44 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  2. Martin says:
    February 3, 2010 at 8:49 am

    I see Mandelson is not happy that Kraft won’t guarantee Cadbury jobs for British workers. Funny because only the other day the BBC ran and ran and ran a Gordon Brown sound bite where he stated that he’d not let British jobs go. At the time if you guys remember the BBC did not point out this was a lie as he can’t stop Kraft doing anything.

    Funny the BBC doesn’t feel the need to take Brown to task over this. Of course if David Cameron had claimed the same thing we know what the BBC would have said then.

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  3. George R says:
    February 3, 2010 at 8:50 am

    “Preview: Trial of Islamic critic Geert Wilders set to resume”

    http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1530430.php/PREVIEW-Trial-of-Islam-critic-Geert-Wilders-set-to-resume

    “The demonic nature of politically correct ‘science'”

    http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/02/demonic-nature-of-politically-correct.html

     The BBC is apparently not interested in the trial of Geert Wilders, and the implications for freedom of speech; instead the BBC prefers to propagandise for the rights of Muslims to wear the burqa/niqab in the West.

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  4. PDC says:
    February 3, 2010 at 10:24 am

    I notice that when the BBC talk about the economic problems of Greece they don’t even mention the damage the Euro has done to that country.
    With a currency and interest rates at levels to suit the Germans, the Greeks have the choice between staying in the Eurozone (and suffering mass unemployment with no welfare for those on the dole) and going back to the Drachma. If they transfer their debts in Euros to Drachmas then the government’s finances will improve and exports will be boosted. When Argentina broke the link with the US Dollar in 2001, the economy turned around in a couple of months.
    The pro-EU BBC never, ever questions ‘the European Project’.

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  5. Umbongo says:
    February 3, 2010 at 10:38 am

    Evan and Sheena on Today tore into the hapless Chris Grayling concerning the Conservative use of the “statistics” issued by the Home Office on serious crime.  Since these statistics are mainly rubbish – as are those produced by the British Crime Survey – and provide no reliable comparators either with the pre-2002 figures or, indeed, within themselves since 2002 criticism of their use is quite justified (although it doesn’t prevent Labour using the figures to, mainly, BBC applause).  However, I have never heard Today interviewers tearing into any Labour spokesman, “let ’em all in” immigration mouthpiece, equality tsar or warmist apologist on the basis of the dodginess of the underlying data of the statistics these BBC-approved interviewees quote.  Sheena “forgot” to mention – as Grayling observed – that the BCS figures exclude, among other figures, those in respect of homicide and crimes committed by under-16s.  And Grayling, effectively, just sat there.  Bias, certainly, but Conservative limpness in the face of such aggression is simply pathetic.

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    • Martin says:
      February 3, 2010 at 12:28 pm

      This happens a lot, the Tories (Cameron and Osborne in particular) get beaten up by beeboids and never bite back, although Osborne did yesterday and totally humiliated Toenails in front of the lobby fodder, but the BBC cut it from their reports. Same as when Boris did Paxo.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 3, 2010 at 3:57 pm

      I forgot to add that Gordon Brown actually cited Mark Easton to back up Labour’s claim about crime figures.  So Easton takes the Government’s side on Today, and the Government uses his opinion as evidence they are right.  Nice.

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    • Heads on poles says:
      February 3, 2010 at 5:55 pm

      I heard parts of this too.
      Sheena was getting particulraly het up with his accusations – almost getting personal.
      I also heard Sheena’s interview being used by the clawed one – much back scratching going on methinks.
      Agreed Martin, not sure why the Tories walk away wounded and do nothing.

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      • Asuka Langley Soryu says:
        February 3, 2010 at 6:24 pm

        …not sure why the Tories walk away wounded and do nothing.

        Because they’re pussies. And that’s why – unless the grow a pair before the election – they’re not getting my vote.

