92 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. Backwoodsman says:
    June 11, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    No idea about the beeboid coverage, but Guido highlighting some totally disbelieving responses from Lobby Hacks re brown at Leveson. Apparently bbc showing a couple of foreigners playing tennis instead !

       15 likes

    • uncle bup says:
      June 11, 2012 at 2:46 pm

      be lovely if rupert had the call on tape and then Captain Insensible be prosecuted for perjury.

         16 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm

      ‘Apparently bbc showing a couple of foreigners playing tennis instead !’
      ‘New balls, please!’
      So.. maybe they are?

         6 likes

  2. uncle bup says:
    June 11, 2012 at 2:45 pm

    BBC news give us the

    ‘shares up in early trading in Hongkong’

    line today.

    Then repeat the same line during middle trading, closing trading, and again once everyone’s shut up shop and buggered off home for the day trading.

    I mean would it kill any of the lazy bastards at the BBC to look at a reuters, bloomberg, or associated press page to get an update. You know, a proper news agency.

       26 likes

  3. will says:
    June 11, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    The cosy statist conspiracy (NuLab, “charities”,BBC) queried

    When I look back at this current era one of my generic memories will be waking up to the Today programme to hear the latest dire warnings about Government cuts – child poverty, starvation, suicide, plague of frogs, that sort of thing. It’s strange, because I don’t recall Radio 4 giving much airtime to groups such as the Taxpayers’ Alliance when Government spending went out of control a few years ago.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100164169/charity-sock-puppetry-how-government-lobbies-itself-for-more-government-and-we-pay/

       17 likes

    • geyza says:
      June 11, 2012 at 3:36 pm

      Agreed. Local radio is just as bad. Waking up to my local station, all we get is non-stop cuts, business failures, crime increases, homelessness, doom and gloom and the on-going saga of local hospital failures. Although such failures were not considered newsworthy when labour were in power.

         13 likes

  4. Mr DuVasy says:
    June 11, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    Hi folks a couple of readers suggested that I might re-post this piece in the Open Thread so more can view it, so here it is. The piece from the Mail supports a long-held suspicion I have that the BBC is churning out appalling bias/propaganda regards Syria. It is written by the brilliant, inimitable and incisive commentator and observer Mr Hitchens himself, a chap I hold in high regard not only for his intelligence but also his honesty and patriotic passion:

    “The truth seeps out of Syria.

    I have been contacted by a group of Western women who live in Syria and who believe that most of what the world is being told about that country is false.
    As far as I can discover, they are not stooges of what they agree to be a rather nasty government in Damascus, but exactly what they say they are: normal human beings caught up in a political tornado. For obvious reasons, I have promised to protect their identities.
    I urge you to read what follows, because it is important, because our emotional interventions in other countries never do any good, and because it is vital that people resist attempts to drag us into Syria, too, by feeding us one-sided atrocity propaganda.
    This sort of propaganda has a price. I hope you have noticed the continuing tally of deaths of selfless British soldiers in Afghanistan, in a cause long ago abandoned.
    And I hope you have also noticed that Libya, ‘rescued’ by us a few months ago, is now a failed state whose main international airport was recently taken over by gangsters, and where unjustly arrested prisoners are starved and tortured in secret dungeons.
    One of my informants from Syria writes of the ‘activists’ we hear so much about: ‘These protesters are not peaceful, flower-carrying people wanting freedom. No, they are weapon-toting killers who snipe, who ambush, who fire upon the army with the sole purpose of inciting riot and mayhem.’
    She blames Salafis, ultra-puritan Muslims influenced by Saudi teachings, who loathe and threaten Syria’s minorities of Alawites and Christians. She says many of the ‘activists’ are foreigners, a view shared by all my informants. Many of the ‘activists’ are armed.
    Armed intervention is in fact well under way, uncondemned by the UN, which readily attacks the Syrian government for defending itself. Another writes: ‘I have seen reports of opposition rallies which showed pictures of pro-government rallies, and reports purporting to be from the north Syrian countryside, where it has been an incredibly wet year, which appear to have been taken in some desert. The news being accepted as truth by BBC World News is so biased these days that I no longer believe what they say about anything any more, after more than 60 years of crediting them with the truth.’
    She says she has spoken to a man who took part in a march at Hama last summer. He ‘was worried for his safety, but was given a red rose to carry and assured the whole thing would be calm and orderly, and seeing many other men from the mosque joining in with their small sons, he agreed. They walked for a very few minutes, the unarmed police watching them from the wayside, then a man next to him pulled out a gun and shot the nearest policeman dead.’
    A riot followed, reported by foreign TV stations as a police attack on peaceful marchers.
    I expect to have more to say on this in weeks to come.”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2156929/PETER-HITCHENS-Pop-goes-Monarchy-The-Queen-listened-Paul-McCartney–I-heard-end-Royal-Family.html#ixzz1xNofKr6b

       13 likes

    • geyza says:
      June 11, 2012 at 3:42 pm

      Correct.

      William Hague has said that this is like Bosnia. I would claim it is more like Kosovo, where we armed and funded AL Qaeda, (under the guise of the KLA), as we are again now.

      There are two sides of vicious extremists in Syria. The government vs foreign invading terrorists funded and armed by the West, to undermine the vicious Syrian regime.

