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.
Interesting discussion on the BBC points of view board:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/F1951574?thread=6089865
Quite entertaining to see the resident beeboids that stick up for the vile Ross/Brand duo getting their feeble arguments summarily demolished by “y_phrunts”.
The BBC has this:
“Tory frontbencher Green arrested”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7753557.stm
‘The Spectator’ (Fraser Nelson) has:
“Tories angered by Green arrest”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3047501/tories-angered-by-green-arrest.thtml
When will people wake up to this bunch of fucking Scottish Commie’s running England?
Arresting a Tory MP fo rdaring to leak stories about how Jacqui Spliff is a useless fat fucking twat. Oh dear.
You just know the BBC are going to run with this story.
Fuck me they even had the anti terrorist Police involved!!!!!
What with Liebour cunts wanting to close down blogs like this that oppose them and their rent boy drug taking friends at the BBC
Why am I not surprised the Labour party have puleed a stunt like this?
Must be bad news around? Oh hang on the economy is going down the pan and thousands are losing their jobs.
Anyone want to take a bet on what rubber pants Marr will be talking about on Sunday?
Hurray, one incompetent idiot down, 20,000 to go!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23593768-details/Consultant+in+Baby+P+case+banned/article.do
Kill the beeb:
I disagree, I think she was a good doctor and didn’t deserve to be struck off… no one likes a cranky baby!!
Thats why my wife won’t have sex with me… she says it will definately result in some hideous baby.
And so it begins: A Conservative front bench spokesman is arrested by nine Stasi ‘anti-terrorism’ police, the news conveniently ‘buried’ on the state broadcaster by events in Bombay.
Meanwhile, Radio 4 continues to go about McStalin’s propaganda work – a few minutes ago broadcasting a rabidly pro-Euro feature on the 10 pm news, claiming Denmark is close to adopting the Euro and suggesting the time is right for Britain for follow.
There are some days when you can’t help wondering whether Atlas Shrugged might not be quite so barking, after all.
Newsfight is whineing about rich people developing Egypt and Sudan
We are certainly now in the “eastern block” – how many times have labour leaked “policies” to Peston – any arrests there by the stasi?
GCooper – I usually skim through atlas shrugs comments, but I think you may have a point.
Africas resources have long been ‘poached’ by greedy western powers.
Something like that.
How long will this backward thinking be put forward on bbcs flagship programmes
Gcooper, he just exaggerates
Barnardos and Kids charity woman as well.
YAWN.
They dont fancy debating anyone who doesnt want jails shut down
Revealingly, as far as I could see, Newsnight (along with Toady the most reliable Government propaganda organ) completely ignored the secret police raid.
R4 News at 11pm, to its credit, led on the scandal.
Reposted from previous thread:
I had an insight which is that the BBC aren’t exactly supporters of Muslim terrorism per se, but in addition to their loathing for Western values, they just have a fondness for any perceived left-wing rebellion against existing legitimate authority or system.
Their uncritical support, for example, of Cuba and left-wing dictatorships in South America is only too well documented, but consider also that they were wholly supportive of the Maoist insurgency which overthrew the Nepalese monarchy and took over the country – I can remember The World Tonight’s Robin Lustig practically orgasming as he reported live on “mass” demonstrations.
But what gave me the particular insight was the upcoming play on R4 this Friday –
———————
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/friday_play.shtml
The Last Time I Saw Richard
By Willi Richards and Roger Elsgood
Drama documentary about the life and death of the Sri Lankan journalist and TV newsreader Richard de Zoysa, who was abducted and killed in February 1990.
Set in the preceding years, when the Sri Lankan government was undertaking a bloody crackdown of the ultra-Marxist JVP organisation with which de Zoysa was suspected to be allied, this drama is based on interviews with those who knew and worked with him.
=====
Interestingly, though, the Radio Times website has this to say about the production:
http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=55&programmeId=88883543&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_fullpage.jsp
Richard de Zoysa was a Sri Lankan journalist with a high profile: he read the news on TV and worked as an actor and writer in film and theatre. But he was also gay in a country where homosexuality is unlawful. Recorded in Colombo in July, this is the story of his creative life and brutal death, told through a mixture of dramatisation and contributions from those who knew him. Such was the outrage still surrounding de Zoysa that the British High Commission offered to return the tapes to the UK in the diplomatic bag – “just to be sure”.
