Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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Gorbal Mick has finally decided to put his Labour bias to one side and force Ed Balls to allow a debate on Baby P.
Now then Mr Brown, if Mr Martin can manage to behave like a member of society, why not try it yourself?.
The BBC were in contempt of court today. They published the name of the mother of Baby P, presumably through incompetence, rather than malice.
The proof is still in Google:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&q=site%3Anews.bbc.co.uk+police+believed+willingness&meta=
Result number 1: the name of the mother, protected by court order.
ID I!
This is an interesting item from today’s Register about the BBC’s scrupulously balanced coverage of the government’s plans for ID cards, which I thought readers might like to share:
Auntie Beeb’s amazing, evolving, ID card stories
Rewriting history as it happens…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/200…ries_cant_wait/
Thanks.
Bad link, sorry. Hope this one works:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/bbc_stories_cant_wait/
To people on other threads who are linking to videos concerning the common purpose phenomenon.
I watched Brian Gerrish all the way through, and although some of his points were interesting, he lost credibility as soon as he said ‘Muslims are the new Jews’.
When the MEP with the white ‘tashe (playing devil’s advocate) asked Gerrish what in particular has convinced him that common purpose has evil intentions, as far as I could see his reply was only that their financial practices contravened charitable status law.
Which didn’t really answer the question for me.
So although common purpose made me think of those misguided cultish ‘training’ groups that were popular in the eighties, I was puzzled as to how Gerrish could leap from uncovering this mysterious ‘black hole for public money’, straight to the conclusion that they are trying to KILL us.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3664960863576873594&ei=6QQgSdyFKKbU2gLe2IX8Bg&q=common+purpose
Please explain; I am baffled.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/11/us_election_success.html#commentsanchor
————————————–
2. At 6:51pm on 17 Nov 2008, emamel wrote:
Several points;
1 since when is a rise from 6million to 9.2million a 65% rise? It is a 53% rise. Mr Hermann has clearly got his statistical knowledge from a Florida college.
2 Half these people were from the UK, and half from abroad (27% from the US). A proud boast from a man who seems to forget that the BBC is paid for by UK license payers, not from international or american people.
3 People were actually only interested in the vote by state and the victory speech. Or in simple terms, the facts and statistics thart mattered, not the bland rhetoric, not the pollsters, not the unending interviews with political party lobbyists ‘bigging up’ their candidate. What a shame the whole BBC didn’t just stick to announcing the results as they came in, and the post result speeches by Obama and McCain. Instead, they swamped our airwaves for weeks with rubbish, that your own report now clearly shows went unwatched and disregarded by the paying public.
Your blog clearly shows that the BBC should have had 1 person in a studio in London announcing the results. Instead, almost every BBC reporter was flown to the States, at the license payers cost, put into hotels and fed in fancy restaurants. With the whole sports team having had freebies in China this Summer, is it surprising that we (who pay for the BBC) get no real news coverage, no world affairs, no mainstream sport and constant repeats.
I’m afraid have to agree with Sue.
While I am quite convinced that Common Purpose is a cult-like organisation exerting undue influence over the body politic, the more hysterical charges levelled against it harm the case, rather than enhance it.
“Sue | 17.11.08 – 8:39 pm ”
Civil Contingencies Act.
its all there in plain sight.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2004/ukpga_20040036_en_3#pt2-l1g22
“provide for or enable the requisition or confiscation of property (with or without compensation)”
demolition of private property
“prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, movement to or from a specified place”
sealed off ghetto
“require, or enable the requirement of, movement to or from a specified place”
concentration camp
“prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, assemblies of specified kinds, at specified places or at specified times”
banning of protest in response to the above
“enable the Defence Council to authorise the deployment of Her Majesty’s armed forces”
and this week on Spooks its the turn of those evil evil capitalist bankers now.
and – ho ho ho – MI5 are involved in investigating what those city bankers are up to.
stirring stuff.
james bond has been reduced to investigating bank transactions…
Surprise, surprise! -More political propaganda from the BBC, as it gives over a whole page of its News website for a ‘Viewpoint’ from that common species – a lobbyist from the ‘GREENIES’ so that he can reinforce the BBC’s own ‘Green’ lobby campaigning which it indulges at BBC licencepayers’ expense for 365 days a year already. So add a Mr. Atkins of the European Union subsidised lobby, Friends of the Earth to the BBC’s unending list of biased man-made global warmist activists.
On the same page is the BBC’s propaganda to force the EU to ban traditional lightbulbs, in ‘The Green Room’ section.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7730449.stm
Whilst Common Purpose may be wierd cultists at least they don’t effect my life.
