OPEN THREAD…


Morning folks, I’m very busy today so over to YOU, with a brand new Open Thread in which you can detail the bias from the State Broadcaster….

Bookmark the permalink.

145 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. Llew says:

    I see on the BBC politics page they have the headline

    Ex-MP facing 21 expenses charges” and underneath that
    Former MP for Luton South Margaret Moran is to face 21 charges of claiming parliamentary expenses illegally.”

    As usual, no room to fit the word Labour in anywhere. (it’s only two letters longer than “tory” you know) No, you have to click right through to the article and wait until the 3rd paragraph to find out she is an ex Labour MP.

    Even the headline of the actual article reads
    “Ex-Luton MP Margaret Moran facing 21 expenses charges”

    Wouldn’t it have been more useful and informative to say “Ex-Labour MP Margaret Moran facing 21 expenses charges”? Because she wasn’t the MP for Luton, she was the MP for Luton South, slightly different.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-14804698

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      …and now, compare that with this article :

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13599624

      Ex-Tory peer Lord Taylor jailed for expenses fraud

      Former Conservative peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has been jailed for 12 months for falsely claiming £11,277 in parliamentary expenses.

      ‘Tory’ and ‘Conservative’ in the title and first paragraph.

      …but I’m sure it’s just a coincidence…nothing deliberate…we’re all just too cynical.

         0 likes

  2. David Preiser (USA) says:

    On Today, John Humphrys spoke with the head of a “multicultural” high school in Haringay and the Bishop of Oxford about whether or not state schools should have a moment of “broadly Christian worship”.  Obviously the school head said no, as it would exclude her Jewish and Muslim students (her school is on the border with Tottenham, so there must be a couple of Jews whose parents haven’t moved yet).  The Bishop was weak as they come, pretty much a poster boy for what Mark Steyn refers to as cultural suicide.  But that’s not the BBC’s fault, and certainly not evidence of bias.

    What is evidence of bias is the way that Humphrys openly laughed at the Bishop’s wetness.  He didn’t laugh at the head for favoring Muslim and Jewish sensibilities over the majority Christians, and was pretty solid in his actual handling of the debate in the way he handed the points back and forth between his guests (a rarity on Today these days).  But he laughed at the Bishop more than once, and pointed out that his behavior was deserving of public scorn.  There’s a difference between pointing out a weakness in an argument and laughing at someone, especially a fairly high-ranking religious figure.  Humphrys would never dream of laughing at an imam like this.

    Defenders of the indefensible are encouraged to show me evidence of any BBC presenter laughing similarly at an imam.

    It’s all part of the drip, drip, drip, which encourages the public to disdain Christianity and the state Church while making sure to respect Islamic sensibilities.  I grant you that this is also encouraging the public to respect Jewish sensibilities, but it’s a drop in the ocean of anti-Jewish sentiment encouraged on a regular basis at the BBC, so I’m not much impressed.

       0 likes

    • cjhartnett says:

      The Bishop of Oxford is the kind of cultural cringer that true Christians despise-but the BBC simply loves.
      Humphrys is a dopey atheist who only responds to being put in his place by Joanthan Sacks…the likes of Rowan are offal to the BBC aquarium, as they all play at being pathetic sharks.
      That said, I`d rather Christians were able to laugh at the likes of Pritchard rather than mocking popinjays like Humphrys…imagine most of the Oxford drips far prefer to be laughed at by the BBC than have to argue scripture with anyone who`d ever read the Old Testament.

         0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Im an atheist as well, and also laughed at the Bishop’s pathetic defense of his own culture.  However, I’m sitting at my own desk and not at the mic in a BBC studio.  Like Humphrys, I would point out how he was being wet and more or less rolling over for multiculturalism.  But if I was a highly-paid Today presenter, with a responsibility for remaining impartial and respecting all cultures in Britian, I wouldn’t openly laugh at the Bishop of Oxford over and over, and not only because I’d definitely not be allowed to laugh at an imam on air in the same way.  Humphrys sided with the tyranny of the minority here, but only because the minority isn’t Christian.

