140 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Number 7 says:

    BBC News – WE’RE IN RECASSION.

    The delight in their voices is almost tangible at a 0.2%  drop in GDP.

    Strangely enough I don’t recall such excitement during McDoom’s fiasco – as I remember it was all the fault of those dastardly Americans.

    “Agenda?” “Us??”

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    • Alfie Pacino says:

      ITN ran the same story, but with a more optimistic prediction from the head of the IMF; an ange the BBC ignored completely.
      Toenails Robinson loved that minus sign.

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    • pounce_uk says:

      I too watched the bBC news coverage of this story. To say that the news was broadcasted with some jubilance would be an understatement. But what really caught my eye was how the bBC promoted a 0.2% fall in GDP as disturbing news for the Government, yet the now revised 0.4% growth estimate for the year was dismissed as trifling. Remind me again which figure is larger than the other, and how according to the so called economic experts at the bBC  an increase of 0.4% is less worthy of note than a fall of 0.2%. Oh by the way bBC I did ‘A’ Level economics in the early 80s, which is why I have subscribed to the Economist since then .

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      • Reed says:

        Of course, as has been noted, the BBC were happy to repeat McRuin’s mantra of ‘it started in America‘, as it helped shift the focus from Labour and their Everest-sized deficit mountain.    
           
        Now, will we ever hear from the BBC this time that ‘it started in the EU‘ ? Never, as it might let the ‘Tories’ off the hook a bit and would certainly help to make their wonderous Euro-zone look a lot less like the glorious success they are still trying to convince us of. It might also highlight the economic damage caused by decades of unaffordable big government in many European countries, which might undermine the ‘evil Torycutz‘ narrative and the fatuous idea that government spending is the only way to solve the problem caused by government overspending.

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  2. cjhartnett says:

    Mandelson accused us all of “talking down the economy” if we doubted the Great Helmsman, The Manse Mincer!
    The BBC did no such thing of course, but solicitously asked Darling, Eagle, Harman etc how things may yet be even greater!
    Luckily Today and the BBC are sexist apparently, so we don`t need to listen to them-indeed Womans Hour send a Jo Brand DVD to you if you do…and you die laughing!

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  3. john says:

    Two weeks ago the world’s worst broadcaster went into a frenzy whilst reporting U-Tube footage showing four USM’s behaviour.
    The BBC asked their usual suspects to opine, uninterrupted of course.
    The conclusion was made, it was bad, very bad, indeed it was an outrage against humanity that even Hitler couldn’t have dreamt up.
    As it suited the (impartial) BBC narative at the time it’s probably not too important for them that after 14 days it has yet to be established if the clip was indeed genuine.
    Yet perhaps when the BBC rush to judgement in the future, more and more people will reach their own conclusion  :
    That they really are the worlds worst broadcaster.
    Unlike what that idiot Thompson told the Levinson Inquiry.

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  4. George R says:

    To counteract Part 2 of INBBC 2’s TV propaganda series,
    ‘The Crusades,’ here is Prof Thomas Madden in interview (2004):

    http://www.ewtn.com/library/CHISTORY/ZCRSADES.HTM

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    • Margo Ryor says:

      I’m still trying to figure out how a series of wars they WON could have so seriously traumatized Islamic culture.

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  5. Radio2LunchTimeLoather says:

    I had an email from the BBC Complaints Department today telling me that I am now subject to the BBC’s “expedited complaints handling procedure” for two years. Which is nice.

    The email goes on to say that I can appeal their decision by writing to the BBC Trust. Has anybody here done this and got anywhere, or is it just a waste of time, paper and a stamp?

    Any other advice or comments will be read with grateful interest!

    http://lunchtimeloather.blogspot.com/

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      It would appear to be a club with a growing membership.

      One would have thought they might try a bit harder than ‘we’ve pretended to tolerate anyone questioning our absolute right to pump out whatever we fancy, to show the powers that be that ‘we’re listening’, but now it’s denting the pension plan… so naff off’, but there you go.

      Intrigued by the terminology: “expedited complaints handling procedure” at first blush looks like they will be fast tracking responses, but in fact appears to mean expediting from the in-box to the waste bin directly. A bit like Helen Boaden’s cute email to nowhere for when stuff gets to her pay grade. I see she’s being bigged up for next DG. Figgers.

      Just watched ‘Downfall’ on DVD. The precedents and cautions of history repeating are striking.

      Write to the Trust. Even in the darkest end days of the Stasi, they could not resist adding it all to the files. And, eventually, these will get read. Along with who wrote, did, or didn’t do what.

      Then the fun begins.

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    • Alfie Pacino says:

      I too hate the Veremy Jine show with a vengeance. Good luck with complaining to the Chaplain?

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

       “We have been considering the dozens of complaints you have submitted … Looking at your correspondence, most are about why you disagree with a particular topic “

      I have been pondering this, on a purely logical basis, overnight. I cannot speak to the relevance or tone of what you wrote in about, but they clearly are also less concerned with these than, simply… the volume.

      This suggests a unique, and uniquely deranged BBC mindset on matters of performance and complaint.

      They seem to be feeling the strains of obligations as a public sector media organisation (as purveyours of such as EastEnders or The Chris Moyles Show or skewed Paul Mason sermons, hardly in the same ‘essential’ sector as health, education defence, etc), and one which compels the public to pay for it no matter what.

      However, these are imposed by their own guidelines..

      And the simple fact is that they seem not to have considered the remote possibility that there is a large volume of complaints in total, and across topics by individuals, for the simple reason that they keep stuffing up.

      To try and set an arbitrary limit based on no more than ‘complaining a lot’ (or ‘too much’) is missing the point completely, with the result of such extraordinarly smug but inane responses.

      And the nature of these, from across the BBC empire, is equally perplexing. We as licence fee payers have but one avenue into the complaint system. Thereafter, the BBC seems able to unleash an amazing level of responses, including none at all if they can get away with it.

      I am in an exchange with a producer who took immediate exception to what I wrote in about (and is in process of digging out of the hole he created by so doing), and responded with a personal diatribe from his iPhone. In other cases we get a complex series of weeks’ later cookie cutter dimsissals from ‘managers’, bereft of any sense that they have paid attention to or even read, let alone considered the substance of the complaint.

      What is consistent is the strategic end point that the BBC has defined for any complaint… and that is it eventually goes away. This can be via attrition, wearing one out with wastes of time on what low level munchkins ‘believe’, up to more senior munchkins being comfortable ‘they have got it about right’. The Trust is dangled as a beacon of final resort, but like all else is.. a BBC entity overseeing the BBC. Again.

      It may explain the number of complaints upheld by this cosy system, but does not excuse such as this ‘final solution’ they feel confident in adopting when confronted to a degree of internal discomfort with their evident failings. Failings which, in the the private sector, would see vast loss of business from dissatisfied customers.

      Enjoy cancelling your DD. £145.50pa you can apply better elsewhere.

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      • Radio2LunchTimeLoather says:

        Many thanks for your help – it is much appreciated.

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        • My Site (click to edit) says:

          Fight back. 

          Challenge on the volume aspect being their problem to apologise for, not yours to be banned over because they are overwhelmed. If they think about it, maybe not screwing up would reduce their burden, while cover ups and banning historically make things worse. Think anything ending in ‘gate’, and how that originated.

          On matters of good faith, I have to presume you are not abusive, but robust challenge is also no excuse for them to take the ball away if questions asked are not adequately answered.

          It’s how they function, after all.

          Throw a Paxman, or Humphrys at them. Do they accept interviewees being tasked under the spotlight to get away with ‘I believe I am comfy with this’ as a sole answer? No. They persist and, on occasion, attack. Until they get an answer or the other side bails by having no argument.

          Fine. Good enough for them. Good enough back.

          NOT a reason to exclude a customer, unless prepared to free the customer from any financial obligation imposed.

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    • ap-w says:

      It’s 19 days since I received my holding acknowledgement from the BBC in response to my request for them to name the ministers (plural) they were referring to in their radio 2 news headline from 30 December “Official papers have revealed that Margaret Thatcher’s ministers believed that Liverpool should be abadnoned to a fate of managed decline”, but no response yet. Given that it is presumably a straight factual matter revealed by official papers I would have thought it a very simple request, but they’re not expediting that one.

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      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        a straight factual matter revealed by official papers I would have thought it a very simple request, but they’re not expediting that one.’

        Hold that thought.

        It’s very ‘variable’ isn’t it, when us peons start to swap notes?

        Not sure they are liking where they are ending up here.

        Why do I get a within 24hr attempted slap down (that failed, spectacularly) from a producer on his iPhone, but you get into ‘computer says ‘thanks for staying on hold'” limbo on a substantive, reasonable question being asked.

        Or sometimes you get an email with a code back, other times it just… ‘vanishes’.

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        • Radio2LunchTimeLoather says:

          The email I received says “dozens of complaints you have submitted over the last 17 months”. I don’t have records more than 12 months old, but I have only submitted 19 in that time.

          Yes, I will fight back! No worries there.

          If you are interested, all of the correspondance is published in full on my blog, and the complaints can be filtered out by clicking on the “Complaints” label in the top right word cloud thing.

          http://lunchtimeloather.blogspot.com/

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          • My Site (click to edit) says:

            I am very interested, as the norty step beckons me too.

            Again I note the BBC’s loose way with facts, and semantic spinning of same, even in a serious person to person exchange.

            19 is not dozens, not that it matters.

            A quick scoot round this forum shows you could legitimately have submitted scores, if not hundreds….

            Again, the ‘you were not there in person’ argument needs placing against the BBC in terms it can grasp.

            Are they going to say that a story does not exist because the reporter was not present when it occurred?

            That would be an interesting precedent.

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    • RCE says:

      I just got a response to a second complaint I made about a piece; the Beeb’s first reply did not address my complaint and contained an assertion that was factually wrong, which is a fairly basic mistake when the item can be referred back to to see what was said and what wasn’t.

      The second response completely ignores the falsehood of the first one and basically says “sorry but you’re wrong” without any reason or rationale.

      The experience of complaining to the BBC is like being the lead character in a novel written jointly by Kafka and Orwell.  In the manner of Derrida.  On acid.

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      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        the Beeb’s first reply did not address my complaint and contained an assertion that was factually wrong,’

        Which makes persisting legitimate.

