61 Responses to Open Thread

  1. sue says:

    As David P has pointed out, the comments on the archives have miraculously reappeared! Excellent!
    In the olden days there were hundreds of comments. One open thread had over 400.

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    • All Seeing Eye says:

      I love how people think these things happen “miraculously” 😀

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    • Biodegradable says:

      That’s really cool!

      How time flies, interesting to search back and be reminded of some of the old commenters who no longer bother – hopefully they may come back now as one major complaint was the loss of the archives.

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  2. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I’m glad they’re back because I’ve always maintained that the comments are at least as important to this site as the main posts.  Lots of great points about BBC bias were made by so many commenters.  And there’s the added benefit of having access to the debates we had with actual Beeboids.

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  3. CeannP says:

    Caroline Quinn on R4’s ‘PM’ today  referring to the Expenses court case said there were 4 defendants – ‘3 MPs and a CONSERVATIVE Peer’.

    Why so coy about the political affiliations of the MPs?

    And they say the BBC isn’t pro-Labour…

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    • hippiepooter says:

      I think this is the BBC PMQ’s commentator who always leapt in to point out that the Prime Minsiter should be answering questions not asking them, but as soon as Labour got in she was sneering at the Tory Leader of the Opposition for not answering the PM’s questions!

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    • ryan says:

      It was a “slip of the tongue”…

      Subject: RE: R4 PM Today
      Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:54:08 +0000
      From: carolyn.quinn@bbc.co.uk
      To: Ryan

      .ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P {padding-right:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;} .ExternalClass BODY.ecxhmmessage {font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;} It was, quite simply, a slip of the tongue on my part.  Throughout the whole of the programme, as far as I recall,  every other mention of the four individuals referred simply to “three MPs and a member of the House of Lords” because all four have lost their party whips.  I’m afraid in the heat of the moment, at a particularly busy time in the programme, with a producer talking in my ear and and with a mistake on a script I failed to remove the word Conservative.    I was not intending to characterise the parliamentarians in any way.  It was simple a stumble on my part for which I apologise if it confused or annoyed you.    Many thanks for taking the time to write to me about it.    Carolyn

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      • Roger C says:

        Its strange that these “slips of the tongue” never occur when they might smear the labour party.

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      • Guest says:

        LoL.

        I keep a list of BBCisms, , to which this has added a couple of new ones…

        It was, quite simply, a slip of the tongue on my part.  Throughout the whole of the programme, as far as I recall,  every other mention of the four individuals referred simply to “three MPs and a member of the House of Lords” because all four have lost their party whips.  I’m afraid in the heat of the moment, at a particularly busy time in the programme, with a producer talking in my ear and and with a mistake on a script I failed to remove the word Conservative.    I was not intending to characterise the parliamentarians in any way.  It was simple a stumble on my part

        So…. it was a slip of the tongue AND… OR… AND/OR a script error?

        Just wanted to preserve yet another piece of BBC investing in JCB’s to dig deeper holes.

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  4. David H says:

    Just a small example today of BBC bias – The PM programme were reporting the prosecution of 3 MPs and a Peer.  They kindly pointed out that the Peer was a Conservative but forgot to mention that the MPs were all Labour.  In fact, the wording suggested to the ill-informed that the MPs were Conservatives too!  I complained through their web site but peeing into the wind springs to mind!

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  5. Roland Deschain says:

    I’m sure it’s nice to see the old comments but is that why comments are now so clunky? I have to click to open a new tab which I have to click again to read the comments. And they won’t open in a new tab in Firefox.

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    • All Seeing Eye says:

      I’m going to fix that.

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      • Guest says:

        Cool. Progress always involves the odd glitch and requires a few tweaks.

        Some (like me), may not have ‘twigged’ for a while that to see the comments you need to click on the hyperlink (sounds like a tab in FireFox). In Safari at least it just seems like the comments have not loaded. Once one has got there it seems as was, including the posting at end.

        Might be worth an upfront post/guide until it’s sorted… as such as this to let fellow ITiots may be missed too?

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  6. mike_s says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8562961.stm

    and contrast with http://barnabasfund.org/UK/News/Archives/Nigeria-Religious-Violence-in-Jos-The-Christians-Speak-Out.html?&quicksearch=nigeria

    The BBC biased consists of the following points in my opinion;
    – The number of death reported is the number of death that police says have died. The police is being accused of being incompetent at best and complicited at worst. They have a interest to down play the number. Their own reporter counted more than a hundred death in one village. Three villages were attacked so the number of 109 death is not credible.
    – The BBC article gives a retional for these attacks, which were planned attacks to kill as many christians as possible. Retaliation for the riots in january in which many muslims supposed to have been killed. This view is contested, but the BBC can not be bothered to provide this alternative view.
    – And lastly they tells us that in reality this is not a religious conflict. Pull the other one. There are also conflicts between christian communities but they have never led to wide spread murder like this.

