106 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. NotaSheep says:

    The BBC are still pushing their narrative – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11619520 – re the Gaza Flotilla thus:
    ‘Israel says its soldiers fired in self-defence after they were attacked with clubs and knives, but activists say the Israeli commandos opened fire as soon as they rappelled from helicopters on to the Mavi Marmara’s deck in international waters.’

    Odd, have the BBC not got access to the videos showing that what Israel said happened, did happen? Are the BBC so anti-Israel that they prefer to push a demonstrably incorrect ‘narrative’ rather than report the truth?

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    • John Anderson says:

      The BBC is steadily increasing its reputation for blatant lying.

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    • deegee says:

      In a TV interview, Turkish journalist Şefik Dinç, who was on the Mavi Marmara and wrote a book about it, said that no shots were fired from the Israeli helicopters and that IDF soldiers did not open fire until their lives were in danger. The interview clearly contradicts the IHH narrative and the biased and false UNHRC report about the Mavi Marmara.

      It doesn’t require much military knowledge to ask the following questions.
      1) If Israel wanted to cause major casualties why didn’t they sink the Mamara from a distance?
      2) Why was there no violence on the other boats, from either passengers or the IDF?
      3) Why didn’t Israel drop grenades on the deck before lowering exposed soldiers.
      4) Why is there no forensic/ballistic evidence? If the autopsies had shown the death came from head wounds from bullets fired from almost directly overhead, surely the Turks would have publicised this. Ditto bullets in the deck.

      The quote is slightly better that the general present the Destroy Israel Lobby narrative as fact and the Israeli one as an unsubstantiated claim but presenting both as claims in defiance of other evidence is bad, biased journalism.

      BTW didn’t they see the Panorama report? 

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  2. Demon1001 says:

    In answer to your questions:

    1. The BBC will have access to the videos.

    2. Yes.  The BBC are interested in no truth that contradicts their spiteful prejudices.

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    • Beeboidal says:

      Exactly. In the Panorama programme, Jane Corbin said the matter of when the first shots were fired was ‘in dispute’. I think that’s BBCspeak for ‘ we never found a shred of evidence that the Israeis opened fire at any time other than the time they said they did’.

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  3. Abandon Ship! says:

    Desert Island Bias

    DI discs, or Kirsty Young in fact, shows off its/her bias as the fragrant Kirsty introduces Nick Clegg with this at about 3:15 :

    “so propelled by idealism Nick Clegg but not apparently sustained by it, your ideals weren’t much in evidence as you patted George Osborne on the back this week as he delivered the most swingeing cuts that this country has seen in living memory”

    and later at about 4:45  :

    “you have not then had any dark nights of the soul this week? You’ve not woken up and thought “what the hell am I doing and why the hell am I helping this thing through?””

    Also Kirsty can’t help mentioning the Twitter suggestions for his discs:
    The first cut is the deepest
    Puppet on a string

     

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    • Ian E says:

      I can’t bear the hag Kirsty and so never listen to her appalling programme – this sounds like it really did sink to new lows! Will the Coalition ever deal with this dreadful organisation, I wonder?

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      • Tony_E says:

        No, almost certainly they won’t. The country has moved left, and there’s nothing the government can do to change that. It has become used to sucking on the teat of the mother state. The BBC, while the country sits in its stupor of dependancy, will always be able to get away with what it does, because it is largely believed.

        Once the cuts have been made, and the private sector begins to expand, then maybe the country will move a little to the right on aggregate. Then the government can move against the BBC, because it knows it has the evidence of millions of people’s personal experience to back them and the BBC scares will be less believed. Until then they will walk cautiously.

        At this stage of the game, a direct assault on the BBC would be seen by a majority in this country as an assault on the people and freedom of speech.

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  4. fred bloggs says:

    I am convinced that there should be many more reference’s to Eric Blair (George Orwell) especially for children, so that they can understand how their views and thoughts can be manipulated.  The bBC current mind plant is ‘cuts’.    ‘Now the weather sponsored by Gov CUTS’; it is getting that bad on the bBC. I heard one presenter say, “just to get away from the CUTS here is some sports news”. On R4 news tuesday morning there was the pessimistic prediction that morning that the GDP stats will show we are in a downturn. How embarrassing for the bBC, the numbers had the impertinence to be good.

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  5. fred bloggs says:

    News 24 tuesday 11.00a.m. To get a view of the recovery they interviewed a very pessimistic removals company in Sunderland. Sunderland is that not where NISSAN has a plant, why not interview a company that may well reflect the countries economic situation. Not the bBC, they interview someone dealing with the stagnant house market.

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  6. Abandon Ship! says:

    Women Sour discuss the teaching of wimmin’s history in schools in this preposterous piece featuring a lefty academic and a lefty school teacher. Black history month is a given and they are convinced we need to have a month devoted to wimmin such as, er, well someone anyway. Bet Margaret Thatcher won’t be on the curriculum though.
    It won’t be long before we have months for history of gay, transgender etc, also one for muslim history. as an amateur historian myself, I listen to these people and weep. And the consequence is that children will be able to tell you who Mary Seacole is but not Gladstone or Disraeli, or whether they lived before or after the second world war.