        Not a valid means for them to pull a hissy fit on ‘wastes of time’ and ‘lack of good faith’. Or spinning things out endlessly on ‘beliefs’ or levels of ‘comfort’ by BBC employees on the actions of colleagues.

        Two thinsg that, frankly can form additional components of an enhanced complaint as opposed to their terminating it.

        I do not dispute that many will be trivial, or maybe impossible to deal with, but that is their problem to deal with. Their minds require ‘closure’ via box ticks, but when their own system collapses, tough.

        I can’t see why they are so incapable of admitting error. Yes, it exposes cracks, but this ablsoute denial of any problem is simply in-credible. Conceding the many cock-ups and biases would be aa step to sincere improvement. Digging in, in the face of clear evidence, is simply digging the hole deeper.

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  6. geewiz says:

    Who is the Desperate Dan-jawed blonde bint who does the business reports in the morning on BBC1? The ”outrage” and faux astonishment of the released figure of the UK being 1 trillian quid in debt. That milestone was reached years ago under Snotty’s reign but no bugger in the beeb would dare admit it. Now all of a sudden it’s as if the current lot have just done it all on their own.

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  7. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ  acts as propaganda mouthpiece for mass immigration into America, as it does into Britain.  
     
    Here BBC-NUJ’s Mr Strasser lays out his advocacy for Latinos in South Carolina (5 min video) and for the ‘45,000 undocumented workers’.  
     
    Indigenous Americans don’t get a look in, but Mr Strasser goes the whole hog and implies that the mass immigration is good for them too!  
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16713321

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Ah, the dishonest Franz Strasser, who did an entire series for the BBC on the immigrant scene in the US, without once mentioning the word “illegal”. Not even in the two reports he did from Sanctuary Cities, which deliberately violate federal and state laws to harbor illegal immigrants.

      Too bad he never noticed those undocumented workers when he was pushing the “immigration is wonderful” Narrative, which was designed by him and his producer and editor to distract everyone from the actual concern about illegals.

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  8. My Site (click to edit) says:

    The saga endures. I suspect I may seem be joined ‘the expedited’ soon.

    I’d like to apologise for this response being so long in coming, as I do try to do so in good order, but the sheer volume of things that need raising when it comes to accuracy or integrity with our print and broadcast media have imposed an extra load on my resources recently. Especially the ongoing output from your employers, I regret to say.
    However, as my time is free and this is your paid employment, I am sure you will forgive the delay.
    On 24 Jan 2012, at 18:50, xxx wrote:
     I have now watched back the live two-way that Paul Mason gave on the 5th January 2012.

    Thank you for taking the time to check on the substance of the formal complaint and now providing a response based upon it.

    You ask for an explanation for Paul’s reference to Britain not signing up to the EU treaty as ‘a country that threw its toys out of the pram’.

    I did indeed request an explanation, but still remain surprised that this is from a show producer, speaking on behalf of the on-air ‘talent’ himself, when I had more in mind a less intimately connected, and hence potentially more objective part of the BBC tasked with such things. However, as you mentioned, before, who better than those at the sharp end, especially given the chance to learn. And certainly better than the knee-jerk, full story absent response initially dashed off. Progress at least. The intention is to understand respective positions, one presumes, with a view to improvement or, where necessary righting wrongs. Not just engaging in debate for debate’s sake to tick a box and carry on regardless. This would, I agree, be a huge waste of licence fee payer time and money.

    The simple explanation is that Paul was characterising a diplomatic action that took place during a very high profile and much talked up (by world leaders at least) European Summit at the end of 2011. 

    That is indeed simple. But the thing is, what are the limitations to a reporter or editor ‘characterising’ anything, over simple factual description? The danger would seem, self-evidently, to allow personal bias (the main concern listed, as requested in the complaint menu) to creep in and indeed dominate the report. Mr. Mason’s characterisation, I would humbly still submit, did a lot more than describe what happened. It framed it, and in terms that could generously be described as designed to appeal to his rather singular political views and preferences.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

        You’ll recall that David Cameron went to Brussels seeking a number of concessions and rewards for Britain if he was to consider signing any new treaty. Having not secured any of those demands, David Cameron walked away from the proposed treaty as agreed by the seventeen eurozone members and a majority of the remaining nine.

      An able summary. Shame your on-air talent felt the need to add a particular embellishment to it.. maybe to ‘interpret events’ or ‘enhance the narrative’ (two phrases now associated with BBC ‘reporting’, sadly, not in a good way).


      The subsequent reporting and words used by other political leaders

      I was not aware other political leaders were in the business of reporting.

      following that decision not just in this country, but around the world, was seen by many as Britain,

      The BBC also has a rather concerning habit as seeing itself as representative of this ill-defined ‘many’, and can too often claim, with poor justification, to speak for it.

      by exercising its veto (a very rare event), as a snub to the rest of Europe. Certainly the Deputy Prime Minister thought it was a bad day for Britain.

      Rather evidently, some cherries to suit being carefully picked there. The DPM didn’t make the call on the country’s behalf, and again ‘speaks for’ not as many of the UK population as the BBC would seem to think, unless it suits.

       I agree, there are many, perhaps even a majority, of people in this country who agreed with what David Cameron did.

      Excellent.

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      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        However, I don’t believe there was any suggestion in what Paul said that the action was necessarily bad for Britain.

        With some of your colleagues in matters of complaint, I regret that the belief of those who are being complained about is of some interest, but questionable value. I now am at least aware that the term ‘throwing its toys out of the pram’ is, in BBC circles, viewed as a positive thing.

        The two-way was to discuss an increased move towards protectionism  globally and countries making increasingly nationalistic policies. The action taken against the proposed treaty would to my mind be a relevant example of that.

        Well, sadly, my mind thinks the two-way was not pursued in a relevant or appropriate way.

         Certainly ‘toys out the pram’ is a colloquial phrase

        A concession to be treasured.

        and I would accept, 

        As is this.

        something of a caricature of what actually happened.

        Something of a caricature is not how I would accept what was said and how meant. It was a rude critique of an action not felt appropriate by Mr. Mason. His to hold privately. Not to try and make or influence viewers upon.

        But this two-way was not about whether the veto was a good or a bad thing.

        Hence Mr. Mason would have been wise to remain neutral in his opinion, as expressed in his choice of description.

        We certainly gave plenty of discussion time to that question in previous programmes. 

        Don’t care.

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        • My Site (click to edit) says:

          Also, given that this was said some weeks after the summit, in which time people have had acres of press coverage to decide whether it was a good or a bad decision, I’m comfortable with its use in this context.

          Your comfort it noted. My complaint on more substantive bases stands.

           You write “without context”. I’m not sure if that was a plea to me not to include any context, but it is relevant to do so.

          That was a final line to the complaint system which, in the past, has used versions of Ms. Abbott’s recent rather derided weak attempt at digging out of a hole by alluding to context in waving things away. I actually think it is only fair and often vital to include.

           I hope that is a helpful explanation for you.

          Better than the last, which was no explanation but an ill-informed and sarcastic dismissal, for which I accept you have apologised. I still have to wonder at how such things can get intercepted, and responded to in such a (unfortunate) way outside what one had presumed was a rigid and well defined process.

          I’m not seeking to change your opinion about it,

          You have remained successful.

          but am very comfortable to defend what was said.

          Again, your comfort is noted. However, this was and remains not the aim. So not an end as you seem to be suggesting. 

          Finally, I would add that live two-ways with a correspondent are rarely free from, with hindsight, a wish to better phrase a point or make the context clearer, but they do make more engaging television than something that is pre-recorded. I would hope you share my view on this.

          Engaging can be fine. But highly paid professionals are paid highly to understand what makes for that, and what crosses the line. Clearly, too many do not. I have no clue if, buried in there is an admission that what Mr. Mason said was totally inappropriate, bit it should.
          And the attempt to seek a more jocular approach can be engaging, if consistent and meant without malice. Here it wasn’t and was.

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          • My Site (click to edit) says:

            On matters of banter coming back to haunt one, I draw your attention to Mr. Paxman’s ‘interview’ (hectoring diatribe would be more appropriate) of a clearly hapless Vince Cable the other night. At one point the matter of light-hearted turns of phrase came up, but Mr. Paxman seemed not very forgiving.
            Tell me, why should one standard apply to how the BBC treats others, but not get held up to its own actions?
            I am interested in your views still, but as there is an element now of spinning in one place, perhaps you would be kind enough to advise how I move this up the pay grade? In any case, we may again have cause to exchange, as I have now another complaint submitted on Newsnight’s poor clarification (in VO or caption) of highly pertinent affiliations of those chosen to ‘comment’ on topics, as this adds a false degree of separation sheen of independence that is not always warranted and could mislead the unaware viewer. 
            I am also aware of a pervading resort these days to the euphemistically-termed  “expedited complaints handling procedure”, which will not be welcome if applied without good, that’s very good reason. I have concerns, and have applied myself to articulating them within the narrow constraints set by the BBC system. Any frustrations at your end must, I regret, be laid at your own door.. or multiples of doors. It simply is not enough for an internal regulation system to attempt to dismiss complaints based on belief or feelings or any other subjective, self-evidently compromised mechanism, Especially one which, when it fails, sulks and pulls the plug. Or tries to like a bad sport terminating a game by shutting down the pitch floodlights. This ignores who pays for the stand and all else. I hope it won’t come to this.

            So I would like to assure you that your feedback has been registered on my log, a report of  feedback that’s made available to those like me, who deeply appreciate the insights gleaned.
            These are seen as important documents that can help shape appreciation of BBC attitudes to complaints in sincerely addressing future programming and content.
            Thanks again for taking the time to contact me.

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            • Roland Deschain says:

              “I now am at least aware that the term ‘throwing its toys out of the pram’ is, in BBC circles, viewed as a positive thing.”

              Priceless!  Do keep us informed on the progress of this, My Site, it’s a valuable insight in to the BBC hive mind.

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              • My Site (click to edit) says:

                Will do.

                I think I am on the ledge mind, looking at Jeff and Lunchtime’s recent ‘experiences’.

                I am trying to stay within the secret ‘Beware of the Leopard’ boundaries they seem to have in reserve to slap a ‘Howzat’ banning on one, making it hard to guess at a hive mindset that is frankly so diverse whilst being, at its core, so focussed on the single aim of crushing any disssent.

