Did the BBC withdraw Nigel Farage’s invitation to appear on last week’s Question Time in Middlesbrough over fears about what he might say regarding the closure of the Corus steel plant on Teesside? Tata and Pachauri do like to threaten their critics with lawyers (remember the BBC’s spineless response to complaints by the Muslim Council of Britain following Charles Moore’s QT comments). Or does the BBC not need a specific reason to piss UKIP around?
(Hat tips to PacificRising in the comments and Not A Sheep)
Update. More on this from Tory Aardvark and EURSOC (via George R. in the comments)
BBC’ s political hostility to UKIP suggests that UKIP has something going for it.
http://www.eursoc.com/eursoc_news_and_comment_f/2010/02/why-was-farage-dropped-from-question-time.html
“Nigel Farage exposes the Iron Fist that grips Europe” (3 min video).
http://www.ukip.org/
Interesting piece, and especially the link to the Dan Hannan article. In it, Hannan openly proposes that people should be following Charles Moore’s lead and not paying a licence fee. Given his rising star, that can only help our cause.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more on this blog about the bias from the BBC over Mongs bullying.
Alistair Darling did everything BUT call Mong a bully last night, yet the BBC have been spinning this story the other way all day.
Firstly the BBC seemed to forget that Damien McBride had to resign over the sort of tactics that Mong has been accused of.
Then on Radio 5 today, John Pinhead was talking about how terrible it is when a Chancellor falls out with his PM, but the only examples he gave were of ….. yep Mrs Thatcher.
So did I imagine the media lobby scum announcing just a while back that Darling was going to be sacked by the mong and replaced by Balls?
Oh and Charlie Whelan is of course…. and ex beeboid.
Of course if it was the Tory party instead of labour then the BBC headlines would scream ‘splits in leadership’ and every charity quango would be paraded for weeks on end, the sympathetic BBC response is stark and clear.
A bully who rages at underlings who cannot fight back becomes a strong leader, all of a sudden there is no proof of any wrongdoing and the BBC are simply itching to move along and report other news.
Its certainly a case of one rule for its friends and one for its enemies isnt it? So a massive story suddenly becomes a non story and the BBC look very uncomfortable indee.
Well the BBC have already run that story several times (on cutting the defecit etc.) yet we know that whilst Alistair Darling was talking about huge cuts in public spending the one eyed coward was still spouting bollocks about investment v Tory cuts and the BBC lapped it all up. I don’t ever remember and BBC story talking about a split between the mong and Darling.
Or indeed Blair and Brown.
Re Greek troubles
“More than half-a-million civil servants have reportedly abandoned their posts, leaving the country paralysed.”
So how does that come about?
Under Labour, two-thirds of jobs created in the UK between 1997 and 2007 were in the public sector, paid for by taxes. When the government can’t afford to pay those people, the result is, inevitably, layoffs, strikes, and chaos as those public services can no longer operate properly. Don’t expect the BBC to point this out to you.
Left-wing comedians and media types may spurn supply-side economics because it doesn’t end poverty instantly, but they can’t do basic math.
Had to laugh at the BBC spinning lies for Labour over this hospital and all the deaths. “It’s a one off” has been the Labour/BBc line. Really? how quickly the BBC forgets. Here’s a little reminder of THIS STORY.
The deaths of 90 hospital patients from clostridium difficile are “scandalous”, Health Secretary Alan Johnson has said.
Mr Johnson said he was shocked by the findings, but denied accusations the problems were caused by staff being put under pressures to meet government A and E targets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7037657.stm
Any decent reporting would have reminded us that after 13 years of corrupt Liebour management of the NHS people are dying in ever larger numbers because hospitals can’t do the basic things right. The Government like to take the credit for the NHS, they should take the shit for it as well.
I’m disgusted with the BBC for trying to spin this as a pro Labour story.
BBC Radio 4 news at 7pm, the short (less than 2 minute) bulletin, managed to include a report that Nigel farage had insulted Herman van Rompuy. The website includes – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8535121.stm – this report that ”
A British Eurosceptic MEP has unleashed a volley of insults against the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.
Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader, said Mr Van Rompuy had “the charisma of a damp rag”.
He compared the former Belgian prime minister to a “low-grade bank clerk” and said he came from a “non-country”.
The attack, which stunned the chamber, came as Mr Von Rompuy made his maiden appearance in parliament in Brussels.
<!– E SF –>
“I don’t want to be rude,” Mr Farage began, before launching into a personal attack lasting several minutes.
“Who are you? I’d never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you,” Mr Farage thundered, as noisy disapproval at his intervention in the chamber rose.
