60 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Alex says:
    October 22, 2012 at 9:08 pm

    Spot the missing word… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20007532

    There have been some awful extremist Muslim attacks in Nigeria of late but the BBC NEVER mentions the word ‘Muslim’… this story, like thousands of other Muslim terrorist stories, is conspicuous in the words it leaves out. Strangely, when a lone gunman (madman) massacres scores of young kids, he’s a ‘right-wing, Christian extremist’.

       20 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      October 22, 2012 at 9:22 pm

      The BBC editors think they don’t have to mention the religious connection because they quote someone labeling these men “jihadists” and “extremists”, and mentions the Al Qaeda connection. I suspect that the BBC Style Guide would consider also calling them Mohammedans to be a tautology, and so don’t bother.

         5 likes

      • Alex says:
        October 22, 2012 at 9:27 pm

        ‘BBC Style Guide’? I wonder if that will get a mention in tonight’s Panorama?

           11 likes

      • johnnythefish says:
        October 22, 2012 at 10:33 pm

        What I thought was interesting on the BBC news at lunchtime was the way they described them as jihadists who had turned to terrorism.

        Sounds like jihadist is an approved job title at al-Beeb.

           13 likes

    • George R says:
      October 22, 2012 at 10:58 pm

      Yes, INBBC entrenched, unexplained, and historically incorrect political position on Nigeria is that the country is split along ‘sectarian’ lines between Islamic north and Christian south; and there is a strong INBBC implication that ‘both sides are as bad as each other’.

      This unanalytical INBBC mantra relgates:

      1.) the historical spread of Islam in Africa (and Nigeria), largely by the tool of Islamic jihad violence, over many centuries;

      2.) the Islamic jihad targeting of Christians, past and present, as with the frequent Boko Haram massacres of Christians of today.

         14 likes

  2. jonsuk says:
    October 22, 2012 at 10:08 pm

    News at 10….’three Birmingham men’….shouldn’t it be ‘three muslim men living in Birmingham’

       12 likes

  3. David Hanson says:
    October 22, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    I have just been watching some old dvd’s of that superb BBC series “The Victorian Kitchen Garden” (if anyone remembers it). It is an absolute joy to watch and typical of the type of programme that the BBC used to do so brilliantly – no one else ever came close. Where did it all go wrong?

       13 likes

  4. Nicked Emus says:
    October 22, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    I’m really upset I’ve lost my copy of the Communist manifesto that was autographed by Lenin.

       3 likes

    • TomR says:
      October 22, 2012 at 11:00 pm

      I’m sure we’ll all have a whip-round for such a well-loved commenter hard up in these poor times!

         6 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      October 22, 2012 at 11:02 pm

      It’s OK, you mislaid it earlier in the canteen at Broadcasting House. It’ll be on the desk in your cubicle in the morning as usual, next to the framed photograph of Eric Hobsbawm.

         15 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      October 23, 2012 at 5:32 am

      Property is theft, man.

         9 likes

  5. Umbongo says:
    October 22, 2012 at 11:42 pm

    In another lesson in financial ignorance, Adrian Warner on BBC1 local London news at 10:30 couldn’t wait to tell us (about 4 days after the MSM) that the government was shortly to announce that the Olympics had come in about £500 million “under the budget of £9.3 billion”. He failed to tell us that this “budget” was billions in excess of the original budget and the misdescribed so-called “surplus” is part of the contingency reserve ie it’s not a surplus it’s just that part of the contingency which wasn’t used. Adrian omitted to mention Tessa Jowell who is quoted here warning in 2003 that a worst case would mean “a significant risk of the total cost rising to £4.5bn, with a net public subsidy requirement of £2.5bn.”
    So, as Adrian breezily admitted, the taxpayer has been shafted for almost £9 billion. However, he reserved his horror for the over £1 billion of that which went to the private sector to pay for things like the Labour-fests of the opening and closing ceremonies and LOCOG. But Adrian was mystified as to where the private/corporate sponsorship money has gone. I’ll tell you Adrian: the £2 billion of sponsorship money has gone down the plughole of conspicuous waste with the rest but, at least, that money was given voluntarily.
    So, the impression conveyed by this rubbish reporting by the BBC is that London 2012 made almost £500 million profit despite a significant amount of the total spend (£1.1 billion) being more or less stolen by the private sector although, and here’s the good news, £9 billion came from the same magic “free” money tree which finances the BBC.

