151 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Some defender of the indefensible last week (can’t remember who, thought it was JAH, but can’t find the comment now) sneered that the Republican convention was a geriatric exercise and wondered where all the young people were. I asked if people like Marco Rubio, Mia Love, and Paul Ryan weren’t young enough for him, and pointed to a list of projected DNC speakers for comparison.

    Now someone has done the math.

    Average age of RNC speakers: 48.8889

    Average age of DNC speakers: 59.7195

    Not that this means much of anything, of course. I’m just pointing it out, and I’m not the one who brought it up as if it mattered in the first place.

    Come to think of it, though, it’s odd that not a single Beeboid seems to have noticed the stark difference.

       34 likes

    • john in cheshire says:

      On the face of it, these figures tend to negate the generally held view that as people get older and mature in their reasoning, they tend to lose their socialist ideas and look at what’s best for themselves and their families, rather then trying to establish some ill-defined egalitarian utopia. Or does the Democratic party only those who never grow up; the Peter Pan Party?

         21 likes

      • Pah says:

        That may apply to the foot soldiers and supporters but I think you’ll find the politicians are more than aware of their impact. They just don’t care …

           2 likes

    • Reed says:

      It’s not their age that’s the problem, it’s their agenda. Peter Schiff is at it again, giving them just enough rope (is that racist?)…

      Democrats: Let’s Ban Profits!

         10 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        But to suggest that the Dems are a bunch of Socialists and are anti-business is lunacy, right, BBC?

           10 likes

  2. Guest Who says:

    The Newsnight FaceBook page is a bit of a trial, now occupied and patrolled by ‘club’ members in the same way Richard Black’s blog was, rendering it near useless.
    They have posted their latest ‘report’ which from cinematography and audio appears to have been Ken Loach’s next social injustice epic..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19520325
    There could be a story in all this, but these days, who the BBC’s market rates choose and what it is they seek to represent, really qualifies more as fiction.

       15 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      There’s another being trailed (actually a few, but this caught my eye more than Paul Mason’s latest obsessions):
      ‘Tonight at 10.30pm on Newsnight we have a film we made with Dominic West about grooming. Here he explains how he became concerned about the issue while playing Fred West.’
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19520324
      Judgement reserved until seeing it, but it seems… odd… that on the matter of grooming so far we get our Dominic talking about Fred. Exclusively. Not names I recall of late, when allowed to be mentioned.
      And why listed under ‘business’?

         8 likes

    • Pah says:

      Remind me. How poor is Ken Roach?

         5 likes

  3. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Mardell’s ability for pathetic commentary knows no bounds. His report on the President’s speech was mostly an attempt to make something out of nothing. He wasn’t inspired, that’s for sure. So he had to make excuses for the greatest orator known to man.

    It was as though the president had deliberately clipped his own wings, refused to soar too much, offering little inspirational rhetoric that could be mocked by his opponents.

    This is what He’s been reduced to: trying to avoid being mocked. Mardell betrays his disappointment. But that’s not the pathetic bit. This is:

    The president unleashed himself, just a little. I had been wondering how he would cope with “hope and change”.

    I thought there might be an electric moment, admitting people’s disappointment, a moment of self-revelation and humility.

    There wasn’t, but the speech did get better.

    Self-revelation and humility? What world does Mardell live in? How can the BBC’s top man in the US, a lifelong politics junkie, be so utterly naive? Has he not read the NY Times feature revealing the President’s extreme arrogance? Or noticed the Washington Post review saying that Bob Woodward’s new book portrays the President as being arrogant, aloof and unprepared”?

    Mardell usually sees these sources as worthy of attention, as he links to them often to support his reports and blog posts. It shows just how blind he really is to think that this President, at a key turning point in His reign, would suddenly speak humbly in public. He really doesn’t deserve his job. Make him a political editor for a Left-wing news program or something.

       24 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      He really doesn’t deserve his job. Make him a political editor for a Left-wing news program or something.”

      For a minute I wasn’t sure if you meant Obama or Mardell, but now I realise it is both.

         17 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    If any social media watchers see any Beeboids with DNC paraphernalia of any kind, you’ll know how they got it:

    Reporters Using ‘Fake Names’ to Buy Obama Campaign Merchandise at the DNC

    Members of the media have apparently been using “fake” names to buy official Obama gear and contribute to the Obama campaign inside the Time Warner Cable Arena where the President is due to speak in a few minutes. During our travels around the arena, Politicker spotted a souvenir stand in one of the press stands selling T-shirts and buttons supporting President Barack Obama, “Democrats Are Hot” bumper stickers and other official Obama merchandise.

    The souvenir stand was in a secure area only accessible to those with a media credential and buying campaign gear means contributing to the campaign, so we asked the woman working the cash register whether anyone at the press stand had been making purchases. Her answers were quite surprising.

       17 likes

  5. Invicta 1066 says:

    Thursday 6th Sept.
    Dear Diary,
    Wife and I had an enjoyable cycle ride round Bredon Hill, 20 miles on a sunny but cool day. Bredon is of course Lakey Hill in the Archers, a programme I listened to from when I was four to 54 but the story lines drove me away some years ago.
    Two weeks ago visited Hanbury Church, which doubles as the Ambridge local; looked around but could not find the graves of Dan nor Doris nor even Grace or Walter Gabriel much less ZebideeTring.
    Re-hydrating back in the car, tuned into R3, piano piece for a female only competition, bit heavy, Classic FM had adverts so decided to brave the last two minutes of the Archers. Downs Syndrome baby on the way apparently.
    Decided to listen to the R4 play titled A9 billed as’ A war hero’s three children expect to inherit his millions’.
    However, when the announcer described the play, as a war hero who has to overcome his prejudices; the wife and I groaned. ‘’It will be about racism, or prejudice against asylum seekers or immigrants’ I said ‘or gays and lesbians ‘said the wife.
    Twenty seconds in, and she was proved correct. Adverts had finished on Classic FM so we drove home to that.
    Is it me? Whenever I randomly tune into R4 before long the subjects of racism, asylum seekers, immigrants, gay and women’s rights seem to come up.
    I used to love listening to plays on R4, dramas with intrigue and interesting and VARIED storylines. R4Extra is much better, but we don’t have a DAB car radio.
    And in case anyone thinks we are musical snobs, I got the Manfred Mann question right on Popmaster with Ken Bruce.. it was the only one!

       26 likes

    • Leha II says:

      what was the Manfred Mann Question? 😛

         6 likes

    • Jeff says:

      You’re absolutely right about Radio 4, it’s now little more than a propaganda station for PC opinions. The plays are usually dreadfully boring and totally predictable.
      I’ve listened to tales of knife wielding white racists attacking Muslims ( happens all the time, doesn’t it ?) a white racist bomber attacking blacks and Muslims (ditto) and the leader of a fictional “far right” party (PC speak for racist) who had blacks and Muslims assaulted. The actor playing the leader sounded astonishingly like Nick Griffin of the BNP. It turned out that his daughter was secretly courting a young West Indian lad (naturally) and had run away with him to escape her bigoted father.
      I pay my licence fee for this dross….

         31 likes

    • fitzfitz says:

      Radio 4 is largely by women for women now — and 3 is going that way … 4 is super feminised, lazy & knee jerk driven, all day woman’s hour ….

         20 likes

  6. noggin says:

    anyone have the misfortune, to catch your call 5 live this morning …. oh thank goodness for that 😀
    yep! you ve guessed it, it was a obama love in…oops i mean phone in … wheeling out poor old charlie wolfe,
    immediately hitting him with orchestrated line up of rep (& thinly veiled jew) haters, panto nikki, expanding the “for” talk, butting in the against.
    feel the love.
    talk

       17 likes

    • Marsh says:

      Yes, heard a bit of it. Of all the BBC’s many, many outlets, I find BBCR5L to be the most biased. It appears they have given up on even trying to pretend to be impartial. BBC Scotland is probably worse to be fair, but I haven’t listened to it for more than 5 mins in the past year.

