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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jeez
completely not bias but have you seen the size of the bbc “health correspondent ” branwen jeffreys ?
on tv tonight discussing swine flu.
i have fairly large widescreen tv but her arse only just fitted into the picture !
Sarah Jane’s Ghost | 28.04.09 – 9:47 pm |
but that is clearly the BBC Business Editor saying that Labour say that taxing the rich etc
Technically, yes. Of course, I’m implying that Peston knows whereof he speaks, as that was essentially the theme of his biography, not to mention that it’s not out of the question that No. 10 runs these things by him to see how they’ll fly. We know he and Robinson (among others, I guess) do get briefed in advance, and we’ve caught Peston “predicting” things we know he was already told.
His line about the poorest feeling the inevitable service cuts most acutely is another giveaway. That would really depend on what the cuts were, if we’re honest. But Peston just takes the easy class-war route. Not to mention “the long shadow” of your colleagues’ favorite shibboleth. He sets it all up nicely, and it’s not “behavioral uncertainty” when one adds up everything he says.
He pretends he’s just objectively suggesting all this, but it’s essentially what he championed in his Brown biography. The “New Labour” thing was Blair, and Peston is Brown. We can’t just pretend that doesn’t exist.
Bankruptcy predicted for Britain – the IMF will have to bale us out again, just like 1976 under Callaghan :
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KD25Dj03.html
Shame this bloke isn’t the Tory leader.
He is good – but the tory leadership do not hold his views.
That camp twat on BBC Newnight (so called ethical man – or shithead to you and me)talking about 12,000 left wing loser protesters.
Funny that the same bunch of rent boy using twats at Newsnight totally ignored the tens of thousands that protested about big Government at the Tea parties.
A small defence of Atlas Shrugged. Where I can agree with Atlas is in a belief that all ruling elites are ,or rapidly become, malevolent. The scorpion stings- it is in it’s nature. An elite is no different. Malevolence is part of an elite’s survival mechanism. The desire for wealth and power is a sickness of the spirit and those infected are a curse on mankind.
Only the elite’s fear of us tempers it’s behaviour. Democracy, as understood by the founding fathers of the United States, is possibly our only defence and in the 21st century it is being destroyed all around us.
Hard times ahead and whilst I do not agree with Atlas when he writes of a directed conspiracy I do not trust those who have power. Neither do I trust their propagandists in the media.
Atlas is one of the good guys however misguided some of you think he is.
Hard times ahead and whilst I do not agree with Atlas when he writes of a directed conspiracy…..
You will, and sooner then you hope.
I do not profess to know everything and certainly not the details.
However I do know this. Things are most surly not as they are being presented to us. We are being repeatedly and viciously lied to by people we used to trust. We all feel it, but understandably too few have the GUTS and free will to even go there.
My mission, apart from trying desperately to improve on my writing skills, is this.
To entice people to THINK about things properly, for a change instead of simply REACTING to events and given situations as they are very dishonestly and selectively presented to them by the MSM and especially the BBC.
Thanks for the support
Dave S | 28.04.09 – 11:19 pm |
You know, that’s all very fine, to a point. I’ve agreed with Atlas shrugged on various things in the past as well. But there have been far too many grievous factual errors, illogical statements, and outright lies based on his own theories for me to accept.
It doesn’t do us any favors to let this just sit there.
David Preiser (USA) | 28.04.09 – 5:46 pm | #
Fat Face Penguin Seal | Homepage | 28.04.09 – 5:55 pm | #
Dorian Smith | 28.04.09 – 6:13 pm |
It almost seems as if Robinson is encouraging the negative comments about Mr. Brown. He probably wants a new Labour leader, so they can have a successful coalition with the LibDems at the next election.
David Preiser (USA) | 28.04.09 – 6:16 pm | #
I’ll simply say that I do not feel it is really for a BBC political editor to ‘want’ stuff and then use his position to try and influence it, or at least the audience’s perceptions.
And shifting daily according to the perception of future patronage is frankly professionally repellant.