———————
So you might have thought he was killed just for being gay, and being mixed up in terrorism was purely incidental.
I have seen occasional news reports from Sri Lanks which seemed to side with the Tamil Tigers, so notwithstanding Sri Lanka’s being a healthy parliamentary democracy, and predominantly Buddhist society, you can just bet on where the writers’ and producer’s sympathies are going to lie.
They mentioned it with prick and had interviewed a tory.
Wasnt a main story but was mentioned
NDTV (sky 511) are reporting that some of the Mumbai terrorists are thought to be British passport holders, of Indian origin.
I wonder if the BBC will be running with this?!
correction – Pakistani origin
Miv Tucker – Sri Lanka’s Buddhist?
Watching ‘This Week’
What is it with the bbc and presenting britain being uptight about sex.
What does it have to do with politics.
And Nancy called us masculine!
Shes from italy, roman culture suppressed women throughout history
Verity – very much so. About 70% are Buddhist.
Many people assume it’s like India, because of its proximity, but the culture and religion are quite different.
Cheers.
Everybody, but everybody reporting that India is firmly pointing the finger at Pakistan and by default the ISI.
No hang on a minute there is one bogus news organisation that isn’t. Wonder why?
Wakey wakey Britain you have a serious problem with over a quarter of a million of your residents, most of whom will play the dual nationality card when it suits.
The solution – don’t let them back in.
Is that why the BBC don’t want to mention it?
There are some days when you can’t help wondering whether Atlas Shrugged might not be quite so barking, after all.
Thank you for that. I feel honored. How barking I am, is of no consequence. Whether I speak the truth or not is most surly of simply enormous potential consequence.
What shocks me is that so many of you just dont believe the evidence. Even when it is staring you right in the face. Taken up sleeping with your wife, and currently robbing you and your grandchildren blind. Please try not to wait until the fridge and supermarket go Zimbabwe stile. At this point most of us will only have less then two weeks to live.
Soon you will not be wondering quite how mad I am. But will be wondering why you did not pay proper attention earlier.
That also gos for you brainwashed idiots working for the BBC who read this site. Remember you also have family out here, surly you don’t hate all of them that much?
Democratic party politics is a SHAM.
It has always been manipulated by the unseen hand of the establishment. That means ALWAYS. The Labour Party has ALWAYS been as much if not more in hock to the establishment then the Conservative Party. Many of them may have believed their finance came from the Soviet Union. In a way it did. But it only came because the establishment conspired with the KGB to give it to them. AS WE SURLY NOW KNOW.
The EU is the establishments baby. The New World Order was conceived as the only way they could come up with of keeping us down here, working ourselves to death, keeping them up there.
They have been playing both sides of the field since democracy first began. They make up the rules of the game. They are the owners of both teams. Therefore they control the method of play, the amount of goals, the end result, and as we know, the way the result is reported and ultimately recorded.
The end result being The BBC and its beloved master The New World Order.
A New World Order that may or may not be quite as murderous as I personally fear. But a New World Order all the same that certainly has the potential to be every bit as genocidal as it will surly be undemocratic.
I do wish you would give it up with this tinfoil hatted space lizard conspiracy bullshit. It just makes the rest of us look like twats by association.
Isn’t there an X-Files forum you could join instead of cluttering this place up with your lunatic rants ?
GCooper | 27.11.08 – 11:40 pm | #
I was made aware of this first by a special email rushed to me direct by the BBC, in full…
Conservative MP arrested – Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green, MP for Ashford in Kent, has been arrested but not charged, says the Conservative Party.
Should this not develop as seriously as first billed (the headline being rather better qualified by the subhead, and the link going to the home page where the actual facts seem to suggest it’s not quite as cut and dried – the headline is factually correct, but hardly representative and conveyed to my door rather promptly).
However, it could be worse. I could end up wall-to-wall fawning over how human our Gordon ‘I think I speak for the world..’ Brown is because he is writing to X-Factor losers.
