On the Question Time panel from the LibDem conference in Birmingham tonight we have the increasingly senile Vince Cable, Priti Patel, Harriet Harman, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop and Justine Roberts from Mumsnet (married to Ian Katz, deputy editor of The Guardian).
TheEye is unable to join you this evening So leaves you in the splendid hands of the Two Davids…Vance and Mosque. Play nicely!
The BBC has a dilemma. Their beloved Obama has made a difficult speech. “There is no Shortcut to Peace”
“Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them,”
Obama said.
“Israel, a small country of less than 8 million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that 6 million people were killed simply because of who they were.”
These facts cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition,” Obama said. “It deserves normal relations with its neighbors. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two-state solution, with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine.”
The Guardian has decided that Obama is electioneering, and his only reason for sounding pro Israel is our old friend the Jewish Lobby.
Jeremy Bowen agrees:
The president’s speech was as much about the politics of his own re-election bid next year as it was about the politics of making peace.
Read his analysis, and despair.
Biased BBC contributor Alan makes the following points.
“The BBC reports that the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has beenkilled with several other people in a bomb attack in Kabul, officials say.’
Strange how the real world catchs up with us. Eliza Manningham Buller has beenlecturing us on the need to engage with the Taliban, to negotiate andpresumably compromise (as soon as we leave Afghanistan you can be sure theTaliban won’t be compromising or working in ‘coalition’) in the BBC’s ReithLectures.
Only today did she restate that position….’In this lecture I want to arguethat states should, wherever possible, seek political solutions andreconciliation.’….how negotiation brought peace to Northern Ireland….’Lookat Northern Ireland, where former terrorists are in government. We should welcome this, not damn it.’….only of course there is nopeace in Northern Ireland…the war continues, it just isn’t reported as muchand as with militant Islam, government ministers prefer to sweep uncomfortable,inconvenient facts under the carpet rather than have to deal with them….haveAdams and MacGuinness left the IRA?
I imagine it is quite hard to negotiate with someone whose only intention is tokill you and to re-take power. Why would the Taliban negotiate? If we are offering negotiations it can only bebecause we are ‘losing’…therefore if the Taliban are winning why compromise? Yet again she takes up the cudgel against our foreign policy (another BBCbete noir) saying it incites Muslims to radicalise….Muslims who are under thecosh of dictators in their own countries attack the West because we supportthose dictators.
Except that when we depose Saddam Hussein it is those very radical Muslims whofight to keep Saddam and his regime in power.
You must despair when you listen to Manningham Buller….a woman at the heartof the Establishment who is quite clearly so out of touch with reality….butunfortunately is so representative of much of the mentality within thatEstablishment….no less at the BBC with which her views chime and resonateexactly.”
It’s never a good morning on the BBC Today programme if there is not a little further demonising of Rupert Murdoch so cue this little knockabout between Humphyrs and Harold Evans. As you can guess, Humphyrs just teed up the lines and Evans let rip into the evils of the corrupt Murdoch empire. The BBC has gone way beyond satire on this issue and in truth it has revealed ITSELF to be the monster it sees in Murdoch. It is using its OWN power and dominance to smash what Murdoch as built up as an opposition to the BBC empire, and the only result will be an even more powerful BBC.
There is a side to modern Britain that the BBC is very careful NOT to explore. Every now and again we get a glimpse of what lurks in the post-modern shadows, as the mobs rampaging through several of our major cities last month vividly demonstrated. Even then, the BBC would not countenance the suggestion that something was very wrong with the people concerned. No, blame it on the police, blame it on the banks, blame it on the boogie even – just do not blame the feral thugs, and the gangs, and the criminal instincts involved So, I thought this description of modern Britain over at the Police Inspector blog worth sharing quite simply because you will never see it or read about on the £3bn + a year BBC;
“In Ruraltown, the elderly are like dirty, damaged vultures. They converge at awful jumble sales. They rummage and fight for socks and underpants that have been torn from the stiff corpses of their previous ancient occupiers.
In Ruraltown, I saw a dead woman in the doctor’s surgery waiting room. No one noticed until closing time.
It is always cold and dark. Unemployment in Ruraltown is, of course, staggeringly high. This part of Ruralshire is so divided along class and racial lines that it is hardly the old shire at all but a collection of tribal groupings.
Some of its outlying towns are concrete wastelands too terrible to describe. People travel miles to jump from our multi-storey carpark. They truly do.
Ruraltown is where the people of Ruralshire go to die. Ruraltown is twinned with Auschwitz, I know who got the better deal. If you have a dozen screaming kids, tattoos on your face and neck, a slot machine addiction and you love frozen chips and microwaved pizza, come to Ruraltown.
I defy you to find one person smiling, or even anyone who isn’t thinking “Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Please someone kill me,” over and over again, then holding their breath until they pass out. The crowning glory of Ruraltown, though, is its people. They will happily kill you with an axe while you wait outside the local chippy for a deep-fried Mars bar.