         17 likes

  7. Marcus Pincas F****d us. says:

    After those horrific murders in France the other day the media were in frenzi mode, looking for a motive as well as many other questions. One correspondent, and I cannot say with certainty he was from the dreaded Beeb suggested that it is going round the internet that because of the alleged “professional” way it was carried out then Mossad must be a prime suspect. FFS. How f***ing sick is that. Absolutely no link whatsoever but hey mud sticks, it’s them Jooo Zionists again.

       25 likes

    • RCE says:

      Marcus – you will soon find out; if it wasn’t the Beeb, in the wee hours, a taxi-ride’s time after the last Soho gay bar has kicked out, there will be a barely audible swooshing noise… the merest whiff of righteous indignation… et voila! A scornful rebuttal that will infer any suggestion of BBC bias in any of its output – ever – can now be dismissed as a result of your pitiable error.

         12 likes

  8. Old Goat says:

    Bit of airtime given to the Australian contingent of the we’re-not-quite-so-green-but-still-green-enough-party this morning.

    I am certain that on the first bulletin their conference was in Brighton, and an hour later, in Bristol.

    They don’t half get about, these greens…

       14 likes

    • chrisH says:

      And of course , the coming Green Messiah that will lead the Greens out of the Promised land is another Aussie on her gap year.
      How does a British Party end up with a Botany Bay reject like this one?…mind you Hain was another ex colonial on a guilt trip who did rather well over here too didn`t he?
      Maybe this`ll be the way to go for UKIP, BNP/EDL-get a disgruntled ex-colonial to lead you-and there was me thinking that the Green party was stuffed with talent.
      No call to Black, Shukman or Harrabin either I noticed…the ingrates!

         14 likes

    • Pah says:

      They don’t half get about, these greens…

      They are everywhere – like dog shit.

         7 likes

  9. Umbongo says:

    On Today this morning Joan Bakewell – a socialist busybody who is fronting an agit-prop edition of Panorama next Monday – used the rubbish produced by Sheffield University (paid for by the makers of Panorama ie the taxpayer) apparently on information from a group of panic-inducing authoritarians and rent-seekers, to assert that a minimum price of 50p/unit of alcohol would save 50,000 over-65s from “alcohol-related” death.
    Tim Worstall torpedoed the good ship HMS BBC Crapola below the waterline, not least by mentioning that in 2008, for instance, total deaths from alcohol-related causes were just above 9,000. Of course, Joan’s words were received as holy writ by the Today enabler interviewer.
    According to this report Sarah Wadd, director of the Substance Misuse and Ageing Research Team at the University of Bedfordshire, will stateex cathedra on Panorama that “We might be on a cusp of an epidemic of people drinking problematically in old age.” Puh-leeeze! “University” of Bedfordshire: not exactly Oxford or even Oxford Brookes: more like Oxford Comprehensive but without the academic kudos. BTW get that “might” in that statement. Just as likely (IMHO more likely) “we” might not be on such a cusp.
    This, BTW, is the BBC (famous, in its dreams, for its “impartiality”) blatantly creating its own dodgy news, trying to influence government policy and keeping Joan’s bank balance stuffed with taxpayers’ cash.

       22 likes

    • Marsh says:

      It wouldn’t be the BBC if we didn’t get a row at least once a week for drinking too much. The BBC’s doom and gloom probably leads many to drink as it happens. It’s all part of the push to ensure that other public bodies get some of our cash.

         15 likes

      • #88 says:

        Quite.
        BTW Channel 4 has Phoney Blair on at the moment, as the man who brought the Olympics to Britain. Blair, the wrong-un who could have saved Britain by sacking Brown.
        Anyway Ms Bakewell, it’s Friday and I’m off for a drink. Regards to all, #88 aged 62 and 3/4

           19 likes

        • chrisH says:

          Was great to see Tony with his outrageous toupee look, going bald at the front and with a bizarre range of hair colours…truly a rainbow coalition of shades there.
          Was he even in the same room as that sycophant Krishan G-M…I thought it was a strange affair indeed!
          As for the “ah, Tony….do you think that we`re not appreciative of your sterling work in bringing us all this sporting loveliness/”…even Blair turned a bit queasy at Krisnhans saccharine squishy…Order of the Brown Nose to the little Asian chap at the back there!

             11 likes

      • ROBERT BROWN says:

        The BBC is stuffed to the brim with alcoholics.

           7 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Any initiative that exerts that extra bit of control over people’s lives by big socialist government gets the BBC backing. It’s why they love Islam so much – totalitarianism perfected.

         4 likes

  10. Richard Pinder says:

    The melting Arctic was an issue on the Jeremy Vine show today. The BBC only allowed it to be a debate between the BBC and the Green party. As usual there was no balanced scientific debate on the cause, and the only sceptical view that the BBC allowed to be aired came from a sceptical listener who was as ignorant as a BBC journalist.

    So for the sake of people reading this comment. The debate in the Academic World and in Mensa is not reflected on the BBC. For a BBC Journalist to ask intelligent questions on this issue and for people on this site to be better informed, it would be advised to know about the issues in the debate in the Space special interest group of Mensa.

    (1) An increase in cloud cover due to an increase in high energy Cosmic Rays in the Arctic would increase temperatures as clouds trap heat. As well as the fact that the Arctic has far more heat input than the Antarctic region, due to the jet stream.

    (2) The greenhouse effect is weakest at the poles and non-existent in the polar winter. According to Computer models using the AGW Theory, warming six miles above the surface should be at more than twice the rate of warming on the surface. So why do not the BBC’s chosen scientists not cherry pick the atmosphere, six miles above the equator, instead of the Arctic surface temperature?

    (4) Why have Attempts to get funding to have real-time daily satellite observations of the Earths Cloud Albedo been unsuccessful. Would not a real-time daily correlation with Cosmic Ray levels be the answer to all our problems?

    (5) Astronomers at Oxford and in Mensa have found that the Unified Theory of Climate has all the answers for the temperatures in the climates of all the planetary atmospheres in the Solar System, including the Earth. The calculation for the 20th Century Man-made warming using this theory, is for less than 0.002 Kelvin.

       16 likes

    • Number 7 says:

      “Ice Free Pole Soon”

      They , yet again, are trying to rewrite history.

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/

      Just as an aside, isn’t 1958 in a period when “world” temperatures were heading towards another ice age.

      More warmist propaganda from Harrabin et al.

         8 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        A 30-year cooling after WW2 led scientists towards the end of the 70s to warn of another ice age. Less than a decade later AGW became all the rage. Both scares driven by environmentalists, of course, and the hairshirt remedies scarily similar. Coincidence or magic? – you decide.

        But of course, the ice age scare is another part of history the BBC consigned to the Memory Hole some time ago, and the totalitarian narrative now only ever talks of warming over the last 150 years.

        Shysters.

           4 likes

    • kayjays says:

      The Aussie Green also figured in a Newsnight piece with Jeremy Paxman and Peter Lilley, which I watched on BBC World in the Philippines, so I may be behind the times. Lilley was furious to begin with, having been set up by the BBC with an ambush of a doom and gloom piece in typical BBC style, using a well known alarmist academic to spout the most dire consequences for the melting Arctics, which will have supposedly disappeared by 2030 as opposed to the IPCC’s rather less alarmist view of meltdown by the end of 21st C. It was the usual BBC hatchet job supported by the Aussie Green with puerile greenist claptrap.

         6 likes

  11. the sheep says:

    People like Joan Bakewell make me want to go to the pub. Why shouldn’t people have their drink’problem’? What the f… Has it got to do with anyone else? After a hard week at work You can’t beat going to the ale house, wind down and talk about non PC things and believe me Joan boiler in the bag Bakewell isn’t one of them! As for thee old folk drinking, good for them, they’ve rearmed it.

       24 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I guess this means they have to cancel “Still Game” now, as it sets a bad example.

         5 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Bakewell blames media sexists for there being so few older women on the box. Don’t her own horizontal auditions for BBC jobs count as sexist? At the age of 79 she should be looking after her own health , not worry about that of STD-free drinkers.

         12 likes

  12. Framer says:

    Any hint that the BBC are going to try and change the law on TV licences so that watching TV programmes on computers etc., not when they are being shown live i.e. not in real time, will in future require a licence?

