OPEN THREAD


OK, well Heathrow Airport may not work very well but your Biased BBC open thread is fully functional, ice-free and awaiting the heat you can bring to bear on the BBC. Take aim – fire!

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83 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Jonathan Boyd Hunt says:

    The Role of the Guardian in the Wikileaks Affair.  Check out the misleading BBC report:



    (Admittedly it’s much the same as other news organisations’ reports, but it’s still misleading all the same.)

       0 likes

  2. Pounce says:

    I actually posted this on the last open thread last night, so hope you don’t mind me reposting it here, just so you become familiar with the leftwing bais of the bBCs new Middle-Eastern correospondent;
    In the process of a cup of tea before i head upstairs and while i do so I go through the news and I came across this parting shot to America from the BBC’s America correspondent Kevin Connolly whose next posting is to the Middle East. well after reading such parting gifts such as:  
    “But there is, nevertheless, a deep-seated European instinct that says the United States might be all right if it would only tweak its attitude towards healthcare, or gun control or the death penalty.”  
     
    “And America is, of course, an intensely religious place – something that is not difficult to trace to its foundation by a band of hardy religious zealots.” (And yet the bBC refers to even more polarized Muslims as conservative.  
     
    “American writing, for example, beguiles and exasperates in equal measure. Its newspapers – with one or two exceptions – are awful”  
     
    “One possible casualty might be the curious form of credit-card imperialism that has helped to shape the world in recent years.”  
     
    “And they could speed up their journeys to work by not insisting on holding every elevator for everyone who wants to catch it as though it was one of the last helicopters leaving the roof of the Saigon embassy in 1975. There will be another lift along in a minute.”  
     
    To his credit the backstabbing wanker does finish with:  
     
    “Still, for all his tireless labours and exalted musings, I bet nothing ever happened to him that explained as clearly as that five-minute conversation in an airport car park three years ago, exactly what it is like to live among those extraordinary people in that extraordinary place.”  
     
    But seeing as he moving to the Middle East you can bet your bottom dinar that Israel is not going to get any honest reporting from this leftwing twat.

       1 likes

  3. Backwoodsman says:

    The bbc – the only people to still take vince cable seriously !!!!

       1 likes

  4. Guest Who says:

    BBCBusiness BBC Business Has your Christmas been ruined by snow/travel chaos? Would you be willing to talk to us on camera? Would you be prepared to selectively blame the coalition and climate change? If so, we’re here to broadcast it all unedited Please e-mail carolyn.rice@bbc.co.uk
    *I may, just, have tweaked that a bit.

       1 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      They really should be renamed the ‘SUYV’ Broadcast Collective – ‘Send us your views’ (and if they confirm to our prejudices, whammo, out they go as top of the hour ‘news’.

         1 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      BBCBreakfast BBC Breakfast Are you having to abandon or rethink your Christmas plans? Fancy being on @bbcbreakfast tmrw? Tweet us your story! You’re a dead cert if you are a single mauvva and can work in cuts, trust us Pls RT 🙂
      *Maybe this ‘un a smidge, too

         1 likes

  5. Anonymous says:

    Hilarious Today ‘interview’ with former Chief Science Officer Sir John King this morning. Initially asked about the failure to anticipate winter, he morphed effortlessly and unimpeded into a two-part appeal a) for a ‘Hadron-collider-like’ pan-European meteorological weather, presumably at unimaginable expense; and then b) lambast the government for so-far unsighted but certainly approaching ‘cuts’ to funding of contingency projects.  

     

    So, all Today’s usual targets satisfactorily hit, all usual Today storylines reaffirmed but unfortunately no time to ask or explain why the lavishly funded Met Office (33m for a new supercomputer) keeps getting it wronger and wronger and wronger.   Still, that’s not the sort of question a former chief axe-grinder / rainmaker  for Climate Change funding ought to be asked, is it?   

       1 likes

  6. David Jones says:

    Bishop Hill has a big hit this morning. Do read it all but especially 12.13 of the interim report on UK Winter Resilience Review.

     

    12.13 In other words, we are advised to assume that the chance of a severe winter in 2010–11 is no greater (or less) than the current general probability of 1 in 20.

     

    It gives the lie to the Met Office denial of a winter forecast (which is advice given to the review).

       1 likes

    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      For the warmists, I believe the logic goes as follows:

      1. Global warming exists.

      2. There’s 6 inches of snow out there.

      3. Therefore the 6 inches of snow is caused by global warming.

      I can’t see any flaws in this logic whatsoever.

         1 likes

    • John Horne Tooke says:

      “There is no winter any more despite a cold snap before Christmas. It is nothing like years ago when I was younger. There is a real problem with spring because so much is flowering so early year to year. It’s hard to plan attractions as the marketing has to be planned. You do that relying on things happening at certain times.”

      Dr Taylor added: “Like most scientists, I’m fairly convinced that climate change is down to man’s reckless use of fossil fuels and destruction of natural habitats.

      Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/34252/Why-winter-no-longer-existsWhy-winter-no-longer-exists#ixzz18mDVfLdD

      1977: Graduated with a BSc in Botany, University of Reading
      1977: Horticultural taxonomist, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
      1985: Senior scientific officer, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
      1995: Curator, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
      http://www.hortweek.com/news/search/903050/Interview-Nigel-Taylor-curator-Royal-Botanic-Gardens-Kew/

      The problem is just saying your a scientist does not mean that you know every science. So how do these people think they are qualified to make a progonosis on the complicated mechanisms of our climate?

      Anybody fancy having their leg aputated by a botonist or would you prefer to go to an expert sugeon?

         1 likes

    • John Horne Tooke says:

      “The Global Warmingists have covered all their bases. No matter what the weather is like, it always turns out to be exactly the kind of weather we should expect if human activity were causing global temperatures to rise.

      The natural sciences have terms for that kind of hypothesis. “Unfalsifiable” is one of them. “Unscientific” is another. An idea may be true, but if it is incapable of being “falsified” or proven wrong, then whatever else that idea is, it certainly isn’t science.”

      http://www.echo-pilot.com/opinions/columnists/x2068979319/Jared-Olar-The-weather-gods-demand-a-sacrifice

      We can falsify the Law of Gravity if an apple fell from a tree and floated. If p * V did not equal a constant, Boyles Law would be wrong. But if the AGW meant it got colder, hotter,drier,wetter,more snow, less snow, more hurricanes, fewer huricanes etc ad infinitum (and at the same time). Then the theory must be true and how can anyone disagree with it?

         1 likes

  7. David Jones says:

    Wind generation over the last half an hour? 0%!

    http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

       1 likes

  8. George R says:

    TWO reports of, apparently, the same story:

    1.) ‘Telegraph’-

    “Anti-terror police arrest 12 people in nationwide raids”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8215598/Anti-terror-police-arrest-12-people-in-nationwide-raids.html

    The ‘Telegraph’ report refers:

     to some of the suspects being of ‘Bangladeshi origin’;

     to a ‘Muslim convert’;

     to islam4UK;

     to ‘holy war’;

     to ‘Muslims’ and to ‘mosques’.

    2.) INBBC ‘report’

     This journalist high-wire act attempts to simultaneously:

    (a) not mention Muslims/Islam/jihad; and

    (b) re-assure we mere infidels on the ‘terror’ threat anyway:

    “Police search homes after anti-terror raids”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12048598

    The INBBC ‘report’ mentions: ‘Bangladeshi origin’.

       1 likes

  9. Guest Who says:

    Bless. What Newsnight retweets…

    jimberriman Jim  by BBCNewsnight@ @BBCNewsnight I tuned in last night… *sad face* Didn’t realise just how much I need my daily intelligent journalism fix…!

       1 likes

  10. D B says:

    The BBC account of the arrest of pedo author Phillip Graves omits the following detail reported by the Guardian: “At a news conference, Sheriff Grady Judd of Florida’s Poke County said the book “actually provided a how-to guide to commit sexual battery against children,” with the graphic depiction of an adult having sex with underage boys.”

       1 likes

  11. Dr A says:

    Bit late on this, but the Beeboid response to the death of Brian Hanrahan was interesting. They actually LED yesterday’s 0900 Radio 4 news bulletin with this story (and ran it very prominently throughout the day on all outlets). IN other words, the death of a quasi-senior Beeboid hack (from cancer, at the age of 61) was deemed more important that a) the weather crisis, b) the probability of war in Korea and c) the unravelling of the Wilileaks story. Nothing is as important as to Beeboids as Beeboids, eh?

    Actually, it’s even worse than that.

    Now I have no opinion whatsoever on Mr Hanrahan’s legacy (he apparently came up with the Falklands line about counting the planes in and back again… which is OK but not that great) but it hardly seems commensurate with the lengthy, comprehensive and woefully sentimental valediction that followed.

    So why were we subjected to yet another Beeboid beatification? The real point  of this frenzy,  of course, was to honour not poor Mr Hanrahan, but the stinking BBC itself. Through this sentimental, meretricious and gaudy orgy of praise the stinking BBC was able to present itself as brilliant, unbiased, patriotic… and essential.

    I’m sorry for Mr Hanrahan and his family, and I can buy that he was as good or bad as the rest of the privileged and self-regarding Beeboid top table hacks… but as ever, a cunning, self-promoting strategy was the real motivation behind this story. 

    We can’t even trust these twats with obituaries!

       0 likes

    • Stuart says:

      As I said yesterday I do think Mr Hanrahan was one of the best reporters the BBC had – factual, intelligent and he communicated with respect i.e. not forthright in his opinions or anxiously dramatic.
      I have a slightly different take on the beatification (which isn’t necessary btw!) – I think the BBC are so scared of being seen to currently own a team of amateur celebrity reporters and celebrity news pundits (they call editors), that they had to make an event out of the old days. to remind themselves of the times when they were respected in this country and throughout the world for giving factual, unbiased views.
      BBC, if you really believe in beatification through high regard for Mr Hanrahan, its time to start a program of forced retirement…

         0 likes

  12. Millie Tant says:

    Good points.