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        • dave s says:
          February 3, 2010 at 6:58 pm

          Perhaps the Tories don’t want to win the election. I sure as hell wouldn’t. Ideal result for me is a small labour majority and then watch them squirm as we descend into an economic basket case. They got us into this mess let them try to sort it out. Another election in a few months and labour into permanent oblivion

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  6. Stanley Ukridge says:
    February 3, 2010 at 11:01 am

    Richard ‘HeIsOurGuyThere’ Black doesn’t seem to grasp basic ideas of journalism:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/02/much_has_been_written.html#comments

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  7. George R says:
    February 3, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    “Control immigration! No, it’s not that the Tories are saying that, it’s the women of Middle England”

    Can we imagine the BBC reporting sympathetically, on ‘Woman’s Hour’ or wherever today, that a large organisation of women is demanding immigration controls urgently.

    Something like the following would probably be the best which the BBC could manage, with the emphasis on the ‘manage’:

    BBC ‘Woman’s Hour’ type intro to the item:-

     ‘Amidst somewhat hysterical demands for draconian measures to impose racial profiling on migration, in some of today’s red-tops, ‘Woman’s Hour’ investigates the traumatic effects of such campaigning on the innocent illegal immigrants who come to Britain.  
     ‘We are delighted to have in the studio one such heroine, who we shall call Aisha, although that’s not her real name. Aisha is wearing a burqa. Welcome, Aisha, although that’s not your real name, is it? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch what you said, could you repeat that?’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248123/Control-immigration-No-Tories-saying–women-Middle-England.html

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  8. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 3, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    I just noticed this comment on a Coffee House post in the Spectator:


    I’m very glad that Obama’s not coming to Europe. Another undignified bout of slavering hero worship from the BBC would be more than flesh and blood could bear. Their habit of breaking into programmes to broadcast emergency reports on the minutiae of American domestic politics is already beyond unbearable.

    For some time now, I’ve been asking why the BBC seems to spend so much time reporting on (never mind promoting) the domestic policies of a foreign government.  Has anyone else noticed the BBC giving reports like the above comment mentions?

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  9. Daniel Smith says:
    February 3, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    Here’s my review of the freadful Newswipe done in the style of Brooker himself. Apologies in advance about the language.

    The big story of the week was of course The Iraq Inquiry and in particular ex-minister and now full time millionaire Tony Blair smarmy appearance which the media, especially the BBC, were obsessing over all week like schoolboys waiting to get home the latest issue of Razzle which they’d pinched from the newsagents. However since Charlie Brooker’s meme in Newswipe is media hysteria and to paid-up Guardianitas there can be no hysteria about Eye-rack (which sounds like a cutprice opticians similar to spec savers), Israel or Climate Change, he instead went with the decidedly old news and one rather more difficult to play for laughs, Haiti disaster.
    This presented some difficlties for Charlie since last week when the news was fresh he declared it too depressing to critique instead devoting the episode to generic abuse aimed at unenlightened broadcasters such as Sky, ITN and channel 5. However since the only significant story to overshadow it was every Liberal’s wank fantasy, Blair potentially fessing up to leading an illegal war, and having to analyse this might cause Brooker to examine his own bigotry, it caused him a rethink. Maybe death and misery in a third world country is not lacking comedy value after all!

    His approach was to depict the media as vultures circling the fresh carcass of journalistic integrity and to resurrect the familiar noble savage idea favoured by big-brained collosi such as James Cameron (no relation to that Bullindon airhead David) and Danny Glover , and to suggest that the coverage by the wicked conspiracy of Sky-Fox-Itn was borderline racist. THEY’RE NOT SAVAGES! YOURE THE SAVAGES, YOU C**TS! Even if they are -er- looting and fighting and shit. Oh and the media were raising awareness and money whereas a lefty twat sitting on his couch in West London moaning was doing -er- what exactly?

    Despite elsewhere lambasting mindless celebrity involvement, Brooker finds the time to heap praise on that notable intellectual and political commenter, Nick Kershaw, for a letter written to that enlightened and soon to be non-existent publication, The Independent.

    This vulture-like media raised Brooker’s hackles by questioning the efficiency of the saintly UN in this. This was only the press, in its long forgotten role as the fourth estate, basically doing its job. This lack of aid was due, Brooker informed us en passant, to fear of violence even though according to Brooker’s meme, gathered from seating on a sofa in West London, was that the violence was exagerated for ratings purposes. Hmmm.