    Listen at about 26 min
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhfww

    All matters historical at the BBC invariably bend the knee to black/ wimmin/ Gay issues at some point. If you don’t believe me, just listen. Only the marvellous David Starkey bucks the trend.

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  7. Abandon Ship! says:

    Talking of which, David Starkey was on Andrew Marx’s Start The Week. What is normally an arena for liberal lefties to stroke each other’s egos and nod heads on the consensus of the chattering classes, was dislocated by Starkey’s cutting and highly entertaining remarks. Worth listening to, since clearly some of the other contributors are clearly not used to hearing views not found on the Guardian’s CiF.
    Best remark from Starkey, in response to one of the other guests referring to Starkey’s views: I’m the least naturally conservative person, I’m a Thatcherite radical”.

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    • matthew rowe says:

      Like AA Gill and Johathan Meades,Starkey is a slight gilimmer in the otherwise bland dull and ultimately un challenging tirad of utter right on pc drivel that parades as the media in Britain !.
      I am glad they are here but sad there is so few like them left!.

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  8. Martin says:

    Don’t know if anyone else caught the Radio 5 phone in with Dame Nikki but they were discussing airport security.

    So why did the BBC feel the need to have TWO Liebour politicians on (one MP and one MEP) but no counterbalance?

    We got the usual leftie bollocks about ‘racist profiling’ needless to say.

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    • Span Ows says:

      Hopefully becasue the Conservatives are now starting to react to the blatant bias…this has two good effects, no interrupting and slagging of guest and helps add to the actual general bias so everyone can see it!!!.

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  9. Umbongo says:

    As if by magic, news/analysis/discussion re the UK’s growth for the quarter ended 30 September has disappeared from the purview of Today.  I wonder what Today‘s lineup this morning would have included had the ONS announced figures in line with the BBC’s prediction – or “understanding” – about a precipitous decline in output.

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    • David Jones says:

      Isn’t that more or less what Deborah forecast yesterday?

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    • Disdain says:

      Happened not to have turned off before Stephanie Flanders’ piece on the 10 o’clock news.  

      It really makes you wonder who they think they are broadcasting to. Certainly my 13 year old daughter found it unacceptably trivialising and matronising. So presumably, Flanders’ editors are aiming at a presumed viewer with a lower mental age. 

      But how young? 

      I think we might like to think about finding a way of tabulating just what sort of mental age particular reporters seem to think they are addressing.  

      For Stephanie’s report last night, I couldn’t go  further than 10 yrs. 

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      • matthew rowe says:

        Hhmm Flanders has succumbed to the thrusting power of the red  ed’s in the past :-[ and i don’t think it improved her fragile little mind much !.

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      • Grant says:

        Disdain,
        Beeboids assume everyone is as thick as they are.

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  10. It's all too much says:

    I have been listening to the BBC wailing about the evil Tories forcing the sainted poor out into the snow by capping their housing ‘benefit’ to £400 per week (do you remember “Brass” years ago – the first now heralding the eviction season).  “This will force the poor to leave cities where rents are high” howls the BBC.  Why has  no one on the BBC pointed out the blindngly obvious – there are no middle income residents in cities because they cannot afford to live there.  I have to commute, at great personal inconvenience,  into our capital every day because I cannot afford to rent far less buy there.  I also cannot get a subsidised flat in Pimlico because I do not meet the “criteria”.  Is this “fair”?  Is it reasonable to exclude the people who actually pay for the poor to live in locations I cannot dream of?  Why should people not pay the market rents – if they cannot afford it then they have to move, if the workforce  move out then employers will have to pay realistic wages rather then expecting me to subsidise crap employers, who pay minimum wages, with a host of ‘benefits’- housing, income support, free medicine etc etc.

    Is this arguement ever going to be made on the BBC?

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    • Martin says:

      On Radio 5 just now they were discussing PMQ’s with the usual bunch of politicians and MP’s. Colin Murray (in for scabby Logan) amitted live on air that there were no texts or emails in support of NOT capping housing benefit.

      As usual the BBC are on the wrong side of the debate. AS I posted in the last general thread the BBC have distorted the reporting on the economic growth story from yesterday. Yesterday lunch time the people they interviewed live WERE ALL IN AFVOUR OF THC CUTS, yet by the time we got to Stephanie Flanders report last night the only vox pops were against the cuts.

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    • Cassandra King says:

      Fair?

      A worker who cannot afford to rent in an inner city residential area and has to commute, a benefit parasite can afford to live in the best parts of the inner city no expense spared.
      Who can afford £400 per week rent? Does anyone out there know anyone who can afford to pay that amount out of their wages just for rent? Cos I dont.
      Fairness? A person who works cannot afford to live in the style of a non worker is unfair but when that worker knows how many of the non workers could in fact work and how many have never paid into the pot and how many simply roll up from third world land and get housed in places the worker could only dream of then the word unfair takes on a real meaning.

