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!
Bookmark the permalink.
Dear God, the News Quiz.
It’s given up any pretence of impartiality, and has simply become a mouthpiece for Sandy Toxic and her sidekick, Jeremy Hardly’s left wing views.
What is it with these left wing comics and the BBC? Has the BBC just become a job-creation scheme for the otherwise unemployable?
Watching the item on the Conservative green proposals on the 6 O’Clock news, it seems like the BBC were thrown a curveball! They accidentally managed to be almost neutral, as it was green (a plus) but made by the Conservatives (big downer in their eyes).
However, one swallow does not make a summer…
More f-list journalism here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7814843.stm
“The number of new cars sold in the UK in 2008 fell by 11.3% from 2007 to 2,131,795, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).”
I reckon going from 2007 to 2,131,795 is actually a 1,062.18% increase.
I shall not bother again as the elite on here have way too much of a old school mentality to preaching !.
xjboy550 | 16.01.09 – 4:18 pm
Oy, I’ll ‘ave you know I woz educalated in a comprehensive skool in the east end, mate. less of yor lip and the “elite” bollox, alright?
I’ve just had an idea.
You know how the BBC loves to send reporters to ‘location’ even when there is nothing to see – e.g. stand outside the Home Office at 9pm when all the workers have gone home.
How about we get a team together to go down and stand behind the reporters. We could make signs to hold up:
“Don’t trust the BBC. They are lying to you!”
“Question Time tonight: 2 Hard Left, 2 Soft Left, 1 Centre Right
Balance?”
“Not with the BBC picking the audience, panel, questions and also chairing the debate”
It could be a real thorn in their side and certainly not illegal.
Or ‘balloon cards’ saying “I’m biased”, “Don’t trust me”
http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/gallery/screenshots/3f07/3f07_056.jpg
BBC Silent about being Terrorized in Gaza: Discretion or Cowardice?
Israeli media reports that Hamas took over the first floor of the building that the BBC offices in Gaza last night and fired rockets from there, trapping the journalists above. Despite the fact that their reporters have now escaped the building, the BBC has so far not said anything about this.
When I was interviewed on the BBC last week, I commented on the pervasive intimidation of the MSM in Gaza, which is one of the reasons that there were none there when the hostilities broke out. I pointed out that the last journalist resident in Gaza, Alan Johnston, now the editor in chief, only survived because he was so openly pro-Palestinian, and even he got kidnapped and brutalized.
“I’ll cut that out to spare you a law suit, my interviewer said. You’re impugning the integrity of a journalist, and without his credibility he can’t practice his profession.” I was at once struck by the combination of concern for reputation and shamelessness involved in such a “favor” to me.
But here’s the BBC, used as human shields by Hamas, and they won’t let the public know.
Now on the other hand, the Foreign Press has decided to boycott the visual material released by the Army Spokesperson’s Unit (Dover Tzahal) because they object to not being allowed to go into Gaza and — get this — to the Israelis shelling buildings that hold press offices in Gaza. (I kid you not.)
It’s hard to find a finer illustration of the sad truth that the media will behave in craven fashion towards those who will hurt them if the journalists displease them, and in arrogant fashion towards those who won’t retaliate. Despite the many and vociferous denunciations of the Israelis in their statements during the current conflict, not one discusses misbehavior by Hamas.
And the righteous indignation of the letter further illustrates my belief that, unable to admit to either their public or themselves that they are intimidated, they hid behind a pseudo-ideology that permits them to wax morally eloquent. Alas for the state of journalism. Alas for the MSM’s Western public! Alas that Israel won’t denounce these hypocrites.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/01/16/bbc-silent-about-being-terrorized-in-gaza-discretion-or-cowardice/
DB: I couldn’t get the link to work but I found this today –
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/16/firearms-associations-claim-obama-drove-surge-gun-sales/
…and assume it’s much the same as your link.
What the fox article doesn’t mention is ammunition, which I wondered if your link does, as ammo is the interesting aspect of the gun control laws. You can have all the guns you want, but they are taking a back door approach and limiting ammo sales. As a result, gun owners in this part of the country are stocking up like mad on reload. What good is an unloaded gun, I axe you? We’ve got Mexico just hours away, and fears of that government’s collapse keep us armed and ready. I suppose the Messiah doesn’t think of these things, nor the moveon.org types, i.e., armed citizen soldiers as first line of defense.
