OPEN THREAD

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OK, It’s Friday and here is a new open thread to take us off into the blue yonder of the weekend. Please detail your thoughts and concerns here…

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278 Responses to OPEN THREAD

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  1. Alfie Pacino says:
    February 26, 2012 at 1:46 am

    BBC’s sister the Guardian lead for once with a serious article about violence against women, but then they completely ruin it with their own narrative:  
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/24/sexual-violence-women-cult-masculinity  
    The headline contains the expression ‘the cult of masculinity’. What these liberals get all moist about whilst chatting over the espresso machine beggars belief.  
    The cult of masculinity?
    My arse!

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    • Reed says:
      February 26, 2012 at 3:21 am

      Have they been living in the same part of the world as me? It would seem that just about every issue that has been discussed for decades has been framed from the female perspective. Even the ‘Torycutz’ are being portrayed as ‘disproportionately affecting women’. Masculinity is seen almost solely in negative terms now, related only to criminality and violence, and is therefore something to be stamped out.

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    • cjhartnett says:
      February 26, 2012 at 7:08 am

      The BBC and the Guardain are as blinkered and as lazy in their ishoos as Angela and Maria Eagle. Po-faced and pushing the rest of us out of the way in a customised wheelchair.
      The issue is in need of much more than…war?…Islam?…drugs?…sport?…the herd pack mentality so beloved of the Olympic/Muslim/military extremists?…truly deserves unpacking and revealing, alright.
      The Guardian or BBC unfortunately “strike a pose” and see no problems with no dads, hostility to boys and men, education that squashes their intersts and sneers at its values and traditions, hyper-sexualisation if it sells-until it goes wrong in which case, it will all be the males faults.
      It`s much more nuanced than that-but all we get is the cultural schizophrenia that lets Tessa Jowell get away with her financial scandals, and allows Rachel Cusk to blame her househusband for not being a man in wanting to see his kids and take half her money…these two “heroines of the Wise Wound” are both feted in the Guardian.
      And don`t get me going on the hideously unfully Jo Brand…she was allowed to get a programme out on kissing, and humiliated some decent innocent lads she was meant to kiss by way of therapy.
      Had a bloke done that, no programme and no way back to the BBC

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      • Reed says:
        February 26, 2012 at 7:25 am

        Did you mean ‘unfully’ Jo brand? I don’t think Jo Brand has ever been ‘un full’. 🙂

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        • Reed says:
          February 26, 2012 at 7:43 am

          I note the sub title of that Guardian article…
           
          A false image of manhood makes men act violently and risk their lives against their own interests as humans. It must be addressed  
           
          We should ALL be grateful that the issue of ‘men risking their lives against their own interest as humans‘ wasn’t ‘addressed‘ before the Fascists started invading Europe. We all owe a great debt to the masculinity of our forebears.

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          • cjhartnett says:
            February 26, 2012 at 8:44 am

            Good point.
            I imagine that we`re already getting memorials by the Twin Towers to the cultural officers of NYC Fire Departments on 9/11 who doled out the burkas and Korans…female of course.
            They would certainly be ahead of those nasty dirty sexist blokes in the queue for recognition…as indeed would Obamas cat for that matter.
            Who`d have thought a nation of pet owning, sock knitters ended up winning WW2-as opposed to those hideously white toffs and oiks who we seemed to lose somehow?
            The New Hsitory Curriculum is already being written…

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          • My Site (click to edit) says:
            February 26, 2012 at 11:00 am

            Well said Reed. If we were faced with such an immediate threat as we were in 1939, I wonder who’d have the ‘masculinity’ to stand up to it? No doubt those most often branded as ‘Fascists’ by the naive-left.
            The average Beeboid/Guardianista would be cowering in a prison cell like Jack Straw’s pathetic cunt of a father.

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        • cjhartnett says:
          February 26, 2012 at 8:38 am

          Oh Lord…don`t tell Dez or I`ll be up before the Erin Pizzey Inspectorate…guess I was saying that she was full of love and fun, your Honour!

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        • Demon1001 says:
          February 26, 2012 at 9:10 am

          Unfull?   Awful more like.

