OPEN THREAD…


Hi. My name is George and I’m wanting to know what the Ministry of Truth has said that is annoying you today….

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95 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. Dick the Prick says:

    Mardell’s just gushed all over Him – good grief. All Bush’s fault and the US military love Obama, they love Him. Absolutely no dissent from Democrat narrative. What is the point? Why don’t they just use recordings from the press secretary and at least we wouldn’t pay for it be able to work out their take on the nuance of domestic politics.

    I don’t pay for it so I guess I shouldn’t care too much but it’s the same when you see incompetence in the supermarket or something. phhhhuuuuu – long, resigned exhale.

       1 likes

    • Paddy says:

      What’s the odds the beeb campaign for Obama to get a guest appearance on midsommer murders to get their quota up?

         1 likes

      • Mohammed Lovespigs says:

        Exclusive to BBBC, I give you a sneak preview of the forthcoming series of Midsomer Murders:

           1 likes

      • Barry says:

        “What’s the odds the beeb campaign for Obama to get a guest appearance on midsommer murders to get their quota up?”

        As village idiot. Two boxes ticked.

           1 likes

      • Dick the Prick says:

        There is a very good reason Midsummer Murders excluded muslims – it would take away the mystery.

        Can you imagine?

        “Who’s the murderer Barnaby?”

        “Who do you think?”

           1 likes

  2. Paddy says:

    How many BBC reporters do we need in japan?
    Why were so many flown out?
    Agw can go hang for a day or to if there’s a story to twist.
    Propaganda opportunity trumps saving the planet the auntie way.

    Four full days of arts faculty science about nuclear power.
    Now apparently governments lie unlike when Gordon the gorgon was in power.

    Bbc’s coverage has been voyeuristic opportunistic and redundant. It has added nothing apart from their political spin.

    I fxxxing hate them

    Using the deaths of thousands to push their pet projects.

    Why don’t we make Caroline Lucas supreme leader She is obviously right as no on ever challenges the daft tart on anything?

    Instead of ‘nuclear power nien danke’ how’s about ‘learn some science BBC wanker’

       0 likes

    • Barry says:

      “How many BBC reporters do we need in japan? Why were so many flown out?

      Not enough and one week too late.

      Sorry, but I’m in a bad mood today.

         0 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      In truth it’s not just the BBC’s Japan coverage that has been bad.  I’d say the MSM in general has disgraced itself, particularly tabloid headlines of “millions” affected by radiation.

         0 likes

      • Asuka Langley Soryu says:

        Yup. Even ‘quality’ broadsheets like the Telegraph. ‘Nuclear leak! 10,00 feared dead!’ Blah, blah, blah. I guess journalism is dead.

           0 likes

  3. pounce_uk says:

    You know the situation in Japan is getting better when the bBC leads with:

       0 likes

    • Paddy says:

      Quality,
      Dangerous situation at japans nuclear sites so they turn to that renowned nuclear physicist ….

      Emperor Akihito

      Perhaps next time we have bird flu they can interview her madge

         0 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      I have to confess I’m flummoxed by how this means the situation’s improving by leading with this?

         0 likes

  4. Daphne Anson says:

    Jon Donnison’s video report re Palestinians clamouring for “unity” between Hamas and Fatah – Donnison (Jezza’s Apprentice) sounds almost orgasmic in his commentary, but then he usually does.
    It seems to be salivating (I suppose I’m mixing my metaphors here) at the prospect of a unified uprising against the Zionist Entity.
    Of course, the reprehensible BBC hasn’t shown the 20,000 strong crowd of mourners at the Fogel Family’s funeral – it has hardly mentioned the massacre at all.

       0 likes

  5. Sres says:

    Between nuclear hyperbole with Brighton Greenie Lucas and the calamitous midsummers story today I was shouting at the TV again this morning.  Not a great way to start the day

       0 likes

  6. Sres says:

    On another point, I fail to see any ethnic minorities in The Vicar of Dibley.  Shame on you BBC, shame.

       0 likes

    • Barry says:

      If I remember correctly, Dawn French was one of the first people to use the term “politically correct” on TV.

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Well, the boy-crazy female trendy vicar, the homosexual villager, and the fact that everyone was a Labour supporter except the nasty, rich, Conservative buffoon ticked enough boxes that there was no need to include minorities.

         0 likes

  7. Reconstruct says:

    Good moment on the Today programme, which once again suggests serious incompetence on the part of their journalists/researchers. This was the one about moving on a major  travellers’ encampment in Essex. The piece was presaged by a description of how the council was moving only now, with the presumption being that it was only because the Wicked Tories were allowing it.  Having thus framed the debate, we got to the interview. Er, no, they were moving on it now because it had finally got through the court process. Years ago, John Prescott had urged them to get on with it.  

    Barely were the words out of the interviewees mouth before the section was immediately and abruptly terminated. No further comment, no further interview. Just thanks and goodbye. 

    Now, either the framing of this piece was deliberately misleading, or the journalistic research of the piece was spectacularly barrel-scrapingly incompetent.  Indeed, I’d have thought you couldn’t get past the first paragraph of this story without being aware of the judicial background to it. How can  Today’s researchers  possibly have either missed it? Or did they just ignore it.  