Black Lace refused to play here. Burger King actually closed down their High Street store because they had more trouble than any other town in England. Pre-pubescent skiprats and abusive old women in Kappa track suit bottoms hurl insults and beg for shrapnel from passers-by. In Ruraltown, English is a second language.
Welcome to my patch.”
One of the many benefits of the BBC is that it helps educate us lesser mortals. For example, did you know that many Muslims do not understand Sharia? Here is the helpful BBC article concerned and a little excerpt for your morning edification;
“Sharia is a now a familiar term to Muslims and non-Muslims. It can often be heard in news stories about politics, crime, feminism, terrorism and civilisation. All aspects of a Muslim’s life are governed by Sharia. Sharia law comes from a combination of sources including the Qur’an (the Muslim holy book), theHadith (sayings and conduct of the prophet Muhammad) and fatwas (the rulings of Islamic scholars).
Many people, including Muslims, misunderstand Sharia. It’s often associated with the amputation of limbs, death by stoning, lashes and other medieval punishments. Because of this, it is sometimes thought of as draconian. Some people in the West view Sharia as archaic and unfair social ideas that are imposed upon people who live in Sharia-controlled countries.
Many Muslims, however, hold a different view. In the Islamic tradition Sharia is seen as something that nurtures humanity. They see the Sharia not in the light of something primitive but as something divinely revealed. In a society where social problems are endemic, Sharia frees humanity to realise its individual potential.”
RIYADH — A Sudanese man was beheaded Monday in Madina after he was convicted of practicing sorcery, the Interior Ministry announced. Abdul Hamid Al-Fakki “practiced witchcraft and sorcery,” which are illegal under the Shariah law, said a ministry statement. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the Shariah law enforced strictly in the Kingdom
The 8.10am item on BBC Radi 4 Today is a wonderful example of the BBC doing everything possible to defend the previous Labour government’s many follies – in this case the poorly negotiated PFI schemes that now cause so much misery in the NHS. Humphrys was on top form and before we even got to the interview with Andrew Lansley, there was a set up interview with John Appelby of the Kinh’s Fund who insisted that in the “greater scheme” of things, the “few” billions added by PFI “investment” were nothing to worry about. Cue Lansley and an onslaught from Humphrys which demonstrated both a woeful lack of economics (unsurprising coming from a denizen of State largesse) and a real determination to try and defend Brown and Balls. It would be touching were it not so blatantly biased. Oddly enough, although I have waited for almost 4 hours there is STILL no link to this part of their programme, the inefficiency is staggering.
Following on from this, a Biased BBC reader notes;
“The BBC are going big on the disastrous PFI contracts which will cost us Billions extra. I looked at the comments on the story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15010279 but was surprised at the comment which was the ‘Editors Pick’.
9. Tony
3 HOURS AGO
“I have huge admiration for our health service, to my mind one of the best in the world. We can argue and complain about the past funding issues for ever more. I as a tax payer would love to pay a little more tax to keep it out of private hands but whilst it remains a political issue regardless of political colour, nothing will change. Lets all pay a bit more for something we all rely on.”
This was in vast contrast with the main body of comments.
Sorry for lack of posts, but not been well for the past few days.
BBC coverage of the Lib-Dem Conference has not helped my mood. You can tell just how much the BBC are lapping up the tribal trash being served by by Cable, Huhne and now Clegg. Attacks on “right wing” Conservatives are particularly well covered, with the bashing of the Tea Party being given an extra Bruce bonus. You can tell how the BBC were rhapsodic about Cleggs defence of the Human Rights Act, Huhne’s drive to put our collective lights out, and Cable’s attack on the imagined evils of capitalism.
As if this was not irritating enough, the BBC is also relentlessly bigging up the notion that we need more of that “quantitative easing” to boost the “growth” that is not there.(Remember how well it is working across the Pond?) This neatly dove-tails with the Ed Balls/Stephanie Flanders inane narrative that now is the time to spend ourselves out of the..erm…spending induced recession! Entertainingly the BBC is also forced to report that Government borrowing in August was a record high. Ah, those savage cuts, if only we could see them!
Meanwhile, up in Bonny Scotland, the BBC gives the SNP budget a big two thumbs way up. In particular, the plan to impose a tax on “big Supermarkets” has been met with a wave of BBC enthusiasm. Way to go – tax the private sector even more in order to keep all those State sector jobs in Scotland alive and well.
Across the pond, Obama has invoked the ire of the BBC for being “on the wrong side of history” for not running with holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas and his plan to get Narnia UN recognition. I saw Jeremy Bowen was there to point out that violence “could” result from the US choosing to stand in the way of those peace-loving residents of Hamastan.