      There is someting very very wrong when a worker cannot hope to afford the lifestyle of a parasitical non worker, but also of the legions of state gravytrain parasites on lavish wages.
      The actual worker who looks on and has to finance this disgusting freak show hiding behind a facade of fairness? Some people have a very strange interpretation of the word fair.

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      • WC1resident says:

        Long time reader, medium-term non-licence-payer .. Just had to add a little anecdote to bear out your (our?) point, Cassandra.

        I live in Bloomsbury, central London. My wife, our son and I have the benefit of a nice, two bedroom flat that represents the bulk of ten+ years’ work in the City.

        Now. If I weren’t an evil, industrious, pinstriped Englishman but a poor Somali victim fresh off the boat, I’d be given a nice, two bedroom flat round the corner in the ex-council block. Gratis. Overnight. Without doing a lick of work for ten minutes, never mind ten years. And I’d be given a load of pocket money into the bargain (the more kids, the more cash of course – it’s the humane way).

        What’s fair about that?

        If Labour / bBBC really start to pursue this anti-work, pro-scrounger line, they’re stupid. People will hate them.

        Long may it last.

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        • John Anderson says:

          ….and the drones at the BBC can see the difference between you working to get your flat and Somalians walking into similar accommodation ?   They understand the difference between the fruits of hard hard work and waltzing into the benefit system from abroad ?

          And they care about you and your ilk ?

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        • Cassandra King says:

          Your struggle to prosper is the perfect example of the meaning of fair. You work and you make a life and you contribute and yet you as a class are demonized and ridiculed and drained of more and more income.
          You do the right thing by your family and your nation and there are millions of like you and yet you are presented with examples of people who attain the same measures of of comfort with no effort.
          The example you highlighted is a perfect example of how the UK has degenerated into a perverted nightmare of Marxist socialism run wild.

          Welcome to the B-BBC world my friend, I hope you keep posting your views and perspectives, the more the merrier 😀 .

          Yours

          Cassie K.

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          • Grant says:

            On the Daily Politics yesterday , Philip Hammond made exactly that point but was constantly interrupted by the vile Caroline Flint and Andrew Neil didn’t stop her. How anyone watching could think it is the Tories who are the nasty party is beyond me. Flint really is a nasty piece of work.

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            • Grant says:

              PS.
              There was great fun when Andrew Neil nearly lost his temper with Flint for repeatedly failing to answer any of his questions. I have never seen Brillo so angry. Great stuff !

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  11. ROSE says:

    I went to a performance of Jay and Lynnes” ‘Yes Prime Minister’ at the Gielgut Theatre this week.  At one point the Director General of the BBC puts in an appearance, and gets slated by the Prime Minister for the rubbish broadcasting output.  There were cheers and applause from the audiance after his harangue, it obviously struck a deep chord with them!  There’s hope for the worm turning yet!

    Orde

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  12. George R says:

    INBBC’s M Easton misses out reference to the name ‘Muhammad’.

    INBBC’s Easton:
    The changing popularity of baby names

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

    ‘Times’ (2007):

    “Muhammad is No 2 in boy’s names”

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece

    M.Easton decries being named ‘Mark’; perhaps he would have preferred to have been named with another ‘M’ name: Muhammad?

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    • Martin says:

      Actually ‘Sheena’ would be more appropriate, except he’s not as good looking as the real one.

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    • John Anderson says:

      It was of course just an oversight that Easton ignores the M name.  Which the Times suggests will be the No 1 name next year.

      So,  the BBC reporter totally out of line with the Times report. 

      I wonder why that might be ?   Suppressio veri ?

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    • Grant says:

      In  2009, Muhammed was the most popular in the UK !

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  13. Dr A says:

    Sometimes the guile of the BBC simply takes one’s breath away.

     Today it reports, in a website story titled “Revealed, the most popular children’s names…” that the name Mohammad comes in at 16. OK, thinks the credulous viewer, that hardly signifies a terrifying ethnic earthquake. Right?

     Wrong. Very wrong.

     In the Daily Mail (you know, the paper that Beeboids routinely ridicule), the terrifying truth becomes very clear. If you take all the possible spellings of the name Mohammad (Mohammed, Muhammad, Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed etc etc etc etc etc etc), the name is now the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales, ahead of Jack and Harry.

     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324194/Mohammed-popular-baby-boys-ahead-Jack-Harry.html#ixzz13Z540wmJ

     Am I alone in thinking this is Beeboid propagandanda at its crudest. How come the Daily Mail is able to actually examine the story with a little intelligence, while th4 BBC, with its 846493635280745 public-school, Oxbridge journos, is not?

     

    The insidious truth is this: the stinking BBC knew the truth, and took the decision to camouflage it.

    And of course, we are FORCED to pay for this treachery.

     

    It will be interesting to see how the Beeboids develop this story.

     



    <!–EndFragment–>

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  14. james1070 says:

    Crimewatch PC Keith Blakelock

     You can watch the Politically Correct Crimewatch episode about the murder PC Keith Blakelock on the Broadwater Farm estate here. About 6:40 in

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/crimewatch/appeals/2010/10/pcblakelock_murder.shtml

     
    Still think the shot of the white man with mad eyes wearing an IRA balaclava, was particularly scary.

