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.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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TPO 2:48 pm
Yes, LYSE (pronounced ‘Lies’?) DOUCET was in Edinburgh telling of the ‘humanity’ of the Taliban, and obviously didn’t report this:
“Pakistani villagers rise up against Taliban”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022410.php
BBC: she should be taken off the case.
Wittingly or unwittingly, her ideology is inclined to be sympathetic to Islamic jihad,such as the Taliban, and is therefore anti-British, as well as anti-Canadian.
Someone on Facebook has just started a scrap the licence fee group. It’s only just started but is really picking up speed.This might be the final nail in the coffin that is the BBC. I put a link to B-BBC on it.
Can’t be long now…Come on Dave this is a bandwagon not to be missed!
Turn to the BBC ‘Middle East’ webpage, and what’s the lead story: a politically biased pro-Egypt, pro-Hezbollah, anti-Israel account, as usual:
“Egypt urges end to Israel threats”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7584156.stm
This is so typical of BBC pro-Islamic Jihad (in this case, Hezbollah) reports on the Middle East. It smacks of just the sort of thing which Al Jazeera comes out with daily.
Such BBC reports sound as though they are written by Islamic jihad sympathisers.
The BBC’s reporters on the Middle East, whether they are Islamic themselves, or merely Islamic supporters, do not condemn Islamic jihad organisations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban.
This is a recent non-BBC report about Hezbollah’s links to Iran, despite Ahmadinejad’s lies on this, quoted here:
“The Iranian Roots of Hizbullah”
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=lebanon&ID=IA44808
BBC Radio 4 news at Ten about Salman Rushdie and a police protector writing a book about him.
Presenter said that Rushdie had upset the Iranians.
Maybe he had, but no mention was made of the fuss in Bradford , probably the start of the apeasement of all percieved Muslim greivances here in the UK.
As ever, in reporting mass immigration and population increase in the UK, the BBC goes into full ‘multiculturalist’, ‘open-door’ advocacy.
Here, for instance, perhaps still in Olympic holiday mood, this BBC report on population, talks of the UK being ‘top’ in EU population size, rather than using the more neutral word’ largest’:
“UK population ‘will be top in EU'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7583776.stm
And, as ever, the BBC does not discuss the immigrant composition of UK population, nor of the scale of mass immigration which continues. Instead, after years of uncritical support of Labour’s ‘open-door’, ‘mass immigration’ policy for over a decade, the BBC clutches at straws like ‘the points system’, and PRESUMES that non-EU mass immigration and the birth-rate of many immigrant groups will slow.
An alternative analysis:
[Extract ‘Daily Mail’]:
“The soaring birth rate among immigrant mothers will soon become the main driver of Britain’s rapid population growth, Government experts have predicted.
“Immigration has been the biggest factor in increasing the population in recent years, and with millions of new arrivals starting families the birth rate is soaring.
“The Office for National Statistics said yesterday that it could be the main source of overall population growth as early as next year, overtaking immigration itself.
“Almost a quarter of all babies in Britain are now born to immigrant mothers. In London the figure is 54 per cent, rising to 75 per cent in some boroughs.
“Foreign-born mothers have an average of 2.54 children, compared with 1.79 for women born in the UK.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1047606/Immigration-births-non-British-mothers-pushes-British-population-record-high.html
Military Cross winner Ed Macy — whose book “Apache” is serialised in The Sun from today — tells how an intelligence officer gave details of a Taliban plan.
It made Army Air Corps Warrant Officer Macy and his comrades even more determined to rescue a mortally wounded Marine from a Taliban stronghold — which they did with four soldiers strapped to the outside of two Apaches.
Macy recalls in his book how the room fell silent when the intelligence officer briefed him and his comrades after chilling Taliban radio messages were intercepted. He writes: “She said, ‘The Taliban have a new plan for what they’ll do if they capture a British soldier. They intend to set up a webcam for a live internet broadcast and then skin him alive’.”
yes lyse doucet, i have to agree with you . this aspect of taliban humanity is not being properly covered by the media especially the bbc.
