The BBC’s reporting of the latest bank scandal concerning Barclays, probably only the first bank in the firing line, misses out a major question and uses language that is immoderate and unusual for the BBC.
The BBC is freely using ‘lied’ or ‘liars’ in relation to how Barclays carried out its business. In truth of course this is an appropriate description but the normal practise is to infer they lied using more restrained language…‘they manipulated the market and misled others about their financial stability’ etc.
For the BBC ‘Lied’ is ‘unparliamnetary’ language and I would suggest that this was a deliberate editorial decision to adopt such language in order to inflame opinion against the banks in general and to raise the stakes. (Should that be needed…unlikely as it maybe) Peston or whoever is unlikely to be using that word without approval from above.
The second point is one made by the Telegraph…where were the Regulators?…such market manipulation must have been obvious…and if not then a question has to be asked why such an important financial system was so easily manipulated?
The BBC have not gone down that avenue but I would have thought that it was one of the major questions that need answering.
The BBC highlights calls for Bob Diamond to be sacked ….yet this was the BBC that gave immense support to get the ‘not such an economic genius’ Gordon Brown re-elected in 2010 and even now aids and abets Brown’s two henchmen, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.
Remember this was the Labour Government that stole £100 Billion from private pensions schemes to fund its election campaigns by spending that money on ‘vote catching’ schemes for its core supporters, the Labour Government that robbed southern council tax payers and channelled their money to what they hoped would be Labour voters in the North. This was the Labour Government that imported millions of immigrants in the hope they would vote Labour and when it comes to a referendum on Europe will, due to their lack of deep connections to Britain, be pro-European Union. I could go on.
And yet no BBC examination of such a corrupt, tawdry history….but when someone suggests that Barclays were ‘systematically dishonest’ on the Today programme almost instantly it was the headline on the BBC Frontpage.
As often said 13 years of Labour corruption and dishonesty have been wiped from the BBC archives.
You can only hope that a new Director General will be someone of substance and integrity who respects the traditions, responsibilities and trust invested in the BBC and begins to demand the BBC and its journalists start to fulfil the promises laid out in its Charter.
On his own of course that could be a tall order which is why the responsibility for overseeing the BBC’s compliance with its charter should be stripped from the BBC Trust and given to a completely new body, independent of the BBC and Government.
Until both things happen I don’t think that anyone can have confidence in the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC nor in its requirement to handle complaints in an appropriate manner.
there also seems to be only a passing reference to the fact that these offences took place in 2005-2009, under a Labour government and under a regulatory regime put in place by Balls and Brown
Remind me who was in charge of banking regulation when this malpractice was taking place.
I see Colonel Blimp did just that at the same time as I posed the question, impressive reactions!
To use the “argument” of one of the BBC reps who habitually comments on this site, since “everybody knows” about the “13 years of Labour corruption and dishonesty” and, worse, although true, it’s part of some bloggers’ idée fixe, the BBC is justified – ‘cos “that’s journalism” – in effectively ignoring it. OTOH the BBC goes to town (and, believe me, will keep going to town) concerning Barclays and LIBOR. Moreover, kicking Barclays has the pleasing side effect for the BBC that it puts one of the villains of the Narrative clearly in the firing line. It just so happens that other villains who also deserve a kicking – the regulators and those who appointed them, Labour politicians – are left effectively on the sidelines.
Of course, Barclays’ senior management is almost as intellectually and morally corrupt as the BBC’s but in days to come the Barclays boys will get their comeuppance. The BBC parasites? Not so much I fear. You see Alan, in the eyes of the BBC – and the BBC commenters on this site – all of us little people out here are stupid and can’t see how those “journalists” at Broadcasting House lie and lie and lie about the BBC’s “impartiality” and politically driven spite.
Of course it also serves to deflect attention from the several NHS Trusts in financial trouble because of the PFI scam, the “brain” child of one G. Brown. Intended as investment (ha, ha) the full costs are at last starting to come home.