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  7. Philip says:

    I preferred the comments inline.

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  8. deegee says:

    Gallup poll. American concern with Global Warming diminishes.

    Few American relate to the BBC. Presumabbly few Beeboids pay attention to Gallup.

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  9. Guest says:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/cocaine-users-making-glob_n_491907.html

    One for Martin?

    Not, i suspect, an aspect of groups imposing enviro damage that might be delved into in as much depth in some quarters as others.

    Mind you, it might tempt a few hundred crews to fly over to ‘investigate’ ‘properly’.

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  10. Guest says:

    http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=3389&utm_source=tcotmon&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Climatescam+%28ClimateScam%29

    Interesting, given the source, if somewhat depressing, that our national broadcaster is singled out by that of another as prone to editorial practices such as ‘suppressing information’.

    Just another foam-flecked rightie, one presumes?

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  11. George R says:

    The fiasco and waste we pay for at  BBC Broadcasting House building:

    “No more repeats: Episode two of BBC Broadcasting House”

    Read more: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=667&storycode=3159743&c=1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+everyarticlefrombuilding+%28Every+article+from+building.co.uk%29#ixzz0hwqPmrvU

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  12. George R says:

    Not worth mentioning, BBC?:-

    “David Cameron: I will banish extremists from Britain”

    http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/29303/david-cameron-i-will-banish-extremists-britain

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  13. dave s says:

    I saw the last half hour of QT. Own goal for the liberalleft Brownite BEEB. It is clear that women just don’t like Brown. They seem to find him creepy in a way us men don’t. I don’t think Number 10 would have been at all pleased with the programme. Fine by me and for once an interesting QT

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  14. Liquid says:

    If you saw the David Dimbleby art treasures show last weekend, you will have seen the piece on Hogarths ‘Rakes Progress’.After 10 minutes on the story behind each painting, Dimbleby glossed over the meaning of it all by saying if you had money you were ok but you would struggle if you didnt.What!? – the whole thing is known to be about the perils of bad behaviour, lack of trust, easy pleasures etc its a MORALITY tale.You could swap the drink element for drugs etc and it could be about footballers or ‘celebs’ – AND WOULD HAVE MADE A GOOD CONTEMPORARY POINT.Dont think that it was a throwaway line or ignorance on Dimblebys part – there will have been a little conversation to decide the outcome of the piece. Imagine that, a discussion that ruled out any reference to morals, guilt, responsibility, sin – why? Who are the pussies afraid of?It’s because of this flaccidity that we have the ‘broken society’. They just cannot be judgemental can they?Did Hogarth go to all that trouble for such a lame socialist-wefareist pay off line?And on Radio 4 ‘Broadcasting House’ – a female pundit put forward her top 12 most influential women – and Margaret Thatcher was not there! – dont anyone tell me the producers were not aware of the possibility of such an outcome.All a bit rum so close to an election.

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  15. Dan Clucas says:

    Just got directed to this via EU referendum:

    Climate change makes birds shrink in North America”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8560000/8560694.stm

    Beyond parody, puts me in mind of that Daily Mail headline generator website.

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  16. Roland Deschain says:

    EU Referendum has spotted this beauty.

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  17. George R says:

    “Why does the BBC air Islamist propaganda?”

     (ex-BBC, now ‘Telegraph: Andrew Gilligan)

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/5831798/why-does-the-bbc-air-islamist-propaganda.thtml

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  18. Bupendra says:

    dave s<img src=”http://cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/>
    I saw the last half hour of QT. Own goal for the liberalleft Brownite BEEB. It is clear that women just don’t like Brown. They seem to find him creepy in a way us men don’t.

    *************************************************************

    You don’t find Brown creepy??????????

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  19. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The BBC News Online subeditor responsible for the “Irish plot” headline seems to have learned his or her lesson.  Sort of.

    Cartoonist plot suspects’ detention extended in Ireland

    In any case, there’s one thing which stood out to me.  Not bias in the article itself, but a symptom of an issue about which the BBC is biased.


