An open thread for the middle of the week…
Open Thread
Bookmark the permalink.
Search Biased BBC
Recent Comments
- Fedup2 May 5, 2024 at 10:11 pm on Weekend 4th May 2024Zephir - happy birthday - Tauren right ? I’m glad somebody makes post because it feels like this site is...
- Zephir May 5, 2024 at 10:03 pm on Weekend 4th May 2024Apologise for a few too many posts, and mispellings, , it's my birthday today and nothing from China arrived in...
- moggiemoo May 5, 2024 at 9:47 pm on Start the Week 6th May 2024Ok, I feel sorry for London, it used to be the capital of the UK. It has now been entrenched...
- Zephir May 5, 2024 at 9:46 pm on Weekend 4th May 2024Irony in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i_pC3lp04
- moggiemoo May 5, 2024 at 9:36 pm on Start the Week 6th May 2024Is dolphin rights no longer appealing? I'm devastated!
- Eddy Booth May 5, 2024 at 9:32 pm on Start the Week 6th May 2024A musical interlude, untill someone thinks of something to say🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzYXRSCS1og
Categories
agw anti-American anti-conservative anti-Israel anti Israel. pro Palestinian Antisemitism BBC - sickeningly biased at all times. BBC agenda BBC bias bbc bias and balance. bbc bias by omission BBC censorship BBC Question Time BBC selectivity bias Biased BBC climate change dhimmis general thread immigration Islam israel Mark Mardell obama obama bias Obamalove open thread pro-labour pro-palestinian pro EU pro Hamas pro Islam pro Labour bias pro Obama PRO OBAMA AT ALL COSTS. pro Obama BBC agenda question time question time live Richard Black save gordon. USA politics US economy US News US politics US presidential elections
Ashcroft, Media Management and BBC Complicity
Amazing – 6AM news on radio 4, a complete news drought on Unite/BA/Labour and instead we have some conveniently leaked report (from the cabinet office) providing more details on ASHCROFT’s – entirely leagal – tax status. This is beyond belief – does Mandlebrott actually phone the news editor at 5:30 AM and dictate the BBC news agenda for the day?
This ‘leak’ is clearly of a sensitive cabinet document. How could such a serious leak happen happen? Will a concerned chief constable set up a comprehensive investigation? Will a senior Labour politician be arrested in his/her office in the house of commons and dragged off to the station for DNA branding?
Surely the story here is where did this document come from and why did it emerge so conveniently timed to counter a Tory attack line and distract from Broons terrible performance at PMQ’s. This is pure media management. If I can see this – it is so obvious that a 10 year old can see it – then surely the BBC so jealous of its independence and editorial integrity that they would object to being so blatantly manipulated. HA! Has everyone forgotten cash for ermine?
Unrelated but I wanted to share this with B-BBC bloggers, I had an excellent example of the BBC mindset in response to a formal complaint I made about the mosque Any Questions farce. After completely evading the point and larding (vegetarian cooking variety of course) me with patronising platitudes, It went something like this.
Because we are funded by the TV tax we have nothing to gain from bias, therefore we cannot be biased and consequently you just imagined it.
Expressed otherwise in an extreme example to make the point:
Doctors cure people and have nothing to gain from murdering them.
Harold Shipman was a doctor
Therefore Harold Shipman could not be a murderer
Apparently I have been added to the audience log – has anyone FOI’d this?
7 am, before going to catch the train, I have just looked at the BBC politics page on the web.
Here are the headlines:
“Hague knew of Ashcroft tax deal”
PM misled Iraq inquiry – Cameron. (“David Cameron says…)
“Whelan angry over Tory insult”
UK unemployment further fall”
Do I detect that they may be being managed from elsewhere – based on the way that they are pitched?
Here we go yet again!
The BBC toady show is yet again trying rehash to dead Ashcroft non story, muck raking and desperate tactics to try and peddle the newlabour attack line. Nobody cares and nobody is listening anymore and the BBC are simply talking to themselves.
Its crystal clear just where the BBC priorities lay when the Ashcroft smears are put ahead of Browns proven lying about funding for the armed forces, not only did Brown lie to parliament and the media he lied to the Iraq inquiry, funnily enough its not that story that leads!
Ashcroft does not pay tax on his overseaes earnings, ooh NOOooo the horror never stops does it? Ahem, er..is that it? How many labour donors do not pay UK tax on their overseas earnings I wonder, in fact how many international business people pay UK tax on earnings from overseas and I wonder if Tony B£air is paying UK tax on his overseas earnings which btw now runs in the millions.
We clearly see the BBC narrative, they dont even hide hide their double standards anymore do they? The BBC are determined to peddle the Ashcroft smears because that is all they have to attack the hated Tories. Can you imagine if a Tory PM had been found out lying like Brown, can you imagine the storm of indignation that would pour forth from the BBC?
Brown lies and is found out lying, he is forced to admit he lied and yet the toady show simply cannot be bothered with such trivial matters, ooooh no folks the Ashcroft non story is far more important.
When is a story not a story and when is a scandal not a scandal? Every time the BBC comes across a story that may incriminate their political allies and friends they bury/ignore/skate over it. Time after time the BBC will furiously peddle any story no matter how shabby and thin if it attacks their enemies and then pimp that story regardless of the truth.
The coming election is going to a picture of BBC collective amnesia and BBC dogged determination to flog any political poison sent to it from its political allies.
Subjected to this prolonged and intense hate campaign the Tories seem unable or unwilling to even raise the issue with the BBC, the question of why they roll over and play the willing victim so often is beyond my small brain.
OK The BBC toady show muppets have now mentioned the Ashcroft story SIX times within the first hour alone SIX bloody times, are these morons aware of how desperate they sound? Of all the real stories just waiting to be told the toady show yet again pimps a boring set of rehashed smears and pathetic non information, I hope they choke on their lies.
7.00 news Full details about Ascroft, however that the defence cuts occureed 4 times. Now the Beeb shows PMQ in much detail, didn’t they hear Broon say 1 or 2 times. No mention of the lying dicrepency from Broon, prehaps they should be issued with the Ladybird book of number, to undersatnd 1 or 2 IS NOT the same as 4.
Yes Radio 5 are in full Brown turd sniffing mode as well. The Ashcroft story is er…. well nothing new. But the one eyed idiot is the problem. The BBC claimed last night that THEY had found out about this ‘mistake’ so how come Channel 4 ran the story last week in their fact check section? What is the BBC up to? Why didn’t the BBC follow up on C4’s story and out the one eyed liar?
Huw Edwards and Landale were at it last night as well claiming that “this wasn’t that important”. Yes it is you BBC tossers. Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan because the gay one eyed jock liar starved the MoD of money. When the fat jock was spraying my taxes around his favoured departments like a beeboids sprays Meow Meow around at a night club the MoD was being cut. Even the small rises in defence spending don’t allow for the huge expenditure needed to fight TWO wars.
I noticed that toenails gave scumbag fatty Charlie Whelan free reign to spout crap about Lord Ashcroft last night as well.
Thing is Chilcot should demand the one eyed mong is brought back and this time given a proper grilling. But don’t expect the drug addicts at the BBC to demand that.
Lord Ashcroft anyone?
