Catty Comment

Late last night I switched on BBC1 in the middle of a mesmerisingly tasteless kinetic version of Heat Magazine, called “See you in Court”

What do George Galloway and Danielle Lloyd have in common, apart from both being remorseless self-publicists?
You got it. They’ve both been contestants on Big Brother. Appearing on Big Brother may be an instant, if sad way of increasing your public profile, but contestants must be aware that in doing so they sacrifice all, and I mean all, privacy.
Now this ill-matched twosome have turned to the courts of Justice to seek damages from corporations they claim have intruded upon their privacy. Ms. Lloyd had some images stolen by Carphone Warehouse during a phone-to-phone data transfer. The subject of the images in question happen to be the very things (another twosome) she is famous for, and she considers these particular images private because they show some scarring, due to a recent operation after a cancer scare. She claims. She has hired a respectable, expensive-looking lawyer to handle the case, whilst at the same time acquiring, courtesy of the BBC, some nice useful publicity for what she calls her career.
This is what we have come to expect from the BBC, and to be fair, this country. Cause and effect, effect and cause.
Much more unwelcome was the sight of George Galloway, the dandified publicity-seeking former Respect MP who seems to have nothing better to do than lead a camera crew around London, onto a train, and to the Guardian Offices to meet his good friend the Marxist Islamo-phile associate editor of the Guardian, Seaumas Milne, I can’t remember why.
Mr. Galloway feels he has had his phone tapped or bugged, but he’s not quite sure, by the Newspaper that Andy Coulson was in charge of.
These cases are very lucrative for the lawyers and possibly the winner, but in the scheme of things not particularly relevant to the advancement of all mankind. George Galloway is enjoying publicity, free, gratis, and to no benefit to you, me, or the man on the Clapham Omnibus, for his sickeningly hypocritical vanity project. A man who purports to be a politician, i.e. beyond reproach, who willingly, without duress or coercion, appeared on what they call ‘National Television’ wearing a red leotard while impersonating a cat in a most unsettling fashion, is claiming huge amounts of money, on the bandwagon of discrediting David Cameron because he once employed Andy Coulson, in the celebrity phone hacking mountain out of a microscopic molehill.
And the BBC adds insult to injury by beaming this repulsive trashy saga into our homes, pitched, needless to say, firmly on the side of the protagonists, and against the defendants, at our expense.

BBC Agendas

Yesterday the Guardian splashed with the story that David Willetts was considering proposals to allow the wealthy to pay their way onto oversubscribed university courses. The BBC, brimming with righteous anger, made the story its lead item in the morning.

Today the Telegraph led with a letter from 42 family doctors, the heads of GP consortia representing seven million patients, in which they declare their support for Andrew Lansley’s health reforms. The BBC ignored the story.

The Telegraph’s chief leader writer David Hughes has commented:

There was not a word on this story in the news bulletins of our public service broadcaster. Just imagine what would have happened if the 42 had written a letter saying the reforms were all a terrible mistake and simply would not work. The BBC would have trumpeted it from the rooftops; talking heads would have been wheeled into the Today studio; we would have been in full Coalition in Crisis mode. Instead, we’ve had a complete and rather shameful silence. There is something unsettling about the national broadcaster choosing to ignore a major political story because it does not suit its own agenda.

Quite so.

RAMPANT SCAREMONGERING

I’ve been away in Italy, enjoying the spring sunshine. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the government has seen through elements of green eco-thuggery as represented by the so-called charity Greenpeace (so often reported in hero-worship tones by the BBC). Said Greepeace has lost its charity status down under because – as is blindingly obvious – it is nakedly political. But at the BBC, nothing changes. As has been pointed out in site comments, Richard Black continues to peddle tendentious propaganda against shale gas – despite growing compelling evidence that it will revolutionise energy provision – and his greenie fellow-activist Mark Kinver has warned us of the dangers of flaming taps. This is greenie scaremongering at its rampant best – there’s not a scrap of evidence of any actual threat to health , but hey-ho this is greenieland, so let’s spice it up with a manufactured one. And not content with that, Mr Kinver – in a naked piece of eco agitprop – bemoans the fact that the Coalition (including, presumably, nutty Caroline Spelman) are not doing enough to wreck our economy. As usual, he quotes in support of his Greenpeace-style politicking only the BBC house charity-heroes such as Friends of the Earth and the wearisome, let’s-kill-everyone-because-we’re-over-populated eco-fascist Jonathan Porritt.