             0 likes

  2. cjhartnett says:
    February 26, 2012 at 6:50 am

    Just done the Dawn Patrol in honour of Sarah Kennedy!
    Nah…just got up early, and felt that Craig might be wanting a lie-in this morning.
    But….Something Understood this morning (I`m a number,not a man) is BRILLIANT…really is…and I`m now tempted to pay my license fee as long as Jo Figden gets s drink out of it.
    Mark Tully`s gone a bit wrinkly and woolly after too much time in the Indian sun…but this brief half hour is the first thing on the BBC that has got me clucking along and agreeing.
    Maybe I`ve just had the one show that enables me to feel like a Beeboid now…I actaully agreed and enjoyed all that I heard of it.
    On again at 11.30 tonight…and will get my tape machine running!
    Orwell…Levi…Auden…Shostakovich…if Jo can keep out of the BBC re-education compounds, we might just have our turning worm!

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    • hippiepooter says:
      February 26, 2012 at 9:44 am

      I’ll try to give it a listen.  Mark Tully has been doing this programme for some 10-15 years I believe.  Nearly always enjoyed hearing it in the past.  Tully is a true beeb man, not of the Gramscian entryist crew.

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    • Craig says:
      February 26, 2012 at 10:41 am

      Thanks for recommending that programme, cj. It was a breath of intelligent fresh air, so different from the programme that followed it (‘Sunday’). If only we could get Jo Figden to replace Paddy O’Connell on ‘Broadcasting House’!

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  3. George R says:
    February 26, 2012 at 8:20 am

    As a counter to INBBC and Obama’s permanent apologetics for Islamic and Muslim violence:

    Krauthammer: How about an apology from the OIC?

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  4. cjhartnett says:
    February 26, 2012 at 9:20 am

    Sunday today was its typical buffet of stale croissants( oh Buddha-get them away-what if a Muslim sees them?) and iffy porridges from Alex Salmonds laundry hamper…no.don`t ask!

    1. Occupy aren`t scooting off because they`ve lost the will to go on being tossers and embarrassments…not at all, Ed says its only because they`ve “run out of legal options”…presumably Beebcode for “ideas or clean socks”.
    So already historys judgement on the collapse of Occupy is written…right?..I said RIGHT?
    (Oh, St Pauls caused it and cringed before the mighty class warriors…and the City bankers used the Church to hide behind…or was it the other way round?…we`ll be back to this, won`t we?)

    2. Not enough RE in schools and what there is is crap, or dependent on the goodwill of the area/school head etc.
    Yet someone gave Ed a new word… “methodology”…yes Ed it`s a small sample, but is of a depth that Dawkins survey lacked…but no quibbles about methodology then,was there  Ed?

    3.Report tomorrow from MPs etc about Christians being marginalised…but Ed spends plenty effort on  getting an example of Christians playing the victim card cheaply,…which the dupe of an MP being interviewed is happy to give by way of anecdote.
    You`d think that this had already been agreed and so you can expect to hear it tomorrow(adoptions!…hardly crying wolf in my book, but what would I know?). That`s if they bother to note it at all.

    4. And speaking of the victim card?-the item on burning the Korans (along with other rubbish, according to Sky!) had no quibbles, no debate, no last word on contrariness and no opposing spokesman…not at all!
    Nah-culturally insensitive men who don`t know the five pillars of Islam mate-squaddies who simply don`t  stop defending themselves ,those times in the day when the Taliban are “at prayer”-and not a peep on anger management or methodology or scribbling terror messages in your Koran…culturally inappropriate you see-and Anjem will be send ing his chums round one day hence-and you`d only deserve it! .”Ours not to reason why…you dig?”

    Need I add too that there was the eco-bit(Martin Palmer) and the womens bit(a Jewess in a reform synagoue is actually a cantor and fine guitarist…see… you Zionist zealots!…) and the multikulti bit(Christians and Muslims up north in the Pennine towns mulling over nice things together,…it`s that “Ebony and Ivory” bit with samosas instead of saltfish, basically).

    So that was Sunday…so bad, I think that even Toady might be better…or a podcast of this fine Sun on Sunday I got today…you`re not alone Rupert!
    One final thought-Stourtons idiocy ensured that he asked the lady who worried about Nato powerpoints in Kabul…
    “just when does anger become religious hatred then?”
    I see the reverse Ed, my ole China…and the BBC and you yourself will be feeling the backlash soon if you don`t start to “give us some truth”…from the Book Of Lennon, so it`s Liberal writ by now I`d have thought!

