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.
Daily politics is still on Osborne-Rothschild.
Despite gov. Announcing that it has not reported crime figures correctly for over a decade. The media is in cover up mode over this but especially the beeb. Beeb telling us overall crime down 1% and sky says down 6%, so good to see that Spliffs figures are now foolproof
Anyway, they barely even mention Mandelson.
Personally I’d absolve the Daily Politics from any accusation of bias. Largely thanks to one man – Andrew Neil. He gives politicians of every hue a tough time.
Indeed, the DP is the only BBC show where I have seen or heard the Mandleson story examined in any detail. BTW Spectator has a new angle on this story here –
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2539376/osborne-stumbles-but-is-there-a-bigger-story-about-mandelson.thtml
If any Beeboid’s are reading this blog – I’d love them to explain their double-standards.
Two stabbed in Israeli settlement
A Palestinian man has stabbed an Israeli policeman and a civilian in an attack in a Jewish settlement to the south of Jerusalem, police say.
The attacker was detained after being shot and injured by police in the settlement of Gilo.
The wounded civilian is said to be in a critical condition.
The “wounded civilian” is actually dead.
Let’s not forget the obligatory “context”:
Gilo is built on West Bank land captured by Israel in 1967, and has been a target for attacks by Palestinian militants in the past.
Gilo is not a “settlement”; it is part of Jerusalem, unless you’re the BBC or a Palestinian who believes that all of Israel is “Palestine” and therefore “occupied”.
continued…
Arab man shot after killing Jewish man, stabbing officer in J’lem
A 60-year-old man died of his wounds Thursday morning after being stabbed in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood by an Arab assailant.
Israeli dies, another hurt after stabbed by Palestinian in Jerusalem
A Palestinian was shot and neutralized after stabbing an Israeli policeman and a 60-year-old passerby in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo on Thursday.
The BBC: The whole of Jerusalem is a “Jewish settlement” (considered illegal under international law, but Israel denies this).
BBC ‘Question Time’ asks us: Who would you like to appear on the ‘Question Time’ panel?
Answer: Labour Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas.
(BBC ‘Question Time’ response: Mr. Woolas’s place on the panel, which was planned and announced by the BBC for tonight’s programme, is to be taken by Labour’s Mr. Hattersley.)
“Woolas pulled from Question Time”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7685776.stm
OR,
for more precise information, on the role of the Home Office minister, Ms. J. Smith, in banning Mr. Woolas’s appearance on ‘Question Time’ turn to the ‘Telegraph’:
“Jacqui Smith bars Phil Woolas from BBC Question Time”
[Extract]:
“Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, made the decision after consultation with Number Ten.
“‘This was not a punishment. It was for damage limitation’ a source told the Daily Mail.
“Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: ‘If the Government do not have confidence in their immigration minister, how can they expect the public to trust their ability to deliver the reform we sorely need?'”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3244351/Jacqui-Smith-bars-Phil-Woolas-from-BBC-Question-Time.html
ALSO, ‘Daily Mail’:
“Gaffe-prone Woolas pulled from Question Time as he predicts the split of Church and State ‘within 50 years'”
[Extract]:
“Jacqui Smith sidelined Mr Woolas as it emerged that he had predicted the disestablishment of the Church of England within 50 years.
“His contentious views on the splitting of Church and State – at odds with Government policy – followed controversial remarks on immigration and asylum.
“On Saturday, Mr Woolas suggested the population of Britain could be capped at 70million, only to backtrack 24 hours later.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079673/Gaffe-prone-Woolas-pulled-Question-Time-predicts-split-Church-State-50-years.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilo
Some land on which Gilo was built was owned by Jewish institutions prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, although more than 2,700 dunams of land were allegedly confiscated from Beit Jala, Beit Safafa and Sharafat.[8][9] Many consider Gilo illegal under International Law.[citation needed]
A CNN memorandum to its staff stating that “We refer to Gilo as a ‘Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem’… We don’t refer to it as a settlement” drew criticism from Palestinians and media watch groups.
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2008/10/an-out-of-step.html
I was listening today to Radio 3’s generally excellent Words & Music programme. The show is unpresented and alternates the written word and mostly classical music. This one was themed Berlin – they played JFK’s Ich Bein speech followed by a BBC audio from Checkpoint Charlie on the day the wall came down – all very uplifting stuff.
Then they went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like playing Obama’s speech from Berlin (apparently it was ‘important’ – oh really!) and followed that with the excellently parented but fairly dull Rufus Wainwright singing ‘I’m so tired of you, America’.
