I see that Zadie Smith has caused a bit of a furore except to the BBC who see it all as fair and balanced;
“Her comments, broadcast during the Today Programme on Radio 4, were an impassioned defence of libraries and “shared institutions” in Britain.
The BBC has been criticised, however, for inviting Ms Smith to broadcast her comments without any interruptions or questions and for allowing the five minute piece to turn into a “party political broadcast”. After telling listeners about growing up with a love for Kensal Rise library in north west London, which is earmarked for closure, Ms Smith rounded on the coalition Government’s “shameful” policies.”
It’s the rancid BBC which is shameful.
If this was in the interview with a council dude who’s helped establish a book exchange system then she also came out with the classic ‘taking food out of authors and artist’s mouths’!
They’ve just done a 5 minutre stretch on PM about an art council funded org which has had its funding stopped because they were ‘overstaffed’ but if they’d played the Simon Bates’ life stories music in the background it wouldn’t have been out of place.
I’d hit it.
can someone delete this filth please? It (I assume deliberately) brings down the entire forum.
I presume ‘I’d hit it’ is some kind of reference to some form of sexual congress with M/s Smith?
Asuka, you have to be an ex squaddie like Martin to get away with these comments.
Ater an obigatory statement about how it’s all the Tories fault, the Labour MP for Brent North gets down to the nitty gritty with the Labour councillor overseeing the library cuts.
We have to make sure there is a different way the council can approach this. I say to you, James, listen. Listen to the people. There are more than 50 people on Brent Council who are earning as much as Eric Pickles – Secretary of State. Why?
Why indeed. Perhaps Zadie knows.
Somehow one can’t see the TODAY programme inviting the Hon Mr Gardiner on any soon to give his points of view.
Would any right winger get a prime slot like this? Does anyone think that the BBC is going to offer up a similar prime time slot to UKIP or the taxpayers alliance?
SO biased and so blind and so arrogant they are, what have we done wrong? they ask in all innocence. And I dont suppose this slime actually does know the difference between right and wrong anymore. I can only suppose the BBC believes Zadie is the middle ground and God help us if she is.
Zadie is “ethnic” That makes her sacred to white British Beeboids. Anything she thinks must be right, even if all she does is write tosh.
I must confess that my first reaction was “WHO?”. I had never heard of her. If you want a good laugh go to her entry on Wikipedia , it would have been impossible to invent anyone with a greater appeal to the BBC/Guardian axis of evil.
Shameless Beeboid parasitic scumbags are still crowing about their propaganda sucess
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9439000/9439821.stm
Virtually the entire arts establishment lives off the taxpayer one way or another and lives very well . Just vested interests whining because the free money has run out. I presume they all vote labour and have gone crying to their soulmates at the BBC to do something about these “cuts”
The BBC has been boring me all day whinig about the cutting of art’s funding.
Who really cares other than those still greedy for state (taxpayer ) monies?
Right here we go, my inaugural expletive on this site.
Zadie Smith you are a fu*king twat.
However the adjective which I feel best describes the BBC could never appear on B-BBC.
I apologise to new visitors, it’s just my frustration with the state broadcaster who know damn well that everything that you may wish to know is available on their own web-site – or if you like – no need for libraries.
Typical ! absolutlely typical of the BBC to air a piece in a programme where Smith goes unqestioned whilst attacking the “wrong type of government” with no redress what-so-ever.
But nothing changes does it ? (Unless it’s Labour).
Zadie – and do tune in dear – it is you who is shameful and nobody else gets anywhere near your vitriolic hypocrisy.
As I say, go f*ck yourself Zadie, or try to pull a similar stunt like that on Sky News and then we’ll see just how good you really are.
“Zadie Smith you are a fu*king twat.”
Why? Because she said she doesn’t want her local library to be closed down?
You seem to have a surprisingly low “fu*king twat” threshold.
“Smith goes unqestioned whilst attacking the “wrong type of government” with no redress what-so-ever.”
Oh, apart from the interview with Shaun Bailey later.
So much for; “no redress what-so-ever”.
Not so fast Dez.
The hate speech political smear fest used the closure of her local library as a cover and it was a minor part of her rambling unhindered politically motivated attack.
The fact is that the government are not closing down any library that is the job of local councils and if local councils want to keep a library that can and will and do BUT attacking her local council was definately NOT on Smiths agenda was it?