If I hear Six Sigma mentioned one more time at work I may have to kill someone.
archduke – oops. Assuming you watched to the end, you’ll know now that the banker turns out to be a commie in cahoots with the russian mafia.
Upon reading this story about the Czech Workers Party attacking gypsies and being fascinated with just how often they manage to stuff the phrases “far-right” or “right wing” in there, I was curious to see if there was any imbalance in the frequency with which the BBC uses the phrase “far-right” as opposed to “far-left.”
While it is unlikely that the two phrases would be used exactly the same number of times as each other, a huge discrepancy would of course suggest some form of possible bias.
Let’s see now. A search for “far-left”…
http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=ns&q=%22far-left%22
A modest 13 pages of results.
Now let’s try the same search with “far-right”
http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=ns&q=%22far-right%22
A stunning (count ’em) 59 pages of results!
Which means that the BBC uses the phrase “far-right” almost FIVE times more than the phrase “far-left.”
Does anyone really suggest that this is a reflection of the ideological balance across the globe?
Hardly stupid taxing Saudi warship – hmm… stupid BBC
archduke – oops. Assuming you watched to the end, you’ll know now that the banker turns out to be a commie in cahoots with the russian mafia.
mikewineliberal | 17.11.08 – 10:07 pm
yeah – some sort of Marxist mole hell bent on bringing down capitalism.
a beeboids wet dream fantasy…
Scrap licence fees; create BBC in Need instead
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/18/do1802.xml
Why is the BBC obsessed with stealing my internal organs? Yet again the BBC advocates openly for “presumed consent” in favour or organ donation, irrespective of the rejection of this – again – by the medical establishment.
The BBC has a long track record of trying to impose this ghoulish practice. At least quarterly there is some story about this, usually telling me how great things are in Spain, where the state gets its’ hands on your liver at the drop of a sombrero. But the highlight was some years ago when it suspended its’ “peoples’ law” initiative on Radio 4. This provided a fascinating insight into the BBC mindset when their favoured law, to be sponsored by a lib-dem (enforced theft of organs by the state) was not supported by the public. Horror of horrors the public overwhelmingly wanted the right to defend themselves from burglars a la Tony Martin.
Regularly thereafter the BBC has been running propaganda and news coverage to soften public opinion. Fortunately it seems to be having no effect.
Can anybody guess why they are so obsessed with organ harvesting? Why are they actively engaged over a long period of time in attempting to get legislation imposed on an unwilling public?
The BBC, vegetarians but still happy to take your liver.
.
I briefly had BBC Breakfast News on this morning, discussing the fact that inflation figures due out today are expected to fall under 5%. “Now that the cost of living has started to fall…” was the phrase used by the commentator.
I don’t believe they are that economically illiterate. A fall in the rate of inflation does not mean the cost of living is falling – it means it is not going up as fast as before. But perhaps it makes Gordon look better to pretend it is.
BBC omits to run reports which are critical of Labour’s failure to control mass immigration to the UK, such as this one:
‘Daily Mail’ report:
“France sparks diplomatic row after cancelling flight deporting England-bound illegal immigrants ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1086764/France-sparks-diplomatic-row-cancelling-flight-deporting-England-bound-illegal-immigrants.html
The BBC doesn’t see it as a problem for British people, and is probably more concerned witbh the ‘human rights’ of such Afghans, (or Somail pirates) trying to get here.
For those with access to BBC iPlayer: NIALL FERGUSON’s brilliant LSE public lecture on ‘The Ascent of Money’ is available here, and links to his new book, and 6-part Channel 4 TV series of the same title (Mondays, 8 pm GMT):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fztdr/Briefings_Niall_Ferguson_Lecture/
The US elections ended ages ago, but the BBC Obama lifestyle continues. Current Have Your Say Topic:
Could you live without your BlackBerry?
President-elect Barack Obama may have to give up his BlackBerry before taking office. Officials have said it is unlikely that Obama will carry his BlackBerry, as his private email conversations could face scrutiny under US public records laws.
BlackBerry users, like Obama, who constantly check their devices, often call themselves ‘Crackberry addicts’.
Psychology professor Lawrence Welkowitz of Keene State University in New Hampshire says discarding his BlackBerry will leave Obama ‘free to think and act’.
Other topic on HYS:
What is Barack Obama’s greatest challenge now?
Hmm, giving up his blackberry? Extracting all those Beeboids stuck up his backside?