Obviously not much else going on at the moment, and a few legions of PR spinners really communicating with the public as we need to be.
HSLD: of Atlas shrugged:’I do wish you would give it up with this tinfoil hatted space lizard conspiracy bullshit.’
I don’t think it’s a single, world-spanning conspiracy with spiffy headquarters and its own badge and security force and a desk in each of the White House, Broadcasting House, the Stock Exchange, and Number Ten.
But Atlas does capture the way it feels at times. Our ruling elites are in many ways homogeneous; their minds pointing in the same directions, and blinkered to thoughts outside their narrow, colectivist imaginations.
This is how they manage to exclude all those soldiers and non-PC policemen and old-style teachers and entrepreneurs and victims of the underclass from any sustained or even frequent publicity on the BBC.
They genuinely can’t see that other perspectives have any merit at all, and so the likes of people outside their charmed circles don’t get a look-in.
And the main British political parties are just competing for the middle ground,which isn’t much of a choice for us voters and, boy, does it let the lunatic fringe have a chance to prosper grow.
BNP councillors, for Gods’ sakes!
Peter | Homepage | 28.11.08 – 6:50 am | #
Just watched David Davies demolish a very out of her depth brunette teleprompter reader on this.
The plan seemed to be to try and get him to ‘accuse’ the government of staging this, and he was having none of it whilst highlighting the total over-reaction of supposedly stretched police resources.
Like so much ‘news’ these days, and something most media would do well to recall, until something is confirmed it’s all speculation and often best to say one doesn’t know.
Quite funny that she (well, the boys in the earpiece) was desperate to call it quits when he pointed out that most journos would need their collars felt on the basis of sharing leaked info.
I await a direct email when Mr. Peston gets the midnight knock at the door. Not.
Some serious questions being put by readers at Guido concerning the use of anti-terrorist police in the arrest of an Opposition spokesman. One points out that the recent acquisition of at least 10,000 tazers by the police is no coincidence, and another states that until recently he was sure that our police would not open fire with automatic weapons on an unarmed crowd. I recall how the police brutally suppressed a Countryside Alliance march in London and I was thankful that the police did not have guns – because the police would have used them.
Where does the BBC fit into this worst-case scenario? The BBC would be the protector of our rights and hold the government to account for abuses.
(I’m just kidding!)
Apparently there’s not much news, so Easton has this vapid opinionating on his redundant blog. (What no map?):
“The problem that’s hanginh around”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/
Blatant editorializing in a BBC “news” article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/7753033.stm
“In the same way that there are no atheists in foxholes, it turns out there are not too many swashbuckling free-marketeers in recessions either.
“Many of the voices that did advance that brutal philosophy though were raised in Texas.”
Free markets are a “brutal philosophy”?
The BBC doesn’t even pretend that it doesn’t have a left wing bias nowadays… and that they expect taxpayers to fund it.
I normally wouldn’t bother but for the BBC’s agenda-fueled editorializing in 2 articles in quick succession. This one concerns President Bush’s pardon power. After slanting the story by quoting a law professor from a no-name law school accusing Bush of “trivializing” the pardon power by not using it aggressively enough (where in the US Constitution does it say that a president must use the pardon power prolifically?), the writer then opines:
“In Washington there is also speculation as to whether President Bush could extend a pre-emptive pardon to those officials who carried out the harsh interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects.
“But surely that would be seen as an admission of his own guilt in allowing torture.”
Erm, no. It doesn’t. If a meritless witch-hunt occured and I immunized myself accordingly from such a hunt, would it mean an admission of guilt? The argument has the same of quality of: “if you have nothing to fear, you don’t need a lawyer.” Or, “if you did nothing wrong, you won’t be opposing the media snooping in your affairs. What have you got to hide? Maintaining your privacy is a de facto admission of guilt.”
It is the most obtuse form of editorializing drivel that has no place in a news article. But the BBC America hacks are outdoing themselves this time.
The prior comment references this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/7752594.stm
Par for its propagandist course: BBC uncritical plug for ‘Islamic art’:
“Doha museum stakes cultural claim”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7744586.stm
A non-BBC critique of Islamic ‘achievements’:
“Fitzgerald: Everyone agrees we must boost moderate Islam?”