       3 likes

  13. fitzfitz says:

    BBC : Radios 3 & 4 : quotas, positive discrimination, desperately lacking in curiosity … by women – for women …

       8 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Won’t be long then before they tackle this issue of the subjugation of women under certain religions.

      Any ideas which one they should begin with?

      replies please from non-dh^”**S!

      sorry about the code….certain words not welcome on this blog.

         8 likes

  14. Dave s says:

    I listened for the first time to the News Quiz. Never again.
    Identical people with identically left wing views. Where do they find them? Or do they make them out of moulds somewhere?
    Rather sad really to see BBC R4 come down to this level of puerile gibbering.

       25 likes

  15. Alex says:

    The BBC’s ethnic minority and Muslim political correctness is getting worse by the day; one is astounded by the amount of ethnic minorities appearing in dramas, news features, and current affairs coverage. We now have situations where if a Muslim attacks our soldiers, molests children or beats up a homosexual the BBC now completely ignores the Muslim link. If a black women says anything about a white person (Dianne Abbot or that racist lady on the London bus for instance), the BBC do their best to sanitize and limit damage and wait for the story to gently slip away. However, if it’s a white English person we get the right-wing extremist crap. I’m sick of it!
    The Olympics drew out the most repugnant political correctness I have ever seen from the BBC and now they are simply out of control!

       49 likes

    • dez says:

      Alex,
       
      “if a Muslim…”
       
      “if a black…”
       
      “if it’s a white English…”
       
      And there we have it. You will be defined by your religion, your skin colour, or by your nationality. Which ever is most convenient to separate you from us.
       
      Two months ago five men were found guilty in Derby of grooming young girls for sex. It got one single report on the BBC website:
       
      http://bbc.in/PPOAIj
       
      You have probably never even heard about it till now. Is that because they where all muslim or was it because they were all black?
       

         3 likes

      • Chilli says:

        > You have probably never heard about it
        > Is that because they were all muslim…

        No. It’s because *one* of them was muslim. If all 5 had been white it would have been top story all day on BBC news.

           15 likes

        • dez says:

          I see, so you have heard about Asian groomers (one of whom was White) but you haven’t heard about White groomers because one of them was Asian?

             3 likes

          • Chilli says:

            > so you have heard about asian groomers.

            I presume you mean muslim groomers because I’m not aware or any Chinese or Japanese groomers. No. I haven’t heard much about them. Certainly very little from the BBC news organisation which I’m forced to fund.

               6 likes

      • Alex says:

        Dez,

        You may wish to subscribe to an infantile ideological utopia wherein there is no gender, no race, no nationality, no cultural or religious differences and so on, but not I. You may not believe it, but I have probably been following the disgusting cases of ‘Asian’ grooming in more depth than the BBC, so can confidently inform you (backed up by views from a senior judge, several politicians and police officers) that the BBC conveniently left an important link out of the reports: Islam. This obvious link is there for those willing to see; for those with blind faith, however… well, it’s time bed time story with Janet and John!

           12 likes

        • dez says:

          Yes there are differences but you pick and choose. Some you define by their religion, others by their skin colour, others by their nationality.
           
          But seeing as you think you know so much about it, perhaps you can tell me how many whites / blacks / asians are currently in prison for sexual offences?
           
          Those figures would be fairly significant would they not?
           

             2 likes

          • Dave s says:

            Agreed. Given the white population is by far the majority I would expect a large white preponderance of prisoners in line with the ethnic mix of the country.I am sure the figures are out there so perhaps someone would provide them.

               3 likes

          • mister_choos says:

            They certainly would be fairly significant. Please cast your eye over these:
            http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/​SN04334.pdf

            shura.shu.ac.uk/597/1/fulltext.pdf

            “In England and Wales the majority of the population classify
            themselves a White (87.5%), 4.4% of the population identify as Asian/Asian
            British, the Black/Black British grouping constitutes 2.2% of the population, 1.4%
            consider themselves to be of mixed race, 0.4 are Chinese and other ethnic
            groups also make up 0.4% of the population.”

            and

            “Currently, there are 8,106 male sex offenders in the prisons of England and
            Wales6. Of this group, 81.9% are White; 9.9% are Black/Black British; 5.6% are
            Asian/Asian British; and 2.2 are Other/mixed (the ethnicity of 0.4% is not
            recorded). “

               5 likes

          • Alex says:

            Excuse me Dez, you’re either struggling with reading comprehension or you are willfully misreading what I have said. Nowhere above did I remotely refer to figures pertaining to the breakdown of crimes in light of ethnicity (although if you want to do some number crunching then I do suggest that you obtain the London Met’s crime figures for 2010/11, which clearly point to ethnic minorities accounting for more than half of all crimes in the capital). What I was alluding to was the BBC’s refusal to report the known link between Pakistani Muslims and child grooming – a connection, which I repeat, a Labour politician and a senior judge in the trial highlighted. Also, countries which adhere to strict forms of Islam allow under-age marriage, forced marriage and the general oppressive treatment of females al of which fosters abuse. Please listen to what i say before you try to be too clever by half!

               27 likes

      • Pah says:

        The court heard Ahmed, of Becher Street, and Godfrey, of George Street, who did not know each other, would

        So a gang of five where 2 didn’t know each other …

        Or was it href=”http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/LURED-PERVERTS-NIGHTMARE/story-16535629-detail/story.html”>five seperate instances?

        To quote the local paper: ‘EIGHT men have been convicted of plying “vulnerable” teenage girls with alcohol, drugs and gifts before paying them for sex.

        A jury took 12 hours to convict five of the predators, who all acted individually rather than as part of a gang, after three teenage victims gave evidence in a month-long trial. The three others had pleaded guilty earlier.’

        Funny how the BBC, Guardian and Independant all have all reported this as if they were a ‘gang’ and yet they were tried as individuals. Do you think the papers and the BBC were trting to mislead us? Surely not?

           5 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        ‘You will be defined by your religion, your skin colour, or by your nationality. Which ever is most convenient to separate you from us’.

        The BBC do that all the time, Dez, through their unwavering support of multiculturalism. Nothing defines difference better than a bit of separatism.

           3 likes

    • George R says:

      Yes, Alex.

      And to criticise the BBC-NUJ’s pro-Islam, pro-black political propaganda is likely to induce the ‘left’s attempt at debate closure, by using the word ‘racist’.
      The same left tactic is used when the policy of mass immigration into Britain is criticised.

         21 likes

  16. RCE says:

    Nothing to do with BBC Bias but I’d like to take advantage of the learned and discerning audience that this site presents:

    Barkan Classic cabernet sauvignon from the Bekaa Valley is 20% off in my local Sainsbury’s making it now a bargain 6-quid-odd. It’s a great drop and you get the smug self-satisfaction of buying good-quality Israeli produce.

       11 likes

    • Alex says:

      I have bought a case of good, strong Belgian ale called Piirat. Lovely stuff but lunacy in a glass!

         7 likes

  17. Chubbly says:

    the news quiz tonight made my blood boil. Edgy left wing “comedians” perfectly happy to take the p*** out of Christians when they go to the european court to protect their rights to freedom of expression at work but wont dare to take the mickey out of muslims who enjoy that right. Either its all subjects are game as comedy or none are ….

       26 likes

    • Alex says:

      Sorry mate, I didn’t watch it but the vile cowardice sounds all too familiar with today’s spoilt, arrogant rich-kid ‘comedians’; you compare these modern day egotists with the likes of Del Boy and The Two Ronnies… PATHETIC!

      PS. You could show me where to go to watch it/provide a link etc? I will put in a complaint.

         16 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      you’re having a laugh mate: The Christians don’t come after you with an effing great butchers knife, the other lot will. end of edgy comedy straight away. Game over.
      Just saying.

         16 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        The only fear they have is of being called a racist and losing the nice paycheck and time in the spotlight. Only “Asians” can make fun of “the other lot”, like Adil Ray and Imran Yusuf.

           14 likes

    • davews says:

      I used to enjoy the news quiz and was pleased to see they had started a new series (to replace the dreadful Now Show). It started with an open slaughter of Jeremy Hunt, blatant political bias. When it got to the bit about crosses and an effective assault on the church (even bringing up lesbianism) I had had enough and turned off. I guess next week I shall go back to the Classic FM adverts..