                For a while, at least, I have the counter card to possible responses (thanks to other shared experiences), of a senior BBC producer acting very much not in good faith. They try that on me, or this nonsense ‘volume’ excuse, and it comes back in spades.

                I very much value the shares of others, which have helped me shape my responses so far, and which they seem to be struggling to address in anything other than bluster terms. So thank you all. And also such as Craig (of many), whose forenisc filleting, with quotes and URLs, can prove hard to dismiss, when they are confronted with their own words in print.

                I am only sorry iPlayers last so briefly, and I yet have the ability to capture video records that the BBC ‘network’ has such easy access to to search, misquote, or stealth edit subsequently if cornered. And, if tasked, slap feepayer-funded FoI expemptions on to cover their actions.

                With such hypocrisy at play, as a broadcast medium they are now worse than almost all they would claim to hold to account on our behalf.

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              • Millie Tant says:

                Also priceless:  Your comfort is noted.

                  😀 😀

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            • Deborah says:

              My Site – I think you deserve a medal for perseverance… and holding the BBC to account (something they like to do to the present government).  I have this tiny hope that if you make them accountable and having to spend their paid time considering your complaint, even while admitting nothing, it may make them more careful in what they say if only to save themselves future hassle.

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              • My Site (click to edit) says:

                Thank you Deborah. We all deserve medals. And I thank all for sharing here their experiences. It’s the facts and URLs that are so vital to methodically, politely asking for answers to legitimate questions… and not taking waffle as anything like adequate in moving to improvements, as claimed, if to little conviction outside a limited bubble.

                Sadly, I do not share as much optimism as you even on their being more cautious, though I would prefer a change in attitude rather than their being more aware of getting caught out and hiding it better.

                The complaints system is broken, and was at the moment of creation, and is incapable of being fixed because the premise it was/is based around is not honest, or acknowledged as such.

                It exists solely to create an impression of listening, considering, and responding. Not actually achieving any changes. And in that functions and succeeds, at least to the aims of those complicit, magnificently. 

                Where things are going awry is when folk play them at their own game. Or try to. They do of course, have ‘get out of coping any more free’ mechanisms, such as hypocritical  ‘bad faith’ or ‘time waste’ accusations to their customers, when the actions they make these accusations around are no more than they deploy on screen daily.

                I accuse them of wasting MY time. And acting in the worst of faith by playing games, which they know are games, trying to wear me out, fully paid and pensioned to my free contribution to help them improve, by simple attrition.

                That BBC employees get to opine on the actions of colleagues is self-evidently not likely to convince many of the commitment to objectivity, especially in a civil service culture where personal accountability no longer exists and/or can be policed with any teeth.

                I do it in the slim hope that legitimate argument may sink in with those I can reach, but frankly more to build an archive for what I suspect will end up as my day in court. Plus the impact of shares on public forums such as here.

                I have little enough faith left in the UK legal system, with vaguely-defined offences being allowed to lead to highly subjective interpretations and beliefs in turn to draconian penalties so the ‘establishment’ can ‘send a message’.

                However, having been on the wrong end of the blindness of law, I have to take comfort that it doesn’t tend to ‘do’ what is ‘fair’, or ‘beliefs’ or what is ‘of comfort’. It deals in what is, and ties this to rules.

                I need to bone up on the Charter obligations, and the contractual obligations the BBC has to licence fee compellees regarding the service they impose.

                If I cease to pay the DD because they have crossed a line, on service, or meeting obligations, if they take me to court to restore this and penalise me, I may find there is value in the reasons for my actions being shared in a public arena with a demand to justify.

                It could be worth simply seeing them try.

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  9. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC, and how it omits salient information from its reports.
    Parents at Birmingham primary school object to academy plan
    Staff and teachers at a Birmingham primary school have protested against plans to turn it into an academy, taking it outside the control of the local education authority. But why are they so against the proposal? Imran Hussein has two children at Montgomery Primary School, in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham. It is one of many across England that Education Secretary Michael Gove wants to become an academy. But Mr Hussein does not believe this will improve his children’s school.He, and many other parents, claim there has been a lack of consultation and that academy status is being “imposed” by the government…. Montgomery primary is one of 200 schools across the country that the government claim are performing poorly. They are being told to leave local authority control.The Department for Education says the move will improve standards.

    So there is the bBC version of event up there in darkest Sparkhills. Here is what the bBC kind of left out of the article.
    Edexcel reports:
     Birmingham city council told the BBC they will be supporting the school,
    The Independent reports:
    The schools on the government’s hit list have failed to reach its key target of teaching 60 per cent of pupils to the required standard in English and maths for five consecutive years.In Montgomery’s case, 53 per cent reached the target last year – the sixth year it had underperformed.

    So the bBC fails to mention not only how the council (And the governors) support this move, but that this school has failed the children it purports to teach for 6 years in a row. Seeing as the vast majority of children are Pakistani, (you know the minority that fails the most in the UK) you’d think the bBC might have mentioned some of the above information I’ve added. But instead the bBC uses the chance to broadcast a party political broadcast against the present government. I mean what with this:
    “Montgomery primary is one of 200 schools across the country that the government claim are performing poorly.”

    So 6 years of actually failing and the bBC reports that as a claim. 

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    • pounce_uk says:

      The thing is, schools only have to get a 60% in which to claim they are good at teaching their children. 60% is a pretty piss poor result , yet that is the standard for our children, yet and a big yet the school in question fails even that very low bar. In otherwords the community which needs the best schooling in which to lift its people off the poverty ladder are being failed and the so called liberal bBC promotes an agenda against helping those who need help the most.

      Typical left wing stance.

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  10. David Preiser (USA) says:

    St. Julian, darling of the BBC, alleged champion of free speech and freedom of information in the face of government propaganda, has a new gig. You’ll never guess what it is:

    Russia Today

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    • Reed says:

      He’d better behave himself over there. Rock the boat too much and a Polonium Latte awaits.

         0 likes

    • Roger C says:

      Russia Today is less biased than the BBC! they have people on from all political angles, including some right wing. Unherd of on the BBC. 

         0 likes

    • As I See It says:

      I have occasionally watched Russia Today for their slant on the news. There are pros and cons. One thing is for sure, it’s unashamedly pro-Russian.

      A pro-British stance is something you could never claim of the BBC.

         0 likes

    • RCE says:

      As others have noted, RT knocks the Beeb into a cocked hat. The French and Chinese channels also show stuff that our national broadcaster just refuses to report. Can’t think why.

         0 likes

  11. RGH says:

    Stephen Evans has written a piece from Berlin concerning anti-semitism in Germany. The occasion for this is the publication of a first interim report to the Federal Parliament of a series of reports commissioned  in 2009.

    This is, of course, a vitally important topic and deserves to be fully and thoroughly examined.

    Yes, there is latent anti-semitism and even overt anti-semitism but, and as the report points out, and Stephens doesn’t, in fact he goes out of his way to extend this to an institutional xenophobia which extends to the four million, mainly Turkish Muslims, in the country.

    Evans presents a picture of an increase in anti-semitic tendency from west to east across Europe.

    He seems to confuse his terms. In Germany this is a generalised ‘xenophobia’, but in the Netherlands he sees no real anti-semitism…tell that to the supporters of Ajax.

    Please take a step back. Think Geert Wilders. From the BBC perspective the politics of Wilders is pro-Israel and highly critical of Islam. So already a differentiation invites discussion. The unease in Germany concerning Muslim immigration is the same in Germany as in the Netherlands as Geert Wilders has repeated in many excellent speeches in the course of his visits.

    So where does this anti-semitism also reside, apart from a ‘generalised’ latency.

    Chaspter Two of the report:

    . Eine Analyse zur Antisemitismus und Linksextremismus Israel- und Kapitalismuskritik im öffentlichen Diskurs. Antisemitismus gilt als ein Kernelement der Ideo-logie des Rechtsextremismus. Ob auch von einem Antisemitismus im Linksextremismus gesprochen werden könne, wird in Öffentlichkeit und Wissen-schaft kontrovers diskutiert. Auf der einen Seite stehen Auffassungen, die in abwertenden Kommentaren gegenüber Juden bei den „Klassikern“ des Sozialismus und in rigorosen Verdammungen der Politik Israels durch heutige Linksextremisten einen Beleg für das Bestehen eines spezifischen Antisemitismus in diesem politischen Lager sehen.

    The report analyses the anti-semitism of the Left. Indeed makes the point that the most virulent public expressions come from the Left and is clearly present in the criticism of Israel and Capitalism.

    This was classic Nazi thinking. The ‘Finanzjuden’.

    The interesting point it makes is that the former communist states present more anti-semitic tendencies because the ideology of socialism taught them that anti-semitism is a fascist vice because fascism is capitalist. Therefore, the working class was a victim of Nazism and absolved of any anti-semitic stain. This was state ideology. Besides socialism has no time for national or ethnic or religious identity…therefore could not be ‘fascist’.

    This thinking has produced a blind spot in the Left and they exhibit anti-semitism which they strenuously deny.

    Herman Dierkes case in Duisburg is a case in point. The Wiesenthal centre has identified him as an anti-semite…but socialists and communists appear bewildered as to why this should be so. I have seen his flysheets and his you tube clips and I believe he is as the Wiesenthal Centre describes him.

    The other segment of society which the report examines is the anti-semitism arising in the immigrant communities. The Turkish community, being the largest, is examined. The report deprecates the highly virulent anti-semitic imagery and language in the output of Turkish television as legitimising the anti-semitism.

    Indeed, the fact that the Muslim community does not accept that, despite many millions of them have German passports now, that they need to have the lessons of the past applied to them. There is active resistance to events relating to the holocaust. The Muslim Germans resent any support to Israel in terms which are often anti-semitic and in this they make common cause with the Left.

    All in all, Evans’ piece on the BBC website really does not examine what the report suggests in its entirety.

    To link in Thilo Sarrazin to this anti-semitism is a fashionable example of this confusion. Sarrazin, ex Bundesbank and Socialist Finance Senator from Berlin, examines the nature of immigration. In fact, he welcomes jewish reimmigration and criticises the failure of successive governments to insist on higher standards of integration and succombing to the intellectually lazy multi-culti ideology.

    All this is worthy of a full study….but the BBC’s Evans has not done the report or the subject matter justice.