‘Telegraph’:
‘BBC bosses face grilling over Sachsgate’
(By Charlotte Bailey):
[Opening extract]:
“Director general Mark Thompson and Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, will face tough questioning over Jonathan Ross’s three-year £18 million salary in the wake of the Andrew Sachs obscene calls scandal.
“A powerful group of MPs will ask the pair whether millions of pounds of licence fee payers’ money should be spent on paying one individual.
“As part of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s inquiry into the BBC’s commercial activities, Mr Thompson and Sir Michael will also be asked about the steps that have been taken to improve editorial standards in the wake of the Radio 2 affair.
“Mr Thompson and Sir Michael had always been scheduled to give evidence before the committee today as part of its inquiry into the BBC’s commercial activities.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3475086/BBC-bosses-face-grilling-over-Sachsgate.html
‘Telegraph’:
‘Scrap licence fees; create BBC in Need instead’
By Gill Hornby:
[Opening extract]:
“Behind the front page hullabaloo about Ross, Brand and swearing, rumbles another anti-BBC rebellion – quieter, but potentially more deadly.
“Given the success of Children in Need, perhaps we should develop a BBC funding system along the same lines
There is a merry band of licence-fee refuseniks who are flaunting their civil disobedience, but who are not yet being prosecuted.
“It’s an interesting situation. Like a naughty child with its pocket money, the corporation obviously does not want to draw attention to the fact that it even has a licence fee.
“It certainly doesn’t want to have to take anybody vaguely high-profile or respectable to court. Suddenly, after years of being sidelined for the youth market, the viewer who actually pays is enjoying a teensy bit of power.
“But has that had any effect on programming? Of course not, not yet. The BBC’s coverage of the financial crisis has chimed the gleeful note that only the index-linked, pensioned employees of a public service can.”(Gill Hornby).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/18/do1802.xml
It’s all too much | 18.11.08 – 6:43 am
Yes, the beeb + Gordon Brown have a weird fixation about presumed consent.
Yesterday evening on the PM prog there was an expert who proved conclusively that presumed consent actually made things worse.
Citing various examples including Spain, the expert showed how presumed consent had led to lower availability of organs and had been first introduce, then scrapped in some countries.
The feature then ended with Gordo, with the apparent blessing of the beeboid, threatening to introduce presumed consent if other remedies proved slow!
Cognitive dissonance or what?
Sometimes it’s salutary to pay a visit to medialens.
No, seriously.
We must all challenge our preconceptions.
Anyhow, the folks over at medialens are incandescent about the appalling pro-Obamessiah bias in media coverage in recent weeks.
Yup, the see the Guardian-BBC axis as being really thoroughly biased. News coverage, they claim has been corrupted by fawning editorialising.
And the victim of all this biased reporting and pro-Obama hoopla?
Ralph Nader!
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php
Great video of Obama voters responding to questions about the candidates on polling day. All the respondents display similar levels of ignorance, but I’ve picked out the answers of Adarsha, the young woman with the homemade Obama T-shirt, because of her answer to the final question:
Q. Which party currently controls Congress?
A: Uhhh… currently, like? I don’t know actually.
Q: What do you think of Barney Frank?
A: I’ve no idea who that is.
Q: Nancy Pelosi?
A: She’s pretty cool.
Q: Harry Reid?
A: I don’t know who that is.
Q: Which candidate has a pregnant teenage daughter?
A: Sarah Palin.
[The one answer she knows]
Q: Which candidate said they can see Russia from their house?
A: That woman Sarah Palin.
(She didn’t. Tina Fey said this when impersonating Palin. Palin said: “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”)
Q: Which candidate claimed to have campaigned in 57 states?
A: 57? I don’t know. Sarah Palin?
Q: Which won their first election by getting their three opponents from their own party kicked off the ballot?
A: I dunno, that sounds like something Sarah Palin would do, but I dunno.
Q: Which said that Obama would be tested in his first six months as President by an international crisis?
A: Er, I dunno.
Q: What do you think of Bill Ayers?
A: Bill Ayers? I dunno.
Q: Who do you like to get your news from?
A: I don’t have a TV so I read the New York Times, but BBC I guess if I watch TV, or like CNN maybe.
If I had relied on the BBC for my election news I think I’d have been just as ignorant of the facts as Adarsha, and just as ready to assume the worst about Sarah Palin.
Don’t know what happened to the link in the above – here’s the correct one:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8
GeorgeR 10:20
What makes Gill Hornby’s article in today’s Telegraph calling for the scrapping of the licence fee remarkable, is that she is normally pure New Labour ( wife of author Robert Harris, sister of Nick Hornby).
