Today brings the “Stop the Debt” public rally to the streets of London. Naturally the BBC, a chief cheerleader for racking up the debt in the first place, was never going to be sympathetic towards this event. On Today, at 8.53am, the BBC gives us Alexie Stalin sorry, I mean Alexei Sayle and Simon Heffer to “debate” the event. This cued up Sayle to engage in a rant about the little rich boys in the Countryside Alliance (Bingo, a fave BBC target) as well as dismissing the need for any protest against debt. Heffer was on the defensive, with the interviewer even going so far as to suggest that a little “fringe violence” might help the cause. The general conclusion driven by Sayle and the BBC (and not really dissented from my Heffer) that we need to leave the streets to the downtrodden masses of the Left. All that was missing was the playing of the Red Flag. Then again, one concludes that is always silently there,
INDEBTED
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Organised political violence is an almost exclusively left-wing phenomenon.
When a child from an upper-middle class family has been offered the very best in education, and every other opportunity imaginable in life, yet has managed to fail miserably at everything (including relationships with the opposite sex), then it’s understandable that they’re going to be extremely frustrated and may want to spend time around like-minded people at UAF rallies.
DV
You’ll have noticed that this item was the “joke” item to which the final 5 or so minutes of Today (the “dead zone”) is generally devoted. This morning it happened to be the “Stop the Debt” march. Another morning it could be a debate on whether or not women prefer to wear Bridget Jones-type massive panties: both issues are viewed is of equal (eccentric) non-importance.
To the BBC, the wickedness and the reality of the “cuts” are, like AGW, an unassailable truth in the narrative. That said, Heffer was useless. There’s no point in trying to argue the point with Sayle per a debate at the Oxford Union: the only response is a counter-rant based, it should be said, in reality rather than an angels and pin discussion about the Countryside Alliance. Sayle’s rant – and Webb’s jocular interlocutions – exemplify the way the BBC avoids arguments it doesn’t wish to see considered: in this case that the so-called “cuts” are nothing of the sort. This has, AFAIAA, never been the subject of a serious analysis on any part of the BBC offering, let alone Today although I’m willing to admit that (as usual) there may be an unvisited part of the BBC’s website where the matter is mentioned. So 1-0 to the statists and socialists (of all parties) on this one.
Alexei Sayle is exactly the unfunny leftie that has long been taking the lunch money of the BBCs linen suits!(the Lenny Henry Protocol).
That he is the son of well educated Communist parents enables him to know his Black Sea wines from his Bulgarians, which is helpful at his book launches. Stand up polymaths like Baddiel,Clary and him always get a collarative pod where his useful idiots at the Beeb can all reap the fruits of their state funded brilliance( file under assorted Marks and Marcuses in the “Comedy” files!).This career projection is the Miliband/Toynbee Strategy.
That he represents his daddys guilt tripping political fantasies is one thing. That he gets paid to puff his books/plays etc like some “Renaissance Man” is another. That he will be allowed to berate a Heffer(who at least DOES live by hand and brain, unlike his kind) is typical of the BBC. Heffer is an experienced journalist, but Sayle is a celebrity poseur…which side do the BBCs hacks aspire to be? As if we don`t know!
Just as Mark Thomas does Mockney-this bloated class warrior,Sayle does his scouse impression, and the linens at the BBC think him “edgy”. Their word for “unfunny State quisling” I`m guessing.
Tell you what Alexei…tell us the last theatre that you filled(not a BBC “were you there in the 80s?” vehicle).Flatulence and looming shadow of your bulk not included either!
Sayle out maan!…merely Prescott without the laughter!
cj,
The BBC is a care home for left-wing “comedians” who ceased to be funny years ago , if they ever were.
Thank goodness we don’t have to pay for it.
Too true. Their ‘humour’ is just a left wing humourless rant which for some bizzar reason fills the studio audience with uncontrllable hilarity.
Bye the way, does anybody find Arthur Smith even mildly amusing ?
He is on all the time, must be someone’s mate….
I’ve been wondering for years whether Mr. Sayle has an off-switch. I used to think it was under the silly little hat he used to wear. But now I can see it’s not there…
The dead zone today was about Cameron being Flashman that Ed Milibands ameneusis told him to say earlier in the week.
Cue then a series of pieces on this along the lines of the “calm down dear” …er…raging controversy..of a few weeks ago!
Clearly all the private school joshing enables them to release their inner toff, but project it onto those who at least are not voguing by the public trough as these BBCs “licensed rebels” do.
One long bloody Rag Week for these Sons of the Entitlement…and daughters of course!
Luckily it`s Saturday, so their bosses/parents(one and the same thing in some cases) are all in Tuscany, so it`s only we types that have to suffer Alexei, Justin and their fellow ashtrays on the motorbike of history!
They’ve just been discussing Ed’s Flashman gibe on ‘The Week in Westminster’ too.
Alan ‘Postie’ Johnson said Labour were keen to get the word ‘Flashman’ associated in many people’s minds with David Cameron mainly because of the sound of the word – i.e. a ‘flash man’ – rather than because of its character associations for those who know the books (not too many people these days). Downing Street apparently doesn’t want it to catch on – probably for the same reasons!
So, with two discussions (at least) this morning on Radio 4 so far, Labour are clearly getting their way and Downing Street isn’t.
