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George R 3:08
So for “Question Time”, 3 lefties, a muslim and a Conservative.
I guess that is what the BBC would call “balance”.
Millie Tant | 15.10.08 – 3:29 pm
Flipping heck! He did not say anything about skin, let alone “pigmented” skin. That’s some locution. What is the matter with some people?
Well maybe not in so many words. But that IS what his whole point is about IMHO.
Since you said in an earlier post that you were having trouble de-coding the key passage from Thompson’s Oxford English, here’s what he said along with my attempt at a translation.
…..asked whether it was correct that the BBC “let vicar gags pass but not imam gags”, as Elton claimed, he admitted it did take a different approach to Islam…..Mr Thompson said: …..
“What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.
{If you are a white, Christian, English person your religious identity as a Christian is something that you can wear lightly, is not the chief thing that defines you and you can be socially secure enough to laugh along with gags about your religion; but if you are both Muslim AND a member of an ethnic minority, the chances are that the whole ‘identity politics’ thing is a big deal to you and you are quite likely to imagine innocently meant religious jokes are personal racial insults aimed directly at you.}
“There’s no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don’t want to say that all religions are the same. To be a minority I think puts a slightly different outlook on it.”
{You can’t treat all religious groups the same way, because they are actually different from one another. Minority (ethnic rather than merely numerical) status is an important consideration and may require extra sensitivity sometimes.}
However he pointed out that he had commissioned the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, which he claimed had made fun of many religions
At least, that’s what I presume he was on about.
Millie Tant | 15.10.08 – 3:29 pm
Flipping heck! He did not say anything about skin, let alone “pigmented” skin. That’s some locution. What is the matter with some people?
Well maybe not in so many words. But that IS what his whole point is about.
Since you said in an earlier post that you were having trouble de-coding the key passage from Thompson’s Oxford English, here’s what he said along with my attempt at a translation.
…..asked whether it was correct that the BBC “let vicar gags pass but not imam gags”, as Elton claimed, he admitted it did take a different approach to Islam…..Mr Thompson said: …..
“What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.
{If you are a white, Christian, English person your religious identity as a Christian is something that you can wear lightly, is not the chief thing that defines you and you can be socially secure enough to laugh along with gags about your religion; but if you are both Muslim AND a member of an ethnic minority, the chances are that the whole ‘identity politics’ thing is a big deal to you and you are quite likely to imagine innocently meant religious jokes are personal racial insults aimed at you.}
“There’s no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don’t want to say that all religions are the same. To be a minority I think puts a slightly different outlook on it.”
{You can’t treat all religious groups the same way, because they are actually different from one another. Minority (ethnic rather than merely numerical) status is an important consideration and may require extra sensitivity sometimes.}
However he pointed out that he had commissioned the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, which he claimed had made fun of many religions
At least, that’s what I presume he was on about.
Radio Four 4pm news. Apparently McBean’s risible claim that he lays awake at night worrying about the poor, is given higher billing than the still tumbling stock market.
Did somebody mislay the traktor production figures?
I was listening to Newshour on the World Service, and they opened with a segment about how the current financial crisis is affecting jobs in the UK. Robin Lustig was very straightforward with the unpleasant unemployment figures, nothing to make Mr. Brown look good. It’s getting tough out there, apparently. We then heard an audio clip of Mr. Brown promising to deal with it, that he had a plan to create jobs and create programs to give people jobs, move people into new jobs, etc.
This was followed by a phone call with an unemployed civilian talking about how difficult it was to find a job these days.
David Salt, from somewhere in the Midlands, has lost his job. He worked in clay factories and other places that contribute materials to the now slumping construction industry. He last worked as a lab supervisor in a brick-making factory. Lustig asked if he saw this coming, and Salt had no idea, didn’t think it would affect him. “Things are pretty drastic.”
However, he said he’d looked in the papers, gone to the job center, and found nothing.
Then the caller described his experience at the job center. He sat there while the social worker did the job search, and said that there was nothing available in the area in which he lived, “in the kind of job I’m looking for.”
“It’s gonna be tough, isn’t it?” or words to that effect, from the Beeboid. No problem there, no Brown cheerleading whatsoever, which is as it should be.
