Comrade Len McClusky of the Unite trade union must love the BBC. Having set in motion the threat of a nationwide strike of the fuel tankers that could wreck our economy, the BBC angle on it is to take the words of Francis Maude and parse them in a way that suggests it is the Government causing all the stress for the British motorist. Had Maude and Cameron said nothing, the BBC/Unite axis would suggest they were being negligent; when they say something we are told that they are fueling (sic) the panic for fuel. Labour, funded by Unite, are getting away with pious murder on this one. Unite are being allowed to shelter behind entirely bogus “‘elfnsafety” allegations. It is the Government that is being attacked by the Labour/Union axis of hypocrisy and the BBC news channel (as heard on PM this afternoon) is giving every assistance!
DIVIDING AND CONQUERING FOR UNITE
Bookmark the permalink.
Test
The Daily Mail too it seems.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2121099/Fuel-strike-First-petrol-stations-close-drivers-urged-jerry-cans.html
Headline: ‘Why did Minister Cause Petrol Panic?’
But the union threat to strike caused no concern? The Mail is worthy of scorn and derision, don’t pay attention to them, except when useful, I guess.
Sky News?
http://m.sky.com/skynews/article/news/16197699
Not sure it’s right to single out the BBC.
Three wrongs don’t make a right.
Even Benedict Brogan
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100147793/this-crisis-is-the-governments-own-fault/
Hardly a leftist plot then
And the best that Miliband Minor can do is say “both sides need to get to the table”. The BBC won’t be harping on who controls whom there.
So a far left conspiracy to paralyse the country led by the backers of the Labour party, Unite, who put Milliband where he is, gets ignored by the BBC. Instead we get told it’s unsafe to store petrol. By the fire brigade union. ‘aint it all cosy.
Phil
That’s exactly the point, which Jim delightfully ignores.
Nice new site, well done all. Hope my rant night (QT liveblog) will work fine. Lets me release the pent up yang.
It’s not the point you make in your article. And anyway they covered the strike before this angle on the story ( an angle pursued by all the media today).
Thanks for telling me what my point is. But if I want your view on it, I will ask.
Your point is clear: that the BBC chose to focus on Maude’s advice out of political bias. I’ve shown this was an ‘angle’ shared across the media today. This undermines your point.
No. You thinking something does not make it so. The BBC has a duty to provide balance. That balance is spectacularly missing in action in this story, as others have pointed out for the slow of thinking.
When I read last week they had voted for a strike I filled my petrol cans just in case. Mr Maud only advised a sensible thing to do.
Since when has the public listened to a cabinet minister? How is it the Government’s fault for people being idiotic and panic buying a commodity that is not in short supply and when a strike has not even been officially called yet?
The panic buyers are idiots.
Robert Brown; Yes, and of course, just think of all that lovely tax and vat going into the coffers. People who panic buy are morons. There will be a seven day warning of strike action. Just heard of punch-ups at the pumps. Pathetic. 6000 stations shut so far, what does that tell you Cameron? Cut the tax and scrap vat on fuel, it is a necessity, not a luxury.
Yes but did it actually happen that punch up? The vox pop before it on PM was so obviously straight from Labour’s HQ it was laughable.
I’m fillin’ up me milk bottles in case certain lil’ cretin walks by. Oh me. Oh my, I hope the Millipede walks by ..
OK; I’ve stopped channeling George Formby now.
Has the BBC asked if Mr Miliband has had dinner with Len McClusky who is a donor to the Labour Party?
I want to click like on your post James.
yes-where is the “like” button?
I too am missing the ‘like’ button so could agree with James but am just delighted that I can post (imagine smiley face but that will take me longer to work out how to do).
Yes, as usual, the BBC are downplaying that the advice re storing petrol comes from another union (so no bias there is there?).
Dez appears to have disappeared at the same time as Jim Dandy appeared – there couldn’t be some relationship … could there?
maybe Dez didn’t like being reminded about the links to nazi websites he posted last year to “bolster” one of his….ahem…… “arguments”
I’m not related to Dez. He’s not as good as me.
