The BBC is salivating at the tension created by the vote on Tuition Fees that comes later today. Listen to Nick “Mr Impartial” Robinson fantasising about how there might yet be a revolution in the Commons to stop the vote going through. I find it entertaining that the BBC consistently ignores the fact that it was Labour that introduced Tuition Fees, that is was Labour that opened up the floodgates of students tumbling into University so creating an inevitable funding crisis, and that it is Labour that now preens as gross hypocrites. But no debate on that.
COALITION WARS
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Oddly, I can’t seem to find reference to the fact that the NUS suggested reducing help for poorer students to avoid fees in the BBC’s article on the fees vote. You’d have thought that, as its front page of the Telegraph, the Toady programme would have heard about it.
The number of students now attending university is the classic elephant in the room, isn’t it. The necessity of so many people going to university is rarely questioned, and never taken seriously. Yet there is no doubt that the country simply cannot afford to pay for all those students, with the result that the students themselves, or their families must.
We are at the stage where employers look for university qualifications when it simply isn’t necessary, just because so many students have got these unnecessary qualifications. And so youngsters feel they must get these unnecessaty qualifications to get a job. It’s a vicious circle that needs to be broken.
Perhaps the answer is to discourage employers looking for unecessary qualifications by making them pay for the courses that they think their prospective employees need. It might concentrate minds.
Good point. Funny how there’s a very relevant situation in higher education in the US, yet the BBC isn’t interested at all. It doesn’t add to that “rapport” they want to create for you, and would only get in the way of the Narrative they want to push about higher education.
Yet there is no doubt that the country simply cannot afford to pay for all those students
==================
I well remember Tony Blair plainly saying exactly that when explaining his funding policy some years ago.
Yes, it is plain as a pikestaff that the country cannot afford to have 50% of people going to university – and on no basis can as many as 50% be worth a full-time university education if proper standards are to be maintained.
I have a blunt answer to the issue. Keep the universities for practical subjects like science, maths, engineering, computing, medicine etc. And keep the Coalition policy of special support towards the fees for such subjects.
For the rest – the “humanities” – there needs to be a severe scaling down of departments, including closing many of them. Those who wish to study the humanities but cannot get a full-time place at a university can resort to distance-learning. For instance – an Open University humanities degree is perfectly practicable in 5 years, and if anything is more rigorous than many of the courses run by universities because the course content – the texts – are designed by panels of experts rather than being left to individual, often sloppy lecturers.
The opportunity would still be there for up to 50% of young people to aim for degrees.
Everyone talks about the 80% cut in spending on Universities but no one talks about the cost of a course. I can’t believe that the government are cutting that much public money and decimating the higher education structure if that money wasn’t surplus.
We know that Labour believed money solved everything, did they pump too much money into the University system and the Coalition are now redirecting that money elsewhere.
I have no problem with the students being asked to fund higher education in full (well nearly in full), it is a question of what spending you think deserves to be prioritised and what does not, but there is a good case that such a dramatic change in policy should have been indicated before the election so an informed choice could be made. This was something that deserved full and reasonable debate instead of shoddily hiding it.
In fact Labour (who actually brought in tuition fees in the first place)and the Conservatives (who indicated none of this in advance whatsoever) said nothing and the Liberal Democrats said exactly the opposite, all knowing full well draconian cuts would be descending one way or the other.
The lack of comment beforehand by the major parties is a cause of annoyance.
The direct lying by the party that made it its number one plank of policy (well perhaps second to PR) has been a cause of outrage.
Strangely enough of course nearly all the politicians attended university, and did so with no tuition fees at all.
So of course did all the main players at the bBC.
In fact so did most of you posting here (including me).
Don’t do as I do, do as I tell you is king.
We need to explain to the students of today and tomorrow why they should not have the benefits we experienced. there may be perfectly plausible reasons but no-one of any political persuasion is making them. If you don’t think that will cause anger and resentment your political antennae is way off.
