‘Today’ (0850) finished with a bit of barefaced cheek, or complete idiocy, having decided to discuss Osborne’s sparring with Balls in the Commons.
The complaint was that surely the politicians should all be getting together to work out how to deal with the recession rather than engaging in a political bunfight, point scoring off each other.
Well perhaps…but then how does ‘Today’, Britain’s premier political bunfight programme in its own right, justify spending 10 minutes talking about the bunfight instead of ‘Plan B’ or whichever Grand Economic Plan we’re going for now?
If it’s all about ‘the economy stupid’ why spend any time at all on Today talking about this….consider that they spent only 8 minutes talking about Social Care.
The sheer nonsense that was spoken detracted from any usefulness that might possibly have been squeezed out of such a subject…. The Times’ Rachel Sylvester providing the comedy….arguing that we need more politeness and good manners to facilitate a reasoned debate…she then went off on one saying everybody, politicians and media, were all ‘Jerks’.
I would suggest part of the problem is a programme like ‘Today’ in which there is a very limited time given to each story regardless of significance and during that time a good portion is Humphrys and Co hamming it up enjoying the sound of their own voices with never ending questions and interruptions leaving politicians (Tories usually) with little time to say anything other than quick soundbites and digs at the Opposition.
So fewer, longer, more in depth reports with concise questions and time to give considered answers….and opposing views.
It is not the first time that Today seems to use an item to attack a particular target.
On Thursday Bob Diamond, Barclay’s ex boss, was turned over by the programme ostensibly discussing why during the Treasury Select Committee he called the questioners by their first names.
Apparently this was a sign of contempt for them and a ‘truly sinister policy’.
Oddly the Committee calling him ‘Mr Diamond’ was showing their contempt for him…. as he was, according to Frank Dobson, a ‘thieving banker’.
When you think that financial services provide the backbone to our nations finances you might think some of these politicians and media stars…whom we know are paragons of virtue themselves, would hold back on the highly inflammatory language that is designed to trash the City’s reputation.
When the credit rating agencies downgraded Barclays you would hope that would have opened their eyes a bit…no good cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Undoubtedly bankers need to row back on the riskier behaviour and become less venal…however we need banks…no banks, no mortgages, no pensions, no revenue stream for government, no NHS, no schools, no welfare..etc
Funny how I don’t remember Dobson shouting ‘thieving bankers’ when Labour’s coffers were overflowing with banker’s loot….or the BBC investigating Libor in 2007-08 when the scandal was being reported in the Press.
I am concerned that some complaints about Osborne are coming from Conservative ranks; I have to assume these are the new, trendy almost Liberal Conservatives because any ‘real’ right minded person would be encouraging Osborne to get all this on every front page; I see the BBC managed to neatly sidestep most of the bad press Brown should have got for the Libor scandal
And the reason is this: (link on Casino thread)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9378571/For-George-Osborne-and-Ed-Balls-the-Libor-scandal-is-a-fight-to-the-death.html
Yes, remarkable that ‘Today’ doesn’t bother to investigate whether Osborne’s claims…about Labour’s overall involvement…are sound.
A government involved in rigging the Libor? The very Libor that is apparently at the heart of the financial system? Just ignore it.
Bit like climate change really….world about to end if we don’t stop driving etc immediately?….but China building one coal fuelled power station a week…ignore it.
Of course the this is the same BBC who not only cheer on Miliband etc when they dish it out – they actually encourage it. But when things are reversed, to coin a phrase, the left don’t like it up em!
The other thing I notice that passed without comment was the disgusting Balls smirking and blowing a kiss to Tory MP, Anna Soubry. If Osborne had done this to, lets say, Harman, I’m sure that we would never have heard the last of it from the world’s most trusted broadcaster.
This “ooh sorry George is out of order” is a spectacular failure for the tories. If the accusations are true it would be the first time in a long while that the tories have had the stones to park the blame on repeated economic failures right where they belong.
If he has not proof or he knows Balls isn’t complicit, Osborne has been stupid beyond belief but if true he has absolutely done the right thing.
Balls is a man for whom “the war is everything”. If the shoe were on the other foot the man would work 25 hour days to press this one home. If the tories don’t realise this, they get everything they deserve and more.
Brown, Balls (good job I remembered the comma) and all the other shysters who rigged the financial rulebook to facilitate their debt-fuelled ‘boom’ have not even started to be held to account. I despaired that they ever would be by this government without balls but there is a glimmer of hope at last.
The Ministry of Truth at Broadcasting House will be pulling every trick in the book, though, to continue with their re-writing of history 1997-2010.