R4 News is now saying that cabintet papers about the Ascroft deal; has been leaked to the Beeb. They can’t tell the truth either; i.e. the dear leader has instructed us to say “Secret Cabinet papers …………….”.
I once worked in the Cabinet Office for a couple of years. Never would anyone even dream of leaking stuff to do damage to one or other political party. Neutrality really did rule – especially in the run-up to an election.
If there has been a leak, it is a measure of the politicisation of the civil service that has occurred under New Labour.
I turned the Today prog off after half an hour – how many times do we need to hear about the awful Ashcroft and Hague ? Plus of course a puff piece with an Irish UN voice droning on about the EEC Baroness visiting Gaza to wallow around empathising with the poor diddumses.
Tories bad – check
Israel bad – check.
All before the Today prog has hardly started.
It intrigues me, given the scale and complexity of the issue, just how select the group is who decides what the public hears,and how it hears it, regarding matters AGW.
And many, if not all, have been on hand to opine on Mr. Miliband’s latest little local difficulty:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/17/climate-change-advertising-standards-authority
On the face of it, quite damning.
The comments in response are worth reading. Amidst the usual extremes that we need to head for the huts vs. throwing another Humvee tire on the patio heater, the not insignificant aspect of how such things could, and/or should be communicated ‘better’ does get discussed.
Trouble is, there seems more concern that the propaganda is not subtle enough than actually getting on board with the notion that objective facts to help the public think for themselves might serve better over ‘enhanced narratives’ that tell them how to.
It should also be noted that the author’s company does have a lucrative involvement with pretty much all involved… or should one say complicit… in what has been served up by the politico-media establishment so far.
Cosy, and rather worryingly unrepresentative.
The BBC toady show lavishes high praise on the Nissan plant getting huge grants to manufacture electric cars, its all too wonderful for words innit?
Its good news all the way, what could possibly go wrang? The beeboid asked about the range of this new white elephant and was told its range was an average 100 miles, oops something sounds a little fishy about that figure doesnt it? The actual range will depend on ambient temperature,traffic congestion,age of the battery pack(degrades over time) and driving style. Turn the heater/aircon and radio and wipers and headlights on and get stuck in a jam and the range quickly degrades. In the fantasy land of made up figures the car is the star but in the real world of freezing mornings and hot summers and traffic chaos this super duper green car will be lucky to reach ranges of fifty miles before it goes flat and put five people and luggage in it and you will be lucky to get into town.
The battery pack will last how long before it needs replacing? We dont need to know that tiny detail do we? The battery packs will need replacing several times over the life of the car making the cars actual lifetime cost far more than a normal car, but again we dont need to know that little unimportant detail.
The battery pack is stuffed with poisonous materials by the bucket load and where are these batteries going when they fail?
So we have massive subsidies going to produce a useless crappy car that most people cannot use in real life, the only winner will be battery makers who will make a fortune and remind me who makes the batteries?
In the real world we use headlights,get stuck in jams,use the heater and radio, in the real world the real what use is a car that can barely drive around a medium UK city ring road before going flat?
Update on how many time the toady show has managed to mention the Ashcroft smears, it now tops a dozen times! How desperate and pathetic the toady show gits are now?
Spot on. I’ve actually used an electric car and they are crap. Even if you take the case that the range is 100 miles, that’s 50 mile radius as you can’t be sure of a charging point at your destination. But then it’s not even 50 miles as you don’t want to be getting home with the battery on empty, you want a bit in reserve, say 10 miles so that’s a 45 mile radius at best. Think about it, where can you get to that is a 45 mile radius (not as the crow flies either)
Some prat on the radio ( a supporter of the electric car) stated that we could have battery replacement centres where if on a long journey you could stop off and swap batteries. Have you ever tried to swap the batteries out of a fork lift truck for example? Not only that but you’d need thousands of these places oh and where does the electricity come from to charge the cars?
Utter nonsense.
Oh and did anyone else notice how ‘comfortable’ the BBC were talking about drugs and ‘Meow meow’ yesterday? Anyone would think they used the stuff themselves.
Spot on Martin!
This is a subject close to my heart, lets do something that the BBC would never do in a million years shall we?
In the real world a gullible fool buys an electric car on the promise it will actually work properly.
Its 18 months into ownership and the battery pack has already degraded by about 15-20%, its a cold wintery dark morning and the owner thinks that his/her car is fully charged and ready to do the adverised mileage.
So right then lets turn on the lights/heater/radio and off we go into the heavy traffic of morning rush hour, ooops and double ooops, the battery pack already weakened by age and the cold and the strain of the heater/lights/radio begins to feel the strain after 20-30 miles and may well be neaqr dead soon after.
So we have a car costing maybe 15000 quid with a range that barely gets you anywhere and the owner can think again about popping off to the next town/seaside etc and the owner is now looking very stupid indeed as their neighbour who paid less for a petrol car can actually use that car everyday and on weekends.
Meanwhile back at the ranch of broken promises our electric car owner is looking forward to running out of juice in a jam on the way to town and even if they get there what chance of finding a plug in charger availible? The looming cost of a new battery pack after just 18 months will cripple Mr&Mrs gullible idiot so no hols that year eh?
The moral of the story is? There is one born every minute and there are many who will take advantage of that sad fact, only this time the entire government has engineered itself to become the grifting scammer who lies and cheats aand steals from the trusting mug population.
The stupid morons who buy this car with their own cash believing the lies of a governement so steeped in lies you dont know where one lie begins and another ends will end up out of pocket and left with a worthless poece of junk in the drive.
Both you and Martin have it exactly right. There’s also the small matter of the high cost (which nobody wants to talk about) of rewiring one’s house. How many homes in Britain have an electrical system robust enough to deal with it? Nobody I know. Not to mention the inevitable demand for accomodation in parking garages, especially at businesses. Who’s going to pay for all that?
If one lives anywhere but a semi-detached or detached house, there’s no point in even getting an electric car.
Electric cars is old technology and doomed. Lugging a battery around is a huge drawback and the eco-loons always seem to be very vague about where the electricity to charge them will come from – and just how many charging points will there be and who will fund that infrastructure? And can this really be environmentally friendly – just look at the materials that go into those batteries!
The future is hydrogen power cells – Honda has an entirely practical car in production and on sale in California. It was reviewed on Top Gear recently – they were very impressed
You can use the exisiting car service station infratsructure to fule the cars and probably a similar distribution network. The fuel comes from cracking water – easy by-product from clean nuclear of HEP and the only emissions are water
Mind you water vapour is a greenhouse gas……….greenies standby….aaargh!!!!!
“.. where does the electricity come from to charge the cars? “
I beleive that the BBC state propagandists are so brainwashed that this does not even occur to them.
Headline news on the Today programme – it’s non-dom time again as the BBC are determined that more important stories i.e. Gordon Brown’s factual innacuracies in front of the Chilcott inquiry are breezed over. And the main interview at 8.10? Why, a cross questioning of William Hague about , well, non-doms of course. Is anyone out there apart from the Brown spin machine (which includes the BBC) really that interested in this most dreary story?
The toady show is going absolutely mental now peddling the Ashcroft smears, Nick toe nails Robinscum now pops up to spread the smears, who f***ing cares besides the labour party and the BBC, now Hague is on trying to defend himself by somehow appealing to reason when in fact the whole BBC/labour smear isnt built on reason, its wholly constructed with unreasonable smears. In fact you cannot use reason to fight unreason, you cannot fight smears by explaining the actual facts.