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    • Millie Tant says:

      An IRA balaclava? Odd in a riot by blacks on Broadwater Farm.  Nothing to do with the IRA.

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    • John Anderson says:

      There was not a single Jamaican within a mile of Blackwater’s hacking to death.  We all know that.

      Everything the BBC says is Gospel truth, isn’t it ?

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  15. Will says:

    If there are any readers who don’t also visit Guido’s blog, I provide a link to more toynbee type hypocrisy from the BBC’s favourite economist & all round financial pundit.

    http://order-order.com/2010/10/27/the-hypocrisy-of-high-pay-hutton/

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  16. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Better late than never, but the BBC has fiinally caught up to reality in Florida.  Or they’ve just been reading my comments.  At last, the BBC has mentioned Marco Rubio and Col. Allen West.


    US elections 2010: Florida warms to Tea Party

    Unsurprisingly, the BBC does not take this opportunity to say that these two men of color put the lie to all of their charges of racsim against the Tea Party movement.  But what can we expect from Kevin Connolly, who is best known for insulting Tea Partiers with a sexual innuendo.

    Amusingly, Connolly is concerned that the public doesn’t appreciate all the Democrats have done for them.  Notice the perspective from which he writes the following:

    Somehow the two signature achievements of Obama’s first two years in the White House are being made to feel like electoral liabilities.

    Somehow?  As if there’s no basis in fact for this.

    Republican candidates point to the cost of the stimulus programme and to the way healthcare reforms may subtly change the relationship between the federal government and the American people.

    “May subtly change”?  If it’s so subtle, why are several states suing to stop ObamaCare from forcing people on penalty of law to purchase a product from specifically government-approved vendors?  Connolly doesn’t want you to know about that, and the BBC has censored this news.

    Then he goes and finds a Democrat to speak for the defense, naturally blaming Republicans.

    “The biggest mistake Obama made was to spend a whole year trying to work with Republicans, and Democrats haven’t had the courage of their convictions or the stamina to challenge Republicans.”

    Work with Republicans?  Wrong.  This presumes that it was all a great idea to begin with, and the President was a paragon of bipartisanship.  In reality, ObamaCare was slammed through Congress via backroom deals in the Senate and the super-majority in the House.

    Eventually, Connolly gets around to Marco Rubio.  Everyone here has heard about him for weeks, but the BBC is just now getting clued in.  What’s funny is that he obviously thinks the quotes from supporters he shows you are supposed to be examples of crazies.  Then he confirms my opinion by saying this:

    There was a time when Florida tended to appear on the lists of states where Republican primary voters had thrown away winnable races by choosing candidates more for their ideological purity than their electability. (Delaware is another.)

    Ooh, Deleware!  We all know what that’s supposed to mean.  The Beeboids just can’t help themselves: every time there’s a mention of the Tea Party, they have to get that in somehow.


    But either Mr Rubio is made of sterner stuff than anyone realised, or a lot of experts are going to be surprised by the strength of the conservative reaction to Mr Obama’s first two years in office, because at the moment he is winning by miles.

    “A lot of experts are going to be suprised”?  Wrong again.  The only people who are going to be surprised are a few Beeboids and the poor license fee payers who haven’t been properly informed about US issues because of BBC bias.  Everyone else has seen this coming for well over a year.

    But the best part is that they can’t call Rubiio or West racists.

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  17. thespecialone says:

    I work in a large public sector department (boo hiss! – but I am not a czar, diversity officer, 5-a-day co-ordinator etc) and the other week Sarah Palin was on the BBC.  Both my young (late 20s one, mid 30s the other) were stunned when I said that she would be the next POTUS. Their response was ‘but she is mad…..during the last US elections she proved she was’. I asked them ‘so what did she say that makes you think she is mad?’. Answer from both…..silence and then one piped up with ‘that’s a good point’.  But still failed to provide an answer to why they think she is mad.

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    • Martin says:

      Easy, the BBC say so. Ask them WHERE they heard she was bonkers, it will come from the BBC.

      but ask them if they ever heard of the Weather Underground and Obama’s links to them or the Reverend Wright and the answer will be no.

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      • Gerald says:

        Correct Martin.

        Ask anyone if SP is a “creationist” and the chances are the answer is yes. Step forward Justin Webb for your special bow.

        When challenged the BBC machine was unable to provide the evidence to back up his oft repeated statement.

        And we all know about the regular repetition of lies in sound bites leading to the population believing it to be true.

        Probably lesson one at the BBC school of (ha ha) journalism.

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  18. George R says:

    BBC-EU-Greenpeace.

    A political plug for E.U and Greens, all in one empty propaganda piece!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11576964

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  19. Samantha Vickers says:

    Just to draw your attention to an update on the fivelive blog from the Controller of the station AVK.

    “The most democratic national station”

    I kid you not,apparently democracy involves closing message boards and criticising and demonising those who do not agree with you…

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  20. Martin says:

    The BBC report on species on the verge of extinction.

    Well I know of one species that’s long gone. The honest not biased BBC journalist. 

    This creature died out decades ago.

