Sorry it’s taken me until now to catch up with you all but I’ve been engaging with the BBC this morning. Sort of. Let me explain. The Nolan Show was covering the CSR this morning and had invited representatives of local political parties on to discuss it. Except mine. We were treated to student grant “Smash the Tories” gibberish – including a vox pop that contained those ready to follow the Marseilles Model of street protest. I eventually was allowed on after complaint. I was gifted about 2 minutes during which I spoke up for private business, criticies the establishment class, demonstrated a half £billion saving that Nolan instantly rejected, and was then promptly dispatched. When you’re saying that which they do not want to hear you get the exit treatment from Labour’s broadcasting arm. Nolan even raved about the Conservative Secretary of State Owen Paterson, stirring up the Smash the Tories Trot line even more. Appalling stuff.
ON THOSE EVIL CUTS
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After listening to many bBC radio and TV channels, I have witnessed yesterday blatant bias by omission. I will not apologise by sounding like a broken record, I will repeat yet again the treasonable actions of the last Labour gov at wrecking the country, not mentioned by the bBC.
1) The triumvirate Brown, Balls and Miliband started unsustainable borrowing in 2000.
2) Allowed in 3M immigrants who take jobs and homes.
3) Allowed 1.7M manufacturing jobs to disappear.
4) Created 700k public jobs to fiddle unemployment figures.
5) Encouraged the banking industry to take suicidal risks. (Brown personally proposed Fred the shred of RBS for a knighthood)
6) Increased benefits to 3200B to gerrymander a client state.
These, I believe they are the main areas, although there are many more things that could be exposed. Needless to say the above issues were not raised as to why the cuts are needed.
Forgot to press the shift key – £200B benefits cost.
What is laughable is the total denial of the BBC and the leftie callers to the mess we’re in. Anyone else notice the parallel between Manchester United and our economy? Huge debt and in decline.
Vicki Pollard on Radio 5 was her usual shrieking self this morning and guess which subject got her going? Yep child benefit for rich single mothers (me thinks a lot of female beeboids are in the same boat)
“But single mothers on the top rate of tax are paying more than the bankers tax” she kept shouting at some Tory sap put up for the Usual BBC bum reaming.
I wasn’t sure what the old wrinkled hag was on about, but I think she means that the loss of child benefit to the wealthy is going to save more than the bankers tax.
But of course rich bankers will also lose child benefit.
Clearly the lefty hags at the BBC are not happy that “We’re all in it together” actually means them at the BBC as well.
Stupid woman can she not do the maths thousands of single moms! top bankers about what 60 or so ? who will just shift their cash around and get past it anyway[it’s just the way it is rich people get better accountants ] so which will get the greatest return some one here tell the daft cow as she seems to be haveing a momnet? sorry moment!
On 2) you could say: who take jobs, homes, benefits, schools, transport, health, social, legal, judicial and criminal justice and assorted other administrative services and costs.
Doing my own broken record impression, the 700k parasitic sector jobs are only half (if that) the story; in the same period Brown moved a similar number of jobs off balance sheet, to EDS, Cap Gemini, Accenture, contract service providers and PFI partners. In part this would have been to disguise the extent to which his client state was growing and part to pretend there were jobs being created in the productive sector despite the disincentives of a Labour government. In total it was just another example of Brown’s cynicism.
Never let it be alleged that Brown failed to learn any lessons from Enron.
I’m not a great watcher of BBC news outlets for obvious reasons. Yet over the last two or three days I’ve caught snippets pertaining to their never ending meme of evil Tory cuts.
Whats also caught my eye, is the insistence of the BBC producers to pan outside any old Tory “cuts, cuts, cuts” gathering, and show pictures of protesters with SWP banners screaching forcefully like swivel eyed loons.
Now, these protesters are always portrayed somewhat sympathetically by the BBC, as representing public opinion at large.
Errrrrrr….Last time I checked the Socialist Workers Party were militant Trots, in bed with radical Islam with an overall mandate of bringing down the West.
Rather telling that the BBC don’t seem to see it that way me thinks.
Erm, I’m sure the BBC do see i that way, which is why they try to sympathetically pass them off.
I’ve switched them all off – radio TV web the lot. When I sneak a look every now & then I hit the off button in anger within a few minutes.