But why is this guy representative of anything other than the bursting of the housing bubble? This started long before the actual credit crunch, and the excessive construction which helped create the bubble certainly had nothing to do with any credit crunch.
And what about Mr. Brown’s massive spending on public sector construction? When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he revamped the PFI (created by Conservatives under the BBC’s domestic arch-enemy) into PPPs. In fact, the real culprit for turning the PFI into an excuse for public waste…I mean Sustainable Communities….was some Chancellor guy, nothing to do with the current PM, no doubt:
These were already difficult times for the PFI. New accounting rules and serious problems with hospital and school schemes have cast doubt over its future. And it is the adoption of international accounting standards for government accounts that present arguably the biggest threat.
In Gordon Brown’s last Budget as chancellor, he announced that from 2008, government accounts would be prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards in place of UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice.
According to the Budget papers, this will ‘bring benefits in consistency and comparability between financial reports in the global economy and…. follow private sector best practice’. But what they will also do, theoretically at least, is to bring billions of pounds of PFI deals on to the public sector balance sheet that have previously been off-balance sheet.
Critics have always claimed that one of the reasons for the new prime minister’s enthusiasm for the PFI has been that it helped him to finance much of the public infrastructure rebuilding programme without immediately paying for it, or without the cost appearing as public debt. This has enabled him to make much of his adherence to the sustainable investment rule • keeping public debt below 40% of national income. Both the chancellor and the Treasury have denied all suggestions of statistical fiddling.
Which also led to the occasional disaster, like this one for £2 billion.
Apparently they didn’t build public housing very well recently, as repairs are up so much that the money being spent in the construction industry has so far mostly made up for the severe drop in that for private housing. That’s going to drop also, of course, so that’s more construction workers made redundant by everyone except Gordon Brown.
I could go on, but suffice to say that a brick-maker is so not an example of someone put out of work by nasty foreign greedy bastards, the credit crunch, the banking crisis, or anything else not remotely the fault of Mr. Brown, or anything from which he has saved the world.
But never mind. Mr. Brown has a plan to spend more taxpayers’ money to find a new job for this guy in the area in which he lives. Probably in the public sector.
Tom:
{If you are a white, Christian, English person your religious identity as a Christian is something that you can wear lightly, is not the chief thing that defines you and you can be socially secure enough to laugh along with gags about your religion; but if you are both Muslim AND a member of an ethnic minority, the chances are that the whole ‘identity politics’ thing is a big deal to you and you are quite likely to imagine innocently meant religious jokes are personal racial insults aimed at you.}
are you saying only whites can be christians? Christianity is the religion of minorities too. Arabs, ethiopians, filipinos, latins and christianity for these people are part of their identities.
slacker | 15.10.08 – 4:30 pm
are you saying only whites can be christians?
Of course not, slacker.
If I used the phrase, “suntanned Russian billionaire” would I be implying that only people with suntans can be billionaires?
Why is it that you only have to mention race and people turn paranoid?
JBH,
The BBC actually believe that all the present social/economic troubles and woes were caused by the Tories and Thatcher because they hate and despise the Tories plus they have to blame someone other than Brown, his cohorts and their deeply held socialist convictions, the BBC cannot and I repeat cannot bring themselves to admit that the economic collapse and coming disaster had anything to do with their beloved Labour party!
I often repeat myself about this but here we go again!
The socialists be they national or international or whatever shade just love their scapegoats, its a psychological makeup thing for them!
They cannot ever admit their political beliefs are fallible or cause more harm than good, when someone cannot admit error or failure of their core belief set they search and usually find a series of scapegoats, its far easier to blame someone or something else than to admit that your core beliefs are wrong!
I have heard this has something to do with an illness called ‘cognitive dissonance’ and is the reason why cults and sects can exert such a powerful hold over the victim that they will kill themselves for patently insane reasons.
The socialists belief system holds the basic belief that ‘the ends justify the means’ and that little phrase has led to the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century, quite frankly I hold socialism to be evil incarnate, it ceratinly has caused human suffering on a truly horrific scale!
Tom,
no. but people like you including thompson are tying religion with race. if islam is the identity of a certain ethnic minority so is christianity the identity of the ethnic minorities i have listed and the BBC should treat christianity the way it does islam.
