It’s rare for a week to go past without the BBC running an item somewhere suggesting that Britain should top locking criminals up. It’s all part of the narrative and so it is no big surprise to hear an item on Today earlier this morning suggesting that we should follow the example of Finland and cease “incarcerating” young people (anyone under 21) in our prisons. The debate was between Professor Rod Morgan who supports the Finnish model, and Michael Howard who does not. An exchange of opinions – which is fair enough. But the bit that got me was the way in which BBC reporter Mark Easton set the whole item up in prejudicial language that was clearly very sympathetic to the line then taken by Morgan. In this way, Howard was basically outnumbered two to one, before on then throws in John Humphrys! Bias – it’s just a way of life for them.
CRIMINAL IRRESPONSIBILITY
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The only time the BBC is in favour of tough prison sentences is in the following circumstances:
1) TV licence dodgers
2) Jefferey Archer
3) Middle aged teachers who disrespect teenagers, like the woman from Bolton who fired a puff of air near the foot of a teenage gang member who had been terrorising her family for months for their amusement.
It does indeed seem to be part of your narrative David.
more ammo for the BNP.
Yes, it was interesting that Michael Howard took Mark Easton’s report to task for its use of the word “incarcerate” whilst Professor Morgan called it an “excellent report”.
All BBC reports are impartial but some are more impartial than others.
Mark Easton sounds like a campaigner for the Howard League for Penal Reform. Second report from him on youth punishment in 2 days ?
And we are forced to pay for him to go on jollies to collect “evidence” for his campaign.
I didn’t hear the debate, but the piece fron Finland earlier was interesting. Their success rates in preventing reoffending are far better than ours. I suppose one’s view hangs on the extent to which you think the youth justice should focus on punishment or rehabilitation.
It’s a complex and serious issue, done more justice I bet by Today than by David’s rant.
When in doubt the BBC quote a Scandinavian country.
the problems with that;
1) they are far smaller in population and their population density is far lower
2) they are much more homogenous in ethnicity and religious belief
3) they have swung from unfettered immigration to a much more controlled one –BBC doesn’t mention this too often!
in short the average Scandys has much more of a sense of community and being part of a country than we do.
It would be more relevant to compare our system failures to USA France or Germany who all suffer from social fragmentation.
frankos 10:53
And their education systems are far superior to those in the UK.
frankos | 04.02.09 – 10:53 am
A very good point. The finnish education system is a case in point. I don’t think immigration is right though. i’d replace that with histories which have seen
them, sweden apart, under the boot of more powerful neighbours.
ye we should lock everyone up, no questions asked. especially the darkies and coloureds, and those who pray to mecca, we dont lock enough of them up. why won’t the BBC follow this great solution?
what the fudge is wrong with the beeb discussing a new idea? no, you just want to have something to rant about today, and this will do fine….
grow up
everytime you waste chasing up nonsense like this, under the pretense of bias, you just make the whole point of this site redundant
Quango: David Vance actually said: “…Mark Easton set the whole item up in prejudicial language that was clearly very sympathetic to the line then taken by Morgan.”
The BBC is promoting its own political viewpoint. That is what we are objecting to.
Did Quango actually hear the Mark Easton item
Or is he just a troll ?
Did you hear it johna?
Yesterday I posted this comment on the open thread, how relevant it is to this one|
This afternoon I listened to “Law in Action”. It was concerned with penal policy in the USA. The liberal bias was quite blatant. Everyone interviewed was in favour of a very soft line on criminals. A junkie, a pimp and someone guilty of aggravated burglary, presumably he viciously attacked a homeowner, were interviewed. Guess what class of people were entirely absent? That’s right :- victims. Of course, as in this country, those who attack imprisoning criminals are not those subject to their depredations.
As Roland Deschain pointed out, we do not have to take David’s word for it that Mark Easton’s report was overwhelmingly on the leftie-liberal side, because the participants in the debate explicitly confirmed it, Howard complaining of the “perjorative” use of incarcerate, and the leftie praising the “excellent report.”
The only thing that surprises me is that David bothered to note this – teeing up a debate with a BBC reporter presenting the left wing case in advance (or afterwards, or both) is so routine as to be not worth mentioning.
Amusingly the leftie debater acknowledges that it would be politically impossible to raise the age of criminal responsibility as he would like to do. In other words, he himself acknowledges that his own views, and thus also the BBC’s “excellent report”, are waaay to the left of public opinion.
