General BBC-related comment thread!

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.

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221 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. dick says:

    You can use analysis until it becomes paralysis – a beeboid is fucked – ace. I don’t care if she’d been spit roasted by two overpaid presenters as long as her name is mud and she doesn’t work again.

       0 likes

  2. Tom says:

    Richard Lancaster | 12.11.08 – 5:22 pm

    Could you please explain how a white person can be culpable for expressing thoughts/feelings/prejudices about Asians to another white person?

    It’s not as if Mason had insulted a particular individual by saying ‘I don’t want one of your sort’ or anything like that.

    In the absence of anyone to be hurt or insulted, I cannot see what barrier there is to free speech here.

    And there’s no point leaning on David Preiser as a crutch. He lives in the US, where race relations, racial sensitivities and social mores in regard to race are quite different.

    In this country we make certain specific things unlawful. Everything else is permitted.

    It seems to me you want us to move towards a society where everything is proscribed unless it’s specifically allowed.

    No thank you.

    I find the BBC’s belief that it has any right to sack people for what they may say in private phone calls unacceptable.

    Where does it end?

    Would the BBC feel justified in taking exception to what’s said in a married couple’s pillow talk?

       0 likes

  3. Original Robin says:

    Richard Lancaster,

    You still haven`t addressed the issue of what offensive behaviour is allowable by the BBC and what isn`t.

    And why its wrong for the ordinary Joes to beoffended by what the Beeb has done,even if they did not see or hear of it first hand, and not for the Beeboids over a different piece of offensiveness.

       0 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    TPO | 12.11.08 – 5:13 pm |

    Good catch. Mr. Brown is absolutely awful at the PMQ game, isn’t he? “This requires action, and we have taken action and action is going to be taken. We have acted immediately, and we will continue to take action, because action is important.” Eric Idle is writing his lines these days, I guess.

    It’s hard work making Call Me Dave look good. Seriously, though, Mr. Brown’s answer seems almost heartless in comparison to his opponent’s actual question (and statement) about the sad incident.

    The BBC did an excellent party political editing job, though. As far as BBC viewers know, Mr. Brown got the last word, and the “right” one. I’m sure the BBC editor responsible would take the line of defense that the bit about making it a partisan issue didn’t add to the discussion. Of course, that would be denying the fact that Mr. Brown didn’t answer the question, and Call Me Dave was really trying to press him on it. But the BBC pretended that was the case with this edit. I bet the editor who did this actually believes that, too. It’s probably not a deliberate attempt to support Mr. Brown: it’s a display of innate partisan sympathy on behalf of the editor.

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  5. George R says:

    ‘Bristol Evening Post’ article, headed:

    “Sacked BBC presenter Sam Mason: I’m no racist”

    This ‘Bristol Evening Post’ piece is not
    ‘even-handed’ in its report, pitching on one side: the BBC sackers, plus Batook Pandya, of the ‘Support Against Racist Incidents’ group, plus local Lib Dem councillor, Abdul Malik; and on the other side: Ms. Mason, supported by Susan Osman, of BBC News 24.

    “Sacked BBC presenter Sam Mason:’I’m no racist'”

    http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Sam-Mason-m-racist/article-469659-detail/article.html

       0 likes

  6. another anonymous says:

    Sammy didn’t want an Asian driver because they overcharge.
    The turban reference was just plain dim witted. She mean’t Muslim. Having lived in Bristol for eighteen years without a car, I’ve probably seen just one taxi driver wearing a turban.

    There’s an old lady next door to me who does her shopping every Friday at Sainsbury’s. She always uses the same cab firm for the return trip. She says that two or three times a year she get’s over-charged by a South Asian driver, it’s always a South Asian Muslim driver!

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  7. Va$ili says:

    Turbangate: Here writ large are the objectives of the BBC and Cultural Marxism and it’s corollary Multiculturalism.

    1. Promote obscenity, vulgarity and aggression as entertainment (“Wossygate”, Weakest Link). The demoralising effects of this are clear to see in that the Radio 1 listening zombie youth didn’t think there was anything wrong with that prank call.