    And we’ll never know which, because there’s no accountability. Frankly, if this had been a provincial paper, the news editor would have been bollocking out the idiot reporter who’d got it so wrong. With the BBC? No accountability, so no editorial standards. It’s as simple as that. 

       0 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      Prior to the interview with council leader Tony Ball and gypsy writer Damian Le Bas, we heard one of the travellers affected complaining about the decision.  We also heard….

      Actually, we heard no-one else.  Would it not have been, er, balanced to have given us the view of a local resident?  Or did they look for one, hoping they’d say what a waste of money it was and find no-one prepared to do so?

         0 likes

      • Reconstruct says:

        I give them the benefit of the doubt: they’re simply utterly rubbish and lazy journalists, not tub-thumping, knowingly-blind propagandists. But I could be wrong, of course. 

           0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘..the journalistic research of the piece was spectacularly barrel-scrapingly incompetent.  ..’

      Ahhh, but… I bet they made lots of folks nice cups of coffee, and maybe flew to Japan to take Jim Naughtie his the way he likes it. And get his ‘thoughts’.

      [sound of box being ticked] All is well in Beebworld.

         0 likes

  8. Reconstruct says:

    Aghh! That’s what really gets me. I could live with the knee-jerk leftism of the BBC if only it maintained the most basic journalistic standards. Just as one lives with Channel Four News – they’re lefties, but at least you feel they’re genuinely trying to maintain good standards of journalism. The trouble with the BBC is that their journalism is simply. . . . so rubbish.  

    And so over the Nick, Stephanie, Matt, John Simpson for their flatulent take on whatever they’ve been told to witter on about. . . 

       0 likes

  9. fred bloggs says:

    While working in the garage on tuesday 15th, I thought I would listen to the cricket on LW.  Turns out as it was not England playing; it was normal programme ‘Making History’.  As a history nut  and  as this was going to be a bBC version of history, I listened carefully. 

    One part was about the 1945 Atlee gov, oh dear I thought., especially as one of the commenter’s was from the lefty LSE.  So what impression was i LEFT with ?  Well Atlee coped well, increased taxes, established the NHS and nationalised 20%  of British industry, cuts were not mentioned and out of the mire in 3 years.

    Labour did a good job according to the LSE man.  However what the airbrush of history:  the huge loan we had to beg from the USA;  the devaluing of the pound, no cuts because we were on a wartime economy and there were no extravagances left to cut, shifting industry from wartime to a product starved world.  So a totally false view of history from the LSE, did the bBC man say anything NO; the programme should be called ‘Making (UP) history’.

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    • Guest Who says:

      Doesn’t LSE stand for ‘Laughing Stock Education’?

      Offhand, can’t think why…

      http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/3/4/lse-boss-resigns.html

         0 likes

    • Sceptical Steve says:

      I had a very similar experience listening to Richard Bacon interviewing Kirsty Young last thursday. She praised the Atlee government’s nationalisation programme without reservation. Apparently nationalisation was the only way to ensure that the country restored full employment after WW2.
      Obviously, since the interviewer was Richard Bacon, she wasn’t going to face any challenge to her myopic views, but I found myself wondering how the rest of the world managed its way to prosperity after 1945 without nationalising everything in sight. 

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      And rationing was still going for a further eight or nine years.

         0 likes

      • John Anderson says:

        I was 12 years old before I ever saw a banana.  In the early 1950s.

        Stupid “economic” Clause 4 policy led to the state running well over half the economy – badly.

        Britain had devaluation,  industrial inefficiency,  a ban on any foreign travel – and for quite a qhile a ban on buying new furniture.  Very little housebuilding even after the Blitz.  Plus corrupt Ministers.

        Yes,  the NHS and the implementation of the 1944 Education Act were very popular – even if much of it was misguided.   It is a measure of how bad the Attlee Government was that they got kicked out so soon after the 1945 rejection of ideas of pre-war Toryism.

        Gee,  Thanks Clem !

           0 likes

        • hippiepooter says:

          JH wrote:  >>It is a measure of how bad the Attlee Government was that they got kicked out so soon after the 1945 rejection of ideas of pre-war Toryism.<<

          Can’t have that JH.  While Atlee lost the ’51 election, Labour nevertheless got the biggest share of the popular vote ever, 40% if memory serves right.

             1 likes

          • Span Ows says:

            You also have to remember that Atlee and Labour WON in 1950 but with a very slim majority so called another election in 1951, which was Labour 48.8%, and the Conservatives and National Liberal’s got 48% (but more seats) turnout a whopping 89%. What a comparison for the poor showing these days.

               1 likes

    • Barry says:

      Labour engendered a lot of bad attitudes at the end of the war – it took years for the damage to be understood and now we’re paying the price.

      Japan and Germany had to rebuild (OK, I know the US helped), but we just sat back and looked at ways of achieving a level of comfort that we simply couldn’t afford. We didn’t actually win the peace.

