Biased BBC contributor Alan observes how Martin Ivens has given the BBC a ‘fisking’ in the Sunday Times for never admitting it has a ‘dog in this fight with Murdoch’….and Thompson’s ‘most flagrant breach of the BBC’s impartiality obligations in its 90 year history’….and asks ‘who watches the watchmen?’.
Not sure who watches them but I was listening on Friday to ‘Book of the Week’ and it gave us a highly politicised, an ‘Occupy’, version of British history.
It was purely designed to provoke and add the BBC’s support to the racist anti-English clamour from the SNP….in the hope of influencing people’s vote should they get a referendum on Independence.
This week’s book was ‘Hedge Britannia’….apparently, it tells us, the history of Britain can be mapped from its hedgerows.
The BBC choose the book, they then abridge it to suit, and then choose the parts they want to broadcast…..the choice of book and selection of piece to read out seems more often than not to reflect the BBC’s own political agenda…….corrupt cop Ali Dezai’s book was ‘BotW’ on the day of its publication….a Muslim, an Asian, claiming race discrimination by the hated Police force….what’s not to like in the BBC world. Of course things turned out alright in the end….the police got their man…..don’t think the BBC will be in a rush to publicise that.
Friday’s effort was without doubt similarly chosen with targets in mind.
It started off by telling us that the author had a few problems with the Union Jack….some historian….it’s the ‘Union Flag’……he found it quite ugly….the word ‘Britain’ was spat out by the narrator.(Perhaps his own interpretation)
The author goes on to say the Cross of St George was ‘slapped’ on top of that of St Andrew in a provocative manner…’stamping’ England’s flag on the flag of the other nations…..Oddly I have never been ‘provoked’ by the design of the Union Flag.
Even the choice of St George seems to upset him….St George having come from the Middle East…and so stolen by the English.
Then we get on to more familiar BBC territory….wealth, property, land and the poor.
Apparently even poor old hedgerows are symbols of entrenched wealth and inequality….current landowners are still raking in the loot and milking the poor by exploiting the benefits of historic appropriation of the peasant’s land….the legal system is designed to favour the rich landowners, and so hedgerows have a dark side….illustrating the political power and status that comes with land ownership….the greed and conflict that separates us all.
The author may, or not, have had his tongue firmly in his cheek….but the BBC are happy to ‘appropriate’ his book and make political messages out of it….nice timing too when the SNP are launching their ‘Freedom’ campaign.
Just a coincidence I’m sure.
Blair and wife, Blunkett, Campbell…all have been book of the week havent they?
Like Craig did with “A Point Of View”….well worth looking down the list of these books to see their political leanings…as if I need bother asking.
Relentless agitprop-every week is Socialist Rag Week there at Gramsci College, Salford.
Encosure acts – agricultural progress in the context of the period when they occured. There were undoubtedly cottars who suffered as a consequence, but the overall increase in farming productivity and the resultant increase in rural prosperity , was an important element in Britains rising growth.
Probably not an exageration to say that set against the peasant agricultural systems of most of Europe at the time, considered by contempories to be one of Britains’ greatest achievements.
Time for a spot of beeboid revisionism anyone ?
This was er…flagged on the open thread a couple of days ago: http://biasedbbc.tv/2012/05/25/open-thread-392/#comments
‘‘most flagrant breach of the BBC’s impartiality obligations in its 90 year history’….and asks ‘who watches the watchmen?’
Due to the unique way that the BBC conducts its business, the BBC watches the BBC, and in several decades of holding itself powerfully to account, has never not liked what it sees.