The toady show relies and thrives on lies and smears, no amount of reasonable facts will combat that, the toady show is only interested in peddling lies and smears and they will ignore anything that does not confirm their prejudice, so what is the point of Hague trying to appeal to reason, the toady show neither has reason nor is interested in reason.
So the fact that Brown lied to the Iraq inquiry/parliament/media is buried, dead and buried by the BBC and all the other stories that may damage labour is conveniently ignored by the BBC toady show.
I hate the BBC so much I can actually taste it, I dont know how much longer I can actuall bottle up my anger!
Universities.
BBC has:
“Universities facing ‘first cuts in years'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8573432.stm
But BBC omits this:
“Why are British taxpayers funding EU students at our universities when our own children are being turned away?”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1258508/UK-taxpayers-funding-EU-students-universities-British-children-miss-out.html#ixzz0iVygdlcP
Meanwhile:
“Muslim students don’t play well with others”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/26550
I don’t understand the Tories. I really don’t. William Hague was on Today this morning fending off questions from Evan Davis about Ashcroft. It all revealed that there was, er, nothing to reveal and I got the impression that even Mr Davis was slightly embarrassed at being required to ask all his non-questions.
Hague explained everything patiently, and this is where I don’t understand the Tories. He should not have been patient. He should have shouted BBC bias from the rooftops and asked why they feel obliged to continue flogging this dead horse and who is pulling their strings.
At the end, Nick Robinson should have had the grace to admit that the leaked documents show there is nothing in this story. He didn’t. He continued his innuendo of “why haven’t the Tories answered our questions, perhaps they’re hiding something”.
Another matter. Much has been made at the BBC that Ashcroft promised to be resident but is still a non-dom. I have posted before on Nick Robinson’s blog that there is a world of difference in tax law between residence and domicile, but they have been happy to confuse the two. This was acknowledged in the Hague interview, but I would bet they will continue to get it wrong. Purely accidentally of course.
For BBC, which now buries reports of Brown’s important mistake/lie on Defence spending cuts:
“Finally, Gordon Brown is forced to admit the truth about Defence spending”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/concoughlin/100030323/finally-gordon-brown-is-forced-to-admit-the-truth-about-defence-spending/
“The truth about Defence spending”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/7467441/The-truth-about-defencespending.html
I imagine that senior Conservative politicians (shadow front bench) have an agreement not to directly attack the BBC. It might be counter-productive, and anyway the BBC is very powerful and they have the ability to spin news on a world-wide stage.
But why aren’t they firing guns behind the scenes ? Today’s performance really took the biscuit.
If the Tories really had put the BBC on warning about paying special attention right now to impartiality, there would have been no question of Hague getting the 8.10 top spot on Today.
Didn’t Michael Gove do that on Newsnight a few weeks ago? He asked Kirsty Wark why they weren’t asking questions about Labour non-dom Lords who donated money. “We will”, said Kirsty.
Well has anyone heard these questions yet?
I heard that promise at the time and thought it was just empty wind, the BBC have no intention of investigating the labour party funding scams EVER.
The BBC would rather concentrate on poisoning the UKs political scene by smear and lies in association with unite/labour.
THE BBC: IF IT AINT TORY SLEAZE IT AINT NEWS INNIT, ITS WOT WE DO!
As previous commenters have noticed, Hague – who should have been beyond incandescence at this blatantly political move (the BBC “learning” from a leaked Cabinet office paper) – reluctantly decided to mention Lord Paul rather than take an aggresive line with both the BBC and the (I think we can rightly assume) Labour Party inspired leak. Such passivity is beyond pathetic: it can only be a deliberate policy at all costs not to offend the BBC. Quite why I fail to understand since, even if the Conservatives have given up “opposition” both formally in the Commons and informally vis-a-vis the BBC, it’s not doing them much good.
Furthermore, I don’t beleive that the Conservatives are playing some kind of deep game where they are seeking not to win the election outright (but with a very small majority in the Commons) this time round but, rather, to come in triumphantly in a second election this year after the confusion of a hung parliament. To the contrary I believe this is the end-game of the failing Cameroon strategy of PR and Blair-lite politicking marked by the dumping of any notion of policies based on firm conservative (or any) principles. The electorate has now seen through all the parties and is deeply dissatisfied and angry. Why would anyone vote for Cameron just to oust Brown? We know exactly what we’re going to get from Brown, deeply unpleasant though it would be. Unfortunately, we’ll get more or less the same from Cameron although, as I’ve said before, with superior tailoring. The election will, I think, be characterised by massive abstention and/or voting for the smaller parties (BNP/UKIP/Greens). Much good it will do us though: the same party (although possibly a different section) will be in power after as before the election.
I don’t think the Conservatives are the same as Labour. For one thing, they have a commitment to cut immigration numbers, something that is sorely needed and will have beneficial effects in many areas of life. Brown will not do this. Second, Labour has been cynically playing fast and loose with the people and wreaking havoc for years.
They deserve to be ousted and must be ousted if there is any justice or any sense. Are people so masochistic that they could countenance letting them back for another five years? What is wrong with people? If we do let them in again, I dread to think what will become of us – and what HAS become of us.
A classic trifecta of bias in the latest report on EU Foreign Mandarn Ashton’s visit to Gaza.
The bias starts in immediately. Gaza “militants” with no apparent political association fired a rocket into Israel, killing a “foreign agricultural worker”. The BBC immediately points out that even though “militants” with no apparent political association have fired hundreds of rockets, they haven’t killed anyone since last January. It’s important for the BBC to inform you that the rockets are no big deal.
The next bit of bias is the inevitable mention of a “siege” – medieval this time, for added color – and no mention at all of Egypt’s border and the fact that they are just as complicit in keeping it shut as the nasty Israelis are. Only on rare occasions does the BBC dare to admit that Egypt is involved at all, and it’s only when reality forces them to do it. Instead, it’s an “Israeli economic blockade”.
Side note: The BBC mentions that the EU gives 1 billion euros a year to the Palestinians. If the Beeboids actually cared about improving the lives of Palestinians, rather than delegitimizing Israel, they’d investigate where all this money goes to like they did with Geldof’s charity. But they never, ever do, as that would potentially deligitimize Hamas and Fatah and the PLO. Anything like that would never make it past the first editorial meeting.
To complete the trifecta of bias, we get – surprise! – one of the pillars of BBC editorial policy regarding the Israel/Palestinian conflict: the ghoulish body count. Just like always, we are reminded that the Israeli “offensive” (as if they started it for no reason) against Gaza killed “more than 1,000 Palestinians”. Once again there is no separation of Hamas fighters or “militants” from civilians. As usual, the BBC wants you to think all Palestinians are innocent, and Israel kills them indiscriminately.
I’m not sure there’s a valid journalistic reason to even mention that particular conflict here, as it’s irrelevant to Ashton’s visit, but I suppose that’s also part of BBC editorial policy. This time, the Beeboids don’t even have to mention the small number of Israelis killed by Hamas (always with a clear demarcation between civilian and military casualties, which is never done for the Palestinian casualties), as they already sanitized the Hamas rockets at the beginning of the article.