What’s the betting Andrew Marr will mention Flashman tomorrow?
I thought the Today debate showed Alexei Sayle as coming from the same bullying mould that union leaders are also formed – and neither impress me very much.
I recently watched ‘Comic Strip: Five go Mad on Mescalin’ and was surprised at how political it was. When I first saw it I just viewed it as a silly skit on Enid Blyton. Yes, I know it was C4 but all of the cast are BBC regulars.
Afterwards I looked up the biogs of the main stars and lo’ and behold they were, to a man and woman all privately educated. No wonder they can characterise such people so well, they are them!
I get the feeling with these types that they have always despised the poor and when they get to big school they suddenly discover that it is they, relatively, who are the poor. Hence their hatred for the ‘Tory Toffs.’ They hate them because the Tories’ toys were always bigger and better and that is how they saw their own roll in life – having bigger and better toys than ‘the poor’. It must have been quite a shock to the poor luvvies.
So they switch sides and vote Labour, whilst still living the lives of Tories in their Islington mansions and despising the real poor. Watch a football match? Good God no! Stand next to a chav when they could be at the rugger with Jonty and Tarquin. Infra dig indeed.
It’s all the same attitudes which infect the BBCs output. The working class are Eastenders – vile and violent and poor. Anyone with any gumption and desire to better themselves, like Ian Beale, is depicted as an ‘evil Tory’, a useless half-man. After all the last thing they want is that sort moving in next door. Best to discourage them at source, what?
Unless they are miners in which case they are flat-capped whippet molesters, nobly coping with the stigma of being Northern and hence on the dole – there is absolutely no chance of them ever having to meet one of them after all.
Looking at it this way it explains all the BBC’s dramatic output. Tossers!
The last thing the middle-class left want is for the working class to be educated and better themselves, they might end up voting Tory !
I was there this morning – a great event, good to feel that one can actually stand up and be counted. Got to meet a few of the blogosphere and 2 of my heroes, Nigel Farage and James Delingpole (what a lovely chap). The speeches were logical, literate and humorous. Nobody got hurt, no bulidings were mindlessly damaged. A lot of sense was spoken. Haven’t seen any TV coverage yet and don’t expect to, not on the bBC of course, but the BBC has got my pic on their web-page covering the event so I feel like an infiltrator!
As Nick noted on the Open Thread, the BBC News Channel has covered it a bit under the banner “Pro-Cuts Rally” (no mention of ‘debt’ or ‘deficit’ in that caption). Matthew Sinclair of the TPA has been on. He was lucky to get Tim Willcox, who’s the least biased interviewer on the channel (in my view).
Well said, Davieboy. I won’t even bother listening to this segment as the premise behind it is clear from the intro: these people should not be protesting at all because they are wrong. Freedom of speech for certain people is the one thing the BBC and their fellow fascists fear most of all.
I do recall that dear Eric Clapton gave us all years of misery, by saying some daft things about black musicians at a concert of his.
Our burden was the Godawful Anti Nazi League, Rock against Racism etc that gave us Weller, Bragg and all manner of soggy left liberal lotus eaters that now infest the airwaves!
I`ve never forgiven Slowhand…no Bono,Geldof, Live8 or anything as pompous and pointless ,had he not opened his mouth!
Hope we`ll not be playing concerts to Feed the Debt after todays rally. The BBC never thought that everyday wasn`t “Christmas time again”.
Do I clock Ure or Geldof for that earworm?
“Can you have a right-wing demonstration?” Justin asks comedian author and self-proclaimed freedom fighter Alexei. “Not really”, the jokester opines knowingly. “The left has a monopoly of demonstrations because the left constitutes powerlessness.”
The BBC is The Left is it not? So let’s put that one out of its misery straight away.
The not-powerless BBC assists anti-capitalist Alexei to rekindle his worn-out celebritydom by inviting him to spout nonsense about things he knows next to nothing about. What is he up to now? Outdated facile inverted snobbery about ‘snobby powerful rich privileged toffs in tweedy waistcoats whose hobbies involve torturing animals to death who “couldn’t belieeeeve that for one moment in their tiny privileged lives they’ve been…..Thwarted.”
“I’ve been on hundreds of demos and I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere near getting anythink I want.” he vouchsafes.
“They’re going to get everything they want anyhow. They’re getting mentioned on the Today show.”
Oh the irony.
Presumably Justin and Alexei took the pollen counter that measures lavender,pansies,wallflowers,patchouli,weed,lilypads and lotuses!
You`ll probably know it from all those anti Toricutz demos-callibrated to the nearest half a million each time!
It seemed a bit confused when the NUJ were picketing the BBC last November…the BBC said there were 10 strikers but that nice Brendan Barber said there were 10,000…both were right I`m sure!
Todays demo had but a handful according to the” independent” TUC. That will be the UDM then!
Let`s hear no more from the BBC about how many show up to demos…clearly there`s no-one who does sums there-unless it`s on claiming big expenses!
The BBC and the TUC…Friends Reunited…thanks a lot!
Presumably Justin and Alexei took the pollen counter that measures lavender,pansies,wallflowers,patchouli,weed,lilypads and lotuses!
Ah, this explains why my allergies this Spring have been the worst in more than a decade.