Aaaaah now we are getting closer to the truth, Smith didnt whip herself into a rage about her local socialist council, didnt smear her local socialist allies who are the people behind the planned clossure.
It would have been much closer to the truth if Smith had asked how the local rich commissars could sleep at night in their rich big houses and their fat taxpayer funded bank acounts but then again that would have meant that she couldnt smear her hated political enemies.
The coalition regime which I hate BTW with a passion that goes far beyond that of Smiths has clearly stated that councils have the funding to keep open any popular library, the problem is that certain councils are more interested in keeping their own parasites in clover and they are cutting elsewhere. The socialists are cutting where they think it will cause the most distress and most conflict and most unhapiness and then blame their cuts on the coalition regime.
And lets be clear about something Dez, That spiteful little twat had a prime UNCONTESTED slot to spew her prejudice and cynical political blame shifting attack, she was not exposed to the normal cross examination that would have quickly exposed her lies and deceptions and that is why she was allowed to have an uncontested platform.
Would the taxpayers alliance/UKIP/BNP be given such a uncontested primetime slot? No Dez this was a blatant atempt to pimp and peddle the socialist lies about cuts cuts cuts cuts.
@Cassandra King.
‘The socialists are cutting where they think it will cause the most distress & most conflict & most unhappiness & then blame their cuts on the coalition regime.’
Absolutely spot on, Cassandra. In my London borough, the Labour council are stooping to the all time low of closing Alzheimer’s Day Centres, while all the non-jobs in the multiculturalist enforcement army, the Community Enrichment Officers etc., are seemingly sacrosanct. When will we ever get politicians that serve the public that pays for them, instead of using the UK as their private laboratory in which they can carry out their despicable social engineering projects?
Nu Labour, after taking us to the edge of bankruptcy, & reducing our cities to seething quagmires of crime, identity politics, decadence, Islamic bigotry, hatred & depression are now trying to wheedle their way back into contention for the next election.
In a 40 hour working week I could identify, in my own borough, ‘services’ whose cutting would leave the crucial frontline workers intact. The cultural Marxists wouldn’t like it, but when did they ever care about anything other than their putrid vision of Utopia.
Nu Labour? You wouldn’t want to wipe your feet on them.
One side was allowed a five minute uninterrupted or challenged statement, the other an interview with view being challenged. Do you see the difference?
Oh, I think Dez sees it. It’s just more convenient to ignore it.
Well, well, well, Dez/Scott is now so desperate at the lack of low-hanging fruit he’s willing to make a total tit of himself with absurd non-sequiters.
He is perfectly well aware of the difference between someone being questioned about what they think and someone being given an unchallenged platform.
Dez/Scott, you are B-BBC’s low hanging fruit.
Thank’s Dez, your a mate !
Foolishly I’ve got other things to do.
If the BBC realized they had gone too “far” and hours later put on Bailey to ease their concience, I’m still stuck with what I heard at the time with no redress anywhere on the BBC during my listening experience
The fact that I didn’t hang around for ages to enjoy a rebuttle is in your opinion my fault.
Silly me.
Your right Dez, impartiality is in the BBC’s genes and if they f*ck that up big time I’m sure you will defend them.
See you in the Library sweety-pie !
I loved your post 😀 and this highlights the socialist attack line perfectly, it isnt about cuts its about smearing their political enemies pure and simple.
BTW Smith thought it was fine for her mother to steal from the library therefore not only depriving others of the chance to read those books but forcing the library to replace those books and that costs a lot of money, money that could have been used to expand library servies.
That’s why so many leftists drink fruit teas; because proper tea is theft…
Ouch. Groan….
I was listening to the Today programme on BBC4 . It sounded like a party political broadcast. The Today Programme presenters at the end seemed embrassed. I am sure they realised that they had overstepped the mark.
As for the supposed balance, this came much later when many listeners to the original piece would have been at work or on their way there.
Terrible editorial decision.
A point on Zadie Smith, all libraries pay a royalty for any books stocked, this might not be as high as someone buying the book, however, it is still a reasonable provider of money which people like Zadie Smith would not receive if the libraries were closed.