           0 likes

        • cjhartnett says:

          You answer your own comment here David.
          It`s that bit “if Humphrys was impartial and respectful” that reveals just how low the BBC has now become.
          That would once have been the very MINIMUM that we could expect of anyone-and especially on their “news and current affairs” shows.
          As it is, we just get aimless controversies, unfocused agitprop pieces for Rag Week and a general anomie…a word that`ll know only too well as they sit in our grace and favour studios and ask each other about when the Glorious Day might be coming.
          That they benefit whether it comes or not-and they get away with their slurs and sleight of hand in the meantime-is just the reward for entitlement. 
          An extremely nasty little millpond of privileged squatters has long gone stagnant…and as long as we continue to pay them to block the airwaves with their lies and deceits, the more stupid will our kids think us.
          The TV licence will go the way of the window tax or the dog licence very soon…

             0 likes

  3. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC, Its so called defence experts reporting on Israeli arms sales and half the story.  
     S Korea ‘in Israel missile deal’  
    South Korea is to buy precision-guided missiles from Israel to strengthen defences on islands vulnerable to attacks from North Korea, reports say. About 50 missiles would be deployed on two islands near the border with North Korea, said Yonhap news agency. The missiles, which use GPS technology, could be used to target North Korean artillery hidden in caves.  
    Wow. At first glance it appears the bBC is reporting the facts for once. Lets see Israeli supplying South Korea with precision-guided missiles so that SK can hit NK artillery emplacements. Which I suppose the left will look at as very provocatively.  
     
    Here is what the bbC isn’t telling you. The purchase is for theSpike “Non Line Of Sight” anti-tank missile. Yes you heard that right, its an anti –tank missile which has a maximum range of around 16 miles.  
     
    As for using GPS, err no it uses an Electro-optical system (in otherwords a small camera is fitted into the warhead) now the reason why SK went for EO and not GPS is because NK has jammed the GPS signal in South korea on a number of occasions the last reported case in March. Which means in a time of war it can play havoc with anything that uses a GPS signal. Aircraft, ships, Missiles, Radios, phones.  
     
    But here’s the main reason why SK has bought long range AT missiles. In March of this year NK finished building a new Hovercraft base just around the corner from those two islands at Koampo, this new base is around 30 miles away from the Islands and the fear in Korea is with this new assets and its over 130 hovercrafts, NK could take and occupy those Islands before the brass in Seoul even know what is happening. Strange how the bbC defence experts missed that, as the Guardian didn’t in march this year.  Yes the missiles can take out guns at long range, but a slow moving missile stands a good chance of getting shot out of the sky over NK


    bBC  defence experts indeed.  

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I like how the BBC made sure to point out that both civilian and military personnel were killed in the November attack, very much unlike the way they conflate all Palestinian casualties into a single innocent category.  One is tempted to think that there is a double standard in the BBC’s style guide

         0 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The Today programme ended with a segment featuring some academic who spent a year with Inuit community in Greenland.  The academic bemoans what the blurb describes as “the gradual erosion of a unique culture.”

    The quote highlighted from the clip is this:


    “I was amazed….at how rapidly their traditional culture has been replaced by an unattractive phoney monoculture of consumerism.”

    Does this sound familiar?  When you guys bemoan how rapidly your traditional culture is being replaced by an unattractive one, the Beeboids call you racist, and abjure you to get with the times.  Wake me up when the BBC notices the hypocrisy.

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      It’s the British left’s attitude in general. Indigenous cultures, when they are of the right kind of ethnicity, are to be celebrated, revered and preserved as if they were a World Heritage Site. As far as their own culture goes, it’s either to be dismissed or sneered at as uninteresting, contemptible, crass and generally worthless or more usually it’s very existence is denied. To the left, their own culture is just the bland pizza base to which all the vibrant and interesting toppings must be added before you have anything of any worth. Self-loathers.