    They include four men and three women and it is understood that they are Muslims – three Algerians, one American, one Libyan, one Palestinian and one Croat.

    They’re all asylum tourists, apparently.  But the BBC always condemns anyone who condemns the open borders and soft touch policy of Europe and the UKm as well as anyone who complains about the lack of integration and fundamentalist culture of too many Muslim immigrants.  If that Narrative hadn’t already been established, this incident would have started another round of debates about the policy.  Especially in the light of the recent Dispatches documentary.

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  20. Asuka Langley Soryu says:

    I’m not a woman, and I find Brown creepy as hell. He looks like a reanimated corpse. Fortunately I’ve read The Zombie Survival Guide so I know how to deal with the bastard if he tries to infect me, be it with whatever disease he has, Socialism or what have you.

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  21. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The Pope is having to defend celibacy for the priesthood, and the BBC helpfully lays out the case against.

    Pope defends celibacy rule amid sex abuse scandals

    I know celibacy is often blamed for paedo-priests acting out.  Same for heterosexual priests who take advantage of female parishoners.  This seems like a weak argument, as plenty of non-celibate men in positions of leadership and power sexually abuse people all over the world, in all faiths and creeds.  I fail to see how permitting a kiddie-fiddler to get married (or just become a sexually active homosexual) is going to stop him doing his dirty business.  I’d like to know what percentage of child abusers have taken religious vows of celibacy versus the percentage of married ones.  Any thoughts, BBC?

    Of course not, the BBC isn’t interested in any of that.  To the enlightened Beeboid, celibacy is a joke, so any old way to blame something on it is fine.  And the subeditor helpfully lays out the intellectual and theological case against it in the “Celibacy and Priests” inset.  Nice editorial policy.

    Do they do that sort of thing in reports about certain Islamic practices which come under public scrutiny from time to time?  I forget.

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  22. George R says:

    Islamic jihadists taking over British prisons -BBC report.

    This will have no impact whatsoever on the BBC’s Pollyanna view of the nature of Islam. Nothing will.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rd9b7/Donal_MacIntyre_14_03_2010/

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  23. ryan says:

    I don’t quite believe what I have just seen… the Friday BBC 10 o’clock news film two would-be terrorists in England who are self proclaimed Al Quida sympathiers watched Al Quida (read:terrorist) training videos.

    If the BBC worked in the national interest they would be straight on to MI5 not cultivated exposure for these “people” and their propaganda.

    They need to be under survillance or in jail not advertised on television!

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  24. Martin says:

    Newsnight trying to smear the Tories yet again this time over the frogs. You’d think the turd sniffers at the BBC would have realised that people want to know about what the one eyed mong has screwed up on.

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  25. NRG says:

    Newsnight was the most contrived, petty and most blatantly biased piece of Labour propaganda imaginable.

    Flicking through the channels I landed on BBC 4 “hotter than my daughter”, (low quality trash which is what the BBC seems to think is what licence fee payer’s money should be used for when they are not pumping out anti-Tory propaganda), but even in this crud they had decorated the set with a Hillay Clinton photograph.

    Do the Beeboid scum never give it a rest?

    Also I note that after all the spin about redirecting funds to quality it was quietly revealed today that R4 is cancelling the Friday play due to lack of funds.

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  26. Paddy says:

    Consider my piss boiled!

    I am absolutely seething.

    Martha Kearney. Paul Morley, Dr. Tristram Hunt, Beth Derbyshire and Peter Whittle The Review Show BBC2

    Specifically Beth Derbyshire.

    What a fuckwit! What a complete fuckwit!

    She starts havng a Pop at Peter whittle about climate change. Of course the whole panel is slanted to the warm-mongers with whittle the only skeptic.

    She ends off by saying (I am paraphrasing )

    ‘you have to agree the weather is changing and there is warming ……look at Haiti’

    somebody has got the tell the beeb nobjockeys and cheeseclothed revolutionaries that Haiti was a fucking earth quake.

    She was unchallenged and had the last word and this is what those over paid corrupt bastards try to pass off as intellectual programming.

    They’ll be blaming the warming on the ‘damn jews’ next.

    They cant have a sensible argument so they lie. Either that or the woman is a complete imbecile.

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  27. Paddy says:

    And to add insult to injury the Beeb classifies the show as Factual: arts.

