109 Responses to Open Thread

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  1. Will says:
    March 19, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    A remarkable advert for Labour & the NHS by Adam Brimelow (R4 Today 8:44) Our Adam was gushing about the future of the service & how, with the pay restraint to be imposed by Labour, all funding difficulties would melt away “The UK is braced for public sector cuts, but the research group the King’s Fund has set out steps to make savings without damaging patient care.” The promise by Dave not to touch the NHS was not mentioned in the report & instead we had a veiled swipe at them there Tories, finishing with “Don’t make cuts for cuts sake” Don’t save money as an end in itself but to do something else with it” (Presumably the options don’t include leaving the money in the taxpayer’s pocket)

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  2. David Preiser (USA) says:
    March 19, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    The BBC continues to spout propaganda from the White House, and openly advocates the Democrat’s “health care reform” plan.

    Obama hails ‘historic’ healthcare reform vote

    As usual, the very first point they make is that it will provide insurance to people who currently lack it.  Also as usual, they hide the fact of Medicare from you, which is government-funded health care for those who lack insurance.

    Secondly, they repeat this claim:


    According to Congressional Budget Office, the final version of the Democrats’ healthcare plan will cut the federal deficit by $138bn over 10 years.

    This is in fact no longer true, as the final version is still being worked on, and the CBO’s report is based on something that no longer exists.  Not only that, but there’s something else the BBC refused to tell you:  the Democrats fooled the CBO by front-loading the taxes and postponing the introduction of the actual benefits for several years.  The impartial CBO isn’t allowed to complain; they just have to go with what’s been given to them.

    And it gets worse.  One other thing the CBO can’t possibly account for is the real-term effects this will have on businesses small and large, as well as ordinary citizens.  His Health Care Plan For Us will force – yes, force on penalty of hefty fines – to buy health insurance at a minimum cost of $12,000.  Most likely it will be much higher.  This won’t lower our costs at all since that’s pretty much the average now anyway.  How is that going to affect people’s lives?  Plus there’s the massive hit many big business will take.  For example, Caterpillar estimates this will cost them at least $100 million in the first year alone.  Small businesses will face stiff penalties if they don’t pony up as well.  The CBO has no way of predicting how many small businesses will be unable to cope, or how much of a hiring freeze this will cause.  Less people working means less taxes, which means less deficit reduction.  But don’t expect the BBC to give you any honest analysis at all.

    Also, you can subtract the – at least – $10 billion the IRS will require to enforce all this from that supposed defecit reduction of $138 billion.

    I could go on and on, but suffice to say that the BBC is not actually doing journalism or analysis at all on this story. It is quite simply propaganda for the domestic policy of a foreign government, at your expense.

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    • Cassandra King says:
      March 19, 2010 at 8:25 pm

      The BBC sees only the NHS model and its new Kennedy, there are no doubts in the BBC corporate mind, no critisism can be allowed to sully the ideal of a left wing president enacting left wing policies on the great Satan.
      The aim of the healthare bill is simple and it has nothing to do with providing healthcare for poor people. The aim is government control of the American people pure and simple, control access to healthcare and those people become clients of the state and combine this with the governments proposed stranglehold on energy production and consumption and you have the perfect proto socialist state in the making.
      My heart goes out to the American people, they are being herded into government slavery whether they like it or not, the chains are being fixed by a man that despises America, a man that cut his teeth in the corrupted circus of Chicago politics.
      In fact Obama and his tin pot revolutionary Che wannabes couldnt give a flying f**k about healthcare for the poor, they are the excuse and expendable foot soldiers of the revolution. These are perfect BBC heroes.

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  3. George R says:
    March 19, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Simply the key word missing from this BBC headline (of report on North of England page)

    (MUSLIM) “Brothers  from Blackburn jailed for terrorist offences”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8577139.stm

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  4. All Seeing Eye says:
    March 19, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    Test

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  5. George R says:
    March 19, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    The BBC and Labour’s overspend

    (by Fraser Nelson)

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5853623/why-cameron-must-never-say-deficit.thtml#comments

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  6. Martin says:
    March 19, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    Did I miss it? Another scumbag Liebour MP is going to be prosecuted for fiddling his expenses and a load of Limp Dems have been caught out fiddling as well. But I didn’t catch it on the BBC news? Did I miss it? Did they put it on instead of a Lord Ashcroft story for a change?

    Oh and anyone else notice that if you go to the BBC poll tracker it defaults to Yougov? You know the pollster with the links to Nu Liebour and the one that continually gives Labour a higher % of the vote than the other polls.

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  7. NotaSheep says:
    March 19, 2010 at 10:49 pm

    PollTracker ‘always’ defaults to the pollster who has released the latest poll but their choices and and timings of updates are not always reasonable. More details of my dealings with the BBC over PollTracker can be found here – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/search/label/Poll%20Tracker

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  8. Millie Tant says:
    March 20, 2010 at 12:10 am

    I happened across this report on Sky news website about the housing shortage crisis. Can’t see anything about it on the BBC news website. I wonder why. Isn’t it more significant than, say, some sleazy golfer’s tawdry private life, which would be given top slot on the BBC news?

    Why, oh, why is there such a critical housing shortage? Tell, tell, BBC, inform and enlighten us, O Beeb, I implore you. Why are you not keeping me informed? Could it be because it might reflect badly on your beloved government and party before the election?

    And look at poor Fatima – who she? – and her three children having to make do with two bedrooms in a council flat. Gee, that’s all of TWO people to a bedroom. TWO. Scandalous! Scandalous! I tell you.  Probably gets the rent paid by us taxpayers as well. What an imposition on her. What deprivation.

    How many of those taxpayers and pensioners in this country – and the generations before them – do you think have grown up in poor conditions working hard for a pittance in mines or in laundries or what have you and lived in houses with four or more sharing a bed, let alone a room? Poor, poor deprived Fatima, indeed. My heart bleeds. Shocking.
    http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/UK-Housing-Shortage-Is-At-Crisis-Point-With-An-Extra-One-Million-Homes-Needed-To-Be-Built-Report/Article/201003315577632?lpos=Business_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15577632_UK_Housing_Shortage_Is_At_Crisis_Point_With_An_Extra_One_Million_Homes_Needed_To_Be_Built%3A_Report

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  9. Guest says:
    March 20, 2010 at 7:03 am

    Looking across some of the blogs, and in particular Nick ‘I don’t read ’em’ Robinson’s ‘comments are closed when things get hairy’ they seem to be wheeling out a new moderating justification: 


    ‘Postings to BBC blogs will be removed if they appear to be potentially defamatory.’ However, no indication, even with the personal follow up email, as to what what ‘appears’ to be ‘potentially defamatory’. Often when nothing was. Probably.
    Hence it is in one fell swoop rendered impossible to argue or repost. Classic weasel. Which may have been the intention, but hardly satisfactory.

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  10. Roland Deschain says:
    March 20, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    Hass anyone spotted this puff piece on our beloved EU president?

    He loves Haiku. Isn’t that sweet?

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