Some weeks ago she wrote an article about the time Mandelson came to stay with her and hubby for 6 weeks,
( didn’t say if he was invited or not ) and he was a “poppet”.
Guess she might feel differently when she gets a phone call from him about her going “off message” on the BBC !
bit of a worry about her judgement if she thinks that reptile is a “poppet”–lets have a whip round + get Rentakil to sort the little vermin out
Interesting “Yesterday in Parliament ” on the Toady programme today.
They did actually broadcast an M. P.s direct question to GB asking why he thought the pound had slumped. The pathetic reply was that currencies move relative to each other and not long ago the dollar was weak! DC did provide a quote from GB’s past along the lines that “the value of a currency is the reflection of the market’s opinion of the economy” but not surprisingly that was not broadcast but one by GB quoting MT was included.
frankos 12:52
That raises the question, what sort of bait would Rentokil use to catch Mandelson ?
Any thoughts from anyone ?
BBC’s Ms. M. KEARNEY, Radio 4 ‘World at One’, still in ‘Get Osborne’ mode, interviewed 3 political party spokespersons on economy:- 1.)Darling, Labour; 2.)Clegg, Lib Dems. 3.)Osborne, Tories.
Which ONE, and, of course, only one of the three above, did Ms.Kearney:
a.) continually interrupt?
b.) not allow to comment on Clegg’s anti-Tory remarks?
c.)ask about his detailed party spending plans for 2010?
d.) ask whether his job was safe.
No prizes.
Andrew Neil getting lazy? On Daily Politics he didn’t appreciate that the Conservatives were cautioning against additional government borrowing because of the size of the current budget deficit rather than the total level of government debt. He was aggressively interupting Philip Hammond pointing out that many countries had a worse debt position – saying “France, US, Italy, want me to name more? Italy is above 100% of GDP)” Hammond had to calm him down by telling him that the UK had the worst deficit.
Does anyone in the broadcast media understand that lower inflation doesn’t mean lower prices? It means prices not going up so fast at the moment. Being the mouthpiece for the government the media (both BBC and Sky) want people to believe it means prices going down. Just saw Alistair Darling saying, unchallenged, it means prices are going down.
lower inflation doesn’t mean lower prices… It means prices not going up so fast
If prices don’t go up so fast, prices are lower (than they otherwise would be).
will 2:06
You are quite right about Andrew Neil on today’s Daily Politics. He , of all people , should have known the difference between government borrowing and a deficit !
But, he was quite aggresive with Philip Hammond, who for me is one of the Tories’ stars. He has a background in science, has actually run his own business and worked in Africa. He should be Chancellor. Guess that is why the BBC dislike him.
Next topic, on what the BBC like to call “the show”, was a piece on Sharia Law in the UK. Report from a black female beeboid who I had not seen before ( where do they find them ? ). Not clear if she was a muslim herself. But the treatment was predictably sympathetic. The guest to comment was left-wing “human rights” lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson. He actually was reasonably sensible , much to the surprise of Anita Whatshername, who seems to be even more left-wing than him.
Final piece was a faux humerous bit about MPs’ ignorance of science. In reality a very serious matter. Unfortunately, Philip Hammond had left the studio by then !
Daily Politics is one of the BBC’s better efforts, but what has happened to Andrew Neil ? He is sleeping with the enemy !
Anonymous 3:23
But they are still higher than they were !
BBC reporting Somali pirates (i.e., Islamic Somali pirates).
Along with most MSM, the BBC does not see a relevant Islamic dimension to this report:
“Seized tanker off Somalia”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7735507.stm
And the 12-page Chatham House research paper, while very informative, rather ignores the Islamic connection:
“Piracy in Somalia”
(by Roger Middleton, Oct. 2008)
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/665/
But a recent BBC report from Somalia gives a few clues:
“Somali pirates living the high life”
[Extract]:
“Pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told the BBC Somali Service at the time: ‘Everybody is happy. We were firing guns to celebrate Eid.'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7650415.stm
(Note: the BBC’s reporting from Somalia is partly done by the BBC World Service and the related BBC Somali Service; most of the BBC staff involved seem to be Islamic.)
