Stephanie Flanders (above) seemed as good a place as any to start – and topical too, for she’s been much in evidence in recent days, pronouncing Thursday on the G20 in Seoul (but contradicted very convincingly at 1:54:25 by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs Asset Management) and a couple of days earlier on the US’ latest round of quantitative easing (but contradicted persuasively even by Larry Elliott in the Guardian!).
It turns out that Flanders’ maternal grandfather was none other than that gifted writer but also long-time communist sympathiser and probable Soviet agent of influence, the journalist Claud Cockburn.
Cockburn it was who, when covering the Spanish Civil War, was accused by George Orwell of slanting his reports to discredit non-Stalinist elements fighting against Franco, and of being Stalin’s confidant, mouthpiece and direct agent in Spain: Cockburn it was too who recanted his previous opposition to the 1930s’ appeasement of Hitler immediately on the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 which conceded to Stalin the subjugation of Eastern Poland. It’s sometimes alleged that, curiously, despite his professed sympathies for Stalinism and antipathy to capitalism, Cockburn never visited the Soviet Union but visited the US on many occasions – well, I guess you have to experience a free society many times to remind yourself how bad it is………
Flanders also has as one of her half-uncles the US-based journalist Alexander Cockburn, equally a very fine writer, but one who – apart from his scepticism about the AGW scam – is predominantly left-wing. Among the most consistent themes of his writing are: criticism of the Democrats for not being sufficiently “progressive”: criticism of US foreign policy generally and of support for Israel in particular: and criticism of those already on the left who attack political positions further to the left than their own.
Flanders is an alumna of the same St Paul’s Girls’ School which counts Harriet Harman and Shirley Williams as former students, and is noted for her close networking links with current pillars of the Labour establishment. (Two Eds…..DV)
She can’t be that bright if she’s wrong so often. But then bigotry doesn’t need intelligence does it.
Not forgetting her stint working for the Clinton adminstration in the US in 1997 – or her sister Laura Flanders the left wing US TV host, who describes herself as a “liberal, lefty person” on her Wikipedia page:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Flanders
Both chips off the Cockburn block.
And here’s the Cockburn family website – the extreme radical newsheet “Counterpunch” -run by her uncles, and regularly featuring such impartial luminaries as Noam Chomsky, Fidel Castro (really!), Robert Fisk, Ward Churchill, Tariq Ali ……..etc etc
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CounterPunch
Stephanie’s got impartial genes coming out of her ears!
For BBC-Democrat Party economists:
“Quantitative Easing Explained”
(6 min animation video, YouTube)
I think she’s just plain THICK.
The problem with the BBC’s gene pool is that it is very small.
Inbreeding is not a good idea.
A bit like the Royal family, they all look like horses, at the BBC the women all have faces like a Bulldog’s arse taking a dump and the males are all a bit too skinny and like the Communards.
I would.
If you did, do you think that would mitigate the gene problem in the ensuing result?
Wouldn’t harm it, for sure. And it would be fun finding out.
I cannot understand your doubts about Claud Cockburn.
He was as red as beetroot. And the dye in beetroot spreads.
Stephanie sounds like one of those ecomists who simply cannot understand that Keynesism is a busted flush.
Its interesting to compare and contrast the BBC’s extravagant coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi with its complete lack of coverage of the release of the British couple the Chandlers by Somali pirates.
I was watching News24 (AKA propaganda24) at 6.30 am this morning. The Aung San story was the top item followed by the announcement that the West could not defeat Al Qaeda and the usual BBC early morning stuff. No mention was made of this important Chandler story, surely the top item of the day, and had I relied purely on the BBC, I would had been unaware this had happened.
My thoughts about Aung San was to wish her well but to wonder why the BBC treats this particular political dissident so differently to ones closer to home such as Gert Wilders.
As it happens, I got so sick of the BBC that I switched to Sky News. Lo and behold, they were treating the Chandlers story with the seriousness it deserved, with a reporter in Nairobe, and wall-to-wall coverage similar to the BBC on Aung San.
I switched back to the BBC since I felt sure they MUST cover this. But no, the morning schedule was uninterrupted, the usual sport and tittle-tattle. No mention at all, not even in passing, that BRITISH hostages have been released. There was not even a ‘breaking news’ subtitle that usually appears at the bottom of the screen o such occasions. Nor is there any mention yet on the BBC’s website.
No mention on the 7am news despite being the top story on Sky and having been on APF for an hour. Top stories on the BBC: Aung San, Al Qaeda cannot be defeat, anticipating the cenotaph, Cockermouth annaversary, David Hay.