[Extract]:
“As for art, when all sculpture, and almost all painting, and almost all music, is banned, and the only outlets left are Arabic calligraphy and mosque architecture, that does not leave much room for the creativity that, over 1350 years, must have been stifled in so many. Many of those, had they not had the misfortune to be born into Islam, or to be conquered by the forces of Islam, might have enriched the world’s museums, and the common heritage, in the way that, for example, the artists of the West and the Far East have done.”
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/021437.php
Pattern-recognition?
Tories (Boris) fire top met cop. Blair – a Labour stooge – will certainly have promoted like-minded officers – as like hires like. Opportunity to stick it to Tories in revenge – misuse of anti-terrorism legislation. Boris sticks up for Damien Green. Search should now be on for the remaining Labour stooges in our police heirarchy.
Church of England – selective reporting
Changing the subject completey, one of the items on the Radio 2 news at 7.00am was a report on the Archbishop of York’s comments apparently on immigration, delivered last night in his lecture at the Royal Society in London.
The Christian religion, and The Church of England in particular, receives precious little voice from the BBC, and is more often than not pilloried in a way that the corporation dare not do with other world religions (I don’t need to spell out which) for fear of the consequences. When the Church does get air time, why is it only when it appears to fall into line with BBc’s own cosy political agenda? Having read the summary of Archbishop JOhn Sentamu’s lecture, the main thrust of it is concered not with immigration but with the economic situation at home and how it should force us to think about the consequences of striving for economic wealth simply for its own sake.
But true to form, the beeb manages to skew its own headline on a completely separate issue, on which, from the summary at least, there is only passing mention. Why oh why are they not more accountable?
UPDATE: Guido Fawkes is brilliant today – pointing out that no action was taken when public officials conspired to give the BBC’s Robert Peston sensitive information – allegedly.
Posted on 28 November 2008 by Douglas Carswell
http://www.talkcarswell.com/show.aspx?id=270
Rob
Yes; Labour intends to continue its stealth policy of mass immigration. It is perhaps not coincidental that it is on the issue of mass immigration that Damian Green, Shadow on Immigration, is being currently pressured.
And, of course, the BBC is happy to propagandise any part of a C of E speech which lauds the wonders of mass immigration as part of some unarticulated ‘multiculturalist’ dogma.
BREAKING NEWS!!!!!
The anchors on BBC NEWS 24 are calling the Bombay attackers as • get this • “Terrorists” in their headline reports.
WTF?
The reporters are stilling calling them “gunmen” though.
BBC Radio Times seems to have missed the M word
Unreported WorldFriday 28 November
7:35pm – 8:00pm
Channel 4
7/10 – Nigeria: Child Brides
Documentary series on topical global issues. Ramita Navai reports from Nigeria on the consequences of child marriage. In the country’s northern states, nearly half of all girls are married by the age of 15, often to much older men. Navai learns that young brides are having babies from the age of 12, and suffer devastating physical and emotional wounds as a result.
BBC’s Web Site Conveys an Anti-Israel Message
Articles about Israel featured daily on BBC’s Web site typically fall into two categories: 1) those condemning Israel for its military practices, government policies or supposed intolerance; and 2) those depicting the alleged decline of Israeli society or its cities. On the other hand, articles about Palestinians tend to fall into two different categories: 1) those highlighting Palestinian grievances; and 2) those minimizing the Arab threat to Israel. Many fall into more than one category at the same time, for example, articles that both highlight Palestinian grievances and condemn Israel. Taken together, these grossly unbalanced articles present an obvious anti-Israel message.
SVT criticizes BBC Africa report
A documentary broadcast on Swedish public television on Tuesday called into question the reputation of Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, for filing misleading and inaccurate reports about the severity of a food shortage in Niger in 2005.
A little something I sent yesterday to Have Your Say over Matt Frei lovefesting the leader of the ‘Frei World’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/progr…ica/ 7749748.stm
Yet another clear example of a BBC journalist who does not have the professional integrity to work for an impartial news organisation. Mr Frei is not commenting on any of the positions actually taken by President Bush and his administration, he is commenting on the way he has caricatured and downright falsified them for the last 8 years. 30 years ago I was a left wing member of the Labour Party who opposed BBC bias. It was bad for democracy. Now its like living in a proto one party state.