‘Shariah finance watch’ has this:
“it is worth mentioning that the media seems determined to ignore the Jihadist connection to the piracy. Fortunately, some time ago, the good folks at the Terror Finance Blog made the connection…”
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/
‘Terror Finance Blog’:
“Somali Pirates: Islamist and Jihadist Influences and Funding”
[Extract, apparently, and ironically, implicating the SAUDIS]:
“To some extent, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states remain the most significant
source of external funds flowing to Somalia’s Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahidin and other radical
Islamist movements in the Horn of Africa through Dubai. In most cases, ‘charitable
foundations” linked to radical Islam in Somalia, as well as a careful examination of the radical
Islamic funding, indicate a continuing flow of funds directly from official Saudi organizations
to these Horn of Africa terror organisations.”
http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2008/10/somali-pirates.html
Mr Obama does enjoy one advantage – he is running ahead in the polls among college-educated voters…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7701922.stm
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/
‘Telegraph’
“Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand phone message a ‘serious editorial lapse’ BBC director-general admits.”
“Lewd phone messages from Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were a ‘very serious editorial lapse’, the BBC’s director-general said today.”
Report and short video clip here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3477137/Jonathan-Ross-and-Russell-Brand-phone-message-a-serious-editorial-lapse-BBC-director-general-admits.html
DB | 18.11.08 – 11:23 am |
Sad but true. The foolish woman wouldn’t have known any of that from reading the New York Times, either, although it’s slightly more honest than the BBC.
But that’s why the NY Times is dying. It’s a shell of its former self, and only a year after moving into their fancy new $1 billion+ building (which they co-own with their development partner, and built on land which they legally stole from the local owners via eminent domain, and now lease from the state agency for way below market price, on top of other tax breaks). They narrowed width of the printed page, and cut the amount of separate sections at least by half, while raising the price by 50% in the last four years. I expect it to go to the tabloid layout next.
The Times deserves it, both for being dishonest in its reporting and editorial policies, and almost more so for failing to keep up with the new media. They could learn a thing or two from the Guardian or the Telegraph in that department. I expect (and hope) that it will at some point get bought out and retooled. The company is hemorrhaging money, so something has to happen soon.
If the BBC wasn’t legally clamped to the public teat, it might face a similar fate if left to its own devices. They couldn’t possibly support their current budget on advertising and digital subscription services.
Can anyone point me to the story on the BBC website regarding Lord Ahmed being charged over the fatal crash he was involved in on Christmas Day 2007 – whilst sending a text message.
I mean, they must be covering it, right?
George R: I thought the calls were a “prank”. Why? Because that’s what the BBC told me at the time.
Tories cut Labour spending pledge
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7735113.stm
I am amplifying a comment I read on Robinsons blog – number 36. Well spotted that person
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2008/11/tories_free_of.html#commentsanchor
the comment is to the effect that the word “Cut” is entirely inappropriate in this headline – to quote
“Do you think you are really clever getting ‘tory and cut’ next to each other in these titles?
Is the only chance left for brown/labour for the BBC to try to indulge in a second rate, sub Paul Daniels, Derren Brown ‘word plant’ tricks.
Pathetic.”
This is the sort of pervasive deliberate manipulative bias in the BBC.
Tories – evil bastards “cutting” services. Need to make sure that meme is thoroughly re-enforced.
Anonymous 3.23
The cost of living has not gone down (as being reported on BBC and Sky). The rate of increase in the cost of living has decreased to 4.2 percent.
Susan 6:23
Yes, and most normal people know that their own cost of living is going up, not down.
But, if you tell a big lie often enough …….
If the cost of living is going down then our council taxes should go down.
And the Tellytax.
“The cost of living has not gone down (as being reported on BBC and Sky). The rate of increase in the cost of living has decreased to 4.2 percent.”
Actually susan franklin, the cost of living has gone down, relative to last month. The inflation rate quoted is always measured relative to the cost of a basket of goods one year previously. What you can say is that the rate of price rises between October 2007 to October 2008 is less than the rate of price rises from September 2007 to September 2008. But the cost of living, as measured by the cost of a basket of goods in the CPI inflation measure, has still gone down in oct 08 relative to sept 08. Expect a worse cost of living pay review at the end of the year from your employer as a consequence!
And if you don’t believe me, look at the indexed CPI (all prices measured relative to 2005). In Oct 08 it is 110.0, in sep 08 it was 110.3. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cpi1108.pdf
Prices have fallen. We’re temporarily better off (relative to Sep 08). But with Labour and the BBC at the helm, it won’t last for long!
Original Robin 7:14
Are you suggesting that the government and its lickspittles won’t “share the pain ” with the rest of us ?
The Economist 7:54
The cost of living has not gone down. It is still higher than last month, even on faked government figures.
Do you understand the difference between absolute and relative values ?