    2. Destroy ethnic solidarity under the guise of “tolerance”. Anyone can see that this “tolerance” is rarely reciprocated nor is it forced on “minorities” as a good social worker will tell an abused (Asian) child.

    3. Promote corrupting lifestyles, promiscuity, drug usage. These serve to demoralise and destroy spiritual sense; you end up with stupid emotionally distant androids i.e. David Cameron. These decadents have experienced artificial states off the scale of normal experience and are corrupted permanently. Like Gollum and his “Precious Ring” they are turned into shadows are their former selves. All has resolved into shades of grey, there is no love, no light, zero affect.

    Britain today is people farm. It denizens fodder for the bureaucratic dictatorship of the EU.

       0 likes

  8. Ross says:

    Richard Lancaster:

    “Asking for a female driver is justifiable given that men are statistically liable to be more of a threat. You explain what threat wearing a turban poses.”

    Have a read of this:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5029390.stm

    Now, you don’t need to be terribly switched on to realise that this story – remarkable as it hails from the BBC itself – has myriad implications. But I expect, from reading above, that you will either see through them or deny them altogether.

    It IS, I agree, racist to refuse an Asian taxi driver. But I’d be interested what conclusions you’re willing to draw from this news story.

       0 likes

  9. Atlas shrugged says:

    In the absents of any clear, universal, simple, or indeed in anyway useful definition of what left and certainly right wing actually means. Perhaps it would be better if contributors stopped using these terms whenever possible.

    While the left and right sides of the snake slither from side to side the states authoritarian snake moves straight for its prey. Which you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out, is YOU.

       0 likes

  10. Ross says:

    Left: freedom = ‘freedom from poverty’
    Right: freedom = ‘freedom from the state’

    Left: Government = panacea to cure ills
    Right: Government = necessary evil

    I don’t think these have gone completely but with DC talking of raising taxes, Brown lowering them and even the libdems advocating the biggest tax cuts, I agree, there is only enough for a fag paper to put between.

    Oh for the days of Thatcher and Kinnock when I was growing up. You knew what was what then!

       0 likes

  11. Peter says:

    Just wonderin’, and making no comment on the ‘isms or ‘ists that may be suggested or not…

    If this call was recorded, was it made known to her? It is my understanding that it is not legal to fail to provide such advice, much less go on to broadcast it to other parties.

    If it was, and she persisted in a rather special assembly of words in this newly enlightened society we are privileged to inhabit, then she is truly one of the talents whose market rates I have heard so much about.

       0 likes

  12. Martin says:

    Interesting to compare and contract the Brown arse licking by the BBC over baby P to that of Tom Bradbury on ITV who went for Brown and painted him in a very poor light.

    Brown is a one eyed jock twat who just can’t answer a straight question. The BBC might be backing this c**t to win the next election, but they are backing the wrong horse. Brown has show he’s just as fucking useless as most of us knew.

       0 likes

  13. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Here’s another useless, biased piece by a thoughtless sub-editor trying to churn something out on a story the BBC would rather not touch.

    Profile: Nir Barkat

    Jerusalem’s new mayor, Nir Barkat, is the great hope of the city’s secular Jewish community.

    In BBCSpeak, Conservative and/or Orthodox = Bad, when discussing Jews or Christians. When discussing Mohammedans, it equals “Normal, and we should respect that”.

    Secular = Good, full stop. No nuances.

    There isn’t a single sentence in the article that has anything to do with the headline. The only possible support would be a sentence about the previous mayor being an ultra-Orthodox (Boo!) rabbi, who “was widely perceived to have favoured” his ultra-Orthodox buddies. Since anything to do with “highly religious ultra-Orthodox” people (as opposed to the ultra-Orthodox who aren’t so religious) is bad, having a secular (Hooray!) mayor must be a good thing. And what are/were the ramifications of favoring them? The implication is that it was bad, and denying them will be good.

    Apparently, aside from silly things like job shortages and an increased cost of living, non-religious residents are also worried about the expansion of conservative ultra-Orthodox communities (Boo!) into new neighborhoods. Yeah, I’m sure it’s the other Jews who are concerned, not the Palestinians (or the BBC) who are concerned that Jews moving into their territory.

