It’s not just Nick Clegg who is “sorry”...
“The BBC has apologised to the Palace after it revealed the Queen asked the Home Secretary why extreme cleric Abu Hamza had not been arrested for his vile preaching in Britain. Security Correspondent Frank Gardner said the Monarch told him she was so ‘upset’ by the content of his hate sermons, she contacted a senior minister to ask ‘why is he still at large?’
The Monarch’s intervention was revealed today as the hook-handed criminal lost his final appeal against extradition to the United States. She ‘was upset that her country and its subjects were being denigrated by this man who was using this country as a platform for his very violent, hateful views,’ Mr Gardner said. But within hours the BBC issued a grovelling apology in a letter to the Palace, admitting their reporter’s revelations from a private conversation with her was an ‘entirely inappropriate’ thing to do.
Did Gardner not realise he was breaking a private conversation? Did no one else in the BBC not see the problem? Or, are they so blinded by arrogance and self regard that they see no harm in breaking a confidence?
Really sorry to go off topic, but this is a great headline > http://kebabtime.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/headline-of-day.html (it refers to Iran) , did you see that USA did not walk out for I-am-a-dinner-jackets rant as well?
The problem the BBC have is that the Queen is more trusted than any political party and probably Auntie herself .
Since this was very serious breach by the BBC, I expect Frank Gardner to be fired/sacked from his job. Or is his disability going to save him? I also expect the BBC to cancel the Today programme & make all the people who work on it redundant. We have R5 breakfast & BBC TV breakfast & all the other TV channels for the morning news.
I also expect that George Entwistle step down as D-G of the BBC for this very serious breach. Clearly, he is not a “fit and proper person” to lead the BBC.
Do I have to start an e-petition for all this to happen or will Lord Patten & the BBC Trust do something instead of just sitting on their fat bums?
You can’t have him fired he’s a muslim doncha know!
the BBC spend 5 days going on about what a politician said to a policeman yet stays stum on what one of their own leaks about a conversation with the Queen. We can see their priorities.
…just waiting for a BBC employee to tweet that a senior Labour politician has asked for there to be a full inquiry into this matter…
Yeah, they’re so sorry, and they just happened to do it in the first place.
Gardner missed off the reply from the Home Office…..’We were going to arrest him but he was out…apparently he’d gone paintballing with the BBC….and they refused to tell police they were entertaining a terrorist suspect.’
A judge-led public enquiry…NOW!
This is the only topic that ever mattered.
Complete blood transfusion to flush out the leeches and bilharzia that are the BBC and all that suck off it.
Miriam O Reilly to lead it… Jonathan Ross to fund it…and as long as Russell Brand and Owen Jones are sent to the Tower for treason, then I`ll be happy.
No lessons to be learned…no prospect of moving on.
Park the bus and get them out!
Oh the irony after their Mitchell witch hunt for the past six days. LOL.
Royal Charter….Revoked, please!
I’m thinking of all the times over the last 8 years, when Hamza has been in the news, and Gardner, the BBC ‘SECURITY CORRESPONDENT” 😯 has had to restrain himself from breaking this confidence.
Suddenly he can’t hold it any longer and reveals all. The BBC and himself ready immediately to issue an apology – and this is supposed to make it alright.
“WE CAN DO WHAT WE LIKE SO LONG AS WE APOLOGIZE AFTERWARDS”
It’s not about firing him – it’s about firing all of these arrogant pieces of shit that comprise the BBC who betray all of the positive values of our society with the mindset that they know what’s best for it.
I really cannot believe that nobody at the BBC realised one does not quote the Queen ever in such matters. They knew what they were doing. The question is why?
Something that you won’t see, hear or read on the BBC…….;
‘…Pressure is mounting on BBC Security correspondent Frank Gardner, the BBC ‘Today’ editorial team and new Director General George Entwistle after listeners called for a full account of Gardner’s breach of protocol in disclosing the contents of a private conversation with Her Majesty the Queen.
