Monthly Archives: July 2010

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.

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Constant repetition of a word or phrase can transform it from eloquent to hollow. However perfectly it encapsulates a situation, over-use will render it meaningless.
Trotted out over and over again, words like vilify, delegitimise, illegal war, international law, apartheid, and many more, lose their impact; particularly when they’re bandied about willy nilly by people who have no idea whether what they’ve said is justified, appropriate or the truth.

Peace activist, humanitarian aid, war crimes, obstacle to peace, Palestinians. Nazi. Fascist. Neocon. We’re all trapped by these words.
We say antisemitism, you say Islamophobia; we say terrorist, you say religion of peace; we say Islamic, you say unIslamic; we say legitimate, you say illegitimate; we say Israel, you say Zionist entity; we say biased, you say balanced. Tomato, potato, potahto, tomayto. Let’s call the whole Jeremy Bowen off.

From Our Own Correspondent, fully transcribed online, so you don’t have to listen to the lisp or behold the glistening brow.
The BBC’s chief Middle East Editor expounds on the rift between Netanyahu and Obama, between Israel and America. There are certain things only your best friend will tell you, Bowen opines. Being a little cruel to be kind, Obama whispers gently to his good friend that he’s not standing for much more of this Jewish lobby malarky. The Jewish lobby’s convention centre in Washington DC is bigger than.. than… than …. a football pitch, Bowen declaims. No! several football pitches. That’s how powerful the Jewish lobby is.

Not for much longer though, he speculates. Impertinent Netanyahu with his lectures on the Arab-Israel conflict, his deliberate insults to the VP, his Homes for Jews in occupied Palestinian territories illegal under international law, and his attacks on innocent Turkish peace activists. Jeopardising peace on earth, provoking the Muslims with his pesky Israel. This can’t go on, Bowen predicts. No more Mr. nice guy. That’s what will happen; verily I say unto my listeners.

Jeremy Bowen and his ilk have coined a whole lot of phrases, some of them have become meaningless, and some were meaningless in the first place. Without a hint of self-examination or self awareness the BBC happily lets the middle east editor insinuate about powerful Jewish lobbies. No sign nor hint of a recognition that the BBC is itself an enormous great lobby. The size of… of…. of… thousands of football pitches.

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Question Time LiveBlog 15th July 2010

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Question Time tonight comes from Bexhill-on-Sea; famous for staging the UK’s first ever motor race and the discovery of the world’s oldest spider web encased in amber. The constituency of Bexhill and Battle is represented by Greg Barker (C)

On the panel we have Francis Maude, Andy Burnham, George Galloway, Nick Ferrari and self-confessed binge-drinking druggie slapper Sally Bercow.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, we will be using the Educashun Educashun Educashun Rulez which means that ‘graduate tax’, ‘school building plans’ and ‘two year degree‘ are worth double BiasPoints. Any references to Ken Clarke win a BBC Hidden Agenda bonus turn, and a successful pairing of Raoul Moat with Thatcher is an instant champagne win. Nothing said by Sally Bercow will be valid for point scoring purposes if she is visibly under the influence.

As usual the LiveBlog will also cover the entertainingly awful This Week, which sees the scary duo of Michael Portillo and Ed “Blinky” Balls partnered on the Sofa Of Despair.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be taking an axe to red-tape here from 10:30pm.

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Indigestible Poll.

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Jonathan Hoffman and Rabbi Tony Bayfield were asked for their views on an Ipsos Mori poll about whether British Jews were in favour of Motherhood and Apple Pie.

They were.

What was the question Mori asked? Would you prefer Katkins, or this bowl of broken glass?

Nine out of ten cats prefer Katkins.
Evan Davis queried why British Jews who support Israel should be thought of as courageous. With OUR reputation, he winked?

Okay I’ll spell it out. Jews in Britain listen to the BBC, much like everyone else. Horns permitting. They might support Israel, they might have relatives there, and they might go there a lot. But curiously they might rely on Jeremy Bowen to keep them posted on how badly behaved Israelis are.
So, Evan, if they don’t admire Hamas and Hezbollah in quite the way the BBC and the Guardian do, they might need to be plucky.