Point of order to avoid losing debates over this: actually PFI was thought up towards the end of the Major years and the Conservatives started the ball rolling (with about 10.50p 😉 )
So by your line of thought, Span Ows, because the Chinese invented gunpowder I take it you would have us blame them for every maniac who uses a gun to kill people. The Major Government coming up with the concept of PFIs does not mean they are responsible for a lunatic who ran riot abusing the idea in the hope of hiding his reckless spending spree from public view, at least until he was long gone leaving somebody else there to sort out the damage.
I have noticed how little the BBC is reminding people that this happened under the previous government – lets people assume that it has just been happening whilst the bankers’ friends David and George are in power. And why was Ed B given so much time and such an easy ride on WATO with as much opportunity to rewrite history as he liked. (I will admit there was a very gentle question about it being under Ed’s watch but his answer remained scarcely challenged).
This sole point of this post appears to be that the word ‘lie’ was used in reference to an organisation found guilty of making false representations. A cursory Google would tell you that the word is being liberally used in this context across the media. Your suggestion that the word is somehow unseemly in a news story is bizarre: it counts as ‘unparliamentary language’ in the Commons because of a long-held tradition of personal courtesy peculiar to Parliament. The regulator found that they lied – that’s quite straightforward. Banning the word ‘lie’, when that is the correct word, is as bad as the numerous Orwellianisms you bring attention to every week. The whole second half of the post is a cross between rant and colossal non-sequitur, but enough said about that.
12 MINUTES after you post Rw&b :
6 Likes
Very well done indeed !
It’s a pity we don’t have the old system, which showed who did the “liking”
‘The whole second half of the post is a cross between rant and colossal non-sequitur, but enough said about that.’
No, just examples of where the BBC could have held Labour to account, had it been unbiased – very relevant given its constant demonising of the banks and the apparent lack of blame it attaches to Labour who were the architects of the unsupervised, debt-fuelled ‘boom’ that left the economy in tatters. As Alan says: ‘As often said 13 years of Labour corruption and dishonesty have been wiped from the BBC archives’ – including their abandonment of the B of E as a very effective supervisor. And, in fact, the Labour dishonesty perpetuates – courtesy of the BBC – through Balls’ shameless re-writing of history on the lunchtime World at One (and every other BBC news/current affairs programme he pops up on these days – Labour party political broadcasts in all but name).
RW&B
I’ll have to use your comment as the next post…’Wilful Blindness No 4′.
Give you the benefit of the doubt and say your lack of understanding is you being deliberately obtuse aiming to get me to answer.
Well I won’t do that.
Damn!
Will there be calls for an inquiry?
bet the BBC love the accronym LIBOR. I certainly do.
That is because they do not know. Banks should agree a rate if they are lending to another bank, it measures the risk. And why did the regulator not bring it to the banks attention before now, so much for stupid regulation.
Here’s my question: if sometimes Barclays traders were trying to force up LIBOR, and sometimes force it down, doesn’t that mean that they got it about right overall?
Besides, does releasing false information into the London market really matter if they balanced it up by issuing accurate figures from their Bratslavian office?
Anyway, what kind of fringe obsessive is still banging on about figures from years ago anyway? Surely the debate has moved on, they’ve drawn a line under it, and the science is settled?
Just as they are still blaming Thatcher for everything, including the banking crisis, 20 years from now the BBC will be blaming the banks for Miliband having to call in the IMF (circa, um, 2020?).
As I posted earlier, that hoon Balls failed to be opposite Osbourne. Reason, he could not bear to be humiliated at the ‘advocate of the failed regulatory system’. The bBC has not put this in their report. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18622264 If you want the truth do not rely on the bBC.
For anyone listening to Humphrys rabid piece on Today after the 8am news-all too familiar, this.
1. His “I`ll not use words that might bother the lawyers-but we all know what I`m trying to say” quote in the piece was a disgrace…who the hell is this seedy Greek lotus eating popinjay to “infer” what we all know he`s trying to tell us without getting sued? He`s a hack-an innumerate one as he`s been revealed many times to be, so he really should STFU and not lead the troops as he thinks he`s supposed to be doing.