Meanwhile it is worth listening to the debate, if only because the supposedly far right “hang ’em flog ’em” Michael Howard is so relentlessly moderate and reasonable. I suspect he is also to the left of public opinion on these questions, but much closer to the centre than the BBC.
As I mentioned in an earlier post the ‘Law and Order’programme on radio 4 yesterday focused on proposed plans in the USA to rehabilitate instead of incarcerate.It began with…..”America’s continuing love affair with prisons” and went downhill from there.All those interviewed were in favour of rehabilitation.Non were against…And of course it was mentioned that Obama would change everything around.Yeah right!!!
The ‘Total Emergency’ TV programme recently showed a young thug kicking,punching and spitting at his arresting officer,who he also called a f******* pig.His punishment?A £10 fine.I would have rehabilitated him with a birch till he couldn’t walk for a week.
MIKEWHINELIBERAL…How would you have dealt with him?
whitewhatever
Yes I did hear it
jeffD and dagobert
This morning’s piece was just like the report you heard from the USA – bleeding-heart liberal tosh.
Is the Beeb running a campaign on this ? Who was the US reporter – Easton on another trip paid by us ?
ye we should lock everyone up, no questions asked. especially the darkies and coloureds, and those who pray to mecca, we dont lock enough of them up. why won’t the BBC follow this great solution?
what the fudge is wrong with the beeb discussing a new idea? no, you just want to have something to rant about today, and this will do fine….
grow up
Quango, what is it about facts that offends you? I offered factual differences between Scandinavia and UK.
If you don’t agree then back up your arguements with facts, not ill judged and childish abuse.
I think that the do-gooders have missed the point of Prison.
The primary aim is act as a deterrent for other criminals.
While in there the crims can study/rehabilitate etc, but the main aim should always be to act as a warning for others.
Otherwise why would we need higher speeding fines, points, parking tickets, criminal convictions for open wheely-bins etc etc etc.
BBC – you might be able to have a certain amount of success with pushing your views on, say, global warming or Europe or British colonialism, or even that exam standards are rising, but you will never succeed with your message that we should all love criminals who, you think, are basically just the same as everyone else except a bit deprived. Even if the Howard League and yourselves spread your tentacles to controlling the entire press, internet, all books and every TV station in the entire world for 200 years, you will never get this message accross and people will still fear and hate criminal scum
once you’ve had your house ransacked, your shop robbed or your wife mugged you seem to lose your tolerance for the poor darlings.
Lawmakers and Polly Toynbee clones probably don’t live in areas that suffer these problems
If the BBC wanted to push a liberal agenda on this item, why did it invite the ever cogent proponent of “prison works on to debate the issue? Howard is a terrific performer who no doubt held up his side of the argument very well. So where’s the bias there?
I have often wondered if there is a wet criminal-loving liberal who has had his daughter gang-raped or his elderly father kicked to death for ‘dissing youf’ etc and has then changed his views? The fact that people like judges and top BBC executives live in a safer lifestyle with their gated communities will not always protect them from the practical application of their theories, eg letting scum out of prison before they have even had a chance to try out the gym equipment or have a game of pool.
I did hear Mark Easton’s piece and thought here we go again, the Toady programme pursuing its (mikewine?) liberal agenda yet again as the prisoner’s friend. Yet only yesterday on Five Live Drive at about 17.45 they were discussing the “sentences” received by two doubtlessly misunderstood under 21’s who violently set about a middle aged couple walking home from the pub who had the temerity to inquire as to whether the car they were kicking was their own. On being told no they ‘phoned the police which seemed for some reason to aggravate the two young men such that the male of the couple ended up in hospital in a coma.
Can anyone recall an item on the Toady programme when victims of such not rare these days crimes have the opportunity to bring their experiences to the chattering classes who often profess the Toady programme to be part of their daily schedule.
What would have been interesting in the item today would have been a comparison of recorded crimes per head of population between the two countries and, of offences detected, the proportions under and over 21, but it would probably not have served the blatant intent behind the report. Just like all BBC reports trot out the “fact” that we have the highest prison population in Europe. In proportion to number of offences we are no more than mid-table but publcising that doesn’t serve the prisoner’s friend’s agenda.
One for mikewineliberal – some shemes run within prisons by christian groups which were showing promise in reducing re-offending not long ago had their funding stopped on discrimination grounds. I trust you will be able to join me in expressing your disappointment at this as surely anything that reduces re-offending must be for the good, or do you subscribe to the removal of religious “output” in prisons as well as on the BBC, as christianity always seems to be one thing that overrides your seemingly natural “liberal” views.