         0 likes

  5. Jane Tracy says:

    Today there has been a sighting of Stephanie Flanders who has posted a report on the economy online. Many will have hoped that her continual absences might have been spent learning her subject but sadly not as is shown here.

    “This could help revive the political debate over government spending cuts ahead of the party conference season.”

    So we get the usual prod in an area which her ex-boyfriend Ed Balls would like to discuss aka a subject for Labour. It is in fact not economics but politics.

    If you wish to comment you had better be quick as comments pointing out her long holidays/absences are gainly popularity which will no doubt lead to the blogs comments section being closed..

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      If you wish to comment you had better be quick as comments pointing out her long holidays/absences are gainly popularity which will no doubt lead to the blogs comments section being closed.’

      The BBC blogs are becoming a rich seam of evidence for their ever more ‘unique’ editorial and, more relevantly, retroactive stealth versions.

      Just popped to Andrew Neil’s, which has been a fun backwater.

      Started in June, it has now ‘closed’.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13865122

      Oddly, it seems it has has gained but one comment, which took 2 months to appear, with no others since.

      Seems i am not alone in being censored.

      Wonder when others may feel this is less than optimal, free speech wise.

         0 likes

  6. My Site (click to edit) says:

    If nothing else, a clearer picture who ‘them’ in the vs. stakes emerges…

    A_Liberty_Rebel A Libertarian Rebel Good grief: Cameron backs BBC & funding via licence fee – compulsory regressive tax extracted on pain of legal penalty for state broadcaster
    Makes voting choices easier, I guess.

       0 likes

  7. Paddy says:

    Listening to Pravda R4 boils my piss……again.

    Today I had to pick up a customer at the station so had a forty minute car journey. I thought ‘ listen to auntie for unbiased fun entertainment’

    How wrong I was.

    Occupation, a made for radio drama following the story of a Scotsman who occupies his factory due for closure.

    This piece was the true archetypal beeb crap.

    A win win win for the islington elite.

    union member protesting against heartless bosses and government. check

    Activist daughter singing union songs about labour struggle
    Check.

    Plot twist where factory invaded by other activist
    Check.

    Factory actually ‘evil arms trade supplier’
    Check

    New activist is soldier who has seen the deaths caused by missiles supplied by plant
    Check

    All names of dead Muslim
    Check

    Factory worker of Thirty years persuaded of peacenik ex squaddies cause in less then three minutes Check

    Worker and soldier agree to smash the stock and switch off evil machines. Check

    This was written straight from a SWP/STW wet dream.
    It was lame shallow baseless and biased. Everything you have come to expect from the much loved national institution.

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      Oh dear. Sounds like it was written by a bunch of sixth formers who’ve become disciples of Mark Thomas, spreading the ‘truth’ about capitalists and their arms trade, and how a rag-tag group of disenfranchised citizen activiststs have been empowered to bring down these evil profiteers of death. Sound about right? Crap, init.

         0 likes

  8. Andy says:

    My other half is always complaining that I spend too much time on my computer, so to make amends I joined her to watch the latest episode of New Tricks; sadly I could only last 10mins before the on-message bullsh*t masquerading as entertainment forced me out of the room. Zoos, evil, animal rights activists, good – (they only damage property, after all)…
    Why are we forced, (under threat of imprisonment) to pay for this?  And they reckon Murdock is evil…
    Surely the time is drawing near when the people of this Country will have finally had enough and revolt on mass? 

       0 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:

      as I pointed out before,people are too busy stuck into crap like coronation street,eastbenders and x factor

      as long as they get their weekly fix,they can live without higher brain function

      and al beeb can continue to get away with forcing people to beleive all the lies and crap they put out,and paying for the privelege

      wake up UK!!!!