       12 likes

  6. David Preiser (USA) says:
    October 23, 2012 at 5:30 am

    Oh, dear, the BBC has posted a clarification to the stepped-aside Peter Rippon’s apologia. It doesn’t really help much at all, not much meat there, although it doesn’t really make Rippon look worse. Two out of three points could almost be considered splitting hairs.

    It’s not going too well for them in the comments. Best comment so far is from “JerryHatrick” @12:28:

    In summary: BBC issue a statement – statement proves to be inaccurate – BBC issue an apology and a new statement – statement proves to be inaccurate – BBC issue an apology and a new statement – statement proves to be inaccurate……and so on.

       9 likes

  7. Sres says:
    October 23, 2012 at 8:21 am

    After all this Jimmy Savile business and pedo-rings at TOTPs, would it be fair in saying that I could refuse to pay my BBC Tax on moral grounds?

       12 likes

  8. Dave666 says:
    October 23, 2012 at 8:42 am

    Just been forwarded a link to this
    https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/34655/signature/new
    Just signed it.

       1 likes

  9. George R says:
    October 23, 2012 at 11:05 am

    Would Conrad Black be interested in taking over a privatised BBC?:-

    “Conrad Black: Newsnight interview in full”

    (video).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20036674

       2 likes

    • chrisH says:
      October 23, 2012 at 5:07 pm

      In my stupid student days, I used to buy all that Private Eye said about Rupert and Conrad…boy, was I stupid?
      Probably will have to revise my opinions of Maxwell and Goldsmith at this rate.
      Would Conrad smash Paxo in his sanctimonious mush for a charity donation from me wonder?

      And with all this Savilegate crap-where are all those awful Tory stories that should be getting out out now the Beeb is firefighting for its life?
      Say what you like about Jo Moore and Alistair Campbell-but at least they wanted power enough to fiddle and scam it…the guileless Tories seem unaware of any tactical nous whatsoever.

         2 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
        October 23, 2012 at 10:29 pm

        Well far be it from me to defend the useless toerags of tories, but if you haven’t heard about the stories, it just means they’ve slipped under the MSM radar, no?
        lol

           1 likes

  10. Deborah says:
    October 23, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Yesterday I received an e-mail describing a book launch for ‘The Battle for Public Opinion in Europe: Changing Perceptions of the Palestine-Israel Conflict’ from Richard Millet’s blog. (No, until I received the e-mail I had not heard of him either).

    It was headed:
    Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn: “Zionists are scattered at strategic points throughout British business.”

    The reputation of the Jewish community was dragged through the gutter at last night’s book launch of The Battle for Public Opinion in Europe: Changing Perceptions of the Palestine-Israel Conflict. The event was staged by anti-Israel pressure group Middle East Monitor at the University of London’s Senate House.

    The panelists were Tim Llewellyn (former BBC Middle East correspondent and now adviser to Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding), Jackie Rowland (Al Jazeera correspondent) and Seumas Milne (The Guardian associate editor). Yasmin Alibhai-Browne (The Independent) chaired the event.

    Llewellyn and Rowland described a persistent manipulation of the British broadcast media by a well-moneyed pro-Jewish lobby. Llewellyn said, inter alia, that:

    “The BBC is very sparing in the amount of delegations or visitors it allows from the Palestinian side. Whereas from remarks that have been heard from the head of BBC News, Helen Boaden, the British Board of Deputies (of British Jews), for example, practically lives at the BBC. They’re there all the time.”

    And:

    “I was there (at the BBC) when we weren’t interfered with. But the last 10-12 years, since the beginning of the second Intifada, has coincided with Israel’s decision to mount a tremendously well organised, careful, assiduous and extremely well financed propaganda campaign in this country, especially in Britain.