But rather than exposing the real issues of priorities of spending and lack of election clarity, the bBC goes off on one of its rentalefty rants about the whole thing, delighting in the political turmoil rather than reporting the issues and misses the target altogether.
Left School at 16. Paid for an Apprentiship from my own money when I was 30.
I doubt the ‘most of you bit’ applies.
I have just been listening to Jeremy Vine on student tuition fees whilst in the car. I could have switched off and saved myself the predictability. The discussion seemed to be around whether it was right to send 14 year olds on the marches with no mention of whether any students including the 14 year olds understood that the money has all gone. The country cannot afford to pay for all these young people to go to university. Nobody was asked who should pay for these students courses.
Of course the BBC thinks that a government can (like Gordon???) magic money out of thin air. If the BBC workers understood that all government money has to come from tax taken from people who work then they might better undestand some of the difficult things that have to be done to sort out the £4.6 trillion that this country owes..
Some or even most of us here no doubt went to university but it is not the case that most people who were our contemporaries in the general population did. Looking back, very few people actually went to university. From my school, it was precisely 1.5% of the school’s population. Of the small number who went on to A Levels, about half went to teaching training colleges or professions such as nursing which required three-year training and qualification but did not involve university. Now both teaching and nursing are university degree professions. Most people quit school at the O Level stage and went into a variety of office-type jobs, whether in the government / local government or commercial sectors where a number of career options for further qualifications at various levels were available to them.
I listened to Radio 5 doing yet another phone in slagging off the coalition today (I’ve lost count now). Clearly the leftists, the BBC, SWP and Guardian see the Lib Dems as the weak link. Target them and you can break the coalition.
We know Clegg opposed tuition fees, so what? Bliar dumped tution fees on the English with the help of Scottish Liebour MPs, yet the BBC ignore that.
On of the callers this morning (apart from the usual unemployed scousers sneering “eeevvvill Tories” down the phone line was some halfwith with a degree in Social Studies who was moaning that “his was one of the useless degrees” but that somehow people like him are needed.
Needed for what? Wankers like Bliar and the mong were throwing jobs around for dross like this in the public sector for 13 years, filling up 50K+ Guaridan reader jobs doing nothing useless.
None of the dross radio 5 have on ever seem to be studying engineering for example, I wonder why?
What makes me despair is how thick many of these students really are, the best and the brightest? I think not.
I didn’t go to university, but I went to college day release for 4 years, most engineers that I know did the same thing. One of my friends went to university on day release and ended up working for Airbus.
This idea that you MUST go to university when you leave school is nonsense, vocational training often paid for in part by companies is of far more value than a degree in Social Studies.
Again thought this argument is about ideology, it’s hating the Tories and wanting the Tories out, it’s not really about education or how we pay for it.
The ‘top of the hour’, er, ‘news’, at least on Radio 2, is a continual eye-opener as to the extent and shamelessness the BBC is prepared to go as both PR agency and free medium to the near exclusive benefit of just one political entity.
Earlier today I was treated to yet another Tory-free zone (no surprise there) with the massively one-sided and factually poorly considered weighing in on the LibDem part of the coalition, which frankly every MSM teleprompter reader worth her peroxide treatment is banging on about.
But at least even SKY managed to interview a few of the guys under the hammer and put their side.
The BBC merely paused at the end of its economically-illiterate trash job long enough to fire up a fanfare, and then I was treated to Emperor of all the Hypocricies, Miliband the ‘E, mumbling away his latest ‘message’… from the country… to the country, and of course Lib Dem MPs, broadcast the length of the land, free and unfettered by any objective interference.
In what screwed up democratic system does the sharing of messages get skewed in such a way?
Why is the TUC boss being interviewed about the student violence over tuition fees? The Beeboid have him a half-hearted devil’s advocate defense of the Government’s scheme (“Nobody will have to pay until they earn at least 21 thousand pounds. What’s wrong with that?”), and off he went. Now he’s getting free, unchallenged air time to pimp the TUC’s major demonstration next year against “all the cuts”, which, as always, “will hit the poorest hardest”, etc.