         1 likes

      • RCE says:

        The UK got (quite a lot) more US post-war aid than any other country. The Germans and Japanese, however, used their money to build modern, dynamic manufacturing economies, whereas the UK had a Labour government that spent it on handouts and the creation of a unsustainable welfare system that subsequent generations had to pay off.

        No change there, then.  

           1 likes

  10. Rueful Red says:

    I take it they didn’t mention the Attlee government’s disastrous decision to keep building steam trains, simply because they were in hock to the boilermakers’ and miners’ unions – a decision that cost the british economy billions? No?

       1 likes

  11. DJ says:

    Let’s also remember the Atlee government’s deranged attitude to security also gifted Stalin the jet engine – that was back when the left didn’t realise they were supposed to pretend that Uncle Joe wasn’t practicing True Communism.

       1 likes

    • pounce_uk says:

      The naivety of the left never fails to amaze me, until the Uk handed (not sold, but handed over) working examples of our world class jet engines. Russia couldn’t get theirs to work. Of course that generosity came back to bite us on the bum when in 1950 Allied aircraft over Korea had to contend with the Russian Mig 17.

         1 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        pounce_uk, that is news to me (I mean it is something I didn’t know, not that I think it’s not true). It has quite worrying implications…WHY would ANY country do that? Give, what was then, a technological marvel and a fast-moving ‘weapon of mass distruction’…WHY, and to a country that was proven to be dangerous and was much bigger and stronger and with massively superior fire power….WHY? Can you post a link to something because this to me could point to something far more sinister: we know Labour MPs, Union men and UK Communist Party were in cahoots with the Soviets but this could indicate that the cancer went far deeper.

           1 likes

  12. Backwoodsman says:

    And just for consistency, farming today is still wilfully trying to manipulate the debate on controlling badgers by culling TB hotspots.   Hopeless, absolutely  agenda driven hopelessness.

       1 likes

  13. Natsman says:

    I’m beginning to think that every BBC broadcast should have a government health warning attached,something along the lines of:

    “Warning.  This programme consists largely of leftie bias, and the interviews may contain nuts”.

       1 likes

  14. Joe Toast says:

    “Naturally the BBC interviewers felt no need to challenge her on any of her eco-lunacy”

    Presumably through fear of bursting out into laughter live on air.

       1 likes

  15. George R says:

    “BBC is Blowing British Cash”

    Move along, nothing to see here!

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3470580/BBC-is-Blowing-British-Cash.html

       1 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Have to love the standard response, reflecting the ‘tell it often enough’ mindset:

      ‘I hate to see SKY’s bill of waste seeing as they charge nearly 8 times as much than the bbc.It certainly not spent on quality programmes’

      I’ll have to check my bill. This lady would do well in editorial, business, financial, enviro…

      Oh, and luv… what I pay is optional. On top of what I have no choice over. But thanks for highlighting it.
      .

         1 likes

  16. pounce_uk says:

    So here i am watching news 24 and the female presenter asks ‘Frank Gardner’ why this government isn’t pushing for a no fly zone over Bah-rain (I do love how the bBC goes native when it pronounces foreign city names you know like  Munchen,Koln  or even Wein..(Not) which are all closer to the Uk than Bah-rain, Mak-ca and Mumbi)
    Anyway even Frank Gardner saw what a stupid question that was and replied, err Bah-rain is the size of this studio.
    Gosh talk about shit for brains.

       1 likes

  17. Guest Who says:

    talk about shit for brains’

    Expensive, if market rate SFB at at least £97kpa a pop. mind.

    Was she a peroxide sink, by chance?

       1 likes

  18. George R says:

    INBBC’s John ‘Taking the Flak’ Simpson is talking here about his part in bringing down the Shah of Iran in 1979, but fails to understand the complaint of an Iranian refugee:

    [Extract]:  

    “I reported on all that” [ending of Shah’s regime in 1979] “myself, and only the other day in London, near my house, an elderly refugee from Iran started shouting at me in the street: ‘Now you see what the revolution you started has done to the whole world.'”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9421899.stm

       1 likes

  19. Paul says:

    There is a fantastic article today by Sultan Knish analysing and exposing American liberalism including Public-Service Broadcasting for the hollow sham it is.  What the Sultan says applies clearly to our own home-grown yet home-hating moonbats in government and the BBC et al. Well worth a read…

    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/03/post-american-liberal-culture.html

       1 likes

  20. Marky says:

    I caught this on CBBC.

    OK I made it up, not long now…

    Why has this sort of material (and there’s lots of it) never been seen on the BBC as a criticism of their beloved freedom loving Palestinians?

       1 likes

  21. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Just now heard Huw Edwards on the News Channel reporting that in fact nobody needs UN resolution to attack Libya because there’s a doctrine that already exists called something like “Duty to Protect” which will legally allow the UK and anyone else to go in and protect innocent people.  I would absolutely love for this to be real and to happen, because it will destroy the BBC’s editorial position that invading Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal.

       1 likes

    • Marky says:

      It could well be responsibility to protect.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect

         1 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      ‘Duty to protect’ [said country’s civilian population] wasn’t invoked for the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

      Afghanistan:  Al Qa’eda was shacked up there

      Iraq: Non compliance with UN resolutions on WMD, which made it imperative in a post 9/11 world to remove the real and present danger of Saddam Hussein.