    The rest of the article is even more useless in discussing how Barkat is going to be the savior for secular Jews (Hooray!). He does have at least one “controversial” position: he thinks Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel (Boo!), and that he supported the idea of Jews moving into other areas of the city (Boo!). Hello, BBC sub-editor, it’s not secular Jews who are interested in settling all areas of Jerusalem.

    Further, his New Spirit organization works with students in Jerusalem, but what kind of students does everyone think are concentrated there? They’re mostly not students of animal husbandry or accounting.

    So basically there’s nothing in this article at all to suggest how Barkat might be the savior for Jerusalem’s secular Jews (Hooray!), other than the fact that he’s not Orthodox (Boo!).

    Pointless, and biased.

       0 likes

  14. deegee says:

    Is there really such a problem of crime by taxi drivers against their passengers?

    I don’t mean driving from Oxford to London via Ipswich to jack up the meter.

    I suspect there is a much greater problem of crime by passengers against taxi drivers.

    All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ’em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won’t even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me.
    Travis Bickle, who didn’t work for the BBC.

       0 likes

  15. Jon says:

    Peter Wilson | 12.11.08 – 1:37 pm |

    You can see it here

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RtP8YMuKRO0&feature=channel

       0 likes

  16. Ross says:

    deegee – obvious given that the average single taxi driver must take thousands upon thousands of passengers in his/her career.

    People (including taxi passengers), en masse, are a***holes. This is why Marxist thinking is only a superb *idea* despite the BBC’s best contrary efforts.

    🙂

       0 likes

  17. It's all too much says:

    David Preiser 5:52

    I couldn’t agree with you more. The editing of PMQ’s by the BBC is little short of scandalous. There is a clear intent to give the PM the last word, notice how it is on a lower ‘meaningful’ tone. The BBC is a foul and partisan organisation and is very clearly working to protect Labour. The Labour spin bastards and their BBC fellow travelers are portraying this as evil Tory party political points scoring. The richly scented irony (the heady vapour of Bullshit)escapes them. The Labour party as good krypto Marxists sees EVERY action as a political one, every statement is turned to their political advantage – this is the one fundamental idological constant of Zanulabour, and the arch exponants are the vile Mandlesson and the repellent Campbell.

    I despair, I really do – why cannot the BBC just once in a while try a bit of impartiality and not constantly and uncritically spin and advocate for the powers that be.

       0 likes

  18. Va$ili says:

    In the middle of all this is the 14 year old daughter of Mason who didn’t want to take a taxi driven by men she found frightening.

    Mason was sacked by a male boss.

    Male’s have crowded into this forum to justify her sacking.

    You have no empathy. That’s what ideology does to you. It makes you into a terrorist. What has taken place is arguably sexist terrorism.

       0 likes

  19. bodo says:

    Martin 6.47pm.

    Yep. It’s getting increasingly regular. Watch a story on ITV news and then on the BBC. You could easily think they were covering two entirely separate events such is the difference in their reporting – especially stories with a political content that might reflect badly on the government.

       0 likes

  20. David Preiser (USA) says:

    It’s all too much | 12.11.08 – 7:42 pm |

    To add to the Brown Love at the BBC, Nick Robinson’s weak attempt to support Labour at any cost has raised quite a few eyebrows in the comments. Looks like I’m not the only one who thought Mr. Brown appeared heartless and messed it up:

    PMQs row over Baby P

    Robinson even tries to cover for Mr. Brown by backing him up on pointing the partisan finger at Call Me Dave.

    He’s getting a kicking in the comments. You can tell his heart really isn’t into it (I’ve always felt that he’s mostly just pro-Labour and not a FOG), making it all the more difficult to find straws to grasp. His “Things are moving fast,” update doesn’t detract much from that impression. If anything it’s a slight hint that Robinson isn’t a FOG, but he’s encouraged that Ed Balls can take over running Children’s Services if anything questionable comes up. So Mr. Brown is still taking the “right actions”!

    I have to say, though, the combination of this and that hack video edit seems to indicate at least a hint of bias in the BBC’s political coverage.

