Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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Caught this comment on the 7 am R4 news about Iran’s new sanction-breaking satellite which is ‘for the promotion of monotheism [presumably not Judaism or Christianity], justice and peace’ and criticism that way come that country’s way:
‘Iran will no doubt reply that a double standard is applied to it by countries that laready have this technology.’
The BBC’s news is so good they are giving us the future as well as (bits of) the past (and what to think about them).
The Today programme this morning is one big snow fest. Maybe I’m just paranoid but maybe they are using this to deflect all the attention away from the strikes?
BBC’s snow coverage never changes.
We have aerial shots of traffic jams, then interviews with a cockney type bemoaning the fact we can’t cope like they do in Moscow (there’s a reason for that Cockney type), and then shots of children sledging, usually down Parliament Hill (Hampstead natch). We’re then told to expect more snow in the Pennines and the Cairngorms.
Bah.
Kegs | 03.02.09 – 7:55 am
No, you are paranoid.
Dear beboids,
if the programme is called ‘farming today’, it is reasonable to expect the presenter to be knowledgeable enough about the countryside, to tell ‘the semi retired Dr,’ that bird scarers are only used during periods of hard weather when pigeons , which are extremely wary birds,congregate in large enough flocks to cause serious crop damage and as such will have an absolutely negligable effect on other bird populations.
ie. if you don’t like it, f**k of back to town , you twat – why was he on the programme in the first place ???
The TOADY show covered the industrial unrest by dredging up an old union baron who insisted the problem was that foreign workers must be paid the UK rates of pay, nothing was mentioned about the uncomfortable fact that if this were to happen then the UK would be flooded with skilled workers flooding in from poorer EU nations, thus leaving the poorer nations with a skills shortage and the richer nations with a skills surplus, but since when did cold logic and common ever intrude on the socialist fantasies of the union barons?
So far from helping the situation the union position would make it far worse! BTW the union barons have colluded with the nulabour/EU axis for years selling out its own members to further the socialist agenda of dumping millions of foreigners in the UK to expand its power/vote base.
British workers would have to compete with the best skilled workers from the new member states who would flock to grab the higher waged postions and companies would be forced to apply the EU laws on non discrimination that would have the actual effect of discriminating against British workers, is there no end to the insane lunacy of the EU/socialist workers paradise?
No, you are paranoid.
mikewineliberal | 03.02.09 – 8:47 am |
better than a bbc android.
Nice of the BBC ‘Today’ programme to include yet more propaganda for the Islamization of the West this morning (at about 8:50 am GMT), specifically on finance.
Without explicitly talking about Islamic Shariah finance, the whole ‘Today’ presentation by Mr. Stourton, which included one Muslim and one Christian, (thereby elevating the significance of Islam beyond its population representation here) was not critical of Islam’s Shariah law, but concentrated on the ‘immorality’ of interest charging, and money-creating banks.
The word ‘SHARIAH’ was amazingly not used!
The BBC seems oblivious to the opposition to the imposition of Islamic Shariah by non-Muslims:
“Gaffney launches campaign against Islamic finance”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/14362
“Shariah Finance Watch: frequently asked questions”
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/category/frequently-asked-questions/
the whole ‘Today’ presentation by Mr. Stourton, which included one Muslim and one Christian, (thereby elevating the significance of Islam beyond its population representation here)
Be reasonable. It’s impossible to get 2% of a talking head. Or 70% of one, come to that.
Anonymous 10:45 am
Would it have been ‘reasonable’ for BBC to have:
a.) mentioned Shariah law?
b.) had on a non-Muslim critic of Shariah finance?
Backwoodsman,
I missed Farming Today this morning – bloody good thing too: I’d have gone beserk!
One man, living near arable fields, feels that gas bangers are scaring away ‘already endangered’ species. His evidence? None. Anyone else to back him up? None – unless you count the mysterious ‘many’ who make numerous appearances on the Farming Today web-page.
If farmland birds are decreasing, it seems odd that we should be employing more bangers to scare off….farmland birds.
And where do I buy one of the bangers that lets off a ‘sonic boom’ that the BBC refers to? Much more useful than my propane guns and rope bangers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/index.shtml
Slipping back one day; yesterday (2nd Feb) “Today” reported a “Guardian” article which was criticising some large companies (unspecified) for tax avoidance.
