harriet Harperson is ethnically cleansing white men from their jobs.
Surely the UN’s abject failure to do anything significant about Mugabe should be viewed as a pointer to its basic impotency, and an area that is crying out for coverage by Panarama et al. Compare the *cough* sanctions imposed on Mugabe’s Zimbabwe with those imposed on Ian Smith’s Rhodesia. Over 25 years Mugabe and his thug regime has turned Zimbabwe into a basket case, and, whatever one might think about Smith’s Rhodesia, I have little doubt that the average person was better off under Smith than Mugabe, but I doubt whether the BBC will ever say that. How different things might have been if Abel Muzorewa, elected first black PM in Rhodesia in 1979, had been allowed to govern. But, no, that wasn’t good enough for the leftists. ZANLA and ZIPRA, with the tacit support of many in the west, continued fighting and that eventually led to the election of Mugabe. The leftists patted each other on the back and turned their attention on South Africa. Sadly, far too many in the west have subsequently looked the other way as Mugabe systematically wrecked Zimbabwe. Now there is much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth about what to do about Mugabe. Well, stripping him of a knighthood and banning the Zimbabwe cricket team won’t trouble the despot Mugabe too much. Sadly, it is only South Africa that can put real pressure on Mugabe, and I am not hopeful that M’Beke has the will to do that.
Peter: I remember that there was lots of coverage on the BBC after John Major became PM as he hadn’t called a general election. It was about 17 or 18 months before Major went to the country. It seems likely that it could be close to 3 years from Brown becoming PM to a general election, but I hear little from the BBC about Brown’s lack of a mandate.
At least John Major underwent a proper leadership election.
Broon is a coward. Not only has he never faced an election from anyone there is a good chance he never will.
Martin,
If Spelman is forced to go, or Cameron is forced to fire her, the BBC will run with the ‘Cameron indecisive’ angle. Never mind the fact that he has fired MPs, MEPs and various memebers of CCHQ staff; if Spelman goes in some capacity the BBC will spin it as Cameron not being a strong leader, or that he was somehow agreeing with the misuse of expenses by keeping her for as long as he has. My suspicion that he’s just waiting for facts that haven’t been twisted and bent my Michael Prick before making up his mind.
It has to be a Labour spin offensive as the Indi suddenly has a story about Tory MP’s with shares in firms that trade with Zimbabwe. Coincindence?
Bernard from Horsham asks:
“Coincindence?”
Probably not. In fact almost certainly a co-ordinated plan by ZaNuLabour and its favourite hacks.
Think about it. Nu Labour got beaten into 5th place in an election and it went almost unreported by the BBC.
Martin | 28.06.08 – 8:51 pm
Actually, yesterday I was half listening/watching the latest Newsnight and I caught the presenter indignantly telling a Labour spokesman, You came fifth in the election, behind the British National Party.
As if she were a schoolteacher chastising a favourite pupil who had done really badly in an exam. I suppose the BBC believes that Labour just has to pull up its socks to take the next election. It doesn’t. It needs to make a 180 degree turn, change virtually all its policies – and a name change would also be a good idea while it’s about it.
The “international statesman” angle was a staple of the Blair era as well. It’s a well worn tactic to puff-up Blair and Brown into something they are not and/or to divert attention away from bad domestic political news for Labour. Look at the recent bullshit about Brown “telling” the Saudis to reduce the oil price, only to see it keep rising of course! These governmental and Primeministerial pronouncements on international issues usual surface at weekends, and it is coordinated through the Labour friendly MSM for maximum coverage in the Sunday Papers and BBC and Sky.
But nobody gives a crap about foreign affairs, if they did, this bunch of liars would have lost the last election.
The main BBC “save Liebour” tactic, is to carry on ignoring bad news for Labour, as much as they can, and shit on the Tories whenever they get the chance. They will put together the words “Tory” and “sleaze” at every opportunity to try and recreate the mid-nineties witch-hunt of the Major government. But, people are very aware of the serious allegations that have beset this Labour shower-of-shit, and Spelman’s fiddle 12 years ago, isn’t seen as important or unique given Labour MPs expenses record.
The problem is that, the TV bulletins that the BBC uses to spread anti-Tory propaganda, are very likely to be watched by floating/former Labour voters and is very often it is the only brush they have with current affairs and in the long-term there is a drip-drip effect on the viewers. In the short-term, it doesn’t have much impact because of the lack of detail on anything, but longer-term, the negative messaging seeps through into the viewers consciousness and the BBC still have nearly two years to do this brainwashing.