We are expected to believe in the existence of Black Holes.
Yet we self apparently can not see such a thing and can never possibly get close enough to one to fully investigate exactly what it is, or what may or may not be controlling it.
Scientist study black holes and much else besides not by direct study of the object, but by the effects it has on other objects or events that surround it.
Such is the situation with the BBC and the secret government that I believe does in fact control generally and often specifically the BBC.
By its very nature a secret government and therefore its influence is officially a SECRET. Therefore is not authorized information.
Unauthorized information is usually hard to find, but not impossibly so. Therefore to study a conspiracy one looks for the effects not the object itself, and then fill in the gaps with as much provable information as possible. Just the same as any other scientist investigating a Black Hole or indeed a police detective investigating a VERY serious fraud or murder.
If scientists investigated our world with the same amount of skills as does the British people when trying to understand the true driving force behind their own state broadcaster.
Science would still be watching apples falling from trees, and not even bothering to ask themselves why the apple does indeed fall.
When I tuned into the pm programme this evening it was eulogising the life of John Mortimer. I turned off for for quite a while and then tuned in again and it was still the same topic. The man discussed was a very wealthy Socialist lawyer who spent his life trying to ensure that various criminals were allowed to defeat justice and continue preying on society. Not, of course, the society to which he belonged, since he could afford to live a long way from the scum he represented. Mortimer, in my opinion, was in many ways worse than many of those whom he defended, he knew full well that some, if not most, of his clients were guilty and would commit more crimes but he could not care less about that as long as he received a large amount of money. Just the sort of person whom the BBC loves to honour and later in the pm programme the love-fest was continued, but without me as a listener. If he had spent his life as a prosecution lawyer, trying to protect the public, would the BBC have spent so long discussing him?
“Unauthorized information is usually hard to find, but not impossibly so. Therefore to study a conspiracy one looks for the effects not the object itself..”
Interesting perspective, Atlas. What do you say then about this effect: Obama appointees come up wanting in the public eye as to morality, fiscal honesty, etc., to which the media respond as “honest mistakes”. Obama, Our Lord Messiah, scans the allegations with a concerned eye, thinks about them for an appended period of time, i.e. “investigaqtes”, then decides everything’s “A-Okay”; the media dutifully announce the Messiah’s proclaimation with sighing relief.
Appointee appointed.
This can’t all be George Soros’s fault, tho the money trail leads there…
From the BBC’s ‘News’ website: “Kenyan mandarins plan to watch Obama on hotel TVs”
Is there no end to this incessant stream of sycophantic drivel?
what a fool you are. go home and re-think everything.
Bill ‘I got game’ Buchanan | 16.01.09 – 10:46 pm | #
presumably he’s already at home you pompous twat.
oh and stop changing your stupid name,
bill’the thick arsehole’buchanan will
do from now on.
“what a fool you are. go home and re-think everything.”
Go home and take your pill, so that I will not be made uncomfortable by your insipid questioning of BBC CNN ABC NBC MEDIA authority over what you shall and shall not think.
Or else.
In bringing back the disgraced presenter, the BBC betrays the values it is paid to uphold, argues Charles Moore
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/4272268/Jonathan-Ross-epitomises-our-societys-declining-standards.html
So the BBC doesn’t think the Government should bail out the banks.
Please explain why I have to bail out the BBC to 3.5 billion every year.
I just wonder if Harriet Harperson got her way if the plane crash in New york would have ended so happily
The pilot was all Harperson hates.
1. Male
2. White
3. American
4. Straight
5. Military background
I’m sure there are some I missed.
Bill ‘I got game’ Buchanan:
Boys and girls, get over the petty arguements and see the light. Israel is an aggressor and get what it deserves when it bombs innocent people in Gaza.
Bill ‘I got game’ Buchanan | 16.01.09 – 10:47 pm | #
——————————————————————————–
Bill’s gots the nuts to post as himself everytime, but he’s so like the drive by media, see the post times – one minute apart on this thread and the one above.