       0 likes

    • RGH says:

      To highlight the comment above concerning the complexity of anti-semitism in Germany….this the BBC’s Evans completely ignored:

      “When Aycan Demirel looks out his office window onto the main street of the Kreuzberg neighborhood, center of the Turkish community in Germany’s capital, he is unimpressed by the diverse human mosaic for which “Little Istanbul” is famous. Businesses along Oranienstrasse are populated by young Germans eating shwarma to the sounds of Turkish music, but Demirel pointedly recalled the darker side of the neighborhood experience. “The residents here love to treat this neighborhood as a model of multiculturalism and tolerance, but that image is fraudulent,” he said.

      “The Jews have no place in this multiculturalism,” Demirel said. “If you wear a kippa , there’s a big chance you’ll be cursed at and even assaulted. Anti-Semitism is rearing its head in Germany, only now the anti-Semites are young Muslims.”

      Demirel, 38, is not Jewish; he emigrated from Turkey 16 years ago. In today’s Germany, his decision to confront radical Islam places him on the frontlines of one of the stormiest social debates the country has known.”

         0 likes

      • RGH says:

        Evans is possibly unaware of this:

        Meanwhile, many of Germany’s 4 million Muslims stay connected with events in the Middle East via cable television networks, such as  Hezbollah’s Al-Manar and Hamas’s Al-Aqsa. These anti-Semitic networks promote Holocaust denial.
        “You cannot undo with education what these satellite broadcasts are doing,” said Matthias Kuntzel, an author and political scientist, in a phone interview from Hamburg.
        The programs are fed to Germany via Egyptian and Saudi Arabian satellites. Both countries have refused repeated German requests to stop transmitting Al-Manar. Although Al-Manar was banned in 2008, private homes with satellite dishes continue to receive its programs, making the ban ineffective.

        Yet, at the same time, 67.5 percent in the 2010 poll agreed with the statement, “I like it that increasingly more Jews live in Germany.”

        Evans should take a more nuanced view. His term ‘Germans’ is a stereotype which allows him to concentrate his argument along ‘classic’ lines and ignore very important factors which more understanding of a complex social structure affected by the horror of its history is challenged in its perception of the past by new citizens who do not identify the problem of anti-semitism as applying to them.

           0 likes

        • cjhartnett says:

          Wonderful posts these RGH.
          Cheeses me off that journalists in the MSM aren`t fit to lick your boots…and I have to pay the BBC to spit in my face with their “nuanced” anti-Israel slurry each and every day.
          Thanks!

             0 likes

  12. My Site (click to edit) says:

    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.com/2012/01/form-book-3.html

    ‘Which means that head of News Helen Boaden could come up on the rails.’

    Given her recorded outings here and on such as ‘The Editors’ thread, across just about any market rate senior mnagement basis, she’d be perfect as DG.

    If in the same way as Ed Miliband is as Labour Leader for the Conservatives.

       0 likes

  13. Martin says:

    So the evil lying Tory government (BBC view not mine) releases a report, now normally any report released by this government (unlike under Liebore) is treated with suspicion and contempt by the BBC, but THIS report wasn’t.

    Why? because it’s about climate change and the dozy female on Radio 5just lapped it up, it had horror stories about melting ice caps, floods and death, I thought it might be the old testament from the Bible she was quoting.

    Not but then we got a second opinion, someone independent to take a look at the report? nope some lefty tosser from a pro climate change organisation who just loved it.

    Of course during their conversation it came up that like all these other reports it’s based on assumptions, computer models blah blah blah, just like the ones on the economy BBC.

    But where as the BBC sneer at Tory reports on the economy, they just love this report.

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      The selectivity aspect, from what topic is chosen, who is chosen to speak upon it (or not in both cases), and how all is massaged in the edit suite, is an even more pernicious aspect of an overall risible output.

      And, sadly, as with proving negatives, near impossible to construct a coherent complaint around.

      Not impossible, but darn tricky.

      You absolutely will fail if you adopt a ‘see you haven’t..’ approach, as they can slip from under that one in a heartbeat.

      It’s something that needs a truly independent inquiry, where ‘we don’t think so’ won’t cut it if faced up to well-resourced, and archived presentation of output, even if a subjective view needs to then be taken.

      But it’s not unheard of. That juror was banged up on her internet searching ‘innocent mistake’ because her argument was not believed. Belief alone is not a means to avoid being held to further account.

      The BBC would, I suggest, struggle, on many topics, and possible apple vs. orange ones as you highlight above, when presented with what happened and how they chose to ‘report’ it (Anything from benefits to wrong kind of foreigner affairs… default hounds of hell from Masonic ‘banter’ to oddly vague, context free ‘expert’ quango/NGO/charity/think tank/Toynbee/Penny/Maguire coordinated and unleashed on the Conservatives/coalition/government from Breakfast sofa through Newsnight to twitter. Climate box tick from any quarter… wheel on Greenpeace, WWF, FOE, Juniper, Monbiot or Lucas to give a cautious tumbs up.. but what about the cuts as well?)

      But too much for an individual.

         0 likes

  14. Stuart says:

    Nice to hear Evan Davis give Peter Mandelson a very easy ride on the Today program this morning – and agreeing with him on everything. I don’t believe there was one interruption.

    I’m sure if it was a evil Tory who happened to have an education from Eton it would of been a very different story.

       0 likes

    • ap-w says:

      Yes, I happened to walk into the room where the radio was on and just heard Evan Davis saying politely, “I’d like to start with inequality, which clearly you are very concerned about…”

      I don’t think he stated his interview with iain Duncan Smith the other day like that.

         0 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      You’d have thought that Mandelson had absolutely nothing to do with the policies of the UK government between 1997 and 2010.  As far as Evan was concerned, here was a distinguished disinterested commentator (OK he’s a member of the Labour Party but that’s “impartial” in Evan’s books) giving his unbiased take on the present financial/economic/social national and international situation.  As I concluded from Mandelson’s comments and Evan’s silent consent during this 10 minute sermon, the punters should now accept that Labour “got it about right”.

         0 likes

  15. Betty Swollocks says:

    Stuart, thats because Davis will join Mandy for a cozy ‘Toad in the hole’ for lunch !!!

       0 likes

  16. Leha II says:

    Frank Gardiner on Somalia Seal team 6 hostage rescue “unfortunately we wont be able to hear the other side of the story” WTG Seals!

       0 likes

  17. cjhartnett says:

    Ditto Stuart!
    The obsequiuous purring poodle schmoozed the lofty entitled grandee-not sure which one was which though as they played gaily on the seesaw.
    When I think back to Tinselworm barking over IDS the other day-I think we have our masterclass exemplar of sloshing, all prevasive BBC bias.
    Interruption quotient scale could be drawn -the Davis Dumbell line…with piercings of course…sadly, I just can`t be arsed to listen to Davis again.
    I was only surprised that Nick Robinson wasn`t  on Evans lap ,so he could do the usual Bristol Stool Analysis on Lord Peter Whimseys leavings in the barn.
    Now to more relaxing things-I believe the fragrant Laura Penny will be on Newsnight sticking it to Thatcher-can you be Tory AND a feminist woman?
    More chance of that than being a senior BBC executive/Today presenter apparently, but don`t imagine that`ll make the news!

       0 likes

  18. RGH says:

    St. Julia Gillard has had to be rescued after nasty old Tony Abbott ‘angered’ aboriginal protestors with an outrageous comment to the effect that the ‘tent’ city should, perhaps, be dismantled.

    The BBC mentioned his comment twice as a source of the ‘anger’ in which St. Julia was involved.

    This, as the BBC does not quote Tony Abbott’s words….the incitment that caight up poor JUlia, is what was said:

    “I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian. I think a lot has changed since then, and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

    For the record. The BBC missed that important piece of the story.

       0 likes

  19. cjhartnett says:

    MPs tell the Home Office that they employ heavy-handed methods to remove illegal immigrants.
    MPs tell the Energy Department that the proposed Carbon Tax will cripple the country if they continue with it.

    One of the above stories was ran continually on the Today programme whilst I listened briefly, and the other?…not a pee! as far as I could tell.

    Might the BBC be good enough to link the Carbon Tax(or indeed the licence fee) to the catastrophic effects that it will have on “vulnerable” children…on prospects of “goin` to uni”…or throwing us all into “double-dip”?
    Stupid, stupid question!

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      MPs tell the Home Office that they employ heavy-handed methods to remove illegal immigrants. 

      They say it like it’s a bad thing.

      As opposed to those ‘light-handed’ methods, where they let them stay.

         0 likes

  20. George R says:

    MARDELL (via Twitter) refers to INBBC propaganda piece (scroll down):

    ‘Inside the mind of a Navy Seal sniper.’

    Mardell does NOT refer to any piece:

    ‘Inside the mind of an Islamic jihad killer.’

    But then who’s the enemy to Mardell?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/us_and_canada/

       0 likes

  21. As I See It says:

    Victoria Derbyshire’s show (‘exclusive news-making interviews and powerful human interest stories’) is telling the distressing tale of a woman who was cyber-stalked – and naturally Beeboid Vic voices calls for new legislation.

    The victim mentioned in passing that there had been a ‘racial‘ aspect to the abuse she had received from the man who has subsequently been identified and prosecuted.

    Oddly Beeboid Victoria moved on apparently unwilling to mine this normally rich vein of BBC interest. 

    The perpetrator’s name was Hussain.

       0 likes

    • noggin says:

      the facts as always with el beeb reports, are extremely ambiguous
      one can assume theres a muslim aspect  in there somewhere.

      it appears to be a very similar pattern, (the abuse) to the formula for
      islamic grooming/abuse, ie building threat, man after man sent to the house, complete deceit, online here instead of face to face, there has has obviously been collusion/help from ahem …  unnamed others, to help
      him in evasion from the law, so … maybe we ll never get the facts

      i don t know about this girl at all, but maybe she ll realise that taking a muslim into your confidence, worst still trust, (as happens time and time again, and again), is not a wise choice … what will it take for the penny to drop.

      am i being discriminatory? or as  i think stating facts? …
      to be honest i don t care

         0 likes

  22. Reed says:

    Question Time panel…(*oh gawd – BBC ‘comedian’ alert) >:o

    Jeremy Browne – Liberal Democrat Foreign Office Minister
    David Lammy – Labour’s former higher education minister (lowest score on Celebrity Mastermind)
    Liz Truss – Conservative MP
    Mark Steel* – Tory hating class obsessed dullard (with forced workin’ class accent)
    Melanie Phillips(hurrah) – Daily Mail columnist, right-wing nutter, zionist extremist…(doing something right then!)