      We dont need UN Resolutions to go to war if we perceive our security interests warrant it.  The only difference between war under a UN Resolution and not, is the former is a ‘UN War’, the other is not.

      The Left always cry ‘illegal’ these days if someone propose something they disagree with, for whatever caprice of the moment.  Their idea of utopia is where it is illegal to disagree with them and punishable by a Labour Camp or execution.

         1 likes

  22. familyjaffa says:

    I haven’t seen anyone mention this. Apologies if I missed it.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12746333

    “Israel seizes Egypt-bound ship ‘with weapons for Gaza’

    Israeli commandos have intercepted an Egypt-bound ship ISRAEL SAYS was carrying arms for militant groups in the Gaza Strip.
    The German-owned vessel – the Victoria – was on its way from Turkey to the Egyptian port of Alexandria, IT SAID.
    The Liberian-flagged vessel was chartered by a French company, the MILITARY SAID. It departed from Lattakia port in Syria to Mersin port in Turkey, from where it set off bound for Alexandria, IT SAID.
    In the past, ISRAEL HAS ACCUSED Hamas militants of shipping arms through Egypt.
    In 2009, the Israeli navy intercepted the Francop, a ship ISRAEL SAID was carrying hundreds of tonnes of arms from Iran to the Lebanese Shia Muslim movement, Hezbollah.
    In 2002, Israeli forces stormed the Karine A freighter in the Red Sea, and confiscated what THE MILITARY SAID was 50 tonnes of weaponry headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.”

    !!!!!!!!!!!

       1 likes

    • familyjaffa says:

      And naturally, no reports on the BBC of the weapons found.

      230 mortar shells, 120 mm2,270 mortar shells, 60 mm6 C-704 anti-ship missiles2 radar systems manufactured in England2 launchers2 hydraulic mounting cranes for radar system66,960  bullets for the Kalashnikov, 7.62 millimeter

      Humanitarian aid no doubt.

         1 likes

      • pounce_uk says:

        Here’s something which is been kept very low key on the above subject. It transpires that Israel asked Turkey to inspect the cargo of the victoria when it docked in Turkey after leaving Syria.  
        The Turks refused. I quote KUNA:  
        “Israel affirmed Wednesday that Turkey refused an Israeli request to intercept the “Victoria” cargo vessel which, according to Israeli sources, carried weapons being smuggled to help Palestinian activities in the Gaza Strip.According to Maariv Israeli newspaper, Israel requested Ankara to intercept the cargo vessel, a request which Turkey flatly refused.”

           1 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      With this amount of historic ‘Israel saids’ we know the BBC didn’t bother to verify the information because they knew it would be proved true and they’d have to report it as fact!

         1 likes

  23. Andrew says:

    I wondered when they were going to get to this story:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12764399

    Well actually not quite this story, but this little line buried deep in the report

    Meanwhile, doctors in Gaza said at least two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip.
    The Israeli army confirmed the attack, saying it was responding to rockets fired from Gaza.

    This story has been kicking around in the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and other sources but not a mention of it until now.  One wonders why and why when it is released it takes such small part of the report when normally they jump on this.

    Maybe looking here will reveal a clue:

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-three-killed-in-israeli-air-strike-on-gaza-1.349555

    This is not the only place the reprt has been covered but unlike the BBC this report has the following quote within it:

    Hamas officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the air strike targeted a Hamas security facility south of Gaza City. The missiles apparently struck what used to be the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, before Israel disengaged from the territory and withdrew all settlements in 2005.

    So is the reason that the Israeli response to the rocket attack was on target in a Hamas security facility?  Would it be that they couldn’t paint the Israeli’s in a negative light on this one so they toss it to the curb.  Is it also the interesting little observation that they hit a place where the settlers had been ordered to move out of – so much for apartheid and occupation as a national policy eh?  Also curious that the BBC was quite happy to paint them as ordinary Palestinians when their location would suggest otherwise along with the fact that Hamas and medical officials aren’t shouting their civillian credentials from the rooftop which is a hallmark of the usual Palestinian response if the Israeli’s hit civillians.

    Then there’s one other thing in the BBC report and it’s the line below

    Israel says militants have sent dozens of rockets into Israeli territory since the start of the year.

    “Israel says”  Are we now to deduce that rocket attacks on Israel haven’t happened or that the militants didn’t do it?

    Wow – talk about story telling

       0 likes

  24. John Horne Tooke says:

    Not BBC related (unless you count the millions given to them to support the EU).

    http://peoplespledge.org/

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  25. David Preiser (USA) says:

    So the OECD have upgraded their initial assessment of the Government’s plans for spending cuts from “substantial but necessary” to “ambitious and necessary”.  Naturally, Stephanie Flanders isn’t pleased, and twists around trying to explain why we can ignore this.

    I cannot speak for this report, but the tradition with these OECD member surveys, which the organisation carries out every 2-3 years, is that there is a lot of back and forth between the authors and the national authorities. The Treasury will almost certainly have seen and commented on numerous drafts of this report – and had plentiful chance to water down the bits they didn’t like.