This is class war and partisan nonsense, nothing to do with the values of a university education. The BBC just doesn’t care, though.
So Laura Kuenssberg is an economics expert now and is allowed to give her opinion? When challenging Hague’s true statement that, because of the £21K line in the Coalition’s scheme, someone earning £15K will be better off than under the current Labour-invented plan with the retort that, “By the time this scheme comes into effect, £21 thousand will be the same as £18 thousand.” She said there’s basically no difference because of some imaginary inflation she predicts happening in the next couple of years. What biased drivel. Every factual statement Hague made was dismissed with prejudice.
She attacked and attacked, trying to tell Hague that the scheme would discourage poor people in his (cue choir FX) “constituency in the North of England” from going to university, and would he then admit it was a failure.
And the level (initially £21 000) is set to go up in line with earnings. She must have forgotten to mention that. Or perhaps she didn’t know or care.
Haven’t heard the interview, but didn’t Hague point these errors out? It doesn’t say much for his command of the subject, or the Tories in general, if he couldn’t even do that.
Laura K didn’t care about the way people who earned more money would pay more. All she was interested in was focusing on the class war end of it. She sounded more like one of the “students” than someone trying to be fair but challenging.
Hague tried to make his case, but Laura K kept challenging it with her hyperbole. He’d try again, and she’d start pressing about how he will be preventing poor Northern chidlren from going to university. He just ignored her inflation prediction and tried to explain what would really happen. He did get his points over the air waves, but Laura K’s attacks were ridiculously partisan, and basically denied everything he was saying.
It wasn’t an argument, it was just contradiction.
Why isn’t Beeboid Phil, who is at the police line of the protest, reporting that these “students” keep hitting the cops with sticks and their fists and some other blunt objects? He mentions that they’re throwing the sticks, but I’m seeing plenty of them actual swinging them and hitting cops repeatedly. It’s more violent than firecrackers and throwing paint balls, and this guy isn’t telling.
Ah, finally the BBC is at least mentioning snooker balls and a bit more violence from the “students”. I’m sure it’s all the fault of the police, though. The BBC did say the students are only really angry about the horses.
Yes and on SKY NEWS they were reporting that the Police have asked for the TV cameras to film the violence against them by the students, clearly the Police have been unimpressed with some of the coverage, well we know Sky cover the student violence as I pointed out above, so I wonder which news network the Police might mean?
It does seem…odd… that the national broadcaster, uniquely given the capacity to reach every person in the land with whatever message they choose, seems to manage quite such a level of most definitely not impartial rabble rousing at every turn, all the time… with impunity.
Rational discourse on this topic has long been subsumed under an orgy of righteous ratings frenzy with no passionate protagonists knowing what they actually want, or can reasonably expect; and now reacting only in ways that let them show they simply don’t like various other tribes.
That this is whipped up by the media, and in a most egregious sense (by being so blatant in they way it is ‘shaping the narrative’ with what is, and is not shared) by the BBC, is the height of irresponsible broadcasting.
Folk are going to get hurt as the mob loses control, and the mob has been brought beyond rationality in no small measure by the near zero balance of argument being presented.
The BBC is, simply, out of control, run by a gaggle of student anarchists and nihilists itself, it seems. And much that is spiralling out of control is at their door.
And yet, for some barking reason, I am required to cofund it in its ongoing scorched earth policies with this country’s future, as far as I can make out based on the odd ‘dream’ that the sooner Ed and Labour are back in, no longer-existent money will ensure honey and virgins can magically start to flow again.
