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.
The Maximum Leader was just on BBC1’s Politics Show, bouncing softballs w/ that forgettable, mincing ‘journalist’ who used to report from Paris, and, of course, blaming the Great Satan again for everything: ”grossly irresponsible– I’m incredibly angry, blah blah blah.”
Squishy, awful, purest featherweight BBC.
Meanwhile, in the real world…Oops!… Batons, pepper gas and police charges in Iceland:
http://tinyurl.com/6rw86c
…now there goes a Nordic stereotype. UK’s turn next, only worse, much much worse. At least the Great Satan will leave you alone this time, and I do mean alone.
Time for Mr Maximum to sell more gold, perhaps, and for Hillary to share with you how she feels your pain.
Then on to an interview with a woman who’s husband does not let her show her face in public. Telling us that Islam absolutly does not allow forced marrages.
Whew! That’s a relief then.
Why doesn’t Miliband order effective naval action against Islamic Somali pirates, and why doesn’t the BBC take up the ‘Wall Street Journal’ piece, referred to in Melanie Phillips’ article:
“International lawyers should walk the plank” (Melanie Phillips)
[Extract]
.”.. a major reason this menace [Somali piracy] has got out of hand is the spineless response of Britain and other western nations which have tied up their own hands through international law and ‘human rights’ doctrine.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3031081/international-lawyers-should-walk-the-plank.thtml
Frederick Forsyth’s advice seems to fall on deaf ears:
“Time to tool up and take back our seas”
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/72287
Then on to an interview with a woman who’s husband does not let her show her face in public. Telling us that Islam absolutly does not allow forced marrages.
Ron Todd | 23.11.08 – 12:47 pm |
Someone better tell David Miliband, then.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/23/do2309.xml
“Every year hundreds of young British men and women undergo this sort of abuse, without ever coming to the attention of the authorities.
Some will find it hard to believe forced marriage can still take place. What makes a family choose to ignore the wishes of their child, or to value tradition or their own social standing above its happiness, welfare, safety and human rights?”
I wonder. Someone should tell David Miliband.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3501442/Diplomats-dash-to-rescue-15-year-old-British-girl-from-threat-of-forced-marriage-in-Pakistan.html
Someone should tell the BBC about that.
The BBC’s virtual daily propaganda for mass immigration into the UK -legal and illegal – continues.
Note how, in this particular BBC report, the phrase ‘ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS’ does not appear in relation to the Cardinal’s remarks, but only appears 8 lines from the end of the BBC report!:
“Make Immigrants legal – Cardinal”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7744556.stm
‘Sky News’:
“Immigration amnesty plan blasted”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Boris-Johnsons-Immigration-Amnesty-Plan-Blasted-By-Goverment/Article/200811415158824?lid=ARTICLE_15158824_BorisJohnsonsImmigrationAmnestyPlanBlastedByGoverment&lpos=searchresults
Did anyone see Kirsty Wark on BBC Friday’s Newsnight?
At the end of the programme she held up pages from the next days papers and read out the headlines. All went well until she got to the Guardian which had the Hazel Blears BNP headline, clear for all of us to see. Did she read it out? Of course not, she mumbled something about a photograph of some anonymous individual that was also on the page!
Talk about censorship!
Peter | Homepage | 23.11.08 – 8:33 am
Sorry if I was unclear.
I just meant that I don’t think we would be better off without an independent broadcaster. If only the British Broadcasting Corporation could somehow regain its reliability, impartiality and integrity.
I don’t ask this for my own enjoyment, but for other people whose ill-informed views I have to listen to knowing that they are shared by the majority.
I have cut down on my viewing and listening drastically, and feel a lot better for it. But if I step outside the house I tend to come up against the same old same old.
Most people just can’t be arsed to question what they’re told by the Beeb, other T.V. channels, the Guardian the Indy or the Sunday Times.
That’s why I push for improvement not abolition.