The problem with the BBC’s self-absorbed current affairs output is that it is part of the problem and not the solution concerning the ivory tower that is British politics; the BBC’s flagship current affairs programs incessantly bemoan the out of touch nature of the British political classes despite the rank hypocrisy of their very own existence – which is by virtue of coerced funding from you and me! They failed to capture the imagination and mood of the nation regards the Jubilee, they constantly promote multiculturalism which is not an agenda welcomed by most and their middle class journalists are far removed from Mr and Mrs Normal from Average Avenue. They are conducive to the whole 24/7 obsessive news culture that thrives on political scandal. The tone of their debates and analyses does not correspond with the national mood but rather small enclaves of middle class urbanites who wear Afghan scarves, read iPads in coffee houses on Saturday mornings and listen to dubstep not because they like it but because it is perceived as being ‘right-on’.
If you are left-wing then I recommend listening to the Today program. If, however, you are centre-Right in your political viewpoints then I’d stay well-clear because it really is pathetic drivel.
The Beeboids are as out of touch as the politicians (with very few exceptions). Respectively they have spent all their working lives in a broadcasting or political bubble with no experience of the real world. They are idealists rather than pragmatists, and idealists are the last thing we need leading the debate or formulating policy when the country is in dire economic straits.
Coming to a street near you?
It’s a capital offence under all schools of sharia law to attempt to convert a Muslim. The police are effectively acquiescing in the enforcement of Islamic law (vigilanteism in applying sharia is commonplace behaviour in Muslim societies) – there has been a similar incident in the West Midlands.
Check out he reverential account of sharia in the religious section of the BBC website.
Harold;
“Coming to a street near you?”
This took place at Dearborn’s 17th Annual International Arab Festival. Here are some photos of the event:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=C4&Dato=20120616&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=206160810&Ref=PH
The video you provided was made by a group of Christians called ‘The Official Street Preachers’.
http://www.officialstreetpreachers.com/Main%20Page.html
They turned up at the festival carrying banners which said:
“Islam is a religion of blood and murder” and,
“Muhammad is a… liar, false prophet, murderer, child molesting pervert.”
And just in case you are still unsure about what their true motives were, they also brought along a pig’s head.
http://dfpress.s3.amazonaws.com/photo/2012/06/DSC02968-v3-906.jpg
And your point is Dez?
Recent reports on Dearborn, which INBBC routinely censors:
1.)
“Dearborn Muslim charged with nine counts of attempted murder for trying to kill street preachers outside the Islamic Center of America ”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/dearborn-muslim-charged-with-nine-counts-of-attempted-murder-for-trying-to
2.)
“Pamela Geller: Arab-Americans stand up for honor killing”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/05/pamela-geller-arab-americans-stand-up-for-honor-killing.html
George R,
“Dearborn Muslim charged with nine counts of attempted murder…”
Strange, that not one single news organisation reported this story.
Niether are there any reports on the Dearborn Police website.
Instead, the one and only source comes from an interview with Ruben Israel (leader of the ‘Official Street Preachers’) on the completely impartial Frontpagemag.com.
Oh so it must be true then. Duh.
“Duh”? how then when the shoe is on the other foot you bat nay an eyelid?
I’m just supplying a bit of context to Harold’s video. That’s all.
That’s fine, just do it from both (all) perspectives…we’ll be watching.
Dez, I just said ‘Coming to a street near you?’ I didn’t insinuate or detail any side to blame. In fact, this lack of integration between Islam and communities around the world is already happening. Academic critical research paper skills rule number 1: do not make unfounded assumptions. Fail.
“Dez, I just said ‘Coming to a street near you?’ I didn’t insinuate or detail any side to blame.”
I never said you did.
“do not make unfounded assumptions. Fail.”
The only thing I assumed was that possibly you didn’t know the circumstances of the video you posted.
If you did know; then why did you keep it to yourself?
If you didn’t know; then I was right all along.
So did you know about the “Muhammad is a Pervert” banners and the “pig’s head on a stick” or didn’t you?
Blimey, I only thought that kind of treatment was dished out to Christians in the UK.
Blimey, Christians fighting back – can’t be right.
The Christians have god on their side. Every Muslim could be a Saladin Saladin and they will still lose.
Good always triumphs over evil, no matter how long it takes. muslims think they have time on their side. The poor deluded fools don’t realise that Jesus is eternal and will prevail over their satanic cult of a socalled religion. If I was a bbc-ist, and nearing the end of my natural life, I’d be seriously reassessing my fundamental beliefs because whether they like to hear it or not, without Jesus intervention on their behalf, they are doomed to eternal damnation. And, bad Christian that I am, I take pleasure on knowing that.
The Muslims having been waging a 1400 year war. They will lose and all their left-wing useful idiots will fall with them.
Not just God, the Chinese and the Indians too. The Muslim hope of out-birthing the West is being outflanked.
OK Dez let’s say these Christians are arseholes trying to provoke a confrontation with muslims.
Does non of the video disturb you? The fact that the cops ignore the muslim violence and threaten the christians with arrest because ‘they can’t protect them’? Yet they can spare 12 cops to harrass them out of town?
Does non of this trouble you at all? Would you behave the way these muslims behaved?
And they don’t even have the excuse of being pissed!