No doubt the BBC is making plans to film this concert already, unless you-know-who object:
“Sir Paul to play Israel concert”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7584179.stm
77 million (and you can’ probably add another 10 million to that in illegals etc)
Where are they all going to live? What about CO2 emissions?
Of course the BBC see’s that 77 million as even more TV tax payers money to waste on shite TV programmes.
The beeb goes hawkish all of a sudden!
The only mystery is…who are the puppetmasters behind this change of heart.
UK urges tough response to Russia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7583486.stm
“George R | 27.08.08 – 6:34 pm ”
just a thought – are a lot of those “foreign born” mothers from Poland?
Poland is still a traditional Catholic country.
it might be more interesting to get a breakdown by nationality.
i for one have no problem whatsoever with devout Catholic Poles rearing families over here.
the label “immigrant” is too much of a catch all – as that includes Aussies, French, Poles, Americans etc…
i guess the Mail is being too P.C. not to divide the figures into what we are ALL concerned out in reality, but we all politely never mention in public – Muslim v non-Muslim birthrates.
“Frank | 27.08.08 – 4:49 pm”
whats the name of the group? i found a few “scrap the license” fee groups but their numbers were in the tens.
The “scrap the licence” site Frank mentioned is at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28406901260
Archduke 7:41 pm
Yes, the Poles are not mainly a problem, on the contrary.
As Dennis Sewell points out here:
“Commentary: Honest Debate at last? Don’t be fooled”
[Extract]:
“Earlier this year the Conservative MP, Daniel Kawczynski decided enough was enough and it was time to stand up for Polish immigrants.
“He accused the ‘liberal elite’ at the BBC of ‘using the Polish community as a cat’s paw to tackle the thorny issue of mass, unchecked immigration’ while avoiding ‘controversial immigration from other countries’.
“If the Government is serious about optimising the planning of public services, it needs to disaggregate the immigrant population and find out which groups are profit centres and which are cost centres.
“No doubt it has been doing so quietly in the background, but it looks as if talking frankly about the results of this exercise in public would blow their political cover to smithereens.
“The best research so far available (prepared by the IPPR last year for Channel 4’s Dispatches) makes for uneasy reading.
“Only one per cent of Polish immigrants claim income support, as opposed to 21 per cent of Turkish immigrants and 11 per cent of Pakistanis; only 8 per cent of Poles live in social housing, compared with 80 per cent of Somalis, and 41 per cent of Bangladeshis.
“There are very good reasons why politicians should take special care to avoid stirring up popular resentment against Muslim communities, so the present suspension of the immigration taboo is likely to be quite short-lived.
“The taunt of Islamophobia will doubtless prove just as effective as the taunt of racism once did in closing down discussion altogether.
“In the meantime, for as long as we carelessly bad-mouth East Europeans, we shouldn’t fool ourselves that our current public debates on this politically toxic issue are any more transparent, fair, or attentive to the real concerns of voters than they were in the bad old days.”
Yesterday moring BBC ‘Today’ had this six minutes on Immigration at 7:20 am:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7581000/7581526.stm
While Labour implies that its new ‘points’ system will cure any problems of ‘mass immigration, it distracts attention from the large influx of non-EU immigrants here over past decade:
“Third World migrants behind our 2.3m population boom”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023512/Third-World-migrants-2-3m-population-boom.html
And Labour is enthusiastic about getting 75 million Turks (who happen to be Muslim)into the EU. And who decides how many of them (and other immigrants from other new prospective
members) will become residents of the UK? Not the UK government. EU rules don’t allow such controls. (But the Italians are not happy with many Romanian immigrants and plan to challenge the EU rules.)
Tom:
Rod Liddle in the Mail:
by and large, the staff on Today were polite, impeccably liberal, public-school-educated white men – and six of them had been educated at Eton.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/…- colleague.html
Tom | 27.08.08 – 4:06 pm | #
While I’m no sure Paxman is the right target, (eg Byford would be more deserving) Liddle is on the money (again) with pretty much everything else he writes in that article.
I had exactly the same thought about Liddle’s article, Sarah Jane. Paxman is a bit too much of a loose cannon to be really deserving of his ire – but he was right on target with the rest of that piece.