Paxo, Wark, Naughty, ManFromMars….etc. I’m with Orwell on this – as soon as you debase the language, democracy is at risk.
“investment” versus spending (Brown & Balls) “Cuts” versus “investing in public services” etc.
I wonder – will it ever show up in the audience figures?
My impression is that most normal people (non BBC types, men who don’t wear dresses and Guardian readers excluded) accept what has happened, mostly blame the one eyed twat but just want to now get on with it.
The usual unemployed left of course don’t, they want anarchy on the streets and the BBC of course will big them up. The BBC is the one driving the wedge between the north and south over the cuts (makes a change from driving the wedge into the coalition I guess) and trying to hype up the Tory cuts.
Hmm, Labour peers Lord Paul and Baroness Udin introduced as ‘Peers’ not Labour peers on Radio 5 news.
Uddin has lost the Labour whip and Paul has resigned from the party, so on that basis, the BBC is correct. However, I take your point that if they’d been former Tory peers, their treatment would have been entirely different.
BBC whining on about ‘middle income earners again’ Since when has the BBC been bothered about your typical Daily Mail reader?
Bias, especially that practised by the BBC, is normally a dark art, whereby more subtle techniques are employed in order to offset claims of bias:
– by omission, leave out crucial facts to paint a distorted picture
– by voice tones, chummy for lefties, sneery/hectoring/exasperated otherwise
– by ‘alternative’ viewpoints: one left, the other even further left!
– by interruption, this coefficient much lower for some than others
– by loaded questions. ‘How will these appalling cuts affect you?’
– by use of BBC polls as “evidence”
– by careful use of headlines: “Israel air strike hits Gaza” but not mention the Qassam rockets that precipitated the strike.
– by giving distorted perspectives: giving loads of say to those opposed to cuts, insignificant time to those who are pro-cuts
… and so on and so on.
Most techniques employed are subtle and non-verbal and rarely overt, but with the sterling work being done by Craig et al, it is possible to objectively prove.
David could you not have forcefully INSISTED on having equal time as space as those other interviewees, and making your objections crystal clear?
The BBC Radio 4 “News” at 8:00 this morning started off with the information that the cuts had been severely criticised by Labour. This was followed by a snippet from an interview with the Labour shadow Chancellor who – you guessed it – was severely critical of the cuts. Then we were informed that a spontaneous [actually the word wasn’t used but, believe me, it was heavily implied] demonstration of a “thousand” trade unionists outside Downing Street had taken place and, to prove it, Bob Crow was interviewed: he was, BTW, severely critical of the cuts. Mention was also made that the CBI wasn’t happy. This was the news: somebody, somewhere must have been happy or even just approving (even if only at Conservative Party HQ) but no mention by the BBC.
Then there was an interview between Evan and the Chancellor. Evan got very testy – not about the present cuts (which are apparently less severe than Darling would have imposed) – but that the “cuts” are set to continue even after the period in which they are forecast to succeed. Instead of telling Evan the reality of our situation (to which the “cuts” are a pathetically inadequate response) Osborne gave a feeble and apologetic reply which is now the customary attitude to Today interviewers by coalition ministers. As many of us here on B-BBC keep writing, if even the Conservatives In Name Only don’t resist being endlessly demonised and intimidated by the BBC then who will?
But, as Richard North has stressed on his own blog, how and why does everyone get away with stressing the “Cuts” narrative when Public Spending continues to rise? Yes, services will suffer and people will lose their jobs, but we’re left paying more and more for less and less! (It seems to have a lot to do with all the unfunded public sector pension commitments, but the membership of the public sector unions aren’t going to give up their pensions without a fight, so it’s the rest of society that has to face the bill.)
“It is not an endlessly expanding list of rights —the “right” to an education; the “right” to health care; the “right” to food and housing. That is not freedom. That is dependency. Those are not rights. Those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle.” –Alexis de Tocqueville
And we are all rather bovine, eh, BBC?
Some of these Beeboids and the like talk as if there is a “right” not to be poor. By “poor” they mean not actual poverty but it’s more like an idea that the less well off shouldn’t have to live in a house which is less than a rich person’s house. It’s as if everyone has to have what someone else happens to have.