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  21. Grant says:

    Dear B-BBC Friends,

    Tomorrow , I am going down to Gambia for 4 weeks , to start building a house on land that my wife and I have bought there.
    I shall have no internet contact , so , sadly no access to this website.
    On the plus side, I shall also have no access to the BBC  !
    As they say in Gambia  ” I can rest my mind “.
    However, I hope all you splendid people who post here will keep up the good work and I hope to catch up with you when I get back to UK.
    Slainte,
    Grant

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    • NotaSheep says:

      Four weeks without the BBC, you lucky, lucky man…  Have a great and fruitful time and let us all know when you get back.

      NotaSheep

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      • Grant says:

        NotaSheep,
        Cheers !
        The fruits will be mango, papaya, coconuts, bananas etc.
        But, not all play. 
        I shall be asking Africans who listen to the BBC World Service and 24 News for their opinions and I shall report back to  B-BBC

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        • NotaSheep says:

          Mango and papaya are a definite yes, coconuts are ok but bananas – yuck!  Which varieties of mango do you have in Gambia? There is little better than sucking on a Julie mango 

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          • Grant says:

            Nota,
            Wow, wish I could take that video clip with me !
            Don’t know about Gambian varieties, but there are lots of Julie Mangos there  😉

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Have a good time, Grant.

         0 likes

      • Grant says:

        David P,
        Many thanks . 
        I don’t always comment in detail on your posts here, but I read them and really appreciate your input here.
        You are one of the top contributers.  Don’t weaken !
        Grant

           0 likes

    • Asuka Langley Soryu says:

      Happy trails, bud. I envy you.

         0 likes

    • Cassandra King says:

      Have a safe journey and good luck to you, come back and tell us how it went.

      All the best

      Cassie K.

         0 likes

  22. Martin says:

    John Pinhead stated on Radio 5 today that Red Ed was useless at PMQ’s last week. Funny as I’m sure the BBC were stating Red Ed won that one as well.

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    • Guest Who says:

      Caught the top of the hour ‘news’ on one of my enforced daily drives, with my (very apolitical) missus along with.

      It was a summary of the day’s cuts and, of course, PMQs.

      And we were treated first to what we need to think followed by one edit to nail down this opinion with a quote. Guess who? 

      ‘Is that the PM?‘, my lovely lady asked.

      ‘No, love,’ I replied, ‘just the gobbling turkey that our objective national broadcaster wishes it was, and will do all in their considerable, publicly and uniquely funded power to restore’.

      ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ she said. 

      No. It isn’t.

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  23. Natsman says:

    Bias.  It’s in our genes, in our jeans, in our minds, in our thoughts, in our heads and on our tongues.  It’s in our pens, our word-processors, and our broadcasting waves.  it’s on your screens, it’s in your faces.  We are the BBC.  Like it – or else…

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    • Buggy says:

      Rather unfortunate. I read the third sentence as “Bias…..It’s in our penis…” (Not that I have any doubt that Beeboid genitals are trained to face leftwards too).

      Oh dear….”Taxi to the home for the easily-confused, please.”

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  24. Martin says:

    What has gone wrong with this Country? All I’ve heard tonight on the BBC (and other media) is people living for free on benefits not suffering from REAL disabilities but shit like depression, stress and various combinations of letters from the alphabet.

    If these twats want to see depression they should take a look at people queued up at the Dartford crossing every day or people shoe horned into shit trains travelling into London.

    This Country really has gone down the pan.

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  25. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ goes in to bat for Labour on ‘Newsnight’, re-Housing Benefits.


    ‘Newsnight’ stacked the deck 5 to 1 against the government on this.

    The five?:

    1.) someone  from ‘Big Issue’, 2.) a political left person, 3.)someone potentially adversely affected by changes to system, 4.) an unemployed Muslim family, 5.) the politically biased Esler.

    The one they were all against: the Government Housing Minister.

    There was no one on the programme who would benefit from the changes, e.g. someone who works in London, who is currently priced out of properties in certain areas, by the demand of publicly subsidised unemployed people receiving housing benefit.

     There will be more of the same political bias on the D Dimbleby Labour bus that is ‘Question Time’, Thursday. BBC-NUJ is selecting its Labour audience as we speak.


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    • dave s says:

      This won’t get the BBC very far. I very much doubt public opinion supports the paying of these huge housing benefit subsidies. And concentrating on London is dumb.
      Hard for a beeboid to understand but London is not exactly typical of England. I notice Tower Hamlets was mentioned as being badly affected. What a shame . I wonder why there are so many benefit claimants living there. Could the BBC possibly enlighten us ?

         0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      George R

      No matter what the BBC says, no matter what biased group they get bo comment – most people are well willing to have a block on max. payments of £400 per week for a 4-bed house.

      And the more the BBC bangs on about this – the more normal folk they antagonise.

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      • Dan Clucas says:

        I live on the outskirts of London, our 2 bed flat costs £13k a year to rent. My missus has over an hour tube journey to work everyday (another £1.5k pa for the pleasure) We would love to live in Chalk farm and walk to work each day but we can’t afford it. We have absolutely no sympathy at all with someone complaining of a 20k cap, we couldn’t afford that in our wildest dreams!