Piranha | 27.08.08 – 9:12 pm |
nice one – thanks..
august 22nd – group created
august 23 – 210 members
august 27th – 5,009 members…
WOW
can somebody figure out why Naughtie or Dimbledore ask question in the hundreds of words..
oh wait – i know – its called “getting THEIR agenda across”…
One for Atlas Shrugged 😉
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/08/no_compromise.html
Victims of terror in Israel are suing the Bank of China because they Knowingly assisted Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to carry out terrorist attacks:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1014170.html
Here’s how the World Service reported this today, the fact that it was almost a week late being the least of its sins:
Israeli victims of militants filed a lawsuit against the Bank of China. They accuse it of knowingly assisting militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad…
Can you believe it?
its those “militants” again…
the “militants” that think its fine and dandy to blow to kingdom come some israeli schoolchildren.
by not calling “terror” , by its valid name the bbc is a collaborator in terror.
“The only mystery is…who are the puppetmasters behind this change of heart.”
Ady,
Don’t forget, that until Milipede opened his mouth this week, all the work on Georgia was being done by David Cameron. When it’s a question of Tories v. Russia, the Tories will lose out every time for BBC hand-holding. But the moment our dear Marxist government gets on the Russians’ backs, the BBC switch sides.
Hear, hear.
Good to see you making a solid contribution again back here, archduke.
I’ve been doing battle over on the WHYS blog,
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/talking-points-for-28th-august/#comment-65983
but I hope to start being a regular here again soon.
Kill the Beeb | 27.08.08 – 3:28 am |
this is totally personal and worthless but, you know, for my o level history one of the two main texts was a red book called “british empire and commonwealth”, and there was a chapter in it called ‘clive in india’. the book title and chapter name are all that i currently remember of the entire year!
oh, well…
A major shift has happened today in government policy towards green issues and energy. The business secretary, John Hutton, has given an interview to the Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/27/nenergy127. in which he says that energy security is the most important issue facing the UK. In so doing so he appears to be putting two fingers up both to the EU (who are busy forcing us to close down power stations) and the greenies (who want us to revert to the stone age and stop burning both coal and building nuclear power stations). As the excellent EU referendum blog points out, this is the first sensible utterance on fuel policy by any politician of any party for years.
Where are the BBC on the story? As I write, nowhere. Not a peep on the website. Will it stay that way?
Whenever the BBC gives air time to Livingstone (almost weekly), it will have to preface its introductions in future with: ‘adviser to Chavez of Venezuela’:
“Livingstone to be Chavez adviser”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7585330.stm
Illegal IMMIGRATION into the UK: BBC ‘Newsnight’ reports.
BBC ‘Newsnight’ gave over a segment of its programme last night to a reporter called Sorious Samura, a Sierra Leone national, to investigate illegal immigration into the UK. (Two more reports follow.) Restricted access to video here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7584394.stm
The BBC did not discuss the report in the studio, but what emerged was a massive illegal immigrant problem, with thousands of illegals trying to sneak into the UK every year, some as often a 20 times, and many more disappearing in the UK, after their tourist visas expired.
Many of the illegals were from countries like Afghanistan and the Philippines. Because of the EU ‘system’ on illegal immigration, any illegals deported to France, are likely to come back to the UK illegally.
Labour’s open-door policy on immigration, coupled with the primacy of EU law over UK national law ensure that the UK borders remain very porous.
Is the BBC finally waking up to this problem which ‘Migrationwatch’ has been rightly hammering on about for years?:
http://www.migrationwatchuk.com/introduction.asp
City Eye: Facts on a plate: our population is at least 77 million
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-395428.html
It is the statistic that dare not speak its name, though eventually it must. It has huge ramifications for the civil and political life of this country, the health of the equity markets and, most immediately, the residential property market. So don’t forget you read it here first: the population of the UK is presently somewhere between 77 and 80 million.
Robin | 28.08.08 – 7:10 am | #
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7585537.stm
albeit with a somewhat different take on it…
Note how the BBC loves to big up ‘art’
Who gives a shit about a couple of paintings?