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  10. Daniel Smith says:
    February 3, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    Part 2

    Brooker was particularly outraged that Kay Burley described Haiti as having a “violent history” which had him falling back to the dreary knee-jerk bash Britain reflex that such people have. “What about our violent history” he whined vaguely. Yep, that’s right Charlie. In living memory, Haiti has had civil wars and two homocidal dictators while Britain has had a -um- peaceful democracy since the 18th century. Nice comparison, you stupid c**t.

    In fact Brooker’s hatred of Sky And Fox reached almost epidemic proportions. I don’t know why he doesn’t rename Newswipe Rupert Murdoch Watch and be done with it.

    Ben O’Reilly of Fox News, in particular, raises Brooker’s blood temperature. His adjectival ire is twisted to new heights of venom to descibe O’Reilly as a “rightwing blowhard” who runs a “festival of bellowing” show (unlike Brooker’s own even tempered and apolitical festival of facts) on Fox while MSNBC, in its only appearance lasting all of two seconds, is politely called called Left-leaning despite being so far left that it makes Joseph Stalin look like Margaret Thatcher. And it only garners this for honorably mentioning that western capitalists are tring to cash in on this disaster. CASH IN ON THIS DISASTER! THE BASTARDS!

    Although elsewhere Brooker was forced to admit through gritted teeth that Fox’s news coverage had in fact been more ‘fair and balanced” (That’s their slogan. Geddit?) than anyone else’s, O’Reilly’s big crime was to have the temerity to mention that wicked and greedy capitalist scuzepot America was by far the biggest donor to the Haiti appeal while caring sharing and wealth distributing socialist states including the very rich China had given virtually nothing. I guess charity begins at home for Marxists. Since this played against the Guardian meme that Chavez is a well meaning and misunderstood hero fighting against American imperialism and not an egotistical and selfish fruitcake oppressing his people,  Charlie had to counter this rightwing propaganda with a few hilarious witticisms such as “every little helps”. Nice to see anti-capitalist lefties now lifting slogans from Tescos. Oh wait, they’re supposed to be the enemy. Shopping and shit. Maybe Brooker never read the chapter on comodity fetishism.

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  11. Grant says:
    February 3, 2010 at 6:50 pm

    If Gordon the Moron is quoting BBC hacks at PMQs, he must be desperate.

       1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 3, 2010 at 7:00 pm

      He did cite Easton to back up his claims.  Not only that, but Jacqui Smith started it by asking a planted question saying the Tories were using “dodgy” statistics.

         1 likes

  12. Philip says:
    February 3, 2010 at 7:24 pm

    Looks like tomorrow’s QT could well be a classic – “David Dimblebore  will be joined in Coventry by Lord Falconer, Theresa May MP, Clare Short MP, George Galloway and Melanie Phillips…”

       1 likes

    • Martin says:
      February 3, 2010 at 7:53 pm

      Theresa May!!! Jesus she was only on the other week. What about Hannan? Blowhard Galloway and Short. Oh god.

         1 likes

  13. Grant says:
    February 3, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    Theresa May is a Labour’s secret weapon. 

    Should be interesting to see how the repulsive, corrupt, fanatical anti-semite, Galloway, treats Mel.  I am surprised he has agreed to appear with a dirty Jew !  Still, I guess he gets paid anyway, so he will be happy.

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  14. Heads on poles says:
    February 3, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    Thanks for the heads up about the panel. Not sure I can stand another “war special”.

       1 likes

  15. Martin says:
    February 3, 2010 at 11:04 pm

    Classic leftie BBC Newsnight. Paxman on the proposal to execute homosexuals in Uganda, “Yes you heard that, kill people for being gay” spouts Paxo.

    Hmm, those nasty Christians again is the line behind this. Of course the BBC would NEVER comment on this would they?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483746/We-dont-gays-Iran-Iranian-president-tells-Ivy-League-audience.html

    Wow you mean the religion of peace actually executes homosexuals? Unlike Uganda where they are at the moment debating the issue.