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    • Craig says:
      February 26, 2012 at 10:20 am

      Yes, Ed Stourton and ‘Sunday’ discussing the Occupy movement for the umpteenth time! And worse, talking to two Anglicans who sing from the same hymn-sheet on the St. Paul’s story – both having been sharply critical of the church authorities for failling to embrace the Occupiers.

      There was the Bishop of Buckingham who wrote of the Occupy camp outside St. Paul’s:

      It could be a key place for people to confront anxiety and seek a new vision for the future of humanity, money, and power. This process, that is goinog on around the world, has to take in all interested parties — Limiting it to the elite who got us into this mess is insane.

      The other guest was George Pitcher, here agreeing cosily with George Galloway about how important the Occupy protests are, how wicked “the elite money makers are” and how poorly the Church behaved in not embracing the Occupiers. (“Well said,” Galloway told him. “Very well said, I must say”, Galloway told him again later).

      Classic bias by guest selection, getting two people (both liberal Anglicans) who share a similar point of view on the issue in question to comment instead of getting two people with contrasting points of view.

      Given that, Ed Stourton should have played devil’s advocate and put the opposing point of view to them. He chose not to, instead talking of how the Church allowed the City to “do their dirty work for them” in taking legal action against the Occupiers.

      Yes, cj, typical ‘Sunday’.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 26, 2012 at 3:36 pm

      Ah, so that’s where the BBC’s discussion of what’s happened to the Occupy movement has been relegated. I’ve been noting for weeks now the distinct lack of “Is the movement running out of steam” pieces from the Beeboids covering the US. You know your movement’s over when this is the best the BBC can do for you.

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  5. ltwf1964 says:
    February 26, 2012 at 9:23 am

    sunday’s bbc in print-ie the Observer- runs with “Mandela in hospital causes world anxiety”

    well I AM anxious,but only because I won’t be able to watch an item of news for about a fortnight if the old terrorist snuffs it 

    Emily titless in sackcloth and ashes-what a thought

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:
      February 26, 2012 at 9:37 am

      “Mandela in hospital causes world anxiety”  

      The speaking on behalf of others thing does get a bit silly at times.

      Of course, some do think they actually do, which can be a problem when it turns out they don’t, and those being spoken for get weary of the conceit.

      Mr. Mandela was, for good or ill, a global icon, and is still a symbol of sorts to some. 

      Other than to those seeking to capitalise on narrow agendas with his death, the use of the word ‘anxiety’ of an old man reaching the inevitable is as barking a use as can be imagined, and does the ediotorial little credit.

      One waits, with dread, for how the BBC will use the occasion. Guessing no comedic Maggie-style moments?

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      • Millie Tant says:
        February 26, 2012 at 4:45 pm

        It seems we are surrounded by a set of institutions and official busybodies like Beeboids who think they are entitled to tell us what we think (I wasn’t aware I was anxious about the elderly Mandela until the Beeboids so kindly informed me) and also what we are allowed to say.

        The man in the report below, while going through the usual annoying security procedures at Gatwick airport, noticed a woman with a face covering passing through unimpeded and wondered aloud what would happen if he draped his scarf across his face, only to be informed by a security official that he wasn’t allowed to say that!

        How does the official know? Who told him what people are allowed to say? What makes him think he’s in charge of what they say? His job is security, not policing what people say. What a cheek! Beeboids and the busybody officials like him really do think they are in charge of us.

         Mr Jones said that when he had made his original remark, the guard had appeared to agree with him, responding: ‘I know what you mean, but we have our rules and you aren’t allowed to say that.’

        Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106631/Fireman-Sam-creator-Dave-Jones-detained-branded-racist-burqa-joke-airport-security.html#ixzz1nVQ4pgdu

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    • Ron Todd says:
      February 26, 2012 at 10:17 am

      A fortnight, in your dreams, it will be months. If it happens during the olympics the sport will be relegated to BBC2 , BBC1 will be 24/7 wall to wall wailing and gashing, the least discent will be branded racist.

