Monthly Archives: November 2010

TORTURE TIME

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As we all shiver in the November cold (remember how, according to the BBC, snow in the UK was going to be a thing of the past?), the impact of the government’s insane climate change measures could not be clearer, as is reported this morning by the Daily Mail. Because of artificially-escalating fuel prices (which madman Huhne seems to want to crow about), 3.5m pensioner households are now forced to spend more than 10% of their income on heating bills, and they are terrified of the cost. Not only that, 25,400 English pensioners died of cold related illnesses in the four offical months of last winter, making our death rate from lack of adequate heating the highest in Europe. It makes my blood boil that such injustices are being perpetrated because our political class have sold out to the global warming lie factory.

In the midst of this Everest of human misery, what does the BBC do? Find evidence to show how insane these policies are? Speak to pensioners to see what sort of pain they are enduring? Ask nutjob Huhne why he persists in his policy of torture? Expose the lies told by the energy companies as they rub their hands in glee at the unqualified permission they have been given to extract the maximum amount of money from the most vulnerable? Er, no. It gives maximum prominence without question to the latest UN fantasy handout about how temperatures are going to rise by four degrees this century. Richard North deftly explains why such nonsense should have been treated with a huge dose of salt and then binned. Note how among the weasel words in the BBC reporting is the implied threat that energy prices and taxes must go even higher than they are now. I weep.

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WHAT KATY DID NEXT…

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Always remember than BIAS is in their genes. Consider the thoughts of  Katty Kay, the BBC’s Washington correspondent on the Tea Party…

“And the Tea Party is saying we don’t care about whether it’s in the country’s interest, in our foreign policy interest, in our economic interest necessarily to deal with the President. What we want is to be the party that obstructs Barack Obama. Many of them ran specifically on stopping and on checking Barack Obama, and so that is their priority. And the establishment is going to have to either listen to them or try and find a way to overcome that energy.”

What could be more fair and balanced than this, I ask you? The BBC despises the Tea Party, just as it loathes Sarah Palin, and never missed the opportunity to blatantly misrepresent what these people believe. To Katty Kay the Tea Party are nihilists.
Hat-tip to Big Journalism.

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Accused

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How bad was it? Check out this review by an anti-war TV critic at Metro:

Let’s nail some colours to the mast. I marched against the war in Iraq and I’m no supporter of British military action in Afghanistan. But even so, it was hard not to feel a knot of revulsion growing in the stomach at the twisted portrayal of the Army that was shoved down our throats in Accused (BBC1).
This was drama, posing as reality, that got the blood boiling but not in the way I’d anticipated. If you were looking for a target market for a story about bullying and brutality in the military, an exposé of a world where pocket dictators get their rocks off victimising vulnerable squaddies, then I’d be it. But writer Jimmy McGovern’s story was so ludicrously one-sided you couldn’t believe a word of it.

Below the fold, reaction from the Army Rumour Service forum. Language warning. [Read More…]

So far…..I’ve seen more sympathetic portrayals of the SS.
It’s toss in every single way.

A load of crap,,,side issue where do they get them fu*kin berets”

£145 A YEAR extorted by the threat of prison or fines to fund the BBC which can produce such slanted and biased programmes and passes them off as for entertainment. On Sunday morning they did such a tremendous job then kick every serviceman in the teeth with what can only be described as s**t

Can I have the last hour of my fcuking life back? Christ that was shat for a drama. Fcuking quality for an RSM hernia session. Love the heli landing pads on everyone’s napper. Where can i get one? Stroll on what a pile of gash. McGovern…..what a useless fecker. WHich spastic directed it? Can no one direct a drama about squaddies & get it right? Its not like the reference material is unavailable.

I switched over after three minutes, just as I saw the first set of dessies and the fuckin’ beret. Second half of Sunderland v Everton wasn’t half bad.

Forget the whole everyone in the army is a cnut etc. What was most terrible about it was the level of writing. A primary school kid could do better. “This is a monkey he puts good soldiers in jail”. Cringeworthy even if i had no knowledge of the armed forces, even if i did think they were all baby eaters i would still be watching that thinking what fucking spastic wrote this

No point in getting outraged,what else did you expect from the B.B.C.?Did you expect fairness?Honesty?We’re all old enough to know better,if the B.B.C.can stiff anyone or thing even perceived as being British,patriotic,or faintly right wing they’ll do it.As far as the B.B.C.are concerned,the world is pink to red.

thought the whole thing was a bag of tosh except the high quality beret shaping.

