OPEN THREAD…

As the weekend approaches, and the previous Open Thread threatens to pass the 200 comments mark, time for a brand new Michael Gove authorised and approved open thread….!

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98 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. 1327 says:

    The Beeb have correctly identified Gove as being a real Tory and what is worse one with plans. If this evil man gets his way working class children are going to get a decent education and it doesn’t get much worse than that does it !

     

    Luckily this Beeb campaign doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and there is lots of other real news going on at the moment,  

       

    I will predict that the next Beeb target will be Eric Pickles. Another real Tory and a northerner which is a concept the Beeb have trouble getting their head around. But he has plans to take all Government job adverts away from the Newspapers (i.e the Guardian) and put them online. This is a huge threat for the Beeb/Guardian alliance and not one they can let pass.   

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    • Grant says:

      Yes, I agree.  Gove and Pickles are about the only Tories who stand up to the BBC so will be targeted relentlessly by the Beeboids.

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    • Cassandra King says:

      I think ots likely that the errors that Gove got stung for were in fact a set up job from the start.
      Labour left behind many sympathiser/fellow travellers/activists in government departments and the civil service for exactly this kind of thing. I find it impossible to believe that labour would not try to sabotage the new regime.
      All the hoohaa and synthetic rage was just too well organised and televised and co ordinated and slick to be just another slip up by some muppet. The BBC were peddling it like it was the Watergate scandal or worse and they were in like flint and just to add to the suspicion that it was a set up the ex digital engagement czar Tom Watson got to flame away at Gove looking for all the world like he knew what was going on during questions, you may remember Watson as being friends/co workers with disgraced smear merchants/dirty tricksters Damian McBride and Derek Draper. The dirty tricks and smear machine didnt just go away when Brown said it did and when he claimed no knowledge of anything those in his office did even though we know what a control freak he is.
      All in all just a little too convenient to be accidental I think. No damage was done just a few silly errors and Gove was not involved at all but the BBC was in like Flint.

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      • Grant says:

        And, Cassie, wasn’t it amazing how much detail the repulsive Ed Balls knew about this.
        The new government are going to have to root out the Labour place-men in the Civil Service.

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    • NotaSheep says:

      The BBC’s line of attack on Eric Pickles is making fun of his size; the NOW Show is one that I heard last week following this route.

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  2. Llew says:

    The BBC are throwing everything at this Gove/crumbling schools story. Even though the news broke days ago, was covered intensely yesterday, they are still banging on about it this morning, and I fear will still be doing so by the 10pm news and newsnight.

    Live reports, finding the most run down building possible (for all we know that falling down building could have been used as an external storage annex for years), finding distraught children to interview etc.

    When Labour made mistakes, especially with an announcement in the H.O.C, it would have been a 30 second read of a script and nothing more. 

    The difference in their news coverage is staggering.

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    • Craig says:

      And they’re still at it today Llew! Today‘s Sanchia Berg rang a couple of councils in Lancashire after checking a list and finding that they might just be aggrieved. They were.

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  3. Umbongo says:

    The predictable part of the BBC’s panic-inducing and wholly dishonest portrayal of “drastic” cuts is that its corespondents never ask the critics of these cuts (as if they were real cuts – since when were cuts in intended spending “cuts” in any meaningful way?) what they would do considering there is no money to pay for continued high levels of expenditure.  No, the theme is always a collective “tut tut” and a clearly voiced (or rather unvoiced) regret that if only Labour had been reelected and/or the great traitors – the LibDems – had partnered with Labour in government we would be well on the way to the sunny uplands of continued unrestricted government expenditure and no worries (again, as if) about the future of an ever-increasuing licence fee.

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  4. Pounce says:

    The bBC and how to cover a story (5 days after it transpired) where a man was attacked and had his arm chopped off for offending Islam.

    Family of Indian professor ‘forgives’ attackers
    The family of a professor in southern India whose hand was cut off by suspected Islamic extremists have told the BBC they forgive his attackers.

    Only the bBC could report the above story from such an angle.

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  5. Grant says:

    BBC World Service equivalent of “Have Your Say ” has this  :

    “Isn’t it up to Iran to decide how to punish its own people  ? “

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  6. Martin says:

    The impression given is that these schools only started falling apart from the 7th of May. The fact is most of these schools are in a bad state because Liebour councils used the money intended for maintenance to employ more black and lesbian 5 a day strawberry condom coordinators.

    Plenty of private schools are in just as bad a state but they still manage to turn out well educated kids.

    Stopping a leaking roof won’t make some mong halfwit off a council estate the next Albert Einstein beeboids.

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    • Grant says:

      Martin,

      I have visited schools in some of the poorest countries in the world , where even a pencil and paper are luxuries. But the teachers are good, discipline excellent and the children desperate to learn.

      The appalling state of education in the UK proves it has nothing to do with money.

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  7. Grant says:

    “The Daily Politics”  just now .  An Andrew Neil -free zone so georgeous , pouting ,Jo Coburn  had free rein to move into left-wing, Beeboid mode.

    So we had coalition-bashing, Gove-bashing, Quango-loving  ( I guess Jo likes Quangos as the BBC is one )  and much more.

    I had intended to post more detail here , but find the whole topic too depressing.

    I am cutting down my contact with the BBC and may try and limit it to R4 cricket commentary, always excellent.  But, of course, I still have to pay my licence fee.

    Thank God for B-BBC, and it is free  !