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    • David Jones says:

      Yes I saw this (unusual for me). They actually had the 3 benefits supporters on chairs facing the minister. 3 v 1 plain to see.

      Actually Esler did put some of the points against housing benefit.

      But there is no argument – why should working people support others in a better lifestyle?

      The Shelter founder said we should give people on housing benefit a “Rolls Royce service”. WTF!

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  26. George R says:

    As a counter to BBC-NUJ-Labour propaganda output on Housing Benefit reform all this week:

    “Housing benefit reform: beneficial, not brutal”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8091225/Housing-benefit-reform-beneficial-not-brutal.html

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  27. David Preiser (USA) says:

    This uncredited BBC News Online article couldn’t be a better piece of propaganda on behalf of a leader of a foreign country if it tried.

    Obama tapes interview with Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

    First, the BBC News Online hack assists a White House talking point:

    On the programme, Stewart challenged the president to answer why, two years after he won on a promise of hope and change, his fellow Democrats “seem to be running on ‘Please, baby, one more chance”‘.

    Mr Obama seemed to acknowledge that he was disappointed in how his nearly two years in office had turned out, the Associated Press reported.

    Why the gratuitous insert of a wire service news brief about something the President said in a speech last week?  (starting at 2:07 into the video clip.  But notice leading into it how far-Left Christiane Amanpour’s questions exactly match the message put forth by BBC correspondents in the US.)  This is playing for sympathy, eagerly abetted by you license fee.

    Even more biased is the way the BBC describes Stewart’s show:

    The Daily Show with Jon Stewart takes aim nightly at politicians of both parties, but its presenter leans to the left and much of the show’s content targets apparent hypocrisy and bigotry among Republicans.

    “Apparent”.  Not “alleged” or “supposed” or “what he claims is” or anything even remotely attributive.  The BBC is making a value judgment here.

    The second section of the piece is filled with what are intended to be alarm bells.  Ooh, another crazy Christianist Republican who wants to force religion down everyone’s throat.  Never mind how difficult that is when there’s no possibility of any offical State Church.  The moment anyone tries to bring prayer back into schools, it will be challenged and messy.  Nobody is really going to bother.  But it makes for a nice campfire ghost story to frighten the children.

    The last bit shows how desperate the BBC is to portray Republican challengers as having serious struggles.  One candidate just won a legal battle which is irrelevant to actual polls or voters’ concerns.  But, as it gives the appearance of difficulty, the BBC thinks it’s more relevant than, say the advantage given to the Republican challenger in Nevada by Harry Reid’s latest problem regarding an aide caught lying to the FBI about her sham marriage to a terrorist wannabe. That doesn’t help the BBC’s agenda, so never mind.

    Another candidate just got out of the hospital after treatment for complications following cancer surgery.  This is a very sickening way to make the case that a candidate is struggling, but the BBC has no problem plumbing the depths of shameful behavior when it comes to protecting their beloved Obamessiah.

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  28. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Quick, somebody tell Newsnight and co-conspiritor, Greg Palast:


    Nevada voters complain of problems at polls

    Apparently there have been a few complaints that the ballot on the screen of the new electronic voting machins select Harry Reid’s name if one’s finger lingers anywhere on the screen too long.  Of course, the supervisor of the Democrat-run county says it’s nothing to worry about, and anyway there’s no evidence and these people tell the media instead of him. 

    But there’s also this bit of relevant information:

    Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid’s name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members

    That’s the US equivalent of Unite which is in very tight with the President, and has worked tirelessly on His behalf, even beating up the odd black man if it helps the cause.

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  29. Guest Who says:

    Time to offer some ‘balance’ by equating the BBC with the awesome standard set by the rest if the broadcast infirmament.

    A girl who ‘can’t afford a house deposit’ by saving up… ‘cos it is sooo expensive living in Central London, eating out, going to the gym…’
    Maybe a hint there?
    I spent my first years in a shared flat in Tooting, taking turns on the spag bol, cycling to the tube.
    And yesterday I heard from noted economic guru Eammon Holmes that increased interest rates were bad for us all.
    Dunno, with no debts, getting a bit more interest on my savings seems OK.
    Maybe there are some of ‘us’ more equally featured on TV vox pops than others?
    Pretty sure such selectivity and ‘off-the-cuff’ financial literacy is pervasive across Aunty too. Doesn’t excuse it, mind.


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  30. Andrew Mars says:

    The BBC really aren’t doing themselves any favours by showing all these different black or Asian families – none of whom work – living in Chelsea or Kensington at the tax payer’s expense. On each news bulletin we have to listen to their sob stories whilst their kids are in the background watching the 30″ plasma. 
    For your info BBC, everyone in the country except a handful of naive socialist student types and your employees will be thinking ‘what the fuck are the lazy scrounging workshy tossers doing there?’ 

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    • NotaSheep says:

      30″ plasma are you sure? That sounds a little small to me, most seem to be 36″ or larger, probably LCD rather than plasma though.