The BBC has long been in love with Mandy. However, it is a love that dare not speak its name.
BBC-W has given up reporting the markets and exchange rates I see!
It seems Browns gamble hasnt been the roaring success that the BBC were busy telling us it was.
Gordon: That wanker Skinner is such a tool. I’d love to be an MP for the day and sit in ‘his seat’.
If he wanted me moved the camp twat would have to make me move.
BBC Political Editor, Steve Mawhinney trying to explain why the BBC hasn’t taken up the Mandelson story (see link below)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/10/storm_over_corfu.html
Alas the comments are not going so well for Steve. Bless….
“If he wanted me moved the camp twat would have to make me move.”
camp twat though he may be he was a miner for 20 years – i know who my money would be on…
Cockney,
I saw him once at the miners soccial club I used to go to, hard bastard and not one to cross lightly,was the message du jour!
Denis Skinner ran for election years ago saying that he’d retire once he’d reached 65 like the normal working man does. Seems that he’s preferred to keep his taxpayer-funded pay and perks rather than keep his word.
When is a crime not a crime?
Apparently when it is administratively convenient
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/
In a week that saw the BBC fully exposed as a New Labour mouth-piece it shocked me that is topped by this. Thois is the most blatant bit of New-lab damage control I have ever seen. It is so bas as to be almost unbelievable. It was probably dictated by a new-lab political advisor, and taken down verbatim by the BBC.
This is an utterly huge, REAL, story and is getting the swept under the carpet treatment
“It is an almighty embarrassment and will give ammunition to those who argue that the crime figures have been fiddled. But today’s statistical fiasco does not demonstrate that serious crime is soaring whatever you may read in the papers. If anything, serious violence in England and Wales is probably stable or even falling.”
Unbelievable. Unbe-fu*king-lievable
This HAS to be a direct quote from the Labour Party sin machine.
How do they know? What is the basis of measurement. On average all crime may be falling – because they took out millions of crimes such as shoplifting and made them offenses covered by a fining method. Of course the average rate will fall but I am interested in accurate reporting of data.
Vital importance
1) This data forms the basis of policy formation and the allocation of my tax money depends on this as does my safety
2) This is absolute proof that the new-lab managerialism is based on management of the data and perception rather than reality. Spin rather than substance.
3) If we are unsure of the basic data how can we depend on anything related to it or derived from it? This is pretty much like depending on safety critical engineering calculations based on the assumption that Pi is 4
The Home office is a complete mess and is beyond repair. The BBC would be well advised to stir up a shi* Storm about this rather than non stories about ‘what he said he did on his holidays’
Can The BBC get any worse
It’s all too much | 23.10.08 – 6:02 pm |
Even when Easton has the good grace to post an update about an attempted correction from one of his commenters, he just says, “What a mess!”.
That lump under Auntie’s rug is getting larger and larger by the day.
watch c4 news tonight!
just got this via Snowmail:
You thought knife crime and serious violent crime was on the increase? Channel 4 set up a commission to look into knife crime, chaired by Cherie Booth. But every time it challenged the government’s figures that suggested that knife crime, in particular, was in retreat, the answer would come back: no, it’s falling.
Not today, it isn’t. The government has had to admit that a large number of police authorities in England and Wales have been miscalculating the numbers, and offences that should have been identified as knife crime and serious violent crime have not been so identified.
It’s a shambles, and the home secretary is unwilling to come on and talk about it. Knife crime itself, indeed, is up 20 per cent. Tonight Simon Israel is on the case, and we’ll be asking how the government got it so wrong.
OT, but this is too amusing not to mention. The New York Times (the closest thing in the US to the BBC in terms of political worldview, the ability to determine the national narrative for a story, and self-denial) has posted a job offer for a stringer to cover stories in the South:
Times: “Do Not Submit Ideas Concerning Dog Fights, Cock Fights, Or The Confederate Flag”
This just shows what these people in the ivory tower think of the rest of the country. The parallels between this and the BBC abound, of course. Full job listing at the above link.
BBC equivalent: Do not submit ideas concerning fox hunting, culling badgers, or the BNP.
Did anyone hear that stupid twat of a BBC ‘correspondent’ on Radio 5 earleir today trying to explain (away) the ‘fiddled’ (my opinion) crime figures. His explanation – the figures had just been filed in the wrong ‘box’. Instead of being in the ‘Serious Violent Crime’ box they had been put in the ‘Other Crime’ box. So everythings OK serious violent crime isn’t higher just filed wrongly. What a total dickhead. I’ve never heard such bollocks in all my life.
meggoman: Do you mena Mark (Sheena) Easton? He was on 5 dead earlier on spouting the same shite.