      Unfortunately the Syrian people are stuck in the middle and are being killed in large numbers by both sides.

      Hillary Clinton knows full well that the violence against the Syrian people will not end, because she knows her intelligence services are using Al Qaeda and other mercenary groups as proxies against Assad to keep the violence going to create an artificial cause for toppling Assad.

      It’s all a big con!

         16 likes

      • Pah says:
        June 11, 2012 at 4:27 pm

        Are you sure it’s not China picking at the Russian hegemony in the Middle East again?

        China has been behind much of the islamic terrorism via its proxy, Iran.

           5 likes

        • noggin says:
          June 11, 2012 at 5:18 pm

          Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre,” National Review, June 9

          yes excellent, post
          sheesh! el beeb with its b/s reports and 10 yr old photos, (shakes head)

          the link
          http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302261/report-rebels-responsible-houla-massacre-john-rosenthal#

          might as well … the el beeb link
          http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2012/05/houla_massacre_picture_mistake.html

             2 likes

        • geyza says:
          June 12, 2012 at 9:18 am

          Of Course china has it’s Islamic proxies, as have the USA, UK France and yes, Israel too. So does Iran, Syria and many others.

          Islamic terrorism has proved to be a useful problem, Reaction, Solution stimulus for many nations.

          “Do as we want, or the nasty terrorists will get you!!!”

          There is a lot of evidence coming to light, (outside the mainstream propaganda outlets) of western backed proxies being detained in Syria by the Syrian regime.

          I would not be at all surprised if Russia and China are not putting their own proxies into theatre to fight against our proxies. After all, Syria is one of the last pieces to be put into place, alongside Georgia, before an attack on Iran can take place. Iran being a major strategic energy partner of Russia and China. Both nations having a defensive pact with Iran, any attack would seriously risk a nuclear response from Russia and China, as their generals have stated on a number of occasions.

          I feel sorry for the ordinary Syrians who have found themselves caught up in the middle. Most of whom do not care either way about Assad. Unlike the Egyptian “spring”, in Syria there really is not a massive public appetite for regime change. Opposition to Assad is not very large. This is why our proxies have to commit atrocities to be blamed on Assad to swing public opinion.

          That is not to say that Assad is not brutal, he clearly is, but there have been atrocities committed by our proxies in the region too and then blamed on Assad as part of the propaganda war.

             2 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 11, 2012 at 4:10 pm

      ‘The news being accepted as truth by BBC World News is so biased these days that I no longer believe what they say about anything any more, after more than 60 years of crediting them with the truth.’’
      That will do nicely as I continue to debate with ‘The Trust’ the notion that I, alone, am the only one less than thrilled with the BBC’s version of just about any event in being unhappy with the compulsion to pay for it.

         13 likes

    • Harold says:
      June 11, 2012 at 4:34 pm

      I’ve been thinking this for weeks now; every bloody time I sit down to have my tea after work and switch on the News at 10, all I bloody hear is pure Syrian rebel propaganda – it’s unbearable! There is never any attempt at balance by the BBC or any analysis examining why Syrian government troops just might be machine-gunning/shelling rebels; do the BBC not realise that in the heat of battle it takes two to tango?? All we ever get, though, is the poor Syrian freedom fighters line which everyone knows is a load of old Haggis.
      These so-called freedom fighters are Muslim extremists who, after deposing Assad, will aim their sling-shots, bow and arrows and spears at us, the West.

         16 likes

  5. Louis Robinson says:
    June 11, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    Does anyone deny that the BBC net site headline “US commerce secretary John Bryson in car crash probe”, if it had happened four years ago, would have read “George W Bush’s US commerce secretary John Bryson in car crash probe”…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18391700

       7 likes

  6. john foster says:
    June 11, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    There seem to be alot of people calling brown a liar, but if he believes he is telling the truth you cannot call him a liar, like all nut jobs

       9 likes

    • LondonCalling says:
      June 11, 2012 at 9:26 pm

      Non Comprende. If some one is lying, it doesnt much matter if he believes he is telling the truth. What he says are lies.

         4 likes

  7. George R says:
    June 11, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    ‘Guardian-Observer’s Preston believes that Labour activist Richards has right to BBC director general job as continuation of Labour’s fiefdom at BBC!

    “BBC faces trouble if Ed Richards doesn’t get director general’s job ”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/10/bbc-ed-richards-director-general-job

       10 likes

    • Harold says:
      June 11, 2012 at 4:55 pm

      What a load of left-wing verbal diarrhea; a true waste of paper. That Liebour stooge is 60 going on 18; an overgrown wannabe edgy socialist still living in the sixties.
      That’s what I really despise about the Guardian – they are a load of pretentious, suburban snobs playing at being trendy, radical students and trying to act cool.

         21 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:
      June 11, 2012 at 11:33 pm

      Yes, but it has become essential for the BBC to appoint a Labour party goon as the next Director General, otherwise the BBC fears that it would be found out as biased if it was not sure the candidate at least read the Guardian. Changes such as adverts in the telegraph for people with PhDs in Atmospheric Physics to replace Richard Black. Job adverts in the Mensa magazine to replace all the morons who read the Guardian, etc.