         0 likes

  9. fred bloggs says:

    news24 – 7.30pm  Waiting for the news to make a big thing of Marg Moran.    It is on their website, reported also that cameron like other PMs got to close to the media.  However reporting that EX LABOUR MP MORAN has had 21 charges put on her; is of little interest!!!!

       0 likes

  10. John Anderson says:

    All the BBC’s vitriol against the Republicans and especially the Tea Party idea of limited government and limits on public spending is blinding them and their audience to the real political position in the US.   Over the past day the BBC headlined Obama’s speech to union members – framing it as usual as “Obama appeals to reason,  wants the Repubs to start to cooperate”.  In other words – just more hectoring by Obama the Failure.

    How about some facts rather than bluster ?

    1   A slew of polls this week show Obama’s popularity slumping even further – and show that most Americans simply do not agree at all with the economic approach he has taken over 3 years and is still taking.  He is being deserted by a succession of commentators on the left.

    http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/06/president-obama-faces-historic-low-in-poll-numbers/

    2  His speech trotted out the old lame idea of wasteful spending on roads etc – when what is really needed is to free up the private sector by rolling back the excessive regulation he has introduced that frightens employers from taking on new workers.   Firms have the cash – but they are not going to risk it when labour costs are artificially high,  especially with the heavy burden of ObamaCare just round the corner.

    3   Obama has been in office for approaching 3 years,  his policies have been a miserable failure – but HE is the one who refuses to compromise with economic reality and make a major change of course in the way that Clinton did mid-term.   This plain fact is recognised by most US voters – but not by the BBC.

    4   The real nutters on the US scene are the rabid left – exemplified by disgraceful inflammatory language by union-leader Hoffa right in front of Obama’s speech to the same audience.  

    5   The mere idea of Obama portraying himself as the adult in the room is a hollow joke to most Americans – but not to asslickers like Mardell. 

    6  Thursday’s Obama speech to a joint session of Congress is a political stunt – and will be a mixture of partisan posturing and deadbeat economic ideas that most Americans now scorn.  No doubt the BBC will present it all as Obama the Saviour again,   truly pathetic reporting by the BBC.   And the BBC will NOT present the alternative approach represented by the Republicans and obviously supported by a clear majority of Americans including the “independent” middle ground.

       0 likes

  11. pounce_uk says:

    The bBCs Middle Eastern editor shows he knows SFA about the man he is talking about: 

    Megrahi ‘very sick’, says his son 

    So Abu knocks on the door of another terrorists and asks if he can reinvent him as a man of peace. I’m talking of terminally ill Abdelbaset al-Megrahi who with only days to live was released by the Scottish government in 2009. 700 days later and Abu expects me to believe that is a very ill man there. Here’s a tip bBC. A few years ago I ended up in hospital with blood poisoning , 1 week later i was released and I had lost over a stone in weight. This man has been on deaths door for nearly 3 years, he should be bloody skin and bone. He isn’t. 

    Anyway I digress, Abu goes through all the motions of a whitewash, Innocent, (Watch the sons face when Abu asks him that very question at 1.20) victim, truth will come out and then he asks the son if he felt his dad received a fair trial in Scotland. Scotland Abu? He was tried in Holland, yes it was a Scottish court but one of the conditions Gadiffi insisted on was neutral ground, only when he was found guilty was he packed off to his 3 room cell (kitchen, office and bedroom) in the country where his crime was committed  

      

    Oh by the way bBC, one of the conditions of his release was he was forbidden to deal with the  media. Yet again the bbC breaking the laws of the land in which to excuse a terrorist with lots of blood on his hands.

       0 likes

    • TooTrue says:

      He’s really sick? That video is trying just a little too hard to “prove” that he’s sick. Reminds me of Pallywood. I don’t know why the Scottish doctor who insisted he had three months to live hasn’t rushed over to Tripoli to moniotor the survival of his extraordinary patient. Surely he feels a commitment to contribute to the body of medical knowledge by following up the case? Right!

