I thought Nick Robinson’s coverage of the student thuggery in London was a disgrace. At every opportunity he did his best to excuse the thugs and you know why? Because the BBC loves the set to with the Coalition. Did you see it? Thoughts? Rather than focus on the students violence, it’s all about the Lib-Dems breaking promises. Undermining the Coalition is the BBC meme.
STUDENT GRANT ON THE RAMPAGE…
Bookmark the permalink.
Nick Robinson does not report news. His job as a political corraspondent is to bring political analysis down to the level of a Celebrity Magazine. The BBC stopped reporting news in the 1950s. They are now a “left wing think tank” paid for as are all other left wing movements by the taxpayer.
Yes, I agree. The 10 o’clock news started with a soundbite from a student (who no doubt gained an A* for English Language) saying his rights had been “impeded on”. Were these protests really worthy of the BBC in its excitement putting it on “Live Text” status on its website all afternoon? And if, say, the English Defence League had demonstrated in the same way and caused the same damage would the emphasis be on how peaceful most of it all was?
Going OT, did anyone see Mark Mardell’s piece on Sarah Palin later in the programme? Despite all that impartiality racing through his genes I detected an ever so slightly biased tone against her.
And on BBC News 24 just before 10? The usual quick look at the Independent, Guardian and Financial Times.
And on the BBC website tonight: Watch/listen to “Olympic athlete: Save school sport funding”. No doubt they will have an opposing view to watch/listen to tomorrow
Yes funny that all of a sudden the BBC are taking an interest in competitive sport (I assume that doesn’t include the egg and Cocaine race, or the 100 metre rent boy chase?) when for the last 13 years Nu Liebour and their leftie mates in the teaching unions did as much as possible to kill off any competition in state schools?
Worse, competition was considered to be a bad thing and to be actively discouraged. After all, if a child comes first in a race then there are some other children who did not so that is discrimination straight away. Best to discourage any event where every child does not win a prize.
Of course, now it can be used as a stick with which to beat the Coalition.
Totaly agree, Paxman was just the same on Newsnight.
Of course the LibDumb Volte Face has been pretty disgusting: their position was obviously naive in the extreme and they would never have signed the pledge if they had had any thought of being in power! Integrity – what on earth is that?
‘Cast-Iron’ Dave also knows about how important it is to keep one’s promises in politics!
Would this promise had been kept had they not found a note stuck to a desk saying “we spent all the cash love the liebour party” is a more relevant point !
In my view this was just another piece of virulent anti police coverage by the BBC. I wish it was possible to dress Nick Robinson and others from the BBC in police uniform and then put them in the middle or better still to the front of the fray. That is once they have been given the responsibility of deciding tactics for controlling the demonstration.
Today hosted a discussion this morning between President of Universities UK Professor Steve Smith and former education minister Baroness Blackstone. The only unpredictable soundbite was Prof Smith bringing himself to say that a Plan B which didn’t imply a graduate tax or straightforward higher taxation would involve – horrors – a cut in student numbers. So stunning was this apercu that everybody agreed that cutting the number of students, or not having the state (ie taxpayers) lend students money to study would damage “social mobility”. Quite how we weren’t told – nor was this Plan B taken up by Blackstone or Webb (I think it was Webb) or, indeed, Smith.
It might be my imagination but I seem to remember figures being released fairly recently which showed that social mobility in the last 30 years has effectively stopped and that in the days when we had 5% of school-leavers going to university (proper universities not “university” as in “University of Greenwich” of which Blackstone is Vice Chancellor) and grammar schools social mobility was the highest in the nation’s history (or at least since such figures were collated). Of course, the failure of “universities” and the general education system is evident to anybody outside the political class and, particularly, the Institute of Education (another trendy perch from which Blackstone did her best to damage this country’s education system) and the BBC.
Tessa Blackstone is archetypal champagne socialist. Lord help anyone who thinks Greenwich is the place to go.
Did you notice how embarrassed the presenter looked when Brian Paddick defended police tactics. He used the world containment, and explained this was for public safety and to protect of private property. The BBC meme was the word controversal kettling.However the BBC was later proved wrong when student protesters who where later released brought traffic to a halt on Westminster Bridge.
Also the BBC then claimed that the day of protest in london was fairly peaceful and there was only a few incidents. Who am I going to believe, the BBC or my lying eyes.
I have just been listening to the Radio London phone in about the latest student rumpus. What a catalogue of whining and self rightiousness. The meme really is ‘kettling very bad’. I heard two guardian reading mothers explaining how worried they were when their 15 year old sons were not released until 8pm from containment. “I was getting desparate his mobile battery ran out!”
1) What sort of parent allows and encourages their 15 yo to go on a demo given that the last one turned into a riot
2) Actively collaborating in truanting is against the law
3) Snookilumps got a bit cold and some girls needed a pee
HM Plod are hardly the tsarist troops on the Odessa steps BBC.
The BBC approved alternative is, I suppose, to allow a very small gang of anarchist zealots (all of whom will end up in nice media friendly Bloomsbury jobs) to smash up buildings and brain people with fire extinguisers in order to provide good footage.
We know how the BBC views the EDL trying a peaceful protest – how would the BBC react if they then trashed a public building? Ha! The BBC applies a ‘legitimacy gauge’ to protests, it is calibrated something like
EDL (or any protest that is viewed as “reactionary”), satanic – neo nazi thugs
Countyside alliance, very bad – fox murdering toffs and their stooges
Fuel protesters, bad – selfish climate murderers. Anyway the tubes in Islington provide a good public transports system so why are they complaining?
Students, good – high spirited definding their rights we were all there in the 80’s!
Searchlight V Good – hoorah for ‘anti fascist’ fascists. we won’t mention their extremist violence
Climate grungeoiuds Saintly – we will devote 75% of our air time to their cause
Free Tibet, Semi Divine – we are barely able to look upon their visage
All the protesters have, argueably, legitimate points to make – why does the BBC spend so much effort letting us know who we should support?
I heard several interviews with student? protesters. Many said others would not go to university to be “lumbered with £40,000 debt and no prospect of getting a job.” Not once did the interviewer put to them that if they did not get a job or only got one on low wages, they would not have to pay anything. Thugs who were smashing up the police van and bus shelter in a gratuitously violent manner were described as ” very angry youngsters protesting about the ‘cuts’ ” as if that sort of behaviour had any relevance to the supposed grievance. Not once was it suggested that they were the left wing anti Tory activists they really were.
Also did you see how they spelled ‘cuts’ in their graffiti !!!
No one seems to have taken into account exactly the diabolical burden put on students. The myth is that they will earn more – not often true.Tthey not only have to pay back all of this money but if they eventually want to buy a home they may find it impossible. The biassed BBC generation has landed the next generation with an intolerable burden. They may protest. That is their right. The police need to deal with a small group of “activists” (BBC language) but they do not have to take it out on rightful protesters
My heart bleeds for them. They only pay back when they are earning. Nobody has a right to a university education, It is not a “human right”
It is a choice – as simple as that.
I am not a student and I am not on the rampage !!!