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.
‘Evening Standard’ Londoner’s Diary:
“Instant fury at Lyons’ decision on Ross return”
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2008/11/instant-fury-at.html
Andy,
I think you are reading way too much in to that.
Mailman
The BBC has sneaked out this little announcement today:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a136495/bbc-buries-bonekickers.html
A good day to bury an embarrassingly bad programme.
Mailman, Mr Rosenberg of the BBC completely misses the point, as does the whole tone of the article. These people were terrorists. There would be no point for them in quietly bumping people off, as this would elicit little reaction from the authorities. They wanted to – and did – create an atmosphere of terror by murdering people in the most brutal fashion. To label these scum as merely “radical leftist” or “militant leftist” is a travesty. That’s really what sickens me. Hell, I was a radical leftist when I was 16. But I took up reading 🙂
Dick the Prick | 23.11.08 – 11:01 pm |
There’s an underclass being created and it’s spreading into all our lives.
Technically, hasn’t there always been an underclass? I see this is as more of a reconstruction, a new kind of underclass, but with all the superficial comforts that the old underclass never dreamed of. Those superficial comforts (nice TVs, readily and cheaply available fatty foods, smokes and booze) are a nice substitution for Huxley’s Soma. In this case, all these distractions and comforts help keep them from having very little, if any, intellectual connection to their own reality.
You’re definitely right about how it’s spreading, I think.
Then there’s the whole “your own self esteem is more important than any effect you may have on other people” mentality being taught in the schools, and promoted in the media. Kids grow up (using that term loosely) thinking nobody has a right to tell them what to do or how to behave. Constructive criticism about bad behavior is no longer respected but is now harmful to their self esteem.
So you get a new kind of underclass, mostly unaware of themselves except superficially, with an inflated sense of self-worth, and a reduced ability to create anything of value to society other than manual labor. And they think they’re too good to do that, and that their boss has no right to tell them how to work.
It would almost be sinister if the people in charge actually knew what they were doing. The problem is they think they’re doing something else entirely.
Rave review from Ben Rawson-Jones
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a136434/survivors-s01e01-part-one.html#yourviews
(Comments not quite so keen)
Never having seen Boneknickers I didn’t realise they’d recycled Julie Graham. Inspired idea though.
archduke | 23.11.08 – 10:43 pm |
Being a big fan of the original I have followed the progress of this series since it was announced months ago. I did wonder how it would play at B-BBC.
Interestingly enough there are a number of observations on fan sites about the odd ethnic make up of this show. Do the BBC really believe that black and asian viewers will only watch a programme if ‘one of their own’ is on the cast? Isn’t that just a little patronising? Or maybe they think that non-whites gravitate together so would naturally all appear in one group of survivors?
No Jews on screen, as yet. Maybe they are busy building a walled community and shooting their neighbours with helicopter gunships.
Naturally to point this out is racist!
Anyway, I quite enjoyed the show. Not brilliant, far worse than the original, and with some of the most intrusive music on offer, but still watchable. Sadly Freema Agyeman’s character croaked so no more eye candy …
I see Woss-name has been warned to “cut out smut and swearing” when he returns to his £6m a year job. So that’s OK, then.
Just as a point, does he have something on Mark Thompson? Any sane person heading up any organisation would have sacked this creepy little man immediately. Given that he is paid £6m a year, isn’t it really strange – as in suspicious – that he got kept on?
Hezbollah missile stock ‘tripled’
Not a single mention that this massive rearmament is in flagrant violation of UN Resolution 1701.
Barak: Hizbullah has 42,000 missiles
Barak said in a Knesset speech, warning that Hizbullah’s recent maneuvers south of the Litani River were a liability for Lebanon. “In practice, UN Resolution 1701 isn’t working, and Hizbullah’s integration within the Lebanese republic exposes Lebanon and its infrastructures to a more massive hit in the event of a future standoff.”
The BBC: we are all Hizbullah!
Editor’s top video choice (right now):
“Five minutes with Vince Cable”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7745035.stm
you can’t buy this stuff.
(well licence fee payers already did i suppose)
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 | #
Now this comes out:
http://bnp.org.uk/2008/11/police-torture-cruel-treatment-withheld-medicines-this-is-stalinist-new-britain/
I thought that DNA was only supposed to be taken from those convicted of crime, not just taken off the street for distributing leaflets which the establishment doesn’t like.
Is this being reported by the BBC? And where’s Shami and the ‘human rights’ gang? Oh, I forgot: the BNP are sub-human
Allan@Oslo | 24.11.08 – 8:35 pm |
I thought that DNA was only supposed to be taken from those convicted of crime
er, no. They take DNA from kids so DNAing a few skinheads won’t bother them.
Yes, I know the BNP aren’t skin heads anymore.