This must be the kind of thing they teach at the BBC’s College of Journalism or whatever it’s called.
Compare and contrast: Public borrowing soars by another £12bn… but tax receipts rise as recovery gathers pacehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258832/Public-borrowing-soars-12billion–tax-receipts-rise.html#ixzz0iX4JXebM
Government borrowing less than forecast
(You know where to find it)
Save Gordon!
Yes the BBC have been spinning the “borrowing lower than expected” crap all day. Yet the borrowing is the HIGHEST EVER SINCE RECORDS BEGAN, not reported by the BBC.
Nigeria.
“Nigeria: Muslims murder 12 more Christians, cut out their tongues”
Of course, the AP and the BBC don’t see the Islamic jihad reality:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8564884.stm
As ‘Jihadwatch comments (above):
“Much as AP [and BBC] would like to portray this as an outbreak of ethnic or religious violence in which both sides are equally at fault, in reality the Muslims have been the aggressors all along.”
Once again the BBC hugely, tragically, misrepresents ObamaCare. The caption under the smiling photo of Him says it all:
Mr. Obama wants to provide health insurance to those who do not have it
This could not be further from the actual truth of so-called “health care reform”, but the BBC doesn’t give a damn about informing you. Every time a Beeboid talks about it, the overarching narrative is that this is about giving health care to poor people who don’t have it. There’s never a mention of the realities of Medicaid, which is in fact government-funded health care for those who do not have it. Nor is there ever a word about the costs or debt or outright falsehoods in the claims about what problems His Health Care Plan For Us will solve. No, instead, the Beeboids want you to think only about helping those in need. It’s blatant misdirection and dishonesty.
What the Democrats and The Obamessiah actually want to do is bankrupt the insurance industry and control a significant part of the economy. But the Beeboids don’t want you to know about that. The BBC isn’t reporting, it’s spreading Democrat propaganda.
Actually, the quote from loopy Dennis Kucinich gets pretty close to revealing the truth: “You do have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama’s presidency not be destroyed by this debate.” That’s what it’s really about now: His legacy. And that’s what the Beeboids really care about, which is why they spend so much time covering it for you. They included Kucinich’s quote because it’s a reminder of how important He is.
And there are two separate HYS features on the issue. That’s how obsessed they are. Your license fee hard at work.
UPDATE: It’s not just me saying that this is no longer about anything else but saving His image – the President admits as much, too.
One caucus member told POLITICO that Obama won him over by “essentially [saying] that the fate of his presidency” hinged on this week’s health reform vote in the House. The member, who requested anonymity, likened Obama’s remarks to an earlier meeting with progressives when the president said a victory was necessary to keep him “strong” for the next three years of his term.
No wonder the Beeboids are working so hard on this issue. They’re too emotionally invested in Him.
BBC’s top political editors have obviously decided that today will be a day of massive BBC political assault on Lord Ashcroft yet again, it’s on-going in every BBC news programme, e.g. BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Anti-Tory World at One’.
No mention of the insidious role of Unite/Labour’s CHARLIE WHELAN on BBC today.
From BBC’s Nick Robinson yesterday:
[Extract] –
“He’s political director of the union which has given Labour £11m since 2007.
His union pays the salary of one of Gordon Brown’s Downing Street staff.
<img style=”float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 20px;” src=”http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/whelan226.jpg” alt=”Charlie Whelan”/>It’s Westminster group of Labour MPs totals over 160.
It is highly efficient at ensuring that its supporters are selected as candidates for Labour safe seats.
He is Charlie Whelan.
It is Unite – the union at the heart of the British Airways dispute.
It is absolutely fair to describe the Labour Party as the political wing of Unite – that, at least, is what the party’s former General Secretary Peter Watt has said.
“I’ve been speaking to Charlie Whelan about that claim and the suggestion that he is Labour’s answer to Lord Ashcroft – a suggestion that he himself has made in private for months. Whelan boasts about the fact that’s he’s countering the Tory peer’s impact in marginal seats by organising a virtual phone bank in which union members are given the software, the scripts and money to pay for calls they make to other union members as part of an operation to get them to vote Labour.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/is_whelan_labou.html
I have put in a complaint to the BBC re the running order on the Today programme, asking why the editors thought it was more important that Ashcroft for whom nothing illegal has happened was more important that the PM lying to Chilcot and yesterday to parliament (1 or 2 times against the actual 4) – if I get any response that makes sense I will post (but suggest people don’t hold their breath,
You’re wasting your time. As I write one of the main headlines on the BBC News page is Ashcroft tax status row escalates. They have no intention of pursuing the PM.
When will the Tories realise that the BBC has declared war on them and do likewise?
I put a complaint in about the BBC’s claim that the BBC didn’t know about the one eyed liar and his comments about defence spending. Channel 4 pointed this out a week ago, why didn’t the BBC look at the SAME figures which had already been released by the MoD?
My letter today to the BBC Chief Political Advisor …
Dear Mr Bailey,
Regrettably I feel the need again to draw to your attention the political partisanship, this time in the form of the blogging of Mr Michael Crick.
Mr Crick writes in a style which can only be characterised as “puff” pieces promoting Labour policies and probes the Tories using Labour attack lines.
In the last two weeks there have been:
3 anti-tory Ashcroft stories
1 Labour policy promotion (High speed rail)
1 lightweight story about the Lib Dems
and
0 articles about the Unite union at the BA strike
May I also remind you of Mr Crick’s background, “He joined the Labour party at 15 and wrote a book about Militant, the Trotskyist faction of the Labour party, soon after graduating with a first in PPE from New College, Oxford.
Until the age of 30, he had every intention of becoming a Labour MP, but when the opportunity to become the candidate for a safe-ish seat presented itself, he agonised briefly, then decided not to take it.” — http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3665878/The-scourge-of-Westminster.html
Blogs may be written on any subject and do not need to follow the news cycle or the most topical issues of the day.
I do not believe Mr Crick has either been balanced in his topic selection or balanced in his posts and would respectfully ask you to (a) review the past three weeks of posts as an example, (b) remind him of his editorial obligations.
Below is a summary (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/)
The true cost of Ashcroft tax debacle – anti tory (Thursday, 18 March 2010)
First Beckham… now Burnham – populist pro-Labour story (Monday, 15 March 2010)
Straight man Lembit – irrelevant Lib Dem story (Friday, 12 March 2010)
Will there be gold in them thar Chiltern hills? – promoting Labour policy (Thursday, 11 March 2010)
Stalybridge and Hyde – interesting developments – Labour insider story
Politically divided couples are nothing new – anti Tory (Monday, 8 March 2010)
What links Michael Foot to the Ashcroft story? – neutral, expenses (Friday, 5 March 2010)
Will you still need me, when I’m 64? – anti Tory (Thursday, 4 March 2010)
Taking a punt on Ed Miliband as future leader – Labour insider (Wednesday, 3 March 2010)
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. This partisanship is unacceptable.
Yours Sincerely,
As ever, don’t hold your breath. As I wrote this morning – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/03/whats-news.html – “The BBC are getting more and more desperate and so fearless in their support for this Labour government. The BBC realise that with, probably, less than two months until the general election there is very little time for the Conservatives to change tack and point out the BBC’s political bias and so the BBC feel free to push on and see how far they can go. What is worrying is that the BBC are not yet on a war-footing; so if you think their bias is bad now, just wait a while…”
Check out how the BBC sanitizes “Jihad Jane”. They report that:
Authorities say she posted a YouTube video in 2008, saying she was “desperate to do something” to ease the suffering of Muslims.
