I dare say that the day US Senator Ted Kennedy pops his clogs the BBC will go into full on mourning. They just love that aquatically challenged oaf. However it seems that there is one Kennedy that has invoked the ire of the BBC, and her name is Sarah.
Radio 2 presenter Sarah Kennedy has been chastised by the BBC for praising
right-wing politician Enoch Powell during her show. During her early-morning
show on Wednesday, Kennedy, 59, described Powell as ‘the best prime minister
this country never had’. Enoch Powell was famously sacked from the shadow
cabinet by Ted Heath in 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about the dangers of
mass immigration. A spokesman for the BBC said that the corporation had received
25 complaints by Friday and that the presenter had been ‘spoken to’ about the
remark
I actually do listen to “Bunty” each morning and find her a harmless and good natured person. But god forbid that a BBC presenter should say something positive about a demonised figure such as the late great Enoch Powell. I suppose if she had praised Aneurin Bevan she would have been given a salary increase…
One cannot help thinking that the Beeb dont consider her as 'one of us' and are waiting for the misdemeanors to build up so that they can build a case against her.
She seems to be right on the money in her relationship with the listeners but she hasnt the power that guarantees the security of Terry Wogan.
She's popular, so its only a matter of time before she's replaced by the dreadful Lisa Tarbuck – who seems to be a right-on luvvie favourite.
Heaven forbid!
Seem to recall a bunch of Labour/BBC 'comedians' (oxymoron if ever there was one) being defended by the Beeb when they were falling about laughing on air after describing how Margaret Thatcher's grave should be turned into a urinal.
Apparently that was "edgy", whatever that is supposed to mean.
BBC: Double standards it's what they do.
Perhaps even more to the point, the BBC regularly broadcasts the views of many who openly support the policies of communist dictators who were responsible for more deaths during the 20th Century than anyone.
Try a dawn to dusk listen to R4 and just count the number of times Marxist ideas are espoused.
Castro? Che? Mention either of those two toads with approval and you're on the way up in the Corporation. Speak favourably of Powell and you're on the way out.
In passing, it's interesting to note the Corporation claiming it received 25 complaints about Kennedy's words. I imagine we could easily co-ordinate 25 complaints here. How about a mass whine-in the next time one of them (Mayo, perhaps) starts drooling about Cuba?
What am I bet that not a thing would be done in response?
Biased to the very rotten core!
"How about a mass whine-in the next time one of them (Mayo, perhaps) starts drooling about Cuba?"
That would mean watching/listening to the BBC which would make me puke all over myself. Last time I tried watching the BBC ('cause I'm made to pay for it) it left me with a nasty twitch and extreme anger issues. 🙁
Lisa Tarbuck regularly fills in for Sarah and she is AWFUL – amateurish, incoherent. I dare say she will get the gig when they find a way to axe Sarah.
I find both Tarbuck & Kennedy equally appalling and listen to Alice Cooper's morning show on Planet Rock instead.
A nice enough old girl but she seems to have hormone problems…
For the BBC's 'multiculturalist' agenda, it is apparently OK to agree with non-white Trevor Phillips on Labour's continuing mass immigration policy, but not with white Enoch Powell.
Perhaps BBC 2's programme on Enoch Powell of 2008 should be censored in 2009 (see 'Rivers of Blood' 8/4/08)!
A 'Telegraph Comment' on Enoch Powell:
[Extract]-
"Powell remains the only nationally known politician to have had the courage to question an immigration policy which was moderately under control 40 years ago, but certainly is not any more.
"He was right to argue that towns and cities were changing before people's eyes as a result of immigration and that those who lived in them had never been consulted. That, surely, is the most pertinent point of all.
"Whatever the accuracy of Powell's predictions, and however strong his language, his main argument was that the country was 'undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history'.
"That is more true today than it was four decades ago. The level of immigration in the intervening years has been higher than Powell foresaw; the consequences are more far-reaching."
(-from: "Did Enoch Powell change anything?" by Nigel Hastilow, 13/04/08.)
I wonder if the BBC would be so annoyed if Sarah Kennedy had said 'Tony Benn was the best prime minister we never had' or 'Michael Foot was the best prime minister we never had' or 'Neil Kinnock (haha) was the best prime minister we never had'.
So the the BBC is consistant as ever. Repremanded for saying something nice about a "right-wing" politician and someone else for insulting Gordon Brown.
" I was one of millions treated to Jo Brand’s remarks on Baroness Thatcher.
I won’t repeat them here: they had something to do with pubic hair. The audience roared and Stephen Fry chortled, even repeating the remarks I think.
Also on the panel was a gentleman called Phil Jupitus. Hitherto, I have only been dimly aware of his work as a “comedian”. If I were joining in with this fashion for being offensive, which I’m not, then I would call him fat and unfunny.