    Aside from any conscious political purpose such as you describe the Beeboid Corporation is so self-regarding that it really does think it is the centre of the world. So naturally, the death of one of its own is seen as fitting for the lead item on the news bulletin and the Beeboid Corporation cannot even see that this is distorted and disproportionate.

       0 likes

  13. D B says:

    Santa’s arrived early for Paul Mason.

       0 likes

    • Dr A says:

      Lol!

         0 likes

      • London Calling says:

        Mason doesn’t get it. In the old Soviet Union you had two news organisations – Isvestia (News) and Pravda (Truth) – giving rise to the old saw, “there’s no news in Truth, and no truth in News”.
        In the BBC Britain you get neither News nor Truth. At least in the old Soviet Union you had a choice in where to get your lies from.

           0 likes

  14. Guest Who says:

    Cue re-establishing of unique St Vince love in a few, scrupulously impartial (as he is) quarters….

    AndrewSparrow AndrewSparrow “I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win” – Vince Cable on Murdoch – terrific Peston scoop http://bit.ly/faWqu2
    I may be missing things, but a ‘scoop’ these days is when a disaffected traitor gives stuff to those they feel will do most damage, right? The ‘journalistic’ aspect seems to be employed by them.

       0 likes

  15. Chuffer says:

    Can’t quite believe that I heard this on the ten O’Clock News last night – Peter Gibbs, Official Weather Muppet:

    :

    “Forecasting over decades is a science that’s very much in its infancy – an area where a lot of work is being done, because it is important, particularly these days, to be able to plan around that sort of period. But at the moment the science just isn’t up to saying whether this [the cold weather] is likely to repeat over the next few years.”

    One assumes he was taken down to the basement and shot for such heresy.

       0 likes

  16. Pounce says:

    The bBC, the quality of it’s reporting from Israel and half the story.  
    Israeli air strike on Gaza as tensions rise  
    Israeli jets have carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip, injuring at least two Palestinian militants, doctors say…..BBC Gaza correspondent, Jon Donnison, says there has been a recent rise in tension along the Gaza-Israel border in recent weeks.  

    Israel says its latest air strikes targeted tunnels, a Hamas training centre and a weapons factory in Gaza. The rockets fired by Palestinian militant groups into Israel rarely cause injury or damage, but they do cause widespread fear.They are not fired by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza, but by smaller militant groups. Nevertheless Israel says Hamas is responsible because it controls the territory.   
     
    The Israeli military says the air strikes were in retaliation for the firing of 13 rockets and mortars at Israel this week.  

    This week Israel announced it was upgrading its tank force along the Gaza border.  
     

    So reading the above whom would you blame for the rise in tensions? Well seeing as the rockets rarely cause damage or hurt anybody, they aren’t even fired by Hamas and lets be honest they have only fired 13 over this past week.  
     

       0 likes

    • Pounce says:

      Well here is what the bBC isn’t telling you. while the bBC says 13 rockets have been lobbed over this past week, if you go another week we find that over 40 rockets have been fired across the border into Israel.   
       
      Then there’s how those rockets never harm anybody, I’m sure the young girl on her way to school yesterday who was injured might have something to say on the matter. But that’s what the bBC kind of leaves out, those rockets are aimed in the direction of Schools and launched when children are on their way or going home.  
       
      Then there’s that statement about how Israel is bolstering their tank force along the border. While that comes across as overkill, Here is what the IDF actually said and why:  
      The Israel Defense Forces decided on Sunday that it will begin deploying tanks equipped with an active armor protection system known as Windbreaker to the border area along the Gaza Strip.   
       
      Further information on that story is:  
      Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi revealed on Tuesday that an anti-tank missile was fired more than two weeks ago at an Israeli tank on the Gaza border and penetrated its outer shell.  “On December 6, a Kornet rocket was fired for the first time and hit an IDF tank and penetrated its outer shell,” Ashkenazi told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, saying that the Kornet missile penetrated the tank exterior shell but failed to detonate inside it.-  The deployment will begin next month following intelligence assessments that the threat of anti-tank missile attacks in the area is on the rise.Two weeks ago an IDF tank was hit in the northern portion of the border with the Gaza Strip by an anti-tank missile. The tank was damaged but the crew was not injured.  
       
      Nice to see how by omitting salient parts of the news from the Gaza/Israel border the bBC reinvents the guilty as the victims and victims as the guilty.

         0 likes

      • Pounce says:

        Just for the Info the Kornet anti-tank missile is one of Russia’s most modern anti-tank missiles. It is capable of destroying the most modern tanks out there, Which is why Turkey bought 80 launchers and 800 missiles in 2008

        So that has me asking the question :  
        “If modern anti-tank weapons can find their way into Gaza, why can’t that so called Olympic runner manage to acquire a set of running shoe?.”

           0 likes

        • sue says:

          Pounce,
          I was writing about this while you were. Great minds.
          Maybe you could repost it, or some of it, on the thread above?