         9 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Interesting…… never see Dez pop up in his Supreme Defender of the Faith role when The News Quiz comes under fire on here.

      Could it be even he thinks their left-wing, anti-Christian bias is indefensible?

      Come on, Dez, we need to know – or perhaps you’re busy truffle-snuffling loads of examples of piss-taking of Muslims by these ‘edgy’ comedians.

         3 likes

  18. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19521535
    Trade union membership has fallen below six million for the first time since the 1940s.

    There are now 5.98 million members of TUC-affiliated unions, which is fewer than half the number just 30 years ago.

    The TUC blames the fall on job cuts in the public sector.
    Yes, it’s only public sector workers – as the BBC should know – who are still on the gravy train.

       13 likes

  19. Mike_s says:

    In the daily telegraph a nice piece over Jeremy Paxman who says that the BBC is not biased on climate change.
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100179774/paxo-gets-a-stuffing

    This however contradicts his own statement;
    “People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”,
    Jeremy Paxman
    Media Guardian, Jan 31st, 2007.

    Which is on the sidebar of this web site.

       13 likes

  20. Alex says:

    Good God, did anyone else see Mardell’s appalling pro-Obama bias/propaganda on the BBC 10 O’Clock News? Absolutely appalling! Pure advertising for the Obamessia.

       18 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Don’t know about that, but here’s Katty Kay – white daughter of the elite, regular guest host for a show on a national radio network which targets a white audience, and contributor to income inequality – doing a voice over for footage of black people celebrating the President in art and campaign paraphernalia. More of the drip, drip, drip hinting that if you don’t vote for Him, you’re hurting black people everywhere.

         13 likes

    • louis robinson says:

      Alex, I’m in the UK for a week and sadly got to watch the Mardell piece. It’s amazing. Friends and family, drip fed by the BBC have been told nothing in Romney’s favour and feel Obama is a shoe-in. When I tell them stuff they simply do not believe me. How can the BBC lie? It’s impossible. I thought the BBC was irrelevant to UK/US relationships but now I see if Romney wins. the Republicans have a lot of work to do if they want a good relationship with British politicians. (I hated Cameron’s comment about Romney organizing an Olympic games ‘in the middle of nowhere’).
      The propaganda war is being lost thanks to the BBC!!!
      DB, Alan, Vance, Preiser, keep posting!!! It’s important.

         7 likes

      • Alex says:

        Never fear Louis, the BBC is NOT representative of a great many people in this country… in fact, it is hated by many. Unfortunately, at present, the right do not have the media platform in this country, largely due to the Left’s sabotaging and sustained control of it since the sixties. Things are beginning to change, though, especially as more and more papers, blogs, webpages and political commentators are wising up to the socialist bias. Genetically, the middle and upper class Americans and the British are largely the same people (in addition to Irish, Germans and other Europeans etc.) and, alas, suffer from the same political divisions. I see no difference between an American and myself and so will always stand side-by-side with my brethren across the pond – unless, of course, he’s a Haight Ashbury, flower-picking left-winger!

           7 likes

        • louis robinson says:

          God, I hope you are right.

             3 likes

          • louis robinson says:

            PS Love this: Referring to the Harry Reid phony (see the NYT for the rebuttal) claim that Romney had not paid any tax for a 10 years, on “The Stephanie Miller Show,” her regular guest Lee Papa, who calls himself “The Rude Pundit,” echoed Bill Press and added that liberal lies haven’t been strong enough. “My ethical standard is that we (Democrats) should be telling better lies. So frankly I don’t even care if this is true or not. I think it’s remarkable that a Democrat is actually playing hardball.” Miller enthusiastically agreed.

            http://www.mrc.org/bozells-column/liberals-lying-frequency

            We know we’ve won when the BBC admits they should be telling better lies – or rather telling less truth. Here’s the US election page:

            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15949569

            Five Obama stories – one Romney.

               4 likes

            • Guest Who says:

              An interesting, apposite, if ultimately depressing summary of what our most trusted national broadcaster seem to be gunning for and, sadly, achieving..
              ‘The BBC – we tell better lies’

                 2 likes

        • Scott says:

          in fact, it is hated by many.

          Where by “many”, you mean yourself and whoever agrees with you. But published research tends to suggest that many, many more disagree.

          Take Ofcom’s regular surveys of public service broadcasting and audience opinions, for example. In the 2011 survey BBC1, BBC2 and BBC News had over 70% of respondents saying that they trusted the channel. BBC3 and BBC4 were significantly lower (in the 60s), but still above the average for that question over all public service channels, which was 59%. Sky News was the only commercial channel which could match the BBC’s for trustworthiness.

             5 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            And that straight from our correspondent in the BBC research unit.

            Triple time tonight, Scott?

               3 likes

            • Scott says:

              And that comment straight from the “ooh, inconvenient fact, quick, let’s denigrate the person making it because acknowledging the fact is too damned HARD!” department – which is, frankly, rather overstaffed at Biased BBC.

                 6 likes

              • louis robinson says:

                I have no doubt Scott is right. That is the problem. Mind you, in the last century all Russians believed Pravda was right.
                The fact is we have a case to make. The best postings (with facts and links) do well to make our points. I wish I could draw more on personal experience but I won’t disclose what I learned over 30 years because I said I wouldn’t, and many of my sources are still employed at the BBC and other channels.
                In the US the credibility of the media is dead. In the UK a mainly docile populace still believe it is being told the truth. Sorry, Scott, but you trust your masters too much.
                We skeptics have a long way to go. I say we try harder to make our case, not to Scott or Dez but others more prepared to listen.

                   7 likes

                • Scott M says:

                  Ah, two of conspiracy nutcases’ pet techniques emerge here:

                  1. Anybody who disagrees with your view has been brainwashed (“Russians believed Pravda was right”)
                  2. Anybody making a point against you is employed to do so (“you trust your masters”)

                  In the manner of conspiracy theorists, actual facts do not matter (I have never been employed by the BBC, nor have I ever received any money from them). And in the manner of conspiracy theorists, those spouting such nonsense never realise that they’re making idiots of themselves.

                     6 likes

                • johnnythefish says:

                  ‘Conspiracy nutcase’ eh, Scott? Who’s denigrating the person now?

                  However, not sure why you find being accused of working for the BBC ‘denigrating’ – thought you might take it as a compliment given your unflinching defence of their every utterance.

                     2 likes

                • Scott M says:

                  I’m not sure I would find it denigrating, true, but I was talking about the intent of the comments being made, not about the work. As I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to understand.

                  Just as you’re intelligent enough to recognise the difference between describing someone as a conspiracy theorist, and pointing out that they’re using the techniques of the same.

                     5 likes

                • louis robinson says:

                  That’s telling me, then.

                     1 likes

          • Lew Quorm says:

            Unfortunately I was not one of those surveyed by Ofcom , so please include me in the ‘many’ who hate the BBC. If the BBC ever wish to put our money where their mouth is and switch to a subscription only method of finance and have Ofcom carry out a follow up survey, perhaps then I would be bothered what an Ofcom survey shows.

               6 likes

          • RCE says:

            70% trust the channel.

            Thus 30% do not.

            30% = ‘Many’.

               6 likes

            • Daniel Smith says:

              Thank goodness for the internet. In some ways the situation is similar to the stranglehold that the catholic church had over culture in the middle ages. They had control over the means of mass communication, via the churches and schools and could marginalise or silence any dissenting voice. No doubt Medieval Dezs and Scotts existed and could point out how trusted an institution the church was by the majority.
              Then along came the printing press. All of a sudden awkward and unanswerable questions appeared. People discovered that certain opinions, previously kept muttered under the breath could be discussed openly. Obviously the Scotts of the time were on hand to call anyone who pointed out the church’s control of information “nuts”.
              The BBC had actually a control of the flow of information in this country that the medieval church could only dream of. It was a surrogate parent to children, an entertainer, a news provider and thus has been able to propagandise at every stage of the listeners and viewers lives.