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/9686647.stm

       0 likes

    • Barry says:

      “Mark Steel – Tory hating class obsessed dullard”

      No description necessary. Just say “BBC comedian”.

         0 likes

    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      Now you might think I’m going doolally in my old age, but I read a lengthy piece by Mark Steel in one of the rags which was a mini-me of his book ‘Mark Steel’s In Town’.  And it was funny  =-O .  Yes, funny  =-O .

      ‘one drizzly dark February afternoon as I came out of the station at Scunthorpe, I got in a minicab, and the driver didn’t even look at me, but kept staring straight ahead as he said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve come here for, it’s a fucking shit-hole.’

      But, sure, I agree with the basic premise that he is a Tory hating class obsessed dullard (with forced working class accent).  And his shift in the piece into weep-mode when he reached Slave City Central (ie Bristol) was desperate.


         0 likes

      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        ROBERT BROWN; Have to agree, Steels’ recent radio series on his visiting British towns was very funny indeed, however much i despise his political views. The one on Portland Dorset was a gem, with a hilarious parting shot right at the end. Have a listen.

           0 likes

    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      David Lammy – Labour’s former higher education minister (lowest score on Celebrity Mastermind)

      Yes – IIRC he seemed to think Henry V11 succeeded Henry V111 

         0 likes

      • Reed says:

        …have we underestimated the man? Perhaps he’s a talented theoretical physicist, and was contemplating the possibility of time travel.

           0 likes

  23. Bupendra Bhakta says:

    Radio 5 Runt of the Litter/ Last at the Trough had the needle on my Shillometer ©  well into red territory this morning.  In fact smoke was coming out of it.

    Some dozy mare on who had given birth to twins and was having to move back in with her parents to save money.

    Gameshow – So how have cuts affected you?

    Dozy Mare – um… err… let me see… it’s not so much the cuts…

    No, quite. ‘Not at all’, was the answer she was reaching for.

    Still Gameshow shilled on with ‘ …and later in the programme we’ll be talking to Terry Northern-Gobshite from the Prison Officers Association who believes that torycutz are responsible for yesterday’s prisoner escape.

    Of course when Terry got on air he’d clearly forgotten his cue cards because he didn’t mention the nasty torycutz at all.  Or perhaps he realised how utterly ridiculous that line would make him sound.  Gameshow doesn’t care how ridiculous he sounds.  He does it for a living.

    The ‘gang’ moved on to an interview with a senior exec from Subway which has announced good figures.  Rather than congratulating him on making a profit, providing a product that people wanted, at a price they can afford, paying taxes, and creating jobs, the studio hydrogen-weights with Andy Wake Up To Manny in the van laid in to him.

    Why do you charge £4 for a vegetarian special?  >:o

    Why is there no wholemeal option?  >:o

    Do you not think your company is responsible for all out High Streets looking the same.  >:o

    And on and on and on it went.

    For the droids there is only one economic model.  Every company should consist of about 20,000 people, all of whom should be pretrendy leftie hopey-changey Guardian readers, and that company should receive £4 billion from ‘The State’ every year.

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      ‘Some dozy mare on who had given birth to twins and was having to move back in with her parents to save money.’

      As a parent, with my good lady wife, of twins, was their any mention of the contribution of the man in the house (not her Dad)?

      A Martian landing here would presume, from a casual glance at the airwaves, that every UK ‘person’ seems to pretty much be a ‘single muvva’, who is struggling, one might suspect, with the fiscal responsibilities of being a parent.

      Twins of course can, by definition, double the budget in this regard, which is sort of what you need to accept as a risk… and deal with.

      We pump a fair bit at the littel darlings, which is why an Astin is not sitting in the driveway.

      Beyond being suckered on vai the vox poppette filter, she seems to have acquitted herself better than some affrontists seeking their 15″ of fame, TBH, if she did not follow the BBC script.

         0 likes

      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        Subway might enjoy good figures by offering a decent product and great service. There’s one at our local BP, open 24/7. Packed to gunnels sarnie and all the timmings, plus drink plus crisp or cookie for around £4.

        Bargain. £145.50 demanded with menaces for a ‘service’ dedicated to dragging down the productive and protecting the shiftless… not so much.

        I opt for one. I have no choice with the other. As the latter tries to undermine the other’s contribution to the UK economy still further.

        Messrs Cameron, Hunt, Clegg and even Miliband might need to reflect on that.

           0 likes

    • Reed says:

      BB, you make me glad that I never tune into Gameshow Nicky.

      Just seen a report on Subway on Sky News – no sniping, just the facts : the profits, the ability to adjust to the economic conditions, the job creation, the buying up of highstreet shop units that are currently vacant.

      I call that an all round success story, but we’re left to decide for ourselves on Sky News. Unlike the BBC, who apparently see fit to try and tell you what you ought to think. I guess there is a difference between a discussion-style show and straight news coverage, but how they can attempt to turn this story into something negative is beyond me. Greedy, private sector capitalists, I suppose.

         0 likes

  24. hippiepooter says:

    I wonder how the BBC will cover this?  If at all?  Extremely newsworthy, well .. there’s no doubt the BBC would cover it if we were talking about someone who said they raped because of their Christian beliefs.. they’d be falling overthemselves to run it ..

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091669/Sunny-Islam-Strict-Muslim-raped-4-women-knifepoint-punish-them.html

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Blimmin’ Daily Mail readers.

      Not like they represent the country like.. who again?

      Speaking as a muslim woman how dare he utter in the same breath that he is a Muslim and then abuse women. It makes my blood boil that 11 minimum years is the sentence. Evil man hiding behind his religion. Why would the fact that he is 21 years old and of religious background effect the sentencing.

      – Dee, Middlesex, 25/1/2012 17:32
      Click to rate     Rating   2344
      Dee not going to get on as a BBC vox pop or QT audeince with that kind of attitude!

         0 likes

  25. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ, and its sing-song voiced Andrew HOSKEN, drops a RICKET.  
     
    BBC-NUJ seems to have shifted the emphasis of its reporting (as of 2010) on the rise of RICKETS in British society away from mass immigration from Asia and Afro-Caribbean, towards exclusively clinical causes – as on ‘Today’ programme this morning.  
     
     
    1.)  
     
         BBC-NUJ report on rickets in Britain, 2010:  
     
     
     
    “Concerns over increaser in rickets among ethnic groups”  
     
     
     
     
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8570542.stm
     
     
     
     
    2.)  
     
    Sing-song voiced Hosken on ‘Today’ this morning censors out impact and cost of mass immigration in rise of rickets in British society.  
     
    Mass immigration into Britain goes unmentioned in 7 min audio!  
     
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9687000/9687020.stm  

       0 likes

    • RGH says:

      The Independent covered this phenomenon last year and they, to give them credit, did not, unlike the BBC feel obliged to point out that white children also suffer from this deficiency disease in very small numbers.

      The Independent quite clearly pointed out:

      “Dr Elspeth Webb, a reader in child health at Cardiff University, said: “You get women living in certain communities that perhaps don’t go out much because of religious, cultural traditions. They’re covered up when they do. They don’t get enough access to sunlight. So they get vitamin D deficient.
      “Every pregnancy, you use up your vitamin D stores and if you’re not making enough to replenish them, you gradually get more and more depleted. By your third or fourth child, that child is born already without enough vitamin D. So they’ll be presenting with rickets at around 18 months.”

      As with the problem of ‘cousin marriage’ from generation to generation leading to a cascade of genetically induced illness. the locus of this problem is in the mothers cultural/religious beliefs.

      These mothers are located in a particular cultural locus.

      I get so fed up when the BBC pussyfoots around on this.

      I’ll say it.

      Pakistan.

         0 likes

  26. Orryl says:

    Listened to some of the World Service briefly last night. More of the usual, i.e. another whole prog gushingly dedicated to Islamic art which tied in with some exhibition of same.  
     
    Frank Gardiner ‘security correspondent’ interpreting events on a news report. Given his, frankly, shameful outbursts appealing for help when he once encountered the sharp end of Islamic devoutness, it would have been proper had he been quietly asked to leave the BBC journalistic corps.  
     
    How the Beeb spends your money: a couple of years ago, an ex-colleague of mine, a very charming person, related how her Sister, who was a low-ranking gopher in some dept of the corp, had had a lesbian ‘honeymoon’ in Florida funded by the tv licence-payer, courtesy of her supervisor or head of production. No doubt written-off as ‘research’ or some such.

       0 likes

    • RGH says:

      There is no such thing as Islamic art. Or do you want to say that everything from Leonardo to Picasso and David Hockney are ‘Christian art’.

      Art from Persia or Egypt or India is not ‘Islamic Art’ but art produced in regions taken over by Islam but drawing on deeper and local roots.

      It is intellectually dishonest to use the term ‘Islamic Art’.

         0 likes

  27. Manfred VR says:

    As the EU approaches implosion, I think it’s worth reflecting on the contribution the BBC has made to the destruction of Europe, the Euro, and of course, the UK.
    As has been proved on countless occaisions on this blog, the BBC is undoubtably a Common Purpose, Cultural Marxist institution, dedicated to the destruction of national identity (particularly ours), economic collapse, resulting in a unified Europe under the rule of unelected bureaucrats, who can plunder at will the tax paid by the enslaved people.
    The obvious question is why would they want this?
    My answer is that they have demonstrated to the future masters of Europe, their Socialist Marxist credentials; and their unwavering dedication to the EU.
    In the “Post Democratic Era” as called by Common Purpose, there won’t be meaningful elections, but the European people will need to be lied to on an industrial scale to keep the lid on the whole scam.
    Who better than the BBC to become the EBC, with their expertise at lying and shilling for socialism and Europe?
    And even at ‘only’ £145 a pop from each household with a EU telly Tax, the beeb will be sitting on a mountain of cash to maintain their peoples champagne lifestyle. And the DG’s salary – well it could be collosal.

       0 likes

  28. George R says:

    INBBC’s LANDALE + ECHR + ‘AMNESTY’  v. PM CAMERON.