Slacker 4:30
And many “blacks” are Christians, inside and outside Africa, often of the evangelical variety.
A difficult combination for the BBC, black AND Christian, so they just tend to ignore it. Sudan anyone ?
Cassandra 5:00
Interesting post. I have often felt that the difference between left and right is ultimately one of personality.
slacker | 15.10.08 – 5:33 pm
No, I think Thompson’s point is that the overwhelming majority of UK Christians are white, while the overwhelming majority of UK Muslims are not.
I see that the stock markets around the world are falling badly again. But guess who isn’t getting the blame? Yep the snot eater. Funny that the BBC were quick to praise him the other day when they went up.
I have just seen Gordon Brown on the BBC and the first words out of his mouth lay ALL the blame for his own reckless stupidity and blind ignorance on the Americans!
The USA is supposed to be our first ally and he is busy trying to destroy the close relationship, of course that slimy reptile Barosso was right there grinning his arrogant grin, looking every inch the greasy,evil and gross scumbag he is, apparently very happy that Brown is splitting away from the hated USA and into the dark embrace of the EUSSR.
The sight and sound of this hated Brown blaming everyone else while ignoring any responsibilty is truly sickening, no wonder people hate him so much!
How the beeboids spend our money.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bbc-bans-champers-961389.html
In light of received wisdom in some quarters on certain global superheroes:
Just had my latest gas bill, too.
I wrote the following when I read Tom’s first comment (11:06 am) but I thought what I had said was too obvious so didn’t bother to post it.
“To equate sensitivities about the holocaust with tiptoeing around Islam is a big mistake made by Tom who obviously has been watching too much BBC.
Tom is obviously new to this subject. Crass holocaust gags? Only offensive to Jews, in your view, Tom?
In any case, there are caricature baddy Jews all over T.V. already, thank you.
And I’ve seen that happen.
Can’t Tom see what is underlying these ever-increasing fears about creeping Islamisation?
Can’t Tom see why the media’s ‘criticising-Islam-taboo’ has arisen?
The grumbling rumble of threatened violence and disruption, incessant demands for concessions to Islam, kowtowing to the diversity mantra – no right or wrong, only ‘different,’ that has permeated our society. Could any of that have something to do with it?
Tiptoe, tiptoe; taunts are quite okay for everyone but Moslems.”
Having just seen Tom’s latest comments it doesn’t seem too obvious after all.
Tom just doesn’t get it. He’s like someone who’s come in halfway through the film. Tom doesn’t know what we’re talking about at all, so how could he know what HE’S talking about? Sorry Tom, you have some catching up to do.
Mark Thompson’s gobbldegook meant that he knew there would be an almighty Danish-cartoon reaction to the slightest sign that someone was taking the piss out of the religion of peace. “Islamophobia!” they would screech. “Set fire to Broadcasting House!”
Go on BBC, I dare you.
good points david (usa)
The bbc utterly failed to criticise PFI. PFI deals were actually illegal for nhs trusts until mcbroon rushed through the National Health Service (Private Finance) Act 1997 on 15th July 1997 while the nulabour MPs were still working out how their laptops worked and where they should submit their expenses forms.
that little act will cost us and our children many many extra billions of £s.
The FTSE plummets by 7% and the BBC are almost silent.
Browns manic gamble is failing but the BBC is silent.
Unemployment rising at record rates in the UK but the BBC is silent.
The joyous smiles are fading on the faces of the BBC as it becomes clear that Browns ‘battle of the bulge’ type gamble is failing so its now blame the world and quickly onto ‘other’ news!
Expect to see the BBC starting to minimise Browns role in the bailout plan/fiasco very soon, the whole plan will be Darlings,the EUs,the Tories, the greedy tory bankers and the USAs idea and Brown opposed it all along, the BBC airbrushing of history will go into hyperdrive! Very soon the BBC will have forgotten all about Browns role in all of this obvious fiasco.
The switch from BBC joy to almost heart broken sadness in such a short time shines a very bright light onto the BBC political loyalties.
I am no fan of codger McCain but I pray for a McCain win that wipes the smug smiles from the BBC, their celebration parties for a Democratic win are already planned and just as their planned Italian celebration party was ruined I hope and pray that the BBC suffer the same grief again, now that would be justice served!