“the monkey was rat arsed sarge. cpl buckley had to restrain him. thats how he came across his injuries sarge…” with dialogue like that the beeb must have knew they were on a winner. cant think of a worse actor to play a soldier than mckenzie crook. he’s looks like a litgtle weasel at the best of times but its even worse when hes in a uniform

i think even soldier soldier was better than this crap

Just watched the programme and TBH JM who is capable of a lot better has let himself and everyone else down ..it was dreadful

I want to join that army so I can ponce about tents all day with a dodgy goatee beard.

What a load of old tosh. I don’t know what was harder to believe the RMP travelling without a wpn, helmet or Body Armour or the fact he got filled in by Gareth from the office.
Further incredulation when the father decided to pull the body out of the coffin and go all CSI on the sitting room table.

Thought it was ok until about 3 minutes in when they were given the option of ‘go to prison or join the army’
Because we all know thats why everyone joins…

Whoever within Auntie approved this series should be ashamed and embarrassed to have this sub-standard material aired at all!

There’s a bunch of people for whom it’s an article of faith that the Army is somewhere between the films ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘The Hill’. Those in their 50s also watched ‘Apocalypse Now’ and have managed to work that into their stereotype. They believe we are all violent, racist, bullying half-wits who had to join the Army rather than go to prison, and that our officers are universally chinless public-school types who only work the odd hour in between hunting, fishing and shooting expeditions. These stereotypes have developed through conversations at middle class dinner parties over decades, and they’re not about to change in a hurry. So it doesn’t matter how much we complain about wholescale inaccuracy or hold up ‘Values and Standards’, because they know they’re right, and the exceptions only prove the rule.

There’s no point in trying to change their minds, because it isn’t going to happen. So perhaps we should just let them continue living in their Alice in Wonderland world, and get on with what we do. They don’t really affect us apart from writing/broadcasting rather silly and mildly offensive TV programmes every now and again, so we could just ignore them without it leading to the end of the world.

I saw 10 minutes of this programme and turned over because it was crap. I think the only people who will have watched it and believed it aren’t going to change their views, but don’t actually matter, anyway. Wheeling out the outrage bus only encourages them to imagine there must be smoke behind fire. To coin a phrase ‘leave them, mate – they’re not worth it’.

There is a complaints section on the BBC website.
Go for it!

Do any of you think that the BBC will give a flying fuck about your opinion?

That last observation is spot on judging by Jana Bennett’s response on Today this morning.

UPDATE 13.30. Here’s the Telegraph’s David Hughes on Bennett’s “embarrassing” effort on the Today programme. (£517,000!)

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Just Another Brick in the Wall

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Anyone who heard BBC radio 4 and BBC World Service news this morning might have been surprised, and perhaps dismayed, to hear the headline, broadcast several times over in ominous tones, that Israel is about to construct a new ‘hi-tech’ wall on its border with Egypt. Someone in the BBC headline department evidently thought it would make an interesting headline.

The listener, probably cross at still being stranded atop the Clapham omnibus, might assume this was a continuation of what he likes to think of as the expansionist separation wall. “Apartheid Israel is at it again.” he may think, irritably.

Obviously there are walls and barriers to prevent illegal immigration all over the world, but these rarely make headlines. As it happens, even this particular one is nothing new. Not even to the BBC, who reported it at the planning stage in February 2008.

At first it seemed that the BBC wasn’t going to flesh out the headline at all, but by mid-morning they did indeed put something on the website, although other, perhaps more impartial, news agencies have been both more forthcoming and more contemporaneous. Al Jazeera for instance, explained in January this year:

“Thousands of African and other migrants have come to Israel through its desert border with Egypt over the last few years, fleeing conflict back home or searching for a better life in Israel. The PM added that while his country would continue to accept refugees from conflict zones, “we cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens”.

also, here:

”But this new fence is ostensibly different to the others. The Israel-Egypt border has become a major transit route for economic migrants, asylum-seekers and drug smugglers, and some estimates suggest that over 1,000 people are crossing the border into Israel every month.”

When I thought they weren’t going to reveal the story at all, I might have written: “on the off-chance that someone’s curiosity had been aroused by the emotive headline, the BBC could have been more expansive” which is another way of saying that if they are going to make suggestive announcements about Israel’s ‘walls’, they must also explain precisely why they’re erecting the wretched things.
But now that some context has been provided for anyone who cares to search for it, I can still point out that there is one awkward bit of explaining left for them to do
Why, when Israel is such a cruel, racist and brutal state, do people go to such lengths to get there?