    In reporting on PM Cameron’s correct if mild criticism of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)in Strasbourg, INBBC’s James LANDALE,  refers to British government’s inabilty to deport ‘radical’ Muslim Qatada (because of ECHR) and Landale gets in an ‘Amnesty’ person to re-enforce the INBBC political position of support for ECHR, and opposition to British PM Cameron.  
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16733683

       0 likes

  29. Jeff Waters says:

    I’m appealing to the Trust the decision to stop considering my complaints.  I’m probably whistling in the wind, but it got my frustration out of my system:

    Could I please appeal against the decision outlined in the forwarded email below, and could you take the following into account?

    A.  I deny the claim that I have ‘sought to substitute complaints about right-wing bias for those of left-wing bias’.  I merely requested clarification about the BBC’s position in relation to my complaints of bias, as it was not clear whether it applied merely to complaints of left-wing bias.

    I made that enquiry several weeks ago.  If it had been my intention to make complaints of right-wing bias, would I not have started doing so by now?

    B.  Ms Harris claims that ‘we do not feel that this correspondence can continue in an atmosphere of good faith’, but what evidence is there of any bad faith on my behalf?  I have merely pointed out areas for improvement. The BBC should be grateful for this free feedback.  Indeed, if you look through my complaints, you will find examples of things written by the BBC that are clearly misleading or factually incorrect (the complaint I made about a rape headline being an example).  Moreover, if you look at the comments I have posted on the BBC Biased website (http://biasedbbc.tv/), it is clear that my concerns about the bias and inaccuracy sometimes shown by the BBC are genuine.

    C.  I would ask the Trust to consider whether the timing of this decision is suspicious, coming, as it does, soon after I made complaints about the surly manner in which I had, on particular occasions, been treated by BBC complaints department staff.

    D.  I fail to see what is inappropriate about posting a link to an article criticising a BBC news website article, and effectively saying ‘I agree with the author’s observations’.  When someone makes criticisms of a BBC article that I agree with and I want to put their points to the BBC, is that not the right course of action?

    As I have stated previously, I merely want to help ensure that the BBC produces content that is error-free and bias-free.  I therefore struggle to understand why my contributions are not deemed helpful, but are instead met with scorn.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards

    Jeff

       0 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      I reckon the Trust will reply (in due course) that the BBC, in respect its decision concerning your complaints “got it about right”.  BTW I admire your persistence – I would’ve lost patience a long time ago.

         0 likes

      • Jeff Waters says:

        Thanks Umbungo.  I will fall off my seat in shock if the appeal actually succeeds!  🙂  LOL! 

           0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Best of luck. 

      Personal input…

      Avoid sharing names. It should not matter, and I note they often blithely share with all and sundry their end (witness a Newsnight Producer rummaging in the Complaint pot and taking mine out of context, rather distastrously for him), but this seems a red rag on the ‘bad faith’ front that may be worth leaving until they ask you for who has done or said what within their system.

      Also, with the greatest respect to BBBC, it is not worth citing this forum, especially in general terms. Again it ‘should’ not matter, but it offers a ‘Daily Mail Reader’ distraction that can turn possibly sympathetic Graun CiF types into tribal adversaries, irrespective of case merit. Specifics, yes, but keep your powder dry until the shot can land home where it will impact most. Use the facts shared here for effect.

      Just my 2¢. Ignore if not to taste.

         0 likes

  30. Millie Tant says:

    They must have meant their own bad faith in alleging that you sought to make complaints about rightwing bias. If so, that was an appalling ploy and downright idiocy on their part, as it was blindingly obvious that you were posing a question for clarification of the scope and basis of the Beeboid position; and considering the nature of all your previous complaints, who in their right mind would even think you were suddenly going to start complaining about rightwing bias?

       0 likes

    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      Just go through the FoI Act.

      No choice but to reply to that otherwise Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch get to add to our prison overcrowding.

         0 likes

      • Jeff Waters says:

        Bupendra – Thanks for the suggestion.  I might do that.

        I’d love to know what the BBC have written in their notes about me!

        Jeff

           0 likes

    • Jeff Waters says:

      Millie – Quite.  They’re grasping at straws…

      Jeff

         0 likes

  31. sue says:

    Guess who said:  “it’s very difficult to produce any question that doesn’t have some element of loading in it. The minute you put a sentence into English there are some lurking assumptions there, inevitably.”

    Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you. It was James Naughtie revealing that he knows something about loaded questions! Next he’ll be telling us he knows something about bias!  Best not disturb Helen Boaden with that bombshell.
    But she might accidentally find out! She might have overheard Professor Cialdini explain that biased, loaded questions ‘send people down a particular cognitive chute.’
     
    Oh Noes!
     
    The Today programme went to the trouble of engaging professor Robert Cialdini, author of “Influence: Science and Practice”, to discuss the vexed question of whether the wording: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” is fair.

    I think it’s loaded and biased” says the prof.

    In what respect and why?”  asks Mr. Naughtie innocently.

    Because it sends people down a particular cognitive chute, designed to locate agreements, rather than disagreements” came the answer.

    “It’s the question of agreeing with something that is assumed in the question to be already the preferred option” confirmed Naughtie in that charming, convoluted way of his.

    “That’s correct. It’s called a one-sided question, or a loaded question, and poll-takers, survey researchers, for a long time have warned us against those kinds of questions. In fact when I’m asked a question like that I refuse to answer it. Because it’s likely to get me to both mistake, and mis-state my position” explains Cialini Americanly.

    “What does the research show about the difference in reponses to a question which is asked in different ways?” ventures Naughtie with trepidation.

    “It can be dramatic” continues the prof.  “There’s a famous study done here in the United States by survey researchers who asked a sample of Americans a question as follows: “If there’s a serious fuel shortage this winter, do you think there should be a law requiring people to lower the heat in their homes? And they found 38% in support of that policy. But if the researchers added the balancing phrase, would you oppose such a law, only 29% of a similar sample of Americans supported the idea, so a 9% swing is enough to change many many elections.”

    “I suppose it’s very difficult in the end to produce any question that doesn’t have some element of loading in it. I mean the minute you put a sentence into English there are some lurking assumptions there, inevitably” admits Naughtie. “The question is how you reduce them. Isn’t that really the point?”

    Indeed it is, Mr. N.
     
    Exactly right,” agrees the prof, “and to do it with a balancing phrase, a simple one is the most economical and efficient way to do it. So once again we simply say “do you agree or disagree with that idea?” and that balances the scales.”

    So, do you agree or disagree that the BBC is you-know-what?

       0 likes

    • cjhartnett says:

      I heard this too!
      Naughtie is a mooching endless fascinated member of the nomenklatura, and this dreadful piece of BBC indifference to what Cialdini was trying to tell him!
      In Jims view, this political naif from over the pond was not to be taken too seriously because he had not heard of Alex Salmond.
      I thought they knew it as the Gulf of Mexico oil slick in a tartan tin!
      And, just in case anyone thought that science could ever be spoken of knowingly, Evan Davis managed to link the lead-in to Bacon/Popper and the scientific method with the weather forecast being read out.
      Hell-even the soft science of Cialdini is way beyond these Oxbridge “hideously white gay/Celtic males running the Toad Show”

         0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      In fact when I’m asked a question like that I refuse to answer it. Because it’s likely to get me to both mistake, and mis-state my position” 

      Fascinating. Oddly, the BBC/Graun/Troika are keen and frequent abusers of turning loaded questions in research/polls in ‘the public is saying’ headlines.

      And need calling on it.

         0 likes

  32. pounce_uk says:

    Another party political broadcast on behalf of the labour party from the bBC

    Blunt speaking on town hall cuts
    “Stop believing what the government tells you” – advice from one senior executive in a Conservative-controlled council in England on local government cuts…


    Although deprived neighbourhoods will take the biggest hit, councils are quietly trying to target their provision towards the most needy”


    Despite the fact that pro-poor services seem to have been affected least, the evidence is that, because poorer communities are more reliant on council services, the impact of cuts will fall more heavily on disadvantaged people. More affluent households, it is argued in today’s report, have “the capacity to supplement public with other forms of provision”.

    So even with the facts on the ground that government cuts target the better off (Labeled by the bBC as pro-rich) over 30% cuts the bBC say the less well off (very-pro-poor) 2% cut are the ones who will be hurt the most. I quote the bBC conclusion:

    For those who worry that some disadvantaged neighbourhoods are being cast adrift from mainstream society, today’s JRF report makes troubling reading. It questions whether English local government can continue to serve deprived communities and suggests the “early evidence points to the distinctive impact of cuts on services for children and young people”.

    Eric Pickles has consistently argued that it is by bearing down on waste and duplication that local authorities can find the necessary savings without damaging front-line services. It is not a view shared by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

    That ends the party political party broadcast on behalf of the labour party.

       0 likes

  33. Cassandra King says:

    The BBC is impartial right? I mean thats what these c*cksuckers are always telling us right? Here we have a report about the Astralian floods that destroyed billions in property and cost lives from EUREF and the BBC are where on this scandal? The BBC reported that it was a natural disaster, a preview of CAGW, now that it becomes clear that far from natural it was man made and a product of the CAGW fraud, the BBC are silent.

    At the time, in January last year, we did it here, herehere, here, here and here, pointing out that the Queensland floods were largely a man-made disaster. We were joined by Booker on 15 January, one of the very few MSM journalists who pursued this issue.

    Needless to say, the Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh was talking of “exceptional events”, and the BBC happily chirped about the “freak of nature” – an attempt to reinforce the subliminal message that nothing could have been done, while the rest if the British MSM sat on its hands and said nothing of the involvement of the dam management and the dire effect of the green agenda.

    But now, there seems to be a concerted attempt to cover up the role of the management of the Wivenhoe Dam. The top-level Commission of Inquiry is charged with “overlooking” crucial documents about the management of dam in the days before the inundation of Brisbane.

    These documents, leaked by The Australian last year, indicate that on the crucial weekend of 8-9 January last year the dam’s managers were operating under a low-level release strategy rather than a more urgent strategy to prevent flooding, contradicting evidence given to the inquiry.

    The cover-up looked even more sinister it was revealed that a top civil servant was seconded to a senior new job advising premier Anna Bligh on the floods inquiry after he had provided the documents to the inquiry that suggested flood engineers were using the wrong strategy to operate Wivenhoe Dam.

    However, new evidence how now emerged – an exchange of e-mails between two of Queensland’s most senior water officials seems to confirm that the wrong strategy was being used to manage Wivenhoe Dam, and that water officials have been lying to the inquiry.