That’s it, if you can’t work hard enough for a big house, the state should give you one for free. Only in the wolrd of the beeboid.
Millie,
Of course no-one in Britain is poor compared with most of the world.
RGH
Great quote !
Nolan like Mr Steel on today! should be very carefull as the protests they are dreaming of have a nasty habit of becoming riots and then people die ! now the swp may like this as it gains them new martrys whether as has been the case so recently, that person was not involved is irrelivant to them !
It seems to me that BBC is actually agitating for street protest. It is blatant.
The Beeb are forgetting that the British welfare claimants they are trying to agitate can’t go rioting due to their bad backs.
What if the DSS saw them throwing a petrol bomb 🙂
The bBBC lovingly shows us the French protesters at every opportunity, no doubt to egg us all on a bit to emulate these “heroes”.
An alien landing on the planet and relying only on BBC coverage would assume the UK’s coalition government had inherited a healthy, growing economy, with no debt crisis, and that the coalition government had made a malevolent `ideological’ decision to scale back public spending for no reason other than to hurt the poor and needy.
DISHONEST, BIASED BBC
Well said.
I see that the firemen are a bit put out…
I am not sure I entirely agree with Umbongo re Osborne’s interview this morning (sorry Umbongo). I thought George did rather well. I thought the interruption co-efficient was well down (i had wondered if George had threatened to take even more money off the BBC if Evan didn’t keep quiet). I don’t know where my colleagues at work hear the news but they were amazed this morning and without prompting from me talked about how much interest the gov is having to pay and even the lefties amongst them knew who was to blame.
Evan did keep going on about plan B (for several things) if George’s plan A didn’t work and let George’s reply that the previous government didn’t even have a plan A stand without interruption. Amazing.
Deborah
You may be correct that Osborne was a tad less compliant in this interview than in previous ones. However, his tone of voice – unfortunately he has a naturally squeaky delivery – and failure to take the attack to the enemy (Evan was not trying to elicit facts, he was being deliberately contentious) spoke of a feeble individual with a weak case to defend. I happen to think that he indeed has a weak case – but not if you look at it from the left.
So there was Evan – not interrupting as much as usual, perhaps, – but definitely hostile. Darling, had he delivered exactly the same faux-cuts would have been given the “thank you Chancellor for deigning to talk to us” treatment. Moreover, 3 Labour supporters would have been lined up afterwards – eg Will Hutton, Denis MacShane (pre his er. . trouble) and Robert Peston – to be interviewed or just encouraged to spout about how sound and how welcome the spending review was.
Just back after visiting a poorly Mum at her care home (funded by family as there are savings in excess of £23k still left, so it’s much better to get a single mother her boob job on account of how she might seek work in Knightsbridge once the 8 kids by 3 different, absentee fathers have at last gone to their 1st council homes).
Had News 24 on, with the sound off, and that was bad enough. The scrolling BS strip was something to behold. And there seemed to be some sort of gathering between a Beeboid moppet and four council ‘workers’ who were not doing much working. One was a female stud farm, one looked like Wolfie Smiff’s South Asian cousin, and the other two were dead certs for ‘I’m a single muvva’ or ‘ I thought five a day meant Big Macs’.
Then into the car to catch the tail end of an ‘interview’ between Jeremy Vine and Nick Clegg, which basically seemed to consist of the former asking a question and then getting his pre-determined point across before the latter had a chance to even try answering.
I think I might have detected Mr. Clegg erring to ‘Why friggin’ ask if you are so determined to tell me what you think the answer is?’ a few times, which might make its way back to the wet wipes in cabinet. This is politics by media hectoring: no more; no less.
Of course, there was also the final ‘feedback’ emails, with the empathetic Jezza near in tears as he spun the tale of the parent of a disabled child who might not get their special car.
The one thing I will concede is that, in pursuit of ratings (SKY having lost the plot today with ‘here I am making an IED to show the Taliban’s side’) and audience empathy, almost all in the MSM have decided to criticise anything with a ‘what about the..’ harangue on a totally selective basis without accepting there is a big picture: no freakin’ money – Gordo and his GOATs blew it all.
However, from the one entity I do have to fund and hence have a stake in, I am in no mood to accept ‘two wrongs make a bigger bonus’ as a an excuse.