Why is no one at the BBC asking WHAT OTHER CRIMES have been ‘misfiled’?
Cockney: Skinner is about as hard a piece of dog shit. Like Galloway and Prescott they are just gobby twats who are professional cowards when push comes to shove.
What the BBC New Labour propagandists fail to explain is , if violent crime is on the decrease, what is the reason for it ? Improved policing, increased sentences , more prison places ?
They really do think we are stupid.
In today’s article the headline about a Palestinian man stabbing an 86-year old Israeli civilian to death read: “Israeli Dies in Settlement Attack”.
The other day, when Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian teen about to throw a firebomb at them the headline read: “Israelis Kill Palestinian Youth”.
I wrote a letter to the BBC pointing out that I’ve yet to see a headline, even after suicide bombings, that reads “Palestinians Kill Israeli Youth.” In this case a mirror headline would have read “Palestinian Kills Israeli Senior.” In fact, that Israeli senior posed no threat whatsoever to that Palestinian and therefore was not remotely morally culpable for his own murder. However the BBC likes to attach moral culpability for his own murder when it comes to Jews by adding the irrelevant qualifier that he lives in a “settlement” (which, in fact, is a district of Jerusalem), but not when it comes to Palestinians, especially ones who are throwing firebombs and behaving as immediate lethal threats.
If that isn’t bias, I don’t know what is….
Ironically, if you go to the article below you can see in the sidebar right next to it the earlier headline “Israelis kill Palestinian youth”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7686047.stm
Labour’s Home Secretary, Ms. J.Smith, denies ‘gagging’ Immigration Minister, Mr. P. Woolas, although he remains ‘GAGGED’ and is prevented by our ‘Orwellian’ Government from appearing on the BBC’s Labour- friendly ‘Question Time’ tonight!
Who gagged Woolas?
(Tip for BBC: it wasn’t Osborne.)
“I haven’t gagged Woolas – Smith”
[Extract]:
“Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has denied “gagging” new immigration minister Phil Woolas after her department pulled him from BBC One’s Question Time.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7685776.stm
Archduke 6:43
What a contrast between Channel 4’s treatment and the BBC News at 6.
Jacqui Smith refused to be interviewed by Jon Snow and sent along some thick flunky with the improbable name of “Vernon Croaker”, described as “Police Minister” ( God help us ), who got a bit of a roasting from Jon Snow. Clearly, no-one in their right mind believes the Government lies on the crime figures.
So can we expect the BBC , fearlessly,to expose the lies ?
Grant | 23.10.08 – 7:02 pm |
What the BBC New Labour propagandists fail to explain is , if violent crime is on the decrease, what is the reason for it ? Improved policing, increased sentences , more prison places ?
Obviously the answer is the same as for anything else that isn’t negative: wonderful Labour policies. You don’t need to know the whys and wherefores – only that Labour is there to tuck you in at night and tell you a bedtime story.
and now we have New Liebore proposing to have sex and drugs education – FOR FIVE YEAR OLDS….
fucking perverts.
i hope they rot in hell…
correct me if i am wrong – but has anyone else noticed that not a single outlet of the british MSM has reported on the EU Blue card?
have a look at this google news search..
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=&q=eu+blue+card&btnG=Search+News
not a single british media outlet is listed.
instead , we have to head over to Ireland’s RTE to get some details:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1022/immigration.html
can somebody remind me what the 3,000 journalists at the BBC actually do?
archduke 7:53 pm
Yes; and the BBC misses this – but it is about the on-going mass immigration problem for the UK, which the UK Labour government doesn’t want aired:
“Riot police clear Calais migrant camps”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3246036/Riot-police-clear-Calais-migrant-camps.html
and in case you dont know what a blue card is …
“After 18 months of working with a Blue Card in one EU state, an immigrant would be allowed to move with his family to work in another EU state, but he or she would still have to apply for a new card there within a month of arrival.”
so there you have it. our immigration control will be policed by foreign states.
one would think that such a intrusion into our national sovereignity would merit a mention in the British MSM… but I guess Russian yachts, Mandy and Osbornes are FAR more important…
Even the Lib-Dems are fed up with the BBC’s pro-Labour bias on the financial crisis –
(Telegraph)
“BBC putting ‘favourable gloss’ on financial crisis, say Lib-Dems”:
[Extract]
“JEREMY HILL, the editor of the BBC’s business and economics unit, said the title ‘The Downturn’ had been chosen because Britain was not yet officially in a recession.