    Some commentators now believe that the inquiry will be a whitewash, and are pinning their faith on a class action, which seeks damages on the basis of corporate and government negligence, even though the inquiry has been recalled to hear the new evidence.

    But, while the Australian media is running with this issue, the British media is, of course, silent. Despite the broader implications, which would be of some considerable interest to British readers, the media would rather us not know how badly the Greens screwed up.

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      ‘The cover-up looked even more sinister’

      Not the only one.

      ‘the British media is, of course, silent.’

         0 likes

  34. wild says:

    I watched some of the BBC Crusades programme but as far as I could see it was only excuse to repeat the same old myths that are repeated on every single other programme made by the BBC about the Crusades.      
         
    The Christians were greedy imperialists because they tried to push back the Muslim invaders. The Muslims opposed the Christian West, and therefore all correct thinking people ought to support them, just as in the Cold War all correct thinking people hoped that the USSR would defeat and conquer Nato.
      
       
    P.S. The Jews (especially those who are settled in Israel) are supporters of the West, and so we should support our Muslim brothers in their efforts to completely eliminate them from the face of the Earth.

       0 likes

    • wild says:

      The sub-text  
       
      Crusader State (Kingdom of Israel) = Modern State of Israel

         0 likes

      • George R says:

        Yes, such is the INBBC’s censorship of ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM in history since the 7th century that INBBC omits to connect this key fact to Islam’s conquest of Constantinople, the near East and the persecution of the prior Christian settlers.

        Just as Christians in Europe in the 12th century had a duty to protect Christians from Islamic persecution then, so too today the West’s ‘Christian’ leaders should be protecting Christians from Islamic persecution  which continues.

           0 likes

  35. Reed says:

    About effing time!!!!!!  
     
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9029807/Ministers-ban-extra-benefits-for-multiple-wives.html  
     
    As the first comment says – “At last, some common sense”.

       0 likes

  36. RGH says:

    “But a racial awareness does seem to remain among many ordinary Germans.”

    On Page 2 I, perhaps at too much length, let my thoughts have an airing concerning Stephen Evans report from Berlin.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16708340

    Please forgive me for returning to this piece of BBC journalism which addressed the first report to the Bundestag on anti-semitism.

    I could write much on this subject, not because I am Jewish, but because on the maternal side I am German. My understanding of anti-semitism is the product of many years of thought and engagement.

    I wanted to know what makes a people turn on fully integrated fellow citizens….neighbours, colleagues, friends….and finally, in a terrible crescendo of bureaucraticised murder seek to destroy a part of its own soul.

    I am upset by Stephen Evans article. Yes it it is superficial and betrays a lazy ignorance of the country in which he is based as a correspondent.

    “But a racial awareness does seem to remain among many ordinary Germans.”

    What is an ordinary German?

    A German is a national definition not an ethnicity. Lets get that straight at the start. There was no ‘German’ until 1870. Germany, as the Austrian Habsburg Chancellor Metternich said of Italy at the Congress of Verona, was a ‘geographical’ expression’

    The concept of the ‘volk’ meant very little to the North Sea Frisian. the SChleswig Dane, the Lusatian Sorb. Their dialects are virtually incomprehensible.

    To attribute ‘German’ as a race is to betray the same thinking as the Nazis.  The Germans have always been a pluralistic society never a race except in the minds of extremist ideologues. The term German is like British…a term in international law to describe the citizens of a state.

    To say that ‘ordinary Germans’ think this, or that is, well stereotyping. It is attributing an attitude to a whole group of people based on an ethnic concept.

    Evans then compounds his folly by making the following statement:

    In immigrant countries like Britain and the United States the definition of national identity is not as tied up with ethnicity.
    In an island nation, with more than 1,000 years of immigration, identifying who exactly descends from whom is much harder.”

    Following this incredible statement are we to assume that ‘Germany’ remained isolated from other people until recently.

    Germany is a patchwork of identities…Poles in the Ruhr mines..thousands came in the 1890s. Their descendants are Germans…many with Polish names.  Italians worked in lived in Germany from the 17th century…Dresden’s churchs were built by them and they stayed.

    Huguenots camr n their thousands between 1690 (Louis xiv revoking the Edict of Nantes) and the 1770s. Frederick the Great actively recruited them. Their descendants are Germans.

    Russians, emgres from the French Revolution  Germany and the great trading cities have always been melting pots as they are today.

    Evans statement about Germany not having ‘foreign input’ is utter nonsense.

    It was this mix that made Germany so attractive for Jewish refugees who joined their co-religionists who had already been in the Rhineland for 1500 years.

    Perhaps, one day I’ll attempt to give my analysis of anti-semitism but I won’t start out making Evans’ mistake.

       0 likes

    • RGH says:

      Lets move on.

      “Until recently the definition of German citizenship was tied to the “blood line” – you were a German if your parents were German.

      Not true.

      Automatic citizenship went to those who could prove that they were descended from citizens in 1918. That way some 6 million from Eastern Europe inc Russia migrated to Germany since the Wall came down in 1989.

      That included many of the 150,000 Russian jews who have made their home in Germany.

      This is, therefore, not about  ethnicity but legality.

      All in all, 20% percent of ‘Germans’ can trace their ‘roots’ outside Germany.   Poles, Italians, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Armenian the list is endless.

      Why does Evans operate in stereotypes?

      The problem to be addressed is the integration of a new group. The common factor is ‘Muslim’…from many parts of what can loosely be described as the ‘Muslim’ world.

      To describe Germany as some kind of ‘laager’ looking suspiciously at the outside world, as Evans does, is wrong. Plain wrong.

      I wish he had read that report more thoroughly, too.

      Some good info. here:

      http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=235

      To end on a happy note.from Karlsruhe in the Palatinate ..don’t watch it all…just get the flavour.

         0 likes

    • dave s says:

      “In an island nation with 1000 years of immigration” They really believe this . It defies reality.
      Just ask the killer questions
      Between the Norman  Conquest and the late 19th century apart from a few Hugenots who were the immigrants and where did they come from?
      You can reduce the average liberal leftie to stuttering rage  and the usual resort to personal abuse.
      The more degrees and letters after their names the more the abuse.

         0 likes

      • RGH says:

        Germany has been a cultural crossroads for centuries…with trade and people passing and settling ….as they do today.

        The British Isles were essentially isolated as island peoples at the fringe.

        Germany had and has a far higher mix of peoples located at the centre of Europe than Britain.

        Indeed, Britain was probably the most homogenous in terms of population derivation until the 1960s….far more so than France.

        As a Anglo-German, with an identity in both nations…I see the comment that Britain being a nation of immigrants as being somewhat surreal.

        I call a revisionist reflex in Evans to suit a rather spurious narrative ie Britain is better at immigrants than Germany.

        “In its State of World Population 2006 report, the United Nations Population Fund lists Germany with hosting the third-highest percentage of the main international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 10 million”

        And that is in the past 25 years!

           0 likes

      • John Anderson says:

        dave s

        You think the BBC deals in FACTS ?

        Before 1900 there were virtually no immigrants – apart from the Hugeonots,  as you say.

        A black man from the West Indies was a rarity.

        Some Chinese/ Malay people came into the East End.  SOME.

        There were say 50,000 Jewish refugees from the Russia/East Europe pogroms.

        That was it.  Tops – 200,000 ? over 3 centuries

        Past immigration was a gnat’s bite on the indigenous status.  A miniscule percentage.

        We have SUDDENLY gone to a position in London where one-quarter – and growing is immigrant.

        When did we get to have a vote on such a massive social change ?

        Worst yet – the flow continues – hugely from Pakistani “students”

           0 likes

  37. Martin says:

    Richard Bacon is the gift (or is it git?) that keeps giving. Today he had two guests on for some stories of the week review, so one was an author who wrote a book about Boris Johnson and the other was 5 bellies Smiff.

    So Bacon does a bit on the author about Boris ho ho ho Bacon sneers that Boris likes the ladies and that there is a bit of scandal about Boris (ho ho ho). But when Bacon introduces 5 bellies NOT a mention of her thieving of our money by pretending  to live in her sister airing cupboard when Home Secretary, nor any funny mention of her husband liking to knock one out over porno films paid for by the tax payer, why not Bacon, come on where’s your humour?

    Then more bollocks from Bacon and Smiff over Gingrich, anyone who follows the US media know that all Newt’s issues have been known about for years and it’s not new news (typical BBC being out of touch)

    Then we get to Robert Peston who tells us that Stephen Hester is going to get 900K as a bonus for running a shit bank, Peston informs us that Ed Miliband won’t be happy and will attack the Government on this.

    Except of course Peston forgets to tell us just WHO gave Hester that nice juicy contract in the first place, anyone want to have a wild guess? Just as the BBC forgot to tell people just WHO gave Fred the shred his peerage.

    The BBC really is stupid if it thinks we don’t notice their bias.

       0 likes

    • Demon1001 says:

      A lot of people really are that stupid!  They watch the BBC and believe all its lies and propaganda.  They still vote Labour ffs after so many chances to learn what Labour Governments do to the people of this country.  The BBC keep telling black is white and the lap it up.  Just because the majority on here can see through the BBC’s bias, doesn’t mean that their lies don’t have an effect.

      The old maxim about fooling all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but not being able to fool all the people all of the time is a lesson learned by the BBC.  They know there will be many like us who are not fooled by most of their lies, but they know there will be enough dupes who will believe their lies and those are the people that the BBC counts on to spread their “message”. 

         0 likes

      • John Horne Tooke says:

        BBC Propaganda is second to none. I have heard many people repeat some unsubstantiated half-truth uttered by a BBC “personality” as if it was gospel.  
         
        I heard today that some health organisations have not got together to put out a statement condeming the Governments NHS reforms.  
        It was a non-story but put in such a way that if you were not paying attention would have took the view that everyone was against the Governments reforms. It was a really a fantastic example of how the BBC have mastered the Goeballs school of propaganda.  
         
        Another example was the Select Comittees “alegations” of heavy handedness in deporting criminals (Illegal immigrants) from Britain. In the short headline the BBc did point out in ione short sentance that the Border Agency “rejected the claims”. Yet 5 minutes later a conversation between 2 “journalists” chatted about the alleged incidents without mentioning at all that none of this has been proven.  
         