However the shifting, erratic, clumsy moderation policy/strategy/whim on his blog thread is beyond farce and is doing them no favours.
The Barak Obama orgasmfest continues on BBC Breakfast. The BBC think we are mugs, that we swallow all the rubbish they spew out.
Why do they bring two guests to the studio who are fully signed up members of The One fan club.
Attacks on Bush are the only message of this segment. I hate the BBC.
Philip Bobbitt and Paddy Ashdown are on the Today programme main slot at 8.10, discussing Afghanistan and Pakistan. They made some reasonable comments, however the overall analysis from them was that it isn’t working and “we need to get our act together”, as was said more than once.
However this was poor journalism by John Humphreys because by the end of the interview I had absolutely no idea what getting our act together meant in terrms of strategy etc. Humphreys completely failed to chase this, as he certainly would most aggressively if interviewing those in charge of policy there, or former members of the Bush Govt. It seems that as long as you make the right noises for Beeboids (e.g. Afghanistan isn’t working with American B52 bombing largely to blame), you get an easy ride.
I expect a rocket will be on its way to the Toady programme from the Minister responsible for higher education after John Humphrys’ expose just before 7 a.m. of the ludicrous situation of the universities producing 300000 graduates (up from 150000 in 1992) for 100000 graduate level jobs. If it’s now as obvious to him as that why doesn’t the programme invite the “Minister” on and give him the full (normally only reserved for Conservative spokesmen) treatment.
It does of course help explain in part where the extra £200bn a year ahead of inflation since 1997 that the goverment is taxing and spending on our behalf has gone!
Sky’s John Craig has just posted this little snippet on his blog…
Overheard in the Members’ Tea Room in the House of Commons, one Labour MP to another: “I don’t mind Gordon screwing up the global economy, but tell him to leave our expenses alone.”
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:e85a6003-0002-41f2-a58f-4d65b24c70eb
Nice to know that Labour MPs have got their prorities straight.
David Preiser 4:48
Would Muslim banks include BCCI ?
Craig 6:16
I bet the BBC wouldn’t have covered the story if the cat’s name had been Adolf or Mohammed.
Dave S 11:19
Yes, rather agree with you that Atlas is basically one of the good guys, even if his conspiracy theories seem a bit far-fetched.
Then at his next post 2:22, he writes ” I do not profess to know everything “, with no apparent hint of irony !
I see the BBC is pushing their favourite bully Alan Sugar as a potential Labour candidate for London Mayor.
Simply put, Alan Sugar represents the ugly face of Labour politics.
Just been listening to ‘World at One’ and their coverage of the Sri Lankan LTTE supporters occupying Parliament Square.
A couple of points…
1. Beeb isn’t questioning why Sri Lankans get to occupy this area unhindered by the Met. If they’d been native British they’d have had the shit beaten out of them.
2. Tamils being organised to ask schools for permitted time off to attend pro-LTTE demonstrations. One kid being interviewed by a Beeboid, referring to Sri Lanka as ‘home’. So I see – they need their ‘rights’ etc. as they live here and still see themselves as primarily Sri Lankan and not British. All taken as being quite normal as far as the Beeboids are concerned.
Sickening BBC bias.
Keeps on peddling the lie that McBroons New Liebour have led the UK to the worst off of any nation in this credit crunch.
Toadying to the Call Me Dave Conservative line.
Never bothering with facts.
Lots of smaller countries demonstrably suffering much worse than the UK whether in the EU or not, Iceland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ireland, etc.
Larger nations are worse off too, like Russia or the industrialising Asian countries.
And oil dependant economies, like Iran or Venezuela have seen their income have a sustained collapse, there is big trouble ahead for them.
Some specious garbage that the large nations that compete with the UK are worse off.
Nonsense.
Japan is much worse off.
So is Germany, 6% fall in one year forecast for them, and that is optimistic.
The whole Euro area is faring worse, so much for that stupid euro idea being a good thing.