It isn’t as if we’re short of a painting or two is it?
But no. The BBC doesn’t provide any opposing view over wasting £100 million on the arts.
Funny that when it comes to those “elite” sports in the Olympics that won so many gold medals, or spending on Science, the BBC is always quick to stick the knife in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7584902.stm
10,000,000 people voting on facebook won’t bother the BBC a jot.
However, if you could get those 10,000,000 people to instantly refuse to pay the licence fee. Bye bye BBC.
But as I have learnt to my cost, moaning about the BBC is one thing. DOING something about it, is of course somebody else’s job.
Only the BBC could fall for the Bill Clinton crap.
Much of Radio 4 this morning has been about the educational problems of Roma children in Czechoslovakia (????) and now some more bleating from the Rowntree Foundation about the poor needing more money.
Is the “BBC” a NEWS service or a charity ? – or leftie pressure group ?
JohnA: A leftie pressure group!!!
Tom and Sarah Jane,
RE: Rod Liddle’s article in the Mail
Is it just me, or did Liddle’s piece sound an awful lot like what so many people here have been saying for so long? Some of his points could have been copied and pasted out of comments in these pages.
Defenders of the BBC ought to rethink their position that we’re all just way out of touch with reality.
No sign of this story on the BBC website:
UK: Muslim council chiefs order non-Muslim concillors to fast during Ramadan. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/022434.php
and
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23546190-details/Muslim+council+chiefs+ban+ALL+members+from+%27tea+and+sandwiches%27+in+meetings+during+Ramadan/article.do%27%20in%20meetings%20during%20Ramadan/article.do?expand=true#StartComments
Not on the main News page. Not on the UK news page. Not on the England news page under “Spider forces family out of home” . Not even on the London news page. Nowhere.
anon: 5:10 pm
Is the BBC is favour of the imposition of Shariah on non-Muslims in London?
Is the BBC unconcerned about such development? Who’s human rights is the BBC supporting: those of Muslims or those of the non-Muslim vast majority in the UK? It seems obvious.
The BBC’s silence is deafening on this.
Even ‘The East London Advertiser’ has the Ramadan rules for non-Muslims in Tower Hamlets, but NOT the timid, dhimmi BBC:
“Town Hall bid to extend Ramadan fast to non-Muslims fuels row”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/16760
And let’s not forget this, from the BBC and Islam:
“£20,000 from BBC charity appeals ended up in the hands of 7/7 jihadist bomber”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/022431.php
I see the BBC feels the need to include the tv show “Strictly Come Dancing” as part of the 6pm news.
Really.
Is that worth making a slot in he news when other issues get left out?
From Justin Webb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2008/08/a_moment_in_history.html
“It was stunning – a moment of brilliantly produced political theatre and a moment to cherish forever”
I’m okay with “brilliantly produced political theatre” but “a moment to cherish forever”? Is Justin being impartial? Would it be “a moment to cherish” for a Republican too?
Later in the piece:
” I thought of the little black children stolen from their parents, the daily cruelty and humiliation suffered by black people in this country for so long in what one historian calls “America’s Original Sin” and, to a lesser extent, the daily miseries they still endure. From slavery to the nomination of a black man as the leader of a major party. Sometimes it really does appear that our political evolution matches our physical progress…”
I’m not sure of the historical accuracy of “little black children stolen from their parents” – surely slave traders / owners wanted adult workers? Also “daily miseries they still endure” is debatable. What does Justin mean and compared to who?
Finally is it balanced reporting to refer to this a “political evolution”? Were the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice not the first such “political evolution”?
MIRACLE OF MIRACLES!
We’ve just had that hens’ teeth scarcity on Radio 4 – the uninterrupted words of a Conservative MP.
Not a ‘rebel’ or ‘elder statesman’ or ‘disgraced former minister’, but a sitting, serving, Conservative MP in good odour with the current leadership. My home constituency’s very lovely Ben Wallace.
They let him have a radio diary and as such he was allowed to broadcast a few minutes of his own opinions about his subject, unhectored and uninterrupted by sneering leftie beeboids or other speakers from the Left world for ‘balance.’