                 8 likes

              • RCE says:

                Daniel; you are spot on.

                But you don’t need to go that far back; the BBC’s fellow socialists in 1930’s Germany knew a thing or two about controlling the news agenda and they were ‘trusted’ too.

                   2 likes

          • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

            The facts here may be that the 70% (or a large part of them) are unaware they are being lied to.
            Are they unaware?…I haven’t a clue, but it IS possible.

               2 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        “I thought the BBC was irrelevant to UK/US relationships but now I see if Romney wins. the Republicans have a lot of work to do if they want a good relationship with British politicians.”

        Exactly right, Louis. It’s what I’ve been saying for years as a main reason for my interest in this blog and what the BBC gets up to.

           1 likes

        • mister_choos says:

          Scott,

          Interesting comments on conspiracy theory nutjobs. I see similar techniques that you describe frequently.

          1. The BBC’s (among others) need to’educate’ us as we have all been brainwashed by big oil.

          2. Anybody who disagrees with the approved line is in pay of big oil/tobacco or whoever.

          Not forgetting of course the slamming of the door on debate by calling people nazi racist bigot homophobe etc.

             4 likes

  21. George R says:

    ‘NEWSNIGHT-:

    -While ‘Newsnight’s NUJ Father of the Chapel, Comrade Paul MASON is attempting to forment political revolution in Spain, Allegra STRATTON, the amateurish and biased presenter, and ‘Newsnight’s political editor (ex-‘Guardian’), is attempting to forment political support for her Labour chum, Ed Miliband and something called-
    ‘pre-distribution’, whatever that is.

    Does this ‘pre-distribution’ mean that the higher paid presenters at ‘Newsnight’ will have their incomes redistributed to poorer licencepayers?

    “How Newsnight humiliated single mother Shanene Thorpe” (May, 2012).

    http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/broadcast/2012/05/how-newsnight-humilated-single-mother-shanene-thorpe

    ‘Wikipedia’: Allegra Stratton

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegra_Stratton

       4 likes

    • Alan says:

      They’ve finally got round to examining it have they? No doubt it took this long to work out what predistribution meant…and how they could then present it in a way that made it look sensible and credible for Labour….which it is far from. Will watch Newsnight on iplayer with interest.

         3 likes

    • Chilli says:

      I’m not sure why you’ve linked to that Newstatesman story. That seems to be a rare example of Stratton putting aside her own lefty views for a second and actually calling out a fat slob of a single mum for sponging off the state. We need more of that.

         3 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Hadn’t seen it before, so still worth it. And BBBC can handle all sorts of coverage, surely?
        Thing is, the whole thing seems to have fallen down on how this shows how right wing the BBC is, at least as far as many commenters are concerned, with every logic-free accusation we see here being trotted out when the facts don’t support their preferred perceptions.
        What doe interest me more, still, is their professional standards, and especially integrity in handling complaints.
        ‘Newsnight was sorry to hear Shanene Thorpe was unhappy following her interview. While the BBC is still yet to receive a formal complaint, Newsnight contacted Shanene to hear her concerns. We are happy to accept her contention that her current situation was not made clear and have apologised.
        But, despite this being pretty high profile, it seems the ‘apology’ has stayed very much in ‘just between us’ territory, so even when nailed totally with her knickers round her ankles, and shafting one of the home team, Aunty’s cherished 110% ‘getting it about right’ rate would appear to have been maintained.
        The BBC is a power that’s hard to account for.

           4 likes

        • Beeboidal says:

          But, despite this being pretty high profile, it seems the ‘apology’ has stayed very much in ‘just between us’ .

          Actually, as it was one of their own
          an apology was swiftly forthcoming.

          In the apology, the BBC seems to think that Shahene was confused about what the interview was to be be about. She wasn’t. She wrote in the Guardian

          I feel strongly about these issues, so when my workplace approached me to ask whether I’d be happy to be interviewed by Newsnight, I was happy to agree. My assumption was that since it was a BBC news programme, they would tell the story straight, and I would have an opportunity to put my point across. Colleagues who’d spoken to the people at Newsnight told me: Newsnight are on your side. They want you to put forward a good argument against the cuts to housing benefit. When I arrived for filming it was obvious I wasn’t what they were expecting.

          “I wasn’ what they expecting”.That would be the obesity issue, right Beeb?

             3 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            So there was, for once, a public record.
            One wonders if this was only possible as the Graun was on the case, and the usual blow-off might have caused unpleasantness over the Chianti in the bar that night.
            But this does highlight the totally risible process a BBC Complaint is.
            Once you have got past the half-dozen exchanges with the Turing cannon-fodder at the first level of CECUTT, if their attrition has not ground you down, you may get a human being with a Directorship, meaning they do actually read what you have said.
            They will then try and twist it.
            I have lost count of the exchanges where they have written ‘What you are saying is…’ and I have to go back and point out that I said no such thing, or they have ignored the actual issue.
            Classic stuff. They try and answer what they can win, or at least fudge, and ‘lose’ the bits where they are without any defence.
            Funny how, in trying to smooth over and cover up and move on, this is a sore that keeps on seeping out.
            Maybe try to own up and address complaints in future, rather than going in default ‘we basically got it right’ mode in the face of all evidence, eh, Helen (Ms. Boaden is notional head of this sorry Department).
            I have a few choice emails from Newsnight producers on file, trying to hold heads high when they have not a leg to stand upon.
            Just for fun, let’s have a quick pare down of some choice phrases any who have dealt with this devious crew will recognise, including an eye-opening insight into how they pre-determine the ‘news’ content..

            ‘Ms Thorpe was put forward to us as someone who fitted the bill and with strong and articulate opinions on why the Government would be wrong…’

            There’s a pretty good grounds for more questions being asked right there, surely? ‘Fitting the bill’ of why the government is wrong is not the remit of an impartial report. ‘They want you to put forward a good argument against the cuts to housing benefit. They sought out what they wanted, pure and simple!

            ‘It now seems that she understood..
            The old ‘misunderstanding’, on the poor victims’ part, as opposed to deliberate deception by them.
            ‘… under the impression that Ms Thorpe was fully aware that the focus of the interview was on the possible controversial Government proposals and how they could affect her personally.
            The BBC does not seem as forgiving of others when their impressions are at odds with reality, yet they get a pass by not being very good at talking to each other… when it suits?
            ‘Within this context the general line of questioning was, I think, reasonable..”…
            We he thinks vs. what a bunch of other people have clearly stated, rather showing that their belief system appears to trump anything.
            ‘.. but clearly there are lessons for us to learn.
            Anyone who still uses that phrase should be placed in stocks and laughed at before being transferred to BBC Orkney to do the sheep counting report.
            ‘We should always discuss the nature of this kind of interview with the contributor before the camera starts to roll, whatever the time constraints.’
            Ya think? And what’s this attempt to plead time constraints?
            I am genuinely sorry..
            Easy words, bub.
            ‘…that Ms Thorpe was made to feel uncomfortable as a result
            What has been reported, elsewhere, suggests ‘uncomfortable’ is a triumph of semantic wishful thinking. Shame the Anger and Protests Editor wasn’t around. Or does he only handle those that suit the Newsnight narrative?
            …and have apologised to her personally.
            Woo. P. Doo. Damage done. Meaningless apology tucked away. Moving on.
            ‘However, there was no question of intentional bias, just a misunderstanding.’
            Nah, mate, never is. You are genetically incapable of friggin’ with the riggin’, right? Ask James Delingpole.
            ‘I do accept that we didn’t make clear that Ms Thorpe is a working mother’
            Sounds like you think you should have. Yet… why is it in most other cases where an interviewee’s background is germane to context, Newsnight figures it’s OK to stay coy?
            ‘…and that someone watching the exchange could have got the impression she is unemployed.
            Surprised he didn’t try the ‘Beware of the Leopard’, it-was-printed-later-elsewhere defence. Amazing how the BBC deals in impressions when nailed, but zeroes in on what actually has happened when they scent blood.
            ‘It was left to her to point out that she felt her situation is different from that of unemployed people living with their parents and that she was asking for a contribution, “not a free handout”.
            Expecting rather a lot, all things considered.
            ‘It would not be defamatory to imply someone is unemployed..
            What else does the BBC ‘imply’ when it is incorrect to do so, but feels it’s OK on legals if it does?
            The whole thing is one, long weasel.
            What did surprise me is the comments, especially most recommended, in the Graun piece, which did not seem too sympathetic to an automatic entitlement culture.