BBC report on Islamic convert, MIKAEEL JACKSON:
“Jackson expected to arrive in UK”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7744621.stm
‘Sun’ report:
“The way you Mecca me feel”
[Opening extract]:
“MICHAEL JACKSON has become a Muslim — and changed his name to MIKAEEL.
“The skint superstar, 50, donned Islamic garb to pledge allegiance to the Koran in a ceremony at a pal’s mansion in Los Angeles, ‘The Sun’ can reveal.
“Jacko sat on the floor wearing a tiny hat after an Imam was summoned to officiate — days before the singer is due to appear at London’s High Court where he is being sued by an Arab sheik.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article1954666.ece
Insider | 23.11.08 – 4:45 pm
Never mind. Kirsty Wark mumbles so much you can’t understandawordsheslurs.
There’s definitely a ‘groundswell of support’, ‘pressure building’ etc in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Anyone who reaches these shores from anywhere, the BBC wants you to be legal. BTW from the linked report of Cardinal Cormack Murphy-O’Connor backing the amnesty plan, there is this extract:
Perhaps the BBC and the Cardinal would inform us more about these ‘gifts’.
Royal Bank of Scotland small business pledge: the facts
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/richard_tyler/blog/2008/11/23/royal_bank_of_scotland_small_business_pledge_the_facts
‘The BBC is running the story on its main news channels…’
‘…The problem is that RBS’s pledge has more holes in it’
I ask, rhetorically, if the doubts expressed in the linked piece are reflected in the stories pumped out by the government mouthpie… er.. country’s favourite objective news dispenser.
Sadly, I have ceased to be terribly interested in what tales are spun by the national broadcaster.
To whitewineliberal and like-minded contributors, this is the distributed leaflet for which 13 people were arrested by Merseyside police. Is the content racist?
Click to access racism.pdf
I ask because you label anyone who opposes the open-door immigration policy as ‘racist’.
Note that they were released but one of the arrested is claiming that he was subjected to torture for refusing to give his name.
Allan@Oslo | 23.11.08 – 6:18 pm | #
It’s lovely that the BNP have been trying to rehabilitate their image, however I’m not entirely sure they aren’t still a bunch of racist thugs
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6X8QQwU00Jk
I think it’s quite sad that you sympathise with them and hope this is purely down to gross naivete.
Lancaster – they’re a legitimate political party – any crimes individuals commit, or the organisation itself should ofcourse be investigated by the proper authorities.
I don’t support communists but what the hell has that got to do with law?
I think it is quite sad that Richard Lancaster comes here and (in true Reith style) cherry-picks his issues.
Why not also address some of the manifest examples of BBC bias being exposed on other threads?
Or is the answer all too obvious?
This is what passes as “news” on BBC these days – low quality self absorbed crap and pro-Labour soft propaganda all rolled up together
Lord Mandelson has joked that he was “disappointed” at not being asked to join Strictly Come Dancing.
Earlier in the week, the business secretary hinted he would like to fill John Sergeant’s shoes, claiming to have watched “with a degree of envy”.
Dick the Prick | 23.11.08 – 7:34 pm | #
No, I agree entirely and think that vigilante style initimidation carried out by those groups such as the ANL are glaringly contradictory, counter-productive and anti-democratic. Individuals in a free society should be able to say what they want, bar incitement. The only restriction should be on the platforms they are afforded, and that it regulated by the public. This becomes more complicated when you look at whether they should be represented on a publicly funded broadcaster.
However, with freedom of speech comes responsibility. The past actions of the BNP leads me to conclude they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s difficult to comment on the leafletting case but it sounds like they shouldn’t have been arrested.
Richard Lancaster:
As it’s apparently pontification time:
The BBC do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
alan – “you label anyone who opposes the open-door immigration policy as ‘racist'”.
No, I label the bnp as racist. And they plainly are.