      We can be sure for the big announcement they will all be in black ties, even the ones on the radio. Not BBC so slightly off subject even Jon Snow will be in black

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    • London Calling says:
      February 26, 2012 at 7:49 pm

      We need some genuinely “edgy ” comedy themes.  
      “How will you be celebrating when Nelson Mandela dies?” Send your texts to BBC “Mandela’s Dead At Last Party”  
      I’m holding a party to celebrate Mandela’s death, I don’t see why I should wait until he’s actually dead. I’ve got a busy diary.  
      If you think thats bad taste Ive been listening to identical leftie comedy about Thatcher.  
      Sauce, Goose, Gander?

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  6. My Site (click to edit) says:
    February 26, 2012 at 9:30 am

    ‘largely unreported by the Western press, Argentina is once more an economic basket case’

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100015225/argentinas-never-ending-trajedy/

    That’s ‘media’, bub.

    Especially the re-educate and selectively inform brigade.

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  7. Umbongo says:
    February 26, 2012 at 10:54 am

    I hope Fidel is OK for the time being and that the medical miracle workers in Cuba extend Chavez’s life for another few weeks.  Imagine the confusion at the BBC if Castro, Chavez and Mandela popped their clogs in the same week.  Who would get precedence in the beatification machine at Broadcasting House?

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    • Demon1001 says:
      February 26, 2012 at 11:08 am

      But you can bet your house on the reverence paid to these murderers, something which will be sorely absent when Baroness Thatcher passes. 

      When she goes they will interview one Thatcher fan who will have every supporting statement pulled apart by the interviewer. This will be followed by five anti-Thatcher clones who will not be severely questioned, if at all, while the interviewer will nod sympathetically in agreement and will emit cooing noises of approval.

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      • wild says:
        February 26, 2012 at 11:54 am

        When Wilson and Callaghan died I recall not a single critical comment about them on the BBC, despite them having left the country in a state of near financial collapse (almost as bad as the Blair-Brown government) but is there a single BBC viewer/listener in the country who imagines that when Margaret Thatcher dies it will be the same. The BBC will wheel out ex-Labour politicians balanced up (because of their famous impartiality) with comments on her legacy from Conservative Party Thatcher haters such as Heseltine and Chris Patton.

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        • cjhartnett says:
          February 26, 2012 at 2:27 pm

          I`ve been reading books on Thatchers era by the likes of Ridley and Tebbit.
          I am ashamed to say that I got these blokes badly wrong…I hated them at the time, and politically I`d not agree with all of it-but they just come across as honourable men who shared Thathcers vision and tried to keep her on the staright and narrow politically.
          In both cases, they promote Thatcher and stay in the background…Ridleys book is not even an autobiograpphy, more an aggressive defence of his old boss and her politics.
          You don`t need to agree with it all, in order to see that these men are of a different stripe than the pigmies and chocolate miniatures that purport to be “political figures ” these days…with the few exceptions of course.
          Sort of feel I`m getting ready to defend Mrs Thatcher from the worst of what the liberal elite will throw at her…and that the pigmies constantly find themselves defining their positions purely on where SHE first stood says all I need to say about a woman I got hopelessly wrong in large part.
          When are Monbiot etc ever going to wake up?….as if! 

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          • Millie Tant says:
            February 26, 2012 at 5:06 pm

            I always found Ridley amusing and oddly likeable. He was very outspoken and honest, in a throway, careless, almost naive way, coming out with things that no other politician would. There would be uproar when he appeared on Question Time nonchalantly saying exactly what he thought and sitting there calmly, unapologetic and unfazed by the storm it caused around him. He used to say that we was sent to take over the department of trade and industry but he didn’t find much to do when he got there! What an admission. You can’t imagine today’s career politicians desperate to cling on to their Cabinet jobs and status, coming out with something that.  I read his book and it was a good read. I still remember coming out of work one evening and seeing the headline on The Evening Standard: Ridley Dies – and feeling a sense of shock. He was fairly young, I think.

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            • wild says:
              February 26, 2012 at 7:21 pm

              Nicholas Ridley had to resign when he said that economic and monetary union was a racket which would enable Germany to take over Europe.

              The BBC went mental I recall (as Europhiles did in those days when anybody made the slightest criticism of the EU) and Margaret Thatcher had to resign a few months later because the Europhiles in her Party thought that she was wicked to resist going into the Euro.