Just like all BBC reports trot out the “fact” that we have the highest prison population in Europe.Gerald Brown | 04.02.09 – 1:11 pm
This could have various explanations:
– We are more willing to send people to prison (not the case – in Spain you will go to prison for far less than here for example.)
– We are unlucky enough, for whatever reason, to have more criminals.
It is possible to be the country that is least likely to imprison and has the highest prison population simultaneously.
It is like a farmer who breeds pit bull terriers leaning over the fence to his neighbour who breeds labradors and saying, ‘our farms are identical, and we have the same level of antisocial behaviour amongst our little pets.’
mikewineliberal
An interesting point re Michael Howard. How about considering it from another viewpoint. Get Michael Howard to record/commission a 4 or 5 minute item full of comments by people who have suffered at the hands of criminals and “light” punishments etc. then get a prisoner’s friend in to answer the points and have it refereed by a presenter with other than liberal views. Hang on a minute that last one will be quite a problem at the BBC!
And I have an idea for Jack Straw. Ask your 24-hour armed protection officer to wait in the car for a few minutes on a rough council estate in Manchester, where I live. Then go round the corner on your own, approach a gathering of antisocial ‘youf’ and ask them politely to keep the noise down.
Jack Straw: Have a look close up and on your own at these individuals, not on one of your carefully organised visits arranged by probation officers.
These scummbags are the products of your policies, as approved of by the BBC.
Judges – you do the same. These creatures really are different in their natural habitat compared to when you see them in court being fawned over by a group of social workers.
“Finland Population: 5,244,749 (July 2008 est.)”
“The population of tbe 32 London Boroughs, plus The City of London is approximately 7,700,000” Probably more now.
Finland is a rural country,London is a vast sprawling conurbation.
“Facts about Finland
Area
Finland is the fifth largest country in Europe. The area of Finland is 338,000 square kilometres or 131,000 square miles, of which eight per cent is cultivated. Ten per cent of the total area is covered by lakes, which number 188,000, and 69 per cent by forests.”
“London is if you count the size of it by looking at the land it covers not by population.
from the edge of west London around heathrow to the edge of east London romford its 38.7 miles
and the land area it covers is exactly 609 square miles which is 1577.3 square kilometers”
Seems like the BBC is using the same sort of maths the Warmeristas do.
Apples and oranges.
Or it is like a farmer leaning on a fence and saying to his neighbour ‘I have a small rat problem,’ and the neighbour replies,
‘I have a huge rat problem on my farm, and I am trying to solve it by treating my rats like VIPs, providing them with free corn and rat runs and the freedom to do as they please.’
“If the BBC wanted to push a liberal agenda on this item, why did it invite the ever cogent proponent of “prison works on to debate the issue?”
Because the BBC always needs someone to make an example of.Note the didn’t put up cuddly Ken Clarke they put on one of the Tories that they love to demonise.
out of interest if you want stats on various countries try;
http://www.dk.com link on maps + atlases
on 2nd thoughts don’t bother –bloody useless –sorry
The BBC has always had a fetish for a few, small, European states.
These states are SOCIALIST, and also have a mostly White, hightly eductated population. None of the problems we have here.
Anyway the BBC has been doing stories for 50 years about – if only we could copy these SOCIALIST countries in Eurpope, then we’d all be happy, vote Labour and eat organic sprouts in communes while chanting ‘We hate Bush’ to the tune of The Red Flag.
As most BBC employees are themselves White, middle class, highly educated, it therefore follows that they like these small European countries.
Put a few people from a Council Estate in the BBC, and things might change rather quickly!
“Put a few people from a Council Estate in the BBC, and things might change rather quickly!”
Well,the BBC is moving to Salford,but I wonder how many off the employees will live there? They will probably commute from in South Manchester or semi-rural places like Ramsbottom. Don’t forget BBC folk,do go for a drink in the “Brass Handles”.
Maybe Finland can afford to be so relaxed about imprisoning people because it’s considering an ambitious plan to fingerprint the entire population:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/finland_fingerprints/
I didn’t hear Today (I never do): does anyone know if this aspect of their penal policy was discussed?
This is OT. Someone on another thread brought my attention to this piece from the Guardian:
It’s all in the edit
Some of the BBC’s reports about the recent strike action have a disturbing undertone: working-class people are racist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/03/race-bbc
It contain’s juicy bits about the BBC’s liberal bias. It deserves a thread on its own.