They wear wigs now … metaphorically speaking.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7742539.stm
– the Beeb manage to have a discussion on why out of town pubs are closing at a record rate without even mentioning the smoking ban.
With an obligatory suggestion that the evil supermarkets might be at fault and a sidebar full of ” if you drink you’ll die ! ” scare stories.
No doubt their boozers are doing OK – there’ll be a lovely little place around the corner from them with an “eclectic mix of clientele” which does an absolutely super butternut squash drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Would it be cruel to wish it got invaded by some football hooligans who smashed the place up and kicked their media elite, public funded teeth out ? Probably….
HLSD – “Would it be cruel to wish it got invaded by some football hooligans who smashed the place up and kicked their media elite, public funded teeth out …”
In my considered opinion, no, such behaviour would not constitute cruelty. Cruelty is when Gordon Brown speaks, either in Parliament or national TV, and those blubbery lips quiver.
This, however, would be cruel: ” a lovely little place around the corner from them with an “eclectic mix of clientele” which does an absolutely super butternut squash drizzled with balsamic vinegar…”
So, no argula, then?
Is Britain Going Bankrupt?
As the Chancellor admits to the worst budget deficit of any major country in the world, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard asks should we be worried.
“We face the risk of a rapid downward spiral if we misjudge the threat at this dangerous moment, as we sit poised on the tipping point. Besides, the whole world is now resorting to fiscal stimulus in unison under IMF prodding. Sticking together is imperative. If countries reflate in isolation, they can and will be singled out and punished. That is the lesson of 1931.
We are not yet facing a replay of the 1970s ‘Gilts Strike’, but we are not that far off either.
There is now a palpable fear that global investors may start to shun British debt as the budget deficit rockets to £118bn — 8pc GDP — or charge a much higher price for to cover default risk”.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ambrose_evans-pritchard/blog/2008/11/24/is_britain_going_bankrupt
.
Got to the end of “Survivors of the PC virus” ep1.
Good Muslim boy, evil murdering rapist whitey convict.
No bias to see here. Move along. These are not the BBC values your looking for.
Al beeb – pimping for Muslims? Shurely shome mishtake!
A BBC, anonymous-sounding report from the USA:
“Charity guilt of funding terror”
(OR: ‘Muslim “charity” guilty of funding Islamic jihad’)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7747187.stm
For more information, ‘Jihadwatch’ has:
“Justice served: Hol Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts”
[Extract]:
“It was during the first Holy Land Foundation trial last year that the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum about their “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within” came to light. This verdict is a huge official recognition of the reality of that stealth jihad, and a huge setback for the likes of CAIR, [Council on American-Islamic Relations] which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023628.php
The BBC dutifully reports D. Miliband’s words without question, whether it’s his ‘worries’ about Somali pirates, his ‘concerns’ about Iran, or the latest from Afghanistan, his ‘urging’ of European allies to provide more troops. All talk, no trousers.
“Miliband on Afghan troops visit”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7747429.stm
Andy,
Why I say you are reading too much in to it is because of this.
People can be shocked by a murder BUT if that or those murders are particularly grissly then that can be even more of a shock than just a “bog standard” murder…if you get my drift?
In this case, the BBC numpty could very well be reporting something factually. I know, first time for everything 🙂
Mailman
More proof of the sad shell of an institution our once great BBC has become.
This is a classic modern BBC article, expounding hardship and completely avoiding the major underlying events which created that situation.
Heavy regulation(like no smoking) and taxation(like huge local business taxes) have destroyed the pub industry.
There is no mention of either subject, in any manner or form.
Our modern BBC is really nothing more than a British version of TASS.
Villages suffer as pubs disappear
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7742539.stm
The real joke is on us because we submit to being coerced into funding this nonsense via the licence fee.
ady | 25.11.08 – 11:53 am | #
Could you link me to your evidence that the smoking ban has “destroyed” the pub industry?
I was against the complete ban but must admit I’m rather nonplussed about it
BBC’s MARK EASTON for whom:
Racial tension = caused by Whites = especially BNP,
NOT:
Racial tension = caused by non-whites = especially Islamic jihadists.
“Map of the Week -racism and tension”
Easton begins his article by talking about ‘racial tension’ (undefined) in England; he immediately narrows this down to considering only Whites as potentially ‘racist’, then conflates the potential White ‘racial’ threat into the BNP.
These are the sort of anti-White only, investigations Easton uses:
“The study, due to be published in next month’s British Journal of Sociology, uses indicators of racial prejudice from the British Social Attitudes surveys to examine prejudice against black and Asian Britons.”