       0 likes

  21. Jon says:

    David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 12.11.08 – 8:32 pm

    You can see Robinson in full “kick the tory” mode here
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7724210.stm
    “The Daily Politics’ analysis of Prime Minister’s Questions with Nick Robinson, Charles Kennedy and Jon Cruddas.”

    Notice no “Tory” is invited – to give him his due I thought Jon Cruddas (on what little he could say – because of Nick Robinsons full blown cynical rant – was quite good.

       0 likes

  22. Verity says:

    Whatever your thoughts on Islam and on this despatcher, this woman was paying for a service and she is entitled to specify what she wants.

    In addition, when it became an issue, all she had to do to calm the raging insanity at the BBC was to say that she belongs to a religious sect that believes turbans are the work of the devil. Her daughter could not ride in a cab with a man wearing a forbidden item.

    As far as the BBC was concerned, they wouldn’t have dared utter a peep.

       0 likes

  23. Kill the Beeb says:

    dick:
    “You can use analysis until it becomes paralysis – a beeboid is fucked – ace. I don’t care if she’d been spit roasted by two overpaid presenters as long as her name is mud and she doesn’t work again.”

    Brilliantly put. Why fight over the scraps of the issue? A Beeboid has been sacked – isn’t that something to celebrate. Who cares if the BBC’s multi-cultural fascism has spilled out into it’s own ranks and she’s been treated unfairly – she’s BBC blood and deserves nothing more than ill treatment.

    Interestingly enough, my ex-girlfriend had a muslim driver ask her out for a drink while she was in the back of his cab. Now I don’t think that a cab driver should be asking women out – especially a muslim cab driver – because I’m sure that somewhere in his idiotic religion it’s a sin.

    Either way, I now have something on him. So when I next get into this prick’s cab, I will taunt him mercilessly about his poxy religion and his hypocrisy and there’s nothing he can do about it. He will have to suffer my spite and I am immensley looking forward to it.

       0 likes

  24. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Jon | 12.11.08 – 8:59 pm |

    Thanks for that. How nice of Nick Robinson to suggest that Cameron shouldn’t really have used the tragic death of a child as a political distraction from the real story about the Bank of England. That’s so slimy because he’s essentially saying that the leader of the opposition shouldn’t even be asking the PM about such an issue. It was the day after the verdict, yet if Cameron mentions it, it’s a cynical distraction?

    They’re all talking about how those “inside the bubble” aren’t always aware of the feelings of the public, and Robinson shows just how tightly he’s sealed inside.

    Having said that, of course the BBC and defenders of the indefensible will dismiss any charges of lack of balance here because Cruddas sort of took Cameron’s side. So there can’t possibly be any reason to have an actual Tory present, and Charles Kennedy’s “me, too” input was somehow supposed to be useful. Nobody actually bothered to defend Call Me Dave’s (justifiable, in my view) anger about Mr. Brown dodging the question with doublespeak. Saying Tony Blair would have handled it better is not the same thing as saying that Cameron was right to be pissed off about it, and right to press him on it. Instead, they all even tried to say how wrong Cameron was for using his second and third questions to ask Mr. Brown to answer the first one.

    Oh, but all the long faces show their hearts are in the right place, so never mind.

       0 likes

  25. Martin says:

    bodo: Yep. It’s really funny to watch wankers like Robinson, Peston and Easton arse lick the fat one eyed one then turn over and watch Tom Bradbury and Daisy McAndrew tear into Nu Liebour.

       0 likes

  26. Martin says:

    David Preiser (USA): Yes and the BBC itself made the story the main radio phone in point on Radio 5 that had tons of comments from the public.

    The BBC also got a lot of email that was anti Broon but as usual they hide it away. Simon Mayo commented on it today after PMQ’s.

    Of course the twats at the BBC would love Cameron to talk about the economy as the BBC thinks this is going to get the fat one eyed one re-elected. Well they are wrong if they believe that.

    Cameron needs to stop listening to the tits in his own party and lsiten to the public.

    The Tories made a big mistake backing the Brown bail out plan (a worldwide failure and not even mentioned by the BBC anymore) as most people in the public think the bansk should get their own act together, especially as the banks are putting UP charges. Brown trashed our economy and the idea that he’s the man to sort it out is a joke.