        At times they repeated words in high pitched voices to emphasise the “bad words” like “racist language” and “bullying” – it is the opposite of advertising products where the emphasis is on the postive – but it is propaganda nontheless. The message was clear and people will believe it. If there is an investiagtion and the alegations shown to be wrong the BBC will not mention it. I can guarantee it.  
         
        “This is the secret of propaganda: To totally saturate the person, whom the propaganda wants to lay hold of, with the ideas of the propaganda, without him even noticing that he is being saturated.”  
        Paul Watzlawick

           0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Just as the BBC forgot to tell people just WHO gave Fred the shred his peerage. ‘

      SKY had on about the only Labour pol to comment who is not (yet) tainted by a glorious past, and is a bit teflon by ticking a few ‘don’t go there, in case’ boxes, namely the oily-smooth Chukka.

      He tried to turn almsot the whole banking rewards thing into a current cock-up that is at the personal door of Osbourne.

      Luckily, the interviewer was not proving too accepting of this outrageous spin.

      I can only imagine him being ‘interviewed’ on the BBC on the same topic… ‘So Chukka me old mukka, tell our viewerrs just how in the pocket the Bullingdon Toffs are’. 

         0 likes

  38. Nick Chambers says:

    Utter arsehead Richard Bacon, stated this afternoon, that if Scotland gained independence, it would be the only thing that David Cameron would be remembered for. Gore Vidal he ain’t.

       0 likes

  39. George R says:

    Too late –

    “BBC must promote excellence and not be vulgar says Lord Patten”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091896/BBC-promote-excellence-vulgar-says-Lord-Patten.html#ixzz1kaujUYft

       0 likes

    • John Horne Tooke says:

      Impossible – they would have to sack almost their entire cackle of “personalities”

         0 likes

  40. dave s says:

    Around 720 on R4 – an arts show?- I heard a London based commedienne justify racist jokes about white people on the grounds that it was Ok if they were made by a minority citizen. Presumably she meant a non -white.
    The interviewer made a very half hearted attempt to challenge this assumption by pointing out that such jokes would be career ending if made by a white about a racial minority.She was quite unfazed and had no regrets.
    Quite extraordinary. But it does show the lack of  standards that passes for the BBC’s output these days.

       0 likes

    • OWEN MORGAN says:

      That was Andi Osho, who can be occasionally amusing, although you’d have had to be endowed with superior psychic powers, to tell it from that interview.   I didn’t think, myself, that the interviewer tried very hard to condemn Osho’s racist joke – if anything, Osho seemed slightly more apologetic than the bbc expected.

      Did you notice that the following interview was with a playwright who had dramatized his trip to Switzerland, with his (previous, divorced) wife, to deliver her to “dignitas”?   Needless to say, the editorial line never once countenanced the notion that conveyor-belt “suicide” could possibly be open to moral criticism.  

      Another reminder that “euthanasia” is now one of the bbc’s obsessions.   The bbc also exempts from criticism a cult which glorifies suicide.   Is there a connection?

         0 likes

  41. cjhartnett says:

    “The Report” on Radio 4 tells us all about the issue of “khat”…a drug apparently legal here , but banned in Holland among other countries.
    Just heard some twerp saying that it would be racist if the Coalition wanted to pose in making it illegal…and besides, it`s a social boon and allows Somalians to send money home after trading in it.
    I`m sure Richard Branson would agree with it, but the BBC really is putting the skids under this country pretty quickly isn`t it?…and it seems very proud of promoting any method to turn us all into Mogadishans.
    Incessant and corrosive, this BBC we are made to pay for-and I used to think the Chinese bastards for making their victims pay for the bullet used in executions…there seems no end to our paying for ours…

       0 likes

    • pounce_uk says:

      further to your last, if I ever go down with cancer, I’ve thought about selling up, using the money to import loads of weapons going on a walkabout (bBC,Mosques,BNP hangouts,London Gangs etc) and then handing myself in. Just think in prison I would get the best treatment, the best food and I wouldn’t have to worry about paying my bills.  
       
      Get that, a misguided criminal (John simpson words not mine) and I would get treated much better than law abiding citizens do.  
      What a f-cked up country the Uk has become.

         0 likes

      • Dez says:

        Pounce,

        That’s not funny, nor does it make much rational sense.

        Partisan differences aside, if that’s how you really feel then either you are drinking much more than is good for you; or you have to find a different way of expressing your anger/frustration/unhappiness that doesn’t involve fantasies of killing people whose opinions and beliefs you’ve decided in advance and on their behalf.

        Sorry for the sermon. I will now F off.

           0 likes

        • John Anderson says:

          Good idea you have there Dez.  F Off.
          Like F Off for good

          Why be a mindless distraction all your life ?

             0 likes

        • pounce_uk says:

          Dez wrote:
          “fantasies of killing people whose opinions and beliefs you’ve decided in advance and on their behalf.”

          Now calm down dear, where did I say killing, you simply misinterpreted what I wrote. You know the same defence used by all these innocent British people who also went walkabout in Afghanistan but who wrongly were incarcerated by the nasty Americans for carrying out charity work. In my case I simply would hand those weapons (English books, pens and student grants) to those people who needed it the most, I mean to very nice people like you I can only ever be an ethnic minority and I must stick together with my own and who better than to aid them than a fellow Muslim. Nice people like you also subscribe to this notion that once a Muslim always a Muslim and as a Muslim I must always help my fellow Muslims by giving everything away by charity. Now having given everything away I would be skint and of course I would be unable to afford my TV licence, which is why I would (As a law abiding citizen)  hand myself into the law and get sent to prison.
          Now, what-ever were you thinking?

             0 likes

          • Dez says:

            pounce,

            Oh gosh, you’re just such a card!

            No doubt if a sociopath known to you or your acolytes said that, if diagnozed with cancer, they would get a load of weapons, pay a visit to where your family lives, and then turn themselves in; you’d find it absolutely hilarious.

            “What a funny joke” your children would squeal every bedtime.

               0 likes

    • Dez says:

      cjhartnett,

      “Khat… Just heard some twerp saying that it would be racist if the Coalition wanted to pose in making it illegal…”

      Congratulations, you listened to  a half hour radio programme for ten minutes; heard one person (on air for thirty seconds) say something you disagreed with and concluded this was evidence of the BBC promoting drug use not dissimilar to Chinese execution squads.

      Keep up the good work!

         0 likes

      • matthew rowe says:

        lol  now Dezzdimona you know the BBC line ‘powerless people are more angry so it’s those in power who are at fault ‘ the BBC controls 70%+of the media and we are powerless in the face of their ‘good facts not true facts ‘
        So you are obviously one of the reactionary’s  who don’t believe in the BBC and it’s liberal ways tut!! and I thought you were a true blood ??

           0 likes

      • cjhartnett says:

        Oh dear Dez!
        You really need to be careful in your choice of words.
        Nowhere do I say how long I listened to the programme, so I do hope that-pedantic worrywart that you are-you withdraw your charge that I did not listen to the whole programme.
        How many times would the BBC have to let somebody say what I quoted, before I need worry about it…in the context of the whole show it was not made to appear as outrageous as I think it was…and the point of mentionning it here is because the BBC WOULD like drugs legalised…and it might as well be khat as far as they`re concerned.
        This hosting site is called Biased BBC Dez…that`s why I chose to  write it here.
        Not everybody is as balanced and as passionate for the truth as we are eh Dez?

           0 likes

        • Dez says:

          cjhartnett,

          “Nowhere do I say how long I listened to the programme, so I do hope that-pedantic worrywart that you are-you withdraw your charge that I did not listen to the whole programme.”

          The programme was broadcast between 8.00/8.30pm on Thursday night.

          Your post was published at 8.20pm on Thursday night. Or, in other words, you started writing your critique after listening to the programme for ten minutes.

          A ‘critique’ that consisted of nothing more than; “I heard someone say something I disagreed with – how terrible!”

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          • Craig says:

            Good evening Dez,   
             
            What are you doing lurking around this old, deserted fairground of a thread?  
             
            Scooby and the gang are going to be on your case if you’re not careful!

               0 likes

            • John Horne Tooke says:

              Dez has the habit of slipping in comments on old dead threads so that he can have the last word. Its his way of winning an argument.

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              • Dez says:

                John Horne,

                Erm, as I have explained before, I don’t have the time to spend every day on this site. If something posted two days ago is considered old & dead, then fair enough. But if I don’t make any comment, then I’m accused of just being a troll, not being interested in debate, or any number of other ‘friendly euphemisms’.

                Here’s a thought… instead of attacking me (on this “old dead thread”) you could of responded to what I wrote. But you chose not not to.

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                • John Horne Tooke says:

                  “…could of responded to what I wote” You mean “..could have responded ..”

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  42. cjhartnett says:

    How does a Tory nonentity go from zero to hero in just 45 minutes?
    1. Go on the World at One
    2. Tell Martha Kearney that if Nick Clegg thinks that he`ll bounce George Osborne into changing his budget, then he has “another think coming”.
    3.Wait for Martha to clutch said soundbite of irrelevance and run screaming to the editing suite.
    David Ruffley didn`t manage his fifteen minutes of fame today-but he`ll be due another fourteen if he lets the BBC use him to nitpick at the Coalitions stitching. 

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  43. wild says:

    Just as a “PILGRIM” is a Public Sector Trade Unionist funded by the taxpayer to promote Trade Unions, a “BEEBOID” is a Public Sector worker funded by the tax payer to promote the Labour Party.  
     
    The Labour Party is funded by Public Sector Unions. It justifies itself by invoking something called “Social Justice” – a technical term meaning any arrangement that takes wealth away from those who create it and redistributes it to those who think they are entitled to it.  
     
    Vote for me I will take money away from other people and put it into your pockets is the jist of the Labour Party electoral strategy. At some point however they run out of money. In a democratic system (unless they have rigged the election system so that there is a One Party State) there is therefore a danger that they will be voted out.  
     
    If they are not in power they cannot use the State to redistribute money to themselves and their clients. This is a dangerous time.

     
    The function of the BBC is to ensure that people have correct thoughts. A correct thought is when the answer to every question is “Vote for the Labour Party”.

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  44. My Site (click to edit) says:

    SKY had a segement on Vlad Putin lobbing up to share his wisdom via broadcast with ‘a carefully selected audience of young people’.

    Guessing he’s prepping for a stint on QT and a Newsnight ‘debate’ with Laurie Penny then, though he may be embarassed at how overt the set up is.

       0 likes