“Oh, I know democracy is not popular with you lot,” he said, addressing the members of parliament as they voiced their surprise.”
Read on and wonder if possibly this is post-event justification for cancelling Nifgel Farage’s appearance on the “Corus Question Time” and of course preparing the ground for tomorrow’s attacks on Nigel Farage…
Somebody please tell me where I can find a full version of this attack on a damp rag.
Love it, so true and so funny in equal measure. I particularly likeed the bit about Belgium being a non-country.
I notice the BBC cut Farage’s statement short, leaving out the bit where he says that the British public don’t want to be controlled by the likes of Van Rumpoy and the EU. No mention in the accompanying news brief, either. All anyone gets from the BBC is that Farage hurled a couple insults, no substantial issues involved.
Unable to address the very real issues of sovereignty and democracy behind Farage’s little outburst, Justin Webb and Jonny Dymond spent a couple minutes laughing at him instead. No bias there, then.
Personally, such gross unparliamentary conduct disgusts me. I guess saloon bar boorishness is a matter of personal taste.
I agree that Farage’s personal remarks about Van Rumpoy’s personality, and the “I’ve never heard of you” stuff was unhelpful. However, he voiced very legitimate concerns about the lack of democracy in the EU. The BBC didn’t address any of his concerns at all, and covered only the “damp rag” bit.
I’ll grant you that Farage undermined his own cause with his rudeness, but surely there’s a valid journalistic reason to address his actual political points besides tarring him with the epithet “Eurosceptic”. The BBC did that in a way that tells you to dismiss anything he says as sour grapes.
Webb and Dymond just had fun saying “damp rag” in different languages, laughing out loud for most of the segment. There was no mention whatsoever of any political concerns behind the remarks. In fact, Webb dismissed Farage entirely by saying he was always trying to seek attention, and especially now as there’s an eleciton on. In other words, no journalism or news analysis going on, just the same kind of boorish behavior that they were making fun of in Farage.
Standard BBC bias in other words, but Farage didn’t exactly help himself. The distinguished Richard North used to be Farage’s assistant if memory serves me right and left UKIP due to Farage’s appalling personal conduct.
UKIP’s new leader Lord Pearson is very forthright in his views and gives very short shrift to BBC bias, but it is unthinkable he would conduct himself the way Nigel Farage did. Lord Pearson is a guy who strikes me as someone who knows what it means to be British.
Actually I don’t give a toss about the Corus lot losing their jobs and I hope someone reading this blog works there. These people are utter morons, like the jocks they’ve voted Liebour for decades yet it’s got them no where. Last week all they did was on one hand say they make the finest steel in the world and have orders piled high, yet in the next breath they were blaming Thatcher for the loss of their jobs. Arseholes the lot of them. No wonder Labour treats these people with contempt, they know that no matter what Liebour does to them these halfwits will still keep returning Liebour MPs.
The Unions must know that their jobs are going because of the climate change scam, there must be one halfwit up there that can actually read? So why are they not making a fuss over it? It shouldn’t need a blog like this or Nigel Farage to point out the bloody obvious. Are these people so thick that the only source of news they bother to listen to is the BBC?
Because they are too thick to realise Liebour are selling them down the river.
To the workers at Corus, the Dole Office is this way >>>>>>>
Martin, you have a point about the slavish devotion to socialism in that part of the world, but hopefully the scales will fall from their eyes at last and we may soon see a movement of support towards the smaller political parties and independents. If they can’t see New Labour for what it is by now, then there’s no hope for them.
But the issue here is really about the BBC and why they suddenly pulled Nigel Farage off of the QT panel last week at very short notice.
Could it be that while compiling Dimbleby’s list of questions that they made a connection to this question by UKIP’s Paul Nuttall:
Barroso urges Pachouri to sue UKIP MEP over Teesside closure question
I think we should be told.
I think that the people in the audience should have brought that up themselves, that was my point. They claimed they didn’t know why the plant was being closed and why the MD wasn’t trying to get more orders. WE know why, so at least one of the morons who works at Corus must have read the same stories we did, why didn’t one of them have the brains to ask it last week? Just how thick are these people?
I’m don’t disagree, but is the educational standard or lack of political awareness of the people of Teeside the fault of the BBC?
Very possibly you could make a case along those lines but I think the thrust of this discussion should be the fact that the BBC cancelled Nigel Farage’s invitation at very short notice without explanation, possibly the only person on the panel who may have had something worthwhile to say on the issue – to me that reeks of political interference.