Absolutely outrageous that the BBC has not given the release of the Chandlers coverage. There is no headline on their main news webpage either. What an obscene disgrace.
Two hours on Daniel (9.00am), and the Chandlers remain the lead story on the Sky News website but still are nowhere on the BBC ‘News’ website. The story is also being reported by Aljazeera, the Press Association, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News, Reuters, AFP, Australia Network News, and others.
What the hell is wrong with the BBC??!
Nothing on the Marr Show’s news bulletin either (though we get the news than Gerry Adams is going to stand in the next Irish general election). The Sky News website has the first photos of the couple after their release. Wonderful news that the BBC doesn’t seem to want to share with us.
The BBC News Channel is (as of 9.30am) still silent on the story, with John Simpson live from Rangoon. (Has he claimed the credit for freeing Aung San Suu Kyi yet?). Sky News reports that the couple are ‘happy’ and are now flying to Nairobi.
Why are the BBC holding back?
To that list of news agencies/websites that have been covering the release of the Chandlers for some time now can now be added Kent News!
The top news story of the day (as Daniel says) and still nothing on it from the British Broadcasting Corporation. Bizarre.
This is as blatant as example of the BBC suppressing the ‘wrong kind’ of headline as can be imagined. Clearly they had decided the agenda, the good news of Aung San’s release, in advance and having another release and one with more resonance with the British public would diminish that. The Chandler story would necessitate criticism of Islam since it has been reported that the pirates were brutal to their captives. This is in contrast to Aung San who said she was treated well. This begs the question: how can a brutal millitary dictatorship have better treatment than the religion of peace?
Watching the startling contrast in coverage by Sky News after the BBC is a chilling experience, rather like listening to radio free Europe after Pravda.
Yes as soon as the fat cross dresser appeared on the BBC I wondered if we were going to get “it woz me wot got her released”. I was expecting Simpson to dress up as a Burmese hooker and smuggle himself into her house.
“Why are the BBC holding back?” Because the Chandlers are retired, middle-class and white, frankly. No sympathy for them, flaunting their huge wealth in the seas near poor countries. I mean, a yacht, for God’s sake. That makes them rich Tories, doesn’t it? There’s just nothing about the Chandlers that ticks any of the BBC boxes.
Now 10:15 UK time and I’ve checked several pages online, including the Africe, Mid East and Euro pages just in case. Nothing.
Even Sail World has the story before the BBC. The BBC’s inky soulmate the Guardian and the Independent too have just reported it (hours after the Mail and Telegraph). So it’s just the BBC now that are refusing to cover the Chandlers’ release (as of 10.30am).
11:58 – Chandler report still not up but this vital story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11752437 about David Tennant’s future role in a BBC Busby Babes drama is featured on the BBC News Front page.
12.45pm – BBC “BREAKING NEWS”: Chandlers freed. (News Channel).
The BBC’s Frank Gardner has given the explanation for why the BBC has been silent on this story:
“And I know a lot of people are probably saying about they media, “They’re just forgotten. How can you just forget these people.” It’s because we had to. There was a legal superinjunction preventing us from reporting from it. We we allowed to report historically…What happened today is that our competitors, who shall remain nameless, decided 5 hours ago that they would just go with it anyhow, even though the Chandlers weren’t out of Somalia. We decided, my bosses decided we would stick with the superinjunction and not report until they’d taken off and were safely airborne and off out of Mogadishu.”
That sounds perfectly reasonable and principled, and does them credit. Let’s hope they do the story full justice now.
Certainly it sounds perfectly reasonable and principled however the “competetiors” were ALL the other mainstream media, I find it hard to believe that EVERYONE except the BBC would break a superinjunction?
“We decided, my bosses decided we would stick with the superinjunction and not report until they’d taken off and were safely airborne and off out of Mogadishu.”
This included when they were being photographed with the Somali PM and interviewed…ahem. Forgive my cynicism.
The BBC are far too slippery to take their word on face value. I’d like to know a lot more about this so-called ‘super-injunction’ first. If there are no legal repercussions for the Telegraph and such, one might assume Mr Gardner is talking hogwash. One can’t recall the BBC having much respect for the ban on Sinn Fein being broadcast.
Yes the BBC are observant of the letter of the law when it suits their agenda but rather more liberal when it suits. I’m guessing Sky et al consulted with their lawyers before broadcasting.
I like it, but I’m guessing the BBC will not be making Whose Lefty Do You Think Are?
Hi, the lineage of this person is absolutely no reason why she cannot be impartial. The only criteria is her journalism. Attacking her from this angle is just giving ammunition to the ideologues who wish to perpetuate BBC bias.