Martin:
He’s still married to the same woman, who loves him and is proud to be his wife.
betyangelo: Yes I missed that one. Very sorry 🙂
BBC ‘Newsnight’, tonight, the political dregs.
Only paraphrasing a ‘question’ put to Mark Regev, Israel spokesman by the sly BBC GAVIN ESLER:
‘Are you proud of killing Palestinian children?’
Question for BBC GAVIN ESLER:
‘As a pretentious, politicaly biased supporter of Islamic jihad Hamas, and devious interviewer of Israel representatives, don’t you should resign?’
Martin:
Forgiven. Easily overlooked as appalling harpies just HATE it when certain types of cretin-ish women are happily married to the kinds of men you listed 🙂
Been watching the 10 o’clock news (by mistake I swear; was zapping and got stuck).
Abu-Bowen was talking bullshit as usual. I think he’s getting exited that his friends in Hamas are going to make it with the cease fire thing and all. Anyway, suddenly, he started to make sense. I was surprised by this at first but then realized there was a problem with his microphone. He just went kkhhhh khhhh khhhrrk khhkrr.
Even his audio equipment has had enough.
Then, there was the American correspondent (whose name eludes me at the moment) reporting on the plane landing in the Hudson river.
A universal heroism story with a happy ending. Pretty straight forward to present.
Well, he couldn’t get on even with this one without injecting a bit of a well deserved beebish condensation: “the Americans, who so much love a hero…” got what they were looking for etc.
What simpletons those ‘muricans are with their love of heroes stuff.
George,
Al Beeb really didnt ask that question did they?
Mailman
George:
I was wondering the same thing as Mailman – ‘Are you proud of killing Palestinian children?’
Say he did NOT ask that question.
Mailman, betyangelo
Yes he did.
Unbelievable.
(What am I saying. Of course it is believable, It’s the b-bBC)
Re: Max and his comment on the hero pilot in New York (12.13am)
I live on the lower west side of New York, about two miles from where the airliner came down yesterday.
Coincidentally, although I’m English, I’m also fairly high-up at a very large newspaper in New York, the direct equivalent of one you see in London each day on the Tube.
Yesterday, Thursday, at about 3.30pm our time here, the plane went down, about, I guess, half a mile from our office.
My people were on the scene within 15 minutes.
I just wish you could could have seen and heard the accounts they came back with.
I shan’t bore you with even a selection of them. There are too many, and with no exceptions, they are very moving, even for an old cynic like me.
What the pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger did almost defies belief.
Surely, the BBC did not belittle what he did? I cannot get domestic BBC news here, but the man is a ‘hero’ by any standards.
Forget the fact he’s American. He saved 155 lives yesterday.
Surely, the BBC did not belittle than?
Typo alert
Of course, in the last line of my last post I meant “to belittle THAT” {rather than “to belittle than”
Apologies. Also, lest anyone forget, recall the role of the A320 co-pilot, FO Stiles, from Oregon, Wisconsin, who was the one who talked to ATC during four minutes of the most heightened terror it is possible to imagine, as his commander turned down two alternative landing strips and decided, with 29 years of experience of piloting civil aircraft, to ditch on a river in the middle of New York City.
Surely, I repeat, the BBC did not belittle THAT?
This can’t all be George Soros’s fault, tho the money trail leads there…
There once was a very rich New York Banker chap named Morgan that was thought by many while alive to be the richest man in the USA by far. Shortly after his death it was discovered that 80% of his entire wealth was actually owned by a certain Mr Rothschild in London.
Now you dont have to be a rocket scientist, or a great accountant to be able to work out that if America was then apparently the richest country in the world, and as Mr Rothschild had long since been the richest man in Britain, and therefore in Europe. He must therefore have been the richest man in the world. Which by definition makes his family the most powerful human beings in the entire known universe. By quite some considerable amounts of light years. Especially by now.
George Soros it is said, was a close friend of our current Lord Rothschild after they met while passionately studying Marxist economics at the LSE together.
Please connect the dots yourself.
