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!
Bookmark the permalink.
Just read Jon Kelly’s latest blog entry.
I’ve not read this blog before. This latest post about the ex-Iraqi US citizen voting in his first election starts off well enough – Saddam was a brutal monster, he was lucky to escape him etc…but of course it couldn’t end without him blasting Bush for actually ridding the country of its dictator. Oh and of course he’s voting Obama.
Looking back at previous entries, I was surprised to see space given to supporters of McCain and some of the “rugged individualists” who support him, without it turning into the kind of bitter sneer-job we’re used to with the likes of Justin Webb. So far so good, I thought. Then I read this entry:
“But I admit that I’m uneasy around guns. I mentioned in my initial post how I’ve lived through the import of many American phenomena to my homeland – some of them good, some of them bad. The senseless killing of schoolchildren with firearms fell squarely into the latter category.”
I take it that, as a Scot, he’s referring to Dunblane. Yet he describes that atrocity as an “American Import”. How strange. I didn’t realize that Americans had invented guns, or the idea of shooting school children with them.
Yep, he’s an arsehole.
“MI6 agent’s cover slips during BBC interview”
[Extract]:
…” during the interview the heat of the film crew’s arc lights made the adhesive weaken on his moustache.
“The incident could almost have been a scene from the current NatWest TV advert which shows a moustache falling off a ludicrously-disguised spy or from the cult-tv show Get Smart.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3042969/MI6-agents-cover-slips-during-BBC-interview.html
More lighthearted fun: try the Brown Calculator and see just how bad things are…
‘Merlin’ on Saturday night.
Guinevere is half-black, and there are blacks in Arthur’s court.
WHAT???
I understand & appreciate that people here may disapprove of the politics of the BNP, which I do myself, but this article below by the Beeb leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Okay, attack the BNP, but why degrade and humiliate the white working-class people of Stoke?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7627591.stm
I also googled the journalists name and came across Newssniffer.co.uk, a website which scans the net for removed or altered news articles.
The link below shows the original uploaded version alongside an amended later version of the same article highlighting the different edits.
You’ll notice that the Beeb has changed the article to create a chronological version that doesn’t match the original reported event.
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/157987/diff/0/1
Revolting, cheap sneering journalism – and proof of BBC lying!
I disapprove of the BNP for all sorts of reasons, but what business is it of the BBC to take sides? It has a clear, supposedly legally enforceable, duty to be impartial.
It is not.
ukip blog is reporting that the army are angry at the beeb reporter for going through 15 weeks training then lying to get out after doing the undercover filming.
They are thinking of recalling him and sending him to Iraq to “teach him a lesson”
if only.
The beeboid who did the undercover filming should either be sent to Afghanistan or if he refuses sent to a military prison.
He clearly lied to get out of the armed forces. That is against QR’s for sure.
I think they should make an example of him.
Robert Peston has taken some blows in the past week regarding his role in prematurely announcing inside inforamtion on the LloydsTSB rescue of HBOS. See here…
http://www.order-order.com/2008/09/who-told-peston.html
But, going over his blog I was pleased to see he resisted an out-and-out attack on short-sellers with this comment that was positive about their role in the economy:
“First, short-selling (as I’ve said many times) is not evil, in and of itself. In fact, short-sellers perform a public service when they take a risk to puncture the over-valuation of assets, as they routinely do.”
A very good objective article from the non-MSM which supports Peston’s assertion on short-selling and its crucial role in ensuring efficient stock market prices is here:
http://galileoblogs.blogspot.com/2008/09/one-minute-case-for-stock-shorting.html
It’s highly recommended reading for those without a background in economics.
Pro Euro bias:
The BBC trying to link the Euro currency and being rich in the same sentence.
Slovenia, the richest of the former Yugoslav states, was also the first east European state to adopt the Euro.
The report also starts laying into “conservatives” accusing them of corruption etc. Don’t mention Keith Vaz.
Anon: It doesn’t matter. Peston is up the arse of Gordon Brown and that is wrong.
It’s quite obvious Peston was tipped off by Nu Liebour.
The Police should be investigating.
The really pertinent criticism, Anonymous, is that Peston was (as so often before) doing McBean’s bidding.
In so doing, he may have broken trading regulations, some say, but I am in no position to comment as it isn’t my field.
I do, however, recognise political influence and bias when I see it.
If you hadn’t heard about the “anti-islamisation” congress in Cologne and how the German authorities dealt with it here’s a Jihadwatch.org link:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022783.php
I’m 100 percent against people like Le Pen but where’s our freedom of speech gone (all circumstances considered)? In Germany the mob rules again but this time it’s the “anti-fascists”.