Pride comes before a fall they say, lets hope it comes true for the BBC eh?
BBC 1 news. The snot eater is a hero. ITV news. Taking the piss that the snot eater says unemployment can be cured by training people to lag lofts.
I wonder why the BBC didn’t mention that story?
Cassandra: But as Andrew Neil pointed out today, much of these sub prime loans were actually chopped up and repackaged by OUR stock market and city. And since when is George Bush responsible for what goes on here?
Need a clue? Think bogey eater.
Martin(the wise),
The BBC forgets to mention that tax reciepts are falling off a cliff,social security spending is rocketing,inflation proofed pensions are sucking up ever greater amounts,public spending is ballooning, North sea revenues are falling fast,contributions to the EUSSR black hole are getting ever higher, trade deficits/national debt/
budget deficits are now unsutainable even in the short term, there is no money left for state job retention let alone state job creation, its now just Fuhrer Braun creating fantasy divisions in his fevered imagination!
The UK is broke and upto its neck in debt, the economy is moving quickly from cyclic slowdown through recession and onto full blown depression, mainly due to Gordon Browns ego, we are all going to burn on Browns very own bonfire of the vanities, those who saw it coming can gain little comfort from being right!
My analogy of the ‘battle of the bulge’ is very apt because brown has more in common with the madman Hitler than anyone will ever admit, the man is a mental defective but instead of being locked up in a padded cell where he can do no harm, he has somehow gained control of the UK, future historians will often marvel at how a mentally ill sociopathic nutter came to wield such power and create so much wanton destruction before he was caught in the butterfly net and carted away to a much deserved padded cell,anti psychotic drugs and soft music!
I see clearly a day when the BBC reports that Brown is admitted to ‘hospital’ due to ’emotional exhuastion’. Is it cos I is called Cassandra? Ha Ha.
Not-so-subtle and pervasive bias – anyone notice the pictures chosen to illustrate PMQ’s by the BBC on its politics page?
Hague – Picture take from above of him looking down shiftily so all that you could see was the top of his bald head. Not very flattering and crating the impression of prevarication and diffidence. The Harpy was depicted from eye level looking strongly into the camera. Who selects these pictures? As an aside the Harpy attacked Hague for “talking down the economy” Fuc*ing hell. How can these socialist blood worms, bloated on the life blood of the taxpaying middle classes DARE to blame the economic apocalypse they have unleashed on Britain on the Conservatives. Apparently criticism of Super Brown (as he is now known by the BBC) is the direct cause of the problem. Not making incontinent spending of money that doesn’t exist a fundamental policy objective of the government and encouraging tramps living under viaducts to take out £4.5 million mortgages on penthouses.
jimbob | 15.10.08 – 6:28 pm |
that little act will cost us and our children many many extra billions of £s.
Remember that the next time Mr. Brown tells you that he’s placed you all in a better position to weather the storm because he reduced the debt by £100 billion and kept the debt below 40% (as we’re not allowed to count Northern Rock, either). And then watch more of your taxes being spent to make up for it.
Cassandra | 15.10.08 – 5:00 pm:
‘cognitive dissonance’ Hmm. Sounds interesting. I must look it up.
Arkangel | 15.10.08 – 5:56 pm:
How the beeboids spend our money.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bbc-bans-champers-961389.html
Excellent post – but you undersell your observational skills by failing to include the following concise extract:
Your money: How the BBC spends it:
* Champagne: £57,000 a year
* Bottled water: £360,000 a year
* Taxis: £13.8m a year
* Christmas party: £250,000 a year
* Telephone bills: £21m a year
* Private school fees: £300,000 a year
* Air travel: £16m a year
* Hotels: £4m a year
More than a third of a million quid on bottled water FFS!!!!!
Good news for Conservative Republicans.
Interviewed on the red (how very apt) carpet at the opening of his film “W”, film director Oliver Stone commented on the fact Sarah Palin had not accept an invitation to attend. “I don’t think Sarah would understand the picture,” he said.
1. What a patronizing shithead Stone is!
2. I’d sign up Mrs Palin at once as the Republican Presidential candidate in 2012. She has all the qualifications needed for driving the left crazy. They actually hate her more than Bush.