In reply to Jim, I agree. Whereas I disagree with much of what you say, you have tended to put your point in a reasonable manner. Dez, on the other hand, tends to highlight minor things (cherrypicking) and tries to make a major issue of them while missing the point of the issue entirely. He is also quite an agressive poster, handbags really, but will never discuss the major BBC biases. You come across as being somewhat brighter than Dez and you argue your case coherently, even if you are wrong.
Does anyone else think it’s an appalling spectacle watching our politicians argue over the price of pasties and whether you should store petrol in your shed or not, while there are plenty of serious subjects deserving more of their attention ? Or is it just me ?
It’s yer usual we can’t beat ’em on policies (and we sure as hell don’t want to get elected next time round) so let’s go ad hominum on their lily white asses.
Standard prick test.
R5 this afternoon were screeching that having a full jerycan in your garage is against the law, and Maude knew that. My recollection is that you are allowed by law to keep 20 litres in a metal container. My other recollection is that a jerrycan is made of metal and can hold…..20 Litres!!
I heard Maude being harangued by Martha Carney on the World at One yesterday. She was under the impression that a jerrycan contained 200 litres of fuel, when it actually holds about 5 gallons. Odd that the Beeboids love the metric system so much, but have no idea of how it works. 200 litres of fuel would weigh about 200 kilogrammes, which is 440 lbs. Good luck getting that into the boot of your car Martha.
You don’t think Marfa fills her own car up do you? She’s bound to have a (much less than) min wage Philipino slave to do that for her.
Lil’ Conchita can bench press 450 any time.
The lead story on the BBC one o clock news this afternoon saw Comrade Ed stationed outside a Greggs bakery, as the BBC attempted to subliminally kill two birds with one stone, as they meekly asked Ed about the forthcoming fuel strikes, whilst attempting to make this particular new Labour multi millionaire seem like someone that regularly shopped at Greggs for his lunchtime pies and pasties………..Reason in BBC land:….Red Ed is connected to the ordinary people, and of course he regularly nips out to Greggs for a hot lunch time snack……..Evil Bullingdon club toff George Osbourne is the ogre, cruelly putting V.A.T. on hot food…..Manipulation from the BBC in an attempt to help Red Ed?…..Who would have thought….
Jim isn’t Dez. Dez was last heard from when he called me a racist just a few days ago, which was quite a bit after Jim first appeared. Not in the same class as Jim at all, really.
So Jim is Scott? Scott too made very sensible (and source/link backed) and clear points/rebuttals.
Yes – BBC Drive would not less this go this evening. Challenged by listeners’ texts about whipping up panic Peter Allen argued that Cameron was creating panic, by holding a COBRA meeting. Why shouldn’t he – he would soon be criticised if no contingencies are in place.
Allen also ignored another contributor’s comment that petrol sales were up 66%, YESTERDAY (before the jerry can suggestion).
And Miliband?; all he could do was repeat the ‘this strike is wrong’ comment (sounds familiar). Actually I don’t think anyone knows what it’s about – Perhaps the BBC could find out. Doubt they will attempt to do so, though.
As usual, no BBC balance.
Newsnight just gad piece on the strike during which the presenter said [the strike] called for after all by unite, his party’s most generous donor.’
Now interviewing government roads minister ( who said the jerry can/garage line was a mistake) and then a labour shadow. Paxman asked the latter(ChrisLeslie)whether they supported Unite’s concerns four times, then whether they should call off the strike three times. Now Paxman wondering whether Leslie is not forthcoming on straight answers because of Unite support for Labour.
Gave him a right grilling did paxo. Does not bear out Mr Vance’s thesis.
One swallow does not a summer make.
So Paxman has been hearing the complaints about the bias all day and decided to make up for it? This balances out an entire day of broadcasting?
Paxman does this sometimes with such elegance. A BBC conjuring trick and sleight of hand – always on B stories…
#nosurprises
Oh good so veiwsnight said something unbiased to the few thousand watchers who to be fair already tend to already know what’s going on in the world and it’s all fine ?
Certainly makes up for BBC’s 24/1/2/3/4/5/6/7’s wall to wall shriek feast !
Well I don’t know if the government sinister helped by shouting fire in a theatre packed full of gullibility but the BBC are sure fanning the mock flames !