         5 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 12, 2012 at 7:22 am

      “BBC faces trouble if Ed Richards doesn’t get director general’s job ”

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/10/bbc-ed-richards-director-general-job

      Horse’s heads in beds at dawn-time?

         2 likes

  8. Pounce_uk says:
    June 11, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Watch with Allah How the bBC promotes Anti-Semitism in the Uk
    Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial defaced
    Vandals have defaced the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem with graffiti denouncing Zionism. One of the slogans daubed in paint on the walls of the memorial read: “If Hitler had not existed, the Zionists would have invented him.””This unprecedented act crosses a red line,” Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said in a statement.
    So the bBC reports on how a memorial to the 6 million jews who were murdered by the NAZIS in WW2 was defaced in Israel
    Factual news reporting or a chance in which to attack and berate Israel for existing
    Well here is how the bBC goes about reporting the news.
    Suspicion for the attack has fallen on radical ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose the creation of the state of Israel.
    “Only thanks to you we got a state from the UN.”
    “Honourable government of Poland, stop allowing the Zionists to hold manipulative ‘memorial’ ceremonies in Auschwitz.”
    “Some ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that a Jewish state can be established only after the coming of the Messiah, and that the state of Israel is therefore illegitimate.”
    Yes the so called great bBC, reports more about how the state of Israel is an illegal entity (Well not so according to the UN the bBC loves) than it does about the heinous crime committed. Unlike how the bBC reports on any story involving graffiti daubed on any mosque wall. (Never mention just what was written do they)
    But, that doesn’t stop the bBC promoting its hatred of Israel any chance it gets.
    Watch with Allah How the bBC promotes Anti-Semitism in the Uk

       12 likes

    • noggin says:
      June 11, 2012 at 5:28 pm

      shameful!
      el bbc crosses the red line, with regularity
      as far as Israels concerned.
      traitors!

         5 likes

    • deegee says:
      June 11, 2012 at 5:53 pm

      The message is quite clear. We have found a Jew who hates Israel therefore we can’t possibly be antisemitic. If this had been anywhere other than Israel the BBC would be saying they can’t report suspicions and won’t repeat (and translate) the slogans so as not to give the vandals world wide publicity.

         7 likes

  9. zemplar says:
    June 11, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    Is it me, or is the Leveson Inquiry the most pointless, uninteresting rubbish along with the gay marriage debate and the hoo-haa about House of Lords reform?

       26 likes

    • johnnythefish says:
      June 11, 2012 at 10:39 pm

      But it’s kept 170 coppers busy – you know, that lot that are struggling to keep law and order because of the terrible cuts.

         8 likes

  10. zemplar says:
    June 11, 2012 at 4:46 pm

    Almost forgot: A classic Obama, Jew-hating, pro-Islam move to sate his new BFF, Erdogan…

    ‘US Ousts Israel From Counterterrorism Forum’
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/156733#.T9X2OPH0Rpd

       8 likes

  11. Pounce_uk says:
    June 11, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    The bBC and how it rewrites history in which to promote Islam as only the victim.
    In pictures: Siachen, the world’s highest battlefield
    The above link takes you to a picture montage about the stand-off between India and Pakistan in the high mountains of Kashmir where after India demilitarized the area in the late 1990s Pakistan quickly inserted troops into the high ground (In Indian territory )over the major artery in which to try and get India to retreat and thus hand them Kashmir by default. Instead of backing down, India sent in her troops and thus began the kargil war of 1999, which saw Islamic Pakistan lose once again to Hindu India over a war it had started. And here is how the bBC rewrites History in which to paint Pakistan as the peace loving neighbour to warlike India.
    The Siachen glacier is usually regarded as the world’s highest battlefield. With both India and Pakistan claiming the glacier, thousands of soldiers from both countries are stationed in the area. It borders the Pakistani- and Indian-administered portions of disputed Kashmir. The glacier has been in the news recently with the deaths in April of about 140 people, most of them soldiers, on the Pakistani side in an avalanche. Soon after, Pakistan’s army chief said Pakistan favoured talks with India to demilitarise Siachen. The two countries have already held 12 rounds of talks over the disputed glacier. India’s Siachen Base Camp. In 1984 the Indian army seized control of the glacier, an area not demarcated by the Line of Control through divided Kashmir. Pakistan made frequent unsuccessful attempts to capture the area in the following years.
    So according to the bBC, the peace loving Pakistanis have offered the hand of peace after India stole the land in 1984. Yet leave out, that actually it was Pakistan which (As usual) did all the thieving.
    The bBC and how it rewrites history in which to promote Islam as only the victim.

       15 likes

    • Andrew Johnson says:
      June 11, 2012 at 7:50 pm

      In view of the many lives lost and the extreme sensitivity of the Kashmir situation, I have emailed this report to His Excellency Dr. J Bhagwati High Commissioner for India. Perhaps one of the cleverer B BBC readers could take a snapshot of the article before it disappears.

         5 likes

      • Pounce_uk says:
        June 11, 2012 at 9:41 pm

        Andrew Johnson wrote:
        Perhaps one of the cleverer B BBC readers could take a snapshot of the article before it disappears.

