On the panel we have former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the unbeatable David Starkey, Charles *hic* Kennedy and Green Party eco-loon Caroline Lucas.
From Ed West’s Telegraph blog yesterday:
Most London media types in their thirties are still sartorially influenced by hip-hop, which American sociologist James Howard Kunstler thinks is a conscious decision to dress like babies.
Exhibit A – thirtysomething London media type Richard Bacon tweeting from New York yesterday:
Yo! 34-year-old white nigga! Boom!
(And he’s hip to the latest liberal lip.)
On the panel we have former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the unbeatable David Starkey, Charles *hic* Kennedy and Green Party eco-loon Caroline Lucas.
For those who wish to take part in the Biased-BBC Buzzword Bingo, we will be playing by the “Trolley Dolly Rules” meaning that anyone with “Labour“, “Unite” and “Money” on a line will win a fortnight camped in the Departure Lounge at Heathrow. Please note that for the duration of this game the No Smoking Light is OFF, complimentary alcohol and peanuts will be served by your B-BBC stewardesses and you may leave your seats at any time.
In the moderating control tower once again TheEye and David Mosque will be watching the radar screens, and we look forward to the pleasure of your company at 10:30pm UK time.
An open thread for the middle of the week…
The fractured relationship between Israel and the US was the second item on news headlines this morning, but by the next bulletin it had been demoted it to the tail end. Because of Hillary’s concessionary language it was downgraded from sensational “rift,” announced with relish,
( Paxman called it a ‘Crisis of Historic Proportions) to a grudging admission that both parties were making conciliatory noises.
Too bad for the Beeb, slightly less ammunition to chuck at Israel.
Today R4 promised an interview with Ron Proser ‘before eight o’clock’ but we had to make do with Jeremy Bowen speculating over the implications of settlement building, snubbing the US, and General Petreaus’s ominous warning that Israel’s provocative act is endangering US soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Not forgetting another insurmountable obstacle, the impossibility of expecting the Palestinians to lose face. The BBC accepts unquestioningly that this immovable impediment to resuming talks trumps all others. So the more demands the Palestinians make, the more impossible it becomes to resume talks.
The actual granting of planning permission for the new house-building is more complex than it appears. It has been made to look as though it violates previous agreements as a defiant and deliberately provocative move by Israel. But my understanding is that this isn’t the case.
“The key point is that there was actually nothing to apologise for, since it was explicitly agreed between America and Israel that, as a concession to kick-start peace negotiations, Israel would stop building in the West Bank although it would continue to build in east Jerusalem. Indeed, Hillary Clinton herself, no less, praised Israel for this agreement.”
“America has thus effectively unilaterally repudiated that agreement. In other words, this whole uproar has been artificially manufactured by America to produce a crisis with Israel – while refusing, astonishingly, to condemn the Palestinians at all for their refusal to enter peace talks, their honouring of one of their worst terrorists by naming a square after her, their violent attacks on the Temple Mount in recent days, and so on.”
Defenders of Israel always view these actions with dismay because on a superficial level they look bad. So it would have been better for ‘apologists’ like myself if this had not happened. Nevertheless, why should we just accept that reporting of everything complicated will be dumbed down by the BBC so that Israel looks utterly evil.
If Paxman knows anything of the subtleties of this topic he’s not letting on. He gave the US Assistant Secretary of State Philip J Crowley a Paxman grilling. Rude and ill-tempered. “What’s America gonna do if they build them?” “Why don’t you just say ‘build these houses and we’ll cut off your
aid?’ “ On and on and on. “Occupied lands.” “ Endangering lives of soldiers.”
Newsnight continued with a prurient film about a “child sex abuser,” in which it emerged, at the very end, that the seven year old abuser had been abused herself, yet until that was revealed they implied that she was a kind of freak who had become sexualised through original sin.
Disgraceful sensationalised treatment of both subjects, even more disgusting than usual. The BBC is rotten.
This is still a huge story for the BBC – I refer to the Sahil Saeed kidnap narrative. It’s not often you see SUCH publicity being blasted through the BBC and it was the major headline yesterday and is still right up there in the rankings. As Martin said yesterday, every day is a good day to bury bad news when Labour have to be saved.