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  8. Pounce says:

    One of the main allegations of islamists around the world is that they are poor because of the whiteman.  They are told that Christians steal the Oil/land from under their feet. Under such utter tosh faithful idiots go forth on a Friday in which to murder as many people as possible,

    On that note here is something I read from the bbC about Iran;

    Iran bolsters friendships abroad

    The US and its European allies like to see Iran as an increasingly isolated country; its economy hobbled more and more by economic sanctions and with the pressure growing weekly.There is no doubt that Iran is to a large extent isolated from key markets and that the sanctions are beginning to act as a significant brake on its economy.

     

    Get that the bBC reports that the west, takes great pleasure in hurting Iran with sanctions. While omitting the many offers of economic Aid (from the very same west)if it withdraws from its inorganic chemistry set.

    Why, is the bBC being allowed to parrot such anti-western propaganda at our expense. 


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    • Grant says:

      Pounce,

      Well said.  And the BBC play down the efforts of the many brave, decent, educated Iranians who risk their lives for  the freedom of their country from the lunatic despots who rule them.  

      The BBC’s  coverage of anti-government demonstrations in Iran is a disgrace.

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      • Martin says:

        Well said Barry Obama was also a gutless twat for not supporting the protesters yet no one in the MSM called the twat out on it.

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    • David Jones says:

      Interesting article on Iran from Michael Leeden – http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/07/08/iran-heats-up-the-bazaar-strikes-back/

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      • Grant says:

        David Jones,

        Thanks for that link.  Don’t expect the BBC to report that.  When Beeboids are in Iran they stay at the best hotels and can only go where their minders allow them.  Don’t expect lazy, cowardly Beeboids to risk their worthless hides to report what is really happening in Iran.

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  9. George R says:

    Of course, BBC’s Hewitt would not have written article such as the following, if e.g. South Africa had beaten Germany in the World Cup:

    “The gap between Spain and Germany”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/

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  10. David Jones says:

    Article at the Cobden Centre on socialism –

    http://www.cobdencentre.org/2010/07/the-writing-on-the-berlin-wall-pictures-of-the-socialistic-future/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+org%2FXJzD+%28The+Cobden+Centre%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

    which contains this –

    “A small-state government may get away with small islands of socialism within a free market society, because its petty bureaucrats can use the prices generated by the external free market to work out vaguely rational action plans. However, the bigger these islands of economic chaos become, as socialism expands, the worse things get, as witnessed with the crumbling premiership of the dreadful Gordon Brown.  We can also see this general effect quite clearly with organisations such as the NHS and the BBC.  The NHS can exist because it sits like a bloated consumptive tumour supported entirely within the productive body of the British free market (what’s left of it).
     
    However, the NHS has grown into a serious economic drain which is increasingly bleeding the country dry of wealth, particularly in the areas of monopoly pricing in which it engages, such as the scandalous prices it sets and pays for its drugs, never mind the huge legions of overpaid bureaucrats that staff its leafy management centres.
     
    The BBC also sits within the private media world, distorting it in the same way that a giant black hole distorts a local region of space or a giant gorilla distorts a local area of jungle, giving out ridiculous salaries to untalented stars like Graham Norton and yet more phalanxes of empire-building bureaucrats, all cosily ensconced within the snug confines of the huge amount of wealth extracted with menaces from the rest of the population; if the BBC were privatised tomorrow, it is easy to imagine that its stars would take half or even less of the money that they receive now and that at least half of its bureaucrats would be sacked immediately, with the rest receiving 50% pay cuts, with all of those billions of pounds of taxpayers’ filthy lucre taken out of the game.  But given the obvious waste at the BBC, they can still sail viably along because they can use prices generated initially within the rest of the media market, even though they have distorted this market so perversely, paying people like Jonathan Ross £18 million pounds over three years to run a mediocre chat show copied from David Letterman.”

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  11. Pounce says:

    The bBC  and how it whitewashes repugnant Islamic values by pointing in another direction.

    Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov has been caught on TV praising Islamic bigots who drive round Grozny firing paintball guns at women who don’t cover their heads. He is caught on TV saying:
    “I don’t know (who they are), but when I find them I shall announce my gratitude,”

    So caught red handed on TV saying such how does the bBC report the story:EU watchdog rebukes Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov

    Europe’s top human rights body has strongly criticised Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for calling rights campaigners “enemies of the people”.Dick Marty, a rapporteur on human rights for the Council of Europe, said the comments were “unacceptable”.

     

    Get that instead of reporting the actual story, the bBC hides the real story by masking it with a lesser one which in itself is a reaction to that story. But for some strange reason the bBC doesn’t lead with that. I wonder why?

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  12. Pounce says:

    In yet another example of smoke and mirrors the bBC reports on the story about how UNFIL troops based in Southern Lebanon are getting a hard time from the locals.
    Lebanon UN force urges co-operation with peacekeepers

     The head of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has appealed for calm, following recent incidents in which villagers attacked soldiers.

    Locals were angered by what they saw as plans by the UN force to undermine the Hezbollah militant group in the event of a renewed conflict with Israel…..Tensions in southern Lebanon have increased after recent Israeli claims that weapons were flowing in to Hezbollah fighters.

    So according to the bBC the reason the locals are angry is because th e jews are shit stirring and getting UNFIL to do their dirty work.

     

    And what is the bBC not telling you?

    Well for a start UNFILs mandate runs out next month. Which kind of explains why since 2006 Hezb-allah has been preparing for a new war which everybody in the region is going to kick off this summer. In fact the 6 Spanish troops blown up in 2007 were targeted by Hezb-allah because they had been too vigorous in checking what  the bBC third favorite <strike> Terrorists</strike> militants  were up to. Yet the bBC not only fails to point out the level of intimidation carried out by Hezb-allah in its build up to war. They point the finger of anger at so called allegations made by Israel. Which is strange as today it was revealed that Abbas has stated he is ready to joining any war against Israel but only if all the other arab countries join in.