BBCNewsnight BBC Newsnight “There is a lot of anger amongst protesters”, read Paul Mason blog from #parliamentsquare http://bbc.in/eli2tY
Really Paul? Is justifiable, righteous anger? The perfect anger that can only burn in the souls of the pure, the oppressed and the wronged? The kind that feeds the prejudices and agendas of some? Is it pervasive? Is it.. ‘now’? Is every one of these angry innocents fully conversant with the issues faced, and the consequences of various commitments and actions committed to in the heat of the moment? Are they, Paul?
Or… have the media just hooked up with a bunch of SWP twitter chums and decided to project the nihilistic niche views of a sad minority on the whole shebang, just to stir things up with rhetoric that can be designed to do no more or less than inflame a bunch of easily led juveniles with the misguided notion that… if the voice of the country is with them, then nothing is too extreme.
No. Actually, not at all, when I read the actual full blog text. Relatively balanced in many ways. But the thing is Paul, we live in an iPod tweet text, topline summary age, and I’m pretty certain that a large % only read the headline and reacted, rather than the whole piece and reflected.
That… is the danger of 24/7 news editorial designed for social media. That tweet line above is not reflected.. at all, in the piece it links to: ‘Police at times struggle to contain protesters’
And I am now more than vexed myself at the dangerous games some are playing with the power they don’t deserve, messing with those they have no right to seek control over. For shame.
On the World At One the always-impartial Norman Smith commented that despite various Lib Dem, nationalist and unionist MPs voting against the rises, the numbers were “remorselessly” in favour of the Coalition.
There are two points worth raising here, if only to keep them within sight of those here who are perhaps more motivated than the BBC to try to avoid their loss down the memory hole.
Tuition fees were introduced by a Labour government in blatent and cynical breach of a manifesto promise, and they were a majority government who didn’t have to compromise in the way coalitions have to.
The architect of the “50% to university” was Blair; never forget Blair himself went to university where he obtained a vocational degree (law) but then (as far as I am aware) he never actually practised law. He certainly started his political career very soon after completing his pupilage. He certainly never gave any indication of understanding the difference between learning to do a job (always, without exception, done on the job) and learning the background or foundation which can sometimes best be done in the classroom.
Where were the protests back then? I haven’t heard a Beeboid ask that question.
There’s an awful lot of crap on the BBc’s live text. The BBC’s Mike Sergeant saying that the police’s tactics will be likely to be seen as “controversial” (while the news ticker tells us that a policeman has sustained a serious enck injury) and they put up a text from someone saying that the protestors are some of our finest students who have worked hard at school being charged by fully grown men on horses (while the live shots on the screen shows the usual Socialist Worker rent-a-mob banners).
I don’t buy that line at all.
If you wanted to say that far too many go to university, that we can’t afford it and it is not desireable than it could have been put forward in the manifesto to that effect.
A very reasonable position to take.
Though making the middle classes take on one of the biggest stealth tax rises in history due to this action (which is what will happen) may have aroused considerable debate within the Conservative party itself.
But a proper debate could have followed.
And there could have been no justifiable protests if you were elected on that basis and followed it through.
But the politicians of all parties lied and deceived instead.
How is that acceptable?
And how do you not expect direct action as a reaction to people that were denied a democratic option on the issue.
Please don’t tell me the Cons didn’t realise how serious the financial position was, that is an absurd lie, this was always the plan.
Please don’t try to tell me the Fib Dems weren’t already contemplating this move, in conjunction with a coalition, we already know now they were openly lying in their election campaign with malice aforethought.
And don’t tell me Liebour would have been any better, they brought in tuition fees following a lie in the first place, and they have only now changed their tune for cheap political advantage.
And the bBC reaction, a good analysis of the above, a reporting of facts? No they would rather go off on one of it causing political mayhem and agitiation on the streets, and they have been given a godsend to do exactly that.
This is but a minor issue.
We have been denied a “democratic option| on really serious matters.
The ceding of our sovereignity to an unelected EU dictatorship for one and the imposition of a multi cultural society without consent for another.
Students- spoilt children playing games cheered on by useful idiots.