MWL
While some elements of the BNP will be racist, I think you’d be doing a lot of people who were formerly Old Labour supporters but have now given up on them and moved over the BNP a disservice by also calling them racist too.
The way the BNP have been treated is almost straight out of 1984. There are many people ignorant of everything about the BNP beyond hearing the word ‘racist’ mentioned everytime it comes up, either on tv, radio or in print. Ergo, the connection is ingrained and made, whether its true or not. Yes, some elements of the BNP are racist. But all of them? Are all muslims would be terrorists? Of course not. Same thing with the BNP.
from the “they really can’t help themselves, can they” department
opening sequence of “survivors” on bbc 1 (about a virus that wipes out the population) has a brief shot of Muslims praying in a mosque.
now, you might think “bioterrorism” as part of the plot.. but its not
http://www.bbc.co.uk/survivors/about.shtml
and so , its in the realm of “gratuitous reference to islam where none is needed”
‘Telegraph’ report:
“Nato forces kill senior Taliban commander Mullah Asad”
“Nato forces have killed a senior Taliban commander who led up to 100 fighters and was responsible for numerous roadside bomb attacks in a British-held region of Afghanistan.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/3507147/Nato-forces-kill-senior-Taliban-commander-Mullah-Asad.html
The BBC report on the above story awaited (after the weekend break from the war, perhaps);look out for title:
“ONE CIVILIAN BRUTALLY KILLED BY WEST (’24 alleged militants may have been de-activated’)”.
re the BNP… i find it curious that a British natonalist party would be so vilified over here.
and yet in the British government we have an Irish Nationalist party – as in Sinn Fein in Stormont.
and for that matter , we also have exclusively sectarian parties such as the Unionist ones.
and i dont suppose an Essex lad would be too welcome in the SNP or Plaid Cymru either.
lots of contradictions all round when you start to think about it.
(of course the BBC never points this out.. of course it wont)
Aren’t the Labour Party racist by letting in all and sundry with no thought of the consequence thereby screwing people and communities? Oh no, that’s not racist, just bloody stupid – but anyone stating enough is not afforded the same high handed, home made, ah I give up.
Dick the Prick
Yes, the BBC gives the impression that only whites can be ‘racist’:
“Caucasophobia – the Accepted Racism”
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/10/caucasophobia-accepted-racism.html
The BBC’s multiculturalists are hypocrites:
[Extract from essay by Paul Weston]:
“The white proponents of multiculturalism are hypocrites. They are in the main, middle class suburban or rural dwellers of majority white enclaves. One peculiarity of white liberals is that whilst they embrace the ethnic colonisation of the West they are repulsed by the history of white colonisation in the East, thereby showing that their political views have less to do with colonisation per se and more to do with a hatred of Western civilisation. Trying to find a working class man in a gritty and diverse part of town who supports this peculiar ideology is akin to discovering a conservative at the BBC or a democrat in church. Put simply, Western liberals, feminists and homosexuals, who for reasons known only to themselves support multiculturalism, do not choose to live in Riyadh yet hold up Islamic culture as equally valid.”
‘Multiculturalism’ by Paul Weston:
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/british_renaissance/blog/2007/05/28/multiculturalism__merits__debits
While BBC continues its dhimmi attitude towards the Iran regime for three reasons:
1.) such an attitude fits with the BBC’s servile ‘mutliculturalism’;
2.) to keep BBC reporter in Iran;
3.) it’s anti-Israel,
the ‘Telegraph’ has this:
“Iran receives al Qaeda praise for role in terrorist attacks”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3506544/Iran-receives-al-Qaeda-praise-for-role-in-terrorist-attacks.html
wow – the bbc seems to have invented the first sci-fi virus thats been through “diversity training”.
in survivor, 90 per cent of the population wiped out and our merry band of survivors are
a white middle class woman
a devout muslim kid
a half/english half/kuwaiti playboy
a white NHS doctor
a black guy who’s into survivalism and wants to run a farm
and a escaped prisoner – who is white, obviously.