Pathetic isn’t it! While our troops continue to be needlessly murdered in Afghanistan, while immigration soars, while freedom of speech is stamped out, while Muslim perverts drug and rape little girls, while inner cities turn in to 3rd World battle grounds, while unemployment continues to rise etc. etc. we have well paid tanker drivers whinging and our MP’s main concern is the temperature that pies should be served at!
(that was a reply to Worker Drone 22)
Yep, and what do our politicians and our glorious media, Beeb included, consider important at the moment? Knowledge of the price of a Cornish pasty.
What a load of bollocks, isn’t it?
Threat of a strike? Stock up, if you can – human nature, innit?
I know I no longer live in the sad Former UK, but I always keep about 50 litres of petrol (mowers and other garden tools), and 50 litres of diesel (emergency generator and car) in my garage, and more in the barn. Common practice around here.
Panic, is the order of the day, whether it’s petrol, pasties, dry/wet/warm/cool weather – screaming panic, monstrous headlines and sheer stupidity prevail.
And the media, especially the BBC go out of their way to promote it.
The public have become headless chickens, seem to be either unable or unwilling to use their common sense and respond only to glaring headlines.
“Unite” must be privately rolling on the floor with laughter – they don’t even have to DO anything to cause mayhem!
It is always instructive in a media firestorm to consider the counter proposition
With a potential fuel strike on the horizon and the Easter bank holiday event just a week or so away I think I will let my fuel tank run completely dry and hope everything is all right
There, that makes sense
I think the media and Labour have completely lost the plot
Nicely put.
(I very much like the new site. Well done all involved.)
This forthcoming strike is purely political in my view under the cloak of H&S issues. These guys get in the region of £45,000 a year, that’s about £900 a week. Most of us would no doubt be happy with that kind of money and not too concerned about terms and conditions.
Bring in the army and sack the bloody lot of them.
Once the government set the panic in motion the reasonable response is to panic along with everybody else. The proximate cause of this panic is Maude and the other CINO idiots in power: the underlying cause is the aggression of Unite.
However, and it hurts me to say this, the BBC is quite right to consider the immediate news here as the government cock-up. OTOH, we can be confident that the passivity of Labour vis-a-vis the potential strike will not (pace Paxman) be highlighted across the BBC.
The real news here should be fully concentrated on the stupid Unite union that’s threatening to try bringing the country and its recovery to a halt over fuel tanker driver wages and NOT really health and safety concerns at all and when these fat arsed fuel truckers are already on £45k a year – which is FAR from bloody peanuts to most who slog away in factories and warehouses for their PROPERLY hard earned wages! The stupid Unite union gives the direly pathetic and hilariously hypocritical Liebour Party a whole £4.20 of every £10 it gets to fund its leftie monkey circus. Whilst other parties very rightly and sensibly choose their own leaders, the Liebour Party, ignoramusly as ever only giving a stuff about possible conflict of interest cases when it’s not them, farcically gets its leadership bought by the unions! – especially Unite!! Otherwise, as most well know, Red Ed’s brother would’ve got the job.
When the BBc ran this story. I knew they would do it and they did. They had to show a clip of cars queued up, they do this every time. They deliberatly run a SHOCK HORROR OUTRAGE on this. Remember the refinery in Essex that went into administration? They ran the prices may increase shock horror then. I spoke to a friend of mine who works in a refinery who told me that petrol output is actually way under capacity and if there had been an issue their plant could have ramped up production almost Immediately. Last year when it snowed they had a shock horror will food supplies get through story whilst showing film of “empty” shelves.
The only difference is this time the Goverment have decided to cause add to the panic. What effect would most normal people thing would occour if they told the public not to panic buy? As for the he didn’t appreciate the size of a jerrycan! I do because I turned up late for a parade in the Army once (actually I didn’t but that’s the Army for you) I had to move hundreds of them from one side of a compound to another side of the same compound.
The BBC has also failed to consider that stocking up on fuel is very sensible advice ahead of Easter and a possible strike. How long can a strike last? If most motorists have a half full to full tank they can last longer if supplies are restricted. By suggesting we stock up end users have a reserve and wholesalers can restock before any strike.