    Not that I’m a fan of either religion or executing anyone (other than Bi Laden)

       1 likes

    • Heads on poles says:
      February 4, 2010 at 6:14 pm

      I spotted that too.
      If anybody should be executed, it should be Paxman’s tailor for producing a suit like that.
      I was expecting to hear Duran Duran fading in and out of the piece.
      He must have worn it for a bet…

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    • dave s says:
      February 4, 2010 at 7:40 pm

      There must be a real fear that the next Archbishop of C will be an African bishop. It is a very real possibility. Far more practising Anglicans in Africa. The liberal nightmare I suppose  but nothing they will be able to do about it.

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  16. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 4, 2010 at 12:47 am

    Spot the missing region of the world:

    Views of Barack Obama around the world

    Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on 20 January 2009 boosted the US’s image in many countries around the world. Millions of people hoped it would have a positive impact on world affairs.

    One year later, how has the mood changed? BBC correspondents share their impressions.

    Notice the encouraging, if not still enthusiastic, tone of nearly all the bits.  Why is one region of the world absent?  There are plenty of BBC correspondents available.  I think the answer can be found here.

       1 likes

  17. Roger C says:
    February 4, 2010 at 8:21 am

    News 24 this morning at 8am, the only MPs named with reference to expenses are, of course, conservative ones (duck houses etc) not a mention of the vastly grater number of labour ones with their snouts in the trough. No bias here then!

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  18. Grant says:
    February 4, 2010 at 9:04 am

    Roger C
    And the majority of MPs and Peers being considered for prosecution are Labour !

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  19. George R says:
    February 4, 2010 at 9:18 am

    BBC’s Apartheid engendering, “BBC Asian Network under threat”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/03/bbc-asian-network-under-threat

    This BBC radio station, apart from being run on apartheid lines, separate  from the rest  of British society, pumps out e.g. pro-Pakistan, Bangladesh, India news from a non-British viewpoint .

    Why should the millions of immigrants from Asia integrate into British society when the BBC propagandises, at BBC licencepayers’ expense, for apartheid version of ‘multiculturalism’? And local BBC  radio stations are taken  over by various Asian language presentations every evening. And let’s not pretend that BBC Asian Network is an Asian music station; it has a political line which is more aligned to propagandising for what it perceives to be the interests of mass immigration than anything else.

     And then there’s the expensive of perpetuating this culturally, socially and politically divisive BBC radio station (see article).

     Yes, close down BBC Asian Network, NOW; and don’t replace it with BBC Muslim Network, or Hindu, or Sikh networks.

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  20. burbette123 says:
    February 4, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    On Today this morning Paul, (son of Michael the anti-semite) Adams was giving a report from Haiti about building standards there. He mentioned the San Francisco quake in 1989 where because of higher building standards there ONLY 63 peopled died. (Haven’t been able to verify his date or number yet.) What crass insensitivity!  He should look to our own shoddy UK standards where houses built of ‘traditional’ concrete blocks placed directly on the gound with no basements is beyond stupid.  Recent slight tremors in Lincolnshire and points north demonstrated what happens to such crappy structures.

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  21. George R says:
    February 4, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    A comment on BBC report:

    “Complaint after Cherie Booth [Blair] spares religious man [Muslim] jail”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8497365.stm

    Comment:

    “Dozy bint of the week”

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/25722

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  22. Grant says:
    February 4, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    Legg report has been published and reported on BBC website.  But I can’t see an analysis by Political Party.  Naturally the BBC start with the Conservatives, in alphabetical order.
    Don’t have time to add up the numbers just now.  I am sure someone will.

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  23. Heads on poles says:
    February 4, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Hmmm, just heard the Flanders bird saying that QE – that’s printing money and Mugabe style economics to those that are not in the pay of the BBC or the Government – has done wonders for the economy.

    BBC land is a very strange place…

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  24. George R says:
    February 4, 2010 at 6:28 pm

    Is the BBC, – habitual supporter of mass immigration into the UK from Islamic countries, and habitual advocate of a ‘multicuturalism’ which avoids criticism of the tenets of Islam, – becoming aware of the consequences of its dangerous beliefs in reality, at last?:

    BBC report:

    “Muslim women ‘radicalised’ in UK”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8496821.stm

    Or more explicitly, from ‘Jihadwatch’:

    “I think it would be naive to think that Britain could not see its first female suicide bomber”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/i-think-it-would-be-naive-to-think-that-britain-could-not-see-its-first-female-suicide-bomber.html

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  25. Marky says:
    February 4, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Guardian’s Sunny Hundal: “Our licence fees pay for climate denial”

    “After watching last night’s Newsnight, I can only come to one conclusion: the BBC has become this country’s most pernicious climate-change-denying media outlet in the UK.”