The BBC has apologised but it is believed by many that this is insufficient given the serious implications that the disclosure may have on the Queen’s security or, possibly, on the extradition of Hamza.
Gardner, Entwistle and other senior BBC editors hoped that their apology might deflect criticism, but the breach of protocol allows critics to one again point out a lack of accountability within the corporation.
Entwistle may want to be seen to give his team a public carpeting but one shouldn’t hold one’s breath, given his track record of praising previous failures, most notably the Diamond Jubilee fiasco
All of which leaves Gardner, Enwistle and others in their jobs but still in a very bad place indeed.’
(Apologies to all those Beeboids who have joined in the Andrew Mitchell stag hunt and whose words have been adapted, above)
Very good. Given the pervasive nature of the coverage this affront has garnered, and the anger the public (I’m sure a few can be found – maybe even more than can see Paul Mason dispatched at the drop of a protest – though he is probably in Madrid picking up tear gas and baton charge tips for the BBC’s new BFF’s at the Met) are feeling, it’s got the feeling of a bit of an omni-cock-up.
But uniquely, in this case one suspects ‘moving on’ will be the mantra from those who control this monopoly medium… and hence the message.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19675297
Be funny if her Maj let it be known, or her representatives (per Police Federation) that her most trusted national broadcaster can stick its faux form apology where the sun don’t shine. That should keep things bubbling for a while longer.
One presumes the BBC, as a noted power to account-holder, will now use this lapse to go after the DG, using hostile commentary sought from those less than empathetic to the BBC’s control of the airwaves to pester a robust response? And have a new article chipping away daily if not hourly as endless media commentators from rival stations tweet their t’pennyworth.
No?
Of course not. They are different. Apparently.
Well written for your Day 1 ” breaking of this story”.
And now it`s Day 2…repeat it but add what “well-sourced critics” are saying…include “a sense of mounting outrage”..and get a quote from Paddy Power to let you know who`s the bookies favourite in regard of who the Labour Deep throat was-let`s speculate on Blunketts guide dog and work up.
Feel free to quote me or anybody else as an influential BBC Trust who`s well known for wanting “reform” in the BBC Party, that I have long been a “candid friend” of…wanting more privately educated heterosexuals who are white males and in their 50s or older…more trustworthy in yoof TV.
Obvious-would you rather have Peter Glaze on your kids TV or Russell Brand?
I sense a rolling campaign here!…my outrage seems to be gathering pace….
Day 3: Pressure remains on…
Day 4: Fresh new revelations…
Day 5: John Prescott has joined the criticism etc etc
He also got in a sly dig at MI5.
Thank goodness we have the BBC to keep us safe.
Yes, it’s a curious attitude…an instant apology and then a constant barrage of programmes that repeat the clip and then ask ‘should we know what the Queen is saying?’
Seems as if they have decided to milk this for all it’s worth for their own agenda…whatever that might be.
The very instant I heard it early on yesterday’s Today I knew that the BBC had erred. I am surprised the producer or whoever was at the controls at the time didn’t silence him, everybody in the studio must have known that the Queen never says such things in public. Then PM spent 15 minutes regurgitating it all. Surely a simple apology about ‘a matter’ is all that is needed and the content should go back under wraps (except of course it is all over the internet).
At least it offered a diversion from the bicycle story.
Anyone anywhere think there’s the remotest chance of Gardner (sp?) being sacked over this.
Manufactured story that places the droids right where they lurve to be in the(ir own) headlines.
As I complained to the BBC:
After the gaffe of Frank Gardner in the morning, the BBC saw fit, quite rightly, to apologise to H.M the Queen for betraying her confidence. In the PM programme someone authorised a long item gloating over the facts, even repeating the original gaffe. Whoever authorised this programme’s implied repudiation of the BBC’s previous apology should be sacked forthwith. I assume that Frank Gardiner will be permitted to take immediate retirement.
Of course – no response. When or if there is one it will be the usual “Aunty knows best” cleverly wrapped by a spin doctor.