    The BBC has completely and utterly become feeble and has misreported, in my view; misrepresenting the situation in Israel-Palestine. It has done this maybe because of intense Israeli and pro-Israeli pressure from within this country, from political elements like the Friends of Israel of our three main political parties.

    Also through the higher level of pro-Israel Zionists who are scattered at strategic points throughout the British establishment, throughout British business and among the people whose voices are respected.

    The propaganda can sometimes be extremely intense, it can be bitter, it can be angry, it could be violent, it can be other forms of coercion. But it’s something the suits at the BBC find very hard to resist. So what has developed over the past 10 years at the BBC, and at other broadcasting institutions like ITN, not so much Channel 4, is a kind of self-censorship.

    It is known now by the reporters if they are reporting on an atrocity by the Israelis, in the occupied territories or elsewhere, that they have to add on to the end of their story some kind of appeasing story of how terrible the Palestinians are or how the Israelis have suffered.”

    And:

    “The pressure of this Israeli campaign has had a tremendous effect, especially at the institutional level of the BBC and inside the political parties. These people are extremely tough, tough minded. I have just read a book by Anthony Lerman called The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist. If you studied the internecine warfare that goes on inside the Jewish community between the different groups; the anti-Zionists, the Zionists, the liberal Zionists, the non-Zionists, it is vitriolic, it is dreadful, I mean what chance have we got outside that community.”

    Llewellyn even described Jews as “an alien people”. He said:

    “The situation in Palestine now is the direct result of British deviousness, betrayal…dividing Syria in at least three parts; Lebanon, Syria as it is now, and Palestine, and setting the stage for the imposition and the implanting of an alien country, an alien people in that region.”

    Rowland described how the BBC’s obligation for accountability, because it is publicly funded, has been “used and exploited by very well organised pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish lobby groups.”

    She said that she knew someone who worked in the complaints department of the BBC who told her “that 85% of the complaints he dealt with were complaints by pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish lobby groups complaining about the perceived bias of the BBC’s Middle East coverage.”

    She said this gives an idea of “how well organised, well funded people use the idea of public accountability to tie up a lot of BBC resources on one very narrow focus.”

    Alibhai-Browne told of how she had been given a rent free home in England by Professor Hugh Blaschko for seven years after she fled Uganda and how he had said to her that “Israel will bring the worst out in us Jewish people”.

    Alibahi-Browne also compared Israel to apartheid South Africa.

    Milne said “there are well funded and well organised organisations that campaign in support of Israel. If you’re editing in these area you will find pressure and campaigning constantly by those groups.”

    During the Q&A I couldn’t resist mentioning, seeing she was in the audience, that I took the footage that contributed to Jenny Tonge’s exit from the Liberal Democrats. In a bizarre outburst right at the end she took to the microphone to announce:

    “I’d like to say, I hope he hasn’t gone, a big, big ‘thank you’ to Richard Millett, the Jewish Chronicle, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the entire pro-Israel lobby who have relentlessly attacked me for eight years but making sure that the Palestinian cause gets heard.”

    I have no problem at all with the Palestinian cause getting heard. The main problem for the Palestinians is that it is heard via the likes of Tonge, Milne, Rowland, Alibhai-Browne and Llewellyn.

    Meanwhile, it will be interesting to clarify exactly what Helen Boaden did say that led to Llewellyn’s accusation that the Board of Deputies of British Jews “practically lives at the BBC”.

       4 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      October 23, 2012 at 1:13 pm

      As a matter of interest, did the panellists cite any specific instance of “Zionist” pressure resulting in the non- or mis-reporting of an item of news by the BBC? Not, I suspect, that any of this lot would be able to do so but it would be interesting and enlightening to get down to actual instances of anti-Palestinian bias.
      FWIW my experience – on personal and public levels – of the Palestinian lobby is that any reference to or reportage concerning the Israel-Palestine imbroglio which doesn’t portray Israel or Jews (unless they are from the kapo community) as the spawn of Satan is “biased” and conclusive evidence of the existence of the world-wide dictatorship administered from Golders Green by the Elders of Zion.