“A study of more than 4,000 British Jews suggests that although most feel a strong affinity with Israel and strongly support its right to self-defence, a majority believe the country should swap territory for peace, and negotiate with Hamas. Rabbi Jonathan Bayfield and Jonathan Hoffman, vice chairman of the Zionist Federation, debate the importance of British Jews’ sense of identity.”


By the way, Rabbi Bayfield’s name isn’t Jonathan.

Why did the BBC run the story? Are they trying to make it sound as though British Jews want Israel to make yet more unilateral concessions for peace? Talk to Hamas? A missing word is conspicuously absent. Conditional. Good for Jonathan Hoffman for mentioning it.

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BRING ON THE EURO

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You have to laugh at it. Earlier this morning, the BBC on Today managed to find a businessman who was not ONLY in favour of the UK joining the Eurozone but ALSO in favour of the creation of a single European political State. I wonder how hard they had to look to find him?  (Sorry but can’t find link, I think it was during Adam Shaw’s business section at 7.16am)

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BLOATED BROADCASTING CORPORATION

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More than £3.6bn a year now floods in to the grubby palms of the overpaid executives who supposedly manage the BBC. The licence fee has gone up over the past five years by almost 15% to £142.50. But spending on new shows is plummeting, a survey by Ofcom has found. It has dropped from 65% of revenues in 1998 to only 56% now, and over the past three years, the amount of money spent on first-run programming on BBC 1 has fallen by 10% and that on BBC2 by 15%. By contrast, Ofcom found , spending in the same period by commercial television companies on their programmes increased, despite the recession.

No prizes for guessing where the cash has gone: into the bloated pay packets of the propagandists who call themselves journalists and programme-makers.

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DR CABLE’S £100,000

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Former BBC favourite “Dr” Vince Cable was interviewed on Today @7.52am with regard to his suggestion that there should be a Graduate tax. During the interview, and in defence of his iniquitous scheme, Cable trotted out the mantra that the average graduate earned £100,000 across their working life than someone who did not attend University. This outdated assertion was not challenged. In fact there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a combination of over-supply of graduates and a lack of employment prospects seriously erodes this much hyped differential and it was surprising that Cable got away with it. Especially as he is an Economics guru.Then again…  

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JEREMY’S BACK

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It is not a good day at the BBC if they can’t snipe at Israel and so it is that B-BBC stalwart Jeremy Al Bowen does his usual routine here As ever the language is so loaded and dripping in anti-Israel sentiment that Hamas would struggle to be less biased than him. It’s outrageous the way the BBC foists this biased coverage of all matters Israel upon us.

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Hate speech here and there

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“Kenya launches text service to stop hate speech” reports the BBC – utterly uncritically. The report assumes that this move is intended solely to reduce violence. No mention is made of the threat to free speech in Kenya, indeed no mention is made of any criticism of the hotline at all. It’s against “hate speech”, what more do you need to know? The National Cohesion and Integration Commission is quoted as having told the BBC “If hate speech is reported, we will be able to respond within 12 hours,” – but apparently the BBC did not see fit to ask him what that response would be. The BBC does not ask who defines “hate speech” or bring up the potential for abuse of this system by political leaders wishing to crush rivals or members of the public with a grudge against their neighbours.

Contrast this with how the BBC covers schemes in Britain in which the public are encouraged to report potential terrorism. In this story, University heads tackle extremism, the entire focus is on the clash between security and academic freedom. In this one, Anti-terror police seek help from internet cafes, a spokesman is quoted as fearing that an initiative “potentially criminalises people for accessing material that is legal but which expresses religious and political opinions that police officers find unacceptable.” That fear, it seems, is worth covering in Britain, but not in Kenya.

I have also posted about this over at Samizdata.

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NOW THAT’S MAGIC!

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The slot between 8am and 8.30am is the prime-time for listenership on Radio 4 so I was surprised that the BBC decided to allocate valuable time here to the Magic Act Penn and Teller. Even more remarkable the primary angle of the story was to explore the Pair’s Atheism! I’m not saying there was bias here but I found the placing of this story and the angle of it odd. I wonder if Penn and Teller had been devout Christians would the BBC have been so keen to run the non-story?

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