If your fifteen year old son listened to two people talking on the radio, commented ‘I really want to punch that guy in the face‘, and you knew that one of the two people was UKIP’s Nigel Farage, what odds would you give that it was the other guy he wanted to punch ?
Congratulations to Steven Nolan for his impressive achievement on R5 tonight. Following on from the Question Time attacks, Nolan waded straight into the attack with the same theme (‘rude Nigel’) and interrupted Farage continually (‘No, you didn’t … that’s a lie ..”) to the point where it was hard for him to ever finish a sentence.
I was amused by the bit where Nolan kept repeating ‘what was Van Rumpuy doing between 1993 and 1997 ?’ – as if Nolan would have had a clue before the researchers gave him the notes.
If Nolan had wanted to attack rudeness, he could have tackled his compatriot Colin Murray, who a few minutes before had used a four-letter word to describe a Welsh rugby coach’s (imagined) half-time talk.
And on the subject of Question Time, I see BBC favourite Janet Street Porter attacked Farage for racism. Strangely, for such an anti-racist, Ms Street Porter left her native London and now chooses to live in a white and monocultural part of the UK. As, strangely, does BBC favourite Billy Bragg. Not to mention Woman Sour’s ‘Jeni’ Murray. Most odd.
(With apologies to David Vance, twenty-five years coverage of the Troubles gave me a bit of an allergy to highly opinionated Ulstermen who love the sound of their own voices – the Seventies in particular providing a surfeit of such. Radio 5 already has a perfectly good one in Alan (‘I don’t want to criticise the referee, but his performance tonight was abysmal‘) Green. Do we really need two more, or couldn’t we swap Murray and Nolan for Vance?)
Don’t leave us hanging – what was Rumpey Pumpey doing between ’93 and ’97?
And the BBC told me with great pride the other day that, in protest at banker’s bonuses, Bragg is refusing to pay his taxes.
He was the Belgian budget minister between 1993 and 1999, if Wikipedia is correct – I imagine those BBC researchers used it.
I forgot Nolan’s other repeated question ‘have you ever been a Prime Minister’ ?
Farage was incredibly polite to Nolan, given his (Farage’s) track record. I was just waiting for him to ask Nolan how many voters had given him HIS job.
So that is why we have never heard of Rumpy Pumpy !
Nolan is a fat opinionated useless twat
and that’s from an an Ulsterman
Vested interest E.U.(and Turkey’s entry), makes BBC anti-UKIP.
The BBC is ideologically pro-EU (and gets a soft loan from its bank). This political allegiance of the BBC affects all its reports.
E.g., the BBC (along with Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, but not UKIP) supports Islamic Turkey’s entry into EU. So the BBC’s present reporting of the Islamising Government of Turkey is mild. PM Erdogan is not seen by BBC as an Islamic threat to non-Muslims despite his quoting:
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army”
I listened to this travesty last night with growing astonishment. How Farage kept his cool I have no idea – I was yelling at the radio. The choicest part for me was when Nolan repeatedly called Farage “a liar” – because Farage admitted that he’d seen van Rumpoy’s name in the papers in the past but had said in his speech that he’d never heard of him. Nolan called him a liar at least three times over this!
It got increasingly bizarre as Nolan asked Farage “Have you ever been Prime Minister?”. The whole thing became an ad hominem attack – accusing Farage of making an ad hominem attack on van Rumpoy!
The interview was recorded and Farage was not live on air. Fascinatingly, the first caller (anti Farage, natch) expressed disapointment at this – clearly wishing to give him an earful. Nolan’s reply was “don’t read to much into the fact that he isn’t live”, said in an evasive, almost embarrased manner. The clear implication was that Farage had been deliberately denied a live appearance. The beeb simply wasn’t prepared to give him uncontrolled airtime.
Amusingly after the segment Nolan had to admit that the show had received many emails supportive of Farage. He didn’t sound too happy about this.
Seriously if this ‘interview’ is available for download anywhere I recommend listening to it. It is so jaw-droppingly biased that an initial reaction of rage will give way to laughter.
This is nothing new. When Boris Johnson won the London election fatty Nolan was on air, he was in a rage that Boris had won, DEMANDING to know who was paying for the Champagne that Boris was enjoying at his election victory (needless to say my request to find out who paid for the Champers the drug users at the BBC scoffed in 97 went unanswered) party. The fat slug was almost in tears that red Ken had been defeated.
Last night’s show is available here (if I have copied the link correctly) but i’ve no idea how far in the Farage segment is.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00r0qvx
about 65 minutes onwards.
The final call about Farage came near the end of Nolan’s show from one Matthew Rhodes who was introduced as “a solicitor”. He was very critical of the UKIP MEP and said how much he disliked the personal nature of the insults thrown at Van Rompuy. This was a bit ironic as he had been invited on after sending a tweet to Nolan saying that he was “loving yr interview with the buffoon Farage” (see all the Twitter exchanges here). One fact not mentioned – Matthew Rhodes just happens to be the senior parliamentary assistant to Labour MP Stephen Timms (see here).
(A new game as the election approaches – spot the party activist pretending to be an ordinary phone-in caller.)
The BBC do this all the time. They even call members of the public who fit with their anti Tory anti UKIP view. Regularly on Radio 5 you will hear a caller say something along the lines of “your researcher called me and asked about…”
Also on QT Iain Dale noted that when the show came from Reading there were several Labour activists/Councillors in the audience, but no Tory ones. None of the Tories had been invited.
‘he had been invited on after sending a tweet to Nolan saying that he was “loving yr interview with the buffoon Farage” (see all the Twitter exchanges here). One fact not mentioned – Matthew Rhodes just happens to be the senior parliamentary assistant to Labour MP Stephen Timms (see here). ‘
The power of preselection, and if that fails the ability of the edit suite to leave out (or, sometimes, alter) to suit is pernicious. And the BBC is getting to be a dab hand, if rather obviously loading even ‘live’ events with mysterious ‘average folk/commentators’ or arranged rigged ‘representative sample’ vox pops to complement the rampant editorial/presenter biases with a spurious degree of separation.
I am finding the twitter exchanges using clearly corporate BBC pages (these guys can do what they like in their own time but oddly seem to cling to the comfort… or still need the brand heft and ‘reach’ of Aunty’s logo on top to make them worth dealing with) frankly amazing.
Well its a sign of how rattled the Beeb (and the Political class) are by the rise of UKIP. Up to now the tactic appears to have been to ignore them and hope they go away which they did during the EU elections the other year despite the UKIPs gains. Now however Farage has hit a nerve with them and they are on the attack. Expect to see more or this and within 6 months there were be more bile directed at UKIP than at the BNP.
Also I could be wrong here but I don’t think this recent speech (political fun Farage specialises in) is what has hit the nerve. No what is frightening them is Farage taking Speaker Bercow’s seat at the coming election. A UKIP seat in Westminster would be a step to far for the political class and red Tory Bercow is a favourite of them.
Incidentaly the Beeb doesn’t realise it but every time Farage is the subject of this bias by a dim witted Beebiod it gains the UKIP a few 100 more votes from a British electorate desperate for real change. Nigel Farage knows this but the Beebiods haven’t a clue.
We live in fun times.
Uploaded the Question Time Farage incident to youtube
Just wondering if B-BBC is going to use its YouTube account more often?