             0 likes

        • Martin says:

          Perhaps they could put some trainers in the boot of the new cars they smuggle into Gaza through the tunnels?

             0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Not to worry, I’m sure Kevin Connolly will get right on it as soon as he gets to Jerusalem next month.  Mind you, he might just blame the Israelis for deliberately placing their children in front of the rockets.

           0 likes

  17. La Cumparsita says:

    Not really on topic, but I just thought others would like to read this heartwarming seasonal item that we won’t hear about on the BBC:

    Despite the dreadful fire in the Carmel forests, the JNF and the Jerusalem municipality is continuing its annual distribution of free Christmas trees to Christians in Jerusalem.

    http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1303364/

       0 likes

  18. Martin says:

    Fucking Peston spouting shit again, he’s got a scoop….from the Telegraph.

    Poor old Vince, the BBC used to love him, now they hate him, even though they agree with him.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Having now heard contributions from the usual Beeboid suspects on this, I’m getting the distinct impression that they are royally pissed off that Cable screwed up stopping nasty Uncle Rupert from owning BSkyB.  They think he should have kept his goddamn mouth shut and just blocked nasty Uncle Rupert, and everyone could have gotten on with their lives, secure in the knowledge that the media would still be free from the forces of darkness.

      Now Cable screwed it up, and the nasty Tories can make the decision to let right-wing Unlce Rupert rule everything.  It’s absolutely hilarious, and the Beeboids are angry as hell.  They declared war on nasty Uncle Rupert ages ago, and they’ve lost an important ally.

      It’s a sign of Cameron’s weakness that Cable is still in the Government at all, though.  He shouldn’t even be allowed to be an MP after saying what he said, IMHO.

         0 likes

      • Grant says:

        David P,

        Quite agree.   Cameron is so pathetic, he doesn’t have the balls to sack the useless, stupid, Cable.  God help the UK   !!!

           0 likes

        • Martin says:

          Peston looked such a smug prick on TV though, forgotten what a wanker he was as since the Tories took over he’s been shut out of the loop (as has toenails it appears)

          What amazes me is how long it’s taken the media to wake up to the fact Cable is a tosser, when Dame Nicky Campbell was giving St Vince verbal blow jobs on Radio 5 we were pointing out Cable was full of crap.

          How the mighty have fallen, Cable looks a very broken man.

          I guess in Cabinet they need a tea boy though 🙂

             0 likes

      • Martin says:

        I agree, the BBC claim if he were sacked he’s be a lightning rod for the Lib Dems who oppose the coalition. Really? What a man who has lost all professional credibility?

        Only a real idiot in the Lib Dems would want to bring the coalition down now, they’d be wiped out in an election.

           0 likes

        • hippiepooter says:

          People without any professional credibility fare very well at the BBC and they look after their own in politics.

          It happens that I’ve got sympathy for Cable.  He said that what he was saying was “confidential”, which is the same as saying ‘off the record’ which you might think journalists, whether undercover or not, should respect.  But then he shouldn’t of been saying those things anyway, least of all to a couple of complete strangers.  His retention in the Coalition Government though has to be on a ‘better in the tent peeing out than outside peeing in basis’.

             1 likes

  19. Grant says:

    Test

       1 likes

  20. George R says:

    Where’s the disclaimer from BBC-NUJ about its oppositional reporting to Rupert Murdoch’s bid to take over B Sky B?

    As even R. Peston knows 🙁 -the following is on his blog:

    “The Telegraph has been a leading opponent of News Corporation’s attempt to acquire the whole of BSkyB. In October, the Telegraph’s chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, signed a letter – along with senior executives of the BBC, Channel 4, the Daily Mail and Trinity Mirror – asking Mr Cable to consider blocking the takeover.”

    Note how modestly Mr. Peston does not put the BBC-NUJ as first in the queue to stop the B Sky B take-over.

    Did Director-General of BBC-NUJ, M Thompson, consult with licencepayers before launching into this political opposition to the largest sharedholder of ‘Fox News’? Of course not.

    It looks like BBC-NUJ political opposition to Murdoch could be construed as pro-Soros, which BBC-NUJ is politically.

       1 likes

  21. Martin says:

    So mong Miliband gets to accuse Cameron of bad judgement in not sacking Cable, valid point, but why didn’t the BBC ask mongo why he employed Phil Woolas as a shadow Minister?

    Nope mongo gets a free slot to spout his crap on the BBC.

       1 likes

    • james1070 says:

      Cameron is right to keep Cable in Office. As a fan of the Godfather movies he must remember the line..


      Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

      Just hope that Vince doesn’t plan on taking a fishing trip.

         1 likes

  22. fred bloggs says:

    A homosexual makes an allegation, therefore the person accused is guilty.   bBC verdict by their kangaroo court principles.  Chis Bryant stated the pantomime antics with ‘hardup’ and ‘prince charming’ ; a woman dressed as a man.

    However Bryant a loud mouth exhibitionist, full of himself points the finger when called a ‘pantomime dame’.  Man who plays a part that  is loud, brash and full of themselves; seems a perfect fit. 