Guest,
One of the best and funniest posts here for some time. I loved the one about Big Macs. Sorry about your mum though.
if the BBC wants to save some serious money,they should stop buying Nolan food
No wonder the twat is so fat. Yet again he’s going on about Mars bars.
There are crisps and a mars bar in the hotel mini bar. All I’ve had today and yesterday is an apple and an orange.I can’t give in so late !!
Watching Kate S on the 1pm TV news. The “cuts” dominant .I don’t know why the BBC doesn’t introduce all news and current affairs programmes with the most gloomy music they can find. Dress the newsreaders and pundits in black, black ties and headscarves all round.
Intersperse news footage with pictures of Stalingrad circa Jan43 and the bread lines of the 30s.
Should match the mood of the BBCand encourage correct thinking in the nation.
Later in the week they could introduce a 2 minute hate against Osborne and Cameron.
Who knows where this could lead. Dame Nicky and the rest filmed waving BBC flags( do they have one? ) on the barricades and urging on the rioters.
They could all go on expenses to France to see how to do it.
There is a silver lining, the reputation of the bbc has taken an utter hamering. Its not just a few hundred of politically aware folks based here. Its an accepted fact in the broadest spectrum of the MSM now.
Classics like the leaked e-mail Guido posted from the head beeboid to her staff, saying don’t tweet because your views are unacceptable !
What I got from her email was more “Don’t tweet because we’re getting caught out”. There was no indication that she thought they were actually wrong to do it.
‘Wall St. Journal’:
“Taking all departmental spending cuts, the IFS [Institute of Fiscal Studies] said that compared with Labour’s 2010-11 baseline, the government’s cuts averaged 13% across all departments versus the 10% implied by Labour’s pre-election plans.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101021-709323.html
A couple of minutes ago, Laura Kuenssberg suggested that the Government’s cuts were so unfair that this could very well lead to “the entire country being against the Coalition.”
The entire country.
She is utterly barking mad !
I haven’t seen anyone else mention it yet, but yesterday after Osborne’s statement HYS had a headline about him “slashing” £7Bn from the welfare budget. Anyone following the link to the actual statement would have quickly seen the total budget over the four years over which the “cut” applies is almost £700Bn – it has been “slashed” by a whole 1%! Reading the actual statement a little further, you would then see that in every one of the next four years welfare spending will rise. Not only has Osborne not “slashed” welfare spending, he hasn’t even cut it,. All he has done is to increase it by slightly less than Darling planned to do had Labour remained in office.
I wish my salary had been “slashed” like that, instead of really being cut to keep working.
But actually no spending has been cut at all – http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-avoidance-of-doubt.html
The BBC have been bigging up the IFS report all day on the economy. Perhaps the BBC might like ot remind people of the doom and gloom they predicted when Liebour were in power.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7853772.stm
I won’t be watching QT tonight but I notice that yet again they’ve got Caroline Lucas on and Polly Toynbee and it’s from that northern shithole of Middlesborough.
So again 3 leftists on the panel.
Just why does the BBC allow Lucas on so many times?
I think Middlesborough was built with Quaker money. It’s come a long way from the vrtues of hard work and thrift.
Just why does the BBC allow Lucas on so many times?
You could try asking Ms. Boaden or Mr. Jordan for an impartial view. Might get the blog shut own quicker than an OB during a coalition minister speech, though.
Could be a variety of reasons…
1) She is 1/600th representative of a political party and electorate, and hence deserves a fair outing – being on more than once and any stats vs. other minority parties records compared might be… awkward.
2) The list is actually drawn up using a technique created by the Grauniad, which tends to favour wimmin and greens, and as this is the only one any BBC employee is aware of, that is what gets used.
3) The producer hasn’t realised that you can do that swish thingie on her iPhone to find other contact numbers after the favourites on the first screen page. So the ones the retroactive a*se-cover departments have uploaded in case an audit is carried out for FoI are so far back she never sees them.
Matt Frei’s latest biased blog post is very relevant to this thread.
Would Tea Partiers be happier in Britain?
Never mind for a moment that Frei is so blind that he doesn’t realize that most Tea Party supporters would think the Cameron Conservatives are slightly to the Left of Bill Clinton.