George R – it’s all a fake narrative but parents can’t insulate their kids and facts are facts. There’s an underclass being created and it’s spreading into all our lives. Someone has to say enough – schools failing, hospitals dirty, kids being kniffed and violence endemic, 2.7 million on incapacity + 2 million on unemployment, politicians never taking responsibility, local government and EU monoliths, communities left for dead.
compare and contrast
kenny richey
accused of nurder , facing deaht penalty
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7174463.stm
RELATED INTERNET LINKS
US Federal Circuit Court of Appeal
Reprieve
Kenny Richey Campaign
link to his own campaign team!
and iranian tortured into confesing to spying for israel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7743638.stm
RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Iranian judiciary
Israeli foreign ministry
a link to the israeli govt he was no doubt not even spying for. the biased report then goes onto say that israel is strongly in favour of action against iran
no link to reprieve, liberty, iran dissidents groups.there is no proven connection to the israelis unless you count a torture obtained confession.
RIP Ali Ashtari,hung by the mullahs. deemed guilt by AL BEEB. god is great, al beeb, inshallah you will be rewarded when the caliphate comes.
Still cannot work out how global warming helped spread the flu. There is still time for the revalation that it was the nasty Americans that created the virus.
Archduke – you nailed it. I was going to post EXACTLY the same observation. I loved the 70’s series and was afraid al-beeb would feck it up by virtue of the PC virus- And it has.
Have you considered though that the ‘effnick’ mix is clearly biased against Chinese women and disabled Eskimo’s? Unless Lucy Liu or whatever is coming in later?
Hey! Another opinion poll. But for some reason the BBC haven’t mentioned this one. I wonder why?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088698/Brown-kills-speculation-early-general-election-Tories-11-lead.html
Good for the BBC! Having realised they were a bit profligate with our dosh, they’ve made huge cutbacks to previous squanderings by getting fifth formers to write another of their major dramas. Obviously, they do this for nothing, and this time they’ve thrown in the directing and production too.
I said yesterday that I hardly watched TV. Then I go and spoil it all, by doing something stupid, like …. I watched it.
Survivors.
Max Beesley has left no stone unturned in his quest to demolish his reputation (Bodies,) with this parody. He now has a cylindrical head with a reptilian eye at either corner. (The cylinder had rudimentary corners,) and his hairline was harder, sharper and stranger than ever before.
The dialogue and scenario were so unimaginative and infantile that it was nearly bad enough to be good, but the casting and obligatory good Muslim boy spoiled even that accolade for me. The characters said none of the things that people in that situation would say, and none of them behaved in a way that anyone would.
If this was anything to do with the national theatre of Brent I take it all back.
Can this site be re-named Biased, incompetent, dumbed-down, embarrassing, complete waste of time BBC?
Richard Lancaster,It’s lovely that the Labour, Conservatives and Liberals have been trying to rehabilitate their image, however I’m not entirely sure they aren’t still a bunch of liars, buggers and thieves.
I think it’s quite sad that you sympathise with them and hope this is purely down to gross naivete.
http://liarsbuggersandthieves.blogspot.com/
It’s the fanciful notion of a white doctor surviving that stops me suspending my disbelief.
Could it have been the PC virus that killed eberyone else do you think Ethan?
Yep the new series of Survivors was f**cked up pc dross as expected.
Could I ask a question following ealier comments ref the licence fee?
I was working in the west coast of Africa earlier this year and the only programme available on the old tv was, i think, bbc world service. I was surprised to note that it showed adverts. Surely that should negate the argument ref payment of licence fee?
ae1 | 24.11.08 – 11:18 am
the only programme available on the old tv was, i think, bbc world service. I was surprised to note that it showed adverts.
BBC World Service is a radio station, not a TV one. It doesn’t have adverts.
You probably are confusing it with BBC World, which is a TV outfit owned by the BBC, but run on commercial terms – including ads, and doesn’t get any licence fee money.