Put out the bunting and crack open the champagne. It’s still early days, but Cuadrilla Resources, a small but highly enterprising UK company that is surveying for shale gas, has announced that it has found a field under the UK with over 200 trillion cubic feet of gas…one of the largest in the world and enough to create 5,600 jobs.
But for the BBC, of course, there’s no celebration. It’s just an excuse for its eco-warrior reporters to marshall a barage of objections and to recycle the same tired propaganda about the dangers of fossil fuels. They are an essential part of the deadly serious greenie camapign to get frakking banned and condemn the UK to escalating fuel poverty. So twisted is their reporting that a demo mounted by a man, a dog and a paint pot outside the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool is given more importance than 5,600 new jobs.
Already, the BBC and its greenie chums have forced Cuadrilla to halt drilling,and they are awaiting for the results of an inquiry to be given the all clear. It defies belief that we are mired in such regulatory miasma – these loonies, if they had been around in the industrial revolution, would have stopped everything from coal mining to iron smelting, and we would all still be pox-ridden yokels with a life expectancy of no more than 30. Cuadrilla’s response? Well, if the UK heeds the poisonous lies like those peddled by the BBC, they will be off to Poland. And who would blame them?
Apologies for the lengthy title, but there are two issues here which need to be covered, and I’m combining them into one post. First, the BBC’s continued attempts to lie and rewrite history.
Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN
Most people here will know exactly what’s coming, and I know this has been covered here many times before, but it’s even more important to call the BBC out on it now because of the looming UN fight over creating a State of Palestine. For the benefit of those who don’t know the BBC’s bias about the “West Bank”, here’s the map they use to explain history to the public:
Notice on the left, the BBC is claiming that there was such a thing as the West Bank (i.e. Palestinian) Territory before the 1967 war. They’ve just erased a chunk of Jordan from history. As we all know, that was part of Jordan at the time, a country at war with Israel. Why else would Israel have invaded? This map indoctrinates the public with PLO propaganda, that Israel invaded sovereign Palestinian territory. Your license fee is being used to promote false history and anti-Israel propaganda.
Reality, on the other hand, is not Israeli propaganda. This map of Jordan – from a non-partisan source – and environs showing the borders during part of the 1967 war in question is fact, not fiction:
Notice the clear border lines of Jordan encompass the area about which the BBC is lying. Yes, I am accusing BBC News Online of telling a lie. I don’t care what some Beeboids personally believe about nasty old Israel’s land grab or the plight of the poor Palestinians or anything else. This is historical fact, and the BBC is lying about it. How can there be an honest Q&A about the topic when one of the answers is a lie? Until they remove that first map and replace it with an honest one, my accusation will stand.
Needless to say, this propaganda demonizes Israel in the minds of the public. Most people are seriously uninformed about the facts of Israel and 1967 and the “Palestinian Territories”. When one tries to explain the facts to get past the emotions, one is then accused of spouting Israeli propaganda. This is how the BBC’s editorial policy and style guide is blatantly biased, causing them to demonize Israel at every opportunity, although the BBC disputes this.
It’s impossible to have a civil discussion, national or otherwise, about the situation when the national broadcaster promotes propaganda for one side and demonizes the other. This then promotes anti-Jewish sentiment, but that’s a topic for another time.
Now for the BBC Censorship angle. Last week, Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian ambassador to the US, said that there should be no Jews in a State of Palestine:
“Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future,” he said when asked by The Daily Caller if he could imagine a Jew being elected mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah in a future independent Palestinian state. “But after the experience of 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated first.”
Actually, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about their desire for a Judenfrei Palestine. He said the same thing a year ago. Not only that, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said the same thing last year, and went further:
Almost no notice was taken of another pre talks decision that the PA chairman revealed, as he announced clearly that if a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside.The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.
“I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land,” Abbas declared.
Judenfrei, Judenrein. And the BBC has steadfastly censored all of this. Justin Webb didn’t bring it up to the feckless Lord Levy on Today, it doesn’t feature in any BBC News Online report about Israel or the Palestinians, and it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else on the BBC. If someone can show me one single example of it, I’ll post it here, shocked but grateful.
Without the truth and all the facts, it’s impossible to have a rational debate and reasonable understanding of the situation. Yet the BBC actively prevents that, promoting propaganda for one side, rewrites history, and censors the Palestinians’ desire for ethnic cleansing.
ADDENDUM: Here’s Katty Kay interviewing US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, in which Katty states uncategorically that only Bibi Netanyahu is the problem, and Amb. Rice corrects here. No surprise that this is Katty’s belief as she recently tweeted to her followers that this New York Magazine article – which blames Netanyahu and uncritical, “steadfast” support for Israel in the US Congress as the only obstacles to peace – is “All you need to know about the frosty relationship between Barack and Bibi.”
Why, it’s almost as if there’s a groupthink on this issue extending across the spectrum of the BBC.
