Monthly Archives: June 2010

Not Inayat A Nice Way

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It seems that Guardian contributor and regular BBC talking head, Mr Inayat Bunglawala is an advocate of free speech.
Not so much when the speaker is Geert Wilders, but the kind of free speech that is specific to Muslims.
Bungle, if I may call him by his pet name, has a blog of his own in which he ascribes Theresa May’s ban on Dr. Zakir Naik to “a right-wing campaign to smear the popular Islamic speaker”.

From one extreme, i.e., various sources that support Dr. Naik and protest that when he says “all muslims should be terrorists”, he means it in the nicest possible way, to the other extreme, i.e., various ‘pro western’ sources that take the opposite view, namely that he’s a hatemonger and jolly well deserves to be banned, I’d say the BBC was fairly impartial, occupying the middle ground; and I don’t mean that in a nice way. For a British Broadcasting Corporation, surely impartiality over such a thing is tantamount to bias against “British” values.

In a similar way, the BBC seems to think Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, is a nice sort of ‘guy next door’ fellow, too. Married with kids, “personable, a nice guy, but unremarkable”. And he’s got a master’s in Business administration! He would wave and say hello to the next door neighbour. Cool.

Bungle also has something to say about Faisal. He thinks the guilty plea “should in a more sensible world urgently prompt a rethink in the US administration about its callous strategy in Afghanistan”. Obama might be already on the case.

Bungle doesn’t like Douglas Murray very much, he thinks Murray is trying to silence Islamic speakers. All these Islamophobes and dog lovers . What is the UK coming to? Never mind, Bungle, I feel the BBC is with you.

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Question Time LiveBlog 24th June 2010

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Question Time tonight comes from Glasgow, where in 2006 the Centre for Social Justice reported that 29.4% of the city’s working-age residents were “economically inactive” and where the city council has been controlled by Labour for over 30 years. Coincidence?

Update: Yes, apologies, it was in Canary Wharf. Was reading the wrong list.

On the panel we have the halo-tarnished Business Secretary St Vince of Cable (let’s see if the BBC love him these days) the shadow education secretary Ed “Blinky” Balls, the leader of the Green Party Caroline Lucas MP, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, and the founder of lastminute.com Brent Hoberman.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Coalition Bashing (Budget) Rules (2010 Volume3) which means that ‘Bank Levy’, ‘VAT’ and ‘hit the poor’ will only score if played with your Evil Tories joker. ‘Capital Gains Tax’ is wild and references to ‘Thatcher’ are worth triple points if in the same sentence as ‘cuts’. Getting ‘Dead Rotting In The Streets’ on your card is an instant win.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which sees the deadly duo of Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott reunited in glorious widescreen.

TheEye and David Mosque will be standing on the shoulders of giants here from 10:30pm.

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BY HIS OWN PETARD…

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Oz PM Kevin Rudd has been ousted, largely because his popularity had plummeted because he was pursuing insane greenie policies. The centrepiece was a ludicrously high tax on the mining industry, despite the fact that minerals extraction is the current main reason for Australia’s prosperity. He can be seen as one of the first major politicians to have been ousted by his greenie arrogance and lunacy. Every element of his eco-wackery was increasingly unpopular with the electorate. For the BBC, though, the reason for his demise is simple; he bottled out on introducing new CO2 emissions targets. And the mining tax? Well, according to the BBC report, it is only a “super tax on the super rich” (code in BBC terms for being a highly desirable, necessary measure); not a breath of a mention that Australian voters were desperately concerned that Mr Rudd was the architect of a whole suite of legislation the sole purpose of which was to lower living standards in the name of eco-worship.

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What If

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Inspired by CifWatch, here are some What Ifs.

You know that Panorama episode where they set up a Muslim honey-trap scenario to highlight Islamophobia? Well, what if they made a Panorama with a decoy Jew to expose antisemitism like the Amsterdam police had to.

You know Alan ‘I’m telling your story’ Johnston, theBBC kidnapee that became a cause célèbre? Well, it’s 4 years on friday since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and the Army of Islam. What if the BBC marked this horrible anniversary by making a little fuss about his human rights?

You know the BBC’s fixation that peace will be brought closer by talking to Hamas? What if they suddenly realised that this was specious and delusive?

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BRAYNELESS

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A truly chilling insight into the BBC mindset is provided by former BBC and Reuters correspondent Mark Brayne, who has now become – rather terrifyingly, given his views – a psychotherapist. In his case, the emphasis is definitely on the first part of the word. This nutjob, who takes the Dr David Gregory/BBC mindset I explored yesterday to its witchfinder-general logical conclusions, fervently believes that those who are sceptical about climate change need psychotherapy, and has written a so-called paper to support his mental fascism. Read it and weep; the insane truly do have the keys to the asylum – broadcast journalism is colonised by dangerous people. This is why the BBC pursues its greenie agenda with such fervour. One quote from this pile of garbage is sufficient to show Mr Brayne’s approach:

…as therapists and as fellow human beings, we must seek to help our two opening clients – Gaia and her children – to work together to understand the threats that face them, and together empower both ourselves and those who govern us to make the choices and changes that might yet avert the worst.