Oops, Mike Seargent found some ethnically pleasing “Asian” student protesters. The female student clearly didn’t understand the policy at all, as when Seargent told her that nobody would have to pay until they made more than 21 grand, her riposte was, “But maybe some people want to do an art course,” and won’t earn that much money. Clearly not grasping simple concepts, but she wants you to pay for her education anyway. Not even a gentle correction from the Beeboid.
When the second student was asked why he was there today, he replied in a thick foreign accent that he came to the UK to get a free education and can’t afford to pay fees. Doh!
The third student wisely shifted the debate back to whether or not the government should provide free education for all.
Yes, geniuses deserving of your money.
I’m listening to Ms. Edie Mair on Radio 4’s PM programme as they cover the vote about student fees: She is almost wetting her knickers as she anticipates the vote going against the coalition. Will Ms. Mair be able to claim panty liners on her expenses?
LOL. Are you sure you are in the right forum? There must be underwear fetishist sites that would cater for your particular interest.
Dear Millie Tant, I can assure you I defiantly know an anticipatory knicker wetter when I hear one and Ms. Edie Mair, now residing at PM, Radio 4, (though formerly of Radio Scotland where I first learned of her proclivities, having to listen to the whining, whingeing and gurning bitch every single day here in Scotland, until the same Ms. Edie Mair took a trip to London, then picked up the same extraordinary whining, whingeing, moaning and gurning habits of the McNaughties *AND* the rest of the overpaid, underworked, snidy, sneering, nose-looking-downing, cosmopolitan attitude of the whole rest of the cursed bunch, *WELL* let me tell you this, lass! *LET ME JUST TELL YOU THIS*
THEY ARE ALL SCUM! EVERY SINGLE ONE O’ ‘EM, including your very dear Ms EDIE MAIR. In fact, I suspect she is scummier than all o’ the rest of them, for *SHE* is still trying to get tae London on a regular basis, IS SHE NO’?
Well, answer me then, hen, no?
Have you been on the whisky again, old boy?
You have been torking to my ex-wife!
Oh dear! They have just told Ms. Edie there are no real signs of an upset. How will she cope?
Ooooooh! Ms. Edie has just asked “which way will they jump” !!!??? How saucy can she get?
Ms Edie: “So it passes!” Someone tells him a government majority of only 21 which is much smaller than a possible majority 0f 40+ !!!
Oh, the sadness!
Oh, the disappointment!
There’ll be no corridors strewn with empty champagne bottle tonight in Broadcasting House.
But still …
“Just how damaging is this to the LibDems & the coalition??? “”
You can’t keep a good gal down!
Yet another moron student who thinks 4 X 9000 = 40,000.
Ah the English education system for you, once the envy of the world, now the joke.
Some Labour MP actually said four years of 9K would add up to “more than 40 thousand” earlier today. In Parliament, no less.
I honestly don’t know what sort of MPs we have these days. Recently, I think it was the Politics Show that went to Westminster and asked a number of MPs what they thought the amount of the national debt or the budget deficit was – I can’t remember which it was. Almost none of them had any idea!
Still listening to the Edie Mair show on R4 (is this show any relation to that Oprah show in the US?)
Dear Old Nick has just come along with words of encouragement for poor Ms. Edie, it goes along the lines of:
“Up the Rebels!” According to Nick, “once a rebel, always a rebel”, and it can only get worse (for the coalition) from here on in.
[He kissed Ms. Edie’s fevered brow as he left the studio and returned to the Westminster bars for more subsidised sustenance.]
Robinson gave a similar contribution to the News Channel a while ago. For the BBC’s poltical editor, “analysis” equals “anything could happen, who knows?”
Seriously folks, and I mean that most sincerely, how come the BBC can only find those who are AGAINST the coalition? At “3 minutes to 6” and “across to the weather”, I never heard the opposing view. (If they were ever interviewed, I may have been refilling my glass in the still room or the butler’s pantry at the time, but we do have an extension speaker in there for the staff.)