    If Cameron had demanded the Police and the serious fraud office go into the city of London and arrest all the directors of the failing banks, seize their personal assets, Porche’s, Country retreats and thrown them in prison whilst they are investigated, Cameron would be 50 points ahead of Brown now.

    After all, if we don’t pay our taxes on time that’s what happens to us (or if we don’t pay the TV tax) so why should the twats that run the banks get bailed out for free?

    The Tories need to start smashing Brown, if the BBC side with Brown, the public will see through it.

       0 likes

  27. It's all too much says:

    I have just been reading the 12 versions of BBC’s the clash at pmq’s story on news sniffer. Amazing, They have managed to distort Cruddas’s statement that this doesn’t show the labor party in a good light to one that Does… Oh dear if the quote isn’t in line with the narrative – just change it so that it fits

    http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/172710/diff/3/4

    v3 “Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas told BBC Two’s Daily Politics the case of Baby P was “beyond politics” adding: “David Cameron was absolutely right to raise it.”

    V4 (60 mins later) “Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas told BBC Two’s Daily Politics the case of Baby P was “beyond politics” adding that Mr Brown’s answers did “shine a positive light” on his party.”

    v6 (50 mins later) “Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas told BBC Two’s Daily Politics the case of Baby P was “beyond politics” adding that Mr Brown’s answers did not “shine a positive light” on his party.”

    v7 (30 mins later)Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas told BBC Two’s Daily Politics the case of Baby P was “beyond politics”. He said Labour backbenchers had been expecting questions on the economy and as a result “the response was not helpful, it did not shine a positive light on my own party – that is part of the culture within the House of Commons chamber”

       0 likes

  28. It's all too much says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7724210.stm

    Just watch this – the “source” of the above article. None of the versions actually quote what Cruddas said!

       0 likes

  29. It's all too much says:

    Guess what – too many anti govt comments on DHYS? Easy, it vanishes. Where has the “your reaction to PMQ’s” gone?

    And Robinson has the gall to accuse the Conservative party of cynicism!

       0 likes

  30. moonbat nibbler says:

    Remember all the beeboid nonsense about Jersey? DV reported on it:

    http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/search/label/Jersey

    The comments were very lively. According to “Barry” David Vance was a “nut” for bringing up the topic.

    Well whaddya know:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/jersey/7724622.stm
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7267632.stm
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/jersey/7723860.stm

    It only required a little common sense to realise that most of the media hysteria was idiotic. Take my comment on a silly BBC report about milk teeth:
    http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1579093120013182397/#396168

    and what do the BBC, who spent taxpayers money scaremongering about this now say:

    Police later revealed that the teeth appeared to have been from young children and had been “shed naturally”

    Wow, no shit Sherlock.

    A query for any lurking beeboids. Why does it take an unpaid prole five seconds to realise something is BS while highly paid ‘journalists’ at the BBC write reams about such nonsense? Why didn’t any of these ‘journalists’ ask very simple questions to the police that would have shown the ‘evidence’ to have been very weak at the time? Why are single mothers being imprisoned so this Daily Mirror-style journalism can continue?

       0 likes

  31. Martin says:

    What a bunch of shits the BBC are. ITV news lead with the Baby P case but the BBC wank on about the economy yet again. WE know it’s going down the pan thanks to the fat one eyed one BBC.

    The BBC know the fat one eyed one fucked up today so the BBC try to play the whole thing down and blame Cameron who is at least more in touch with public opinion on this story than the Scottish Cyclops.

    Then of course Ed Balls (and he talks a load of that) admits that they ARE going to launch an inquiry, just what Cameron asked for and got shouted down at.

    And now watching the BBC 10PM news the BBC play down the fat twats stupid words.

       0 likes

  32. Jon says:

    David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 12.11.08 – 9:34 pm |

    What the episode does show is that Brown cannot answer anything that has not been rehearsed beforehand – watching PMQs it was evident that Brown responded to Cameron’s questions with the same answer each time.

       0 likes

  33. Intense says:

    Do you all remember Alan Johnson?

    You know the herotic BBC kidnap victim.

    Hmmmm….

    IS THIS TRUE? I wonder?