        To take a snapshot of your screen, press ctrl and print screen and paste the picture into Microsoft paint for saving as a jpeg

           2 likes

  12. Merlin says:
    June 11, 2012 at 6:00 pm

    Heartening to know that the BBC are ‘reflecting’ true life and ‘dealing’ with the real big issues in society, in their TV dramas:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156054/BBC-pulled-episodes-TV-drama-Silent-Witness-similarities-Rochdale-child-sex-grooming-case.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

       12 likes

    • Dazed & Confused says:
      June 12, 2012 at 12:27 am

      It probably concerned white adult males grooming young “Asian” girls, prior to them adopting the Islamic veil….

      That would be par for the course where BBC programming is concerned.

         9 likes

  13. David Preiser (USA) says:
    June 11, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    Chapter 4 of the last Any Questions is recommended listening:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jhp1q#segments

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 12, 2012 at 8:32 am

      Chapter 4 of the last Any Questions is recommended listening:
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jhp1q#segments
      Actually it all was.
      Loved Salma’s cute ‘maybe there were a few slip-ups, but I love the BBC and that’s all that matters’.
      And the guy who seemed to feel the plethora of better alternatives to the BBC excused all.
      These all being, best I am aware, free, yet him seeking us all to still fund (uniquely) the dire coverage he has a vested interest in seeing prevail, no doubt on a career and remuneration basis too.

         2 likes

  14. Invicta 1066 says:
    June 11, 2012 at 7:36 pm

    Regarding the so called sports news which spent so much time on foreigners playing tennis in France,.
    I watched with increasing frustration as every night the BBC Newscaster went across to the sports room for someone to read out the sports news.
    Whilst we had no British players in the French tennis, we did have a British cyclist, Bradley Wiggins, winning the latest of his three major cycle races ” Paris-Nice, Tour of Romandie and DauphinĂŠ a treble, never before accomplished in one season.
    Not a squeak from the BBC, perhaps the name of the team, SKY, has something to do with it.
    Mind you on Saturday they managed to omit any reference to the Test Match!

       7 likes

  15. Geoffko says:
    June 11, 2012 at 9:30 pm

    The Socialist Workers Party – apparently a worthy source of progressive commentary. Who knew?!
    At about 02.34:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jqrd1/Up_All_Night_11_06_2012/

       3 likes

    • Dazed & Confused says:
      June 12, 2012 at 12:41 am

      Well Nick Lowles created the BBCs Panorama propaganda pertaining to evil neo Nazis in Poland and the Ukraine..So mentioning the SWP as a credible voice in BBC news reports is no more than an extension of that. Onward toward the revolution Comrades.

         6 likes

  16. Pounce_uk says:
    June 11, 2012 at 9:50 pm

    The bBC and not the Nine O/Clock news.M/b>

    How many times have you heard the bBC shouting foul play when Asylum seekers are prevented from seeking sanctuary in the West when their boats: sink, wave at an aircraft flying far overhead thus making them Europe responsibility, how because NATO helped Libya, asylum seekers there are now their responsibility, etc..,etc..

    Well currently the Burmese have started fighting back against their fellow Islamic country men and in true Islamic fashion . They have piled onto boats and sailed for pastures new. Well Islamic Bangladesh has turned back 8 boats containing 800 Muslims from landing on Islamic land. Yet how many people have heard the bBC mention this story?
    http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/bangladesh-turns-away-muslims-fleeing-myanmar?

       10 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      June 12, 2012 at 2:56 am

      To the BBC and fellow travelers with similar twisted morals, the lives of people with brown skin are valued based on who harms them.

         9 likes

    • dez says:
      June 13, 2012 at 2:53 am

      Pounce_uk: “How many times have you heard the BBC shouting foul play when Asylum seekers are prevented from seeking sanctuary in the West when their boats sink… Well Islamic Bangladesh has turned back 8 boats containing 800 Muslims from landing on Islamic land.”
       
      You can’t tell the difference between boats sinking and people drowning – and boats not sinking and people not drowning???
       
      “…Yet how many people have heard the bBC mention this story?”
       
      Well I have; here:-
       
      “The Border Guard Bangladesh force on Monday said it had turned away a number of boats carrying refugees. Reports of the number of people ranged from 50 to 300.”
       
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18392262
       
      Poor little you.

         0 likes

  17. Dazed & Confused says:
    June 11, 2012 at 10:31 pm

    It’s a good job that the ever “neutral” Comrade Nick Lowles alerted the BBCs Panorama to the shocking racist behaviour of the animals in eastern Europe….

    I mean, it’s virtually impossible to watch a game in peace, without the sickening sound of monkey noises and the hails of bananas flooding the pitch at the mere sight of a black player….. As we’ve now seen every team, and witnessed every set of fans, where shall we start in discussing this shocking spectacle of their overt and shocking racism?……

    Actually…..where shall we start?……..Could it be that yet again, the loathsome Nick Lowles has been shown up as little else than a manipulative liar?…….Perish the thought….

    Why do the BBC constantly fall for the lies and bullshit of the militant left in Britain?……..Is it ideologically linked one wonders?

       16 likes

    • Earls Court says:
      June 11, 2012 at 10:41 pm

      The left will regret their friendship with Islam when they turn on them.