The BBC at last found a couple of students who support the new scheme and say it’s better than what Labour left you with. The first student was more articulate than just about any Coalition voice I’ve heard so far. He spoke immediately after a female student sitting next to him who said that it was all horribly unfair, etc.
So the Beeboid then turned to the third student (male) and gave him a leading question asking if he thought people would not be better off under the new scheme. Unfortunately, the kid actually also thought this was better than what Labour did, only he was concerned that it might appear to be “too much too soon” and would put a few people off. Not exactly against that plan at all, which is how the BBC introduced him.
In stark contrast, Tim Willcox’s interview with some student activist was the model of intelligence and impartiality. He challenged the student’s statements but it was in a sympathetic manner, trying to give the kid every chance not to sound like an idiot. A rare sight indeed.
Just seen one “student” asked “Can you tell me why you’re here?”
“No, no”
What I don’t get is why the Police just sit back and watch criminal acts get committed? might as well get rid of the Police and let the public deal with students themselves.
The Police now do this on a very regular basis. If criminal acts are commited which the Police either agree with, or shall we say, “refuse to recognise as criminal acts”?
Let me digress for a moment: On Remembrance Day, certain members of “The Religion Of Peace” committed certain actions which in my younger days would have been INSTANTLY recognised and then INSTANTLY interrupted by on duty Police Constables insisting they had just witnessed actions “likely to cause a breach of the peace.” The alleged offenders would then have been dealt with according to the law.
THESE DAYS, such laws no longer seem to apply, UNLESS an “officer of the law” [who now might be anybody at all!] seems to think a white man may have said something offensive about anybody at all.
Can anyone with knowledge of the law please tell me:
Does an offence of “likely to cause a breach of the peace” still exist? And if it does, why can’t Muslims who burn poppies and chant slogans during a 2 minute silence not be arrested/prosecuted/cautioned or whatever for breaking it?
BBC are creaming themselves. Its 1968! Its the Poll Tax Riots! Maggie Maggie Maggie Out Out Out! Media including useless police spokespersons refer to everyone as “protesters”. Anarchists smashing windows are “protesters” Freelance photographers in the thick of the violence salivating at the number of photos they might sell off the back of this. Police all have large numbered helmets (so the lawyers know who to accuse) but anarchists are all in masks smashing things up. Police are bending over backwards to be restrained to ensure they are not criticised for being “heavy handed”.Police not allowed to do anything but stand, watch, and fill in overtime claims. Police claim they have no intelligence to plan for this. Because they are all away on diversity training or on Open University Sociology study leave. Where is Theresa May? Late night hair appointment?
BBC are creaming themselves. – This is exactly the impression I got when listening to PM on R4 tonight. The disapointment of Ms. Edie Mair et al was palpable when the vote came through. I’m sure they knew there was no chance of a government defeat, but by gosh, how they wished and wished for it.
And though the boogas may be disappointed with today’s results, they are totally confident that they live to see the fight another day, and then another day and another day after that! They totally believe that they will live on to see victory on their terms even though their fees are being paid by a lot of people who have absolutely no time for them.
It’s called WIN! WIN! for the BBC! They just cannot lose!
I have a link here to help the BBC understand the new tuition fees
http://www.factsonfees.com/
Agreed it is produce by the “nasty tories”. It may or may not be gospel but please try and put the other side of the story. If it turns out the “nasty tories” have lied, you can take them to task on the publics behalf.
Watching plods today made me want to weep. What a pathetic nation we have become. What is the point of dressing plods up in riot gear if they are frightened to kick off?
During the 80’s we often dealt with the unwashed CND scum trying to get onto our base, we dealt with them with a good hard kicking, the ones we dealt with never ever came back for seconds.
Ah! Muslims rioting as well on the BBC, some retarded wanker prattling on. Why bother? just give him a suicide vest and get on with it.
I can’t believe the repeated comment on BBC News, that “The Government may have won the vote, but have lost the argument”, because of the riot.