“Mr Hill was making his comments as he denied a report that BBC broadcasters had been banned from using the term ‘crisis’.
“He responded on his BBC blog on Thursday: ‘It’s reported today that the BBC has banned any reference to the term ‘crisis’. Er, no, we haven’t. It’s true that tomorrow we’re having a day devoted to taking the temperature of the economy around the UK and how it’s affecting people, which we’re calling ‘The Downturn’.”
…”But Jeremy Brown, the Lib Dems’ shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, replied: ‘The Prime Minister himself has conceded that Britain is in recession and that the economy will shrink.
“‘The BBC is a public service broadcaster and it should not seek to put a favourable gloss on what is a very bleak economic outlook.'”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3248603/BBC-putting-favourable-gloss-on-financial-crisis-say-Lib-Dems.html
David 7:45
Actually, I don’t fancy the thought of Jacqui Smith tucking me up in bed at night, thank you very much !
Justin Webb makes another light-hearted effort at inciting religious hatred:
Why poll number vary
Skip past his parroting of Leftstream US media about the latest polls, and read the second para about, what else, Gov. Palin’s religious associations.
I won’t bother reminding everyone how he summarily dismissed the fact that The Obamessiah spent 20 years attending a church where other, far more questionable religious beliefs were espoused.
i’ve come to the conclusion that its actually Obama who is the hawk when it comes to foreign policy.
remember his “bomb pakistan” gaffe?
and then we get this from joe biden:
“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html
note the phrase – “your influence within the community”?
obama , elected on a an wave of anti-war sentiment.. and yet, he goes to war with Iran in a pre-emptive strike.
is that what joe biden is inferring?
think about it for a minute – are the major figures in obama’s life all “peace and love” or are they serious militants?
bill ayers? militant. rev wright. militant…
i dont see much “peace and love” in obama’s background. i think moveon.org and others are being taken for a ride.
hence you get biden’s warning.
the more i think about it , the more i see obama’s campaign as Karl Rove’s bush campaign in reverse…
for bush – who was Yale educated, and learned how to fly a fighter jet from his national guard service – Rove had to make him connect with the redneck base.. thus you get the “dumb” bush stuff. the more the Dems shouted “dumbass” , the more the GOP base rallied to Bush.
Bush was no longer a Yale graduate – he was a redneck , chopping wood on his texas ranch. And the Dems fell for it, and Rove stood back and smirked.
I think the Obama crowd are doing the same. appealing to the moveon.org crowd and the leftists in the Dems, when Obama’s real intentions are quite different.
lets be honest here – obama could have easily postponed to 2012 to allow Hilary have a shot. instead he went against the clinton machine – and thats no mean feat… that machine is brutal.
and he won. that took guts and determination … i seriously dont think he’s a hippy. he’ll surprise us… just like Reagan did.
archduke | 23.10.08 – 9:40 pm |
Hey, maybe that’s why The Obamessiah wants to seize all that money from oil companies, anyone making over 250K, and everyone’s personal 401K retirement funds – to pay for another war.
Even assuming that he withdraws all troops from Iraq on Feb. 1 (which isn’t the tale his ex-foreign policy adviser was telling out of school), I don’t buy for a minute that he’ll do anything other than look the other way when Israel bombs Iran’s nuke facility.
Nobody who apologizes for saying that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is going to lift a finger against Iran.
Biden is an idiot. His intention with that foolish statement was to boost his own foreign policy bona fides, and to assure everyone that The Obamessiah will be up to the challenge. The whole point of that was his closer: The Obmessiah has “steel in his spine”. It’s just an attempt to convince doubters that it’s okay to have an anti-this war novice in the White House.
This was simply Sen. Biden’s usual failure to engage the brain before opening the mouth.
Archduke
It’s my understanding that there are two types of leftie. The socialist / communist type, and the soft liberal lefty.
Now the former are usually hard nuts and are not afraid to mix it up a bit (Soviet Union were hardly a bunch of peacenicks), whereas the latter are more of the sandle wearing limp wristed hippie crowd who run away from fights. It doesn’t take a genius to know which kind of leftie Obama is given that he pals around with Ayers, a former terrorist with communist ideals. So in many ways, he isn’t what the BBC and what the MSM all hope he’ll be (a soft liberal lefty like they all are), he’ll be something quite different I think. Afterall, as you say, it takes a tough nut to crack the Clinton machine, and for me, a very tough kind of man to come from his background to be within 11 days of being the President of the United States.