“to ease the suffering…”?? Is that really what she wanted to do?
Or, the actual truth:
“She was one who would post comments on the terrorist videos which I was viewing, things like ‘Allah Akbar!’ or ‘Kill the kafir pigs’ or ‘Kill the Jews’ kinds of things. Those types of statements put her on my radar,” said a person affiliated with the YouTube Smackdown.
It wasn’t just “a video”, as the BBC states. In fact, she had several accounts and posted several videos. The BBC is seriously misinforming you here, and sanitizing a wannabe murderer and terrorist enabler.
Made the mistake of catching bits and pieces of BBC news today.
So, Ashcroft is a bigger story than a PM telling lies at an inquiry?
Only in BBC land.
I don’t know why the Cons. are being so soft on the BBC but if they do get in, I hope that they tear it apart piece by piece in the most painful way possible and make sure that it can never become a Govt. (LAbour) mouthpiece ever again.
The BBC news still on about Ashcroft.( 6pm TV) A very bad miscalculation on it’s part. Nobody real is interested. So let them go on with the show.
What ordinary folk are upset about are the casualties in the war and the failure to equip our soldiers. I have never heard such scorn for a PM. I hear it everywhere ( I travel a lot ) and a very large number of voters are connected with the services one way or another. Should not think many beeboids are though which is why they are getting the mood so wrong.
40 years of recruiting hive minded zombies has made the whole organisation unrepresentative of anything but itself.
It is self destructing while we listen or watch.
The British national party has just recruited a Sikh member, Mr Singh can be seen proudly holding his new party membership card.
In the real world this would be news worthy of coverage would it not? After all the smears about the BNP being racist nazis black shirts peddled by the BBC the silence is deafening isnt it?
So contrary to media/BBC reports the BNP membership is now open and accepting new members and I wonder what the uaf/anl/BBC axis will do now? The racist smear will no longer work if the BNP has black and asian nationalist members will it? Perhaps the BBC et al will have to actually report on their policies instead.
A poster recently inferred that I was ‘nazi scum’ for supporting a modern and reformed nationalist party, it seems that there is more to nationalism than race.
If you happen to wander over to the BNP website take a good look at all the supportive and welcoming posts from BNP members who gladly accept the comradeship of a fellow nationalist, Mr Singh will be the first of many Sikh members.
I would never/could never support a nazi party.
Cassandra.
The BNP was essentially forced into accepting black and asian members due to court action. If you believe anything else then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. The idea that ‘BNP members gladly accept [his] comradeship’ is a joke. If they ‘gladly accepted it’ then why was non-white membership banned from its inception in 1982 until 2010?
I’m glad the BBC (along with every other news outlet) is ignoring this ‘story’. The less news about this irrelevant bunch of clowns, the better.
Dear Paulo,
Pop over to the BNP website and scroll down to the story and click on the comments section, you will find hundreds of comments from actual members welcoming the new Sikh member on board.
It kinda puts the old excuses and smears to bed once and for all. You seem to concentrate on the past instead of looking to the future, you see no progess nor do you see the real membership of the BNP and its struggle to reform and modernise.
Looking at the past will not tell you about the present, finding fault with the past will only continue to play to prejudice.
Cast your prejudice aside if you can and look at the present, see a party trying to modernise.
Cassandra.
No thanks. I’m sure they’re there as you say but I ask you again, if the BNP are so welcoming then why did it take a court case and the threat of protracted legal action to get then to change their constitution?
You are eager to brush aside the the last 28 years of bigotry, violence and racism as being ‘the past’ and something which can be cheerfully ignored. However, I am confident that the majority of the British public realize that a thin veneer of ‘modernism’ and an enforced constitutional change have made no difference, and the names and values of those running the party are still the same as they have always been.
Bullshit Paulo. You sound like a BBC news outlet.
The aim of the court case had nothing to do with equality and all about permanantly ending the BNP. If you are too brainwashed to see that, then you seriously need to stop taking in the BBC as your only source of news.
Travis.
It is irrelevant what you and your sweary mouth think the ‘aim’ of the court case was. The point being that Cassandra tries to paint the BNP as a happy-families, ‘all are welcome’ organisation when the fact is that Mr Singh would not have been able to join 6 months ago due to the colour of his skin.
The ONLY reason this has changed is not because of some desire to ‘modernise’ but because the BNP did not want to fight and lose a legal battle which would have bankrupted it. Cassandra’s attempts to paint it as anything else are laughable.
If it hadn’t been for the court case, the BNP would remain a ‘whites only’ organisation.
Paulo,
If you refuse to look, if you refuse to see what is really happening, if all you can do is look to the past instead of what is happening now then I feel sorry for you.
The past is another country, what we do right now is all that matters and a party trying to modernise and evolve deserves to be listened to. I get the feeling that however much the BNP modernises it will never be enough because it is not ‘racism’ that you despise but the very idea of British nationalism that you despise, if that is the case then nothing will alter your prejudice.
Every party has evolved from something we now find unnaceptable, we move on and we evolve and those who fail to acknowledge this are simply holding onto old prejudices, in effect you are being left behind and the longer you hold onto the past the more irrelavent you appear to others.
Please reconsider and please visit the BNP website and story of Mr Singh, only when you have all the facts can you judge someones motives.
Cassandra.
Well, I’ve been over to the BNP forum site as you insist and I have to say that its the worst designed site I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t find any forum posts welcoming Mr Singh mainly because I was struggling to navigate around the site.
However, like I said earlier, I don’t doubt you that they are there, I just doubt the sincerity. 6 months ago Mr Singh would have not been welcome as a BNP member. The BNP is not ‘trying to modernise’, it has had this change forced upon it by the threat of legal action. The leadership of the BNP has even admitted that they only proposed this change as they could not afford to fight a legal battle to remain ‘whites only’. I quote Nick Griffin when he says of the constitutional change that it would “stick in the craw of all dedicated nationalists”.
Thats hardly the spirit of ‘evolution and modernism is it’?
Still, that quote is from 6 months ago which counts as the past and so should be ignored according to your rules. You are keen to insist that a change forced onto the party suddenly means that we can forget about the last 28 years of the BNP and only look at the last 3 months even though the leadership remains the same.
It seems strange that such a passionate defender of Israel as yourself can support a party who’s leader is a published anti-Semite. That leaflet was from 1997 when Nick Griffin was a grown man of 38, old enough to know better.
You accuse me of despising British Nationalism. This is a typical smear from a BNP supporter. Apparently, in order to show my patriotism I have to subscribe to the narrow views of your little group. I am proud to be British and, like the British Legion, Winston Churchill’s family and Vera Lynn I believe the views of the BNP are the antithesis of what being British means.
Paulo,
I’m sure that the party leaders are out and out racists that have been forced into accepting non-whites. There is however no reason to doubt the sincerity of those welcoming Mr Singh. It is possible that many new members are not racist at all, and only joined the BNP as they have felt disenfranchised by the party that professed to care about them. The BNP has kept quiet about its racism in recent years don’t forget. Perhaps that lulled people into believing it may be safe to join a left-wing party that wasn’t Labour. Being in any party doesn’t mean that you fully endorse everything that it stands for. Perhaps in a few years (if the membership is large enough), then non-racists will move up the ladder and the racist element could be permanently sidelined.