    Iran has to divert attention away from its nuclear program,  a war over Israel already demoniised by the worlds media, with an unfriendly US president and the possibility of dragging Turkey in, fits the bill to a tee. If Israel wins, Iran wins as the UN will be focused over there, If Israel loses, Iran wins because a victorious Islam will not allow a muslim country to be dictated to by…Non-Muslims. if Israel uses her nukes..all the better.

     

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    • Pounce says:

      Part 2
      The window for an attack on Israel is very short as by next year Israel will start to deploy her anti-missile screen on land (Iron dome) and on her vehicles (trophy) by next year it will be too late as Israel will have had time to deploy and train her troops to use such a system. But has the bBC even bothered its arse in reporting any of this, just like it hasn’t reported this story about how Hezb-allah has warned tonight on Syrian TV that Israel will lose any war.

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      • Grant says:

        And any action has to be while Obama is still President. The same applies to Iran. It must get its nuclear weapons while Obama is still in the White House.

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  13. George R says:

    BBC only reports pro-Islam propaganda, e.g. in relation to MOSQUES:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/10567334.stm

    The Islamic role of the Mosque, not referred to by BBC:

    Vijay Kumar: The Muslim mosque: A state within a state

    Woe betide  the English Defence League and the political lashing it will get from the BBC when it opposes the building of further mosques in England.

    The BBC’s slogan is, apparently: don’t stop the Islamisation of UK.

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  14. John Horne Tooke says:

    Someone else has noticed what Martin has been saying for a while.

    “….Labour has been decisively beaten at the polls yet its representatives appear to have season tickets for every BBC current affairs show on either radio or TV.”
    http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/185834/Lefties-hang-on-at-the-BBC

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    • Grant says:

      Excellent short article by Freddie Forsyth, but falling short of abolishing the licence fee.

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    • Grant says:

      Guest,

      I clicked on the link to find an article by Robert Webb, whoever he is, presumebly merely a journalist. I almost got half-way through before realising I was wasting my time reading something written by an utter prat !

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      • Buggy says:

        No, he’s a comedian (“Mitchell & Webb”, “Peep Show” etc) who for some reason has been given a column by the Telgraph to vapour on about his lefty beliefs ad infinitum.

        (See also Sion Simon, Mary Riddell etc etc ).

        Very odd that the DT is losing readers hand over fist isn’t it ?

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        • Grant says:

          Buggy,

          I used to follow the Telegraph until a few years ago Labour placeman , Will Lewis, was appointed Editor by the Barclay brothers in an attempt to crawl to Gordon the  Moron so they could get peerages.  Don’t think it worked, but the Telegraph is pretty much a “rag mag” these days.

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        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Webb is the less intelligent, but equally Leftoid, half of that comedy duo.  When he says that he steals opinions from more intelligent friends with whom he hardly ever agrees, he means David Mitchell.

          But I say good for him for having the good grace to turn down a spot on Question Time, as I’m as sick as anyone of celebutards being given bully pulpits for their emotional, remedially informed opinions simply because they’re famous for doing something entirely different which has nothing to do with rational thought.

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  15. Grant says:

    The UK ambassador to Lebanon , Frances Gay, has praised the recently dead terrorist Fadlallah.

    On the BBC website they emphasise that Israel has made a complaint, describe Fadlallah as a “cleric ” who is “said to have inspired Hezbollah”.

    Predicatble bias from the BBC, but why hasn’t William Hague sacked this disgusting woman immediately ?  I doubt if Maggie would have stood for it !

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    • Grant says:

      Frances Guy  !

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    • Millie Tant says:

      This is the department with the senior uncivil servant who thought it part of his job to think up insults to the Pope when given the task of making arrangements for the Pope’s State visit.

      The more fundamental question is why they employ people with such attitudes in the Foreign Office in the first place.

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  16. George R says:

    On BBC’s Black, and his inculcation of ‘green’ guilt:

    “Food for thought and ‘Fish Debt Day'”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/07/if_you_live_in_the.html

    – I couldn’t help thinking of him as Hermit:

    “It’s not easy being green”



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  17. thespecialone says:

    As we all know Moat had decided to kill himself in the wilds of Northumberland (oh dear how sad!).  Jon Sloppy (Sopel) is getting a real kicking on Inspector Gadget’s police blog for asking why police couldn’t just taser Moat.  Yep Jon.  That’ll do it.  Taser someone with a shotgun from 20 metres.  God where do they get these ‘reporters’ from?  The BBC appears to have been dreadful on this whole incident.  Did you know that when PC Rathband was shot in the face that a beeboid called Emma North left a message on Gadget’s blog?  Was it to ask for the officer’s wellbeing?  No.  She just wanted a scoop and left her phone number for anyone who had further information.  What a f*cking disgrace.  The media in general has been completely over the top in their coverage and is now the attention will focus on anti-police reporting.
    Something not reported on the BBC?  PC Rathband has serious scarring to his face and has been blinded.  I hate journalists.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Beeboids still asking about tasers.  I don’t expect wet, pampered Beeboids to know anything about police procedure or firearms or anything like that (a BBC reporter’s job is not to be informed about the story they’re covering but to interpret according to their own feelings), but when you taser somebody their muscles tense up immediately.  Not a desired affect when the target has his finger on the trigger of a shotgun.  Never mind the impossibility of the distance involved.

      Also, there was no possibility of probation because Moat had served 12 months or less.  No supervisory period in those cases, I believe.

      Lastly, there will be an IPCC inquiry not because there were mistakes by the police but because somebody died, so it’s automatic.

      Idiot Beeboids not doing their homework as usual.

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      • Guest Who says:

        The BBC and its ‘reporters’ have descended further, if it was possible, into parody.