               8 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        This was a sham. Stratton’s overly aggressive behavior plays right to the sympathy crowd. Any message that benefit scrounging can be looked at as a choice, rather than only as a necessity forced on innocents by a cruel world, is lost because of it.

        That was probably Stratton’s intent: make an aggressive display, to prove that her Guardianista reputation is undeserved. The dishonest portrayal of her victim only makes it that more obvious that this was a poorly-thought out job with a purpose other than the superficial scolding of a benefit scrounger.

           5 likes

  22. Pounce says:

    The bBC, its love affair with Pakistan and how the bBC goes out of its way to excuses it biased Islamic culture.
    Pakistan blasphemy case girl granted bail
    A Christian girl who has been detained on blasphemy charges for three weeks in Pakistan has been granted bail.
    The girl, named as Rimsha, is thought to be about 14 years old. She was arrested in Islamabad after a mob accused her of burning pages of the Koran and demanded her punishment. Last week a Pakistani imam was remanded in custody, accused of planting burned pages of the Koran in her bag.The case has sparked international condemnation.Judge Muhammad Azam Khan ordered her release and set bail at about $10,500 (£6,200).

    So the fellow country men of the Star of the bBC’s showcase comedy program (Which centres on hos allegiance to Pakistan) have given bail to a down syndrome child who was framed of the charges against her has spent the past 3 weeks in a high security prison.
    (Strange how this child actually faces the death penalty on trumped up charges and the bBC remains silent, yet the Aussie rapist who has tried every trick in the book in which to escape the hand of the Swedish law can only be a victim and the bBC supports him in his vision that if he is handed over to the Swedes he will be killed by the Yanks. You know those YAnks who after having this cunt spend 2 years in the UK have still to issue a warrent for his arrest)
    Anyway the Sidebar the bBC prints in which to look at the blasphemy laws is typically biased (As per usual) in which to make Islamic Pakistan look the victim:
    Pakistan’s blasphemy laws
    After partition in 1947 Pakistan inherited offences relating to religion, which were first codified by India’s British rulers in 1860
    In the 1980s clauses were added to the laws by the military government of General Zia-ul Haq
    One clause recommends life imprisonment for “wilful” desecration of the Koran. Another says blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment
    Muslims constitute a majority of those booked under these laws, followed by the minority Ahmadi community
    A majority support the idea that blasphemers should be punished, but there is little understanding of what religious scripture says as opposed to how the modern law is codified

    So note how the bBC blames the Uk for the reason why Pakistan has such strict laws on Blasphemy. But hang on what’s this in the second paragraph:
    In the 1980s clauses were added to the laws by the military government of General Zia-ul Haq
    So get that according to the bBC, the law system Pakistan adopted in 1947 from the British had clauses added during the 1980.
    Anybody who knows anything about Pakistan knows that actually during the 80s, Zia-Ui Hag in order to try and get the radical Islamists on his side.(You know the same Radical Muslims who had opposed the previous Pakistani PM ,Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) changed (not added clauses) the Law from a rule of law basis to one of Sharia law so as to give them what they wanted..Islam. Implementing those changes has made Pakistan one of the most backward countries in the world. Yet the bBC feels that Pakistan is a country which must be defended at all costs and if anyone is to blame for Christians getting a bum deal, then it is the fault of the British. Nothing to do with Islam what so ever.

    The bBC, the traitors in our Midst

       15 likes

  23. Guest Who says:

    OK, it’s the Telegraph, but I share for the edification for any who can’t quite ignore these pages enough in their mission to get offended and shut down any source of counterview to theirs, but otherwise seem content to be informed by the Graun & new Statesman…
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100179907/the-corruption-of-our-public-schools/
    ‘Amid the gushing “journalism” from the Democratic convention, how refreshing to read R Emmett Tyrrell, grand old man of American conservative journalism. “The Democrats milling about on the floor have interesting faces,” he wrote. “There are the feminists, the race hustlers, and the other vested interests: environmentalists, consumerists, school teachers – the kind of people that we at The American Spectator call practitioners of Masked Politics. They claim a special fervour for the environment, the consumer, for children. Yet behind their masks they are standard issue Big Government meddlers.”

    Precisely. Moreover, Masked Politics is now the default style of the British Left, which is far more Americanised than the Right. If you don’t believe me, just turn on Radio 4 any weekday morning: “Blah blah blah desperate shortage of investment blah blah lack of resources blah blah short-sighted cuts…” And those are just the presenters.
    I wonder how masked the politics is at the BBC, especially via their implausible deniability privateering news arm on twitter.

       13 likes

  24. Guest Who says:

    An interesting article, not least given the BBC seems to have acted in concert with said charity from Today to Newsnight. Paul Mason’s rhetoric now causing the class warriors to implode in indignation on what is now possibly the most rabid forum page I have seen, namely the BBC FaceBook they hived off for this risible student union activism-level entity.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/9528107/Charity-shouldnt-begin-at-home-for-Save-the-Children.html
    The plain facts (one presumes unequivocal, on executive salaries, marketing ratios and political affiliations) should make any in theory investigative, holding to accounty news medium blush if not asking a few questions before not just punting out press releases but acting to enhance their narratives.
    I also liked this little mention..
    ‘The combination of family instability and a vulgar, celebrity-obsessed, low-IQ and all but inescapable popular culture (of which, incidentally, the BBC’s website for home consumption is clearly a manifestation)’
    Nifty remit-meeting there, George. Raise a glass with you fellow multi hundred-k ‘CEO’s’ as you plan your next social engineering efforts.
    The rest of us are, of course, picking up the tab.

       8 likes

  25. George R says:

    ‘Save the Children’ :

    – contrasting reports by 1.) ‘Telegraph’, 2.) BBC-NUJ:

    1.)

    “Charity shouldn’t begin at home for Save the Children”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/9528107/Charity-shouldnt-begin-at-home-for-Save-the-Children.html

    2.)
    “Save the Children urges action for poorest UK children”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19478083

       6 likes

  26. Craig says:

    Classic panel on ‘Dateline’ with Gavin Esler today:

    Michael Goldfarb, the programme’s most regular U.S. liberal commentator.
    Left-wing Polly Toynbee of the ‘Guardian’.
    Left-wing Nasreen Malik of the ‘Guardian’.
    Left-wing Marc Roche of ‘Le Monde’ (the French equivalent of the ‘Guardian’).

    The inevitable happened, despite plenty of heat (typical of such discussions among like-minded people):

    1/ U.S. elections. Obama and the Democrats good, Romney and the Republicans bad. The state (especially the welfare state) good, Reagan and the “insane idea” of trickle-down economics bad. Goldfarb backed Obama’s “You didn’t build this” line – and “it’s about race”, apparently.

    2/ Cameron reshuffle. “Very controversial” new cabinet members. “Climate change denier”. “I agree with Polly”. “As Polly said…”. Nasty Tories. “Public school and Oxford”. Roche calls for more public spending. (No one challenges him on the French economy). Polly lavishes praise on Labour. Nasreen calls government “incompetent”. Polly plugs her new book attacking government for being “dogmatic”. “Etonians bred for government”.

    3/ Syria. “A glimmer of hope” this week, thanks to Mursi of Egypt. “Israel being a problem.” “Is this Turkey’s moment?..Isn’t it time for Turkey to step in (asks Polly) and be the power in the Middle East that it ought to be and that we all want it to be?” “Turkey has been golden in recent months.”

    Gavin Esler did put a few decent devil’s advocate questions from the other (unrepresented) side of the argument (from time to time), but that’s nowhere near enough to make up for having such a one-sided, wholly-of-the-Left panel of guests.

    Typical ‘Dateline’. There has never been a ‘Dateline’ panel with four right-wingers on on it and, I suspect, there never will be.

       28 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Nice work, Craig. The bias is institutional.