      This thing felt like a scam from the beginning, especially since the three month prediction was exactly the span of time needed to release him on compassionate grounds under Scottish law. It was not a medical prognosis but a political move.

         0 likes

  12. Martin says:

    Does anyone know how many Liebore MP’s are now on corruption or theft charges as to Tory MP’s?

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      ‘Not enough’ I think is the only proper response.

         0 likes

    • fred bloggs says:

      Against one  tory peer, there are four lab in prison, Moran will be the fith, McShane is still under investigation yet to be charged.  Seems like being Labour is synonymous with being a crook.

         0 likes

  13. David says:

    Funny how THIS appears on Lulu’s biog for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing.  Funny too how no-one else has anything about theoir politics listed……..”In both the 1979 and 1983 UK General Elections, Lulu had been a staunch and highly visible supporter of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party.” She’s going to lose as will edwina Currie as the BBC will lose no opportunity to get in with sly digs and constant remidners of the ‘bad old years’ under Maggie…. pathetic.

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      I guess the automatic assumption is that anyone appearing on the BBC is most likely to be a ‘Luvvie For Labour’. Any of ‘The Others’ that slip through the net must be highlighted. I’ll be surprised if they don’t make them both wear Hi-Visibility jackets when appearing on the show. “Warning : Danger To The Public“. (HSE).

         0 likes

    • Llew says:

      Bloody hell, a Tory presenter/entertainer type person on the BBC.

      The last one of those I remember was Carol Thatcher and before that, Jim Davidson. Can’t think of any more.

         0 likes

  14. Paddytoplad says:

    One thing that annoys me about the posturing self-serving self righteous self aggrandising left is that they have no real empathy. It’s all false and when they spout their bilge on the tv you can tell that they are looking for their own reflection in the camera lens. The intellectual narcism of the left blinds them to real suffering and real people.

    Tonight I watch a show about the twins of the twin towers.

    For once auntie discussed/showed/broadcast the real thoughts and emotions of real relatives of the victims.

    Contrast this with the usual bile fed to us about 9/11.

    US foreign policy to blame

    Moral equivalence between the deaths of those murdered in the towers and those killed by accident with stray bombs

    Fill the airwaves with conspiracy theories about Bush/Big oil/the Jews.

    Remove any fault or blame from Islam(contrast this with the blame dished out about the child abuse in the catholic church.)

    Make sure that it’s the Americans fault.

    Their, blame the beaten wife not the abusive husband, mentality seems deliberately contrary.

    Tonight’s show told real stories about real people not the meme or dogma of some JCR revolutionaries.

    As recognition for he victims and as a gift to the nation and the US they should cancel this weeks question tome and just broadcast a test card with Sorry written across it.

       0 likes

  15. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC, the media arm for the labour party.
    Wandsworth riot eviction mother attacks ‘fascist’ council
    A mother served with an eviction notice after her son was charged during the London riots has accused Wandsworth Council of “behaving like fascists”.Maite de la Calva said her family was being used as scapegoats and she was not responsible for her son’s actions.
    So anybody watch the video that accompanies the above article. Anybody notice how the reporter has no problem in pointing out that the so called fascist council is tory. How the people who they interview in which to see if this judgement is wrong are all teens who naturally see nothing wrong with what the lad has done. Which funny enough is how the young lad himself feels when asked if he feels guilty for outing his family in the position it is today.
    I’m just surprised that the bbC didn’t ask the Spanish mother that if she feels that wandsworth council is fascist why doesn’t she return to the country of her birth. You know Spain, which got rid of its fascists, before she came to live in the UK at the tax payers expense.