        You half expect them to now be charging around trying to say ‘we’ (society) failed the poor love to complete the inevitable libtard meme when a human reject that has carved a horrible, if ratings-healthy path, meets their maker. 

        However, when it comes to the sweethearts on the ground, that end scene for Die Hard always satisfies.

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    • Martin says:

      Sloppy had probably been in the bar most of the evening.

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      • Grant says:

        So , the Beeboids are on the side of Moat.  Says it all really. Why didn’t that moron Sopel volunteer to taser Moat ? 

        Beeboids, always on the side of criminals and terrorists and always personally insulated from them.

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        • Millie Tant says:

          Is there a new policy of what you might call Send for Sopel, operating at the BBC?

          Normally, we don’t see him except once a week on a Sunday morning but then came the election campaign and he was everywhere;  last week he popped up in South Africa when England was playing and now when there is some great media hysteria in some wee town in the north east of England, who should it be in the thick of the action but Sopel again?  Keeps turning up everywhere like a bad penny.

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  18. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The News Channel is having some very lightweight panel discussion right now about how much this spy swap noise has effected the relationship between the US and Russia.  The unanimous conclusion:

    It’s all good, and in fact a sign that the relationship has been successfully reset and far better than during the nasty Bush years (it was Booosh what ruined the relationship in the first place, naturally).  The reasoning given is that The Obamessiah and Medvedev knew all about the redhead and the rest of them getting arrested even when the two leaders were having that photo-op burger lunch.  So it was a great, “successful meeting”, and the shared burgers was proof of that.

    They knew it was going on, and still put on a show for the public, which tells these geniuses that it was a successful meeting, and not a totally cynical, phony excercise on both sides.  I guess these geniuses didn’t know that the FBI had been watching those Russians for a decade or that the US – once again – did not get what we want while the Russians did regarding missles and Kyrgyzstan, among other things.

    In other words, Russia came away a clear winner in all of it, and lost no face or diplomatic position even after having a bunch of sleeper cells busted a few days after the photo op.  The whole thing was staged to Russia’s benefit only, and these BBC geniuses think it means that The Obamessiah is a great diplomat because of it.

    The lightweight panel is hosted by Gavin Esler, so I’m not surprised.

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    • deegee says:

      I would say Russia lost on the deal. Ten potential spies, none of whom had gathered any useful information vs. three high-ranking actual spies and one nuclear scientist.

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Except Russia has come out on top in all significant negotiations regarding the international balance of power.  These people were just part of the schmoozing ground support and are a dime a dozen.

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  19. David Preiser (USA) says:

    So sometimes the BBC is okay with war after all.  They have no problem reporting this without sarcasm or editorializing or suggesting that the war was illegal or anything like that.


    Namesakes welcome Tony Blair during Kosovo visit

    Tony Blair has met nine children named after him during a visit to Kosovo.

    The nine were all born after Nato’s 1999 military campaign, strongly backed by the former UK prime minister, which ousted Serbian forces from the region.

    Mr Blair is credited with playing a decisive role in ending former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic regime’s persecution of ethnic Albanians.

    Where were the anti-war protesters, BBC?  Isn’t war always wrong?  I heard Beeboids on air scolding anyone who suggested removing Mugabe, so what about Milosevic?  Why couldn’t you find a voice that was ciritical of the invasion?  No Serbs on hand?  Funny that the BBC always manages to find someone to speak out against a Bush-led war.  Was Blair Clinton’s poodle, then, for blindly following the US into was because he had that lust for glory?

    After Nato’s action in 1999, it established a UN protectorate over the territory. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

    Mr Blair told the audience that he did not regret his actions in supporting the attacks on Serbian troops in what is now Kosovo and targets in Serbia itself.

    “I did what was right. I did not regret it then. I do not regret it now,” he said.

    I guess it was cool.  Even though Blair said the exact same thing about Iraq.

    This is why I use the term “anti-this war” when describing today’s protesters and Beeboids who are against the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.  They’re not anti-war, full stop.  They’re against only certain ones, when certain people are involved.

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    • Ed (ex RSA) says:

      They’re not “anti-war”, they objectively support the other side (the enemy, to use the dreadfully old-fashioned term).

      One cannot be “anti-war” when the enemy will continue attacking whether you fight back or not.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      This was military action (I wouldn’t call it a war) in favour of Muslims wresting territory from a Christian nation.  The BBC were lobbying for it.

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  20. Manfred VR says:

    Going back to an earlier post from Grant, regarding Gove being stitched up by fifth columnist civil servants, look no further than “Common Purpose”, a £51million a year “Charity”. It is the socialists’ Sandhurst, where likely socialists are selected for leadership training.
    The NHS, Judiciary, Police, Whitehall, Quangos and the BBC have all used their training courses which promotes the idea of thinking “Outside Authority”, meaning if you are told to do something you disagree with, You do what is best (ie Socialist).
    Curiously, although registered as a charity, you can’t just go on one of their courses, you have to be invited (Average course cost is £4000). To get round this they claim to be “An Educational charity”. Candidates are selected by previous “Graduates” and so the self perpetuating fifth column infiltration continues.
    With most of their money coming from Government, the current cutbacks must be causing them concern.
    Here is a link to “Common Purpose Exposed
    http://www.cpexposed.com/

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    • Cassandra King says:

      Common purpose are the new Masons minus the humanity and integrity and religious moral framework of course 😉

      CP is the poison inside our democracy and they thrive in the sectretive quango citadels, a perfect breeding ground as quangos are lavishly funded and no questions are asked of where and how money is spent. Inside the dark sectretive citadels they can organize and recruit in secret creating nonjobs for new recruits as they come on stream who in turn network with other quangos. A web of secrecy surrounds quangos who have become laws unto themselves protected and nurtured by the state.
      Needless to say there are many inside the BBC who have no discernable duties other than to recruit and spread the poison.
      Common purpose is a virus and there is no cure at present.

