Monthly Archives: March 2010

Carrying on a long tradition

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File under “Bears shit in the woods” – Dr Who luvvie hates the Tories.

Becoming part of the Dr Who team must be similar to joining The People’s Front of Judea:

“Can I join Dr Who?”
“No. Piss off.”
“But I hate the Tories as much as anybody.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, dead sure. I hate the Tories already.”
“Listen, if you wanted to join Dr Who, you’d have to really hate the Tories.”
“I do.”
“Oh yeah? How much?”
“A lot!”
(Pause) “Right. You’re in. But first, we might have another little job for you. How d’you fancy writing an episode of Basil Brush?”

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HOT AIR (AGAIN)

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Put together a potty, unneccessary EU directive abour air quality, an EU-fanatical greenie nutter like Tim Yeo, and the BBC, and what do you get? A well-tried formula of alarmism warning us that unless we stop keeping ourselves warm with nasty power stations, refrain from using petrol, and wind down our industrial base completely, we’re all gonna die. One thing missing from the equation? Recent peer-reviewed research that shows that all the scare stories about air-borne pollutants should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, and that claims of massive death tolls from the type of matter involved in the EU directive are abject nonsense. But that, of course, can’t be mentioned because it would spoilt the political agenda; the boys and girls at the BBC want to send us all back to the greenie idyll of the stone age.

Oh, and build thousands of wind farms to replace the pollutant-belching fossil-fuel power stations. Ignoring completely the fact that they are hugely expensive, subsidy-guzzling monstrosities that don’t work.

Update: apologies, but this last link didn’t work when the blog was first posted, but it should do now.

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Nasty Nasty Breeeetish

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Or, as the BBC more prosaically put it yesterday, “Lethal landmine legacy from battle of El Alamein“; accompanied by a picture of two blokes, a flock of sheep, several buildings, some power lines with masts and a tree – and captioned “featureless”. So why the sudden interest 68 years down the line?

The battle of El Alamein was a turning point in World War II but the unexploded munitions it left behind continue to kill and maim the local population, as Christian Fraser reports from Egypt.

Right, that’ll be the time we saved all of Europe from the Germans, the Italians and their allies but let’s not worry about that small factoid because we’re about to find out who the real villain of the Second World War is.

…no country is prepared to accept responsibility for owning or laying the unexploded ordnance. Who then is to blame for the maiming of 11-year-old Mawa? 

You’ve found one *just one* person to feature in the story and it’s an injured 11 year old girl who likes football. Brilliant. Her father chips in:

“I used to have sheep but I had to sell them because the children refuse to go to the fields now because they’re too dangerous. 

You’ve had sheep in those fields for 68 years and only now there’s a problem? Could this article be leading somewhere? Enough! Someone must be responsible! Name names, BBC, we demand it!

“Psychologically and economically we have been badly affected. And we’ve had no compensation.” The detonator could have been of Italian or German origin but Abdulaziz blames the British. “It was their battle,” he said. “They brought the war to Egypt.” 

Yay! It’s our fault!Perhaps we could apologise and pay them some…

Now though, a group representing some 660 registered injured is compiling a formal dossier to bolster claims for compensation. 

….damn, they got there before me. So remind us all again, why did we send tanks into North Africa in the early 1940’s? Without drawing breath the article informs us:

The region is rich in natural resources. There is a huge amount of natural gas that lies buried underground and the Egyptian government suggests there could be 4.8bn barrels of oil, potentially doubling the country’s existing reserves. 

Ah yes, Churchill was testing the waters for the whole turn of the century invading-countries-for-oil thingy. And we have “Evil Capitalist Pigs Caught Only Clearing Some Mines Shocker”.

International oil companies that have cleared their own access roads through the mines have already been rewarded with considerable finds.

Christian Fraser has been fed a plea for cash because the Germans and Italians haven’t been daft enough to fall for it. The BBC swallows the whole thing in one gulp. If only the other side in those battles had a self-loathing media as naive as ours then they too could enjoy journalism of this standard.