       0 likes

  16. Cassandra King says:

    STEPHEN GLOVER: As Labour’s toadying to Gaddafi’s torturers is revealed… My God, the shame of Britain cosying up to these monsters
    <img src=”http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/06/article-2034168-0DB7259F00000578-803_87x84.jpg” alt=”Shoulder to shoulder: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair embraces Colonel Gaddafi during a 2007 meeting”/>

    Only now is the true nature of Britain’s shamingly close relationship with Gaddafi becoming clear, as a result of documents uncovered in Tripoli.

    The BBC will make sure that all references to the labour party is removed when the scandal fully breaks of course. The complicity of labour, its crimes, its involvement. Also missing will be any reference to the groups who proffited from the cosy relationship with the mad dog clan, the LSE will be protected of course. All that will be left of the BBC reports will be vitriolic attacks on those who cannot defend themselves and of course the new regime who took over from labour.

    Prepare for a BBC snow job.

       0 likes

  17. It's all too much says:

    Anyone notice the absence of ‘analysis’ and ‘comment’ by BBC pundits and bussed it leftoids about the fact (as opposed to an opionion or assertion – BBC please note) that 75% of rioters up in court have previous convictions.  this fact pretty much completely destroys the Labour/BBC line that the disgusting spectacle of rioting was a spontaneous revolution caused by the cuts and all the other “its’ society to blame” bollloc*s spouted by the likes of the toxic harpy Mrs Dromey.  Any chance we will get a Panorama special exploring the cess pits that our cities have become – created by the criminal underclass that prospers in the UK?  Any chance we will learn about the victims, the huge costs to the working population…?

    ****bush tumbles by camera****

    No, it will be ‘It was caused by the evil tories banning the EMA’. Perhaps Panorama could look at the blatant [Labour] vote purchasing scheme that was the EMA –  I woiuld love to know how much of the £30 per week I paid teenagers actually was used on booze/fags/top ups/I tunes and cannabis.  Nope every single penny went on schoolbooks………….

       0 likes

  18. George R says:

    INBBC &  September 11.

    In lead up to 9/11, INBBC sees its political role as putting out as much pro-Islamic propaganda as possible lest British people get the idea that jihad is integral to the tenets of Islam.

    E.g. ‘Today’ at 08:48

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9582000/9582852.stm

       0 likes

  19. George R says:

    INBBC’s Bowen invents new, jihad-free LIBYA!

    Bowen gets himself up to speed by now recognising that ABDEL BELHAJ, has  long international Islamic jihad record:

    INBBC-Bowen:-

    “Profile: Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14786753

    But just as easily, Bowen now accepts the word of Libyan ‘rebels’ that Belhaj is not longer a jihadist!

    Bowen: spinning the yarn for his ‘Arab Spring’.

    And, of course Bowen manages to omit all reference to infamous role of UK Labour Goverment’s Blair, Brown, Straw on Libya, unlike this:

    “As Labour’s toadying to Gaddafi’s torturers is revealed… My God, the shame of Britain cosying up to these monsters”

    By Stephen Glover

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2034168/As-Labours-toadying-Gaddafis-torturers-revealed–My-God-shame-Britain-cosying-monsters.html#ixzz1XFjV12Gd

       0 likes

  20. Millie Tant says:

    The athlete Oscar Pistorius and the Today sports reporter:

    The BBC interviewer, Rob Bonnet, asked: “Some people regard you, no doubt, as an inspiration to Paralympic athletes, no question about that.
    “But it might also be said that you’re an inconvenient embarrassment to the South African authorities and the IAAF because, effectively, you’re taking them into uncharted ethical waters here. What’s your reaction to that?”
    Pistorius replied: “I think that’s an insult to me and I think this interview is over.”
    Bonnet later protested that his question had not been intended as an “insult”. Pistorius had already made his mind up.
    “That is an insult. Thank you very much,” he said, and removed himself from the studio.

    It’s at 2mins 55secs of this audio clip:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/14804708.stm

    The comment is made during a longer (3 + mins) interview. I didn’t hear the Today broadcast so I don’t know whether they broadcast the whole interview or just a snippet, including the offending question. 

       0 likes