              Well the Europhiles were proved right. The Euro has been a smashing success, and the idea that Germany would overide democratic governments in pursuit of its own economic interests has proved to be an absurd prediction.

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    • Span Ows says:
      February 26, 2012 at 11:30 am

      I’m convinced Fidel is already dead! Re Chavez, my theory is colon cancer from drug cocktail suppositories (pep pills etc), this I suggested even before they had confirmed he had cancer. 

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    • Jeremy Clarke says:
      February 26, 2012 at 12:53 pm

      Imagine the confusion at the BBC if Castro, Chavez and Mandela popped their clogs in the same week.  Who would get precedence in the beatification machine at Broadcasting House?

      While the love affair with Castro is, to me, incomprehensible and Chavez has been displaying increasingly thuggish, dictatorial tendencies, I’d give Nelson Mandela a free pass. He is an icon, as far I am concerned.

      The widespread and fevered anticipation of the death of Margaret Thatcher depresses rather than enrages me.

      I cannot profess to being a Thatcher-lover but that is not really the issue here. What sort of person openly signs up to a Facebook group that is willing the death of any public figure?

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 26, 2012 at 3:24 pm

      Mandela would get top billing simply because of the historic events surrounding Apartheid. Plus he was in prison for a very long time, so double status there. And he didn’t turn his country into a Zimbabwe-style basket case.

      Castro will still be treated infinitely more heroically than he deserves because too many of the Left have that childish David-vs.-Goliath view of the world, and see him as a star for standing up to US oppression and outlasting all those Republican Presidents they hate. They also don’t see anything wrong with his attempts to spread Communism throughout Latin America. That’s a feature to Beeboids, not a bug. Their emotions trump any of the awful stuff he actually did.

      As for Thatcher, I’m sure a BBC-commissioned feature on the poor, innocent, lost souls of the Belgrano is already in the works, ready for broadcast soon after she passes.

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      • cjhartnett says:
        February 26, 2012 at 5:31 pm

        Chavez, Mandela and Castro…who`d get top billing eh?
        I do wonder where betFred.Com are with this one…got to be a flutter to be had here.
        With Robin Gibb as my bonus ball, I`m surprised the BBC hav`ne already got some book on who ranks who here…and what shade of tie is to be worn.
        Targetted levels of hysteria to be aimed at? But all in the best possible taste.
        I can bet on one thing-Al Magrabhi will survive them all at the current rate.

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  8. cjhartnett says:
    February 26, 2012 at 11:21 am

    As someone said yesterday…it would be grand if Nelson decided to scoot off plum at the start of the Olympics.
    Be great to see the BBC doing a Homer at the reading of the will of his Aunt Hortense.(“Bart the Fink” I believe)…boo hoo…woo hoo!

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  9. As I See It says:
    February 26, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    One thing is for sure, the BBC has learnt a lesson, when Mandela passes Huw Edwards will show utmost respect by wearing a very jazzy and colourful tie.

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  10. George R says:
    February 26, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    “Tories order police to halt workfare demos as MP makes formal protest to BBC over bias in favour of hard-Left militants”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106601/Tories-order-police-halt-workfare-demos-MP-makes-formal-protest-BBC-bias-favour-hard-Left-militants.html#ixzz1nUPoBOPJ

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    • George R says:
      February 26, 2012 at 12:26 pm

      “Tiny band of left-wing radicals bring jobs policy to its knees.The identities of hard-left militants orchestrating a campaign to undermine a Government scheme providing youngsters with work experience can be exposed today.”

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9105983/Tiny-band-of-left-wing-radicals-bring-jobs-policy-to-its-knees.html

         0 likes

      • Martin says:
        February 26, 2012 at 1:14 pm

        Wow, we were saying that on here last week, when will the Tories wake up and realise the BBC is their biggest enemy?

        As I pointed out earlier the BBC are now ‘claiming’ that it’s the ‘public’ who are opposed to the scheme.

        Really BBC? That is a LIE, it’s YOU and your leftist mates who are opposed. The BBC gave these unwashed drug taking scumbags far too much airtime last week,

        But it serves the Tories right, they really do need to tell the BBC enough is enough. Time to sell off and close the BBC.

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        • wild says:
          February 26, 2012 at 1:50 pm

          The BBC is to the Left of the Labour Party on this issue – as always.