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  21. David Preiser (USA) says:

    While the BBC has done many, many special reports, full programmes, and even entire series promoting good and correct thoughts towards Mohammedans and scolding anyone who frowns on them, here’s a topic never covered by the BBC anywhere in their broadcasting schedule:


    The Hidden Costs of Jew-Baiting in England


    London is an amazing place, full of vitality, intensity, foreign tourists and residents, a patchwork of pluralism. Talk to the average person, and nothing seems amiss: this cab driver, having driven in London for 40 years, sees no significant change in the neighborhoods he travels through; this financier sees no signs of intimidation; this shopper, this tavern-hopper, this man on the bus, lives in an interesting and relatively normal world. A superficial walk through the [Regent’s] park gives the distinct sense of normality.

    But talk to the Jews, and you get a different story. The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists held a conference here this week. The topic: Democratic and Legal Norms in an Age of Terror. Panels discussed everything from the Goldstone Report, to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, to “universal jurisdiction” (lawfare against Israelis brought in foreign courts). Here, in the Khalili Lecture Theatre of the SOAS (School for Oriental and African Studies), Jewish lawyers discussed a grim reality whose only public appearance on an everyday basis is the drumbeat of calumny that a boisterous elite — NGOs, journalists, academics — rain down on Israel.

    Why doesn’t the BBC ever spend a minute thinking about this stuff?  Where’s the fair representation for that portion of the population?

    Sure, I know, it’s all a joke to many people.  After all, two rich Jews are vying for leadership of the Labour Party, with the possiblity of becoming PM some day.  Jews are all over the media, the banks, etc., never been safer at any point in history.  So why the level of violence, then, BBC or defenders of the indefensible?

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    • hippiepooter says:

      The BBC always think about this issue.  They’re key players in it.

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  22. Heads on poles says:

    Now what information has the BBC left out that is included in the Sky News item?
    Let me see ……….

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/10585154.stm

    http://tinyurl.com/3a4pcmg

    Make up your own mind.

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  23. George R says:

    “BBC to axe marketing managers” (not literally)

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7883336/BBC-to-axe-marketing-managers.html

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  24. Dazed-and-Confused says:

    I see that even though the E.D.L. intentionally boycotted the Radical Islamist protest through the streets of Cardiff yesterday, to show up the U.A.F. as a set of one sided hypocrites, the BBC couldn’t resist doing a sympathetic story on these, their most  “sainted of peoples”, whilst the other National, and indeed the local Welsh press, boycotted the event too. 

    Beyond Parody…

    http://www.globenews24.com/EN/news,muslim-demo-at-anti-islam-laws

       0 likes

    • George R says:

      Yes; this a BBC propaganda  exercise by pro-Islam branch in Wales.

      Of course, in contrast, the pro-Islamisation of Britain, BBC, is totally hostile to the English Defence League.

      http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/

         0 likes

    • Wally Greeninker says:

      The page on globenews24, linked to above, is illustrated by a photo of a demonstrator wearing dark glasses with the lower half of his face covered by a scarf: next to him is a placard with a standard jihadi reference to ‘crusaders’. I don’t know if they were just selecting a striking image, but it gives a more threatening impression of this demonstration than anything hinted at by the accompanying text.

         0 likes

  25. George R says:

    “The BBC’s DG, the man in the £400m divorce …and a very strange incident at Drones restaurant”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293708/The-BBC-s-DG-man-400m-divorce–strange-incident-Drones-restaurant.html#ixzz0tLuPTEQ7

       0 likes

  26. Guest Who says:

    Marrshmallow via Martha.

    Had to switch off before the probable savaging of the token Tory (with the party deserving all it gets by the wets it seems to field, or allows to be seduced by ‘national coverage’), but what is with the BBC and its endless, cosy, sofa chats with Labour Dinosaurs?

    Ken, Prescott… all given constant top billing to play the avuncular retired but not shy uncle who really had nothing much to do with the young whippersnappers vying for the top slots today, or any of the policies or hypocritical abuses that has brought this country to the brink of ruin, morally and financially.

    I am simply amazed that they also did not have wall to wall advertorials for yet another tainted ‘Lord’ to complement his risible book promo. Maybe this aspect does not quite suit the narrative? Barely a peep on it to two guys who worked hand in hand with the guy.

    Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, when he is given free rein of the uniquely funded airwaves, someone might just possibly ask how the hell it came to pass that this country was left in the hands of such a disfunctional set of incompetent bozos for so long, without comment or challenge from the entity that is supposed to represent the public, but in fact was and is idealogically compromised to just one viewpoint?

    ‘Unique’ has become an insult in the hands of the BBC. Injury being added through so many having to fund the plaything of a small clique.

       0 likes

  27. Dan Clucas says:

    Channel hopping earlier I had the misfortune to come across “Sunday Morning Live”, which I assume is the replacement for “The Big Question”. The question being posed was “Should We Forgive The 7/7 Bombers?” No change in agenda then. What next? Forgiving Bin Laden?
    No we shouldn’t btw.

       0 likes

    • Jack Bauer says:

      dan — and who exactly is the collectivist “we” the meeja a-holes are talking about?

      They never ask should it be BBC policy to “forgive” mass murderers.

      Remember the screech of the left about Iraq, NOT IN MY NAME & and IT’S NOT MY WAR…

      How about this IT’S NOT MY BBC — I’m just forced to pay for it.