    Translation:  The Tories were actually even nastier, and had to be reined back in by a bit of sanity from the OECD.  But of course, because their economists still appear to support the Government’s overall agenda, Flanders must run it down, which she does in a very curious way:

    That is what happened in the Gordon Brown Treasury – which is one reason why the OECD’s past criticisms were muted, to say the least. (The IMF was slightly better at standing up to Ed Balls.) But I doubt there was much that George Osborne’s people wanted to tone down in this report. After all, new governments are always in favour of full disclosure when it comes to the challenges and problems that the previous government left behind.

    So the OECD didn’t stand up to the nasty Tories enough to suit her, like those bastards at the IMF did to her ex-boyfriend.  Who cares where it’s right or wrong?  If they sided more with the nasty Tories than they did with Mr. Brown, then it’s no good, regardless. And even curiouser:

    You can imagine the dismay that Mr Osborne will not have felt, on reading that “despite sharply rising school spending per pupil during the last 10 years, improvements in schooling outcomes have been limited in the UK.” Or the OECD’s comment that the economic imbalances which built up under Labour “exacerbated the downturn during the global recession and contributed to a more pronounced fall in GDP, a larger fiscal deficit and higher inflation than in most of the OECD”.

    Gotta love the hint of sarcastic venom in the Douglas Adams-ish “dismay that Mr. Osborne will not have felt”.  And worse, contrary to what both of her ex-boyfriends keep saying, Labour policies actually did make things worse.  Again, the problem seems to be not that there were errors in the OECD’s judgment, but simply that they approved. So where to score points for her side?  She’ll have to kind of make them up.

    But there are some interesting nuggets in this report, some of which have direct relevance to the Budget. Here’s one line that leapt out at me:

        “Although the government has tried to focus public investment on projects with high economic returns, the large cuts in public investment are a risk to long-term growth. Channelling more resources to public investment would be warranted, as long as projects offer a viable rate of return. Efficiency-increasing fiscal measures should be in line with the existing profile of fiscal consolidation. (emphasis in original)”

    In other words, Flanders wants us to pretend that any old public investment will offer a viable rate of return. That’s why she goes on to say immediately that in fact it costs the Government basically nothing to keep on borrowing.  We’re expected to believe that maintaining rock-bottom interest rates doesn’t hurt the economy in the long run at all.  Never mind that this causes inflation and/or bubble markets which go crash. Just keep printing that damn money, and be quick about it.  Anyone who regularly reads Flanders will know that this is her consistent position in all cases.

    After this, Flanders points out the “harshest” criticism by the OECD of the current housing situation.  As if this has nothing to do with the Labour legacy and everything to do with bad Tory schemes.

    The BBC needs to stop pretending that Stephanie Flanders is an impartial analyst and just have her write policy opinion pieces marked as such.

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  26. George R says:

    UKIP’s Nigel Farage: brilliant on the E.U.’s hypocrisy on Libya and Gaddafi:


    “Nigel Farage confronts EU leaders with their hypocrisy on Libya”

    (UKIP’s Nigel Farage is on very brief video clip: not to be missed.)

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100080153/nigel-farage-confronts-eu-leaders-with-their-hypocrisy-on-libya/#

    Of course, BBC-EU will be especially confident in CENSORING out Nigel Farage’s criticism of EU, in the Patten era of Eurabia servility.









       0 likes

  27. John Anderson says:

    Some months ago it was revealed that many hundreds of liberal journalists in the US belonged to a discussion network on how to “spin the news”.  They were tagged as “Journolistas”.  Regular followers of this site will remember the analysis by Craig and others that showed that Journalistas were the regular go-to guys for the BBC if they wanted any US comment on the news.

    By contrast,  the BBC very seldom turns to non-left US commentators,  even journalists as pungent, prominent and respected as Charles Krauthammer.  Here is Charles saying why NPR and PBS should no longer suck the teat of US taxes.  As he says – why should the average-income US worker be required to subsidise people at NPR and PBS living high on the hog.  If the NPR/PBS product is so good – it can sustain itself in the marketplace.

    Every single thing Charles says applies directly to the BBC,  which is parasitical on the British public. 

    http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/03/16/krauthammer_npr_is_ministry_of_information_for_academic_left.html

       0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      …and the latter part is a telling argument about the BBC’s endless opposition to cuts in public expenditure to reduce the dangerous level of debt.

         0 likes

  28. pounce_uk says:

    Is it me, or should the bBC really be asking more questions over how foriegn nations living in the Uk are seeking Legal Aid to fight an international case where they were found guilty of cheating at Cricket.  
     
    Banned Pakistan cricketer seeks legal aid  
    One of the three Pakistan cricketers at the centre of the spot-fixing affair has applied for legal aid to fight the charges, BBC Sport understands.  

    Lawyers for the other two players are also thought to be considering applying to have the cost of their cases paid.  

    Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday.  