Only North America is doing ‘better’ and that is marginal.
McBroon is useless, and Liebour woeful, but to diss this nation and talk it down just to have cheap shots at them when it simply isn’t true is bias at its worst.
Just repeating the endless Cameronista BBC lie will only work by Mussolinis old adage of repeat a lie often enough and it will be believed, even when it is patently false.
Anonymous | 29.04.09 – 1:46 pm
Are you basing all your ‘facts’ on GDP growth/decline?
Because money needed for bailing out banks etc. wouldn’t reflect in this. Would it?
anonymous at 1 46 is right. We are in a bad way in the UK, but other places are fcuked too. It’s a lie when those on the right try to make out that the UK is somehow having a worse recession than elsewhere.
Gavin Barass | 29.04.09 – 3:42 pm
Can we have some figures please?
Or are you telling porkies?
Listened to PMQT live on R4 – Cameron with some heavy questions re the Gurka row – about 10 mins worth including supporting Clegg inspired debate later. About 3 mins of Clegg (admittedly good line – repeated twice “good enough to die for ….good enough to live in … etc). BBC TV news Cameron completely airbrushed out to produce exclusive Clegg vs. Broon debate. Does anyone else get the impression that as the polls worsen for Lab that clegg is now being given an increasingly easy ride a la St.Vince and LibDems seen as lesser of two evils?
Grant | 29.04.09 – 10:40 am |
Would Muslim banks include BCCI ?
Primary shareholder of, yes.
Gavin Barass | 29.04.09 – 3:42 pm
I’d rather believe the IMF than you.
Are they a ‘right wing’ organisation in your world?
PeterN 3:51
I am sure that you are right, the BBC are marginalising the Tories and promoting the Lib. Dems. as the opposition.
Disgusting, of course, but typical of the BBC. They really are the pits.
Anonymous and GB may be right but you can prove almost anything that you want by careful selection of figures. Given that the level of this government’s expenditure has ballooned to £200bn per year more than inflation increases we need not have been where we were at the start of the recession, when borrowings were already planned to rise. If I remember correctly most of the spend used to be portrayed by our glorious leader as “investing in this that and the other”. In my book “investments” normally produce a return, anybody any idea when the dividends will start to roll in. Health service 50% more in – what 10% extra out. Education 50% more in – anything extra out?
If the BBC wished to pursue a Conservative theme the best is probably that the government failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining.
Gerald Brown | 29.04.09 – 4:19 pm
Spot on. the big bail out good alibi for Gordon and Alistair re existing ruinous state of public finances Difference with those advanced countries quoted as being in as bad a position (or not) as UK, is that they have transport systems, health, education services that perform. Lab (old or new) still the same – they equate spending with delivery.
Or are you telling porkies?
Krimper | 29.04.09 – 3:50 pm |
He’s telling porkies.
The closer we get to May 2010 the more blatant they will become.
OUR government has today admitted that it knew about/prepared for this potential flu epidemic at least 5 years ago.
I wonder why? Especially given the self apparent fact that the government seems to be wonderfully competent at COMPLETELY missing a world economic crisis/meltdown, that many others, including highly respected economists, have been PASSIONATELY warning them about for many years.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs however ‘predicted’ a massively murderous world viral pandemic over 25 years ago. they estimated that such an ‘event’ could easily wipe out at least 30% of the entire worlds population. Mostly the old, the very young and residents of the THIRD WORLD, but then who really cared about them? Surly not any form of government, as all of these particular slaves produce very little, and/or cost too much to keep alive.
I doubt whether this particular outbreak is the one they had in mind. This one has the hallmark of another dry run, very much in the SARS and Bird Flu bracket.
We are wrong to believe that British companies no longer make things. One thing we are very good at making is fatal or otherwise diseases and more importantly their wildly expensive treatments. Then selling the treatments to national heath services at an unknown ( but you can bet your pension a extortionately high) cost to the American and European tax payer.