         6 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:
      October 24, 2012 at 12:44 am

      Throughout history, Jews have been useful to numerous regimes when it suited them to be used as scapegoats. In the last major episode, half the number of those existing on the planet were exterminated to further Hitler’s agenda.

      There could be no fair minded human being that would believe that, especially following this extermination, that the Jews didn’t deserve to have their own homeland. At least free from the potential of similar tyranny in the future. Yet as we see daily, now nations, politicians, celebrities, would be personalities, and of course the media, use Israel for their own agenda. Most however, because of the need to fit the PC world we have evolved into, don’t use Jews as the scapegoat – but Zionists. This makes anti-Semitism acceptable, and there’s no end of distortion lies and deceit they won’t resort to if it will achieve their ends.

      According to Llewellyn, 85% of complaints about BBC Mid-East output are about a supposed pro-Israel bias. So for him, this makes it a fact that the BBC is biased toward Israel, for which he claims is due to a Jewish ‘Zionist’ lobby.

      It doesn’t matter to his statistic that there are only about 275,000 Jews in the UK, many of whom don’t get involved in the goings on in the Mid-East. There may well be far more non-Jews here who work actively to promote the cause of Israel, since any injustice here reflects on our society as a whole, and must produce negative consequences within. However. compare this figure to the 2.87 million Muslims, and if the 60% of those who actively want Sharia Law are also promoting their cause vis a vis the demonisation of Israel, it is a wonder that ONLY 85% of complaints directed at the BBC try to establish a pro-Israel bias.

      But as we know, BBC staff – present and past, are not prone to let facts get in the way of their agenda.

         3 likes

      • Span Ows says:
        October 24, 2012 at 1:51 am

        “According to Llewellyn, 85% of complaints about BBC Mid-East output are about a supposed pro-Israel bias.”

        That shows just how extreme the complainers are: we see them at every march etc. For them anything that isn’t slagging Israel is considered pro Israel.

           3 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:
          October 24, 2012 at 7:37 pm

          85%, but none of that is “well-organized” or led by pressure groups of any kind? I’d like to see some of those complaints and see if they pass the copy & paste test.

          Does the Jewish Lobby make Kevin Connolly spend hundreds of pounds setting up a special apparatus on his terrace so he can grow a lemon tree as a tool to show how evil Israel takes water from the Palestinians? Did the Jewish Lobby make Barbara Plett so sympathetic to Arafat that she shed that famous tear? Dose the Jewish Lobby make the BBC refuse to label Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol? Does the Jewish Lobby make sure the BBC always includes in their reports on anything to do with Israeli settlements the boilerplate about settlements being illegal? Does the Jewish Lobby make the BBC put up false maps showing that the West Bank as Palestinian existed before 1967?

          I could go on and on.

             1 likes

    • deegee says:
      October 24, 2012 at 9:39 am

      well organised pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish lobby groups
      well funded and well organised organisations that campaign in support of Israel

      I wish. I wish.

         2 likes

  11. George R says:
    October 23, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    INBBC=Hamas=Islamic jihad=Qatar=Al Jazeera.

    INBBC’s Mr Donnison cannot conceal his political approval for Emir of Qatar (home of INBBC’s chum, Al Jazeera) and Qatar’s support for Islamic jihad Hamas.

    “Qatar ruler begins landmark visit to Gaza”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20037203

       1 likes

    • deegee says:
      October 24, 2012 at 10:24 am

      Some odd bits in this PR piece.

      He pledged $400m (£250m) for building projects in the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by conflict with Israel. Arabs states are notable for promising and not delivering funds. Is Qatar planning to invest in another 5-star hotel in Gaza? Did the Emir or was it Donnison (it’s hard to identify whose words are sourced here) not notice the building boom in Gaza?

      Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said the trip had broken Israel’s economic and political blockade of Gaza. How so? The visit does however raise an interesting question. Why has nor other Arab or Muslim leader visited Gaza? Not even Mubarak or Morsi?