    Now that’s funny.

    “I’m not interested in what the deniers have to say.”

    That’s the issue, it doesn’t matter that the BBC infests much of its content with pro-manmade global warming opinion and hysteria, Hundal doesn’t want a single sceptical (on a par with Holocaust deniers) argument to get through.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/03/bbc-climate-change-denier

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  26. Lloyd says:
    February 4, 2010 at 8:15 pm

    This article has left me gobsmacked – blatant propagandizing.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8496830.stm

       1 likes

  28. George R says:
    February 5, 2010 at 11:05 am

    For BBC’s Mr. Easton, critic of Tories, defender of Labour:

    “The real statistical crime is that Labour is making it harder for anyone to compare government performance over time”

    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2010/02/the-real-statistical-crime-is-that-labour-is-making-it-harder-and-harder-for-anyone-to-compare-gover.html

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  29. George R says:
    February 5, 2010 at 11:11 am

    “The BBC Trust tries to defend itself”

        (Janet Daley)

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100025132/the-bbc-trust-tries-to-defend-itself/

       1 likes

  30. David Lee says:
    February 5, 2010 at 11:12 am

    Todays report about the rise in anti semitsm.

    As in todays London Evening Standard

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23802589-warning-over-record-number-of-anti-semitic-attacks.do

    But what do the BBC do with it?

    Firstly they start off by putting the rise in quotation marks:

    UK anti-Semitic attacks ‘rise’

    Or to put in in simple English:

    “Those Jews can’t be believed”

    And then they go further to drive home the message if the reader didn’t already get it.

    Their main photo is “something” purported to be bacon on some door handles.

    “Thoese stupid Jews. Fussing about a little bit of dirt on a door handle. Can’t they get a joke?”

    They cleverly leave the photo of “slay the Jew” grafitti towards the end, by which point the reader has already got their not sublime message.

    “Some police forces calculate local trends for religiously motivated incidents, but there are no national figures for hate crimes against any specific group, such as Jews or Muslims.”

    Hmm, was anybody speaking about Muslims? Well yes, buyt only as the slightly implied agressors, not as victims. Well, says the BBC reporter, we can’t have those decent Muslims dressed up again as the bad guys, let’s paint them as victims too.

    And then their final paragraph, the icing on the cake:

    “Last month, researchers at Exeter University called on Muslims to start counting their own figures in a similar fashion to the CST, saying there was evidence of an under-reporting of anti-Muslim hatred”

    The BBC, brilliantly and underhandedly anti semtic as ever, manage to turn a news item about how Jews suffering more at the hands of Muslims into an article about how much the “poor Muslims” are suffering and “look, nobody cares about them”.

    But indeed, the BBC are not biased and not anti Semtic. Of couse not!

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  31. David Lee says:
    February 5, 2010 at 11:26 am

    I’ve just re-read the two pieces and am shocked at the two demeaning examples of incidents which the BBC have chosen.

    One about a girl who was “surrounded by other pupils who chanted “death to Jews”” in the words of the BBC and the other about the “strips of bacon being placed on the door handles of a Leeds synagogue”.

    The standard tells a different story about the girl.

    “A 12-year-old girl, the only Jew at her school, was attacked by a mob of up to 20 fellow pupils who pulled her hair and chanted: “death to Jews, kill all Jews.””

    And surprise suprise, they also tell a different story about the bacom strips. They say ”
    In Yorkshire, strips of bacon were arranged in the shape of a star of David and stuck the fence of a home where a Jewish family lived with the word “Jewboy” written underneath.”

    But not only do they play down the incidents, they completly ignore the more serious reports of the disabled person in a wheelchair who was rammed by a car with the driver yelling “Jew, Jew”.

    Nor for that matter did they choose to report any of the other 124 violent assults or the 600 incidents of abusive behaviour.

    The message of the BBC report:

    “Those troublesome Jews. Making a fuss about nothing”

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