    There we have it in a nutshell

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  28. Paddy says:

    Just thought,

    Martha Kearney(Beeboid through and through) Left wing

    Paul Morley, (The Guardian) Left wing

    Dr. Tristram Hunt (Historian and unselected labour candidate) left wing

    Beth Derbyshire (Artist and fruitcake publically subsidised looney) left wing

    and Peter Whittle (token Tory boy) Right wing

    Good ol auntie and her political balance and fairness

    They are always fair, that is if you think that 4:1 is fair.

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  29. George R says:

    For all Beeboid donors to Friends of the Earth:

    “Friends of the Earth finally cottons on to climate change data row”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/7431092/Friends-of-the-Earth-finally-cotton-on-to-climate-change-data-row.html

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  30. George R says:

    Ah, for BBC’s Cuba propagandist, Mr. Frei: ‘politically incorrect’ smoking of cigars is fine – but only in Castro’s Cuba.

    “Cuba: The Smoker’s Paradise”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8560267.stm

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  31. George R says:

    BBC joins criticism of British security forces, features a photo of smiling BBC poster boy, Ethiopiam Muslim, ex-al Qaeda trainee, ex-Gitmo, Binyam Mohamed.

    Dhimmi BBC does NOT name the security threat of ISLAMIC JIHAD here:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8563501.stm

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  32. Guest says:

    Amazingly, this was ‘leaked’ to the Gardian:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/13/scienceofclimatechange-climate-change

    Guessing about £6m+’s worth of PR in support will appear on the national broadcaster’s news channel pretty soon.

    STOP PRESS – ‘Yet another quango which knows what’s good for it fudges to yet another dodgy whitewash’

    The ruling makes for interesting reading, especially as it seems to be using ‘support’ that is a wee bit behind the curve, accuracy and credibility-wise.

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  33. Anonymous says:

    This is a very disturbing report, unusual for the BBC methinks? 
    Growing fears over Muslim prison ‘gangs’

    The Muslim prison population in England and Wales has sharply increased in recent years. The BBC’s Ushma Mistry hears from former inmates and prison officers who claim gangs of Muslim prisoners are an increasingly powerful force.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8558590.stm

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  34. Guest says:

    Guessing it’s just another example of how ‘news’ is really ‘events interpreted’.

    Just watched the morning’s news summaries on both BBC and SKY, and there seemed to be a notable difference to the coverage of the Children’s Commissioner’s comments.

    SKY goes with Jamie Bulger’s mother being (I have to say with some reason) less than impressed that her son’s vicious murder was ‘unpleasant’. Certainly an interesting choice of word to refer to it.

    BBC however goes with her demanding the commissioner’s sacking for suggesting a rising of the age limit for criminal responsibility. Deeming this to be ‘insensitive’. No mention of the much more, IMHO, example.

    That… is two very different takes. Why the discrepancy?

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  35. George R says:

    BBC report:

    “South Asia ‘slave brides’ causing concern in UK”.

    BBC: -don’t mention Labour’s mass immigration policy; don’t mention Islam; don’t mention broken Britain.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8566102.stm

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    • Cassandra King says:

      The islamic slave trade in helpless women gets a mention by the BBC but of course they miss the real issues, young girls bought and sold like cattle, the girl gets the passport, the poor family gets to pay thousands for the chance to get one of their own clan into the UK and the family follows on later.
      Girls from the villages unable to speak English and used as house slaves, used as comodities, the third world brought to our doorsteps.
      The British taxpayers fund the slave trade and then fund the heart breaking and sometimes engineered breakups/runaways where the girl is issued with housing,benefits,passports for other family members to come over and the cycle of trade/abuse/criminal fraud/cruelty is a self reinforcing nightmare and as the tragedy unfolds the financial and social burden gets heavier and heavier. Two cards are played to maximise the profit margins, the victim card and the race card.
      The aim of the slave traders is financial gain, the UK is a veritable free money paradise for those expert at fiddling the system, there is a price to pay of course and the longer the tragedy perpetuates itself the heavier the ultimate price.

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  36. George R says:

    BBC, pro-Labour, pro-E.U., omits this:

    “Gordon Brown’s four-letter rant at Baroness Ashton for ‘letting UK down'”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257793/Gordon-Brown-s-letter-rant-Baroness-Ashton-letting-UK-down.html#ixzz0i8ewtB8G

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    • Craig says:

      This week’s The Record Europe (BBC News Channel, BBC Parliament Channel tonight at 5.00, on the BBC News website soon) features a very gentle interview with Baroness Ashton.