         15 likes

  18. Teddy Bear says:
    June 12, 2012 at 12:52 am

    Anybody following events in Syria since the revolt as reported by the BBC would be under the illusion that Assad and his forces were responsible for the majority of the killings and violence against the ‘democratic protesters’. Now I’m not a journalist, and I don’t spend too much time researching the ins and outs of the Arab world, but I do get updates from a few sources that enables me to keep a broader picture of what is really happening in the area, than the BBC would have me be aware of.

    We have already noted here how the BBC has for the most part totally ignored how Christians have been killed, persecuted, and living under continual threat by those the BBC want you to believe are moderate Muslims in an ‘Arab Spring’, since they avoid reporting incidents that show extreme and radical they are. Not only throughout the Arab world, but also specifically in this case in Syria,

    In recent weeks there have been other incidents and events which cast doubt about the narrative the BBC are giving about the uprising in Syria. There was their willingness to accept and post a picture, which supposedly was illustrating a massacre in Houla showing hundreds of bodies stretched out, except it turns out the picture was one from Iraq 9 years earlier. Not to say there wasn’t a massacre, but now there is a question about who really perpetrated it.

    It would appear too that the extremist rebels in Syria have realized the media is willing to demonize Assad for the majority of the violence going on in the country, and are using it for the own devious ends. They may be slaughtering many of those they perceive as being outside of their mindset, and blaming it on the Syrian regime.

    A few days ago, Alex Thomson, a Channel 4 reporter, stated that he himself had narrowly escaped being set up to be shot by rebels so that they could blame Assad, knowing it would make a big headline in the media. The BBC characteristically ignored the story, though they would have been well aware of it, which proves their bias in this arena is quite intentional.

    Now it transpires that the Houla massacre might itself have been committed by the rebels themselves for the sole purpose of blaming Assad, while also getting rid of some of their enemies. The BBC has no mention of it, and I’m sure will avoid covering it unless it becomes more public than it is already.

    Here’s what the National Review has to say.

    Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 12, 2012 at 7:16 am

      I have no clue what to believe any more, and the MSM only has itself to blame.
      SKY just now had a piece, quoting Ban Ki Moon (uncritically) saying the Syrian Government was preparing more atrocities.
      How does he/they know that?
      Can’t say the Syrian Government are sweethearts or my cup of tea, but the calibre of statesmanship and media oversight in response seems as, if not more deluded.

         7 likes

      • Teddy Bear says:
        June 12, 2012 at 6:31 pm

        I share your feelings about the Assad regime but it might be a case of ‘better the devil we know…’.
        It’s high time our government started considering their stance a little differently. If democracy is what we want to support, then Assad does a better job of allowing minorities to exist in relative security than what appears to be the alternative if the rebels get power.

        All they need to do is look what happened in Libya, Iraq, and Egypt as just a few examples of when ‘freedom’ (ala Arab Spring’) is pursued. We know the gutless UN is nothing more than puppets of militant Islam, and it appears that all our government is doing is buying time – just like Chamberlain did, but at a greater cost in the long run. ‘Those who don’t learn from history…’.

           2 likes

    • geyza says:
      June 12, 2012 at 9:27 am

      I did see a report on the BBC which acknowledged that Al Qaeda are in Syria fighting against Assad. However the tone of the piece was very much along the lines of, “We must overthrow Assad, or Al Qaeda will win!” The Al Qaeda in this case are OUR proxies, BTW, just as they were in Kosovo in 1999.

         3 likes

  19. Reed says:
    June 12, 2012 at 2:05 am

    Andrew Neil proving he’s still one of the few straight bats at the BBC…

    Andrew Neil ‏@afneil
    Brown wrong to say licence fee introduced because market failure in providing broadcast journalism. BBC had broadcast monopoly ‪#Leveson

       5 likes

    • Reed says:
      June 12, 2012 at 2:12 am

      …and another proving that he’s definitely ‘outside the bubble’…

      (don’t know how to embed these things 🙁 )

         1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      June 12, 2012 at 2:53 am

      What kind of market was there in 1946? And wasn’t there already a radio license since the beginning of radio?

         2 likes

  20. Pounce_uk says:
    June 12, 2012 at 7:35 am

    The bBC and you call this NEWS.

    Stephen Fry wins on Elgin Marbles
    A call backed by actor Stephen Fry for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece scores a big win in a London debate.
    The third highest story of the day on the bBC news website is how Stephen Fry presumably won a debate on the Elgn marbles. Strange how the bBC feels that a debate by Intelligence Squared, (Which was set up by ex bBC people and runs debates for the bBC world service such as “George W Bush is the worst American President for the past fifty years” gets such prominence over at the bBC) is worthy of such attention by the bBC, when another story from Stephen Fry last week (The one about the shoddy bBC service at the Jubilee) got no bBC coverage whatsoever.
    Funny that?

       9 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      June 12, 2012 at 8:04 am

      It goes to editorial decision-making that too often errs on the unique.
      What is chosen to be covered. What not.
      What, if covered, is spun, and what left out.
      Some posters seem to have not quite grasped this rather basic fact of controlling the edit suite, and hence the message.
      So, speaking of when it suits, when other low-life media run with a brain-dead story to fill the 24/7 news maw, and the BBC digs into the mire even further to have a tribal swipe, all of a sudden the full URL-citing monty is brought out. ‘See… the BBC is even more sh*t than some free London rag. And only ÂŁ145.50pa for the compelled privilege!!!’ perhaps not exactly making the point intended.
      When things don’t suit, like a BBC watertight oversight blackout, all of a sudden the cherry vulture bunker beckons.
      Funny indeed.