         0 likes

    • RCE says:

      I also had the misfortune to chance upon this bilge.  Aside from the content being as inane as one would expect, did anyone else think that the shit-thick, air-headed bint supposedly ‘chairing’ the ‘debate’ was utterly useless and completely out of her depth?

      I wonder how much of our money she gets paid each year…

         0 likes

  28. Craig says:

    That dead horse is still being flogged.

    Sloppy on The Politics Show (looking somewhat the worst for wear again) began by opining that the announcement of cuts to the school buildings programme in England had been “catastrophic” due to the “utterly inept way it was handled” and expressed the opinion that “it’s hard to see the education secretary Michael Gove being let off the naughty step anytime soon.” (If Ed Balls had headbutted a teacher he wouldn’t have got this sort of bad press from Sopel and his kind.)

    Then the programme’s Yorkshire political editor, a Mr Tingle, went to Cleckheaton for a shameless bit of shit-stirring, talking to a “fidgety” Lib Dem councillor, who clearly wasn’t unhappy enough and needed provoking by the interviewer.

    His first question to her was:

    “You seem to be accepting this but over in Liverpool the leader ofthe Liberal Democrats there said this withdrawal of funding, as far as he’s concerned, is the last straw for Liberal Democrats who don’t like the coalition at all. Is that what’s happening over here in West Yorkshire?”

    Then he asked this loaded question/political point:

    “The irony is that just a few stones throw away from here, and we showed this on The Politics Show a couple of weeks ago, there are a group of parents who want to set up what could be the first free school, and it’s backed personally by the prime minister and Michael Gove and that the government said this week that they’re still putting together a pot of money for those free schools. So you could have on one side of your local authority schools that aren’t being refurbished and rebuilt and on the other side of your local authority a brand new free school built.”

    The lady replied “I think local people will be outraged if that’s the case”.

    His final question was “Will you be complaining to Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, who also happens to be your party leader?”

    Shit-stirring, pure and simple.

       0 likes

  29. Craig says:

    Broadcasting House featured a piece by anti-Tory political correspondent Norman Smith about the disastrous decision made by the Liberals in 1931 to join a coalition government with the Tories.

    “Nick Clegg’s party today faces precisely the same predicament” now as they did then, he said – an economic crisis that started in America, a Labour government that wouldn’t cut, a Cameron-like Tory leader (Stanley Baldwin), a Lib-Con coalition (led by Labour’s Ramsey MacDonald), a “dreaded emergency budget”. The decision then was “an unholy disaster”, “a catastrophe”. “Looking back, maybe Nick Clegg should be just a little bit concerned”.

    Labour-groupie Norman Smith wanted a Lib-Lab coalition (if no outright Labour victory), as all his endless spinning in the run up to the election showed. He didn’t bank on getting the wrong kind of coalition, of course, and has been sour about it every since.

       0 likes

  30. Guest Who says:

    Dear BBC,

    I know that it is pretty hard considering the limited cess-pool from which to choose, and there is the small matter of your staff’s iPhones only having a selection built-up and progammed with names from the last 13 years, and you have been somewhat sidelined by expecting the news to be PR’d to you and hence have forgotten how to investigate and/or report, but can we please stop getting served the same old set of discredited pols for ‘opinion’, ad nauseam?

    We are cursed by a media totally seduced and hence corrupted and complicit in the emperor’s tatty clobber that is the Westminster bubble, but should be according the scorched earth generation nothing other than distain, much less valuable airspace. Especially entities such as Prescott or Mandelson, who have shown what it takes to secure a place in the Lords. It was a lot. Though none good.
    Yours,
    A licencee

       0 likes

  31. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I guess the Beeboids are a bit sensitive about all those complaints about the £1 million luxury studio they built for the World Cup.  Right now some female on the News Channel is doing a little show and tell, trying to defend the expense.

    I say this is a clear acknowledgment of those complaints and an attempt to justify the expense.  The female Beeboid introduced the segment by saying that, once the World Cup is all over, the BBC will have made 60 broadcasts from “this little studio”.  That’s value for money.

    The segment ended with the claim that the building will be turned over the locals and could be transformed into a school or soup kitchen.  Seriously.

    Yes, the BBC definitely heard those complaints, and made a special broadcast segment to defend themselves and justify the expense.  Pretty sad that things have sunk so low.

       0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

       claim that the building will be turned over the locals and could be transformed into a school or soup kitchen.  Seriously.’

      On the roof of a hospital? Will they be retaining the private access gantry to provide access to the local students and homeless, or will they be strolling through the wards?
       

         0 likes

  32. Pounce says:

    The bBC, reporting on an Islamic protest in Cardiff and half the story.
    Muslims protest in Cardiff against ‘anti-Islam laws’

    Muslims have demonstrated in Cardiff to protest against laws across Europe which they say are anti-Islam.Saturday’s protest was to highlight what they believe is an “ideological attack” on Islam……………Muslims from communities across south Wales were expected at the “standing still” demonstration outside City Hall.

     

    So the bBC reports about a protest by the all the Islamic communities in Wales against the hatred expressed to them not in the Uk but in the rest of Europe and in order to show how angry these muslims were the bBC posted these two photos of the protest. (found at the bottom I think) and here is how they ended that article;

    The protest was organised by Ummah of Muhammad, which Mr Yaffir described as “a platform to share ideas and exchange views,We want to use freedom of expression laws to expose double standards,” he said.

    And here is how Wales on Line reported the same story;

    30 people turn out for ‘Islamic’ protest

    A PROTEST against “anti- Islamic” European laws attracted less than three dozen people in Cardiff yesterday. Only about 30 men and women gathered for the “standing-still” demonstration at City Hall….People at the rally yesterday were led in prayer before a number of Muslim speakers addressed onlookers through a PA system. Protesters held aloft flags and banners which bore the slogans “Shariah 4 Europe” and “Islam is the answer”.