       0 likes

  34. Richard Lancaster says:

    Could you please explain how a white person can be culpable for expressing thoughts/feelings/prejudices about Asians to another white person?

    In the absence of anyone to be hurt or insulted, I cannot see what barrier there is to free speech here.

    In this country we make certain specific things unlawful. Everything else is permitted.
    Tom | 12.11.08 – 5:35 pm | #

    Are you this naive in real life, does this really need explaining? If it transpired that say, Gordon Brown, had said to a colleague that he preferred to work with people who didn’t wear kippah’s, it would be permitted. It would be highly untenable however for him to retain his position. Like it or not Ms Mason was in the public eye, and the transcript was passed on to the BBC by The Sun. With free speech comes responsibility.

       0 likes

  35. Richard Lancaster says:

    It IS, I agree, racist to refuse an Asian taxi driver. But I’d be interested what conclusions you’re willing to draw from this news story.
    Ross | 12.11.08 – 6:24 pm | #

    Hi Ross,

    I’m sorry, could you be more specific? What do you want me to say, that Somalis are failing in society by most measures and probably doing even worse than Bangladeshis? Don’t get in a somali taxi?

       0 likes

  36. Verity says:

    If she was paying for a service, she is perfectly entitled, as a free Brit (said with irony) to name the terms of her purchase. She didn’t want anyone wearing a turban. She doesn’t have to explain why. She is the customer and she is dictating the terms of her purchase. I cannot see how the thought fascists can find fault with this arrangement.

    Her mistake was, she went into explanation overdrive.

       0 likes

  37. David says:

    Do the BBC not understand how square brackets work, and how vital they are to PMQs today?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7725415.stm

    They keep repeating the Brown quote of: “I do regret making a party political issue of this”, literally. The problem is that this makes it look like Brown is apologising for something, whereas what he was actually doing was blaming Cameron: ” “I do regret [him] making a party political issue of this.”

       0 likes

  38. Tom says:

    Just looked at BBC News “most viewed” and “Navy shoots dead pirate supects” rather than “Navy vessel fired apon – attackers killed” or similar – I hope the BBC corporate yacht gets hijacked and they start bleating about Navy rescue….

    scum – BBC News sub editors that is

       0 likes

  39. GCooper says:

    Richard Lancaster is a regular BBC apologist here.

    Is it too much to expect him to clamber down from his current hobby horse and address some of the other clear and transparent examples of BBC bias about which people have been posting?

       0 likes

  40. wally says:

    BBC as usual plays Lord Haw Haw for the religion that is aggressively hostile towards every other culture but its own.
    The BBC response to a particularly barbaric murder of a young catholic girl is to treat it as of purely local interest and to essentially suppress the fact that it was murder by a Muslim whose motives were, at least in part, connected to his Islamic outlook: disapproval of his flatmate going out with an infidel girl, hostility to what he considered her sexually provocative behaviour .

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7723399.stm

    Compare this with the Yorkshire Post report:

    http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Muslim-killed-Catholic-girl-in.4684216.jp

    The case features in Jihadwatch today.

       0 likes

  41. David Preiser (USA) says:

    wally | 13.11.08 – 4:18 am |

    Once Mark Thompson publicly admitted that the BBC treats Mohammedans with kid gloves, all bets were off. The report you cite is a classic example of deliberately hiding any connection to Islam.

    How many times have we been told by Beeboids, or defenders of the indefensible, that we all just hate Muslims? Instead of defending the reports, instead they accuse us of just wanting the BBC to mention the religion only when Muslims commit crimes, then tell us that the BBC mentions religion only when it’s pertinent to the crime.

    In this case, Islam is the motive stated by the guilty party. Of course, the BBC still won’t report it, and all Beeboids and defenders of the indefensible have been lying all along.

    Yet in this story, for example, the BBC has no problem telling you that evangelical Christianity was a probable motive for murder. They’ll force a story change in a TV drama so that Muslims are no longer killing for their religion, but replace them with Christians who will.

    Even as recently as last year, Tony Blair said that he kept his own religious beliefs close to the vest, for fear of being called a nutter. Would any Muslim ever had the same concern?