         0 likes

  31. George R says:

    BBC – homosexuality promoter (BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’):

    08:42

    “The actress Julianne Moore is in the UK this week promoting her new movie ‘The Kids are Alright’, a comedy-drama centres on a lesbian couple who each gave birth to a child using the same anonymous sperm donor. Evan Davis* asked her whether she thought the film normalises the concept of lesbian mothers.”

    (* A self-proclaimed homosexual Beeboid.) 

    This is a celebration of the family to BBC-homosexuality.

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  32. Grant says:

    Has the BBC reported that the most popular baby boys’ name in the UK in 2009 was  “Mohammed”  ?

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    • Dr A says:

      No. They claimed it was Oliver (by ignoring the various spellings of Mahomed). Then when the DM rumbled them and got the story right, they stealth-edited the piece out. Unbelievable.

         0 likes

  33. Deborah says:

    The Humberside version of Look North last night (I only saw the shortened version at 10.30pm) showed some poor 21 year old who, if she doesn’t find somewhere quickly, with the changes in housing benefit will not be able to afford a place of her own.  She was 21 years old and earning £800 a month.  What Look North didn’t explain is why she needed a place of her own, why she couldn’t go into a house share with other likeminded people. 

    Has it been for the last 13 years that 21 year olds who haven’t been students expect their own place – never mind the cost because the tax payer will pick up the tab?

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    • Grant says:

      Surely all she needs to do is get pregnant ?

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I have zero sympathy for her or any other sob story put forth by the BBC on this issue.  When I was in my twenties, I had a low-paying full-time job while going to school on and off when I could manage it.  I shared a house with three or four other people (it varied) because none of us could afford a large place in a reasonable area on our own.  Similarly, a friend of mine who used to live and work full time in London also shared a council estate flat with four others for a time, because that’s how he could afford to live within less than an hour’s commute to his job.

      This was considered normal.  What a massively priveleged bunch these people are.  And the BBC encourages this?

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  34. NotaSheep says:

    The BBC have finally replied to my August complaint about anti-Israel bias. Unsurprisingly they have not answered my complaint but chosen to answer a different one, read more here – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/10/bbc-respond-to-complaint-but-dont.html

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  35. Dr A says:

    One of the most annoying features of the piss-poor BBC is the shameless and somewhat desperate way it routinely advertises itself in news and documentary coverage (the nauseasting, endless trails and teases are another matter entirely). Barely a minute goes by that we are not forced to listen or watch some idiotic, self-reverential item designed to imprint the stinking BBC brand on our brains. And of course, coming as they do from the privileged classes that believe they have the right to instruct us all how and what to think, these tedious adverts are designed to conflate our very sense of Britishness with the BBC.  
     
    There was a classic this morning. The item itself was quite interesting: how and why the pronunciation of English words change over short spaces of time (eg “Haitch” or “aitch” etc).  
     
    So what does the Beeboid start his report with? Some effing BBC dance band of the 20s, laboriously trailed as belonging to the BBC, naturally!!!  
     
    About an hour later in the car it happened again, only this time via the oleaginous Stephen Fry who was jerking off about the World Service in his usual pompous and shallow way. Click.  
     
    I guess they realise the boat is leaking.

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  36. Martin says:

    Poor Dame Nikki, the RAdio 5 phone in this morning was set up as another chance to slag off Cameron over the EU….execpt Dame Nikki was almost in tears (he once took part in a BBC show that ‘managed’ to convince us proles that being in the EU was good for us) as caller after caller slagged off the EU.

    Dame Nikki was desperate for pro EU callers of which he got about 2, which is about right.

    Yet I bet if the BBC do vox pops on the news it will be a majority in afavour of the bloated EU.

    The BBC “if we can’t find bias, we make it up”

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  37. It's all too much says:

    Further to my post yesterday – the BBc are in near hysteria, they are desparate to stop anyone articulating the obvious arguements about housing benefit. Hence the vox pops concentration on those who might be affected rather than the population at large.

    It seems no one is alllowed to point out the privileged classes – the super rich and the non workers – reside in cities and the working drones live in distant suburbs and commute in to town in slow, crowded, dirty and unheated trains that cost them upwards of £4K PA.  Why should the non-working class be offered housing that is simply not available to the working population?  Is the socialist interpretation of “fair” an entirely one sided matter?  Seems to be damned unfair to me – to have money removed from my pocket to give someone a flat in London.  Why should I not be given £1600 per month tax free – that is 38.8K if you add tax and NI – to pay for my housing.  According to the radio this gift is given by me and the other idiots who pay tax to 18,000 families. 

    The fact that the govt picks up the bill also ensures that there is an artificially inflated rental market. If the tenants had to pay with their own money do you think they would put up with slum landlords and hyper inflated rents? 

    Housing benefit is rife with fraud, and socialist housing schemes seldom if ever manage to collect the due ‘rents’ from their tenants.  Reform is urgently needed, and “fairness” needs to applied to the population at large

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  38. David Jones says:

    Ranting Stan has a fine rant here on housing benefit.

     

    Jon Snow being  stuck by a TPA banderillero. Wish I’d seen that.

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  39. Martin says:

    Isn’t it amazing how often the BBC manage to get themselves on the wrong side of an argument?