Springtime For Arabs/Happy Independence Day Israel

What is the Arab Spring? People think the uprisings in the Arab world denote a kind of dawning of the age of Aquarius.

“Harmony and understanding,
Sympathy and trust abounding”

they chirrup delusionally.

But the Arab Spring is….. a spring. Coiled, tense, and poised to uncoil in an explosion of hatred for Israel, and perhaps the West as well.
The BBC have lost interest in Egypt, but the Muslim Brotherhood is in the ascendant, and Jupiter Aligns with Mars, Diplomatic relations have been re-established with Iran.

Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars.

Right.

The BBC’s Kevin Connolly acknowledges that if democracy emerges from the Arab Spring it will be the kind of democracy that grants the people, by popular vote, the one thing that unites them. The freedom to give full vent to their anti Israel sentiment.

Popular sentiment in Egypt appears to run strongly against Israel and sooner or later if the largest country in the Arab world is to become a democracy, then it seems reasonable to assume that will be reflected in the attitudes of future parliaments and governments.

Connolly appears to find nothing wrong with that, and I gather he’s saying that the Arab uprisings will empower the ill informed, uneducated masses to scapegoat Israel for all their very own failings, corruptions and incompetences, and it’s up to Mr. Netanyahu, the instinctive prevaricator, to deal with it as best he can.

Tunisia. Egypt. Libya. Bahrain. Yemen. Syria. Iraq.

Dissonance not understanding
Death and violence abounding
Only falsehoods and delusions
Darkly dying dreams of visions
Cryptic twisted revolution
Stifling true liberation.
Aquarius! Aquarius.

I wonder if Kevin Connolly has the faintest idea of the value of Israel as a staunch, vital and enormously useful ally of its fellow Western countries – of the U.S. as well as the UK, not to the mention the entire NATO alliance.
The BBC marks Israel’s 63rd birthday with a report about the protest against the government by Gilad Schalit’s relations because it ‘mars Independence day event.’
The Palestinians attack Israel. Israel imposes sanctions. Hamas syphons off aid leaving poverty and deprivation in Gaza. The Palestinians blame Israel. The Palestinians attack Israel. Israel retaliates. The Palestinians still blame Israel. Gilad Schalit is kidnapped by Hamas. Hamas demands the release of hundreds of Palestinian criminals in exchange for his release and denies him access to the Red Cross. Everyone blames Israel.

I can’t wait to see how the BBC will report the forthcoming Nakba Day.

Mark Mardell’s Crisis of Faith Continues

BBC North America editor Mark Mardell is in a dark place these days. After his beloved Obamessiah turned out to be a cold-blooded assassin, he doesn’t know which way to turn. He’s tried blaming ugly United Statesians for forcing the President to kill because it plays well at home, refusing to call out the President Himself. Mardell never made much of a fuss about the fact that the current President has sent unmanned drones to kill far more people in Pakistan than the previous White House occupant did, so it’s not surprising that this particular targeted assassination has shaken his faith so badly. To their credit, the BBC has reported this elsewhere, but it’s remarkable that Mardell doesn’t seem to make the connection.

In his latest post, Mardell misrepresents reality to sing His praises for one last time.

From the very start of his presidency, Mr Obama’s administration has made it clear there is no such thing as an Afghan strategy. First it was an Af-Pak strategy. Then it became Pak-Af. Whatever you call it, there is an acknowledgement that Pakistan may be the more important country in the fight against al-Qaeda. Everyone in the know believes some members of the government and particularly the intelligence service are hand-in-glove with the jihadists and must have known what Bin Laden was up to.

This implies that Bush’s focus on Afghanistan was wrong and that he somehow neglected Pakistan. In fact, the only reason Al Qaeda had such a presence in Pakistan was because they had been largely forced out of Afghanistan by Coalition forces during the last several years of fighting. Even the BBC has admitted that in the past. Yet Mardell wants you to think that only The Obamessiah understood that Pakistan was a problem. Why would Bush have been sending drone attacks into the tribal areas if he didn’t also have an Af-Pak strategy of some kind?

In any case, Mardell’s crisis of faith continues. In fact, it’s getting so bad now that I think I’m nearly ready to stop with this “Obamessiah” business because I think Mardell and his colleagues are nearly done with their blind worship of Him. Mardell himself reveals why.