Frei thinks he’s being cute by saying that since the US Government is not cutting drastically while the UK is, we should exchange protesters.
But that’s just his usual dopiness and not the real problem here. The very revealing personal political bias – which is clearly spread all around the spectrum of BBC broadcasting – is this:
It is commonly acknowledged that the Depression was prolonged when FDR introduced severe budget cuts, until America was saved by those massive public works projects otherwise known as the New Deal and World War II.
Yeah, it’s commonly acknowledged by Kenysian superstar and BBC favorite, JournoLista Paul Krugman, and the Leftoid writers of Salon.
But that’s the exact opposite of the view commonly acknowledged by the following:
Mises Institute:
The New Deal Debunked (Again)
The Wall Street Journal (far more trustworthy on economic issues than Frei Boy):
How Government Prolonged the Depression
UCLA Economists:
FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
Cato Institute:
How FDR Prolonged the Great Depression (pdf file)
The far-Left view espoused by Frei is entirely one-sided and is not the end of the discussion, yet he presents it as it is. It’s highly biased and dishonest. This is also the economics position of both Stephanie Flanders and Robert Peston, and the only one presented as correct by the BBC.
Come see the bias inherent in the system.
An unbalanced, painful Sopel wanted a go at the Tories:
“BBC news presenter Jon Sopel breaks hip in scooter crash – then rides to hospital in agony”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322572/BBC-news-presenter-Jon-Sopel-breaks-hip-scooter-crash–rides-hospital-agony.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz131KSxlqC
This, from the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8078870/Video-BBCs-Nick-Robinson-stamps-on-protesters-anti-war-sign.html
He’s really for it now. Acting out against one of the BBC bosses’ prime beliefs is a deadly mistake.
Usually avoid the Jeremy Vile show but it was a treat today as caller after caller went off message more or less saying they thought the spending review was fair and necessary.Admittedly this was only a snapshot of the prog as I was in the car for a short journey, but it was a pleasant surprise.
First time Toenails has done something I support.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322547/BBCs-Nick-Robinson-loses-cool-sign-waving-anti-war-protesters.html
Yougove poll shows 58% of voters think cuts are essential and 29% avoided. Considering the sheer torrent of hate coming from the likes of the BBC I think that’s a pretty good majority.
Classic Dame Nikki Campbell this morning. On Sky (they’ve been in an anti Sky anti Murdoch mood today as usual) Dame Nikki suggested that people might want to cut back or scrap their Sky TV package in these hard times.
Well Dame Nikki that may well be, but with Sky people have a choice, with the BBC we have no choice, I personally would rather scrap my £150 a year to fund you and your leftist friends, but I can’t.
Then Dame Nikki had a pop at Fox News (talking about its bias) then had a pop at C4 News suggesting it was not impartial either (he didn’t say left or right but C4 News is very left wing but not by BBC standards)
Then we had the usual comparisons with Thatcher and Tory cuts.
So so far it’s been leftist all the way today.
You can scrap your £150 a year. Don’t pay it. Let’s see if the Beeb’s fondness for French-style direct action extends to refusing to fund their business-class weekends in Washington!
Yesterdays (Thursday) PM was in full on fear mode with a selection of disabled people worried about losing benefits. Some of these people were seriously disabled (one had cerebral palsy while another was blind + deaf) who sounded worried but I doubt even the hardest hearted Tory would ever deny disability benefit. The other interviewees in the item were odd however. One woman never said what was wrong with her but was up in arms that under the new system a Doctor would asses her purely on her medical condition and not on her needs !! This went without comment from the Beeb interviewer as just another example of Tory evil.
The BBC has been playing that propaganda game since the Coalition Government was formed. I remember early on they did a segment about boodget coots and disability benefits means testing where they featured a blind woman nearly in tears expressing her fear that her disability benefit (coverage for her seeing-eye dog) would be taken away. As if means testing was simply a cruel trick and had nothing to do with actually determining if she was blind or not.
The BBC has been highly dishonest and partisan on this issue from the beginning.
Oddly this has disappeared from Ms. Flanders article with no word of apology and a new amount of £550 is in its place.
It seems she can no longer do maths accurately.