The BBC are shitting themselves and I don’t believe it is just the possibility their socialist friends getting trounced at the polls or even just the loss of their compulsory tax funding. The only thing that would prevent the BBC getting a long overdue kicking, from the next Tory government, is that ironically, it is the provincial, middle-aged, middle-class that support the BBC the most (as such a middle-class institution), despite the BBC hating them and the ories may be worried about offending their core support, however, the Conservatives want a full NAO investigation into the BBC’s finances, and it was agreed by the Cultural select committee (proposed by the Conservatives) a while back, however, you can bet that Broon and his cronies won’t do it, but I think we can take it that the next Conservative government will be rather keen on it.
The BBC has over £3 billion pounds of public money every year that is not subject to proper external control and audit! I wonder what a full NAO audit will uncover? Perhaps, very poor financial risk management? Misuse of funds? Misappropriation of funds? Fraud and corruption? Who knows? I believe that this is the biggest threat to the BBC, because it could lead to massive public scandal, which would not just kill-off any shreds that remain for justification of the licence-fee, but would destroy the BBC as a brand, even with the middle-aged middle classes, and once that happens the government can easily justify breaking them up completely, sell-off assets etc and make the BBC part of history.
Who was it here who recently advised us to watch out for the BBC rustling up some anti-Tory stories to take the heat off their paymasters at ZaNuLabour?
Right on cue, the laughably named Independent thoughtful creates some Leftie outrage about Tory MPs holding shares in companies dealing with Zimbabwe (we’re talking about Barclays, Shell and the like, not Anglo Amalgamated Torture Devices or The British Machete Corporation, by the way.)
Needless the say, their fellow Leftists at the BBC gratefully seized the story and decided the six people who buy the Indie need augmenting with a few million more who suffer under the delusion that the Corporation is politically impartial.
Bingo! Tory Sleaze on Sunday! Just what ZaNulab’s spin doctors ordered.
May we have an increase in the licence fee, please?
Come on, MrMinit, Joel, Gunnar and the rest of the BBC fan club. Try talking your way out of this example of miserable, pathetic, BBC bias!
Apologies – I hit publish instead of preview on the above.
G Cooper
Take a look at Guido if you want to laugh at the Indie
http://www.order-order.com/2008/06/exclusive-indy-owner-profits-from.html
Come on, MrMinit, Joel, Gunnar and the rest of the BBC fan club. Try talking your way out of this example of miserable, pathetic, BBC bias!
Try demonstrating some bias first.
Labour mired in sleaze
Try demonstrating some bias first.
Idiotic statement of the day.
Idiotic statement of the day.
Isn’t that’s what is expected of B-BBC posters?
No, wait. It’s not idiotic, it’s true.
The BBC’s coverage of politics today is full and fair. Zimbabwe is still a big story, and every other major news organisation is quoting Brown’s opinion on it. Why wouldn’t the Beeb?
Doubtless Brown is grateful for the chance of appearing statesmanlike, but it would be bizarre for the BBC not to carry his statements on Mugabe.
Grieve is an interesting, if not major, story and comes from a significant source. Running it is fair.
Wendy Alexander has been mentioned a lot, and, as Biodegradable reports, Labour’s dismal fifth-place behind the BNP has been put firmly to various Labour folk.
David Vance’s conspiracy theories are as convincing as his chum Andrew McCann’s views on Obama….oh, and all the usual they’re biased ‘cos they’re biased shrilling.
Hillhunt (for it is he) the Grieve story is a fabricated smear, as Guido has amply demonstrated.
The BBC routinely ignores quite good stories from the Sunday papers. You can tell a lot from the ones it decides to run (like Grieve) or not (like Marshall).
Now, why don’t you run along and leave the discussion to the grown-ups?
Doesn’t it seem odd that no-one has questioned Archbishops Tutu and Sentamu and everyone else over their advocacy of “collective punishment?”
Something that has been roundly condemned by the whole wide world in ‘another context.’
Similarly, the suggestion of the immediate withdrawal of all financial investment from Zimbabwe, whilst promoting a policy of pouring in zillions of dosh to establish reform and create viability in another troubled region seems a bit inconsistent.
I couldn’t find anything on the Beeb about this.
West Bank Torturers funded by Britain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4232022.ece
Money well spent, or what?