After talking about the problem of squaring the huge amount of cash and support we give to Pakistan with the fact that there’s clearly a major faction (at least) there who are in league with the enemy, he says this:

While this debate will go on, the Mr Obama doesn’t have to worry about some of the concerns expressed in the rest of the world about the legality or morality of killing Bin Laden. It has hardly been raised by anyone here in the US, and the president has said that anyone who questions taking the al-Qaeda leader out “needs their heads examined”.

Mardell questioned it and denegrated the US public over it in his last post, so this means that the President is actually saying that he, too, needs his head examined. The BBC North America editor must be questioning his faith now. What to do? We’ll see how he handles it.

HAD BIN LADEN A BBC LICENSE?

I only ask the question because I read that….

Among the newly released data from inside the secret compound is a series of video tapes. They show him sat in his compound, watching video footage of himself and rehearsing his lines for propaganda video. At one point there is a recording of his favourite TV channels and among those listed are Al Jazeera and the BBC’s Arabic service…

Meaningful Engagement

Melanie Phillips has written another open letter, this time to David Cameron. The one she wrote earlier, to Jeremy Hunt about the BBC, must have got lost in the post, so it’s doubtful that she had high hopes of a response to this one by return of post, or indeed ever. It’s a great letter, even if it only reaches readers of the Spectator and the Commentator, and not Prime Minister Cameron himself.
When the Israeli PM visited London the other day, it seems David Cameron told him in no uncertain terms that in order to qualify for our unshakeable support Israel must engage meaningfully with the new Hama-tah /Fat-as coalition. Their refusal to come to the table unless Israel reinstates the settlement freeze is equally unshakeable, so presumably David Cameron thinks this is what Israel must do. This, Melanie points out, amounts to a kind of extortion not unlike a Mafia style protection racket. What a pity we can’t confront David Cameron with a similar ultimatum – unless he engages meaningfully with Melanie Phillips, we’ll withdraw our unshakeable support. But he knows that’s pretty shaky already.

The trouble stems, she feels, from Messrs Cameron and Hague’s lack of interest in the subject, and their consequential reliance upon Foreign Office briefings (think Rowan Laxton) for advice on foreign policy. As they seem to be largely making it up as they go along, they can’t be following it to the letter, although inserting “Britain is a good friend of Israel” into the text must either be a baffler or a double-bluff.
Melanie’s letter puts the case for Israel with eloquence, clarity and passion. She summarises Britain’s appalling historical record of the heartless betrayal of Jews, just in case Mr Cameron is not familiar with it. She makes a powerful comparison between the world’s unanimous condemnation of Islamic terrorism and the Arab world’s determination to annihilate Israel, and asks why the world condemns the former yet encourages the latter, when the motivation behind both is identical.
She implores the PM to understand that caving in so one-sidedly to Arab demands is tantamount to rewarding the aggressor and penalising the victim, and warns him, if nothing else, to think of his own legacy.
I think we all know that to hope the PM would acknowledge the letter, read it even, is fanciful. He will get away with ignoring it because our National Broadcaster has taken it upon itself to muffle the truth about Islam and to demonise Israel. Many people are therefore prepared to overlook what quite a few others are nevertheless beginning to feel uncomfortable about. Meanwhile the BBC is merrily and expensively setting the scene for a re-enactment of the 1930s, when the cavalier downplaying of the significance of what that silly German fellow with the moustache was up to led to the unimaginable events that took place under their very noses. “Peace in our time”, the prime minister is saying, but this time round, there’s no Churchill.

How Many Years Make A "Tradition"?

…so how many years makes for a “tradition”? With the BBC; not so many when it suits them.

Number 10 shuns EU flag tradition

Downing Street will not fly the EU flag over Number 10 during Europe Day on Monday unlike previous years, the BBC has learned.

The Royal Wedding…traditional. Morris dancing…traditional. Flying the EU flag? Meh.

The UK’s relationship with Europe is a potential source of tension between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

Making an uncalled for political point about the whole thing the BBCs own Laura Kuenssberg tweets:

No 10, FCO + Treasury decide not to fly EU flag for Europe day on Monday, but Vince’s BIS dept will! (DECC conviently has no flagpole)

Really? The Coalition must be doomed. Doooomed! The BBC – looking for splits wherever they can…