(NB: This post is not by Natalie, but by occasional B-BBC poster Niall Kilmartin.)
It’s not the jokes, it’s how you tell ’em: BBC red-button news this morning reported the arrests in the US. The final sentence of the report was:
New York has been on alert for a new terror assault since the 9/11 attack claimed by Al Quaida militants
(no emphasis in original) Al Quaida do indeed claim the attack and one would hardly accuse them of lacking militancy, so the sentence is not factually wrong. It seems an odd way to put it – except, I suppose, inside the BBC, where it presumably seems natural to phrase things to accommodate the ‘truther’ viewpoint. (As the post below suggests, some other viewpoints get less consideration.)
Similar ‘how you tell it’ thoughts occurred to me during last night’s 10 o’clock BBC news in a piece on the never-ending expenses scandals. As usual, numbers were balanced: they mentioned one Labour MP and one Tory MP (there are few LibDem MPs so I concede some difficulties in their mentioning a LibDem every time as well). The report on Hazel Blears consisted almost entirely of a summary of Labour MPs’ sympathy for her and criticism of Gordon’s criticism. It was all reportage of others’ views but it had a ‘sorry for her’ flavour and lacked balancing hostile remarks – except Gordon’s, and ‘her behaviour was unacceptable but she’s doing a great job’ (I paraphrase) is already balanced, whatever else you may say about it. No such considerate remarks were reported of the Tory MP whose ducks benefited from our taxes; no suggestion that spending public money on wildlife habitat was very much the norm these days. 🙂 To be sure, there were probably no sympathetic remarks to report: David Cameron’s statement about him was not as ‘balanced’ as Gordon’s about Hazel, and if any Tory felt otherwise, perhaps they (wisely) kept it to themselves.
By way of contrast, Jeremy Vine today introduced a guest as being from the ‘anti-fascist group Searchlight’. No ‘so-called’ about that apparently, calling a gang of leftist thugs ‘anti-fascists’ is just hard fact.
Yes constant reminders of moats and ducks but Margaret Beckett’s hanging baskets – £600 worth I seem to remember – very little said.
I also switched on to Jeremy Vine briefly at lunch time just in time to hear the discussion about the conservative who put his wrong address on an internal document when it was perfectly obvious (ie not hidden at all) so I understand that he had meant it for his other property. first speaker Kevin Meguire from the Daily Mirror without a whisper in the introduction of how deeply he is entwined with the Labour Party. It may have come out later – but I switched over to Classic FM.
Word Verification – matings – why?
I notice the BBC leave that twat Geoff Hoon out of the firing line. This is the piece of human excrememt that sent our soldier off to TWO wars badly equipped and ensured that he had enough money to fund his ever expanding houding portfolio. Not much Socialism there.
Niall,
The word “terrorist” is not in the BBC’s vocabulary.
Today gave the Conservative MP who is disputing the Telegraph’s take on his mortgage claims around three minutes this morning to explain his case. The interviewer did not give him (and his admittedly compelling case) a mauling.
DJ – Searchlight thugs? If you’re on the end of their heroic work perhaps.
Anyone who regards Searchlight as “heroic” is a far-left loon. Searchlight has a long record of violence, including violence against the police
JohnA – Really. Evidence? Do you mean the AFA? Agree with you on that.
Don’t forget peeps, that QT is on at 9PM tonight, not 10:40
Well according to the Great OB1, there are moderate Taleban, so why not a moderate faction of al Qaeda?
Errrr…. right, nice defence ‘anonymous’: Searchlight are thugs, but only to people who they think deserve it.
Hey, who doesn’t qualify under those rules? And doesn’t taking the absurd rationalisations of thugs at face value mean the BBC is tacitly endorsing their justifications for violence?
Martin 6:51
I first heard this from my 84-year old mother today. QT at 9. She will be watching for the first time ever.
Look forward to her views !!
where it presumably seems natural to phrase things to accommodate the ‘truther’ viewpoint.
There is no such as a ‘truther’ Natalie. There is only either truth or untruth. Something is either so, or it is not so. Truth is not an opinion, it is completely objective, often inconvenient, and it certainly takes no prisoners.
9/11 was either an operation planned and executed by a bunch of rag heads living in a desert, all by themselves, OR IT WAS NOT.
If it was, which seems given the available evidence, without any doubt the last possible possibility imaginable, we have relatively no problem whatsoever with regards Muslim or otherwise foreign terrorism.
Therefore events that followed were an extreme and murderous over-reaction, to say the very least.
It it was not, then it was just one of a whole long long lists of government and corporate criminal conspiracies, carried out on the general public, throughout history.
My money is on the later. This for several reasons, but mainly because ALL available evidence literally forces a thinking free individual to come to the only sensible, honest logical conclusion on offer.
To my great historical knowledge, wars are started by the big and more powerful force, not generally a small bunch of cave dwelling rag heads taking on the most powerful military, and military intelligence force yet known to mankind.