Seriously, here in the USA, Stone’s fantasy film “JFK” has done more to inform High School kids about Kennedy’s assassination than any text book. Problem is the text book are just like Stone’s movies.
Sue | 15.10.08 – 6:24 pm
Tom is obviously new to this subject….. He’s like someone who’s come in halfway through the film.
True-ish. I’ve only been around this blog for about six weeks.
Can’t Tom see what is underlying these ever-increasing fears about creeping Islamisation?
Sure, but one doesn’t have to buy into the whole Eurabia paranoia. Let’s keep it in proportion.
Muslims haven’t been great at integrating. We have let in more than was wise. Too many hold to the old folk customs of the backward countries they come from. Yes…. And Islam itself is a problem: lots of things in the Koran are thoroughly objectionable.
And no, I don’t believe the BBC when it tells me that only ‘a tiny minority’ have extreme views (unless the whole of that ‘tiny minority’ lives within five miles of my house)…….
If they want caliphates and sharia they should get back on the plane and look elsewhere…..
And those that plot to kill us should be locked up for life.
I’m not arguing with any of that.
The grumbling rumble of threatened violence …. incessant demands for concessions to Islam
I’m against that too.
the diversity mantra – no right or wrong, only ‘different,’ that has permeated our society
I particularly hate that….. We should stand up for our values: they’re better.
Crass holocaust gags? Only offensive to Jews, in your view, Tom?
Anyone could find them offensive in the sense of distasteful, but Jews are most likely to be genuinely hurt.
I remember seeing a joke on TV about the Herald of Free Enterprise just after it sank. I thought it was in bad taste. But my thinking that wasn’t a good reason not to run the gag. The likely effect on the feelings of the bereaved, though, was.
Mark Thompson’s gobbldegook meant that he knew there would be an almighty Danish-cartoon reaction to the slightest sign that someone was taking the piss out of the religion of peace.
But he didn’t say the BBC wouldn’t take the piss out of the RoP. He just said there were good grounds for being a touch more sensitive than you might be with the Father Ted audience.
The BBC report that:
“US share prices have plummeted on renewed worries of a global recession.”
Hidden away near the end of the article is the unbelievable news that
“Earlier in Europe, markets were also badly hit by fears of recession – the UK’s FTSE 100 fell 7.16%, Germany’s Dax shed 6.49% and France’s Cac 40 lost 6.82%.”
How can this be, the FTSE down 7.16% but the BBC have been telling me for some days now that Gordon Brown single-handedly saved the UK economy with his brave and decisive action. Most peculiar and how odd that the BBC story concerns the US economy not the US economy; one might almost think that the BBC was trying to protect Gordon Brown’s reputation…
In which case, Tom, he was being damned insensitve to the very many licence payers who are deeply angry and concerned by the growing Islamisation of this country and the kowtowing to it by Leftists.
Being ‘sensitive’ should apply all-round, not just to the group that likes to fly aeroplanes through innocent people’s office windows.
Tom, I believe that Father Ted was considered so offensive to Irish Catholics by RTE that it had to be made in the UK where we didn’t give a damn. Good thing too as it is one of the funniest sit-coms of all time
Can you imagine a) the BBC commissioning “Imam Ted” a hilarious romp around the malfeasance and tepid faith of a group of three incompetent imams stranded by the Grand Mufti in a mosque on the Isle of Sheppy. or b) its reaction to such a crass and insensitive attack religious identity.
“Piers Morgan on climate change”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7671092.stm
Next week Lord Haw Haw on brain-surgery
How is it the BBC likes everyone who has either been sacked or disgraced.
What does Piers Morgan know about “climate change” – BBC I’ve got a good idea why don’t you ask an expert on the subject? Why not try this man
“I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Much more qualified than Piers don’t you think?
Being ‘sensitive’ should apply all-round, not just to the group that likes to fly aeroplanes through innocent people’s office windows.
GCooper | 15.10.08 – 8:41 pm |
Excatly, if the BBC would come clean and say exactly why they are sensitive on Islam. Then at least they would be honest. The only reason they are sensitive is because they don’t want planes flying into Broadcasting house.