       1 likes

  23. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Here’s another BBC gross misrepresentation of a US news story:

    Number of Americans living in poverty ‘increases by 4m’

    The reason for the attribution is because it’s really an increase in users of food stamps, and not a specific declaration by the Census Bureau.  That’s because the Census data just released has nothing to do with economic stuff and is only about population growth and movement.  Yet, the BBC decided to take a story from CNN about increases in food stamp usage and other public services and tie it to the population story, in order to make you think this is part of the same official government statement.  In reality, economic data is released only every 5 years, and the next report isn’t due for another two.

    Michelle Fleury, one of the platoon of Beeboids reporting from the US, has gone to Poughkeepsie, NY, to demonstrate how dire things have become.  She walks the empty streets, finds one single mother on foodstamps, and speaks to one man involved in public services for the poor.  Fleury spins a dire tale, and closes by telling you that while the rich are getting richer, more and more people in the US are being left behind.

    Here’s what Fleury and the BBC don’t want you to know:

    The reason more people are on food stamps now is because most states have lowered the bar to declare someone elegible for food stamps and changed their definition of poverty.

    But it’s not just the nation’s stubbornly high unemployment rate of 9.8% that’s driving the increase in food stamp use. Some states are expanding their definitions of poverty to include more people.

    At the same time, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted annual funding to the nationwide food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, by $10 billion.

    So the increase in numbers is due at least as much to a change in rules as it might be due to a change in population or anyone’s actual circumstances.

    New Jersey’s food stamp program expanded at least in part because the state raised its poverty level in April, according to Nicole Brossoie of the state Department of Human Services. That let the state add 35,000 people to its food stamp rolls, an increase of 5%.

    Also, Brossoie said that program has been made more accessible to poverty-stricken residents.

    “Through newsletters, posters, counseling and other outreach, the stigma associated with food stamps has diminished and more individuals and families are seeking assistance,” she said.

    So in truth, more people who already needed assistance have started to get it.  Again, this does not mean that more people are suddenly in need.  It’s an entirely different story from what you get from the BBC.  But Fleury’s editor sent her to tell a specific story, so she went out and told it anyway.  No mention in her piece whatsoever of the change in law, definition of poverty, and choice to increase handouts.  So the BBC audience would have no idea whatsoever that this figure of 1 in 7 is artificially inflated.

    Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

       1 likes

  24. james1070 says:

    The BBC and the press in general is very quite about this one

    ICO forces BBC to reveal details of Capita deal

    http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1932200/ico-forces-bbc-reveal-details-capita-deal

    Looks like the BBC have been dragging their heals again.

       1 likes

  25. David Jones says:

     

    Freedom Association MP calls on bBC to apologise for attack on Norris McWhirter.

     

       1 likes

  26. Guest Who says:

    Interesting commentary…

    GeorgeMacD George MacDonald  by timdanaherPanorama tonight on growth of supermarkets sounds int. Critics seem to be drawn from central casting though – eg, H Fearnley-Whittingstall.

    Seems everyone is aware that the BBC has a pool of critics to suit their narrative.

       1 likes

  27. Guest Who says:

    Twitter is fun…

    TomHarrisMP Tom Harris To those who claim that Sky is not impartial, I’m afraid you’re wrong.
    TomHarrisMP Tom Harris @ @SimonMagus As impartial as the Beeb, yes.

    I am betting that the principle of critique of your critic is your friend won out 🙂

    Frankly I think SKY is not impartial, but a media professional saint compared to the BBC.

    And… I am not forced to pay for it.

       1 likes

  28. Ron Decline says:

    Last night’s 9 O’clock news had Roger Harrabin reporting from the USA about the increasing use of shale gas. I thought that the article was accurate and impartial until they just had to have some rent-a-quote from Friends Of The Earth telling us how evil it all is. They just couldn’t bring themselves to do a factual feature on an important resource without having to get some lefty on to get the article back on message. Predictable but annoying all the same.

       1 likes

  29. Maturecheese says:

    I Don’t want to rock the boat here but as much as I deplore the blatant propaganda that spouts from the BBC, I also am no fan of Murdocks empire either.  I actually think that no one organisation should have too much power over the media and it’s content.  Too much state power or too much corporate power, to me both are bad.

       1 likes

    • MarkE says:

      I agree both are bad, and that is one reason Mr Murdoch’s pockets are untainted by my money.  Unfortunately, the BBC’s equally bad pockets ARE tainted by my hard earned.  I know I could just refuse to pay, but if convicted I would suffer very severe professional consequences (basically, loss of income), and the disproportionate cost means I am unprepared to gamble.

      I regret the Telegraph having shot itself in the foot with this trap; one good headline for them, and a much harder to block bid for Murdoch.  Regret, but no surprise; the Telegraph is now a major fan of the current statist government (the one we have suffered under for almost 19 years, with four leaders but only one philosophy): very much in favour of the big state; of big corporations; of the collective before the individual; and wedded to the view that what is good for the state is all that matters, certainly not the individual.