You’re right there, but that’s not new. We’ve seen plenty of other guests not given return slots on the BBC. When was the last time Littlejohn was on? John Gaunt has hinted many times he’d like to go on, but never been invited, yet the limp wristed Will young mentions it once on the Simon Mayo show and he’s on.
Far too many of the same old faces, especially on the left and not to mention the totally one sided audiences the BBC have.
“..but is the educational standard or lack of political awareness of the people of Teeside the fault of the BBC? “
Maybe to some degree – The unions would not put the case to their members the real reason for the closure (if it is indeed AGW as Brooker has claimed). How could they then fight against the closure and risk the AGW theory being attacked?
The Unions do know, at least if you believe the view that they make the finest steel in the world and not cheap crap like the do in India and there are just hundreds of people wanting to buy their steel.
Someone is talking bollocks, either Brooker or the Unions. Personally I do believe the climate change scam, but look at the easy ride the Unions have given mong over huge job losses.
Woolworths, that company on the IoW that made the wind turbines, then Cadburys, now Corus, not to mention Rover and many others. If this had been a Tory Government we wouldn’t have heard the end of it from the Unions and the BBC.
But nothing, just tumble weed from the BBC. Where was the Unions on the bullying allegations in Downing Street? Again MIA, but a few hundred jobs go at some shitty local authority and the BBC dig out their lefty mates for a good old anti Tory whine.
Top man Barroso for supporting the Iraq War, but strewth, trying to intimidate MEP’s from asking legitimate questions with threats of Court action and refusing to ask a simple, important question, well, his taken a huge downward turn since then. Seems like his Maoist days are kicking back in once more. I guess the EU does that to people.
The BBC clearly thought Farage was out of order, at least from a standpoint of decorum.
“I don’t want to be rude,” Mr Farage began, before launching into a personal attack lasting several minute.
Only a hint of editorial comment there. But they get in a defense of Van Rumpoy.
Described as camera-shy and sometimes given the nickname the “grey mouse”, he is seen as a coalition builder, credited for steering linguistically divided Belgium out of crisis.
He postponed the crisis by immediately pumping a couple billion euros into the system, really. The Flemish would love to have dumped the Walloons at the time, but figured they were better off milking the EU with the status quo for now.
And Farage is quite right when he says that Van Rumpoy doesn’t even come from a real country. Belgium is two states, with separate governments and tax and health care systems, living under the figleaf of Brussels, one of which would rather be rid of the other.
The Flemish think that they support the parasitical Wallonians even more than people here think Southern England supports the parasitical Scots. It’s a bit more than a little linguistic division. And nobody would notice if the national government shut down. After all, when they didn’t have a functioning government for 9 months, disaster didn’t strike.
The other thing the Farage got right is that Van Rumpoy is very much hoping to remove from Europe the kind of democracy the UKIP MEP values. Before he was PM, Van Rumpoy was the finance minister who got Belgium to join the Euro. The kind of pols politics wonks refer to as “coalition builders”, less charitable people tend to call “horse traders”, with all the dedication to democracy and the wishes of the people that entails, i.e. very little. Which is probably why he was chosen – as the BBC impartially made sure to point out – unanimously by the other EU leaders.
It probably escapes the BBC’s notice that this can only be considered democratic if one leaves the citizenry out of the definition. Van Rumpoy was chosen by leaders who, coincidentally, need to do a hell of a lot of horse trading right now, with all the dedication to democracy, etc., etc..
I wonder how badly the BBC will beat Farage up over this.
I actually expected the BBC to beat him up on the 10 O’Clock News more than they did. Personally speaking, I say Nigel Farage has every right to be rude to a man who is unelected yet purports to represent me under a treaty for which I was promised a referendum that never materialised.
The item suggested that it was largely for the consumption of the UK audience and I am surprised the BBC provided him with just that.
For the record:44 seconds of Farage, UKIP, re- E.U.:-
http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1460-nigel-blasts-ec-president-as-damp-rag
I bet most of the complaints came from the north east. No sympathy, the BBC is simply doing what it’s told to do by the Labour Government. A good day to bury bad news.
But funnily enough, I do remember the BBC giving Lord Mandelbum’s comments about “doing everything to save the josb…” getting top billing, before the actual job losses were bumped down the news agenda.
Again, serves these halfwits for voting Labour all the time, they are taken for a ride and treated like dirt by the labour party who rightly don’t think they have to offer or bribe these people for their votes. How often do you hear from these people comments like “I’ve always voted Labour, my father voted Labour and his father voted Labour”. Free votes for Labour so why give them anything?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253598/BBCs-news-coverage-Tiger-Woods-apology-sparks-dumbing-backlash.html