He’ll be as hawkish as McCain I’m sure when it’s required. Much to the disappontment of the MSM and the BBC. The change Obama keeps speaking of, is socialism in the US for 4 years.
Won’t hear this on the Beeb.
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/The-Prime-Minister39s-wife-the.4620661.jp
Labour in Glenrothes…
“There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won’t be my problem.”
Stuck-record 10:21
Those of us North of the Border will be most amused that Sarah Brown’s walkabout was in Cardenden and that she is quoted as saying her husband is “very fond of Cardenden”.
Whatever the qualities the good folk there have, they are not renowned for their intellectual qualities. Also, I doubt if Sarah understood a word they said to her !
Mrs Brown seems quite inoffensive and has obviously been shoe-horned into this campaign. She doesn’t appear to be a raging harpy like the previous “first Woman”. Why has no one on the BBC pointed out that the sup ream leader doesn’t use his family as props (unlike the toxic Tories) as they are “people”.
BBC fully integrated in New labour hypocrisy
Bought my first Poppy today.
(I usually purchase a few every year in which to put a couple of quid into the box everytime)
Anyway my post is about how many articles the BBC will push out about the evil nature of the red Poppy and the beauty of the white one.
BBC World News America stoking race hatred again. Just now, two consecutive segments by Gavin Hewitt and Katty Kay from Florida and Indiana, discussing the only possible reason The Obamessiah can lose: racism.
No politics, no discussion of his association with Marxists, religious racists, or his openly redistributionist policies. Now I know why the BBC has sent an additional 100 people over here to cover the election. They need to find as many older white people as possible to finger their neighbors as racists.
According to both these reports, racial hatred is the only possible reason McCain can win. If he does, then the BBC will have primed the British people to hate my country even more.
This is the result of all that endless US election coverage and analysis. Well done, BBC. How proud they must be back at Bush House.
Now Mark Urban on BBC World Propaganda that The Obamessiah is the candidate with the ability to repair the US’s relationship with the rest of the world. While McCain may have the political conviction and experience to be a good leader, he is “less palatable to us foreigners”.
My personal political convictions are irrelevant here. There can be no denying what he just said. This is not impartial, or even journalism. This is pure, unadulterated opinion. A BBC reporter just told us on air that McCain is not the correct choice.
Get bent, BBC.
Toady is exited at the Nu skills secretary announcing a whopping 98 million training package for training the unemployed English workers, its a British jobs for British workers theme only this time its English jobs for er EU workers as both are fully entitled to take up any training posts availible!
But Toady seem to have ‘forgotten’ that under equality laws ANYONE who is resident in England is elligible for the training posts!
The paltry 98million will actually train about ONE THOUSAND workers and thats if ALL the money is used for its purpose, on Labour form half the money will be used for nonjob parasites!
The exiting measure starts to look like what it is, a pathetic piece of dishonest spin, unemployment will start to rise by a thousand a month and could go as high as a thousand a week, what then? Those fake training places are a drop in the ocean!
British jobs for British workers becomes English jobs for EU workers and everyone else from everywhere else and because of the Nu equality laws native English will come LAST on the list!
The Toadies had a laugh about that one!
Phil Woolas on Toady trying to defend his ridiculous Nu non policy on immigration caps to 70 million that he admits he cannot keep and admits is not possible, the interview is then cut short, presumably on Woolas’ secret signal!
Woolas came on under the impression that he could reel off his lies without challenge and got stung very badly!
No wonder the interview was cut short!
Just where are nearly TEN MILLION more people going live and work? Where are the services going to come from? Out of Woolas’ arse?
The points system does not apply to real or fake relatives/fake wives/fake husbands/fake dependents of immigrants already here or asylum seekers or EU nationals or immigrants given EU resident status, so just who does this non policy apply to?
The Nu NuLabour immigration policy is just words, bullshit baffles brains eh? Even the allied and sympathetic Toady shredded the waffle of Woolas in less that 90 seconds, no wonder the interview was cut short!
The REAL story is that at least one and a half cities the size of LONDON will have to be built to accomodate the immigrants that NuLabour will encourage to settle here!
The Toady news headline of the grubby interview took all the government spin and condensed it, leaving out the highly damaging tripe uttered by Woolas, typical Toady eh?
Gerald Brown | 22.10.08 – 9:02 pm,
Congrats on your persistence. It’s a rare thing indeed for the BBC to uphold a complaint. Evidently you got through to one of very few people in the whole rotten organisation with a sense of journalistic ethics and responsibility.
I look forward to seeing how they handle it in their report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/ecu/index.shtml