         4 likes

  21. As I See It says:
    June 12, 2012 at 9:03 am

    Nicky Campbell still having fun in Ukraine. Gay rights, the NHS, the Scots Nats, diversity – all forgotten as Gameshow transforms himself into an England WAG. What will the girls back in the Salford studio say about that? Feminist re-education workshop for him when he gets home methinks.
    Meanwhile the BBC has obviously been momentarily stung by the reaction to its Jubilee coverage fiasco.
    HIGNFY last night and Paul Merton is on a very tight leash.
    Normally when he is provided with a bit of Royal footage the anti-monarchist Merton is wound up and ready to go. We get a new gem of hilarious royal satire a second – Prince Philip is a bit of a racist, Princess Anne looks like a horse haha!

    Last night however the Beeb pull off a Hat Trick – Mr Merton is left languishing on the subs bench. Ian Hislop plays Andy Carroll landing a few gentle blows on the BBC woodwork but inexplicably fails to score. But look the BBC were bound to have an ace goalie! Bear of a man Greg Davies (though he palyed for Wales) steps into the breach to stick up for Auntie. Oh that wonderful payroll vote. Still it is a game safely negotiated. The Beeb come away with a draw despite their very dodgy situation. The important thing is not to lose your opening game.

       6 likes

  22. geyza says:
    June 12, 2012 at 9:03 am

    The BBC is attacking the evil homophobic bigots in the Christian Church again this morning.

    When will the BBC ever give Islam’s reaction to the proposals for homosexual marriage any coverage at all?

    As a Catholic friend of mine just said to me,
    “I am not 100% opposed to homosexual marriage in church, I just think that, for the sake of diversity, we should wait until homosexual marriages take place inside a mosque inside Saudi Arabia. I think that it is time for the Islamic faith to take the lead in this important issue. When that happens, I am sure that the Christian church will follow suit”

    Where is the BBC’s coverage of Islamic homosexual tolerance?

       9 likes

  23. will says:
    June 12, 2012 at 10:10 am

    On the World Service I heard an interview with a Syrian Rebel Commander. A UN report has accused both sides of the conflict of pressing juveniles into the front line. The Beeboid was sympathetic in tone with leading questions designed to excuse the rebel side – it was not policy you understand just local practice. I’m sure that in an interview with Assad’s mob the beeboid would be using phrases that the BBC think make our blood run cold, e.g. “WAR CRIMES”

       5 likes

  24. Guest Who says:
    June 12, 2012 at 10:55 am

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9324549/BBC-Radio-3-unveils-UKs-brightest-young-thinkers.html
    Chosen for us, eh? What, like the next DG?
    And not a scientist amongst them, brightest-wise.
    What could possibly go wr… left?
    That bubble seems to be contracting.

       6 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      June 12, 2012 at 1:37 pm

      I note that the judges of what makes “bright young thinkers” were “BBC Radio 3 Night Waves producers, BBC Television Arts executives, and Arts and Humanities Research Council academics”: as cosy a collection of bien pensants groupthinkers as can be found anywhere in the West. No wonder there were no mathematicians, chemists or physicists chosen.

         6 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:
      June 12, 2012 at 1:49 pm

      I notice one of them – Sue-Ann Harding – is a specialist on the 2004 Beslan school siege. Apparently she studies the subject from the point of view of a student of Russian , translation and the post-modern discipline of narratology. Given the perverted horror film quality of those events, perhaps one of the most extreme examples I can think of, where much of evil can be directly attributed to Islamic ethics and attitudes, I’m wondering if she may be out of her depth. Unfortunately her thesis is on one of those academic sites where you have to have a subscription.

         6 likes

  25. Umbongo says:
    June 12, 2012 at 1:06 pm

    As of the time of this comment (13:04) the BBC has AFAIAA failed to inform its audience of an announcement made yesterday that the financial genius at No 11 has cut the interest rate – or, more correctly, the spread – on our ÂŁ7 billion loan to the well known bankrupt, the Republic of Ireland. [H/T – Capitalists@Work].
    The BBC “news/current affairs” departments receive, what, ÂŁ850 million annually from taxpayers to whom this type of thing may be of passing interest: it’s their money after all. Not that the BBC will ask – or care – but what’s made the Republic so much less risky that the risk premium on our loans have been substantially reduced? I don’t know the answer (I suspect a change in “risk” has very little to do with it) but you’d think that maybe the BBC “experts” on this kind of thing might bother to report it (even if they can’t explain it).

       4 likes

  26. Rueful Red says:
    June 12, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    Completely off topic, but I couldn’t resist posting this link to an interview with Marcus Brigstocke (for it is he!) doing his climate change bollox (among other things) in that byword for edgy, challenging writing that really changes the way we look at the world….”Cotswold Life”.

    http://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/marcus-brigstocke-41646/

       3 likes

    • johnnythefish says:
      June 12, 2012 at 5:23 pm

      “Climate-change deniers will send you to the same website, which is full of stuff that’s been scientifically blown out of the water, and yet it’s never updated; it just carries the same lies. There are plenty of morons who want to go to a website like that and believe what’s on there and that’s fine; but the number of otherwise-intelligent people – or people who are engaged in what purports to be serious politics – who claim climate change isn’t happening is entirely baffling.”