Nice one Tom. Seems the ‘infection’ is deep seated down at the Beeb.
I am really disappointed as the old Survivors was a favourite of mine. So far this dreck just irritates.
But do you think she will find Peter? If, so, dead, alive or mutated?
I really tried to watch “Survivors ” with an open mind.
It is ludicrous. Yet another flop from the drama department.
I really think they have lost heart and are now just going through the motions to pick up a pay cheque.
Sad really.
Dijo – cheers for the conformation.
@ Archduke
Great post re the diuversity training on “Survivor”.
Leaving aside the usual sledge-hammer political message (the only white British guy is – naturally – a murderer and would be rapist and the only person of religious conscience is a – you guessed it – morally perfect Muslim) the hugely expensive drama is also dismal as drama. Almost on a par with the execrable Bonekickers. Shockingly bad!
What the fuck do these morons DO with their £3.5 billion a year?!!!
Apologies if this is stale news posted here before (it’s a few days old now) but I just camme across it and thought it was v good:
THE troops are revolting at the BBC. In a letter to today’s Ariel, the Beeb inhouse paper, a senior BBC producer David Gallagher has come up with this radical intiative. “Inspired by Mark Thompson’s stirring defence of his pay packet, I dug out the annual report and the back of an envelope. Last year Thompson got £816,000. The prime minister got between £180,000 and £190,000. Suppose we’d paid Thompson £150,000 and similarly scaled down the salaries of the other 671 BBC managers who were paid over £70,000. After the DG, the next big cheeses could have their salaries scaled down to £130,000; the next 11 from c£235,000 to £120,000; next 15 from c£205,000 to £110,000; next 44 from c£175,000 to £100,000; next 89 from c£145,000 to £90,000; next 171 from c£115,000 to £80,000 and the next 329 from c£85,000 to £70,000. The total annual saving would be £25,970,000.
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2008/11/beeb-number-cru.html
An urgently worded headline from the BBC, wrongly suggesting action beyond the words:
“Miliband to speak out over Iran”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7744796.stm
A Miliband speech on the threat from Iran: will have all the impact of his recent speech expressing concern about Somali piracy.
Ears burning at F.O. and at BBC?:
“Iran’s Useful Idiots?” (by Melanie Phillips):
[Extract]:
“What is published and said in Britain has a resonance way beyond these shores. It is closely studied by its enemies, who understand what the myopic west still doesn’t grasp — that the principal battlefield in this war is the mind. The hatred of and prejudice against Israel openly displayed day in, day out by the British media and intelligentsia is being used to strengthen a regime committed to a second genocide of the Jews and the destruction of the west. The British elite has become a key weapon in the arsenal of the enemies of the free world.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3034761/irans-useful-idiots.thtml
The BBC bigs up Syria and its chinless dictator as Syria rejects US claims it is aiding terrorists.
Meanwhile Syrian president honors Samir Kuntar with country’s highest medal.
The BBC, living on another planet!
Probably not the thread for this, but the latest B-BBC web entry describes the soon to be released Red Army Faction leader Christian Klar as a “militant leftist”. This band of bloodthirsty Marxist lunatics kidnapped and murdered more than 30 people in the 1970s. Would the phrase “convicted murderer” not be more appropriate to describe this person? Or do the liberals at the B-BBC harbour a secret admiration for these ‘heroic class warriors’? Wait, I think I’ve worked it out all on my own!
Do you feel their pain?
Tough times for BBC executives
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/24/bbc-trust-television
More on Christian Klar:
“Klar was arrested in 1982 and later convicted of nine murders and 11 attempted murders. It is the brutality of the Red Army Faction’s crimes which shocked the public, the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in Berlin says.”
The inference being that actually it’s OK to murder judges, bank bosses and other “establishment” figures in the name of the Glorious Revolution, so long as you do it in a nice, civilised, liberal fashion.
Sickening.