    Once again, some religions are more equal than others at the BBC. Can all BBC employees and defenders of the indefensible please stop pretending that the BBC doesn’t do everything they can to protect Islam, but will not show even a modicum of respect for Christianity or Judaism?

    NB the usual suspects: Songs of Praise and The Vicar of Dibley don’t make up for this. Not for a moment.

       0 likes

  42. Jack Hughes says:

    David Preiser,

    We’ll know when muslims are integrated when we see a muslim version of Rabbi Lionel Blue and see a BBC sitcom called “The Imam of Dudley”.

    Probably not in 2008.

       0 likes

  43. Andy says:

    “We’ll know when muslims are integrated when….”

    They kneel down facing Mecca five times a day singing “Oy Veh, Maria”.

    (Thanks to Ronnie Corbett.)

       0 likes

  44. Cockney says:

    “Even as recently as last year, Tony Blair said that he kept his own religious beliefs close to the vest, for fear of being called a nutter. Would any Muslim ever had the same concern?”

    I don’t think a devout Muslim would have a hope in hell of being PM, so yes if a Muslim wanted the job he’d have to keep it undercover. Basically Brits are just very very spooked by stongly held religious beliefs.

    But I certainly agree that the Beeb would never make jokes about a Muslim being a nutter in the same way that Blair was ridiculed on its more “satirical” output for his God bothering.

    btw I don’t think the Beeb treat Christianity and Judaism the same at all. There’s no satire or comedy directed at Judaism as a religion in the same way that Christianity is targetted. The difference is that whilst the Beeb seem to be extremely able to separate criticism of Israel from fear of offending Jews they find it trickier to separate fear of offending Muslims and criticism of the actions, religiously inspited or otherwise, of declared Islamic states.

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  45. Peter says:

    This blog can make you ‘sensitive’ to editorial choices, I guess.

    I was/am watching a piece about some luvvie do to celebrate Prince Charles’ birthday.

    Now I was not there and don’t know if its totality was/is will be screened to confirm, but one has to wonder at the decision to feature one Robin Williams and a ‘joke’ (not one of his best, IMHO) about… Sarah Palin. Hmn, topical.

    I guess none about any in the limelight closer to home. Probably not a time to make cheap party political points.

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  46. Jack Hughes says:

    I followed up the “is Alan Johnston a muslim ?” story higher up.

    It was a bit unclear – he said “I guess I’m not a muslim”. Does this mean he is not a muslim – or was it just a legalistic Bill-Clinton-style form of weasel words to deceive us ?

    Anyway the more interesting point was the Muslim News Awards for Excellence.

    Every year these feature politicos – Gordo this year – blah-blah-ing about the contribution that muslims make to British society.

    For me the ceremony underlined the opposite. Just how tiny the contribution of muslims is.

    Where are the Nobel Prize winners ? The musicians ? The top scientists ? The writers ? The entrepreneurs ? The inventors ? The explorers ?

    The best they come up with is a politico, a coupla doctors, and a journo who’s not sure if he’s a muslim.

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  47. Robin says:

    A very good posting on how BBC bias operates is on the EU Referendum blog at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/11/it-isnt-news-until-we-say-so.html

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  48. Peter says:

    Nice to see the BBC even-handed in its support of all manner of programming.

    Seems a bunch of folk are going to sit in a jungle for a while for our ‘entertainment’.

    All in luvviedom are agreed, apparently, that obviously you/one/they do not succeed without behaving badly.

    Meanwhile in the real word, and without pause or hint of irony, they then go on to the next topic to gush from the teleprompter about how awful it is that people are… behaving badly.

    And I have to co-fund this?

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  49. George R says:

    That fits: a friendly interview by Ms. S. Montague on BBC ‘Today’ with an American hoaxer, who described his anti-Palin, anti-McCain hoaxes during the election.

    Montague ends the interview with a friendly sort of nudge-nudge, wink-wink , and her ‘many thanks’ to the hoaxer, Mirvish. Many thanks for what?: helping us win our Democrat election. And yes, we at the BBC were happy to use your hoax material during the election.

    The BBC – having an anti-Republican laugh: it’s what we do.

    (Go to 8:40 am here):

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7726000/7726126.stm

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