    1. Child benefit cuts for the well off, the BBC opposed it dreaming up millions of fictional widows on 44K a year that simply don’t exist in real life. Something like 85% of the population agree it should be cut.

    2. Capping housing benefit, again a large majority of the public agree with this, most people don’t see why those on benefits should be able to live in houses people who flog their guts out can’t afford to rent or buy.

    3. The EU. Again most people are fed up with the EU and would either like to leave or see the powers of the EU (and its spending) cut back.

    Yet in all of the three above the BBC just don’t get it.

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  40. Martin says:

    Camp male beeboid to Grant Shapps “Is this your new Poll tax”. The BBC should shut the f**k up.

    Perhaps their drug dealers all live on housing benefits?

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  41. Guest Who says:

    Like twitter, the Jeremy Vine show (currently deputised by Matthew Bannister like some eternal reject from a 60’s student uni presidency) is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to that old genetic impartiality being deployed.

    Some silly old Tory council duffer misses the memo and dresses up as Hitler at a private WW11 theme party. Zounds! He is mobly-mugged and Facebook-shamed.

    Think ‘silly PR-clueless twat’ and put it down as a minor local bit of nothing? Or… elevate it to a national issue of horror and shame! (Hint: It is the BBC, and he is a Tory).

    So… we get  massive intro on the whole history of poor wardrobe decisions, if oddly selective on Repubiicans and those the BBC doesn’t like closer to home.

    The then inevitable extreme twofer just to get the audience worked up. Angus from the blue corner; Guy Walters(?) from the red. The latter is in near tears at the insult to noble warriors.

    But… oops. When they say ‘we want your views’, it gets a bit sticky when 99.9% are telling you, Aunty, and Guy, to grow up… and a pair.

    Maybe all the reliables were off at HYS or R4 bemoaning how they might have to move from W1 to a horrible suburb of London and… commute!! A bit like the poor buggers up at 6am fighting to get to work to earn enough to be taxed most of it to cover the licence fee and their benefits one imagines.

    I think they did drag up one holocaust survivor who thought it a bit dumb, but hardly the legions of ‘those who will say’ alluded to, when it is in fact most likely Mr. Bannister and his editors sick, hypocritical little bubble who concocted this faux outrage.

    Oddly, my email was not one of those ‘views’ they wanted to hear. At least enough to share:

    Didn’t catch Mr. Waters’ affiliation.

    One presumes that he, and the BBC, would be equally horrified with a Che T-shirt?

    Or is that ‘different’.

    Also, in the round up of misguided political figures, how is it that Mr. Ed Balls was not included?

    You know, this one:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1062940/I-obeying-orders—Schools-Secretary-Eddie-Balls-dressed-German-officer.html

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  42. John Anderson says:

    Reform of housing benefit needs to go much much deeper – it is a huge element of public spending.

    But time was – there was no such thing as housing benefit.  An unemployed person would receive Unemployment Benefit (if he had paid enough National Insurance stamps) or National Assistance.  A weekly payment.  The payment would be increased to take account of any family.

    Out of that the unemployed person was expected to pay his own rent.   There was no additional payment for “housing”.

    Can anyone else confirm that this was the original benefits regime ?   And if so – when did it change ?   because the whole housing benefits system is clearly being abused and has got completely out of control.

       0 likes

  43. Julio says:

    Hurrah! BBC journalists have promised to stop bombarding us with spin, lies and pro multicult propaganda! 

    For the duration of the upcoming strike anyway.

    http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/latest-national-news/BBC-journalists-to-stage-strikes.6603733.jp

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  44. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Matt Frei has a new blog post in which he combines class war with his favorite theme of the US in decline.  
     
    How private jet orders reflect the new world order  
     
    Frei declares with glee that the wealthy folk from Latin America and Asia are ordering all the new private jets, which is proof in his mind that the US is in decline and other countries are taking over – especially his beloved China (that’s what he means when he says “Asia”).  
     
    This is very revealing of his immature, uneducated Socialist belief that economics is a zero-sum game.  By this I mean that he obivously thinks that because businessmen in some countries are getting wealthier, people in other countries must now have less money as a matter of course.  The concept of wealth creation is as alien to Matt Frei as objectivity.  And he just takes it for granted that everyone else thinks the same thing.
     
    Frei also doesn’t want to bother with the silly detail that the Chinese whom he worships so much don’t give a damn about Warmism and have no problem increasing their carbon footprints to match that of Beeboids like him.  
     
    After all, it’s only a silly little blog post, light-hearted, not meant to be take seriously.  So he can spout whatever drivel he likes and not expect to be held accountable.  
     
    As for his little class war dig at the end, I have no respect for someone who denigrates other people’s wealth while living the high life himself at fancy-ass ski resorts I certainly can’t afford.

       0 likes

    • prpw says:

      Matt Frei, a walking advertisement for pig ignorance combined with supercilious arrogance

         0 likes

  45. Guest Who says:

    I am sure somebody out there is impressed…

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/neilmidgley/100008383/mps-to-examine-bbc-licence-fee-deal/

    But the commenters thus far seem less so.

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