Thanks for the reply paulo, You seek to concentrate on the past where I see the present. Human nature and experience tells that our journey through life is linear and we make mistakes and learn by them, none of us can say that we are the same people we were 30yrs ago. We all evolve and learn and mature, we all make the mistakes of youth, that which we were so sure of then is not relevant today.
I see a party and a leader coming to terms with the present, I see a good man trying to bring British nationalism into the modern age, I see hope for the future where you see the mistakes of the past. We all deserve the chance to evolve and improve and modernise and mature.
We know that the majority of the labour front bench had extreme left wing revolutionary views and they effectively grew up and evolved yet when the BNP tries to do the same it is unacceptable?
BTW FWIW Nick Griffin as leader of the BNP is a staunch defender of Israel and British Jews, it is not British nationalists who are vandalising our synagogues and attacking the Jews in the street, it is not the BNP who are waging a race war against British Jews.
We are the new nationalists, we are not those who came before us, we are not bigots or racists or thugs we simply wish to secure our homeland for future generations.
Yours
Cassie King.
Agreed, the BNP is however a warning that for far too long politicians and Liebour in particular have taken the wihte working class vote for granted. If the one thing the BNP does is to make the WWC wake up and start demanding real change then perhaps the BNP will have done something useful. But as a political force the BNP are a joke.
The excellent Tom Bradby tipped a bucketful of turds over McBust on the ITV news, pointing out that the fact we ‘might’ not reach 178 billion in borrowing isn’t really that good news, unlike the the BBc of course who are hailing it as the work of a genius.
So now I have to search foreign media for statements on Islamic violence.
Israel vows to respond to kassim hit Jerusalem Post 18/03/10
Foreign office minister of state Evon Lewis said “The attack should be condemned by all those committed to peace”
“The UK condemns the rocket attack carried out by militants in Gaza. All terrorist attacks directed against Israel are unacceptable and should be condemned by all those seeking peace and stability in the Middle East”
Funny. Not a word about this from beeboid land.
They still seem to be banging on about a Pakistani child with some links to the UK, who got very temporarily abducted. Its hardly the Lindburgh kidnapping is it?
Also no stand – alone mention of the slaying of the poor Thai foreign worker immediately obvious on their site.
Do the beeboids find Lewis’ tone and wording too robust? Is it the T word? Does it not quite fit the stinking beeboid lie or ” narrative”
Oh how much I hate the BBC.
As I pointed out earlier, BBC sanitized the rocket in their report on Ashton’s visit. They actually did do another news brief reminding everyone that, even though someone was killed by it, the Israelis killed a whole bunch of Palestinians (no mention if they were Hamas or armed or not, as usual) last year. So the perspective is clear. This death is meaningless to them because of the glorious, ghoulish body-count narrative.
typo.. “so now I have to search foreign media, for UK Government statements..”
Sorry
Just got a reply from a beeboid tool over one of my MANY complaints about the BBC’s bias reporting of Lord Ashcroft. Needless to say it was a rambling pile of steaming crap.
Its the FOs statement being censored that was my point here David.
I was referring to your statement that:
Also no stand – alone mention of the slaying of the poor Thai foreign worker immediately obvious on their site.
Another day and yet more BBC toady show smears about Ashcroft, on and on and on this energizer bunny of a non story smear is being pimped and peddled by an utterly desperate BBC.
Nobody cares about the story and there are more important stories are being left untold, the BBC toady slience on the real stories of the day is deafening.
Within the first hour of the BBC toady show a full quarter has been dedicated to the non story and the labour party funding methods are completely ignored.
The BBC are now engaged in a final to the death struggle to help its dying political allies, at any cost and regardless of the massive damage it is doing to the BBC. The BBC must realise that the labour party is dying and the longer the election is put off the worse the electoral defeat will be. From now on the BBC will pull out all the stops to promote its political allies and sabotage its political enemies.
Lets count how many times the toady show can manage to mention Ashcroft this time!
The Sun attacks the BBC for anti-Tory bias – especially over the disproportionate amount of coverage of Ashcroft :
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2898713/Sun-unearths-alarming-smears-against-Tories-by-state-owned-BBC.html
Yes: appropriate headline there-
Blatantly Biased against Conserevatives”
A somewhat damning piece John and strangely uncommented on by Radio5 Live this morning who are making sure that the standards are kept low by banging on about football shirts and coming soon how beastly B.A. are by reminding their employees that they are (under the terms of their contract) are verboten to speak to heavy weght hacks like Victoria Derbyshire. How long before the word “bully” is used ?
Cassandra, I’ve had a day to calm down a little and reflect on matters. I’m now inclined to the view that dave s put yesterday in the comments that nobody really cares, except for the political correspondents in their little village.
Everyone knows parties are funded by a few rich people or organisations who would not fund them if there was nothing in it for them. I imagine they accept that as being a lesser evil than funding coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets. What they care about is unemployment, immigration and, oh yes, Eastenders. Their eyes glaze over when Nick Robinson et al start blathering on about taxation, non-residence and non-doms.
I would suggest that the Tories are reluctant to attack the BBC as it is still held in affection by a large number of the public – not for what it is, but for what it used to represent and what they think it still is. An attack on the BBC this close to the election could do more damage to them than allowing it to ramble on about a matter the public really don’t care about.
I’d be very surprised if they don’t have plans for the BBC should they win. The BBC knows it, hence the reason it has more or less given up even pretending to be impartial.
Keep dreaming Roland. If you think there’s a reason behind the total apathy toward the BBC from the conservatives then you are in for a very great dissappointment.
I’m not a military or aviation buff but something about htis BBC headline seemed amiss. Perhaps it was the connection between homemade and Hamas weaponry that the BBC regularly makes?
China unveils homemade AC313 large civilian helicopter
A quick Google around showed every man and his dog had recycled the same press release. China has been manufacturing civil-use and military helicopters for years.
See under China. Perhaps this was the first one made without non Chinese assistance? If true, this is not clear from the article. We should expect better from the world’s largest news organization than recycle press releases.
A quick Google around showed every man and his dog had recycled the same press release.
O/T to your main point (sorry), but I am trying to figure out why this post got referred, immediately, to the BBC Newsnight mods (ditto Andrew Neil’s). It does have a slight bearing on your comment though.
It followed on from a post concerned about the state of science reporting, green politics and ‘enthusiastic’ climate reporting (all surely topical). I am hard pressed to see any good reason to be pulled:
Yesterday morning I was intrigued by a ‘report’ on BBC Breakfast News regarding the proposed Nissan leaf factory.
The claim made was that it was going to be ‘zero emission’. In a subsequent slot it was bashfully conceded that, as the consequence of ‘an email’, this might be hard to substantiate. Sadly, subsequent BBC ‘reports’ throughout the day failed to accommodate this input.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8573724.stm
‘Nissan said the Leaf hatchback would be the world’s first affordable, mass-produced, zero-emission car.’
‘Nissan said’, indeed? We are now in an era of PR as news, it seems. Or, at the very least, PR untroubled by much in the way of follow-up.