     

       0 likes

  29. pounce_uk says:

    I see the bBC have aired yet another pro Libyan rebel article.(whatever happened to impartial reporting) anyway in its latest report they report from the frontline in which to highlight how moral in the ranks of the rebels will prevail. Cue pretty boy reporting from the side of a T55 tank, (Yes bBC its a T55) But hang on while pretty boy explains that it seems that the rebels are finally getting their act together and questions if the T55 is up to the challenge when pitted against the T72. He leaves out one salient fact. That T55 isn’t going anywhere as it is broken down. Something about the tow rope fixed to the front. In fact its the very same T55 tank the film crew drive past seconds before pretty boy gets out to make a film clip alongside, a T55 tank. (However they made sure they closed the hatches first) and if the rebels reaaly did know what they were doing they would have dug that tank in exposing only the turret and not left it in the middle of the road.

    And back to the bBC habit of donning the ubiquitous blue body armour in which to present a more chilling setting for the prick in front of the camera. Well here’s another observation ref Body Armour from pounce. Pretty boy has decided to fit a karabiner to the loop at the front of his body armour. (People who wish to look the part, try to mirror those they look up to, in which to try and make themselves look..good.) The thing is a Krab on the front of body armour? Nah on your Webbing, Bergan maybe but not on your BA. You see anything that is fixed to the front (or back) of your BA has the potential to become a lethal weapon if caught up in an explosion or strike.
    In fact don’t take my word for it here is the official wording from the British army’s Operational Insights handbook from Helmand dated Jan 2010.
    Page 116 (Protection)
    Evidence from Incidents indicate that torches, knives and other items carried in the loops on the front of Osprey (British Issued BA) are likely to form secondary blast projectiles in the event of an explosion. Items are to be stowed away in pouches or belt kit.
    And what is it with bBC reporters who while wearing body armour don’t wear a helmet? Come on you are much more likely to survive an impact to the body than one to the head.
    As they say, All the gear, No idea.  

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    • 1327 says:

      Pounce I’m not sure anyone in Libya actually has a working tank. Every time the media visits the barracks of either side there appear to be vast numbers of BMPs , T55s and sometimes the odd T72 but none of them every appear to move.

         0 likes

  30. Guest Who says:

    I have long given up hope of any professional value from the MSM in matters of news.

    SKY I cannot give up for the US comedies, SciFi and Cop shows, but its reporting and choice of ‘guests’ and ‘experts’ has pushed me to search again for some outlet to get actual information, untainted by what the guys holding the mic, the guys setting up the shot, or the guys behind the glass think will ‘enhance the narrative’.

    The BBC is of course ratings-obsessed too, and nothing spins up the eyeballs like a good barney.

    But the agenda aspect on SKY confuses me, unless it is based on the notion that anything anti-government (of the moment) is good, and by some odd definition ‘of the people’, which is better.

    So having put the boot into Japan (possibly deserved in later analysis, but for now I’d say the only chance the people there have got, and deserving of support than petty hounding on detail), we turn to the UK. And who, out of the UK’s 70M inhabitants are we treated to? Mehdi Hassan. Again. Is the pool of opinion so small, and low, that he seems to represent 10% of the ‘guest’ feedback in the UK… across all network channels?

    It goes back to SOP. Perhaps he is popular with the market rates because he can be relied upon to say what an impartial broadcaster employee cannot, indeed should not, because it’s totally selective, often untrue and inevitably one-sided. To stir things up.

    And he can be relied upon to hold up in ‘support’ the front pages of certain low ABC papers to ‘support’ his ‘views’.

    Back to Japan, and it was about Foreign Sec. Hague again ‘botching’ something, this time some charity types going out to Japan with the wrong papers.

    I am now going off to find out more about this story, but is it possible:

    a) They did have the wrong papers? (Last time I travelled, errors like this would have been down to me)

    b) If there was a ‘mix-up’, is it possible that FO staff were a bit busy in-country to deal as well as they might with the latest group to turn up seeking to help.

    c) Whilst Mr. Hague might well be at the top, going straight for his jugular again, leaping past all the interim layers of responsibility in a very broken public service system, seems almost too cynical.

    I believe the phrase is ‘sensing blood in the water’. Thing is, even for sharks, beyond the damage to the country of such petty but coordinated attacks to a high office Minister, when you engage in a feeding frenzy, you just might get bitten on the @rse as well.

    It will be interesting to find out what the actual facts of this latest New Statesman/twitter-inspired ‘row-that-isn’t’ actually turn out to be.

    And what, if any, those impartial types at the BBC decide to do with the ‘opportunity’.

    Honestly, I am not sure what that SKY News link is doing up there top right.

    Libya. Japan… domestic. They are down in the gutter with the BBC.