And YES you did read it correctly. ‘MARXIST ECONOMICS’ not the free market type. Very good they were both at understanding it to, by all accounts. It is known also that a Rothschild employed a certain young Mr Karl Marx as a reporter for one of his London national news-papers for several years. Before he went off and wrote a rather famous book, on which The later Russian Revolution was based. So a direct connection is established between World Zionist revolutionary Marxist Communism and The British Zionist establishment. The implications of which are truly mind blowing, simply for existing at all. However when one considers the many many billions totally wasted on a stage managed never going to happen Cold War. That could have been spent making this world a place to be proud to be a part of, instead of the murderers, liars and crooks paradise that it actually is. Our true reality is too hard to easily come to terms with. Come to think about it means virtually everything we have ever been told all of our lives by The BBC is all based on a completely massive LIE.
mullah – No. the bbc was full of admiration and awe at his heroism.
More perspective bias this morning from al-Beeb.
Jews divided on Gaza it claims, showing a banner from last weeks hugely attended PRO Israeli demo. There were probably about a hundred or two of these GuiltyJews™ versus 10-15,000 Pro Israeli demonstrators there. It them lumps this in with GuiltyJew™ extrordinaire and arch-leftie Gerald Kaufmann to make it case for a massive ‘fault line’ among Jews on Gaza.
You couldn’t make this up- really.
I omitted to mention that there’s also a few Moroccan Jews coming out against Israel too. That’s a surprise – Dhimmis coming out on the side of their ‘protectors’.
Oh and a few Canadian lefties. The Beeb really are making a hell of a case here. We’d better all pack up and go home then.
Now it seems Poison Dwarf Blears thinks we’re not kissing enough Muslim butt here at home, either. Sheesh.
Is there another leftie protest due today or something? There must be for the Portland Place shilling level to be so high this early.
George,
I guess it is all the jews fault in the first place. I mean if they had all just died quietly for Adolf none of todays problems would be happening.
Mailman
The European Commission has accused Microsoft of harming competition by bundling its Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system.
Still no word on any action to be taken by the EU in response to the BBC effectively being “bundled” with all TV sets.
This article on in the BBC is just drivel, we have the PM and his sidekick Preston from the Beeb now accusing banks of being ‘Bad’, bad because they have investments in industries which produce toxic waste.
Does not the Government invest in toxic waste?, I would have thought that millions of civil servants is a toxic waste on my tax payments.
And Mr Borwn investing in foreign countries when your own country is failing is not a particularly clever thing to do, shame that Mr Preston failed to point this out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7834808.stm
Montague’s on a fellating mission to protect the hegemony of the telly tax against the pesky Ch4 upstarts.
You couldn’t make it up.
An extract from the BBC article that Labour is dodelijk linked too:
The meeting came as it emerged the government was considering plans to use billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to create a “bad bank” which would buy up the “toxic assets” from the banks – leaving them free to lend again.
However, the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston says that the “bad bank” may yet fail to be born, because “there are huge difficulties in valuing the assets to be placed in them and in defining the assets that may be placed in them”.
SO we are expected to pay out even more money to create a “Bad Bank” where Gordon thinks he can hide the worst of the banks and the Governments investments, be clear that Mr Brown wishes to create this bank to pull the wool over the eyes of the voters.
I note that on the BBC’s UK news index page at the minute there’s a photo link to this story about a man who’s been accused of stealing pages from rare books in the British library.
The title of the link to the story is “Rich businessman who defaced stolen books,” as opposed to “Muslim academic sliced out sections of priceless collection,” reported elsewhere.
Can’t blame it on him being Muslim after all. Best to put it down to him being an evil capitalist bastard.
Jason | 17.01.09 – 8:16 am | #
As pithily put as I have ever soon; well done.
I suspect the get-out will involve the word ‘unique’.
Atlas Shrugged
Can you clear up for me where Karl Popper fitted into the New World Order plan. I am no fan of Soros, but Popper was a major influence on him, so much so that Soros founded an institute (The open society) paying homage to Poppers widely acclaimed “The open society and its enemies”, which destroyed Marxism and totalitarian forms of governance.
Please don’t tell me that Popper is also a fully paid up member of the illuminati. I haven’t come to terms with your accusation that Ayn Rand was a Nazi yet.