What it didn’t report is that the “Guardian” is also involved in tax avoidance through The Scott Trust – and (hattip to Guido) last year it had an £800K negative tax bill, ie the DRC owes the Guardian the £800K. that seems like tax avoidance par excellence.
Just an oversight in BBC reporting, I suppose.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/insider-dealing-makes-a-comeback-725334.html
The Mirror’s Kevin McGuire (sic) is forever screaming about corruption in the city. His memory is obviously even worse than his IQ!
George R | 03.02.09 – 11:02 am
No, I don’t see why the whole discussion should have been hi-jacked by shariah, which was pretty irrelevant to the discussion.
What was missing was a Jewish voice. The debate that the other two were supposed to speak at also had a Jewish contributor billed – – Zaki Cooper, a former adviser to the chief rabbi.
Oddly, the intro to this discussion talked about the Just Share debate as having happened last night. According to Just Share’s website it was cancelled because of the snow.
http://justshare.org.uk/?cat=5
Was I the only one who had to do a double take at last night’s BBC TV (sports) news?
Describing the funding for American “football” teams, which is distributed equally(ish) to each team, we were helpfully presented with a bullet point screen headed … “Sporting Socialism”.
I kid you not.
(Blogged.)
Mike,
I have no problems with tax avoidance as any company’s first responsibility must be to its share holders.
Its tax evasion that is the real problem and as long as the government insists on squeezing as much out of us as possible, then people will always come up with creative ways of not pay blood money to the government.
Mailman
Anonymous 11:02 am
What I am conscious of is the BBC’s incessant and insidious propaganda provision for Islam on BBC TV and Radio, and the BBC’s general dhimmi-like avoidance of providing substantial non-Islamic and anti-Islamic criticisms of such aspects of Islam as Shariah finance, as illustrated this morning on ‘Today’.
George R | 03.02.09 – 12:04 pm
Having followed one of your links, I can well understand why the BBC would give a wide berth to some ‘critics of shariah finance’.
HSBC has a shariah-compliant subsidiary that does a lot of good business in Dubai and elsewhere.
Would your tinfoil hat ‘critic of shariah finance’ have us believe that HSBC is financing Bin Laden?
Pull the other one….
EU attacks ‘Buy American’ clause
A European Commission spokesman said it was the “worst possible signal” the Obama administration could send out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7866900.stm
You’ve gotta laugh, The EU & BBC filth were so desperate to get Obama elected and this is how he thanks them!
From Guido
Obama Bitterly Disappoints Liberals
The Guardianistas will have to revert to anti-Americanism, the Messiah is a very naughty boy
http://www.order-order.com/2009/02/obama-bitterly-disappoints-liberals.html
Iran launches homegrown satellite
(Same story as libertus | 03.02.09 – 7:45 am)
Apart from the ‘way-to-go’approach few things struck me.
The article is illustrated with a video presumably from Iran TV (IRNN). Given the BBC’s resources couldn’t they have provided either a voice over or subtitles? My Parsi is a little weak 🙁
Iran is subject to UN sanctions as some Western powers think it is trying to build a nuclear bomb, which it denies. Would the UK be one of those countries?
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the satellite was launched to spread “monotheism, peace and justice” in the world. How?
Anonymous
Now you’re getting down to it: you have no criticism to make of Shariah finance. On the contrary. It’s the BBC line too.
myb old man used to work for BCCI (ill fated) and this bank claimed to follow Sharia practice in Pakistan.
They would charge a whole price for a loan and in effect the interest was built into the loan repayment.
So it really is usery but just under a different name.
The bottom line is that all institutions that lend money have got to make a profit.
If I have got this wrong please correct me?
George R | 03.02.09 – 12:28 pm
you have no criticism to make of Shariah finance
Actually I do.
My main criticism is that it is a tiresome complicating factor that companies have to deal with in order to do business in the Gulf. But customers often have tiresome demands that make our lives more complex. If the potential business is worth the extra effort, then so be it.
..if you don’t like it, f**k of back to town , you twat..
backwoodsman | 03.02.09 – 9:27 am | #
I grew up in the country and am always amazed by the way ‘newcomers’ (townies) try to interfere in local life. If you don’t like it, why move there?
A few pet peeves:
1) People that move to the village for ‘the sense of community’ but then play absolutely no role within village life – don’t help out with the village fete, school, use local shop, pub, etc. They seem to think that the ‘sense of community’ magically appears from nowhere – they have no idea that a lot of people, work very hard to keep the village ‘together’.