      No, Marcus, there are dozens of websites challenging the ‘consensus’, all of which have references/links to scientific papers – a continuos stream, in fact – contradicting the ‘settled science’. And, as somebody who has such a love of science (and secularism, as though the two went hand in glove), how strange to take such an inflexible, insulting (to a large chunk of the scientific community) and uncompromising stance.
      But then Marcus knows, I think, that this is not about science, but about a particularly fascistic brand of environmental politics.

         3 likes

  27. deegee says:
    June 12, 2012 at 1:25 pm

    What’s missing in Father of Toulouse killer Mohamed Merah sues for murder? Background for one thing. Why did this young man kill seven people? The BBC shouldn’t speculate? Compare this story Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial defaced (see Pounce_uk’s take on it above at June 11, 2012 at 4:23 pm). There the BBC admits they only have suspicion about the identity of the vandals but they give context and background to their motives, nevertheless.
    The second omission is the identity of Mohammed Merah’s lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. Surely her history as defender (and fiancee) of Ilich RamĂ­rez SĂĄnchez AKA Carlos the Jackal and defender of Zacarias Moussaoui , (9/11 conspirator) is worth mentioning? Anyone, except the BBC and Coutant-Peyre would probably call her a defender of known terrorists – sorry, revolutionary fighters.

       11 likes

  28. TigerOC says:
    June 12, 2012 at 2:17 pm

    Sky (not sure about the BBC but would be surprised if they did and not on BBC Parliament) was covering the Home Affairs committee investigation of the grooming in Rochdale.

    Keith Vaz asks both Council leaders whether race was a contributory factor as claimed by Jack Straw and ?.
    First answer; We don’t want to dilute this horrific crime but wandering off on a race tangent as this would dilute the horror. ??????????????????

    They don’t have a problem when the perp is white and victim another colour.

    Second answer; This is not confined to Asians as this is widespread problem across all races.
    No request from Vaz to validate such an answer.

    This is another white wash pretending to be a valid detailed investigation.

    At this point the wife arrived home and commanded control of the remote, probably remembering the Doctor says I shouldn’t get too wound up because it affects my blood pressure.

       7 likes

    • johnnythefish says:
      June 12, 2012 at 5:37 pm

      By the defendants’ own bigoted evidence, race was definitely a factor.

         3 likes

    • johnyork says:
      June 13, 2012 at 1:45 am

      Listening to Sue Berclowitz at Keith Vaz’s kangaroo court, she would have you believe that there just aren’t enough children available to meet the UK’s insatiable demand for under age sex.

         2 likes

  29. David Preiser (USA) says:
    June 12, 2012 at 5:08 pm

    Remember back in 2008 when some of us were saying that the Democrat candidate for President was a Socialist, and were met with howls of derisive laughter? Well, here’s proof:

    Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office.

    Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows:

    Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.
    Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

    He was, and is, a Socialist.

       5 likes

  30. johnnythefish says:
    June 12, 2012 at 5:33 pm

    Just managed to catch on the lunchtime BBC news our doughty European correspondent musing over the latest solution to the Eurodisaster which is, of course, a typr unification of the EU banking system.
    Of course, quite rightly, the British government would not want to be part of it (not having the suicidal tendencies of the French, Germans, Greeks and the rest of the Euro crew).
    Not in the eyes of our correspondent, though, who opined that this would leave Britain ‘marginalised once again’.
    Would that be the way we ‘marginalised’ ourselves by not joining the Euro?
    The BBC, boldly trying to take us where no government in its right mind would even think of going. But then, when you have a guaranteed budget of ÂŁ4.5 billion p.a. and a leftist political agenda to peddle without any accountability whatsoever, you sort of have a lot in common with the EU, don’t you?

       4 likes

  31. chrisH says:
    June 12, 2012 at 5:57 pm

    BBC yesterday on Breakfast TV.
    “The world sighs with relief that the markets seem taken with the Spanish bail out plan”..stocks rose, trading good yada, yada.
    Get home last night-and it`s a disaster again…and the same theme today….markets spooked, this won`t do it…oh the humanity etc.
    So a shameless BBC turns turtle from triumphant trumpeter of the New Deal, to a lolling Cassandra chewing her nails again…within hours.
    Aren`t the likes of Peston and Flanders paid to warn the BBC off such pre-emptive celebratory puffery?…or do they just live by Tweets with goldfish-like retention of economic history?
    Why do I ask even?

       7 likes

  32. George R says:
    June 12, 2012 at 6:15 pm

    Leveson Inquiry: Ed Miliband calls for media ownership cap.
    “Ed Miliband called today for a cap on media ownership and suggested it should be set lower than the proportion of the market currently owned by the Murdoch empire. ”

    (-and to exclude pro-Labour BBC.)

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9327356/Leveson-Inquiry-Ed-Miliband-calls-for-media-ownership-cap.html

       4 likes

  33. George R says:
    June 12, 2012 at 6:29 pm

    NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS: rabidly anti-Murdoch, and fanatical political agency of BBC.