          No wonder BBC Newsnight appointed somebody who is a fellow traveller of the Fascist Left as their economics editor. To balance him up politically they hired the former political editor of The Guardian.

          Impartiality is in their genes.

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        • davejan says:
          February 26, 2012 at 7:42 pm

          Its all the fault of Mr J Hunt,he was told by others before the tories came to power how bad the Beeb was but did nothing when in power.
          Every week i have emailed this idiot telling him to do something about the Beeb either he doent care or is afraid of the Beeb.
          Subscription for the beeb is the only way to go but will the tories give us the chance.I think not…

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    • Roland Deschain says:
      February 26, 2012 at 3:11 pm

      From that Daily Mail link:

      “Sources say David Cameron is ‘determined’ to rescue the scheme and is ‘livid’ at the BBC’s role.”

      You reap what you sow, sunshine.  No sympathy here.

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      • Llew says:
        February 26, 2012 at 3:59 pm

        How many more fecking clues does Cameron & the Tories need to realise that the BBC is completely out of control and is totally against anything and everything the Tory/coalition does whilst supporting everything a Labour or lefty comes out with? For crying out loud Tories, monitor the Beeb 24/7.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 26, 2012 at 3:28 pm

      It’s about time somebody had the guts to stand up to these thugs. Now all the Tories need is someone to tell the BBC on air that it can’t be slave labor when the Government is already paying the allegedly exploited youths job-seekers’ allowance while they work. If you get money in exchange for labor, it’s not slavery.

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      • Millie Tant says:
        February 26, 2012 at 4:15 pm

        And some of them may also be receiving housing benefit or live in households receiving it.

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      • Demon1001 says:
        February 26, 2012 at 7:21 pm

        And it’s for volunteers.  No-one who volunteers can be called a slave, or else all these little old ladies running charity shops are slaves too.

        I do however think the government should add a little to their benefits while they are on this scheme as it is both an encouragement to volunteer and keep on it, as well as meaning those on it get more than those who have no intention of working.

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  11. George R says:
    February 26, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    Will INBBC support its real ‘Fireman Sam’?:-

    ‘Jihadwatch’ –
    UK: Creator of children’s character “Fireman Sam” detained at airport for noting that a veiled Muslim woman passed through security without showing her face

    ‘Daily Mail’ –

    “‘What would happen with a scarf over my face?’: Outrage of Fireman Sam creator detained and branded racist for innocent burqa joke at airport security”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106631/Fireman-Sam-creator-Dave-Jones-detained-branded-racist-burqa-joke-airport-security.html#ixzz1nUn1jv1l

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    • cjhartnett says:
      February 26, 2012 at 2:08 pm

      Got to be a fine childrens TV thing here  that he could sell to Sky.
      Beyond belief-which is what childrens TV is meant to be isn`t it?
      If I were him , I`d do something about Blunketts bobbies refusing to do anything but toast their muffins(oo-er) at any fires that Fireman Sam goes to.
      Or is the station another victim of “the cuts” maan?

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    • George R says:
      February 26, 2012 at 2:58 pm

      Or does INBBC only give its political support to jihad trainees such as Binyam Mohamed?

      “Binyam Mohamed: The false martyr”   (2009)

      http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/binyam_mohamed_the_f.php

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  12. Martin says:
    February 26, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    It’s all over the media that we should be starting a war with Syria. Perhaps I’m being cynical but I think the print press would like a war to boost their own circulations and the BBC as a chance to promote its we love Muslims bollocks.

    Personally I take the view the only good Muslim is one who has gone to meet Mohammed. Leave them to it.

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  13. As I See It says:
    February 26, 2012 at 3:33 pm

    Just me or has anyone else noticed that the Islamic nations of the Middle East tend to be factious, volatile and blood thirsty?

    If we want peace these states are best managed by tough secularist regimes that have been chastened by defeat in war with Israel.

    Oh, that would be what we used to have before the BBC started cheerleading for the Arab spring.

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  14. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 26, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    I bring you news of the next favorite film at the BBC:

    Obama Hires Academy Award Winning Filmmaker To Direct A Movie About . . . Barack Obama…

    What did the director win an Oscar for, you ask? You really couldn’t make this one up if you tried: Al  Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.