       0 likes

  31. Guest Who says:

    I tend to see ‘unique’ moving to ‘that’s different’ to ‘rampant double standards’ to ‘total hypocrisy’ as far as the BBC is concerned, so I was interested when here comes Mr. Jordan again…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/03/the_bbc_and_private_investigat.html

    ‘The BBC’s response to that suggestion has been to reveal that we do use private detectives occasionally and exceptionally to help with programmes… It is worth stressing that we are not aware of any BBC programme ever having commissioned a private detective to carry out this sort of illegal activity at any time in the past. It would be totally unacceptable and a serious breach of our editorial standards…. But engaging private detectives to do things of this sort is very different from asking them to undertake lawful activity as part of an investigation in the public interest…. So we could use third parties in a number of entirely lawful ways to help investigations and other programmes. But even if we did, their conduct would be governed not just by the law but by our own Editorial Guidelines…. So suggestions that the BBC might use private investigators for political stories are wide of the mark and those who are “genuinely surprised the BBC used private investigators to stand up stories” should remain surprised. The BBC validates and stands up its own journalism wherever facts and information come from.’

    Yet again, there seems to be the odd notion that the BBC operates on a higher professional level and ethical standard… because they say so.

    I wonder if they are so willing to accept that from those they presume to scrutinise? 

    It will be interesting how many questions he’ll promise to answer this time before the thread gets closed in advance of his doing so.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      CYA alert:


      It is worth stressing that we are not aware of any BBC programme ever having commissioned a private detective to carry out this sort of illegal activity at any time in the past.

         0 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        CYA-wise, obliterating almost every thread posting seems effective, if suspect.

           0 likes

  32. Guest Who says:

    Another rare outing from the senior navel gazing market rates…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/03/bbc_news_website_developments.html

    Your comments: – if carefully selected ones? or ‘This entry is now closed for comments’? @bbcbroken more like

    Live reporting: More wild, unsubstantiated, twitter-driven agenda-influenced gossip and ‘source’-justified, inaccurate emotive over substantive drivel, then.

    BBC correspondents: ‘Our authoritative correspondents’ – enough said right there.

    Linking: Hamas HQ or Greenpeace embeds good. Charity sites other than Comic Relief… House rule breakers

       0 likes

  33. Guest Who says:

    I’d like to ask the BBC, but, well, you know…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2011/03/what_tories_said_about_health.html#comments

    Not even a day, and staggering just to double digits, before…

    This entry is now closed for comments

    Does the BBC presume licence fee payers exist only in Westminster lobby houses or retiree IT-enabled care homes that by such timing they only allow comment from niche audiences and ‘manage’ commentary so blatantly?

    Funny if it wasn’t so overt and shameless.

       0 likes

  34. As I See It says:

    Does anyone honestly doubt that the BBC is packed with old Socialists?
    Londoner’s Diary in Monday’s Evening Standard quotes Mark Seddon (former Tribune editor and BBC reporter) on “Red Andy ” Marr.
    Quoted from The Oldie Seddon recalls 1970s student protest days when  ‘…Marr used to hawk a Trotskyite organ, Socialist Organiser, around the campus until members of the rugby club threw him and his rucksack of papers into a pond’. Martin Rowson (Guardian cartoonist and frequent BBC interviewee and contributor) Marr’s contemporary at Cambridge refines the detail of the story, ‘It was Pembroke College and it was the rowing club. There were two ponds at Pembroke and Marr went into the deeper one. He was wearing a denim cap and a Trotsky beard and carrying a denim satchel. He was dripping wet.’
    Seddon has previously been sniffy about Marr. When asked elsewhere his favourite and least favorite political interviewer he named Paxman and Marr respectively. Marr ‘has always reminded me of Uriah Heap’.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Heep

    Still, when asked which websites he regularly visits the answer is ‘BBC, Guardian.’

       0 likes

  35. Guest Who says:

    xtophercook Chris Cook The BBC’s alarmism on student finance is nonsense. Carry on.
    Blimmin’ right wing critics

       0 likes

  36. hippiepooter says:

    Phil Williams stood in for Victoria Derbyshire this morning.  I cannot recommend more highly the segment he ran on social workers.  I guess it’ll be up on iplayer shortly.  I came in about half way, it’ll be about 1 hr and a half in.

       0 likes

  37. Guest Who says:

    Any science types out there to verify or refute this…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/03/the_bbc_and_private_investigat.html#P107348196

    4. At 12:01pm on 17 Mar 2011Martin wrote:

    there is a big factual mistake in the article about a posible chain reaction

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

    I know it’s just a blogger, and the explanation made is pretty confused/ing too (at least to me), but I kind of prefer the ‘reporting’ from a £4B news media meg-corp checked if its queried on facts. Their record is not great even on these.

     

     

     

       0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. 

      Wish I’d done a page grab.

      Not much lasting long on the BBC blogs today.

         0 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      Blimey, there’s been a lot of rule-breaking on that thread.  Or perhaps too many home truths.

      The Martin at comment 4 couldn’t be… no, too polite.

         0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Too polite, yet broke the rules and was deleted.

           0 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        I must say I shared that notion. But if you did read the piece before pulling it did not have his ‘unique’ way of looking at things, even after the swear filter gets applied to sneak past pre-modding.

        Speaking of which, note how many did get through but were then yanked, so the mods were Ok but then someone else came along and was not.

        Those good old BBC standards, both of ’em. Unique.