The Canadian state broadcaster is as dismissive of complaints as is the BBC, but it’s columnists appear to go beyond Frei, Webb & co in their anti-Republican comment.
This article
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/05/f-vp-mallick.html
has produced complaints which CBC waives aside
Canadian journalist Heather Mallick is facing an ugly onslaught from the U.S. right-wing media and its fans for an online column she wrote mocking Sarah Palin as “white trash.”
The Sept. 5 column on CBC.ca, entitled “A Mighty Wind blows through the RepublicThe CBC said Saturday it had no plans to remove Mallick’s article from its website despite the criticism.
“She’s an opinion columnist, she expresses her opinion. Her opinions don’t represent the views of CBC in general or CBC News in particular,” said spokesman Jeff Keay.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/21/mallick-palin.html
Cameron = Posh Tory toff bias
This one reminds me of Labour’s recent by election campaign where they said Tories are toffs that wear top hats.
An alternative spin they could have done: “Cameron helps childrens charity“.
This should be the top article on this site (and made sticky).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7627591.stm
Unless the white working class are now considered sub-human.
Posted this at fag end of last general thread but thought people ought to be warned that they are raising BBC morale by sending in complaints:
post from the Guido Fawkes blog:
“Anonymous Linky said…
mitch (10:35) “I complained to the beeb last week about this prick [Andrew Marr]and no reply yet.”
Dont expect much. The complaints log at the bbc us more used to cheer up the staff giving them a chance to “laught at the nutters” more than make any changes.
(Quote from my ex-wife who worked there for 3 years.)
September 21, 2008 10:54 AM
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g…75& isPopup=true
wally | 21.09.08 – 3:14 pm | #
Martin, GC,
I agree RP is happily kissing GB’s backside, and broke rules with the help of the Government.
But, even he cannot attack a practice (of short-selling) that has been incorrectly vilified elsewhere in the MSM and laughably by the HBOS Chairman as being the reason for the merger.
I would have been interested to hear RP defend short-selling on the TV news though and may have missed it.
No, I have to agree. Peston takes a sensible line on short selling.
However, he is still a propagandist for McBean’s regime.
I see the BBC’s US election bus is in Dallas to discuss homosexuals 9Radio 5)
Another chance to bash John McCain.
Why is the BBC obsessed with homosexuality?
I’m gobsmacked.
BBC World has an expert on South Africa and the ANC, someone called Malan Tupy. He is spelling out, uninterrupted by the BBC clown, exactly how awful that grotesque little macaque Mbeki has been for Africa.
What is going on at the BBC?
wally | 22.09.08 – 12:16 am
Dont expect much. The complaints log at the bbc us more used to cheer up the staff giving them a chance to “laught at the nutters” more than make any changes.
Yes, see this link to see how the Beeboids use the complaints log for entertainment purposes:
http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/page/2/?s=complaints+log&submit=Search
A better strategy is to make your complaints public in order to spread the word and damage the BBC brand name. If you send a complaint only to the BBC they will just throw it in the bin and laugh at you and the rest of the world will not get to know how bad the BBC is.
Instead, post your complaint about the BBC on as many different blogs and forums as possible.
Some Sarah Palin news you won’t be hearing about on the BBC:
Palin Draws A Crowd of 60,000 in Florida
http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022
In California Palin sparks fear among Dems
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/21/MNPP130KA7.DTL&feed=rss.news
The Palin Effect bolsters McCain in Missouri
http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=878D34CE-B168-90FA-9779EC67F0B2401D
10,000 fill hanger to see McCain, Palin (Green Bay, Wis)
http://www.twincities.com/ci_10509509?source=most_viewed
Some Sarah Palin stories you will be hearing on the BBC
Feminists against Palin • Shame on you
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/20/IN5U13026F.DTL
Palin set to (finally) meet a foreign leader
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/362696/palin_set_to_finally_meet_a_foreign_leader
Alaskans angered that Palin is off limits
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troopergate21-2008sep21,0,2158301.story
As a result of the BBC (and other British media) coverage in the UK, my friends and family back home are expecting nothing less than an Obama landslide. How could it be otherwise?
Just breaking: (12:30am Monday)
“Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.
Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.
It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign…”
http://www.mypetjawa.mu.nu/
Remember the BBC articles on the ‘hockey stick’ global warming graph produced by Mann, proven to be a fraud and then reinvented by Mann and promoted by the BBC AGAIN as accurate?
Well it appears that Mann only used a fraction of the data sets available and used only those that supported his original fraud! Richard Black&Co have to start checking their stories instead of just spewing out warmist propaganda but I wont hold my breath, on the plus side more and more people are realising just how many lying cheating scumbags inhabit the BBC cesspit!