    Still, this is going to be proof of what I’ve been warning about for a while now: the power of Hollywood and the media is greater than anything the billions of the evil Koch Bros. can muster.

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  15. Jeff Waters says:
    February 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm

    Could we have a new open thread please?

    Thanks

    Jeff

       0 likes

  16. Louis Robinson says:
    February 26, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    Dear Question Time producers,
    May I suggest you book Kira Davis as a guest on your show. Here is an example of her work. I think she will add balance to your program



    Thank you

       0 likes

  17. Wally Greeninker says:
    February 26, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    Found myself listening to a radio play on 4 extra yesterday (25th feb) about a ‘Fatherland’ type England under Nazi German occupation. Delivered in the best clipped accents of wartime heroism ( think Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) it was about an insignificant  tea lady who gets her chance to perform a vital task for the resistance – assassinating a nuclear scientist. At her own suggestion, because of tight German security, this could only be effectively carried out if she secreted the bomb on her own person and performed a suicide mission: this, our plucky heroine proceeds to do.
    Since I couldn’t, off hand, think of any wartime precedents (at least on the allied side) for such a form of assassination, I wondered if  the writer could have been inspired by some other incidents which he regarded as constituting a parallel.
    There was a clue in the blurb on the radio drama’s iplayer page:

    “Amanda Root stars as Mrs Brown, a very ordinary tea lady who serves the Nazi Administration in London, in Ed Harris’s stirring wartime thriller with a modern twist.”

    What modern twist could  they have had in mind? A clue might be gained from a radio play broadcast on radio 3 in 2011 by the same writer, Ed Harris:

    “THE WALL….2011
    Rather grim play where a couple wake up one morning to find that their neighbourhood has been enclosed by a wall. Property – or even a small part of a property – becomes extremely expensive and scarce. Violence is rife.”

    http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/ed-harris.html

    I think I’m starting to get the message.

       0 likes

    • john says:
      February 27, 2012 at 12:44 am

      Clearly this was no Brief Encounter !
      The station left the BBC train quite some time ago.

      All aboard ?  No thanks !

         0 likes

  18. My Site (click to edit) says:
    February 27, 2012 at 8:03 am

    Had to laugh at the SKY newspaper review just now. Jonathan Shalit managed to tie the feel good of Meryl winning the Oscar with an Express headline about the recovering economy.

    Other guest Rosie Millard almost had a conniption.

    ‘But that’s just one paper!’ she shrieked, before going on to conflate what is not left in the coffers thanks to Labour, with managed improvements with what we’ve got, thereby setting herself up as a shoo in for the BBC’s latest, additional economics babe. I presume her bedpost has the requisite Labour cabinet notches.

    I also have to wonder if BBC reviews include Jonathan Shalits at all or, indeed, ever quote The Express.

    Maybe those from another less featured paper of slightly higher ratings than the Graun, Indy & News Statesman combined (Dez, Scott, Dr. G, start your mopeds… I haven’t checked) may ponder why, while they are on it…

    http://melaniephillips.com/jobs-the-bbc-and-the-socialist-workers-party

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  19. George R says:
    February 27, 2012 at 8:57 am

    “Mark Thompson: BBC director general admits Christianity gets tougher treatment.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9107689/Mark-Thompson-BBC-director-general-admits-Christianity-gets-tougher-treatment.html

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  20. deegee says:
    February 27, 2012 at 11:34 am

    Does anyone actually know? Were the Korans at the centre of deadly actions in Afghanistan actually burnt? Afghan airport hit by Taliban ‘revenge’ car bombing

    According to the BBC Timeline 20 Feb: Korans found by labourers on Bagram air base amid piles of rubbish reportedly sent to be burned. Since then 35 Afghanis and 4 non Afghanis have been killed in ‘revenge’.

    I wonder when/if the BBC might treat this reaction as somewhat excessive? I wonder how many Muslim were carrying Korans which were damaged when they were slaughtered? Does Orla Guerlin carry a Koran?

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  21. George R says:
    February 27, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    A non-Mardell, non-BBC-Democrat view of the Obamas:

    “The Obama Administration seems to have a ‘Let them eat cake – but make it a diet, low carb cake’ mentality
    .”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2105973/The-Obama-Administration-Let-eat-cake–make-diet-low-carb-cake-mentality.html#ixzz1nadCImPN

       0 likes

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