    Sajid Idrees led the group in chants before speaking at length. He said: “We are here to show our support for the condemnation of man-made law and to show the fallacy of democracy.“This is called an ideological war. We will never bow down to any man-made law.“You may only see a minority here but we are the lion cubs. We will not keep quiet.”

    Strange how the bBC which usually is quick to tell you how many people turned up (As well as where to go before the event) remains silent on that subject, as it does on the real message behind the protest, a message which I think you would find the vast majority of Islamic Muslims in wales would never support. But hey try telling the bBC that.

       0 likes

  33. Millie Tant says:

    Soeaking of Prescott and greedy Labour hasbeen charlatans, on two programmes that I saw last week, the BBC went out of its way to bring to our attention the conferring of a peerage on the egregious Thug Prescott. One was the Daily Politics when they ended the programme with a clip of the ceremony. I caught the words “honour” and “dignity”.  Nuff said.

    This Week was the other one, I think.  They also made a point of bringing it to our attention.  There was something about the BBC attitude to this event that struck me. It seemed like a kind of pride and a sense that there was something important about it – We just have time to bring you a clip of John Prescott being ennobled. (As if we are all agog.) I think they were excited and we were supposed to be interested. Well, we’re not, or at least not in the way the Beeb might think.

    Do they do this every time someone gets a peerage?

       0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Do they do this every time someone gets a peerage?’

      Just someone who fits the narrative.

      Hypocrite. Failure. Bully. Sexually disfunctional. Champagne Socialist. Enviro champion (with a rather odd past and present ‘Do as I say..’ disconnect)….

      Expect him all of our uniquely funded screens, were they pies, subordinates or Jaguar seats, for some time to come.

      Mind you, he might at least get the BBC accused of dumbing up… slightly.

         0 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      Just wait for Lord Billy of Bragg.

         0 likes

  34. deegee says:

    Gaza’s smuggling-tunnel millionaire   
    Jon Donnison writes about the smuggler in terms of a successful small businessman. As Pounce would say, half a story.

    The role of taxation to Hamas by smugglers is not mentioned. Nor is the use of private housing, remeber Rachel Corrie, as a cover for tunneling.

       0 likes

  35. Guest Who says:

    A word of advice to Jana Bennett, the New York-born BBC “director of vision”. Jana, if you must rant about Mark Thompson’s handling of the publicising of star salaries, do it in relative private … face to face with the confidant, perhaps. We can all see how Thommo’s spinelessness would get on your wick, but it’s not wise to air grievances to a colleague sat in a cab with his mobile switched to speakerphone ‘

     

    Market rate talents at play, (and face to face is not their style)…

    http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-the-ghouls-the-narcissist-and-top-jobs-at-cnn-2024368.html

    And always, uniquely, with our money. 

       0 likes

  36. Guest Who says:

    Poor Sian. 

    The increasingly fragile morning teleprompter reader is sounding more and more like a parrot.

    Pushing the BBC ‘opinion as news’ meme to ever more dire depths (ironically with the main topic being the media’s dire coverage of Mr. Moat’s coverage), I lost count of the number of times the poor love said ‘send us your views’.

    It’s not even accurate. What she should be told to say is ‘send us views that we agree with to preselect and even then edit before broadcasting’.

       0 likes

  37. Guest Who says:

    I think he may be on to something, precedent-wise, cynically, if reasonably…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/marthas_manifesto.html

    ‘…should we really be forcing people online if they’ve no interest in the web, and where’s the money to make this happen?’

    Now, where else could this distaste for public-purse draining imposition be extended?

       0 likes

  38. Guest Who says:

    A rather odd turn of phrase, considering it’s in an op-ed in the Graun:

    in theory: we’re on the side of you’

    Sadly, no commentary enabled. Otherwise I might have had cause to also query this:

    The BBC is still too secure in fee-payers’ affections to mess with. ‘

    I’m noticing the ‘royal we’ getting invoked a lot these days.

       0 likes

  39. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The BBC is now trying to defend UK Ambassador Frances Guy and CNN twit Octavia Nasr.  The idea is that the truth about the dead Ayatollah Fadlallah is more “nuanced” than critics think, and that praising him shouldn’t be frowned upon.


    Ayatollah Fadlallah tributes divide opinion

    Maybe between the BBC and those who don’t support the destruction of Israel, sure.  But I’d say that these two women wouldn’t have gotten into so much trouble if opinion was merely “divided”.  So the BBC is being disingenuous right from the start.

    The setup:


    It could be yet another story about the pitfalls of new media but it is really about the complexity of Middle Eastern politics, the passion it stirs and the nuances that get lost in the debate.

    The Beeboids know a thing or two about getting in trouble because of problematic twittering, don’t they?  I guess that makes them side with anyone who falls into what they call the “twitter trap”.

    In any case, the idea here is to rehabilitate Fadlallah just enough so that we not only forgive the women but actually agree with some of their sentiments.  First, of course, the BBC has to admit to the bare minimum details about Fadlallah’s objectionable past.  But Kim Ghattas is very careful to maintain full deniability, choosing her phrasing wisely:  “His name was associated with…”, and while Fadlallah denied being involved with the bombing of US soldiers, “crucially, he never denounced the attack, either.

    Here’s a bit of reality about Fadllalah that Ghattas and the BBC don’t want you to know.

    Because what made Fadlallah interesting, namely his innovative views on Islamic doctrine (for example his sanctioning of therapeutic cloning), were likely unknown to most of those extolling his qualities; while the views he was known for – his approval of suicide bombings and his antagonism toward Israel and the United States – were not particularly original, at least in revealing a man at stimulating odds with his environment.