You can read the details at antigreen.blogspot.com it explains how Mann perpetrated his fraud/junk science, its very revealing but does anyone think that the BBC will revise their report?
The BBC has not amended what is an inapproriate way to report on Brown’s proposed expansion of nursery places for TWO-YEAR-OLDS.
“Brown reveals free childcare plan”
[Extract]:
“Up to 600,000 children could benefit as ministers seek to build on existing provision for three and four-year-olds.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7627625.stm
There is no suggestion in the BBC report, as there should be, that attending nursery school can have a NEGATIVE effect on the emotional development of two-year-olds.
This evidence is ignored:
“Safe, stimulating and blessed by the government, nurseries have become the No1 choice of new parents struggling to balance work and bringing up kids. In the past decade, private nursery places have quadrupled in Britain, transforming the early years of millions of children. But a growing number of childcare experts are reaching the same disquieting conclusion – that long periods of nursery care for under-threes may be producing more insecure and aggressive children. As the government publishes its latest plans for childcare, Madeleine Bunting reports on the controversial research that could halt the nursery boom” (‘Guardian’ 2004)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/jul/08/schools.uk
5 live have a phone in right now called “save Gordon”
Take a listen, it’s a hoot.
“We have Tory voters here as well” claimed VD. Only when she asked who’d vote tory there was a huge “No” from the audience.
Perhaps the single Tory voter has been gagged?
A tory voter gets to have a say and Victoria Derbyshire encourages the audience to shout him down.
“do you really think Cameron understands people’s pain?” she asks.
What and the fat one eyed jock does?
GeorgeR,
The problem isnt nursery (because kids will always grow when they have exposure to other kids) BUT the length of time kids are now having to stay there because Mum or Dad or Mum and Dad (which seems not to be the norm these days:) HAVE to work to pay the taxes Gordo is stinging us with.
That is the problem that everyone seems to ignore. Parents have to work long hours just to make ends meet!
Mailman
The new Saturday night series ‘Merlin : Some Young Dude who can do Magic and Stuff’. Very loosely based on one of Britain’s most popular legends and given the BBC’s special twist of 21st Century politically correct and leftie luvvie attitude. Arthur is a bullying toff and Guinevere is an ethnic minority domestic servant.
Watch for more twists in future episodes. The BBC – changing Britain’s legends in the pursuit of demoralising Britain. Its what we do best, and we use your money to do it.
A mind-boggling investigation of just who orchestrated the massive smear and lie and calumnies campaign against Sarah Palin.
It’s a leading (Democrat front) PR company which is part of the massive glopbal Publicis Group, which has the EU as a client; and has huge ties to David Axelrod, who is Obama’s Brain.
This is a quite remarkable and compelling Internet investigation, check out something you WILL NEVER see or hear about on the BBC.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194057.php
Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated “Grassroots” Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them
Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.
Some journalist on 5 lite just claimed that the audience didn’t think much of Cameron.
Of course not, it’s a hall full of unemployed scum off the streets of Manchester.
So why are the Tories at 52% in the polls?
Check out Al-BBCs vox-pops of Labour conference delegates for their views on Brown.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7628020.stm
Funnily enough 6 people interviewed and all 6 thing Brown should stay with comments like “I still think most people in the Labour Party think and know that Gordon Brown is the best person to lead us out of the current financial situation.”
(quickly getting in Browns current “line to take”)
Are we all delusional, or is there really disquiet in Labour about Brown’s leadership and many, many Labour people feeling that Brown should step down? If so why couldn’t Al-BBC find a single anti-Brown view.
Vintage pro-Brown bias
There in an interesting thread over on the HPC forum about Will Hutton being able to appear on Newsnight to pontificate on house prices with no mention of his wife’s job ..
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=88169
Another day in the life of the BBC and also in the life of the Conservatives but you wouldn’t know that from the politics front page.
The only headline mentioning the Conservatives is the one on Cameron’s helmetand that is more to do with celebrity than politics.
Peston “Fisks” Marrs Brown Interview
The BBC’s business editor Robert Peston, currently the object of the frustrations of a substantial number of City fund managers who think he should be done for creating a false market in HBOS, has fisked yesterday’s Marr interview with Gordon
http://www.order-order.com/2008/09/peston-fisks-marrs-brown-interview.html
Should Brown go? “No” say the delegates…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7628020.stm
Excellent! Onward to meltdown.
Global Warming’s Boom Bust
Global warming’ is sub-prime science, sub-prime economics, and sub-prime politics, and it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage.
Despite all the undoubted political and economic gloom, the delightful thing about today’s Sunday newspapers is the virtual absence of the phrase `global warming’. `Global warming’ has been effectively buried, by collapsing banks and plunging markets, by rising energy costs, by internal battling within the Labour Party, by pitbulls and the American election, by real threats, like knife crime and terrorism in Islamabad, and by the fact that, on nearly every bit of current evidence, the world is likely to enter a cooling phase – the BBC please note.