      Qatar has become one of Hamas’ main benefactors since it fell out with Syria and relations cooled with Iran. ??????

      Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, ousted forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Abbas in Gaza during clashes in 2007 and set up a rival government.

      In response, Israel tightened its blockade on the coastal territory, which has had a crippling effect on Gaza’s economy. Israel’s blockade is a response to Hamas waging war against Israel not its election.

      Funny how with all the efforts to provide ‘background’ the BBC never bothered to mention that Qatar is an absolute, hereditary monarchy; that the most important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family, or close confidants of the al-Thani family or that it has intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. Or that Qatar served as the headquarters and one of the main launching sites of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Or that Qatar has frequently been accused of abuse of labour laws amounting to slavery. You know the sort of background that can be found in Wikipedia?

      Perhaps it would be too much to add that Al Jazeera the happy playground of so many ex Beeboids operates out of Qatar?

         2 likes

  12. George R says:
    October 23, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    INBBC delegates matters Islamic to its apartheid ‘Asian Network’.

    E.g.

    “Debate about Islamic Sharia law in the House of Lords, a shake up in the regulations of doctors, and British Muslims forced to miss out on Hajj.”

    (audio)-

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n7hx4/Asian_Network_Reports_19_10_2012/

    -So INBBC avoids this:

    “UK: Muslim women ‘live in fear’ because of Sharia courts that are ‘as consensual as rape’.

    [Excerpt]:

    “Sharia is by its nature coercive, treating women as commodities and non-Muslims as inferiors subject to the overlordship of Muslims. So this comes as no surprise, except to the incurable multiculturalists and believers that Islam is a Religion of Peace.”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/uk-muslim-women-live-in-fear-because-of-sharia-courts-that-are-as-consensual-as-rape.html

       3 likes

  13. George R says:
    October 23, 2012 at 3:29 pm

    Of couse, INBBC broadcasts will increasingly become like ‘Asian Network’ in coming years as INBBC leads the way on Islamising Britain.

    Many BBC local radio stations are given over to Asian language broadcasting in the evenings already.

       2 likes

  14. Dr Cromarty says:
    October 23, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    BBC reporting gleefully about a breakaway black professional footballers association as a ‘radical way fight racism in sport’. No irony in apartheid as way of fighting racism.

    Will John Terry be allowed to join? Surely blackness is self-defined. Presumably they couldn’t stop him joining under the Race Relations Act.

       9 likes

    • Andrew Johnson says:
      October 23, 2012 at 6:47 pm

      Just imagine an anti racism group for white players only!
      What would the Media say?

         4 likes

      • Earls court says:
        October 23, 2012 at 7:05 pm

        I want to know why there is no gay or muslim footballers?
        Is football homophobic or islamaphobic?

           0 likes

  15. chrisH says:
    October 23, 2012 at 6:52 pm

    I`d not give a monkeys about 2 of Alex Salmonds bravehearts chucking themselves into the bran tub, but isn`t this a catastrophic collapse in Salmonds authority-a split of seismic proportions that will scupper any pretensions the old bloater has to “leading ” his party?
    Where are the noises off wanting fatty to scoot-after all, his majority is now ONE, for Gods sake. Nothing like this has happened in our lifetimes surely?
    And form the BBC-normally so keen to big up splits and bitchy nothingness-not a peep…is it `cos Alex is untouchable?…or are the BBC preoccupied at the minute?

       3 likes

  16. Gerald says:
    October 23, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    I nearly choked while eating my tea and reading the no longer Torygraph.

    A letter therein says “Professor Richard Pring and other academics criticise the BBC bias in favour of grammar schools (report October 20th). This demonstrates the view of Leftist educationalists to the Marxist principle of equality of results.

    Can someone please provide a link to the article where the BBC supports grammar schools?!!!!!

       2 likes

  18. Pounce says:
    October 23, 2012 at 7:18 pm

    The bBC, its hatred of Israel and ..Half the story.