GCooper:
the Grieve story is a fabricated smear, as Guido has amply demonstrated.
What Guy Fawkes has thrown up is an allegation of hypocrisy against the Independent, claiming that the paper’s owners have interests, too, in Zimbabwe. That does not mean that the Grieve story is fabricated. Nor that it’s a smear.
Marshall is at the moment an unsourced story. Grieve’s shareholdings are demonstrably true.
LABOUR MIRED IN SLEAZE No doubt that is why the left media are on the attack,they have to save the mong no matter what damage his insane corrupt government does to the country.
BBC News TV, with its ideological-Hamas and Hezbollah supporting chum, Islamic Al Jazeera TV (full of ex-BBC dhimmis), shows Al Jazeera live pictures from Zimbabwe. It’s what Al Beeb continues to do. (10 minutes ago.)
I would normally post this on the open thread but in the absence here we are.
What entiitles a loser and failure to appear on the BBC Sunday morning showcase programme hosted by Andrew Marr.
Well the first one is you must be called Ken Livingstone and the second is you must have lost an election for London Mayor.
In all honesty I don’t give two shits about the winner of the Mayor of London ( I live in Leeds UK you see) and I care even less about the loser of an elelction for Lonodon Mayor.
However, the BBC seems to think that the rehabilitation of Red Ken is key to the world. I think I might stop paying for my TV Licence.
Meggoman, it would be interesting to count the number of times Steve Norris was asked on BBC shows during the 8 years when Ken was mayor. After all, he lost just as Ken did, but I very much doubt he was given time and space to spew his views with as much regularity as Ken seems to be receiving.
So if I fill up my car with petrol from Shell I’m supporting the Marxist Mugabe?
So if I go overdrawn at Barclays I’m supporting the Marxist Mugabe?
So if my car has a catalytic converter using platinum mined by RTZ I’m supporting the Marxist Mugabe?
So I go to Fidelity Investments and pay £100 pcm into a unit trust that then buys Shell, Barclays, RTZ I’m supporting the Marxist Mugabe?
This is a non-story dreamed up by an increasingly desperate left, in order to deflect attention from the woes of Gordon and Labour.
Sorry chaps you got it wrong again.
Leotards for Jebus: What a part you really are. So when Caroline Spelman was the TOP BBC story for several days Zimbabwe wasn’t a top story as well?
That fact that Gordon Broon is THE most unpopular PM we’ve ever had isn’t newsworthy? (But any negative story about Cameorn is?)
You talked about Wendy Alexander. Can you tell us how much time BBC Newsnight spent talking about her? How many investigations has Michael Prick done into Alexander?
Oh and how about Peter Hain, you know that LABOUR minister who had to resign because of YET another Police investigation into Nu Labour.
None of this ever gets the top billing on Newsnight does it?
Martin:
What a part you really are.
Whatever it is that I am a part of, I am truly sorry.
The BBC only mentioned Wendy Alexander, to try and say how hard done by she was and how it must have been a big unfortunate mistake. Same when Haine got caught out. They shit on the Tory Party every time a Tory so much as farts in public, but apologise for Labour filth whenever they need it, or just plain ignore their cock-ups, governing failures, corruption and scandals. Just cast your minds back to pre ’97 BBC news coverage of government to see how the BBC reporting attitudes have massively changed from Major’s government to this.
Leotards for Jebus: Before you spout check your facts. Zimbabwe has been going on for sometime. Last week was a critical week yet Newsnight decided to lead as the main story on the Spelman nonsense yet again.
And can we expect to see the BBC investigate WHY this Scottish Labour MP has decided to resign all of a sudden?
Martin:
Before you spout check your facts
If I knew what a spout check was, I would.
Zimbabwe has been going on for sometime.
No kidding.
Last week was a critical week yet Newsnight decided to lead as the main story on the Spelman nonsense yet again.
This is what is known as a news judgement. Peter Barron has had a good long stint i/c Newsnight. Why don’t you give it a go when the Jobs-Vacant ad goes up?
I’ll put in a word.
can we expect to see the BBC investigate WHY this Scottish Labour MP has decided to resign all of a sudden?
Who knows? Whoever wanted to tip the Mail off didn’t want to be identified, though I presume that if there’s a paper trail on his misdeeds, it’ll be followed.
bbc news at ten this evening leads with zimbabwe.
how is this in any way relevant to the vast majority of people living in the UK?
if someone could educate me on why Zimbabwe is SOOOOOOO important to the UK, then i’m all ears.
to me , its just another African dictatorship… so the fuck what?