He’s been in Iran, talking to their government, ministers and the like. He’s been discussing the nuclear programme.
So, presumably this fine former defender of our country asked why the nation with supposedly the biggest oil reserves not currently protected by a Green movement, and which burns enough gas to supply Western Europe for a year, each year, as waste, needs a nuclear industry of its own, right? Even when Russia has offered to supply it with nuclear fuel to save all that expensive R and D, right?
Well, nope. It seems he has no issue with the minister’s claim not to trust Russia for its energy.
Also, it seems Mr Wallace wants us and the Americans to ‘move on’, and open up better trade relationships, and so on.
So, no more need to worry about the government of a country whose apocalyptic threats of death to Jews, and all unbelievers, and whose complete dearth of homosexuals are there for all the world to read, should they be so inclined.
Any ideas out there why the BBC chose this particular Conservative MP to speak solo?
Hmm?
Stories like:
“Muslim council chiefs order non-Muslim concillors to fast during Ramadan”
make the vile, cowardly BBC very uncomfortable. They don’t fit in with the beeb’s ‘Religion of peace hijacked by tiny minority of misunderstanders of Islam’ narrative.
The men trying to implement stealth sharia here are ‘mainstream, moderate muslims.’ Men like these will do more damage than a thousand bombs on buses and tubetrains.
And remember, by virtue of demographics, Islam in Britain becomes more powerful by the day. Get ready for more stories like this – lots more.
Sarah Jane:
Entirely from the angle that Hutton was opposed to the windfall tax, and not a peep about his claim that the need for energy security was more important than dealing with climate change or green issues.
Such an idea is not even on the BBC BBC radar, so they ignore it. Which is prima facie evidence of just how strong the pro-greenie mindset is.
More Global Warming Bollox from Dick Black
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7585645.stm
As Dick only has a degree in English, he tends to think scientists are very clever people, he hasnt looked at universities entrance requiriments for the sciences – ie if ur not clever enough for law or medicine u study a science or english, just like Dick does
Yet another 10p tax type mess on the way.
So the Government is going to provide money to those on low incomes to help with winter fuel bills.
Well of course the fat one eyed jock will ‘assume’ that those who are in need have kids.
So just like the 10p tax mess he will forget the 5 million single people on low wages!!!
I see a 30 point lead for the Tories by the end of the year.
Robin | 28.08.08 – 6:44 pm |
“This is absolutely stunning. It is a complete reversal of current government policy and, if it holds, puts Britain at odds with the “colleagues” who hold climate change as the Holy Grail of all policies, to which energy is a very poor second.
This is the sort of thing that we would wish a Tory spokesman had said, recognising that, when the lights go out and we are chipping the ice off the windows • in September • the “saving the planet” message will not play too well with us ignorant peasants.”
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
I don’t think a “Tory” spokesman would say anything like this – This is more their line
“There is no reason at all why people should fly around the UK, fly from London to Edinburgh, London to Scotland, London to Glasgow, London to Manchester, London to Newcastle. Those flights should be knocked out.”
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/01/tim-yeo-wants-to-abolish-domestic.html
So says Tim Yeo who seems to be on the left of Ken Livingston.
MrLouKnee
This article appears to flatly contradict what Dick Black is panicking about
“Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/
Expat in New York | 28.08.08 – 6:10 pm |
Finally is it balanced reporting to refer to this a “political evolution”? Were the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice not the first such “political evolution”?
Exactly! Where was the BBC gushing when those nasty white racist Republicans elevated a black man – and then a black woman – to the second most powerful position in the country?
(SFX: Crickets chirping.)
As Dick only has a degree in English, he tends to think scientists are very clever people..
The entry qualifications for a course are more to do with how popular the course is than how difficult it is.
Law and medicine are popular because of the high potential earnings.
David Preiser (USA): Condi Rice is far more qualified to be a President than that muppet the Dems have nominaed.
But as she’s an evil Republican, they igonre her.
I know McCain wouldn’t pick her as his VP, but wouldn’t it blow the ‘special one’ out of the water?