    The above article is even more “nuanced” than the BBC piece, and still finds time to admit the truth about the whole thing, and puts Ghattas and the BBC to shame:

    Fadlallah was a fascinating individual, worthy of study and, at times, esteem. But in reading the passages used to describe him, you get a powerful sense that the accolades were really directed at an imagined Fadlallah, the product of the authors’ yearning to conjure up a tolerant Islam in clerical garb.

    I think that about sums it up.

    Further, Kim Ghattas reveals her own bias very clearly with this attempt to rehabilitate Fadlallah:

    Ayatollah Fadlallah had indeed moved on, in some way, from the 1980s. He was increasingly known for his moderate social views in support of women’s rights, he had denounced the attacks of 11 September 2001 and welcomed Barack Obama’s election. His relationship with Hezbollah and Iran was also troubled.

    Note to Ghattas: every single enemy of the US welcomed the election of The Obamessiah.  That is absolutely not a sign that Fadlallah had somehow moved on from his terrorism-loving, anti-US, anti-Israel ways.  Of course, He is the prism through which the BBC views everything these days.  If Fadlallah welcomed His ascension, he can’t be all bad.

       0 likes

    • Jack Bauer says:

      Ha DP — i posted on the Daily Telegraph yesterday that not to worry about Nasr.

      There was a job for her at the BBC any time she liked.

         0 likes

  40. Guest Who says:

    Twitter is often an ‘interesting’ source of ‘news’:

    BBCBreakfast   Would you pay more for your water so people in SW England pay less? David Cameron’s considering it – find out why tmrw from 6am.

    Always worth teasing up an audience, I guess, but one has to wonder to what extent this tweet was based on getting some facts across, and how much to create a head of steam for all those ‘What you think’ emails they do like to read out.

    I am also presuming that by ‘you’ they mean an odd bunch that lives in the BBC vs. Cameron mind.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The BBC has settled into the job of being Her Majesty’s Opposition much better than Labour has done so far.  Maybe Helen Boaden needs to run for leader instead of those other fools.

         0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Well, I presume I just watched the ‘story’ upon which this teaser tweet seems to have been based and… one seems to bear no relation to the other!

      It would appear that the water rate payers of the SW are grumpy at paying 40% more than the rest of the country, mainly due to the coastal recovery costs.

      How that relates to what was trailed is anyone’s guess. Especially lobbing in Mr. Cameron’s name for no clear reason.

      Is it just a default at the BBC that if there is something to do with money discrepancies a senior coalition person has to be dragged in somehow?

         0 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Spot any shift in emphasis…

        BBCBreakfast   Would you pay more for your water so people in SW England pay less? They’ve got more coastline to maintain than anywhere else.

           0 likes

  41. George R says:

    BBC, BP and LIBYA.

    No doubt the BBC, which is normally anti-BP, will now welcome a Libyan stake in this company:

    “BP ‘good value’ says leading Libyan oil executive”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10518442.stm

       0 likes

  42. It's all too much says:

    Does the BBC know who lost the general election in May?

    BBC Politics web page lunchtime July 12th 2010


    Stories related to Tories

    Gove faces school axe challenge
    MP too drunk to vote

    (Here are some that I believe they forgot – Tory ‘Prime Minister’ denies allegations that Tories plan to use hard working families as livestock during exclusive Bullingdon Club cannibal orgies.  The other one that they missed was – Gove ‘denies’ (BBC) allegations of a Tory plan to sell all schools to Haliburton style faceless conglomerate where children will have to work (up chimneys?) for 13 hours a day to “earn” a lesson.)

    Labour stories

    Prescott answers peerage critics
    Burnham blasts Labour plotting
    Clegg told Brown to quit as PM
    Ed Miliband targets rich-poor gap

       0 likes

  43. George R says:

    ‘Guardian’

    “BBC saves a bucket after banning champagne from staff expenses claims”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/12/bbc-drinks-expenses-freedom-information

       0 likes

  44. David Preiser (USA) says:

    While the BBC is once again reporting on the oil spill and playing defense for the White House, they still pretend that there is no problem at all regarding the cleanup effort.  The BBC makes sure to point out that the President has visited the region “several times”, but have never reported complaints that He took too long to respond in the first place.  The BBC also hypes up a photo-op visit by the First Lady, using language that suggests a press release (she is apparently “expected to be briefed by officials and local leaders”) more than a news report.

    Anyone relying on the BBC for news about the oil spill cleanup will have no idea that there’s a problem.  Here’s yet another report on how bad it is, and what the BBC has been hiding from you, in order to protect the reputation of the leader of a foreign country:


    Oil Spill Response is “Stuck on Stupid”

    This also serves as yet more proof that the BBC does not do original reporting on US issues but merely follows the lead of their friends in the very Liberal and Democrat-supporting US media.

       0 likes

  45. Craig says:

    The BBC having its agenda set by left-wing think tanks or unions again, this time unions:

    The GMB union has expressed outrage after it emerged the head teacher of a primary school in south London was paid more than the prime minister last year.
    Mark Elms, of Tidewell Primary School, Lewisham, received more than £200,000 in basic salary, bonuses and backdated payments in 2009/10.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10609273.stm

    The BBC is so eager to follow the GMB’s script that it can’t even be bothered to check even the most basic facts of the story. Even the most cursory search of the internet reveals that there is no such school as Tidewell Primary School in Lewisham. Mr Elms is actually headmaster at Tidemill Primary School.

    Why should the BBC bother to check its facts when it’s so much easier to copy straight from a GMB press release?

       0 likes