Easton personifies the BBC’s anti-White ideology of multiculturalism:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/11/map_of_the_week_racism_and_ten.html
A counter-blast to the BBC and Easton on their anti-White prejudices:
“All Western nations, at least for a while longer, have white majorities. As long as anything white people do is considered ‘racism,’ the West has no chance of closing down Muslim immigration. Until the ‘anti-Whitey’ movement has been discredited, we can thus never win the fight against Islam.” (Fjordman)
“Caucasophobia – the Accepted Racism”
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/10/caucasophobia-accepted-racism.html
A significant on-going court inquest involving the BBC, the murder of a BBC woman producer, and the BBC’s assessment of risk in Somalia:
“Shot producer ‘doubted by bosses”
[Extract]:
“A BBC producer who was killed in Somalia felt she had to go to prove her commitment, her sister told an inquest.
“Kate Peyton, 39, of Beyton, Suffolk, was shot in Mogadishu in February 2005.
“Coroner Peter Dean said the inquest would examine risk assessments carried out by the BBC before Ms Peyton was deployed to the war-torn African state.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/7745504.stm
Richard Lancaster,
I gotta say mate that the smoking ban is one of the VERY few laws that this country has managed to get right.
If they had made exceptions then it would have defeated the entire reason for having the ban in the first place.
And anyway, how pleasant is it now going out and not coming home stinking of stale smoke!
Mailman
The BBC, The European Union and Bulgaria; as Bulgaria was enthusiastically welcomed into the E.U. in January, 2007, by the likes of Brown and Miliband, British people now can expect as many Bulgarians, Muslim, non-Muslims, whatever, who want to come, to come to Britain, and to bring their ‘multicultural’ practices with them to here, where we will be obliged to cherish such practices:
BBC report:
“EU strips millions from Bulgaria”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7748300.stm
BBC profile of Bulgaria:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1059735.stm
Omitted entirely from BBC profile of Bulgaria:
“Islam in Bulgaria”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Bulgaria
Richard Lancaster | 25.11.08 – 12:43 pm |
Could you link me to your evidence that the smoking ban has “destroyed” the pub industry?
I was against the complete ban but must admit I’m rather nonplussed about it/
ady is right, although there’s more to it than the smoking ban. Small local businesses are always a different world from city franchises, and are affected differently by circumstances. Here’s some evidence:
Smoking ban my reduce pub rates by thousands
Shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles said that a £5,000 reduction in the rateable value of their business could save publicans £2,200 a year, at a time when the British Beer and Pub Association estimates that pubs are closing at the rate of 27 a week.
Mr Pickles said: “Local pubs are a vital part of our social fabric and community life. Whilst massive pub chains may be making money out of Labour’s 24-hour drinking laws, small everyday pubs are suffering from the onslaught of higher beer taxes, a weakening economy, supermarkets selling alcohol below cost price and the public smoking ban.
“Whatever people’s views on the smoking ban, it has been a significant change that has affected many pubs.
“The Government’s own tax inspectors have now admitted that pubs may be eligible for refunds on their business rates, but pub owners are being intentionally kept in the dark on this U-turn.
So really it’s all the various Labour policies promoted by the BBC which are causing the problem. And they only let a Lib-Dem say it. A properly unbiased journalist would have found a quote from the actual opposition, no? Plus the added bonus of the Lib-Dem pointing the finger at another favorite BBC demon: cheap booze at the supermarkets.
And some more about the affects of the smoking ban:
Worthing pub blames smoking ban for closure
The Argus has reported landlords reporting takings dropping by £1,000 a week in some pubs. Littlehampton appears to have been one of the worst hit areas with five pubs being forced to shut.
A survey by the Campaign for Real Ale revealed 56 pubs a month are closing across the country.
Beer costs twice what it did ten years ago, and many people just don’t go to the bars anymore because they’d rather smoke at home.
Mailman
Why would it have been wrong to allow publicans/licencees to apply for a smoking or non smoking licences (as the licenced trade wanted)? If the demand was there, non smokers could have drunk (in moderation of course) in non smoking pubs, while smokers drank in smoking establishments. If you must have state interference where it is not wanted, licencing magistrates could have been empowered to licence a certain proportion in each town with and withouit smoking.
The fact is that the campaigners who were so voiciferous in saying they would drink in pubs if only they were “smoke free” were clearly lieing and their sole objective was to ban others from doing something that did no harm to the campaigners (they did not, do not and will not drink in pubs).
For the record, I am a non smoker who believes people should be free to harm themselves however they wish. I would not drink in a smoking pub, but I wouldn’t force others to conform to my views.
I wonder why the BBC gives this so much prominence?:-
“Tribeca festival heads to Qatar”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7745695.stm
Of course, it fits exactly with BBC ‘multiculturalism’:
“Tribeca opens with political fanfare”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6591227.stm
BBC’s Richard Klein:
“White man for BBC 4 job”
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2008/11/white-man-for-b.html
I thought that the BBC’s ‘White season’ was a bit of an insult to the British white working class, showing an unrepresentive sample of people at the fag-end of a take-over by multicultural, immigrant-heavy groups.