“But he didn’t say the BBC wouldn’t take the piss out of the RoP. He just said there were good grounds for being a touch more sensitive than you might be with the Father Ted audience”
Tom | 15.10.08 – 8:26 pm |
Yes, notwithstanding the horrors perpetrated by the Christian Brothers in Eire, poor old father Ted isn’t likely to self detonate in the BBC canteen, now, is he.
I await a comedy, satire, drama, documentary even, that seriously lampoons, criticises, eludes to the medieval beliefs of the RoP.
Yes, we had undercover mosque. On channel 4. That’s about it.
Even a balanced news report would be refreshing. Mind you we’ve had fun tonight with reports of the trial of the Exeter bomber.
Has anyone else seen South West regional BBC?
I had to laugh. For some reason they thought it was good telly to have the reporter Justin Leigh retrace the bomber’s journey from Plymouth to Exeter. Fascinating.
But I did have to laugh (again) though. They kept saying that the poor chap with asberger syndrome and a low IQ had been radicalised. Like ‘You’ve been Tango-ed!”
He did look a tad orange.
Pity the terror squad couldn’t do anything about the Algerian illegal immigrant who was largely responsible. And they didn’t mention the ethnicity of the restaurant owners either.
NotaSheep: I posted on this as well. The US stock market is going down the pan again (about 600 points down so far today) yet no mention of this being the fault of the snot gobbler. Why not? Yesterday the BBC were masturbating over images of Broon the saviour.
How can the BBC give him the credit for the markets going up but not down?
“Arctic sea ice now 28.7% higher than this date last year – still rallying”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
I can’t seem to be able to find Harribin and Blacks piece on this at the BBC.
So the Candians have voted and kept the Conservative party in power.
(Shame about that bBC picture show the other day which had the vast majority of voters saying they were going to vote liberal or Green. For some reason I cannot seem to be able to find it. I wonder if the bBC have removed it?)
Anyway Harper has been re-elected with his party gaining 16 seats and the liberals losing 20 seats.The bBC still manages to refer to this as a set back for Harper.
With this in mind I wonder how the bBC will report on the American Election if Obama loses.
Tom:
“No, I think Thompson’s point is that the overwhelming majority of UK Christians are white, while the overwhelming majority of UK Muslims are not.”
But the idea is that Islam is the identity of an ethnic minority isn’t it. I don’t see why the treatment should be different for christian ethnic groups just because majority of whites are christian.
err..
“majority of christians are white” instead of “majority of whites are christian”
Apparnetly the cost of petrol is going down – “Has this anything to do with Mr Brown”? asked the bimbo presenter. “No” said the petrol retailers spokesman. “Maddona is going to divorce —-” says the presenter.
Indeed pounce – the “greens” have the world held to ransom – but when it comes to people actually voting for their hysteria – well…
“Green Party leader Elizabeth May failed in her bid to unseat Conservative Defense Minister Peter MacKay in Canadian elections Tuesday, dashing her party’s best hope of getting its first MP into the House.”
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQpG8joKv2I6IX719bGDwB3qv6CA
Jon: Don’t worry. The BBC will claim the fall in oil prices is down to the mucus muncher. They will probably start playing that bit where he went ot Saudi Arabia to plead for more oil.
All hail Gordon, All hail Gordon.
The FTSE is up one day, down the next. not a good barometer of anything. The big rise in unemployment however is. And it led the BBC’s news coverage all day; web, radio and TV.
Jon | 15.10.08 – 8:48 pm:
How is it the BBC likes everyone who has either been sacked or disgraced.
I commend you for your astute observation. So, given this undeniable aspect of the Beeb’s behaviour, how come then, that the BBC gives the disgraced former Conservative minister Neil Hamilton such sparse airtime, none of which is broadcast live, unlike, say, Gorgeous George Galloway?
Is there anyone out there in B-BBC land who has woken up and smelt the coffee, as the saying goes? Is there anyone who has kinda put two and two together and started to realise that the Hamilton affair is what the BBC fears most of all?
That is, the affair that brought down a democratically elected Conservative government, about which the evidence shows was fabricated by the Beeb’s favourite newspaper; and which thereafter the said newspaper supported with perjury and forgery? Evidence which the Beeb has censored for an entire decade, in gross defiance of its Royal Charter?
