Monthly Archives: July 2010

THE ULTIMATE TRAGEDY…

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I was reading this item by the charming BBC ace correspondent Orla Guerin. It seeks to inform us about the real threat facing Pakistan – poverty. In particular, it concentrates on the decision by a Pakistani father to poison his family to death. Ine survives – this is her story. Why do I think Orla is missing the ultimate tragedy?
Muzammil

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They Say We’ll Have Some Fun if …….

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A B-BBC reader wonders why we’ve missed an important part of the story about Summer Camps in Gaza.

I quipped about Mr. Naughtie’s unproductive chat with Jon Donnison and his cosy tête-à-tête with John Ging on the subject of Hamas torching the UN kids summer camp in Gaza. But I did note later that others had tackled the issue more broadly.

I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m not a journalist at all, but I have got broadband, and I like to find things out. So the aspect that everyone seems to have overlooked, and the thing that was troubling the aforementioned reader is a kind of elephant that should have been in our room.

It’s the indoctrination that goes on in these camps. We all know that Hamas instils hatred in Palestinian children. The BBC knows it. Jane Corbin, who has a soft spot for Hamas, knows it; she even acknowledges it in writing.

Allegedly, this is the primary purpose of Hamas’s summer camps, and must be one of the reasons they want their camps, and their camps only, to be camp of choice for its young recruits to Shaheed. So, to make certain, they eliminate the competition. Good move.

There are many many articles on the internet detailing this brainwashing programme, so the BBC, with its generously remunerated journalists, whose soon to be revealed salaries will undoubtedly reassure us of their worthiness, must be well aware of the situation. Apart from James Naughtie. Oh, and Jon Donnison.

But there’s another thing. It’s a widely held assumption that the UN and the UNWRA schools are genuine summer camps. Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, Here I am at Camp Granada. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing,…..

But it seems not. It is said that the UNWRA camps are pretty bad too. That would explain John Ging’s contortion-like reluctance to criticise Hamas.

Take me home, Oh Mudda Fadda, Take me home…..

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NO SMOKE WITHOUT….

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For the BBC, it’s simple. It’s about a constant stream of newthink and newspeak, telling us that we should accept immigration, that any form of patriotism is evil, and that fear of danger from minorities – especially from Muslims – is idiocy.

Thus, this story about the Great Fire of London becomes an exercise in Goebbels-style propaganda. The facts are that back in 1666, Britain was in the middle of a major war with the Dutch; it was a battle for markets, against trade protectionism and much more; those who lived here at the time thought it was a vital cause and a just cause. Arguably, the actions of the brave men and women back then secured Britain’s place in the world and our future prosperity.

National security, unsurprisingly during war time, was a major issue – soon after the Great Fire, the Dutch mounted a major blockade of the Thames which led to the Battle of the Medway, a vicious action in which they attacked the fleet at its moorings. So when the Great Fire broke out in September 1666, it was hardly surprising that one theory about the causes of its outbreak was the Dutch.

But heck, for the BBC, any thought that Londoners should have been worried is just nonsense; it’s purely xenophobia at its worse that carries lessons for today. In this major re-writing and distortion of our past, I quote from the Meriel Jeater, the “expert” chosen by the BBC to play the Goebbels role. She says:

The dark side was that the fire burst on to the surface religious tension and paranoia about national security…It’s a tale with echoes today, says Ms Jeater. “When I was curating the exhibition, it wasn’t long after the 7/7 bombings and when I was reading about the reactions against Catholics and the Dutch, it struck me that there were a lot of similarities with the backlash against Muslim people after the bombing. A lot of suspicion about people living in London”.

So that’s it then. We should all ignore that many Muslims are busy trying to undermine us, just as back in 1666, we should have rolled over, forgotten about national interests and patriotism, and let the Dutch invade. And of course, our ancestors were nasty, xenophobic, insentient morons. In the US, they revere their founding fathers; here; the BBC leads the charge in denigrating and insulting them.

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Question Time LiveBlog 1st July 2010

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Question Time tonight comes from Ipswich, parliamentary seat of Conservative Ben Gummer, son of John Gummer.

On the panel tonight is the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the shadow home secretary Alan Johnson, Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer, Professor of Classics Mary Beard and social policy campaigner Dame Dr Camila Batmanghelidjh (go to that link just to look at the outfit).

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be engaged in legitimate crowd control here from 10:30pm.

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Loadsamoney

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Sir Michael Lyons thinks the public would be reassured if they were allowed to know roughly how much the BBC pays its stars and executives.
It’s that word everyone’s so fond of: “Transparency. “
Transparency alone is not enough. Knowing the extent of something disturbing is a good start, but it isn’t the answer to the public’s dissatisfaction.

We want reassurance that we’re getting value for money, not just that Graham Norton and Fiona Bruce are raking in vast paypackets “because they’re worth it.”

When Christine Bleakley dithered over her decision to join Adrian Chiles at ITV, her dilemma was presented as a matter of whether to follow the money or preserve her integrity by not being greedy, and staying with the superior BBC for a modest sum. Well, not exactly modest; but what do I know.

Her departure endorsed the market forces argument, which the BBC always uses to defend huge salaries, while their pre emptive sacking of Bleakley made them appear frugal and resolute. It gave them the opportunity to pose as unwilling participants in a bidding war, which was angled to make them appear concerned about spending our money. Maybe they hoped that wouldn’t undermine their their market forces argument; that if you wants talent you pays for it.

Maybe they thought that transparency over pay would allay the public’s disquiet over salaries. But I don’t think it would alleviate the confusion over what actually constitutes talent, and what constitutes greed, and what constitutes quality.

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THE LAW THAT SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

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I thought that Emma Boon from the Taxpayers Alliaance was given quite a tough time on Today this morning as the BBC covered the Coalition suggestion that the public can decide which useless laws should be scrapped. Give it a listen. However it struck me that there is one piece of legislation that does need to be repealed without further ado – and THAT is the one forcing us to fund the BBC. Please Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg – can we just axe that right now?

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TALK TO THE TALIBAN

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I found it telling that the Taliban chose the BBC as its propaganda conduit to declare it sees no reason to talk to NATO. John Simpson, that doyen of fairness and impartiality, was the point man in this exercise, and as he gushes the Taliban believe they are winning the war so why bother talking? What annoys me most about this is not the way in which Simpson and the rest of the BBC rush to broadcast Taliban propaganda (That’s par for the course) but rather the impact this sort of story has on the families of those brave men and women serving their country in Afghanistan. It’s the drip drip drip of BBC manufactured defeatism that so enrages me. Fighting the savages in the Taliban is one thing but countering the PR the BBC afford them is quite another. From where I sit, the BBC are the enemy within and every time our military goes into action the BBC will not be far behind them, undermining their every action.

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