This is what appeasement brings – violence. Have you learned nothing from 1938?
I have little idea of what all this is about – but I did notice the senior police officer make a very interesting statement :
“…the reason that they throw things is that you tell them things that enrages them…”
Now I reckon that fear accounts for about three quarters of BBC bias in favour of Muslims which stands in stark contrast with the general contempt shown to the Christian religion.
The other quarter of bias is down to old fashioned Marxism and anti Western sentiment.
Of course the Muslims here are just acting in the way that any unsophisticated group without a sense of free speech or democracy would act. Women and children are involved because there is no community retraint when they feel their interests are threatened.
By the way, Dez, did the situation there remind you of one of Peter Tatchell’s demos?
Too true about Humphrys etal “hamming it up”.
I only caught a bit of yesterdays “flagship interview”…something about Big Pharma and GSK…but the presumption of Humphrys was quite something.
In effect, because GSK didn`t put anybody up for Humph, then they`re clearly guilty, cowardly and bottling it from the Grand Inquisitor for the People…that`ll be Humph by the way.
Humphrys and his ilk all fancy themselves as Shawcross…but all end up barking to their masters voice much as Roland Friesler did for his Fuhrer!
Contemptible kapok stuffing for the Conran beanbags of the elite…nothing more.
Is nostalgia kicking in, or were Brian Redhead and Jack de Manio better presenters of the Today programme than anyone who has followed them? Wasn’t the Today programme one worth listening to in those days; in that it actually informed its audience?
The BBC isn’t biased and you know it. You’re just trying to force it to promote your own ultra-right agenda.
Not to be confused with ChrisH!
The BBC is utterly biased and can do no other but offer its welcome rug to any passing Islamist, traveller-or indeed any fellow traveller from 1968 and the like.
The BBC hates independent thought or any views that have not been corralled and dipped in their warm bath of platitudes,Live 8 wristbands(discarded) and pale scents of lemon balm…when its Domestos that is needed.
The “traitors in our midst” as pounceuk says-slavering to Brussels and the UN/EU or any old lefty Trot windbags like Milibands or Shirley Williams/Polly Toynbee.
Dandy highway robbery by way of a compulsory license fee…without even the joys of hearing Adam Ant, or watching Diana Dors?
The BBC presumes to be Janet Webb…always-and we the people get cut off much as Arthur Treacher did( a Morecambe and Wise reference there for you-see ,we DO remember the BBC when it was not at war with those made to pay for the insult that it currently is!).
Does this make it clear ?…I hate the BBC for what it`s become…
nahh, the BBC aint biased, just because it has loads of gays employed in it (innit) and their their ‘supporters’ or hypocrites, nahh it aint biased…
For INBBC:
“Stoned Dearborn Christian Speaks”
(2 page report).
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/adelman/stoned-dearborn-christian-speaks/
We know BBC-NUJ is politically inclined to see Labour’s Miliband as its PM, and that BBC-NUJ is disdainful of Tory leaders, PM Cameron, and Chancellor Osborne.
But BBC-NUJ does give Lib Dems’ Clegg an easy time.
In contrast:-
“Nick Clegg’s treachery knows no bounds: Lords reform is just the latest act of breathtaking deceit.”
By Rick Dewsbury
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2170320/House-Lords-reforms-Nick-Cleggs-latest-act-deceit.html#ixzz200kXk3uu
“THE TORIES SHOULD NOT SURRENDER TO TWO-FACED
NICK CLEGG ”
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/331256
Why Beeboids are soft on Clegg?:-
“Nick Clegg flies gay pride flag in Whitehall for first time”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9381937/Nick-Clegg-flies-gay-pride-flag-in-Whitehall-for-first-time.html
Just tried to post on the DM site with a similar article and failed – so will say it here (I know it isn’t BBC bias but …) When the credit crunch started Clegg was reported as saying that he and Miriam could no longer afford to shop at Waitrose. This was before the MP’s expenses scandal when we learnt what Clegg was really taking from the public purse and before we knew that Miriam Clegg is a ‘high-flying’ lawyer. If Clegg cannot afford Waitrose on his family income then the rest of us cannot afford Netto.
Same old, same old.
Liberal mobs can storm Tory HQ or trash Fortnum & Masons and the BBC talks about how ‘passions are running high’ and blames it all on the Government for being so controversial.
Meanwhile, someone on the right answers back and the BBC turns into a maiden aunt shocked – shocked! – at the harsh language. Can’t we all just getn along? But now over to Paul Mason who’s beating off to a bunch of trustafarian thugs.
John Pienaar on Radio 5 Live in full flow harping on his favourite theme – coalition splits.
This week his campaigning has a new goal. He is in full save the Labour 20 (seats) mode.
Politics is a contact sport…or a blood sport….it’s all about point scoring…ie how many votes you can clock up.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100169664/the-conservative-party-can-fight-honourably-and-lose-honourably-or-it-can-try-to-win/