BTW have you noticed the colour of the ties that BBC presenters wear, Phoencian/Roman purple just like Darling and Brown.
There is no evidence his religion was a motivating factor for his actions, so why should it be mentioned?
mikewineliberal:
There is no evidence his religion was a motivating factor for his actions, so why should it be mentioned?
mikewineliberal | 17.01.09 – 9:28 am | #
————————————–
Agreed, it is exactly the same as the BBC reports that claim ‘Israeli atrocities’ without any evidence.
Mailman, Bisto, betyangelo.
GAVIN ESLER’s interview with Mark Regev, Israel spokesman, last night, ranks as the most insulting, politically biased I have ever heard on the BBC, both in its hostile manner and presumptuous content.
For those with access to BBC iPlayer, check out the whole interview, but especially 10 mins 59 secs in:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gtmyx/Newsnight_16_01_2009/
GAVIN ESLER: to Mark Regev, Israel spokesman, (only slightly paraphrased, check original which is more egregeous if anything)-
‘Are you personally proud of what Israel has achieved – 1,000 Palestinians dead, 346 of them children, 79 women, 13 medical workers, 16 ambulances destroyed, U.N. schools and other buildings attacked – are you proud of all that?’
MARK REGEV answers, and then:
GAVIN ESLER:’The answer is “Yes”.’
Andrew Curran | 17.01.09 – 9:35 am | #
I was penning this as George R adds his comment.
Why do I suspect that the answer will, as with most things, end up with the word ‘unique’.
It seems to be deemed a ‘get out of’ card that a very special few can use to deal (or at least try) with an awful lot.
The BBC must be so… proud.
Is Peston the one with the exCEPtionALLY irriTATing voice that RIses and FALLS in a PREdeTERmined SNEEEER? He should HAVE eloCUtion lessons – or MAYbe elECTroCUtion…
he is.
@Labour is dodelijk:
‘Toxic assets’ is nothing to do with toxic waste. It is to do with supposed assets that a bank invested in which are valued at x but which in reality have a value of x-, if they have any value at all.
They’re called toxic as they have the potential to produce huge losses over a long period of time, unless they’re written down to zero now. Writing them down to zero immediately affects a bank’s declared capital ratio, hence its credit rating and credit worthiness, and it may find it impossible to continue to get loans in an already tought marketplace.
That’s what toxic asset means – it means it’s poisonous to the bank. A ‘bad bank’ is not a chastisement, it’s a vehicle for throwing all the toxic assets into and trying to manage it as best they can, allowing the remainder of the bank to be shot of them and to continue as a going concern.
David Lister in today’s Independent takes the BBC to task for defending, and even celebrating, the lazy anachronisms in its period dramas:
But if it gets viewers viewing, is accuracy that important? Apparently not, according to the new head of BBC drama, Ben Stephenson. In an interview he declared: “At the end of the day, the story of The 39 Steps is quite far-fetched. The question is: for the seven million people who watched it, did it feel authentic, did it create a sense of period?” There was more of the same from The 39 Steps’s producer Lynn Horsford, who said: “With this adaptation we wanted to stay faithful to the spirit and period of the book, but asked the writer to feel free to re-imagine it for a modern audience.”
And thus, quietly and largely unnoticed, a massive change of BBC policy is slipped out, a cultural volte-face in its approach to drama by the nation’s most important and influential provider of drama. It is the use of language that fascinates me most. A drama now should feel authentic; it should create a sense of period. What on earth does that mean? Why should it not be authentic and properly portray the period?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-lister/david-lister-the-bbc-flies-in-the-face-of-accuracy-1418274.html
It’s a short step from “Does it feel authentic?” in the drama department to “Fake but Accurate” in the newsroom, hence the MSM’s readiness to accept the interpretation of events provided by Pallywood Productions and its large cast of actors. The anachronisms in The 39 Steps allow Lynn Horsford to “re-imagine” the story in a way that fits more comfortably the BBC’s leftist worldview. Hamas/UN-directed propaganda in Gaza performs a similar function.
Apologies for the tag, didn’t realise it would go as a link. Tried to say: x – quite a large amount, and put quite a large amount in angled brackets.