2) People that moan about people in local pub ‘turning to look’ as you walk in the door – as if this is somehow hostile. People look because they know everybody in the village and are checking too see which of their friends just walked in.
3) People that move into the village and then try to block local’s planning applications. If nobody in the village objects, who are you to start laying down the law?
4) People that object to satellite dishes/aerials on cottages. Do they really think that the people building the cottages wouldn’t have stuck an aerial on the roof, if they’d had TV available at the time?
5) People that object to ‘the smell’. It’s the countryside you bloody morons. Pig shit smells, deal with it.
6) People that seem to think they’re somehow superior to locals because they used to live in London (I currently live in London and have nothing against the place/people). They think locals are ‘backward’, ‘simple’ and ‘uncivilised’. Of course, the reality is that people in the countryside tend to be much more friendly, community conscious, law abiding, decent and willing to help their fellow man.
/rant
Anonymous
You wonder whether Shariah finance supports Al Qaeda-
“Shariah-Compliant Finance: ‘Jihad with Money'” (7 min:45 secs video clip)
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/home/18-headline-item/518-shariah-compliant-finance-jihad-with-money
frankos | 03.02.09 – 12:35 pm
They would charge a whole price for a loan and in effect the interest was built into the loan repayment.
Almost, but not quite.
The way it works is this: you want to buy a house but only have 25% deposit. Instead of a normal mortgage, the bank buys the property and then sells it on to you straight away for a much larger amount than it bought it for. You pay the 25% as a downpay ment and then regular sums. But instead of mortgage repayments combining capital + interest, they are capital only (just a bigger chunk of capital, to take account of the bank’s consideration).
As I said to George R…… it is a tiresome complicating factor. But it is no big deal otherwise, so I can’t see why he is so fixated about it.
The BBC does all it can to keep Ken Livingstone’s political career alive. It uses his (completely disinterested surely) criticism of Transport for London (ie of the present mayor) for cancelling London’s bus services yesterday in an attempt to embarrass the CEO of TfL on “Today”: as if, were Ken still in charge, the buses would magically not be affected. This was followed 20 minutes later by a plug for Ken’s Radio 4 programme tonight on his political hero, Bobby Kennedy (who, get this, according to Ken would have achieved an instant rapprochement with whoever was leading Russia at the time and caused the collapse of the USSR 20 years before Reagan).
I don’t recall Steve Norris being hauled into the BBC studios every 15 seconds to comment on the guy who defeated him in the mayoral elections, let alone be asked by the BBC to join their stable of instant commenterati. But, there again, unfortunately for him, Norris isn’t an anti-Jewish race-hustler and thus, as far as the BBC is concerned, doesn’t represent an important constituency which must be heard at every opportunity.
George R | 03.02.09 – 12:40 pm
Yeah…. but I can’t see what the objection is.
I don’t see that having Islamic clerics sign off on shariah compliant banking products sold by RBS or HSBC is any different than having Rabbis certify some food lines sold by Sainsbury’s are kosher.
I don’t recall Steve Norris being hauled into the BBC studios every 15 seconds to comment on the guy who defeated him in the mayoral elections, let alone be asked by the BBC to join their stable of instant commenterati.
No, but Norris wasn’t Mayor of London for 8 years.
I would have thought that the fact that the new President of the Eu has stated in a televised interview at Davos that he did not believe in global warming would have been newsworthy, why no comment or mention?
Anonymous
Non-Islamic and anti-Islamic people should show a critical awareness of, and resistance to, any attempted political encroachment of Islamic Shariah on a non-Islamic society.
A significant critique of ‘Islamic economics’ (something which the BBC does not provide), is available in this review of Timur Kuran’s book, ‘Islam and Mammon’:
‘Middle East Forum’:
“Islamic Economics: What does it mean?”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/12664
Yet another pedofile?
Australia cleric gets jail term
A Muslim cleric has been given a 15-year jail sentence in Australia for plotting to attack sporting events. It’s not ‘exactly’ hidden but it only appears in the Asia-Pacific as OTHER TOP STORIES.
Non-Islamic and anti-Islamic people should show a critical awareness of, and resistance to, any attempted political encroachment of Islamic Shariah on a non-Islamic society.
Perhaps so. But how is this relevant? The availability of Sahriah-compliant finance doesn’t encroach on the lives of non-Muslims any more than the availibilty of Halal meat does. Only Muslims tend to use it, and no one pressures anyone else to.