At least we get something more accurate here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8573737.stm
‘But as policy makers will get jobs and emission reductions in return, this may well prove to be money well spent.’
Well, it is ‘good’ news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisjackson/2010/03/we_do_cover_the_good_news.html
Thing is, is it news in a form that adequately outlines the issues. There seems to be no doubt that the economic story is good, but what about the much touted environmental complement?
‘The Japanese carmaker said today the Leaf will be the world’s first mass-produced zero-emission car.’
I have seen that a lot in print and heard it broadcast.
Until the generation of ‘leccy is properly sorted to a decent enviROI, it might be worth popping in the caveat that this is possibly true at point of running, but the exhaust pipe stlll exists, just in another place.
And no matter what, short of pixie dust, it will have a GHG consequence even after ignoring manufacture.
/2
But the BBC is in good company. Spot the similarities, so far:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/nissan-set-to-manufacture-all-electric-car-in-uk/1001427.article
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=17809&src=tw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7469020/Nissan-to-build-electric-car-in-Britain.html
http://www.24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2010-03-18-Nissan-to-build-new-electric-car-in-Sunderland
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Nissan-Leaf-Electric-Car-Will-Be-Built-In-Sunderland-The-Firm-Confirms-After-Sky-Breaks-The-News/Article/201003315576005?f=rss
I note most have that caveat that Nissan ‘say’. Hardly in-depth reporting at its best, though, is it?
Look, this could well be a good thing, economically and environmentally, but after Mr. Miliband’s recent little outing on climate claims (But his party is obviously as green as it gets, so: @EdMilibandMP Tory silence on climate change and on energy deafening … co-sign my letter to Cameron http://bit.ly/c2iw2 , if you think Ms. Lucas’ thoughts to be inaccurate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/03/how-green-is-labour ), trotting out a day later anything via Peter Mandelson as gospel ‘green is good no matter what’ hardly seems to be the best journalistic route to credibility and public confidence in professional objectivity either.
Well, that was quick:
Thank you for contributing to a BBC Blog. Unfortunately we’ve had to remove your content below
Postings to BBC blogs will be removed if they appear to be potentially defamatory.
I will of course, have to pursue this to find out what might have ‘appeared’ to be ‘potentially’ defamatory.
Beyond factual links, I merely was calling the journalistic competence and objectivity of the MSM into question as they all simply ran the same press release.
Interesting to note that Mr. Miliband’s tweet URL, which did work before, seems not to now.
Surely they are not modding my very balanced posting out in is entirety because of an easily ‘unsuitable link removed’ to the claims of one of HMG’s ministers’?
Anyhoo, off to waste some time getting ‘logged’ at least in the complaints system.
Funny you should mention that article degree. You see I noticed that this morning and as I am a spotter I knew that china operates the french Super frelon and which looks a lot like the new Chinese chopper. Funny enough they also produce their own version called the Z8 and just like that new homemade chopper it too can carry 27 paxs. In other words they have reversed engineered the French Helicopter. Something the Chinese are pretty good at.
Anyone notice the BBC toady show subliminal message linking two stories together to reinforce the narrative?
We had the Ashcroft ultra rich tory toff tax cheat smear and then the ultra rich private jet riding polluting carbon belching toffs damaging the atmosphere by daring to emit plant food in the form of carbon dioxide GEDDIT? two stories that are meant to combine in the minds of the listener and both rely on jelousy of the rich and prejudice about their lifstyles and how they are destroying the earth and cheating on their taxes. Wow what a combination of poisonous smears that play to the base instincts.
BBC bias? Naah its “palpably not true” says the BBC as they smirk and laugh at a funny story about a school election where a candidate called Dave wearing a blue rosette gets elected by promising free ice cream only for the ices cream to be past its sell by date. Oooh its so funny and the toady team had a good snigger about that, ha ha ha! So the narrative is further reinforced that Dave is a liar offering false goods and promises. It could have been crafted by labour.
The toady show now reduced to sniggering and manipulative children laughing at the grownups.
Beeboid round up of the papers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8575742.stm
Threee out of four papers left leaning – check
Focus on anti-Tory messages the rest of the media has moved on from – check
The Beeboid scum can never give it a rest.
Well one rag’s jihad is another’s…
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/03/anti-tory-bbc-bias-sun-brush
Thing is, I can, for now, still opt not to buy the News State, man
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephaniegutmann/100030454/hey-barack-joe-tony-bbc-want-middle-east-peace-just-stay-home/
Who might she have in mind (I guess the title gives a hint):
‘The presence of cameras is stimulating. Once you install reporters in an area and set them up with homes and bureaus and play-schools for their toddlers and a genial local bar, they are charged with justifying their existence. They have careers to think about. They need “to get in the paper” so they become, in effect, lobbyists, salesmen of stories about the region. The collusion between those who would like to use the press and a press who need “content” hardens. Much of what is reported about a region is deemed “news” simply because the reporters living there have lobbied for it to be news. It is also true that the presence of reporters can become a self-fulfilling phenomenon. Soon there may be more newsworthy news.’
Was anyone else listening to the Radio 4 news bulletin last night at 7 pm? Part-way through the bulletin, the channel suddenly cut out, and we found ourselves listening to music instead. It carried on for a few moments – long enough to run over the first few minutes of the Archers too.
Strangely enough, it turned out that, for 4 or 5 minutes, instead of Radio 4, we were getting BBC Six Music. How odd, especially since Six Music has recently been under threat from BBC cuts! We could all hear what we might be missing if the channel is eventually dropped!
Has anyone heard anything about this?
BBC Radio 5 at Sandown Park all morning, not for horse racing, but for non-stop Unite (sponsors of 136 Labour MPs) moans and propaganda on B.A. strike, with Ms. Derbyshire in support, of course.
‘Unite’ union – Labour – BBC coverage.
Radio 5 propaganda continues, Sandown Park.
On ‘Unite’ trade union –
Nick Robnison, two days ago:
“It’s Westminster group of Labour MPs totals over 160.
It is highly efficient at ensuring that its supporters are selected as candidates for Labour safe seats.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/is_whelan_labou.html
‘Unite’ union – Labour – BBC non-coverage of this:
“Union behind BA strike receives £18m from taxpayers in ‘money-laundering’ deal with Labour”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7473683/Union-behind-BA-strike-receives-18m-from-taxpayers-in-money-laundering-deal-with-Labour.html
‘Telegraph’ Matt cartoon:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
Given their recent enthusiasm for throwing the spotlight on party donors, I’m slightly confused that Radio 4 and Radio 5 don’t now appear to want to mention the symbiotic relationship enjoyed with the Labour party by the union currently involved in an unresolved death struggle with the country’s largest airline, and how this relationship might comprehensively knacker any chance of effective government intervention. But they did say that in a press release from Downing Street that ‘Strangely’ Brown would like to see an immediate end to the dispute. So that should be all right. June election, anyone?
Al-Beeb joins the Palestinians in claiming that Jerusalem is holy to the Mulsims, but it’s not Jewish, and it has the photo-reportage to prove it:
In pictures: Jerusalem’s African quarter
I’m looking forward to the BBC’s special feature on the Falashas:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falashas
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Salom%C3%B3n
By the way, one of the standards of the anti-Israel lobby is that “Israelis” are really white European, American or Russian immigrants.