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sotto voce

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As Craig and Cassandra have been pointing out in the comments, the Beeb have been subtly downplaying the cash for influence scandal of senior Labour figures. First there’s the fact that the headline to their article says “Ministers attack ‘MPs for hire'”. Ah, so senior Government figures are on the side of the angels then? The Gvt is acting decisively? What exactly is “for hire?” Is that anything like soliciting bribes? Then it’s noticeable that only one of the miscreants, Stephen Byers, is even identified directly as a Labour MP in the article. Moreover, they are described as “ex” ministers- for whose actions it would surely be churlish to blame the Gummint; be rather like a husband being blamed for his ex-wife’s behaviour, wouldn’t it? How about “senior Labour figures caught in bribery scandal”? How about “three senior Labour former ministers have been caught in a sting operation soliciting payments for influence. These are Stephen Byers, Labour MP for… who was minister of…, Patricia Hewitt, Labour MP for… who was minister of… and Geoff Hoon, Labour MP for… who was minister of…”

I’ve only talked here about the framing sentences of the BBC article. The rest is rather detailed detail. By the time they get to it readers will have given up the will, and just be glad that “due process” is being followed and isn’t it wonderful our media is able to bang to rights those grubby “not Gordon’s Labour but ex- Labour” types.

Incidentally, it’s no surprise that washed up pols peddle influence for cash- but then it wasn’t back in ’97 either ands that’s when the BBC was washing down “things can only get better” with flutes of champagne.

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BBC EU Public Relations

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Influential public relations agency BBC EU PR has just produced a puff piece for one of its top clients.

“Need some helpful spin?
BBC EU PR
Best in the business.”
(Herman Van Rompuy)

Update 16.20 – just noticed that Roland Deschain mentioned this on the open thread earlier, so tip of the hat to him. Beeb Bias Craig spotted it before me too.

Comments on this thread in haiku please. Starting from… now.

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ON THE QUARTET….

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I was reading the BBC’s coverage of the Quartet’s condemnation of Israel for daring to build in Jerusalem and came across this sentence...”That move undermined efforts to restart indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks” But did it? Wasn’t the firing of rockers from Gaza into Israel another reason to conclude that “peace talks” are being undermined from THAT side? The BBC is always in such a rush to damn Israel, 24/7, isn’t it? I wonder why the BBC hates the Jews so much?

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GONE TO THE DOGS..

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I’ve received quite a few emails from people disgusted at the way in which the BBC has been pushing the joys of greyhound racing. One concerned B-BBC reader writes…

I have recently been appalled by the actions of the BBCon several occasions where in various programs it has highlighted greyhoundracing as a fun sport and a great day out for the family. 

Firstly early this year the presenter of Animals 24/7visited a small-time greyhound trainer and so impressed was he with thefacilities he concluded to the viewer that greyhound racing was now a reputableindustry with no welfare problems. Not once did the presenter highlight thatnot all trainers were so kind to their dogs and give the other side of thestory. 

More shocking was the recent BBC program  “Three men in a boat toIreland” where Dara O’Brians greyhound Snip Nua was taken alongthroughout the program to follow its races, she was portrayed as Dara’s personaldog, when in fact he was part of a syndicate and had never met the dog beforethe show. I was disgusted to learn that before the program was aired on the BBCSnip Nua had in fact been euthanized after breaking a hock during a race whilethe program was being made. At no time did the BBC make the viewer aware ofwhat had happened to Snip and the public was made to assume that at the end ofthe show she went home with Dara!

Other programs highlighting greyhound racing have been 2episodes of “Flog It” in which the presenter visited a registeredand then an unregistered track, suggesting it was a great day out for thefamily. Again no mention of welfare problems were highlighted by the BBC.

Most recently radio 1 presenter Greg James declared onhis show that he would be buying a greyhound puppy from Ireland, calling it “Welcome Along” (his email address), and that his show would befollowing its progress at the races over the next year! Greg James has not madeit clear if the BBC will be purchasing and sponsoring the dog, or if his showwill be, or if it will be owned by himself.

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SUN SHINES ON BBC BIAS!

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Did you see that The Sun has picked up on the rancid bias of the BBC.

Conservative backbencher Douglas Carswell said: “The BBC is in the hands of a left-wing elite. They’re a privileged organisation run for the interests of the few not the many – which is why their views are closer to a broadcast version of the Guardian rather than a popular paper.”  Watchdog Mediawatch-UK director Vivienne Pattison stressed: “Under the BBC charter they are required to be neutral. It’s important – after all, we fund them.”

Too true!

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