         1 likes

    • Martin says:

      I don’t like the Guardian, but it still gets  a huge state handout every year to help keep it going (job adverts).

      Murdoch invested a lot of money in Sky to make it the best satellite TV delivery system in the world, left to the drug taking scum at the BBC, we’d still be watching VHF black and white TV sets whilst paying £1000 a year for the TV tax and beeboids would all be earning a million + a year.

         1 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      Agreed that too much state or corporate power over the press is bad but remember, as far as BSkyB is concerned, although Murdoch doesn’t own (yet) 100% of the share capital of the company he is already in effective control of the company.  At present the non-Murdoch majority shareholders have little effect on BSkyB’s editorial (or any other) policies.  The only time they might become active is if the profits ceased rolling in.

      Coming to the Telegraph’s treatment of its exclusive: on Today this morning someone commented that no-one knows if and when the Telegraph was going to release Cable’s “War on Murdoch” quote.  Since this kind of exclusive is usually released over a number of issues (cf the MP’s expenses revelations and Wikileaks) the Telegraph’s initial reticence might be just that (ie a delay) and not a decision to prevent something to Murdoch’s advantage into the public arena.  I’m agnostic but I wouldn’t put it past the Barclay Brothers to try and sit on this particular revelation. 

      However, it bears repeating that I don’t have to buy the Telegraph and it’s up to the Telegraph how it deals with information.  Of course the Telegraph has a point of view and (in the case of BSkyB) an agenda but – with the egregious exception of its coverage of “climate change” – the facts it publishes appear to bear some kind of relation to the whole truth of an issue and, moreover, it tends to divide coverage clearly between “news” and “editorial”. 

      The BBC, on the other hand, admits to no agenda or, indeed, any particular viewpoint.  As the evidence posted on this website (and other sites) daily, the BBC is, in reality, deeply dishonest in this regard and any facts it does release must be checked for both accuracy and comprehensiveness before being even provisionally accepted.

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      • Guest Who says:

        The BBC, on the other hand, admits to no agenda or, indeed, any particular viewpoint.’

        By the Guardian political editor…

        MichaelWhite MichaelWhite Craven handling of the Cable affair by Radio 4’s World at One. He didn’t break cabinet duty, was stitched up in private , virtually bugged

        Interestingly enough.

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        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          I don’t remember all this fuss about nasty Uncle Rupert having too much influence back when he was supporting Tony Blair in ’97.

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          • D B says:

            And again in 2001 and 2005. Murdoch Derangement Syndrome seems to really kick in only when The Sun isn’t backing Labour.

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  30. Pounce says:

    The bBC its coverage of Wiki leaks and a somewhat selective reporting;

    UK training Bangladesh ‘death squad’

    British officials in Bangladesh have confirmed Wikileaks reports that the UK is training a police force in the country accused of being a death squad. Rapid Action Battalion members have been taught “interviewing techniques” and “rules of engagement” by the UK authorities, said the leaked cables.

    The bBC goes into meltdown into how British policemen have been training Bangladeshi Death squads they bang their drum over how the US (yes the very same US which the bBC berates for its lack of human rights) concerned about human rights abuses refuses to have anything to do with the RAB other than human rights training.

    But hang on just what have the British old bill been teaching to their Bangladeshi counterparts, ketteling techniques, How to shoot drunken lawyers or how to enter a mosque without offending the natives? Actually they have been tutoring the police force of a commonwealth member the correct way in which to interview people and on the correct application of the rules of engagement. Sorry did I forget to mention that Bangladesh as a member of the commonwealth gets British help in all sorts of areas such as policing, why the bBC even teaches the people of Bangladesh how to speak English. I wonder how many death squad members learnt to communicate with their English tutors via the bBC?

    So out of nothing the bBC concoct a collusion with murder angle in which to as usual berate the British. Meanwhile another Wiki leak on how 1 in 3 muslims in British universities back killing for Islam and that 40% of them wish to see Sharia law in the UK isn’t reported at all by the bBC. Why am I not surprised.

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  31. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Now that The Obamessiah has heroicly ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, will the BBC ever mention that He’s against marriage rights for homosexuals?  Or doesn’t that help the Narrative?

    Also, He didn’t do anything here, either.  He passed the buck to Congress.  He can claim credit now, of course, because the Dem leadership sure as hell don’t want to undermine Him at the moment.

    The BBC will see this as a sign that He reigns supreme once more, all past troubles overcome and forgotten.

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  32. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Is it just me, or has the President been taking dramatic reading lessons from William Shatner?  The constant pauses at inappropriate places is very Shatneresque these days.

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  33. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Emily Maitlis celebrating His accomplishments in the lame-duck session right now.  LOL.  Perhaps she should have a word with Mark Mardell, who finds pushing through laws in this fashion unseemly.

    Note to the show pony Maitlis:  the President Himself is not a lame duck: it’s only the Congress.  For now, anyway.

    The Beeboids are ecstatic!  He has risen again!

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  34. Martin says:

    I see Red Ed is moaning that Jeremy Hunt is not fit to decide on the Murdoch Sky buy out because Hunt once spoke approvingly about Sky.