         9 likes

      • Craig says:

        Thanks David. Not one of the last four editions of ‘Dateline’ has featured a right-wing panellist. You have to go back five programmes to find a right-of-centre guest, Tim Montgomerie of Conservative.home (11/8).

        There have, however, been several more out-and-out left-wingers on those editions, as you can see from this list:

        1/9 Adam Raphael, Vincent Magombe, John Fisher Burns (‘Washington Post’), Naserin Ansari

        25/8 Maria Margaronis (‘The Nation’), Anthony Faiola (‘Washington Post’), Ned Temko (‘Observer’), Mina al Oraibi

        18/8 Michael White (‘Guardian’), Agnes Poirier (‘Guardian’), Henry Chu (‘L.A. Times’), Mustapha Karkouti.

           13 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          Must check if my ongoing exchanges with CECUTT over the Falklands DL is paused or dead yet.
          They seemed to feel that as the Director who comments on who got invited could not speak for what they said, and the Director who comments on what gets said can’t address invitees, neither could talk to each other and hence it all went away.
          I begged to differ.

             6 likes

        • Craig says:

          Of those, Maria Margaronis is on the Greek Far-Left. She is the only Greek regular.

          Of the other Europeans….

          The only Italian regular is Annalisa Pires, who is pretty far to the Left too. (She once complained about one of my posts on my old blog.)

          There are no Spanish regulars but the (very attractive) Portuguese guest is strikingly far to the Left too – Eunice Goes.

          The French contingent on ‘Dateline’ are both firmly left-wing, Agnes Poirier and Marc Roche. Funny for the BBC to choose two left-wingers to represent France.

          The only Norwegian guest, invited on following Breivik’s massacre-of-the-innocents, was a radio reporter called Tonje Iversen (whose Twitter feed was quite an eye-opener at the time, proving her to be strongly far-Left).

          The only exception is the sole representative on the programme from Germany, Thomas Kielinger of the centre-right ‘Die Welt’. I feel as if I’ve grown up with Herr Kielinger, as he’s been a pro-British regular on the BBC for well over 25 years (as I remember from long-distant Radio 4-listening youth). He is, however, a mild-mannered Europhile. So, he’s an acceptable right-winger (of the CDU variety) for the BBC.

          Right-wing European journalists (except for charming conservative Europhiles) clearly not need hang on the end of a telephone, awaiting a call from the editors of ‘Dateline London’).

             15 likes

        • George R says:

          And Nick Robinson’s sick political joke of the week:

          “@bbcnickrobinson via Twitter:
          “Can’t wait to wear new woolly hat knitted by kind viewer to keep bald head warm. It’s green, yellow, red & blue to show BBC impartiality.”

             3 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            What, like the one that BBC moppet sported during the last US election to keep her empty head full of Obamaluv?

               12 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Nevber hear scottnickdez arguing with this one. The left-wing bias of the BBC is indisputable when it comes to their choice of commentators. Does anyone know of a journo with extreme right-wing views who appears with the same regularity as Toynbee? And she’s just one of them.

         6 likes

  27. +james says:

    Here is a sneak preview of next weeks Citizen Khan on BBC One. In this episode loveable ‘Asian’ community leader Mr Khan takes his family for a holiday in Japan. Hilarity ensues, with a clash of cultures where East meets East and Asian meets Asian.

       6 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Wait, which one is the racist?

         1 likes

      • noggin says:

        i give you 5 mins …and i m going out there, you have to kill me
        don t touch my wife … i kill you
        … in islam i kill you …
        er … feel the love :-D…

        this is the religion of peace? isn t it?
        yep! as he ahem “bravely” holds a child in front of himself 😀

        i thought achmed the dead terrorist was a parody 😀
        SILENCE! …… i kill you
        ps such a shame … he didn t get his visa

           7 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Who’s holding the camera and posted this clip?
      ‘cos if it, as I assume, was one of our hero’s entourage, I’m not sure the events being shown quite show this chap in the best of lights.
      Maybe a thrice uttered annulment in the offing, or just straight to the acid Max Factor regime?
      One presume he is British, as so many who make the news these days seem to sort of be.
      I always find having a barney with kids in tow is a classy way to behave as a caring parent.

         9 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        ” I’m not sure the events being shown quite show this chap in the best of lights.”
        Yes quite! however I’m sure he really is convinced his attitude is both correct and reasonable. The tragedy here is that probably our politcians would support him and his stinking attitude.

        I can’t imagine why the Japanese officials didnt refuse him entry, and stick him and his entourage on the next flight out back where they came from.
        What an enriching type of human being(?) with which to fill our country.
        oh the joy!

           8 likes

  28. George R says:

    BBC-Democrat has no space for this:

    “Nashville Muslima threatens coworkers, saying she was ‘ready to die for Allah’ and should ‘shoot all these people.'”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/09/nashville-muslima-threatens-coworkers-saying-she-was-ready-to-die-for-allah-and-should-shoot-all-the.html#comments

       5 likes

  29. George R says:

    TUNISIA.

    INBBC seems to have rather lost interest in the current repression in present day Tunisia, compared with the INBBC euphoria last year over the home of the ‘Arab Spring’, now ‘Islamic Winter’.
    ‘Jihadwatch’:-
    “Sharia advancing in Tunisia: Government OK’s veils in universities, media”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/09/sharia-advancing-in-tunisia-government-oks-veils-in-universities-media.html

    But ‘The Guardian’ has this promotion:

    “Readers’ tips: the best of Tunisia.
    Sitting on the Mediterranean, at the tip of north Africa, readers recommend Tunisia’s sights, museums, hotels and bars.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/sep/07/readers-tips-best-of-tunisia?

       5 likes

  30. George R says:

    Christopher Booker, ‘Sunday Telegraph’:-

    “Owen Paterson: The ‘unknown Cabinet minister’ has a fight on his hands.
    “Owen Paterson, a countryman and trenchant Eurosceptic, is uniquely qualified to head the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”

    {Excerpt]:

    “While media attention was largely focused elsewhere, all the usual suspects, from the BBC to The Guardian, were seething with indignation over David Cameron’s surprising choice of Owen Paterson, the ‘unknown Cabinet minister’, to head the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As the greenies noted that Paterson had been outspokenly critical of wind farms and renewable energy subsidies, and equally keen to speak up for shale gas, GM crops and badger culling, The Guardian’s George Monbiot, at his moonbattiest, decreed that his promotion was ‘a declaration of war on the environment’.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9528905/Owen-Paterson-The-unknown-Cabinet-minister-has-a-fight-on-his-hands.html

       5 likes

  31. George R says:

    Is this a BBC-NUJ endorsed handbook?:-

    “The Condensed Liberal Handbook of Racial Code Words”

    [-inc 4 min video clip]

    http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-condensed-liberal-handbook-of.html#more

       4 likes

  32. George R says:

    ‘Telegraph:’

    “New channels show BBC the way on programmes.
    Satellite and digital broadcasters used to be the ‘second-class citizens’ of the UK television programme industry, but the balance of power is starting to shift in their favour, according to new research.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9530580/New-channels-show-BBC-the-way-on-programmes.html

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      This seems a worthy link in complement to this story:
      http://tv-licensing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tv-licensing-talking-laptop-talking.html
      ‘Public Sector quango misleading already money-strapped students to drive bonusses’ is usually catnip to the BBC.
      However…
      ‘Bone idle newspaper journalists across the land will be publishing that statement verbatim, blissfully unaware of the fact it is actually a lie.
      So, oh holders to account and askers of questions on behalf of the public you speak for, if true why are the BBC complicit in the issuing of press releases that are lies?

         3 likes

  33. George R says:

    “Thought for the Day will not be opened to atheists,
    says” [Muslim] “BBC religion chief.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9530350/Thought-for-the-Day-will-not-be-opened-to-atheists-says-BBC-religion-chief.html

       4 likes

  34. George R says:

    ANDREW MARR.

    “The 2am Andrew Marr show: Beeb’s political supremo fondles mystery woman on street corner on boozy night out.

    “TV lothario gets frisky with brunette in scene that is unlikely to make his morning review of the news – or please his long-suffering wife Jackie.”