I would have thought that those who choose to riot rather than discuss their position are the ones who have lost their argument.
Other things today, when Kuenssberg (I think) keeps repeating that the fees have gone from £3000 and benn trebled. Long pause then a quiet “at the top universities”.
Paul Mason on Newsnight having his ultimate wet dream, surrounded by lots of scrawny unwashed drugged up left wing excrement.
It is clear that Mr. Mason, the BBC-NUJ Father of the Chapel for NUJ ‘Newsnight’, is the one who sets the socialist revolutionary agenda for the programme.
He was even dressed like a scruffy twat.
I also noticed that yet again on Newsnight Mason stated that the plods used their batons at will (BBC showing a student being hit) then we see a very short clip of a Police officer on the ground, but Mason doesn’t tel us how this copper ended up on the ground.
But funnily enough the BBC still didn’t show ANY close ups of rioting student scum, yet Sky did. Why is that BBC? Perhaps some of your friends doing it?
A political antidote to BBC-NUJ ‘Newsnight’:
“Britain needs fewer students and fewer ‘universities’ ”
(by Ed West)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100067429/britain-needs-fewer-students-and-fewer-universities/
What an utter shambles, Charles and Camilla have to be taken from the Royal Variety Performance in the back of a blacked out Police Transit van like some pikey on his way to court.
What an utter shambles, yet the BBC seem to be enjoying this, I keep hearing ‘Poll tax’ every 30 seconds.
This seems to be ‘Newsnight’s political line:
“Socialist ‘Revolution’ Leader Calls on U.K. Students to ‘Fight’ as Violence Worsens”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/socialist-revolution-leader-calls-on-u-k-students-to-fight-as-violence-worsens/
Assuming these SWP fascists decide to riot again, the police need to inform the NUS that as soon as it kicks off they rioters will be hit with Water Cannon, CS Gas and maybe rubber bullets.
The funds of the NUS should be seized to pay for the damage.
Radio 5 really bigging up the violence this morning. Dame Nikki making sure that the majority of callers (the usual thick scum from Scotland and Liverpool) are supportive of the violence.
Of course this is at odds with the majority of the population AND the BBC haven’t replied to rung ME after sending in a text complaining about the BBC’s stance.
Bet if I’d been pro the violence the BBC would have been ringing me back.
Seems Mr. Robinson of the BBC, and their stances, are striking chords.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/12/they_think_its.html#P104014761
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/12/they_think_its.html#P104015601
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/12/they_think_its.html#P104016850
Certainly, when a few of ‘them’ claim to speak for, or indeed be better placed to guide ‘us’, I do wonder who verifies such claims.
“there’s a craving from the mainstream audience for a “trusted guide” to make sense of it all – they want someone to help explain what matters and what doesn’t.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/12/are_foreign_correspondents_red.html
Other than themselves.
I really do not trust Mr. Robinson’s ability, or motivations. Or the company he works for. Hence his ‘explanations’, which I and at least a few others don’t really rate despite have to pay for them, are worth diddly.
BBC-NUJ Radio 4 ‘World at One’, in its politcal paternal concern for students, gave over its (our) airwaves to a relative of student called Alfie, who was apparently hurt in demo; BBC-NUJ had no one else on. No other viewpoint. No mention of injuries inflicted by students. Totally one-sided BBC-NUJ report.
A non-BBC-NUJ report:
“England’s shame”
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/12/englands-shame.html
George R, yes, I also noticed that. Alfie’s mum was given a lot of airtime to reassure us that her brutalised son had made a miraculaous recovery (to the repeated best wishes of the presenter) and spout on about Blair Peach and the like. No mention of the injured policemen. And in the programme the police were simultanously criticised for being too heavy handed with the demonstrators and not stopping the attacks on the Prince of Wales’ car. Presumably if they had saved the Prince of Wales’ car at the expense of another Alfie that wouldn’t be acceptable to Sean Ley either.