    So how then can Hunt decide on the BBC when he’s spoken so favourably about the BBC?

    Will Milimong be complaining that Hunt is too pro the BBC as well? I think not.

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  35. Martin says:

    How does the BBC have the nerve to complain about Murdoch’s bid to buy all of SKY when Murdoch started the company going from zero customers to some 10 million, NOT based on a compulsory tax but on subscription, when the BBC scum have had a free pay out for decades now?

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    • George R says:

      In this BBC-NUJ account of:

      “Murdoch and media ownership in UK”

      – the BBC presents itself as representing the (leftist) political interests of the British people!

      While BBC-NUJ’s ‘analysis’ asserts the following:

      “Fears have  also been expressed that Sky News could be turned into a right-wing, opinionated service like Fox News in the US”

      Douglas does not recognise the following about the BBC-NUJ:

      “Fears have also been expressed that BBC News has been turned into a left-wing opinionated service like CNN in the US”

      And by political sleight of hand, BBC-NUJ’s Douglas tries to equate BSkyB’s income by subscription and advertising with BBC’s income from enforced taxation (excluding other income of BBC).

      When Douglas refers to American example of Fox News, he self-censors any mention of the way the ‘liberal-left’ MSM  dominate    commercially,  and in audience numbers.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12062176

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      • Guest Who says:

        Classic BBC.

        “Fears have  also been expressed that Sky News could be turned into a right-wing, opinionated service…’

        Who are these ‘fears’ from? One suspects a small minority of editors reporters talking about each other’s rampant agenda, as the actual public don’t seem quite so exercised by these little cabals facing the prospect of their dominance of broadcast thought being less ‘unique’.

        One does note that the author has focussed on how Mr. Murdoch’s media added heft to a Tory victory way back when… but is a bit coy on when things were just fine when the BBC’s party of choice was being supported. A neat editorial trick oft deployed at our national broadcaster. Hardly professional. And lo, all of a sudden they are big fans of FoI requests. Imagine if public funds had been used to crush them?

        Oh, and has been eloquently already noted, despite their being as, if not more rampant in their bias as independents, the UK public has no choice but to fund them. And the BBC’s fiscal shenanigans seldom seem to get scrutinised as often or as in depth because they don’t seem to count as a ‘business’. One looks forward to the same obsession with BBC internal workings at SKY as the Guardian seems to have with the Daily Mail…. and the BBC has with SKY. 

        Facts Mr. Hunt seems fine with. Yet the ‘oppose anything that’s not left’ Labour Party and their in-house PR propaganda machine are still not satisfied. Whilst being pretty chilled when ‘their man’ Vince was doing their bidding. Hypocrites. 

        Not sure I like the idea of a more dominant SKY either, but the solution being more BBC bias as ‘balance’ serves no one but a corrupt, hypocritical media estate, their political puppets… and few else.

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  36. Umbongo says:

    Just one example of the way the BBC views taxpayers’ (in this case congestion charge payers’) money.  BBC “news where you are” in London last night reported on Boris’s redemption of his election pledge to do away with the congestion charge on the Western section of the Congestion Zone.

    This news – since it’s Boris’s work – was given a negative spin.  The report repeatedly asserted that this will “cost £55 million” and cause eco-mayhem.  No mention that this money is not being “given back” to drivers.  It is in fact their money and now not being given to an organ of the state.  The vox-pop comments – from eco-groups and Labour – were highly critical (the econuts threatened legal action) although Boris was allowed to say that this was one of his election pledges and that the results of the original “consultation” by Livingstone – the BBC candidate for mayor in 2012 – prior to the original creation of the western Congestion Zone were ignored.

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  37. George R says:

    For BBC-NUJ, tireless  political advocates for British people to give billions of pounds to e.g.: (a) BBC,
                                         (b) ‘foreign aid’.

     We know about the consequences of (a) above; what of (b)? :-

    “Where did Labour’s £1bn foreign aid go? There are no proper records, says scathing report”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340951/Where-did-Labours-1bn-foreign-aid-There-proper-records-says-scathing-report.html#ixzz18w4B5922

    Apparently suffering from political memory loss, the BBC-NUJ report on this does not connect it to the performance of the Labour government:

    “MPs ‘concerned’ over UK Africa aid spending”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12065113

    There is no sound case for ‘ring-fencing’ the UK’s spending on ‘foreign aid’, as worthy of special treatment, as the Coalition government still plans. There are plenty of important ‘education and development’ cases needed inside Britain.

    “Ideologues of illiteracy: The terrible damage wrought on our schools by Left-wing educationalists”

    (by Max Hastings, 6 months ago)

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296126/Ideologues-illiteracy-MAX-HASTINGS-terrible-damage-wrought-schools-Left-wing-educationalists.html#ixzz18w9EDzGp

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  38. George R says:

    INBBC under pressure to counter Muslim Mona Siddiqui’s over 100 appearances on ‘Thought for the Day’:

    “BBC secures greatest ever Thought For The Day coup: Pope to speak on Christmas Eve”

    (And allows Director General, M. Thompson, to come out of his Catholic closet.)