I heard her rant yesterday. It was unbelievably pompous, self important and patronising. Quite stunning for someone so attuned to all the issues of modern britain – worthy of a retired colonel. She has a very strange idea as to what a library is, from what I can work out it is a place where the taxpayer hands out books about feminist theory gratis and permenantly.
She told the country that as a child she lived in a house full of books – all containing the local library stamps. She displayed a very selfish and self satisfied attitude, clearly she is very civic and ‘community’ minded; she must be to deny other borrowers use of very expensive books that she and her family fancied and were residing on their numerous book shelves. She was proud of this and indicated that having all these books was a badge of distinction – ooh look at my intellec tual family of book-magpies. How many other borrowers would have read them – she was in effect cutting her local libraries herself!
I have borrowed books from libraries all my life but never felt the need to keep them and I have never had to wait for an amnesty to hide my shame…..
Brilliant reply and that should be heard on the BBC, Thieving library books and then acting as though this theft was somehow justified shows this scumbag in her true colours doesnt it? And it also reveals Smiths moral centre. A thief is thief, stealing is stealing, dishonesty is still dishonesty however its painted.
Smith didnt give a flying f*ck about anyone but herself and her small minded nasty and spiteful prejudice.
As M/s Smith’s mother was such a regular user of the library, she clearly had no excuse for not renewing/returning these books. Still, I wouldn’t be too harsh on her as they did return them when there was an amnesty. She needs to understand though that the BBC are not a propaganda library. When they give people platforms to spout their left wing politics, they are stealing library books. It’s just as sickening.
I wonder if her library stocks the Daily Telegraph. A lot dont. Just the Independent and Guardian amongst the qualities. I dont think its because of ‘cuts’ either.
I have heard (from someone who knew her at Cambridge) that Zadie was not originally Ms Smith’s name at all, just something adopted by her to make her sound more ethnic. Up until she arrived on the hallowed turf she was just plain Sadie.
Genuine civic pride and genuine caring for others around us has nothing to do with thieving a comon resource and selfishly preventing others from the benefit of that common resource.
Smith is a typical selfish self centered hypocrite, caring nothing for others and making sure she comes first, we all owe her a good living and we all owe her the best of everything and we all owe her her her her. I hate hypocrites and I really hate selfish self centered arrogant hypocrites.
On the day I first walked into a library I knew damn well that stealing books was not only immoral and wrong it also denied others the use of those books and that to wilfully deny others the opportunity that books provide is antisocial theft.
+1000 Cass!!
Brent Lib Dems put forward an alternative proposal which would enable these libraries to stay open.
1. Non-replacement of Director of Housing post when the current director retires this year – saving: £140,000 per annum.
2. Reduction in administering costs of the Neighbourhood Working scheme – saving: £360,000 per annum.
3. Removal of ‘London Weighting’ from Hay Grade salaries – saving: £102,000 per annum. Many junior officers are having their London weighting reduced. The London Weighting allowance was absorbed into the Hay Grade salary levels. Liberal Democrats believe if junior officers are accepting changes then those on the higher Hay Grade salaries should do to.
Total savings: £602,000.
Why is this proposal unacceptable? Perhaps Zadie knows, but we don’t know whether she does or not because the BBC chose not to ask her about this or anything else.
‘While HarperCollins is the first major publisher to amend the terms of loan for its titles, two other members of the publishing “big six”—Macmillan and Simon & Schuster—still do not allow ebooks to be circulated in libraries, much to the consternation of librarians.’
Ok then lets see the luvies stand up for libraries and boycot their publishers !!!!
Funny thing about these rich leftist hypocites, as long as others foot the bill its no expense spared spend spend spend but you just know that if these rich hypocrites had to put their hands in their pockets themselves it would be a different story.
These hypocrites just cant wait to spend other poeples money but when it comes to their own riches it becomes ‘whats yours is mine and whats mine is my own.
If the government didn’t fund ‘drama’ like Eastenders to the tune of £150,000 per episode, 4 times a week, 52 weeks a year, then it could easily afford to fund every single one of those drama groups around the country which lost out in the Arts Council cuts. The National Association of Youth Theatres lost its £140,000 of funding. Why not just have one fewer episode of Eastenders?
I wonder if Zadie gave this any thought before she appeared on the government funded broadcaster which makes Eastenders to criticise the government for its parsimoniousness in other areas?