Monthly Archives: January 2010

LABOUR RAY OF SUNSHINE

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I never thought I would write this, but three cheers for a Labour peer. Their lordships debated ‘climate change’on Thursday. Predictably, in the most part, it was an alarmfest about the need for more taxes, laced with endless religious warnings that the end of the world is nigh; the idiotic peddling of moonshine. But there was one ray of sunshine. Step forward Bernard Donoghue, the former policy adviser to Harold Wilson (a job from hell, if ever there was one!), who is now Baron Donoghue of Ashton in the county of Northamptonshire. He said (his contribution is about three quarters of the way through the debate, and sadly, I couldn’t find a way of linking precisely to it):

In relation to the media coverage of this important issue, the BBC should follow its charter and cover global warming impartially, not as a cheerleader for the alarmist side. It is counterproductive and provokes, like manipulation of statistics, the kind of public scepticism which the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, fears. As for the Met Office, it should go back to objective science and try to get its forecasts right and cease blatant campaigning for one side. I note that it has just inevitably forecast that 2010 will be a very hot year-noble Lords should stock up on their long-johns and fur boots.

Here, here, hurrah, and all that. It shows that at least one of the lunatics who supposedly represent us has got the picture and has also sussed the BBC and its pernicious propaganda. His lordship also pinpointed something that is deeply alarming: the BBC and politicians – Labour, Conservative, the whole damn lot of them – are totally out of touch with the real world and don’t give a straw about what people actually think. Roll on the revolution!

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SMEARING CATHOLICS…

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Writing here, Mary Ellen Synon documents another BBC smear..

“The EU’s new foreign secretary, Baroness Ashton, was at the European Parliament today, being questioned by MEPs. Since she will also be a new vice-president of the Commission as well as ‘High Representative for Foreign Affairs,’ (no, I still can’t believe it either) she had to submit to questioning like all the other members of the new Commission.

The BBC on-line news service reported on her appearance at the parliament. They had absolutely nothing bad to say about this unelected New Labour Nobody.

But the BBC couldn’t resist the chance to use the story to fire off a drive-by smear at Rocco Buttiglione, a Roman Catholic professor of political science, a former professor of philosophy and a former Christian Democrat Minister for EU Affairs in the Italian government.”

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WHITE MALES NEED NOT APPLY….

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In the Daily Telegraph’s interview with Michael Parkinson, towards the end of the item we pick up this gem;

A senior BBC source said: “We’re desperate for anyone that isn’t white and male. It’s difficult in entertainment because the options are so limited. Diversity is a big issue and they’ve over-relied on men for a long time.” Claudia Winkleman and Shappi Khorsandi, the comedian, have been tipped as potential rising stars.

Still hideously white then?
Hat-tip to the eagle eyed BBC reader for alerting me to this…

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THE MISSING JEW…

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A concerned B_BBC reader writes….
“In next week’s Radio Times (16-22 Jan 2010) there is an interview with Dermot O’Leary. A quote from the interview is printed over his photo. The quote says:
“I’ve probably got more in common with a liberal Muslim than a conservative Catholic”
In the interview he actually says:

“I don’t like evangelism and I’ve probably got more in common with a liberal Jew or a liberal Muslim than someone who’d consider themselves a conservative Catholic.“

I have long noted the BBC’s blatant anti-Israel bias and though many other observers have often claimed this is actually an anti-Jewish bias I never thought so until I read that article. I am not Jewish but do now believe that those claiming the BBC *has* an anti-Jew bias may well be on to something quite serious. Why on earth have they removed the word Jew from the quote, especially as it was his first mention? Is it an automatic Pavlovian response by sub-editors (or whoever does these things) to remove any Jewish reference if at all possible?”
Why indeed? Also, any thoughts on how many liberal Muslims Dermot is likely to find…..?

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Obama Worship

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The BBC’s creepy Obama obsession continues on Radio 4 with Obama’s Babies:

In Swahili Obama means ‘blessed one’ and mothers across Africa were quick to bestow the name on their offspring. ‘Obama babies’ followed in America and across Europe as parents grasped at the hope that the President Elect’s magic could rub off on their children. But one year on and with the President’s dreams being tested by reality, how have some of the babies named after him fared?

Peter White explores the hopes and fears of five families and follows their lives as the babies approach their first birthdays. For the babies – including Nancy Otieno’s son, Barack Obama, and Sasha Fisher’s baby, Sanjae Obama – it will be years before they fully comprehend the hopes and aspirations imbued in a name.

The programme focuses on five very different families, examining how our changing world, in part shaped by the man they so admire, is having an impact on their experiences.

I’ve just heard the saccharine-filled trailer for the programme – it sounds even worse than the above blurb suggests.

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BBC1 AUDIENCE PLUMMETS…

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When I worked at the BBC, many moons ago admittedly, the main justification for the licence fee was that people actually watched BBC shows. Peak time audience share for BBC1 regularly nudged the 40% mark, and over a week, most people actually tuned in to the channel for a significant amount of time. Latest official figures, however, show that BBC1’s overall audience share during December was down to 21.5%, and that the peak average (between 7pm and 10pm) during the month – even though BBC shows easily dominated Christmas Day – was only 23.4%, down a whopping 4.7%. So millions of viewers are deserting the BBC’s flagship shows. In an internal BBC meeting yesterday, director general Mark Thompson reportedly vigorously defended his salary of £834,000 a year on the ground that he was worth it. On these latest viewing figures the case for his monstrous level of pay – and the BBC licence fee at all – is vanishing almost as fast as snow in summer. If ever there was one. Even his own staff think Thompson’s salary is “corrosive and wrong”.

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HOW TO DO BBC RESEARCH – LESSON 1

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This, on Bishop Hill, says it all about the BBC mindset. Note the worship of the greenie bible Since Silent Spring (which condemned millions of Africans to death in its total villification of DDT); the belief that the NASA warmist lunatic and eco-thug James Hansen is an authority worth consulting; and the idiotic, arrogant certainty that such an investigation on these terms is terribly important. Truly toxic!

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POLAR POSTURING

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I’ve said it before, but the BBC greenie fanatics are forever on the hunt for new scares, even when it’s so cold that global warming stories are scarce. Today’s alarmfest centres on the cuddly polar bear. Overpaid ecofreak scientists in Denmark have now decided that it’s not only melting polar ice that’s a threat to our ursine friend, but also nasty chemicals from industrial activity. There’s no such thing as a happy greenie, of course; if it’s not ‘climate change’, it’s breathing, farting or simply being here at all that’s putting us in peril. The BBC loves to report it all, with knobs on; note especially the rigged graph in the item, and the complete lack of mention – as usual – of alternative views, such as this, which points out that even the alarmists-in-chief, the World Wildlife Fund, say that polar bear numbers are on the up.

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SAINT BONO RAPPED

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The BBC’s complaints unit have rapped the knuckles of BBC producers who decided to give the execrable Bono and his band U2 acres of free publicity at the launch of their latest boring album back in February. But what about removing the hundreds of free plugs on the BBC website? The admiring boys and girls at the corporation chart his and the band’s every move, short of when they go to the lavatory. He repays them by spouting foul-mouthed abuse on air. But no matter, Bono ticks every box for BBC sainthood; he’s a lefty, he hates Britain, and he believes Africa’s salvation is through bucketloads of aid from ‘climate change’ supporting NGOs.

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