      Then the presenter Shirin Wheeler discusses the baroness’s role with two MEPs from a new Europhile group called ‘Friends of the External Action Service’. They both want her to succeed and think she should be supported by four (or more) deputies – presumably with big salaries.

      So Baroness Ashton first, then two enthusiasts for her and her position. No sceptics of any kind. BBC bias.

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  37. George R says:

    BBC does not admonish its Labour government chums on false climate claims:

    “Ed Miliband’s adverts banned for overstatating climate change”

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7061162.ece

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  38. Guest says:

    One for David P at least, with whom I have been sharing an odd retro nostalgia trip watching re-runs of Babylon 5.

    In this week’s episode the megalomaniac, ‘brook no opinions from anyone’ saviour of the human race President of the World blows his brains out when he realises he is totally without support save from those in his inner circle who fear his wrath or who stand to gain from sucking up or have too much to lose not to cling on. But not before turning the ‘defence grid’ on Earth, leaving the words ‘scorched earth’ in his suicide note.

    And in later news, the global news service gets back the staff who had been purged to serve the propaganda needs and demands of his corrupt regime, determined to keep an evidently gullible populace compliant with some nifty work in the edit suite.

    It was… is, of course, just a clunky science fiction soap opera. No bearing in reality at all.

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  39. Biodegradable says:

    Al-Beeb makes light of Hamas banning male hairdressers from cutting women’s hair:

    Cut and run?
    Bombed out and banned: Gaza’s male hairdressers
    […]

    Mr Hussein admitted there had been attacks on hairdressers by “extremist individuals”, but, he added, not just on salons where men cut women’s hair.

    There have been suggestions Hamas may have introduced the new hairdresser law to try to stem criticism from more hard-line Islamist groups.

    “This is not true at all,” says Ehab al-Hussein. “This has nothing to do with extremist groups.”

    Uncertain future

    Hamas has already tried to introduce new rules to oblige female lawyers to cover their hair in court and to make high-school girls wear long dresses.

    But they have been enforced patchily.

    Another young woman, Nagham Mohanna, 24, from Gaza City, doubted the hairdressing restrictions would be enforced.

    “I don’t think the decision will actually go ahead. Hamas are always making laws like this,” she said.

    So far none of the hairdressers who cut women’s hair have actually been shut down.

    Listening to the report on World Service now – all very jovial and light hearted. The reporter informs us that not many women want men to cut their hair anyway.

    So that’s all right then, nothing to see here, move along please…

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  40. George R says:

    BBC repeats of denigration of British history. We get variations on the same message from all of the recent TV programme given to e.g-

    1.) R. Omaar, ex-BBC, now Al Jazeera, a Muslim who avoids the history of Islamic Imperialism over 1,600 years;

    2.) W. Dalrymple, a supporter of the Islamic imperialism in India, which started about the year 636;

    3.) S.Schama, big on slavery involving whites , as perpetrators (but not whites as victims of Islamic slavery, as 1 million were in North Africa) ; and ignoring black,and Arab slave traders in many parts of Africa;

    4.) D. Dimbleby, tonight, ‘7 Ages’ gives a potted history reprising all the above. His tone of voice is ‘Oh, the folly, the injustice of all British colonialism. It all ends in a mausoleum’.

          He can’t see the following:

         ‘Oh, the folly, the national suicide of mass immigration, the dhimmitude and capitulation to Islam in Britain now. I, Dimbleby, in my guilt, and multiculturalism, accept that this colonisation of Britain is to be welcomed, unlike British

          colonialism, the resistance to which I approvingly record.’ 





         cynical about in my series

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  41. George R says:

    BBC; silent on Labour-created huge problems of MASS IMMIGRATION & ‘ASYLUM SEEKERS’

    E.g..:

     “20,000 failed asylum seekers stay in Britain every year”

    http://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/163015/20-000-failed-asylum-seekers-stay-in-Britain-every-year

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  42. George R says:

    Reports on Islamic politics in London, BBC omits:

    “Islamists in power: key council sympathiser under pressure ”

    (by Andrew Giiligan)

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100029915/islamists-in-power-key-council-sympathiser-under-pressure/

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  43. Trifecta says:

    The BBC have launched their 2010 campaign to get Labour re-elected. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/5live/2010/03/5-live-preelection-frenzy.shtml#comments

    The guy running it is Jonathon Crawford who is the editor of the “idiots idiot” Richard Bacon so no danger of any bias here then…….

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Nice find.  I like how the only comments so far (including yours) are about their pro-Labour bias.  They can’t deny that Jane Garvey quote now.

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