You may recall that George Bush, of all people, made it his top priority when gaining office, to literally THROW away $10 billion of borrowed, and tax payers cash to British American and European owned drugs companies. In the perfectly hopeless name of saving Africa from the HIV virus. Yet, I bet most of you can no longer put 2 and 2 together to make 4.
It is self apparent to me at least, that we are being played like a fiddle,all the way to an eternal jack boot in the face forever more authoritarian COMMUNIST/FASCIST/SCIENTIFIC socialist future. A basically communist existence only different from the Russian and Chinese form, in this respect.
When our worlds ruling elites ( who have been controlling places such as China for many decades )have finally finished with us, there will be nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to.
The Brown stuff has just lost the vote on the Gurkhas in the House of Commons.
Tears break out in the BBC newsroom. They tried hard to demonise the conservative Nepalese for the Brown Stuff but too many people like the Gurkhas and their dedication.
Get used to losing Brown Stuff.
Gurkhas:
BBC News 24 chose not to cover the vote live. A poor editorial decision, but one no doubt influenced by John Peenar’s 4:20 declaration that the GVN would win the vote.
The BBC: Biassed and piss-poor despite £3.5 billion subsidy.
As posted earlier re PMQT- taking bets that the the Gurkha vote will be portrayed solely as a Clegg thing. (admittedly his debate)Cameron / tories portrayal minimal – if at all!
Another classic BBC headline…
“Concessions made on Gurkha rules”
Only in the actual story are you told that the GVN lost the vote.
PeterN: “taking bets that the the Gurkha vote will be portrayed solely as a Clegg thing”
Well that was the line on the 1 O’clock BBC TV News. One of Nick Robinson’s minions even told us that to win, the Lib Dems had to persuade the Conservatives (+ GVN rebels) to support them, and that this remained open to doubt. Except of course, 30minutes earlier David cameron had made his position crystal clear in PMQ’s i.e. the Tories would oppose the GVN.
Not sure if this was an example of bias or just crap reporting – the BBC suffer from both 🙂
Have to laugh. The twats on Radio 4 got a shitty text message (not me honest) complaining that the BBC were hyping up the flu story and wanted some ‘real news’
So what story did the camp Peter Allen give us as ‘real news’?
Some non story about some bloke having a sex change in America and sueing the military.
As I keep pointing out, only at the BBC do ‘transgender non stories become headline stories that 99.999% of the population don’t give a toss about.
How bad is it round the world?
Don’t believe the BBC.
Don’t believe me.
Check for yourself with the IMF compiled figures.
Click to access c1.pdf
Turn to page 10 of chapter one.
There is one thing we are worst on, our housing bubble. It really stinks.
Labour and the Bank of England cannot dodge blame in that one. Though even that is not all it seems, because our price to income ratio is always amongst the highest, and it simply will not drop to the averages for many other countries such as those in the EU.
Anonymous | 29.04.09 – 5:32 pm
I’ll ask again. Are you basing your ‘facts’ purely on GDP? Because the links tells me you’re basing your facts on GDP projections.
Why not look at real facts like how much money your government is borrowing, NOW, TODAY?
That should have been Radio 5.
Dorian Smith | 28.04.09 – 6:13 pm,
Dunno why they close it for comments. Justin Webb’s blog is always open for comments. So much so that a little clique of precious leftie dears is allowed to indulge in meaningless off-topic chat on a dead thread to its little heart’s content. There they swap notes on how shocking the occasional intrusion is from a right winger (or anyone else with a differing point of view) on one of the alive threads.
This off-topic clique is indulged by the moderators, while other off-topic comments and comments like those of DB at 28.04.09 – 11:18 am are removed.
can’t seem to find this on the bbc…
this, i mean….
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:3dd24868-07be-483a-94b2-f6eff1ea0c12
What is it about the calibre of political reporting and commentary by the MSM in this country?
I just picked myself off the floor laughing at the latest joke post by Nic R to watch SKY, with ‘heavyweight’ anchor Boulton ‘interviewing’ some guy called Beck.