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340859/BBC-secures-greatest-Thought-For-The-Day-coup-Pope-speak-Christmas-Eve.html#ixzz18wZbAran

    Muslim Mona Siddiqui’s  appearances:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/religion/tftd/queryengine?attrib_1=author&oper_1=eq&val_1_1=Mona+Siddiqui&submit=Search+author

    ‘Telegraph’ (2009):
    “BBC’s appointment of Muslim as head of religion is ‘worrying’, Anglicans warn”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5594549/BBCs-appointment-of-Muslim-as-head-of-religion-is-worrying-Anglicans-warn.html

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  39. Guest Who says:

    High profile politician discovers something amazing…

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100069561/the-bbc-defends-likening-the-freedom-association-to-the-bnp/

    … the BBC gives a cynical rat’s pitootie and treats all licence fee payers who fund it, with hypocritical contempt.

    Because, unlike any other entity, including high political office, they can.

    Uniquely.

    Maybe he can ask Mr. NaughtieMarr for Ms. Boaden’s real email in their capacities as representatives of the public.

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  40. Martin says:

    Radio 5 having a right Christmas wank fest right now.

    They are playing believe it or not the Liebour leadership debate on Vicky Pollards show, I mean it was dull then and it’s duller now.

    But hang on!, oh yes it’s a change for really shouty public sector dross to call Tories ‘scum’ and shout ‘no cuts’ over and over.

    Poor old BBC, no champers this new year.

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  41. Martin says:

    Adam Brookes has just done a sob piece for the BBC news on those poor Muslims in America, you know those are the ones trying to murder Americans on a daily basis. 

    “The stings by the FBI are not fair” bleats the pale skinny rather camp looking Brookes with his Phil Shiner glasses on. Sure Adam, those nasty Americans are really unfair to Muslim scum who want to kill innocent people.

    So was the underpants bomber a ‘sting’ then? 

    Muslims need to wake up, their way of life is not compatible with western values, pure and simple, if you want to pray to a drugged up halfwit, then go back to the middle east.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I just caught this on the News Channel.  What one-sided drivel.  The reason these cases aren’t tossed out due to entrapment is because all the suspects were making jihad noises on their own before any sting operation started.  That’s why the FBI got in touch with them in the first place.  The FBI doesn’t radicalize them from scratch and then go over to their homes and introduce them to jihadi websites, FFS.  
       
      Furthermore, it’s completely biased in favor of these Mohammedans’ point of view because not once does Brookes mention a single arrest that has nothing to do with sting operations.  The guy who tried to blow up Times Square wasn’t a sting, and it wasn’t unfair targeting which caused that Army major’s superiors to look the other way while he openly favored jihad for months until he decided to murder a bunch of his colleagues.  
       
      Yet the Pope’s Thought For The Day deserves opposing viewpoints for “balance”.  Once again we see the BBC’s intellectual failure regarding Islam.

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  42. George R says:

    HISTORY.

    To politically re-enforce its leftist-only view of history, BBC-NUJ ‘Today’ gets on Marxist historian E. Hobsbawn, (and no-one else, except J. Naughtie, as his Boswell), to give his view of 2010.

     Now, it appears that there is only 3 minutes of this at ‘Today (about 8:50 am), but when you click the online link you get an extended 15 minutes’ version:

    ‘Britain can no longer play a role in the world’

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9319000/9319179.stm

    Of course, Hobsbawm talks up the historical decline of Britain as a military power, and talks up the importance of Marxism.

    His final point about the continuing relevance of the study of, and ability to articulate about history, is unobjectionable; but ‘Today’s approach is to encourage only one, a pro-Marxist school of thought.

    Hobsbawm is nowhere near recognising the need for an non-Islamophilic history of Islamic imperialism (in common with ‘Today’).

    And BBC-NUJ’s censoring of non-‘leftist’, and non-Islamic historians continues.

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  43. David Preiser (USA) says:

    So the Pope got to do his Thought For The Day today, and the BBC made the extra effort of a special article for the historic occasion.  
     
    However, they also saw fit to give space to complaints and opponents of his appearance.  We’re expected to think that the Pope is a controversial figure because of the child abuse scandals in the Church.  We hear from one opponent who says that the Pope’s appearance on the BBC is “a slap in the face” of victims of child abuse.  
     
    Now. we’re told time and time again that 9/11, 7/7 and the myriad other acts of mass murder perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam over the last decade have nothing to do with Islam and should not taint the religion or its adherents in any way.  Does the BBC give a nanosecond of thought to anyone who says that having Mona Siddqui on Thought For The Day is a slap in the face of victims of 7/7?  Of course not, because associating mass murder done in the name of Islam with the religion itself or its followers is an unapproved thought.  
     
    Yet, somehow we’re supposed to accept that all that molestation was done under the auspices of the Church, and were directly connected to the Pope.  The BBC could have done a simple news brief about his message, then done a separate piece giving voice to the complaints.  But no, at the BBC, Catholics must have their religion smeared by association.

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