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbcs-andrew-marr-fondles-mystery-1314220

    -Is the ‘Sunday Mirror’ a Murdoch newspaper, or a Labour Party supporting one?

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It would appear, post-Leveson, you keep your enemies close, and don’t trust your ‘friends’ one jot.
      After all Aunty did to keep the DM (the other one) off the radar, and this is how they get repaid. Tsk.
      The Axis of Weevils seems to have the inter-thief honour and professional courtesy ethics of a Black Widow on her honeymoon if there’s the sniff of a rating.
      Ironic.
      Blissfully so.
      Reservoir Dogs without the style.
      Couldn’t happen to a more deserving nest of vipers.

         2 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Snog, harrying, avoid.
        Mr. Maguire may find his green room hammock has been decorated inbetween his hourly appearances.

           1 likes

    • George R says:

      The next time (if there is a next time) Marr chairs a discussion throwing doubt on family values, remember this item, and Marr’s vested, and unvested interest.

         4 likes

  35. Deborah says:

    I was listening to the Sunday service on Radio 4 from Barth Abbey this morning and heard the sermon. The woman priest, Sarah Hartley, named her person of the Olympics as the runner who partnered a blind person and allowed them to be the person that they were meant to be. I was livid, the blind runner is who she is and does not need a patronising woman minister to say otherwise. I can only assume that this is the view of the editor of the BBC or that the left wing Church and the left wing BBC are so in harmony that they don’t realise when they are being patronising to disabled people. (And that is coming from me – a right wing – definitely non politically correct woman.) And although I feel the BBC got better – how patronising they were at the start of the paralympics whilst Channel 4 treated the games in the same way as if they had been the main event.

       7 likes

  36. noggin says:

    sml – uk are christians being persecuted? -so lets go to our contributers 😀 yep! The Muslim Public affairs Committee ????????????? … “we all understand persecution, we are after all both “people of the book” blah blah ……
    thats it …………. off switch

       4 likes

  37. RCE says:

    Hope there’s no greenhouse gases in amongst that lot…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19533933

       0 likes

  38. noggin says:

    Muslim mosque leaders agree to marry girl of 12 in Britain. so long as parents don’t tell anyone ….
    muslim so called erm? “holy”??? men … orchestrating deceit, AGAIN!
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200555/The-child-brides-Muslim-mosque-leaders-agree-marry-girl-12-Britain–long-parents-dont-tell-anyone.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

    gee! lets check al bbc for the latest on this …………………………

    britain – muslim – underage – marriage …
    ans – Malaysia profile – Timeline – Asia-Pacific / 21 October 2011 ????
    erm … that ll be a no then

       4 likes

  39. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The BBC has done two online articles about the weak recent jobs report in the US. While they admit that it presents a slight difficulty for the President, they leave out another fact that’s equally important to the national mood:

    Obamanomics: 173k New Food Stamp Recipients, 96k New Jobs

    What is a cold, hard fact, though, is that in the last accounting available to us (May), America’s food stamp rolls increased by 173,000. In the last jobs numbers available to us (August), only 96,000 new jobs were created.

    Anyone who lives, as I do, in an area where a large percentage of people are either already on food stamps and another significant percentage are in lower-wage working class jobs who are being crushed by skyrocketing food prices, will have seen first hand the evidence of just how much many non-whites are suffering. Those jobs aren’t getting added in my neighborhood, that’s for sure. More and more older people are selling personal belongings on the street, more and more residents (white and non-white) panhandling outside the grocery stores.

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Another journo (or at least sub), rather irking me with their all-inclusivity presumptions…
      http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100179986/americans-make-natural-conservatives-which-is-why-romneys-doing-better-than-the-british-think-he-should/
      But I’ll forgive him for raising some issues the UK… ‘British’ MSM seem blind to.
      Which may explain why some, indeed many ‘British’ think they way they have been educated and informed by the ‘British’ Broadcast(Only) Censors, with impartiality more an ambition than actual achievement.
      Getting served endless propaganda, and being forced to pay for it, actually irks me even more.

         4 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        While we’re on the topic, here’s a quick video report by Washington Beeboid Adam Brookes which is actually not biased. In fact, it’s the kind of straightforward, balanced reporting we often say is exactly what the BBC should be doing.

        Brookes makes an opening statement about the jobs figures, gives more or less equal clips of the President speechifying on the figures and Romney’s criticizing of Him. Brookes then says the poor jobs figures give the Republicans an opening, and then closes with the standard reporter’s move of posing a question about what we’ve just seen: can the Republicans make the case that they have a better answer.

        Simple, pretty much by the numbers, but does what it’s supposed to do: give the audience a clear picture of what each side says and the positions they’re in, and then leaves the audience to make up their own minds. No qualifiers, no sneering, no use of partisan language, no “even if He’s absolutely right”.

        Too bad this is such a rare occurrence that it’s so remarkable.

           6 likes

  40. jonsuk says:

    China on Four Wheels…..an hour of communism is great propoganda

       0 likes

  41. Dave666 says:

    So it’s Monday. I thought it was all over…but it’s not yet. Yes BBc breakfast Para/ Olympics “how has the Olympics changed Britain”..it hasn’t we’re still f***ed.

    Please make it stop!

       8 likes

    • Dave666 says:

      No it’s 13:00 and it’s still the Olympics as headline news. I know I’m not alone in not giving a toss.

         0 likes

  42. ukridg says:

    What about this one?
    Obama walk into a pizza place. The owner happens to be a Republican, nonetheless he is intended to vote for him. He orders 20 whole pizzas, pays with cash and leaves.
    No, it’s not a bad joke, it is BBC coverage of the campaign.
    See for yourselves:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19540523

       3 likes

  43. George R says:

    Afghanistan.

    While ‘Jihadwatch’ has this:

    “Robert Spencer in PJ Media: Now that the U.S. Is an Islamic State…”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/09/robert-spencer-in-pj-media-now-that-the-us-is-an-islamic-state.html

    INBBC has this:

    “Afghanistan: US hands over controversial Bagram jail”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19539412

       1 likes

  44. zemplar says:

    Great piece of insight on ‘Today’ this morning. Apparently, the violence in Iraq “is possibly sectarian”. What brilliant analysis after all these years..

       2 likes

  45. +james says:

    BBC accused of sexing up or is that down it’s sink estate documentary.

    ‘I don’t give a f*** what people think’: Jobless mother-of-four who pockets £1,100 handouts on ‘Shameless estate’ claims BBC deliberately made her look worse in documentary

    Beeb accused of deliberately depicting many residents being terrorised by hooded yobs
    Programme suggested the area is riddled with vandalism, drink and drug problems
    The BBC insisted they have not ‘sexed’ up the documentary
    Blackburn MP Jack Straw vows to complain to BBC about programme claiming it portrayed Shadsworth as ‘uncharted part of Africa’

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2201847/Trouble-Estate-Residents-say-broadcaster-town-look-like-Shameless.html#ixzz26I4yRyAC

       0 likes

    • jonsuk says:

      the BBC should have done this ‘documentary’ on King Arthurs Way in Andover, Hampshire

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I saw some of this, got bored out of my skull. Nothing new here, just the same old story of a journo wandering around ogling the monkeys in the cage, tut-tutting when they throw their feces at each other. Any idiot can walk around and poke a microphone in someone’s face and get an inarticulate response. I proved that last year when I went down to talk to the Occupiers at Zuccotti Park.

      This could have been written for a high school educational play. We get the scrounging mother, the alpha asbo, the struggling couple who work really hard (well, one of them works part time) but can’t seem to get a break, the bored teens wif nuffink to do. Society is to blame, of course, this is all happening to them because they live on an estate, as if it’s like that old Star Trek episode where the lower-caste miners were forced to live and work underground where there was a toxic gas that made them all stupid and violent.

      This wasn’t even remotely investigative journalism: it was pure sensationalism. It was a totally pointless retread of things we’ve all seen a million times before.

      What pissed me off, though, was that I’m supposed to take pity on people who live for free in a house that’s about five times the size of my apartment, with a bigger flat-screen than I’ve got. And they live in some kind of hell?

         1 likes