You’re right hippiepooter although it does play a part. Imagine had her ancestors been tight with Hitler or Franco,had a US uncle who was a white supremacist and another who was a outspoken Bush ally – think she’d be employed at the BBC?
Slightly naive here, surely ? The whole point we continue to make, is that the bbc only hire people with identical left wing ideologies, and work very very had to portray their position as the default centre ground.
This is a subtle and persistent ingrained bbc policy .
I trhink it’s important background material for trying to establish why, a very middle class woman, takes the extreme views she takes.
It would have been equally interesting if her ancestors had been important cogs in the Conservative Party as it might have been shown why she decided to rebel against them. But in this case it shows she is following the family line. I hope to see more like this.
There’s also the whole ‘inclusiveness’ thing. The BBC keep yapping about how important it is to have a police service/army/ninja training camp that ‘looks like Britain’ but every time we turnover a rock in Beebland, we find the same old Identikit lefties there.
By all means don’t let’s punish the chuildren for the sins of their fathers but those sins are part of what made those children what they are. Nevertheless, it’s the BBC that made the point about “impartiality” and “genetics”.
For instance Jon Snow (not BBC I know but the taxpayer pays part of his wages) is the son of a bishop and the grandson of a general. His anti-poppy wearing hysteria and all-round leftiness can be partially explained by a reaction to his genealogy. With that ancestry (actually, even without it) would Snow have been such a celebrated broadcaster if his political beliefs had turned out to be genuinely conservative (ie not CINO)?
You cannot choose your parents but….
For not only has the Oxford-educated journalist dated the new Labour leader Ed Miliband, but also the Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls.
Miss Flanders, 42, was this weekend in Washington covering a meeting of the powerful International Monetary Fund and was unavailable to comment.
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/mail-on-sunday-london-england-the/mi_8003/is_2010_Oct_10/stephanie-flanders-ed-heels-balls/ai_n55500130/
I am one of those who is not much bothered by Ms “floundering”Flanders family or priviledged upbring. I am more concerned about her economics which is frequently wrong.
She got inflation in the UK wrong which is why she so rarely mentions it now. Indeed it would be fair to say that her blog is as much about politics as it is economics
Yeah, I think her parentage gives more of an insight in to her politics and personal make up more than anything…which I guess was the original point eh?
Mailman
i wonder how she will deal with Ireland’s inevitable crisis. No doubt spin for more money printing.
This looming crisis in Ireland has been coming for some time. The concerted brains of the BBC seem to have missed it. Next domino to fall?
My bet is Spain then we are in line.
Further to the above. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the Irish banks have been buying Irish government debt but have run out of funds
I wonder if the same applies to our banks? Taxpayers funds used to bali out banks which then bail out government so it can keep spending.
This is sheer madness and will make the arguments over the “cuts” completely irrelevant.
The factor in Ireland’s financial crisis which should be emphasised before, during and after every discussion is that Ireland is in the eurozone and its troubles stem directly from the financial incontinence encouraged by its membership. This blog http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2010/11/10/how-did-ireland-go-so-wrong/ highlights the tragic consequences for Ireland of being conned into the eurozone.
BTW, dave s, as you probably know, there are no “cuts” in aggregate. Rather, there is a redirection of goverment expenditure to an reconstructed NHS, overseas aid, “combatting climate change” and coughing up more interest on our growing debt.
“Floundering” Flanders is unlikely to see the real causes of Ireland’s problems because they are allied to themes and factors which have benefitted her.
The irony of a so-called elite getting things wrong and colluding with each other is unlikely to occur to Ms. Flanders…
She has turned out to be correct about as often as the Irish elite which is one of the reasons I suspect her blog these days is usually more politics based in spite of the fact it is supposed to be about economics.
I notice that so far the inflation numbers are not on her blog.
Any chance of the same treatment for the rest of the BBC ‘journalists’? It would be interesting to get some real facts about these people and produce some sort of swingometer like graphic.
It’s always amazed me how many Beeboids turn out to be ex-activists or married to Labour MPs or their staff so a good old delve into their backgounds might be illuminating.
It would also be a good indication of the truth of what is being exposed on this site.
I notice that we are not alone in questioning the BBC and its so-called economics expert. I mentioned before that Ms Floundering Flanders was unlikely to understand Ireland’s situation.
However I notice that she has produced an article referring to her past views in a generally self-congratulating way. Unfortunately someone has pointed out she wrote this last December.
“I don’t think that the likes of Greece or Ireland – or Spain – will default on their debt, or even come close.”
What are Ireland and Greece doing right now then?