Sigh…..
Hamilton’s bit dull though, isn’t he. His wife less so.
Tom: Whatever this hopelessly mangled and tortured arrangement of words is, it is NOT Oxford English:
“What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.
This bodge leaves the meaning obscure and open to interpretation. However, he did not mention skin colour. That is something irrelevant that you have imported into it. Why do you assume that ethnic identity is “skin pigment”? We all have skin pigment, unless we have a condition such as albinism or vitiligo. We all have ethnicity of one kind or another.
If he meant that the English people do not have an ethnicity or identity, he is wrong. If he meant that people feel something different about their religion BECAUSE they are a MINORITY ethnic group (as opposed to the MAJORITY ethnic group) then we are immediately into another contentious assumption made by people like him who run the BBC and the government.
This is part and parcel of a set of assumptions including that Englishness and English culture do not count; indeed the extreme of this thinking is that the English and English culture do not even exist. Second, Christianity does not count and Christians’ sensibilities or feelings of outrage or insult do not count. Third, “they” (those funny-looking foregners) are not like us, you know. Oh, no; they are not people, as we are; we must treat them as NOT LIKE US. “It’s their culcha”, you know; their religion is SPESHUL (not like us, you know.) In fact, carry on like that and soon they are not really people at all. They ARE their religion. We of course are not and cannot be defined and confined in such a way. They are ETHNICS (sic), we are not; or they are SKIN PIGMENT, we are not, or they are a CULCHA, (we of course are not) or at best, a MINORITY, which naturally, we are not. Anything you like, so long as you do not treat them as PEOPLE LIKE US. We must have SPESHUL allowances and standards just for them. Can’t be asking them to put up with whatever is slung at us all by the vulgar medium that is television as run by the likes of Bodger Thompson. And this guy then has the nerve to say that they are not fully integrated. You bet, Mister. Thanks to people like you, they are not and never will be if you carry on the way you are going.
When he gets a peerage, as he probably will, unfortunately, he should take the title “Lord Mangler of English.”
Here’s a great example of why I hate the BBC. Failure to report the facts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7675191.stm
Which makes it look like the brit plod is doing a damn fine job and all is fine in the magic kingdom.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/14/darkmarket_sting/
Only it turns out it was those pro-active Americans doing the work all along.
How can it be right the story was reported MINUS the FBI sting operation bit?
If anyone doubts Zdarma Smith’s comment above, News Sniffer proves that the BBC did some massive revisions. Here’ a link to Versions 1 & 2, but you have to click through to Version 4 before they mention anything about the FBI. Pretty sloppy handling, BBC.
Fraudsters’ website shut in swoop
Did they only just find out who led the entire investigation? Surely the Serious Organised Crime Agency (I can’t take that name seriously) would have informed the BBC from the start.
GCooper | 15.10.08 – 12:51 am | #
I’m drawing comparisons as Martin felt the need to bring up Stonehenge – a site obviously pre-dating Islam significantly – as evidence that there was a similar level of development in Neolithic Europe as “anywhere else in the world”. I’m presuming here he meant at the time, otherwise it’s a rather meaningless statement. The sheer number of sites in the near east – exhibiting traits of complex society and inhabited millennia prior to Stonehenge’s existence • would seem put this claim into perspective. Stonehenge aside, British Neolithic sites of a similar date do little to support the idea of a comparative level of development, if not discredit it. I’m dealing with the evidence as a whole since cultures don’t work in isolation, and think it’s a cop out to say ‘but we don’t know’.
As for the ‘who really are the savages’ part, it seems it is others who are trying to play this, hence why I got involved. I have no time for people resorting to squabbling over the rights to claim the superiority of cultures that existed millennia ago, for their nationalistic ends. As I mentioned earlier, development doesn’t go in straight lines, for whatever reason (and arguably Islam has played a role in this in the later NE) • so there’s no need to get so defensive.
Martin | 15.10.08 – 1:06 am |
“You can argue the same for the people in South America that built those huge outlines of animals and their own pyramids. That must have been quite an undertaking.
And not a Muslim in sight.
The fact you can’t work that out says it all.”
Have you any other nuggets of wisdom Martin? Your powers of analysis I feel could really shake up academia • maybe you should write a book.