Gerald Brown | 04.02.09 – 1:11 pm
Radio 4 had a long programme about sarah payne a week or so ago; so I guess that’s an
example of a victim, and a victim’s champion, getting sympathetic coverage on
the bbc.
I haven’t exposed my own views on this issue; the issue is whether or not the item was biased. I didn’t hear it, but michael howard’s inclusion suggests a serious attempt at balance.
Christian groups? fine, so long as the state isn’t supporting them to proselytise. I support a secular state.
So the anti-Christian BBC and Whiners don’t proselytise, then? Hm…
mikewineliberal
I’m afraid I cannot accept Sarah Payne as an example of BBC non-bias as even to liberals/the BBC child murderers are beyond the pale and he got life (whatever that actually means nowadays).
The victims I want to hear broadcast on Today and the BBC are those suffering from what are called “minor crimes” by “the prisoner’s friend’s” so readily given air time on the Toady programme, yet which seriously reduce the victim’s quality of life and for which the (often persistent offending) perpetrators receive sentences akin to those handed down in the case I quoted.
mikewine 5:44
The inclusion of Michael Howard “suggests a serious attempt to balance”.
So that is ok then.
So long as the BBC make an occasional serious ( as opposed to frivolous ) attempt to balance, everything is hunky dory.
In fact your post demonstrates that you agree that the BBC is biased towards the left, does it not ?
sorry, I think I mean sarah’s mother.
Assuming you’re right and i’m wrong, was this then
a bbc attack on Government penal policy? I thought they were desperate to support the labour government wherever they can.
One of the pieces of news which really made my day last year was the news that an MSP had been beaten up by some yobs. If only our subhuman criminal population would attack a few more MPs, MSPs,councillors, Beeboids, defence lawyers and, above all, judges, this liberal nonsense of mollycoddling vermin would end in days.
Sorry to go off thread here but I came across a BIG piece of criminal irresponsibility that we have been signed up for on the QT.
http://raedwald.blogspot.com/2009/01/integrated-eu-blacklist-of-criminals-is.html
Follow the link to the actual piece of legislation. It seems that over stuffed wheelie bins and taking the rip out of the EU flag are up there with terrorists and rapists. Nice…
I’d also like to know why the BBC, other TV companies and the newspapers haven’t uttered a single word about the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 that is due to be put into practice come 16th February. It paves the way for the police to stop anyone, including journalists, taking footage or stills in public places if they deem it contra to our National Security. Apparently you could get up to ten years for shooting a few frames of Mr. Plod doing what comes naturally.
Surely, even with the hopelessly biased media, this will threaten their livelihoods? Or are they too enamoured of Crash Gordon or too stupid to care?
Sigh…
I actually saw Mark Easton’s report on Finland on the 6 o’clock BBC one news. I have to say it was exactly as DV described it. Totally one sided and totally sympathetic to the approach Finland takes. It gripped me as a piece of pure propoganda.
mikewhineliberace…..
Why the one man crusade to back up the bbc? What possible motive would you have for doing this.
Why are there more criminals in Britain then BBC?
“We know there has been a tidal wave of legislation, but it is mind-boggling to discover the size of the tsunami. It is estimated that more than 3,600 new offences have been created. But even more astonishing, as Baroness Stern, a crossbench peer, discovered when she asked, is the number of these that can result in a prison sentence. Believe it or not, there are 1,036 that the official could identify. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/4109358/Why-is-Labour-so-keen-to-imprison-us.html
How does this compare to Finland I wonder? They really should be comparing crime in Britain with the former USSR.
And here is a New Labour crime that could land you in prison.
“Allow an unlicensed concert in a church hall or community centre (The 2003 Licensing Act introduced a maximum penalty of six months’ prison for breaking the law). ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1052636/Labours-3-600-new-ways-making-criminal.html
i too heard this interview this morning, whilst driving to work.
two things stood out , which the BBC never elaborated on – but Howard, to his credit, did point out
1. what is the stability of the family unit in Finland?
2. what is the cultural ethos of Finland, vis a vie , anti-social behaviour.
you simply cannot look at raw prisoner rates without the wider context – which is what the BBC was doing.
mikewineliberal | 04.02.09 – 5:44 pm
it was HIGHLY biased – because the BBC section of the Today report never looked at the CULTURAL differences between finland and britain.
instead , they focussed on raw figures. which is utter bollocks. and they know it too.
instead it was left up to Michael Howard to point out the obvious.