    Enduring divisions keep pan-Arab unity a dream
    Some dreams never die. The dream of Arab unity is one.
    But the debate these days is less about how that dream might be realised and more about whether it should be dismissed as a mere nostalgic aspiration of the past, to be consigned to history. Not all Arabs are giving up the struggle. A group of supporters of the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt are setting up a satellite television channel in Cairo which, they say, will propagate his vision of pan-Arab unity…..
    As a Saudi columnist recently observed: “Those whom we [Arabs] have killed ourselves outnumber by far those who have been killed by our enemies.”

       2 likes

    • Pounce says:
      October 23, 2012 at 7:22 pm

      So the bBC opines about the lack of Arab unity and then mentions the fact hat some Saudi columnist recently observed: “Those whom we [Arabs] have killed ourselves outnumber by far those who have been killed by our enemies.”

      Really bBC, ?
      Here is what the bBC doesn’t want you to know:
      Arab Spring and the Israeli enemy
      Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.

      The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

      The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.…
      Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?

         5 likes

      • Pounce says:
        October 23, 2012 at 7:25 pm

        Can anybody please explain, how it is that the Arab news can report the above article in full, the bBC fails to mention the Israeli half of the story

        A half I should add which is pertinent to the story.

        The bBC, the reason why anti-Semitism is rife in the Uk

           5 likes

      • deegee says:
        October 24, 2012 at 10:29 am

        Curious who was the Saudi journalist. I am well aware of a Turkish journalist saying the same thing but until the BBC article had not heard of a Saudi.

           0 likes

  19. Dave666 says:
    October 23, 2012 at 9:19 pm

    BBc News 24 @ 21:15 9 “men” arrested and bailed. The “men believed to be of asian extraction”.
    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

       4 likes

  20. David Preiser (USA) says:
    October 23, 2012 at 10:56 pm

    Attempts at voter suppression in Florida….except it’s trying to prevent white Republicans from voting. Someone is sending out bogus letters from the voter registration office telling people that their citizenship is in question and they can’t vote unless they fill out a form with their personal info and send it back.

    I’m sure as soon as Meirion Jones gets done sorting out the Newsnight cesspool he’ll be sending Greg Palast to investigate.

       5 likes

  21. jarwill101 says:
    October 24, 2012 at 8:07 am

    Hopefully, in a reformed post-Savilegate BBC that honours its committment to impartiality, rational Muslims like this gentleman will have their say:
    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1888/what_muslims_should_actually_be_angry_about

       2 likes

  22. deegee says:
    October 24, 2012 at 10:31 am

    In the last 24 hrs 6o rockets have been sent from Gaza to Israel. Has Donnison noticed? Will the BBC ever report this? Will they simply report Israel’s response?

       4 likes

  23. David Lamb says:
    October 24, 2012 at 11:03 am

    I hear from US sources that Tommy Robinson of the EDL is in prison for entering the US illegally, fifty EDL supporters were arrested over the weekend, including one of their leaders who is standing for election as a police commissioner, and that Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party has been arrested. Quite a story to tell, but media silence and no information from the BBC. However, the interfaith comrades are looking forward to violently disrupting any EDL demonstration this weekend in Walthamstow. In my book it does seem that the BBC, the Islamists, and Cameron are all singing from the same sheet. What is happening? Isn’t this story as newsworthy as footballers calling each other nasty names?

       7 likes

    • +james says:
      October 24, 2012 at 5:30 pm

      Shhh, you mustn’t use the word ‘illegally’, you must know use the word ‘undocumented’.

      Maybe Obama wants to invite Tommy over to vote in the election, he is certain to get Obamacare as an ‘undocumented’.

         3 likes

  24. David Preiser (USA) says:
    October 24, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    Sopel on the News Channel just now talking to some expert or journalist named Peter (missed the intro) about the recent bomb strike on something in Sudan. The Sudanese blame Israel, and Sopel asked Peter if there was any truth to this.

    There might be, said Peter, because Sudan has accused Israel of doing this before.

    And that was all the proof offered.

       5 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
      October 24, 2012 at 7:01 pm

      That reminds me of the line once written on an insurance claim form about a pedestrian being hit by a car:
      ” He told me that he had been run over before, so it was obviously his fault!”

         3 likes