A bit late but wonderful plug on the Toady show today for the latest “don’t send women to jail” report. No questioning of what offences they are in for, how many with children before arrest or pregnant by trial – quite a few probably not for first but miraculously yes by time of second! We have to apparently do a cost benefit analysis, on that basis no one would be sent to prison for anything!
Not sure what Robert Peston was on but Humphrys totally bamboozled by RP’s explanation of mortgage lending next year. I must admit I was too. Perhaps he has been receiving lessons from the subject of the biography he wrote!
Londoner’s Diary:
‘Pity the poorer Mr Peston’
“SO FAR Robert Peston has done remarkably well out of our economic woes. With his scoops on Northern Rock and Lloyds TSB’s takeover of HBOS, the BBC business editor’s profile has soared and his excitable broadcasting manner has been taken to the nation’s heart. Even his hair has grown more lustrous – and, dare we say it, a tad darker.
“But the news that a new 45 per cent rate is to be slapped upon those earning more than £150,000 might put the first grey hairs on his head. ‘These are the first seriously redistributive tax changes since the 1970s, he blogs on Peston’s Picks this morning. ‘More than a decade after the 1997 landslide, some will say that Labour has gone back to its socialist roots. Tonight, the British economy has taken on a Scandinavian Left-wing tinge.’ Only between 300,000 and 400,000 people earn more than £150,000 – and what is the betting Peston is one of them?”
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2008/11/pity-the-poorer.html
George R | 25.11.08 – 4:14 pm |
Peston probably has his finances arranged so that he’ll feel the pinch less than most. He loves the 45p rate because it’s exactly the kind of “fairness” he was trumpeting in his book about Mr. Brown. It’s what he believes in.
As one of the elite leadership class, he doesn’t need to have his money redistributed, but everyone else does.
Robert Peston has always been advising against the way Mr. Brown has relied on unfettered activity and the resulting tax payments from The City to pay for his “just society” or whatever he’s calling it these days. Peston even gloated a little in his blog a while back that the goose was no longer laying the golden egg. He’s quite happy for things to revert back to the “soak the rich to save the poor” mentality.
Also on Radio Four just now, how recessions can cause illness, especially mental health issues, and the unchallenged speaker, ignoring who and what caused the present recession, go t away with saying the people on Incapacity Benefit are all there due to ‘the Tories’ causing unemployment in the 1980s.
No questions from the BBC bloke about how unlikely this is; just the smarmy comment that they asked the Conservatives to say their piece, but that they declined.
They couldn’t find one conservative or other countervailing voice to Fatcher caused mental illness? On a day they published this :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7748085.stm
oh, and some doctor was on who said recessions don’t make people smoke less- only putting the prices up does that.
So that’s alright, then.
David Preiser
you say above:
——
Then there’s the whole “your own self esteem is more important than any effect you may have on other people” mentality being taught in the schools
—-end quote
I think you are right. The way the teaching establishment pushes this idea is demonstrated by the recent set of TV adverts for teachers (In spite of job security and high pay they still are short of teachers – I wonder why…).
The adverts show the pupils taking centre stage in an informal setting, asking fascinating questions as if everything they contribute is wonderful. It reminds me of something we were taught in teacher training: ‘We are not teachers, we are learning facilitators’.
Children might be scoring D and E in English and maths, but the more confident and noisy ones score A++ in self esteeem. This does not apply to the quiet children for whom the modern classroom experience must be quite traumatic.
I am a tutor and I taught a 13 year old boy for a few weeks who attended this type of school. I asked him once how often his class was silent and he said ‘never’
I gave the same boy some corrected work and he got about 3/20. Instead of being humbled and studying his mistakes, he wanted to argue about the corrections and then to compare his work with another child’s piece and complain at length that he had been unfairly treated etc etc. . I told him that he had learned his complaining manner from school but when he leaves school his employer will not want to hear how he is right all the time. Then the boy walked out never to be seen again (without paying).
Outside his school the police walk around in pairs.
Graham | 26.11.08 – 10:18 am |
Unfortunately, your experience seems all too typical. It’s not so much different in the US these days, but I think it’s definitely worse in the UK.
Too many times have we all seen young people – in their early twenties, even – responding to even the simplest, most gentle criticisms from authority figures by saying something like, “You can’t talk to me that way,” or, “I don’t need to listen to this.”
We all feel that way at times, but the supremacy of “self esteem” which is quite literally taught in schools, is the root cause of today’s phenomenon. Not doing well on tests? It’s because they’re too hard, or “biased” against you, not because you’re ignorant. The response from the education authorities is to dumb down the tests. Some schools are eliminating grades all together. Thus the disconnect between what’s taught in schools and reality grows larger and larger.
I guess that’s just proper training to grow up and blindly accept whatever Labour and the BBC say.