When a picture of Thatcher was flashed up on screen I’m certain I heard Jupitus shout: “witch!”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin/8506287/If_Jeremy_Clarkson_must_apologise_to_Gordon_Brown_then_Margaret_Thatcher_is_owed_an_apology_too/
How people cannot see the double standards at the BBC is beyond me.
If she had said Tony Benn was the best prime minister we never had,there would be host of premature ejaculations all over the BBC.
Purely as a matter of public record, you should know that Phil Jupitus used to perform under the name of 'Porky the Poet'.
Powell was wrong. He should have said 'tube lines' not 'rivers'.
David's quote left out this key bit:
"She said: 'It was inappropriate for Sarah to offer an off-the-cuff political opinion and we have spoken to her and made that clear.'
Well, if the BBC spoke to their broadcasters evey time they uttered political opinions – and worse – they would never have time to do anything else.
I can't stand Sarah Kennedy and haven't heard her for years, thank goodness, but I must say I read that article and I roared at the list of her sayings and misdemeanours which are far funnier than any BBC comedians ever come out with:
" This is not the first time Kennedy has run into trouble over comments made on her show.
In 1999, she called a clergyman an 'old prune, described fellow DJ Ken Bruce as an 'old fool' and accused a newsreader of soiling her underwear. She then took a week off work, citing exhaustion.
In 2007 she ran into a race row after she said she had almost run over a black pedestrian because his dark clothes made him 'invisible' at night.
She said: 'It's lucky he opened his mouth to yawn or do something and I saw him.'
In August 2007 she prompted a flood of complaints after slurring her way through her show, mispronouncing words and offering to send 'panties' to soldiers in Afghanistan.
A Radio 2 spokeswoman blamed a sore throat."
Is she barking or what? You couldn't make it up!
Powell is only now remembered for the one issue that allowed an establishment that feared him to marginalise him.
He would have made a remarkable PM. A firm believer in the supremacy of Parliament and democratic accountability. An impartial civil service and a government from which all corruption was absent.
He also would have had no truck with the undemocratic European project and it is doubtful whether the EU of today would have existed had he become PM.
His speech was a foolish mistake and allowed those feared him to deprive him of any chance of power.
Corruption in this country has always been hard to identify as it runs so deep. Powell knew this and was determind to end it.
Look at what we have today and you can see what we lost.
Millitant makes a relevant point. She has a long history of inappropriate remarks, usually when she's feeling 'under the weather'. The BBC usually issues an apology and it's not surprising to see that in this case. It's clearly wrong for her to say that.
I don't see any double standard in the comparison with Jo Brand. Those were clearly jokes in the context of a recorded comedy programme.
If what you believe about the BBC is true, why do they continue to employ and defend someone who says:
"she had almost run over a black pedestrian because his dark clothes made him 'invisible' at night."
Anonymous asks: "If what you believe about the BBC is true, why do they continue to employ and defend someone who says:"
What a stupid question!
Because they employ one of those to 1,000 who spout the received Left-liberal wisdom that has become BBC group-think.
Tell, me – have you ever listened to 'Loose Ends' on R4?
One Kennedy doesn't make the BBC balanced.
Not a fan of Sarah Kennedy particularly but she does make me smile. A whole 25 complaints eh? I wonder how many people wrote in and thanked her? Probably more than 25.
Mentioning Ted "The swimmer" Kennedy reminds me it is the fortieth anniversary of his drowning Mary Jo Kope Kopechne. As you say there will probably be a weeks mourning at the BBC when that scumbag kicks the bucket.
Sarah does at times appear to lack a little bit of self censorship. That in its self is likely to get her ousted. Adding right wing views will only hasten the matter.
Against prevailing views on this blog I do quite like Liza Tarbuck.
George Orwell was truly a visionary-
he wrote of the classic leftwing intellectuals who felt, 'that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at the English institution.' He described these anti patriots as occupying 'a sort of island of dissident thought' They delight in undermining Christianity and Judaism but display a fawning reverence to Islam.
I had heard the name here and ther over the years but knew very little about Walter Cronkite. Hewever as soon as BBC news started praising him after his death, the penny dropped – this guy must have been a lefty sympathiser.
Talking of Powell, he's an interesting case of how the BBC seeks to impose its own narrative on history. I'm pretty sure he was anti-capital punishment and didn't think Britain should have nukes. How often do you hear that on the BBC?
Nope, that would undermine the BBC's attempts to cast him as a right-wing bogeyman, so down the memory hole it goes.
So poor old Sarah has found herself in trouble again, has she?. But her observation about the much reviled Enoch is quite right. If he had become Prime Minister it's impossible to believe we would ever have descended into the chaos of endless "open door" immigration that we endure / enjoy today. I don't think even Mr Powell could have predicted the horrors of modern day Tower Hamlets from the relatively civilized time of the late 60's.