As the BBC’s photo feature shows “Palestinian” Jerusalemites who are descendents of black African immigrants, I’d be interested to know what proportion of Israel’s population are Sabras, ie: Israelis born in Israel.
Sorry about the link to wikipedia in Spanish, I’d copied it from an email I’d sent to a Spanish friend :-[
Try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
Yes you have to love the BBC, the fact is all these famous cities and sites existed long before some drugged up arsehole went into a cave and came out having invented Islam.
Don’t forget the very significant percentage of Jews from Arab and North African countries. Sabras may have been born in Israel, but if their parents or grandparents are from Europe, etc., that doesn’t help the case against the claim that Israelis are mostly European interlopers. I guess we have to include the Jews from Russia in the white interloper category, especially since they make up about half of all foreign-born Jews in Israel these days.
But the Sephardic community – Jews from Arab and North African countries (and Spain, Portugal, and southern Italy) – is significant. I can’t find any recent figures, but I know they make up at least half of Israel’s population these days. Shas is a pretty influential political party these days.
And let’s not forget that, historically, they’ve been expelled from nearly every country in which they’ve lived simply for being Jews. With the exception of what happened during Israel’s war of survival in 1948, no Muslim has ever been expelled from any country simply for being Muslim. Of course, unlike every other ethnic group on the planet, Jews aren’t allowed their historical memories.
On the other hand, the Palestinians have always denied that a great proportion of their population immigrated to the area in late Ottoman; a substantial number during the British period and even some were added to the rolls in the confusion of 1948. Focussing on admitted immigrants weakens rather than strengthens the Palestinian case.
What happened to my previous comment about the African quarter of Jerusalem?!
Now you might have thought that this would have been up there with Ashcroft, and you might have hoped it was a story that the fearless investigative journalists of the BBC might have broken. Strangely no so!
Blair’s fight to keep his oil cash secret: Former PM’s deals are revealed as his earnings since 2007 reach £20million
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259030/Tony-Blairs-secret-dealings-South-Korean-oil-firm-UI-Energy-Corp.html#ixzz0icdaXA6n
Are they still on about Ashcroft? They are insane. I noticed on QT even Dimbleby was wary when dealing with our soldiers plight in Afghanistan. Beckett wisely kept her mouth shut. This is the issue that will destroy the libleft. The Army is deeply rooted in our way of life.
Tinkering with social engineering and playing happy bunny equality games has been all the guilt ridden libleft was fit for.
The Army is ours not the government’s and is still overwhelmingly composed of traditionally British sons and daughters. We do not need to question their loyalty to our country and monarch. We can take it for granted.
I sense real anger now at what has been done to it and this anger is unforgiving. The BBC is way behind opinion but is anyone surprised ?
Cameron must be careful but he needs to let us know that he will put our army first and do what it takes to equip it properly or bring it home. For this the libleft will hate him.
At last we can begin to clear out the leftist rabble that has so traduced this country . The BBC will never change and faces oblivion
The Sun newspaper uncovers alarming BBC bias:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2898713/Sun-unearths-alarming-smears-against-Tories-by-state-owned-BBC.html
From ‘Sun’ referred to above:
“A ‘Sun’ investigation has unearthered an alarming BBC bias against Tories in run up to the Election”
[Extract]:
“Covert smears on David Cameron’s Conservatives are being made right across the state-owned network – sparking hundreds of viewers’ complaints.
News coverage, chat shows and even kids’ TV are guilty. We found:
BBC News gave disproportionate coverage to the row over Tory donor Lord Ashcroft’s tax status;
LABOUR panellists were given more time to speak on flagship political show Question Time;
A POLL on The One Show ignored issues with Gordon Brown to ask only, Is David Cameron too much of a toff to be PM?
THE Tory leader was stitched up when footage of him adjusting his hair was sneakily fed to all broadcasters;
THE Basil Brush Show featured a school election with a cheat called Dave wearing a blue rosette. ”
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2898713/Sun-unearths-alarming-smears-against-Tories-by-state-owned-BBC.html#ixzz0ickSyzjS
Gotta love the way the BBC ‘improves’ things
When I used to go to the homepage, I’d type in ‘Complaint’ and get ushered to the page that allowed you to do so with a few options on TV, radio, etc. This then got you to a sequence that ended in them writing back in a few months to say it’s all fine.
Now there is this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/complaint
Dog’s dinner springs to mind
And…I’ll have a surf to track it down, but HTF do MAKE A complaint, perhaps kicking off with this daft new ‘Beware of the Leapard’ search system and landing page
I’m warning you lot…
http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/537990.php
Just keep that £3.5B coming to cover my salary and ability to spout personal opinion as news..
“There are more voices against the BBC now than I can remember there being at any stage, because of the internet. Anyone with a voice or grievance against the BBC now has a way of drawing attention to it,” he said.
There may be reason or that, John.
And the internet may be a mechanism to give greater voice, but it may not be the reason at all.
The total lack of objectivity in the ‘reporting’ by you and yours might be more to the point.
Standards have already drooped matey, and it’s nowt to do with the already obscene amounts extorted to fund you via the ‘Pay us to tell you how to think tax, or else’
Two education reports not picked up by BBC, because:
1.) is about effects of mass immigration in UK:
“Primary school admission ‘crisis’ as birthrates soar”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7299786/Primary-school-admissions-crisis-as-birthrates-soar.html
2.) is about effects of Islam on UK:
“Council’s ‘capitulation’ to aggressive Muslim campaign ’caused teacher’s breakdown'”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7473557/Councils-capitulation-to-aggressive-Muslim-campaign-caused-teachers-breakdown.html
Oh, the irony. Lefty, communist, anti-discrimination radical lawyer now Court of Appeal Lord Justice Sedley finds that the council capitulated to Muslim bullying. Ha! Why does he suppose Councils are too frightened to deal with such people on their actual merits rather than on some supposed special status?
It wouldn’t be because of the indoctrination and activities of people like Sedley and his various causes and movements to promote special status and treatment of Muslims, all because they (most of them) are “different” (i.e. funny looking foreigners: they don’t look like us so we must treat them with kid gloves and as something extra special and if you don’t like them, there is something wrong with you – this something being an unfortunate-sounding mental condition that you are frowned upon for having and that could even leave you having your collar felt by PC plod under the criminal law even though unfortunate mental conditions are not usually regarded as something you can help, still less a reason for prosecution under criminal law).
‘BBCNewsnight Newsnight’s getting a bit of a makeover on Monday – new opening titles, new end credits. Here’s a sneak preview. http://bit.ly/9CGsPq‘
Same old ‘reporting’, mind. ‘Objective politics’ from Crick. ‘Watts that science stuff?’, etc
Here’s a poll number the BBC will not tell you about: The Obamessiah’s approval ratings are now as low as when Bush left office.
As of now, 44% Strongly Disapprove of how He’s doing His job, against 23% who Strongly Approve, for a rating of -21. Charges of racism won’t work this time, nor can one easily dismiss this (as the Beeboids have done in the past) by saying that these people never liked Him anyway, because His approval ratings were much higher before. I know the BBC will never, ever say anything is His fault, but it is.
Fox News said there was a poll that showed mad Nancy Pelosi with an approval rating of 3% yes THREE