“Heard any BBC reports on the FTSE crash(700 odd points in a couple of weeks) and the economic meltdown/job losses?”
currently running at about 2,000 to 3,000 City job losses per week at the moment, according to a contact i have that works for one of the major banks.
Brown promises to act as a generous Chancellor of the Exchequer for a future Zimbabwe, while he oversees the continuing high fuel taxes and retrospective car taxes on UK citizens.
It wouls be no surprise if Brown were to increase the rate of immigration of Zimbabwe refugees to the UK as well. One aspect of multiculturalism: your own citizens come last.
The BBC does not demur from Brown’s promise of future largesse for Zimbabwe:
“Brown makes Zimbabwe cash promise”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7480117.stm
The BBC does seem very keen to tell us that Mugabe only won because he was the only candidtate. Funny how they don’t give the same treatment to elctions in Cuba and China. They hardly mention the elections in those places, just like they never really covered the elections in the old Soviet Empire where precautions slightly more sophisticated than Mr Mugabe is capable of were always in place to guarantee the correct result.
Hillhunt writes: “This is what is known as a news judgement. Peter Barron has had a good long stint i/c Newsnight.”
“Peter” Barron is appropriately named. Have you ever encountered the Peter Principle?
The mere presence of someone in a job at the BBC signifies absolutely nothing about their ability. Newsnight stinks and Barron’s editorial judgement (such as it is) is one of the main reasons why.
“If I knew what a spout check was, I would.”
Of course you do Hillhunt,they give you antibiotics and it clears up.Just don’t have unprotected sex.
The big story isn’t Zimbabwe or the Westminster Palace of Varieties,it is the £100billion windmills of Gordon Brown’s mind.A futile useless icon of the Labour party,all spin and air and a waste of taxpayer’s money.
One thing is sure when the food runs out and the lights go out in Britain,there will be no food parcels from Zimbabwe.
Peter makes a very good point. Brown’s (quite literal) tilting at windmills is likely to prove a colossal disaster in both energy and financial terms. The problem is that the BBC is so far in the ‘Green’ camp that, aside from the faintest of swats here and there, it is largely mute as the clown stumbles off the edge of a cliff, dragging the nation along with him.
Leotards for Jebus: Again your rather pathetic attempts to defend the BBC are falling short.
Please explain why the Caroline Spelman story needed a 20 minute segment of the BBC flagship TV news programme (not the first time) when much bigger stories were the order of the day?
Don’t come out with the croc of shit about editorial nonsense please.
Just admit it. The BBC hates the Tories, they are determined to do what they can to run them down and promote Gordon McBean.
And there is no way the BBC will go big on the Wendy Alexander story or any other Labour sleaze. Have you forgotten about Peter Hain? The BBC clearly have.
What about Ed Balls and his ugly wife and their second home allowance?
Michael Cashman?
I thought Michael Prick was a great journalist? Can’t he start sniffing around what’s going on in Nu Labour?
The BBC fail to point out Mugabe has faced more votes from the “people” than the great unwashed fat one eyed jock has.
GCooper,
Odd isn’t it that an urban organisation like the BBC regards covering our open countryside with wind turbines “green”.
One prat said “I love my planet”,so why do they want to turn it into an industrial wasteland.
Energy saving tip of the week,Throw you TV in a skip.
Martin:
Just admit it. The BBC hates the Tories, they are determined to do what they can to run them down and promote Gordon McBean.
Assume for a moment that’s what it is:
It’s not working very well, is it?
Morons for Broonnose wrote: “It’s not working very well, is it?”
No, it ain’t. But no thanks to Al Beeb or **** like you. You’re going to lose the next general election and you’re going to lose big.
Free yourself from socialist slavery, British people!
Leotards for Jebus: No it isn’t working very well for one simple reason. The internet.
We can see how the BBC twists and distorts stories (like the whole Roger Harrabin and the Greenie bint story) how it fails to report some stories and how it even lies to protect Nu Labour.
Yes the BBC tells blatant lies to back Broon. The BBC knows that when the Tories win the next election there is a good chance that they might finally see there is an appetite from the people of this Country to see the BBC taken out and its throat slit.
I pray for that day. All those six, seven and eight figure salaried losers having to get real jobs in the real world. Oh the joy.
Just who would employ Nicki Campbell?