P.S. Who, I wonder, was the genius that scheduled the BBC 1 Panorama about Saudi-inspired education in UK faith schools against the C4 Dispatches programme about Islamic terrorism in Islamabad?

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IS THE BBC RACIST?

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Oh how sweet! From the Irish Independent today...

“The BBC’s Newsnight programme has been accused of “racist” stereotyping over a bulletin about Britain’s role in the international bail-out for Ireland.

Viewers complained that scenes depicting a cut-out of British Chancellor George Osborne dancing across sepia images of the Irish countryside were offensive. Comments by Mr Osborne about supporting the country through its financial crisis also flashed on the screen in a Celtic font to the sound of traditional Irish music. The report, aired on Thursday night â days before the Government gave in to EU demands to accept a multibillion euro bail-out â ended with a shot outside a shebeen house. Message boards and social networking site were awash with angry comments condemning the coverage as âbad tasteâ and âcondescendingâ. One viewer wrote on Twitter: “What did we think of the Newsnight Oirish shebeeney leprechauny [sic] graphics?… I personally fainted.” Another added: Another simplistic Oirish piece on Newsnight. I mean we’re screwed and we deserve ridicule but spare me the trad music, jigs & condescension.”

Others attacked the current affairs programme after the story was reported on news websites alongside a YouTube clip of the bulletin. One reader railed: Are you joking me? —— racist pigs! That was very deliberately done and meant to insult! The BBC said it was investigating whether any official complaints had been made about the programme.

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SAVE THE EURO!

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Don’t know if you caught the blatant Euro propagandising the BBC has been up to here. All of a sudden, wee Georgie Osborne is a BBC hero, much loved, because he said that the UK wants to see the Euro saved. Funny old world, isn’t it? And what about those evil Euro-sceptics who take advantage of the Irish meltdown to point out the folly of EMU? How very dare they…

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CARBON PUFF

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What turns my stomach completely about BBC reporting of so-called climate change is that reporters systematically ignore the key issues such as that the rise in fuel prices demanded by eco freaks is causing massive hardship. Meanwhile Richard Black goes on reporting the frenzied but trivial outpourings of the world global warming industry scam – those thousands of “scientists” engaged in alarmist frenzy that are paid by governments, multi-nationals and tranzis to jack up hysteria and pump out lies. Today he is focusing on the fears of the Global Carbon Project that even thought we have had a recession, CO2 emissions have only gone down by “peanuts” (such is the eloquence of these brilliant minds). And as Cancun approaches, he naturally ramps up the solemn GCP prediction on that the “carbon” rise is about to start again (according to the models) condemining us all to certain and imminent blistering, heat exhaustion and, of course, death. Mr Black also blatantly misreports the main point of his story; India and China do not give a stuff about CO2 emissions (which rose by an average of a healthy 7% or so) and are getting on with their main tasks of generating wealth and economic expansion. The horror of Black’s reporting is that he wilfully ignores the elephant in the room: the only way out of poverty is through cheap electricity and power. What the greenies want is the reverse.

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THE TWO FACES OF MARR…

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Interesting to contrast Andrew Marr’s style of interviewing Ed Balls (Soft) and Michael Gove (harsh)on his programme this morning. Good for Gove for describing Marr’s mindset as “North Korean!” Best moment of the morning! Gove is spot on, of course, if somewhat unfair to the Dear Leader.The BBC would not be out of place in North Korea with its totalitarian mindset. It IS an anachronism here in the UK.

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BBC OFFENSIVE TO THOSE WHO SERVE….

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I think it is all too evident that the BBC has an anti-military pro pacifist agenda which informs much of its output. Now read on…

The head of the British army has complained to the BBC about a drama showing bullying among troops in Afghanistan, calling it “deeply offensive to all those serving”. Sir Peter Wall has written to BBC director general Mark Thompson about the programme, Accused, said the MoD. The episode features a corporal who bullies two friends who join the Army, one of whom goes on to commit suicide. The BBC said it was in no way an attempt to denigrate the Army.

Through the BBC prism, our Armed Forces are a great evil and so it is not in the least surprising that bias flows through such output as that highlighted by Sir Peter.

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