The spectator has Nancy saying shes a keynesian.
That will be why she was on this week
Guess what? The M word on the BBC at last, but examine the context in which it is used. Muslims as victims. Right on cue from the BBC playbook, the World Service is now reporting on the fear of a backlash against Muslims in India. But why Muslims? Has anyone said the “militants” were Muslims? Not on the BBC.
“There is Islamophobia in this country” one Muslim interviewee says in the World Service report. Really? I wonder why? Maybe its the sight of a city brought to its knees by…um, let’s see now, oh yes, “militant gunmen” from nowhere. Certainly not Pakistan.
Meanwhile dearest Barbara (!) seems to be swallowing the official Pakistani line.
TV and radio presenter Terry Christian has failed in a legal action against the BBC over the loss of his £90,000-a-year job.
The 45-year-old claimed he had been unfairly dismissed after he was dropped by BBC Radio Manchester earlier this year.
But a judge has ruled against Mr Christian, saying he was hired by the station as a self-employed freelance and was not a permanent employee.
Judge Murray Creed also rejected the presenter’s claims that he was controlled by BBC management and given detailed scripts instructing him how to interview guests on his show.
Mr Christian, who shot to fame in the 1980s as a presenter of Channel 4’s The Word, signed a two-year freelance agreement to present the breakfast show on BBC Radio Manchester, starting in April 2006.
The agreement guaranteed him a minimum payment of £180,000 over the course of the contract.
Mr Christian was moved to the ‘drive time’ evening slot in May 2007 and the agreement was not renewed when it ran out in April this year.
His claim for unfair dismissal was heard at a ‘pre-hearing review’ in August, which was to determine whether he was legally classed as a BBC employee.
Mr Christian told the hearing he was controlled by the corporation to such an extent that he was given ‘scripts’ telling him how to approach interviewees.
The presenter, who was paid £375 a show, also claimed he was instructed to ‘go gentle’ on guests from Manchester council.
Mr Christian claimed he was treated less favourably than permanent employees.
The BBC denied he was a full-time employee, saying he was a self-employed freelance. It said the ‘scripts’ he described were aide memoirs.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1082431_christian_loses_job_fight?rss=yes
The stupid Plett woman is at it again.
However, his Pakistani counterpart has urged India not to bring politics into the issue, saying “we should join hands to defeat the enemy”.
The BBC’s Pakistan correspondent, Barbara Plett says there is a feeling among senior officials in Islamabad that India has acted too hastily in linking the Mumbai attackers to Pakistan.
In the UK, officials denied reports that some of the attackers may have been British citizens of Pakistani origin.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7754676.stm
The BBC: desperately trying to conceal the truth.
Now looks likely that the terrorists were monitoring BBC news reports of the events.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3534599/Mumbai-attacks-Terrorists-monitored-coverage-on-UK-websites-using-BlackBerry-phones-bombay-india.html
Great isn’t it. Our own armed forced refuse to listen to the BBC, but a bunch of Paskistani terrorists from Leeds and Bradford do.
The Andrew Marr guide to interviewing!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=V9j18Z7dK74&feature=related
Seems like the word is spreading…
ten oclock news tonight.
very quick trot thu the damien green story.
nice lengthy piece on american aistrikes killing civilians in afganistan.
anyone know how to get a Green Card quickly ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7755618.stm
bbc star muslim benefit cheat given the oppurtunity to have a good rant.
have you ever seen a convict have the space to sound off like this ?
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/3936036.LOUGHTON__Apprentice_star_guilty_of_benefit_fraud/
local paper gives the tre story the standard treatment. the council’s anti fraud guy has the last word in this story.
can’t seen al beeb letting someone called cohen have the last word…
Another example of the BBC using it’s privileged position to crush any private sector competition:
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2008/11/a-noble-resignation.html?cid=140728078#comments
… leaving many of us wondering whatever happened to programme-makers just making programmes?