George R
Your key point is that anything to do with Islam is presented in an anodyne way.
I have seen nothing in Anonymous’s comments that counter your key point.
You will have noticed that the Muslim speaker spoke of how wonderful Islamic civilisation was many hundreds of years ago. The usual line on the BBC.
If it was that super – how come shariah finance did not continue to help develop it ?
In fact, the heights of Arab achievement (eg Fes university, Granada) are easily matched by achievements in the @Western world – think Greece, Rome, Constantinople ….. leading to eg Venice, the Norman cathedrals across much of Europe, Oxford, the castles in Wales.
Many of these knock Fes and Granada into a cocked hat. But not in the BBC pro-Islamic myopia.
The BBC forever trumpets Islamic ‘civilasation’ – maybe as an antidote to the relative lack of civilisation in most of the islamic world.
How much time does it spend extolling Islamic civilisation – often falsely – compared with a civilisation as sold as China’s. We compete with the Islamic world not one jot in economic terms. But China is bearing down on us like a steamroller. McBru’s pound sterling has devalued against the Yuan by over 30% in just the past few months. Why no focus on China ? Even when the Chinese president is here, I have heard nothing substantive on the BBC about the economic challenge of China – let alone the latent military threat.
Umbongo and Anonymous.
According to Ken in a BBC Radio interview the problem with the roads of London is that the varoius boroughs have been cutting back on their capacity for gritting etc. For some strange reason the interviewer failed to ask the obvious question of who was the Mayor of London allowing that to happen!
Anonymous | 03.02.09 – 1:36 pm |
wrong…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3160175.ece
http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/latestnews/Halal-meat-taken-school-menu-race-row/article-629312-detail/article.html
The Boston Globe picks up on BBC ecowackery:
THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. “2007 to be ‘warmest on record,’ ” BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government’s Meteorological Office, the story announced that “the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007,” surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/
Anonymous
“No, but Norris wasn’t Mayor of London for 8 years”
True but so what. Since the BBC wishes to have a running commentary on what Boris gets up to (which is fine – the BBC is supposed to provide a news service after all) why is the defeated candidate for office always the one to be called in to provide it? His is not an impartial or disinterested voice. He’s always going to be critical particularly as he has said that he will run for election next time. Very occasionally his opinions on Boris might be of some interest – if they weren’t so balls-achingly predictable – but how often do we need to hear them? His constant, largely unwarranted, exposure on the BBC keeps his hat in the ring and, more importantly, relieves him of the hard work (not to say expense) of grooming his constituency.
Boston Globe picks up on the BBC’s agw alarmism:
THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. “2007 to be ‘warmest on record,’ ” BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government’s Meteorological Office, the story announced that “the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007,” surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/
sorry…..in my surprise I failed to note that the wise men of Boston had noticed this a year ago!
Mike Spilligan
Strange re the Guardian. I believe the Scott Trust operates under charity legislation. I believe charities are supposed to be non-political. Any one here believe that the Guardian reports without supporting political viewpoints which tend to exclude those considered to be to the right of centre?
Gerald Brown
As usual – not only bias but, worse, crap (although expensive) journalism.
Gerald Brown | 03.02.09 – 2:07 pm
The Scott Trust was a non-charitable trust. Wound up now anyhow:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/08/theguardian.theobserver
Sheer nastiness from the witch-hunting Big Brother BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7867472.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7867472.stm
Proud Kuffar | 03.02.09 – 2:56 pm |
does that vile antisemite tom paulin still gets an invite though i wonder.
Just saw that PK. So a BBC employee hears something in private, and which is off air. He then dobs the person in, and the BBC make the comment public when it wasn’t in the first place. Typical. Why don’t they air that radio interview where Neil Kinnock goes nuts…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5651477.ece
well fancy that carols been given the bullet,that didn’t take them long did it,obviously calling some one a golly is far more heinous than a joke about giving an 80 year old lady suffering from alzheimers a mercy shag.
They would charge a whole price for a loan and in effect the interest was built into the loan repayment.
Almost, but not quite.
The way it works is this: you want to buy a house but only have 25% deposit. Instead of a normal mortgage, the bank buys the property and then sells it on to you straight away for a much larger amount than it bought it for. You pay the 25% as a downpay ment and then regular sums. But instead of mortgage repayments combining capital + interest, they are capital only (just a bigger chunk of capital, to take account of the bank’s consideration).
Thats what I thought –I didn’t get it over well –cheers