2. His shout out to Diamond to “give us a bell mate, unless you HAVE got something to hide” invitation was yet another presumptuous effort for himself to “make the news”…witness his continual goading of interviewers in search of the soundbite for the next bulletin…”systematically dishonest” springs from this.
And as is said above-not a peep about the intensely relaxed approach of their chums at Labour HQ…their “light touch” regulatory regime…for all of this happened as Balls and Brown were refusing to wear tie and tails….good rebellion, eh?
Thank God that only public sector ciphers that mop up Guardian squits still listen and take note of the appallingly obvious “Toady Tripe” that is slopped out after bang up every f***in` morning…sheer shite!
…you weren’t impressed, then. 🙂
I’m glad I never put BBC radio news on – the TV output is more than enough to cope with.
I noted the BBC banging on about a former Tory MP(died in 1990) who spied for the Czechs in the Cold War during the 60s.
They did not give as much emphasis to the “trade unionist” aspect of this mans career as they did to the “Tory” aspect…yet it`s the Dribergs, Owens, Stonenhouses who all had Labour Party connections that seem to imply spying for the Commies was a Leftie concern…not including Jack Jones and God knows how many others.
Maybe the BBC will flag up this Mawby mans trade union record as a probable factor in his treacherous behaviour-not his nondescript career as a Heath bag carrier.
Yet somehow I doubt it…
They could do a whole documentary on the trades union communist sympathisers who were little more than traitors.
Bugger, another load of pigshit just dropped on my roof.
Heartening to know that Mawby took the money to fund his gambling addiction rather than believing that aiding dreadful communist regimes was a good thing. But why would he sign a receipt for the money? Perhaps Mawby acted as a double agent. Double agent is slightly odd on with the bookies.
.
BBC-BARCLAYS BANK interlocking directorship.
– PESTON sees himself as insider ‘negotiator’?
Mr AGIUS, Chairman of BARCLAYS BANK,
and member of BBC’s EXECUTIVE BOARD.
‘Telegraph’:-
[Excerpt]:-
“16.24 pm Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, has also written an article suggesting that Marcus Agnius, Barclays’ chairman, could be the one to resign. He writes:
The news first: an influential shareholder tells me investors may demand the resignation of Marcus Agius as chairman of Barclays.
The main reason, he says, is that the bank may need a cultural overhaul, and investors are not persuaded Mr Agius – who is also a non-executive member of the BBC’s executive board – is the right individual to oversee this.
If that seems unfair, in that many would say the chief executive Bob Diamond is more responsible for the mess Barclays finds itself in, this investor would not necessarily disagree. But he feels that Diamond is in many ways an able chief executive, and replacing him will be much harder than finding a new chairman. ”
-“Barclays Libor scandal: live”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9361646/Barclays-Libor-scandal-live.html
“Barclays chairman is a BBC director.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jun/28/bbc-barclay?newsfeed=true
I wonder how close was the relationship between the last government and the banks? Very close. Not at all close.
Who knows and who will tell us.
Not the sort of facts us peasants need to know so a general silence from the media.
Being charitable I assume the last governnment, being of unsound mind and mired in fantasy, honestly believed that bankers would be exempt from the normal human vices of greed and avarice so regulation was unnecessary.
Not that the currrent lot are going to be any better unless forced to face reality by an enraged populace.
To me the banks, the multinationals, the NGOs and the government form an alliance that is designed to enrich and empower only those part of this elite. Disliking this does not make one a socialist but rather an opponent of what looks like a form of corporate facism and very far removed from what I think a free market and a free society really is.
Greed and self-interest at the top, wherever the top might be – Banks, retailers, multi-nationals, Premiership footballers, showbiz, politics, the public sector, local councils – they’re at it everywhere, to a greater or lesser degree. The hard-earned money of the average worker is increasingly treated with disdain, whether it’s the bit of spare cash he’s got left to spend on a Premiership football match or the taxes he pays for the clueless government and even more clueless local council to squander on pointless schemes and non-jobs.
A modern serfdom without the restraints the old feudal system imposed. That is our fate.
And in other news…
‘A Systematically Dishonest Broadcast On Behalf Of The Labour Party’
No, that’s it. The BBC news.