So, let me get this right. On the day when official figures reveal that an astonishing 8.16 million of our fellow citzens are now ‘economically inactive’ and when that rate is now 21.5 per cent of the working age population – the highest since records first began in 1971, good old BBC decides that all is looking quite rosy! Rejoice – Gordon has saved the day! And just in case you may think that this is a one off, here in Northern Ireland the headline is “Slight rise in unemployed” disguising the fact that almost 28% of the working population is not working and the increase in unemployed sets a new record. But with Labour in power and a stooge Assembly here to preserve it doesn’t do to let the details rise too far up the news story, does it? Can you imagine is a Conservative government was in power and these sort of scandalous figures came out the outcry the BBC would lead? This is Save Gordon – the last stand!
Further to an earlier post comparing the opening paragraphs of BBC articles about the Tea Party and Purple People movements, here are two more examples of tone-setting openers. Both come from recent pieces by the BBC’s Madeleine Morris, one on the Tea Party convention in Nashville last month and the other on the first meetings of the new Coffee Party movement at the weekend.
For the Tea Party it’s a Don LaFontaine horror movie trailer:
They came from as far away as Hawaii, Maine, and Texas – an overwhelmingly white, middle-aged army of angry conservatives, furious with government spending and influence, and ready to do whatever they can to stop it.
The Coffee Party, on the other hand, gets a welcoming, jaunty little local radio ad:
Looking for a little bit of civil political discussion with your decaf latte? Well the newly formed Coffee Party movement may be for you.
I note also from the two articles that the Coffee Party’s grassroots cred is taken at face value (“A grassroots US political grouping”) but that of the Tea Party is not (“The Tea Party movement describes itself as a grassroots movement of conservatives.”) Those conservatives, they like to call themselves grassroots but can we really trust their claims?
David Preiser has commented on this in the open thread and, as it now seems impossible to link directly to comments, I’m reproducing his post here (with one small quibble – I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say the Coffee Parties are “all white”, but they’re certainly no more diverse than the Tea Parties, so David’s point about BBC double standards still stands):
As everyone here knows, the BBC refused to report on the Tea Party movement as it grew and grew until the reality of tens of thousands of people gathering across the US on April 15 forced them to acknowledge it. Then, Kevin Connolly grossly misrepresented and cast aspersions on the participants, hinting at dark forces and racist overtones behind the movement. He also insulted the participants with a sexual innuendo used for them only by the Left. Nearly every time Mark Mardell has deigned to mention the Tea Partiers, he makes sure to paint the participants as being exclusively white and middle class, as if that’s an automatic disqualifier. It wasn’t until Katty Kay’s quite reasonable report in December that the BBC even bothered to really talk to the participants in depth. And even there the title of the piece and overall message is one of “boiling anger”.
Now, there has been a new opposition movement starting up calling themselves the Coffee Party. It’s hardly anything more than the Tea Party movement was in its first weeks, even before people really started calling them Tea Parties. Yet, the BBC not only reports it, but goes to meet them and get their thoughts.
Coffee Party brews up rival for Tea Party
The only similarity between this and the BBC’s reporting on the Tea Parties is the gross misrepresentation of the participants. They promote the lies of the Left here too, only this time they claim that the participants are a real grass roots movement. Which is a lie. This thing is being run by Democrat Party hacks. Annabel Park, whom the BBC presents as part of a “silent majority” campaigned for The Obamessiah, and her own website is owned by a campaign group for Democrat Senator Jim Webb.
They’re also all white and middle class. But the BBC strangely fails to offer any such description of the participants.
In contrast to any BBC report on Tea Parties, this one takes the claims of motivation by the participants at face value. No suggestion that they’re extremist or angry or potentially violent, as Mardell likes to do with the Tea Partiers. Instead, the Coffee Party astroturf is portrayed as being lovely and wanting nothing more than for government to help people and for politicians to join hands in peace and harmony everlasting.
Don’t trust the BBC On US issues.
I am sitting in a BBC Green Room. It’s school holidays, and I have no one to baby-sit Isabella, aged 6, so I bring her along to my interview. The programme presenter, well known for her liberal views, pops in: “Hullo – your daughter?” she smiles at Izzy. I nod, yes. The presenter looks at me: “State or private?”
“State or private”. Not, “how old?” or “how sweet” or any number of friendly comments a grown-up makes upon meeting a child who is feeling self-conscious in an unfamiliar place. State or private: that has become the ultimate litmus test for so-called liberals today. (So-called, because what is liberal about a group that mocks and ostracises anyone who does not share its values?)
I am sure that all decent people will be pleased to know that the little kidnapped British boy, Sahil Saeed, has been released from captivity from where he was being held prisoner in Pakistan.Is it just me or has the BBC coverage of this story – led by the fragrant Orla Guerin – been MASSIVELY over the top all day? Thoughts?