Interestingly, the final part of BBC 2’s dire series, `Earth – The Climate Wars’, which is to be shown this evening, has also fallen out of the ratings, not even, for example, being suggested under `Choice’ in The Sunday Times television listings [see: `Culture’, The Sunday Times, September 21, pp. 60 – 61]. Mind you, as I have already pointed out, this seriously-unbalanced programme has been well and truly `flounced’, and rightly so, by BBC 1’s new four-part costume drama, `Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ [see: `Tess Trumps Trumpery’, September 16]. The pretty Morris dancers have pranced all over it. And tonight, thank goodnes
More here: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Jack Bauer,
The BBC will never run the story because it hasnt been fact checked.
Sorta like how they never ran a story on Palin before it was fact checked by the kids of dkos! 🙂
But in all seriousness, the MSM will never cover that story. It will be up to McCain to have to push it before it will then be critically analysed by the MSM and pronounced as being a non-story.
Mailman
Mr de Menezes was a Brazillian electrician, first and foremost.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7628021.stm
No mention that, not only was he an illegal immigrant, but also had a FAKE ‘indefinite leave to remain’ stamp in his passport.
As usual, the BBC see fit to concentrate on the behaviour of the firearms officers, a DAY after 52 people were butchered in London by terrorists (sorry, Extremists), rather than some illegal behaving suspiciously, running away from armed police, etc….
Nelson,
Have you got a link to where it says his stamp was fake?
Mailman
BBC ably assisted by Cologne’s mayor
first the BBC sets ’em up
Thousands of left-wing demonstrators gathered to protest against an extreme right-wing rally
The extreme-right Pro-Koeln group had sought to protest against plans to build one of Europe’s biggest mosques
then the mayor weighs in determined to lay blame where it (doesn’t?) belong
Police say they responded with batons after left-wing protesters set fire to barricades.
In a speech earlier on Saturday, Cologne Mayor Fritz Schramma labelled Pro-Koeln “arsonists and racists” hiding under the cloak of a “citizens’ movement”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7627047.stm
On Menzies – whatever his apparent alien status, it still does not mean he should have been shot dead in cold blood by our police force.
For crying out loud. The police in this country of “ours” (can we still say that?) are the last people anyone should be defending given current police practices.
behaving suspiciously, running away from armed police
Oh dear why can’t you read the evidence and watch the video footage rather than harking back to the trumped up story in the media that was spun by the Met.
He may have been an illegal alien, but he wasn’t acting suspiciously and he was not running at all, let alone running from armed police. In addition these armed police did not attempt to either stop or arrest him on his way from his flat to the tube train.
Menezes could have been you or I and that should give cause for thought before letting the trigger happy people in control of the police on the ground of the hook. A senior officer should have fallen on their sword immediately over the public execution of an innocent man, the fact that no one, I repeat no-one was to blame for this incident tells you everything that’s wrong with NuLabour Britain.
The police in this country of “ours” (can we still say that?) are the last people anyone should be defending
Oh god, the lunatic fringe of the SWP has arrived.
mailman:
Jack Bauer,
The BBC will never run the story because it hasnt been fact checked.
What a bizarre comment.
It has has been FACT CHECKED. By the people who have produced the report.
Sheesh. The whole report is STUFFED TO THE GILLS with facts checked by the Jawa Report. Names, connections, dates, times.
If you don’t want to “believe” them, that’s your business, but please don’t invoke some sort of strawman “fact checker.”
I’ll try to expand on my comment. It is my contention that the BBC, which calls itself a “news” organization, (and which happens to be obsessed with Sarah Palin, and has parotted wholly unsubstantiated slimes against Palin) WILL not do it’s own “fact” check.
In fact, it won’t even mention the scandal.
mailman — soory. I didn’t read the final part of your post, and see that you were being tongue in cheek!
Feel free to slap me around for my tardiness.
His “Indefinite Leave to Remain” stamp was fake.
The point is, if he had obeyed the law and gone home when his visa expired, instead of staying illegally, he would be alive and well and sipping a pina colada on Copacabana Beach today. Unless he had been shot in the meantime by the Brazilian Police, of course.
He was a lawbreaker in someone else’s country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7628476.stm
Man you’ve never heard of has suspected heart attack at Labour Conference. Okay, you might have heard of him, because he’s the only person in the country dumb enough to defect from the Tories to Labour, and Labour made a big deal out of it some months ago. But of course the BBC mention this now insignificant man again purely because it allows them to remind us that people still defect from the nasty Tories.