           0 likes

  38. Guest Who says:

    BBCNewsnight BBC Newsnight Mat Frei reports on how in the face of adversity the stoical Japanese are pulling together and refusing to panichttp://bbc.in/igm0I5
    Despite BBC’s best efforts thus far? Love the twiter name, too

       0 likes

  39. Guest Who says:

    As a ‘source close the BBC’, and keen ‘newgathering’ twitterer taboot, as they asked so nice…

    BBCNewsnight BBC Newsnight #newsnight need yr help to find this man: Globalise Resistance activist calling himself Simon Wellings. See pic http://bbc.in/h0VKMJPls RT

       0 likes

  40. David Preiser (USA) says:

    BBC sure sparing no effort in getting out the message that the situation in Japan is going to practically shut down the nuclear energy industry worldwide for the foreseeable future.  Already a done deal, it seems.

       0 likes

  41. Guest Who says:

    Polling, BBC style?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12773996

    At the end of the debate.. ‘Two against one’.

    Considering who was invited in the first place, I’m shocked, I tell you… shocked!

    Plus I love the eye candy reading out ‘selected’ emails about the subject, including one on technology none of them had a clue about before sharing as ‘the solution;.

    Educate and inform? Influence via obfuscation is more like it.

    Mr. Neil keeps having to buy his indulgences to get back into favour at Mt. Olympus.

       0 likes

  42. Shay says:

    Guido provides us with details of the latterday Campbell’s demands on the media for the coverage of Labour’s Spring get Together, it includes:

    “give us coverage of this event with no comment from other parties”

    Reads like the normal BBC stance on Labour!!

    http://order-order.com/2011/03/17/baldwin-at-it-again/

       0 likes

  43. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Robert Peston on the News Channel just now with yet another round of bitching about bankers’ bonuses.  This time it’s RBS. While his gesticulations are getting to be as annoyingly mannered as his speech patterns, he’s still singing the same song: because taxpayers support the banking industry, the workers in that industry must not get paid too much, regardless of their contribution to the bank’s current success or anything silly like contractual obligations.

    Peston’s position is and has always been that, ever since the bailouts, it’s wrong, not to mention unseemly, for bankers to be paid so much that the general public and wealthy populists like himself think, “Crikey, that’s a lot of money”.

    Funny how we never hear complaints about how people in other industries nearly or entirely dependant on taxpayer subsidies for their very existence shouldn’t be getting such high salaries.  I can’t imagine they’ll be wheeling Peston in any time soon to cluck his tongue at how the pay packet for people in the “green” industry – an industry that would barely even exist if not for subsidies provided by taxpayers – is almost three times the mean salary of the rest of Britain.

    After all, the taxpayers own those industries as much as they own RBS, and ought to have the same duty not to be so greedy while everyone else is suffering, etc.

    Unless, of course, one takes a Marxist position on the value of work, in which case that’s no problem and it’s the bankers who provide no value. Peston knows better than to go that far, and has actually spoken against that notion on his blog in the past. But that doesn’t mean the BBC News producers who decide the agenda don’t feel that way, and so regularly attack the bankers’ salaries while ignoring the green troughers.

       0 likes

  44. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ-Labour ‘top dog’, addressing new staff to new Manchester HQ:

    ‘Now, fellow Beeboids, I know Manchester is not what you’re used to, but..

    “BBC offers staff a training course on life in Manchester”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8388526/BBC-offers-staff-a-training-course-on-life-in-Manchester.html#
     

       0 likes

  45. Guest Who says:

    I am usually at odds with this blogger, but in this case he seem one of the few who are trying to get a handle on the Japan reporting with some degree of objectivity (rather highlighting those incapable of it):

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100079799/japan-nuclear-crisis-fukushima-meltdown-is-worrying-but-this-is-no-chernobyl/

       0 likes

  46. George R says:

    “Daniel Hannan MEP blasts the European Union for using taxpayers’ money in a ‘nakedly propagandist’ way on manipulating the media”

    (short video clip)

    BBC-NUJ-Labour-EU knows all about Hannan’s correct comments, but censors them.

    http://playpolitical.typepad.com/uk_conservative/2011/03/daniel-hannan-mep-blasts-the-european-union-for-using-taxpayers-money-in-a-nakedly-propagandist-way-.html

       0 likes

  47. George R says:

    “BBC wastes £80m a year through ‘bad management’ leaked INTERNAL memo reveals”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367294/BBC-wastes-80m-year-bad-management-allowances-wrongly-paid-undeserving-staff.html#ixzz1GtsaPLUK

       0 likes

  48. Llew says:

    After the UN agreement last night, this morning on the BBC breakfast sofa, beeboid woman reports it with an audible sigh, “So David Cameron has got what he wanted”. It really sticks in your throat to have to report that doesn’t it, BBC?!

       0 likes

    • Daniel Clucas says:

      Crick looked like he was chewing on a big turd when Kirsty Wark asked him on Newsnight if this had been a massive success for Cameron.  😀

      Then on to discuss the UN res. – Lord Owen (ex Labour), Tony Benn (dug up, ex Labour), ex Obama administration lady and Libyan exile. Something was missing there, can’t put my finger on it? (not Medhi Hasan either 😉 )

         0 likes