If history tells us one thing, then it tells us PEOPLE IN POWER LIE one hell of a lot. In fact being able to do so,and get largely away with it, is the single most respected and useful qualification for high office. Almost infinitely more then any other talent an elected or otherwise despotic crook, may of may not possess.
Even Churchill was almost a compulsive liar. There are many examples of simply enormous Churchillian lies. Many of which caused the avoidable deaths of many thousands of British and allied troops.
It is estimated that in order for the British to carry on pretending they had not cracked German Codes, at least 40,000 lives were purposefully sacrificed. Which makes a few thousand New-Yorkers look live a relative solitary ‘walk in the woods, or drive through Dalas.’
Churchill could never risk the real truth about WW2 ever coming out. Which is why he swiftly wrote the AUTHORIZED version of events.
What Churchill never got over close to mentioning, was that the very very top of British Military intelligence had placed British spies right at the very heart of the Third Reich, right from close to the start of the German NAZI party.
One was called Rudolf Hess, the other Adolf Hitler. Hitler always was working for elements within the British and American establishment. How else could he had financed the whole deal?
However Hitler and Hess were later to realize they had been set-up by the British ruling class and family.
When Hitler finally realized that he had been basically conned into fighting a world war, he has never going to be allowed to even half win in the first place, he went INSANE. Very much like Brown is now doing, or indeed done.
Before you all start laughing, think hard and long. Because the above really and very truthfully ids the only logical explanation that fits recorded events, such as Dunkirk for example.
Atlas shrugged
Look how the BBC pick Yasmin Alibhai-Brown for Question Time tonight. This piss poor, sorry excuse for a serious writer made some disgraceful comments about Jews some time ago, and the rest of her output leaves a lot to be desired. She simply does not deserve this prize slot on a ‘morality fit’ show where the case is so overwhelming against the politicians and anything she says will get applause. Grrrr!
I bet Hess was a Freemason.
Atlas obviously is deranged.
‘it had a ‘sorry for her’ flavour’ – That’s your perception Natalie. And as we all know, your perception is skewed.
Coverage of the whole expenses row has blown your case out of the water, because despite what you’d have us believe there hasn’t been any inconsistency in coverage of the different political parties. Much to your disappointment of course. That’s why we get another rambling post from Natalie which fails to make much sense.
Sorry. Very sorry.
I have been here for a long long while. I have scrolled over hundreds of rants by Atlas Shrugged. I have ignored it all, as a convoluted load of rubbish.
But the last post by Atlas Shrugged is way beyond the pale.
I object to sharing space with filth like that.
Lord knows what motivates him to utter such nonsense. This website is demeaned by his stupidity.
Time he was cut off. For the sake of B-BBC.
I agree with JohnA.
I agree with John A and David Preiser and JohnA. This nonsense has been tolerated long enough. Cut him off.
Will Jones
Poor Anonymouse.
He posted an attack on Natalie (9.30 pm) on a thread that clearly said at the top “(NB: This post is not by Natalie, but by occasional B-BBC poster Niall Kilmartin.)”
Another apology please!
Anon. 9:30
If you had watched QT last night you would have seen the evidence of BBC bias against Tories. Constant reference to Tory abuses, very little to Labour’s.
Blatant bias.
Atlas 8:38
Hitler was a British spy ? I think you have really surpassed yourself with this one !
Please, please do not ban Atlas. He may well be deranged but if you allow the BNPers to promote their filth you have to, surely, allow Atlas and his hilarious rants.
Hitler a British spy? I haven’t laughed so much in ages. 🙂
The guy is a star.
The Atlas Question.
I don’t think he should be banned. I don’t thimk anyone should be banned, except under special circumstances.
Some of the views of Atlas are a little eccentric, but he often has some good points to make.
I do rather wonder if Hitler was a British spy, who he was spying on, himself ?
Further , if Atlas is banned, it could be the thin end of the wedge. What is the policy for banning anyway, how is it decided and by whom ?
Maybe, David Vance could comment.
Grant,
Atlas shrugged (who disgraces the name) never says anything about BBC bias. Once in a great while he’ll say they’re fascists or something, but otherwise the only way he mentions the BBC at all is in the context of them being controlled by THE ESTABLISHMENT or the Bilderburgs and the Rothschilds and, lately, Jesuits. But never examples of BBC bias.
Even if one agrees with the occasional truffle this blind pig finds, it contributes absolutely nothing to the site. No debate about BBC bias, no evidence, no help at all. Only rants with little grounding in reality or facts.
If he’s banned it should be because he never, ever contributes to the purpose of the site, or engages with anyone in any kind of serious debate about BBC bias. He’s only here to brag about his brilliance and educate us all in the hopes that our minds are as OPEN as his and we finally understand the TRUTH.
And he’s a Freemason, so his credibility on calling out organizations bent on world domination is shot anyway.
David 3:30
Well actually, that is a fair point. He could be posting his offerings on any website, or even his own.
I guess , in my amazement at some of his efforts, I failed to notice that he seldom mentions the BBC !
So, I change my mind, that would be grounds for banning him.