Other than a jarring habit of calling the UK England, and a few daft allusions to black pudding (has anyone ever seen, much less tried the stuff? I haven’t), the guy wiped the floor with him. It was quite bizarre.
But what really got me was the Brit’s continued attempts to create a Bushist ‘if you do not love him you are against him’ shtick about Pres. of 100 Days O, which Mr. Beck very suavely rubbished.
Why can the political media class and their rebuttal units and/or groupies here not grasp that holding any two-faced, doofus pol to account need not be always need to get stuck in some convenient party-line pigeon hole?
This was me, banging away at one of my pet subjects last July:
The Guardian’s new Media 100 acknowledges the power of Jane Tranter, the BBC’s Controller of Fiction responsible for all the leftie drama on the BBC (White Girl, Bonekickers, Spooks, Burn Up etc). She’s number 10, whereas Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, is only number 23.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/page/top1002008/1to100
Thankfully she’s gone now, as has her all-powerful position at the BBC. From yesterday’s Guardian:
The BBC is right to end its head of fiction role
Jane Tranter’s former role at the BBC was too big a job for one individual • no one should have that much power
Exactly.
“…Jane Tranter’s former role at the BBC was too big a job for one individual • no one should have that much power…”
Actually no one should have the right to produce so many shite programmes.
Actually no one should have the right to produce so many shite programmes.
Martin | 29.04.09 – 8:03 pm
That too.
DB | 29.04.09 – 7:31 pm |
I thought Helen Boaden was the head of fiction at the BBC.
I thought Helen Boaden was the head of fiction at the BBC.
David Preiser (USA) | 29.04.09 – 8:16 pm
http://instantrimshot.com/
BBC bias by omission. The number 10 E petion calling for McIdiot to resign is the number one petition on the site. All over the Grauniad and other papers.
But to BBC news…didn’t happen..nothing to see here…move along….vote Liebour…Thatcher…..These are not the droids your looking for…..Ooh look swine flu let’s all look at that instead and save Brown!
Pathetic.
Anonymous | 29.04.09 – 5:32 pm | #
You can not trust predictions from The IMF, anymore then you can trust Browns. Which basically means that you would be better off asking your grandmother or a 3 year old child to predict our future economic reality, then so called economics experts.
This is not because the IMF is in anyway incompetent, or does not understand the fundamentals of economics. Or indeed because Brown can’t add up two small figures without a pocket calculator to save his life. While clearly being far more then half insane.
No, the REAL reason why you can not trust Brown, The World Bank, The Bank of International Settlements, The Federal Reserve, The Bank of England, or The IMF, is this.
All of these sources are bought and sold lying crooks, working for the most horrendously evil, well healed, genocide loving criminals, ever to have disgraced planet earth. A fact of life and often extremely painful slow death, that one day in the not so distant future, many of you will very unhappily confirm yourselves.
Very much in hope rather then any kind of expectation that anyone seeing this will even read it properly, never mind act on my honest advice, I will give it anyway.
We must forget forever notions of left or right.
These terms are dangerous and meaningless nonsense, designed to confuse, and above all divide, common man from common man, wife from husband, child from parent, black from white, poor from slightly less poor, Muslim from Christian, employed from unemployed, employee from employer etc.
Lovers of liberty, freedom and above all individual property rights, make up the majority of the worlds population. In places such as The US and Britain, they make up an even larger majority.
So please ask yourselves this question.
If the above is true, which it clearly is. Then WHY are we living in a corporate capitalist (Fascist) world, when not also living in an overtly Marxist Communist one, more so every day?
My answer would be this.
The people who run this so called capitalist world of theirs, are indeed the most powerful, secretive and consistence promoters of COMMUNISM there has ever been. Our problem is that these chaps also invented, own and run THE IMF, as well as what is left of our representative parliamentary democracy, The EU and The UN.
IMO the above is SELF APPARENTLY so. So much so, that if you are not aware of same, nothing that is currently happening in this world of theirs, can possibly make any real sense whatsoever.