The whole paper is in similar vein. What is even more chilling is that this BBC man of science and mental well-being has been addressing a conference of newsgatherers in Germany about his views. The agenda shows how much world-wide media, as well as the BBC, are lying to us about climate change and are re-doubling their propaganda efforts, despite rising scepticism. Mr Brayne also advises journalists how to deal with stress after they have been exposed to traumatic situations. God help them; I think I’d prefer a spell in a war zone any time.

Update: I’ve now been in full through the agenda of the climate change news conference at which Mark Brayne is speaking. Also there as speakers are other BBC staff: among them, Grace Davies, who is new media editor at the BBC World Service Trust, and Anna Godfrey, who is in charge of research for the Trust. That’s the BBC arm, of course, as I have mentioned before, that specialises in terrifying the developing world with climate change alarmism. As usual, the BBC is at the forefront of international efforts to spread propaganda.

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Superfluous to Requirements?

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The Telegraph is almost as interested in the foibles of the BBC as we are here.
Today for example there’s Michael Deacon’s notebook.
He went to the launch event for a set of BBC history documentaries, one of which is about Pompeii, to be presented by Cambridge classics don Mary Beard, one of the Beeb’s faves. She’s known for causing outrage by saying, less than a month after 9/11, that “the US had it coming”. Mr. Deacon asked the publicist if he could interview prof Beard to ask if she thought Pompeii ‘had it coming’, whereupon the publicist moved swiftly on.

On page 11 is an item by Neil Midgley headed “Bonus time at BBC Worldwide.” People at BBC Worldwide will be getting bonuses if they’ve “performed according to the profit targets.”
Nice.
Online, Janet Daley has this: “Has the BBC noticed the change in government?”
Is the Telegraph trying to make B-BBC redundant?

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THE ESTEEMED DR GREGORY…

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I note that we have had a contribution from Dr David Gregory, who works for the BBC in Birmingham, and who is both a science graduate and reports on the environment. B-BBC readers might also be interested to know that he comes from that same self-smug lefty mindset that treats anyone who dissents from BBC orthodoxy with complete disdain – and responds to anyone who disagrees with that orthdoxy with sarcastic ad hominem attacks and menacing claims that the science proves his stance. Familiar? The background is that Melanie Phillips noted in her blog that David Bellamy (he who has been barred from the BBC since it became plain that he disagreed with their line on global warming) had marshalled evidence to show why warmist claims were wrong in at least some of their detail. None of what he said was based on personality. This is how the esteemed Dr Gregory responded:

…I’m a BBC Environment Correspondent and I have a PhD in Physics. But of course as Ms Phillips points out, qualifications mean nothing in the face of her certainty on this issue. I’ve had a brief correspondence with Ms Phillips before about her interesting approach to climate change science. I look forward to continuing that on her blog. Perhaps it’s worth repeating. I am not told what to report by the BBC and I am not forbidden from reporting certain things. I simply report the science. That’s my job. That’s what I do. What Ms Phillips posts here is illuminating. I mean what is her actual argument? It seems to be based around appeals to “common sense” and what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”. Not the truth as such but rather simple facts that are based on a deep seated feeling about what is right. Following your gut feeling rather than your head. I think at worst this is intellectually lazy (after all, what is common sense but the label we give our own prejudice?) but it’s certainly not science. Which is after all, all we have to explain the world around us.

Relax chaps. We can all tell that science reporting is in safe, unbiased, hands at the BBC.

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SPEND, SPEND SPEND….

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Following Sue’s post yesterday about Christine Bleakley leaving the BBC for ITV, BBC creative director Alan Yentob – a man who has shown notable creativity in personal expense claims – has claimed in the Times (no link, I’m afraid- the Times won’t allow it) that the days of the BBC having “deep pockets” to hire talent are over. Some would say that in itself was a tad disingenuous as the BBC spends £229m a year on such offensive morons as Jonathan Ross, Nicky Campbell and Anne Robinson. But meanwhile, Paul Revoir at the Daily Mail points out the true picture. While the rest of us are forced to tighten our belts in today’s budget, dear old auntie is sending 1,000 staff and spending upwards of £5m in just a week covering the World Cup, Glastonbury and Wimebledon. Among the all-out extravagance, a chap called Dotun Adebayo has presented three of his Up All Night shows from Ghana – 2,000 miles from the world cup action. A total of £12m is being spent on the “totaly overboard” world cup coverage, while 400 BBC boys and girls are going to Glastonbury this year – up from the more modest 292 last year. We don’t know yet whether Mr Yentob himself will be repeating his BBC-paid-for Glastonbury bash of two years ago at his nearby country estate bought with our money. But one thing is for sure. The chill winds of austerity have not yet hit the corridors of the BBC. And “creativity” at the BBC is not about art or programmes; it’s all about spending our cash.

Correction: I’ve made a botch of the figures – 400 are going to Glastonbury, but the 292 refers to those at the world cup not Glastonbury last year. Humble apologies for so maligning the esteemed corporation. But, heck, what’s a hundred or so here or there in BBC accounting?

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