    BBC-NUJ politically reflects this in all its output, from ‘Today’ each morning, to ‘Newsnight’ at night.

    NUJ Gen Sec:-

    “Revelations on Murdoch bully-boy tactics show why BBC licence deal should be revisited.”

    http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=2541

       3 likes

    • Earls Court says:
      June 12, 2012 at 6:35 pm

      NUJ= National Union of Judas’s

         1 likes

    • George R says:
      June 12, 2012 at 6:36 pm

      Clearly, the NUJ-Miliband-BBC political line is that:-

      1.) some (at least) of Murdoch media in UK (and elsewhere?) should be closed down;

      2.) role of BBC publicly financed broadcasting global empire should be extended, and receive additional public finance.

         2 likes

  34. johnnythefish says:
    June 12, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    An example of the Stalinist (well, nearly – he would have shot them, I suppose) treatment of scientists who don’t buy into man-made global warming.
    Not a story to be covered by AGW-BBC, I’ll wager.
    This is nothing less than suppression of free speech and blatant disregard of scientific practice (see the university motto for the ultimate irony).
    And this is in the land of the free, the world’s greatest deomocracy.
    My arse.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/11/climate-skeptic-instructor-fired-from-oregon-state-university/#more-65460

       3 likes

  35. George R says:
    June 12, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    “Sexually exploited girl, 14, ‘passed between’ Brierfield men”

    [The only common feature of these men which BBC-NUJ recognises is that they are from Brierfield…]

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-18413976

       3 likes

  36. David Preiser (USA) says:
    June 12, 2012 at 9:19 pm

    Atty. General Eric Holder appeared before a Senate Committee today for a grilling about Fast & Furious and a few other things, including his Sir Humphrey-esque behavior regarding the internal inquiry into those White House security leaks the BBC hasn’t been telling you about. As usual he stonewalled and obfuscated and was belligerent (I watched about an hour of it), and the Senators were obviously not happy with him.

    Sen. Cornyn got so fed up he told Holder to resign.

    “I would say that you leave me no alternative but to join those that call upon you to resign your office,” Cornyn said. “Americans deserve an attorney general that will be honest with them, they deserve an attorney general who will uphold the basic standards of political independence and accountability. You’ve proven time and time again, sadly, that you’re unwilling to do so.”

    Holder in response accused Republicans of playing politics, and specifically accused Cornyn of “breathtaking” inaccuracies.

    BBC: We don’t want you to know about this. Instead, here’s Mark Mardell defending the President for saying that the private sector was doing fine and that we really need to hire more public sector workers to fix the economy (more evidence for why I call him the US President editor). Now here’s Katty Kay tweeting about VP Biden giving a commencement address telling some students to “think big and imagine in this rapidly changing world.”

    The BBC’s coverage of the US is an absolute joke.

       2 likes

  37. Neil Turner says:
    June 12, 2012 at 9:53 pm

    Radio5Live Phil Williams standing in for Richard Bacon this afternoon, interviewed Marcus Brigstock. He has been appointed as guest Director for the Cheltenham Science Festival, and has created a theme of “Marketing the Apocalypse”. This concerns the facts that as a warmist, Brigstock (an actor, not a scientist) feels that the AGW message is not getting through, people “just aren’t buying it”. His forum will tackle how advertising is needed to sell the AGW idea to an ignorant public.

    Can’t be that the public knows more about than you can it Marcus ?

       5 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      June 12, 2012 at 10:33 pm

      Brigstocke just sounds like a medieval priest. The peasants aren’t behaving: we need more fire and brimstone!

      It’s a religion, not really science.

         5 likes

      • Beeboidal says:
        June 13, 2012 at 3:42 pm

        I heard Brigstocke yesterday. Highlight of the interview for me was when Brigstocke explained why he missed the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, which he had promised to attend. The reason was that he was with Phil Jupitus and a film crew in Bolivia filming “The World’s Most Dangerous Roads”. Remember folks, just because climate apocalypse is upon
        us, it doesn’t mean Marcus and the gang can’t jet off and drive cars down Bolivian roads. Oh, and turn your thermostats down – it’s not that cold out there.

           0 likes

  38. Teddy Bear says:
    June 12, 2012 at 10:37 pm

    Another article today on Syria at the National Review that views with suspicion the sources and stories accusing rebels of creating incidents to lay blame on Assad.
    A tangled web to be sure, and it’s clear we don’t know the truth – just some truths.

    I suggest ‘a pinch of salt’ for the time being.

    Assad’s Houla Propaganda

       1 likes

  39. George R says:
    June 12, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    BBC-NUJ omits to report this about its Hollande government in France:-

    “Three women on flight from Doha barred from entering France after refusing to remove their face veils”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2158214/3-Saudi-women-barred-entering-France-refusing-remove-veils.html#ixzz1xcQKlPYQ

       0 likes

  40. George R says:
    June 12, 2012 at 11:15 pm

    Anti-White Racism in Europe; censored by BBC-NUJ.

    “Anti-White Racism Undisguised ”

    (44 secs video clip.)

    http://galliawatch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/anti-white-racism-undisguised.html

       1 likes