We wouldn't be in Europe either, so no need for such groups as BNP or UKIP to exist. If only…
Anonymous writes: "I had heard the name here and ther over the years but knew very little about Walter Cronkite. Hewever as soon as BBC news started praising him after his death, the penny dropped – this guy must have been a lefty sympathiser."
Many Americans regard Cronkite as the man who lost the Vietnam war.
He was, indeed, the 'most trusted man in America' and returned from a tip to Vietnam after the Tet offensive, announcing to the nation that the US was losing the war.
Those of the ground disagreed strongly, but Cronkite's verdict was enough to swing public opinion resolutely against the war.
Remind you of anyone?
He was a hero on the US Left.
I must say I can't imagine Jo Brand or Sandi Toksvig proposing to send their pants to the brave boys (and/or girls) in Afghanistan.
Yeah, he shouldn't have said 'rivers of blood.' He should have said social disunity, voluntary segregation and educational apartheid.
If Fat Ted Kennedy had been treated under NHS rules he'd probably be dead. Don't you just love socialised health care?
Interesting re-writing of history there GCooper. It was all done to Walter Cronkite was it?
Maybe if it hadn't been for him the US would have been completley victorious in Vietnam!?!?!
Compare the 25 "complainants" acted upon against the 25,000! people who complained about "Jerry Springer the movie" and you begin to get a perspective on the BBC's visceral bias.
If the apologists here cannot see this for what it is then why blame others for their innate blindness.
But to stray on to Atlas territory the BBC is just the messenger. We shouldnt get to caught up with it as an organistation because it shows us the cancer running through our society. Unfortunately it also appears to be terminal (the cancer).
Anonymous 6:14 PM, July 19, 2009
"Maybe if it hadn't been for him the US would have been completley victorious in Vietnam!?!?!"
Yes, libtards always undermine the war effort.
Anonymous 6.14 writes: "Interesting re-writing of history there GCooper. It was all done to Walter Cronkite was it?
"
Clearly, you know little or nothing of contemporary US history.
Cronkite's role was seminal. Even your fellow travellers across the pond admit that. Indeed, they laud him for it.
The BBC and other Leftist organisations tried to have a similar influence during the Falklands conflict and in Iraq.
I listen to her every morning and think that she's great.
If she'd have spouted some left wing nonsense it would have been okay of course…
“The Tory Kingdom would sooner or later have been his [Enoch Powell] to command, for he had all the shining qualities which the others lacked. Heath would never had outmanoeuvred him; Thatcher would never have stepped into the vacant shoes. It was a tragedy for Enoch, and a tragedy for the rest of us too.”
Who said this?
Micheal Foot.
Hardly an "extreme right" politician.
The demonization of Powell says more about those that do it than Powell himself. Powell has been proved right, but if politicians admit to it, they bring attention to their own failures and that will never do.
It would be very educational for anyone who has never heard him to watch an interview with Enoch Powell.
The man had a mind like a finely-honed razor – far, far shaper and more developed than any of the gumboils that currently infest the H of C.
It's like listening to an adult after years of enduring the prattle of children.
The bBC, weight lifting for Asians and half the story.
More Asian teens 'using steroids'
A growing number of young Asians are using steroids to try and build up muscle and achieve the perfect body, according to drugs workers.John Bolloten, a needle exchange co-ordinator in Bradford, said the number of Asians using his centre has jumped from about 5% to between 25% and 30%….Needle exchange centres in Luton have also reported a significant increase in Asian men using their services. They said 84% of Asians visiting them take steroids.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8158081.stm
The bBC reports on the rise of drug taking amongst the Asian population in which to achieve that perfect body. The thing is as an Asian who has family in Bradford I know that the Hindu population in that city is tiny, in fact so tiny as to be almost invisible (1% as opposed to 16.5% of the total population)and I can say almost the same for Luton(2.7% against 14.6%). Yet instead of naming and shaming the correct peoples the bBC blurs the story to represent all people with dark skin who hark from the Sub-continent.
Just another example of how the bBC will bend over backwards in which to promote half the story.
The bBC, weight lifting for Asians and half the story.
Aprt from being right about the threat from uncontrolled immigration, Powell was also right about the economy; he resigned from Heath's cabinet over the spineless one's failure to keep manifesto promises which amounted to Thatcherism before the term was coined. Had Powell had his way the disease (of socialist induced hyper-inflation) would not have advanced so far and the cure would have been less painful (still unpleasant, but less so than it had to be by 1979).
As for the BBC's house "commedians" I tend to think they are a little slow on the uptake; they say (perhaps rightly) it is the job of comedians to be anti establishment, but aren't bright enough to realise that NuLabour and the BBC/Guardian consensus are the reactionbary old establishment now. It is those of us who believe in self reliance, doing your duty and not being a sponger who are the new radicals (God help us all).