199 Responses to TUESDAY OPEN THREAD

Newer Comments →
  1. noggin says:
    November 13, 2012 at 9:58 am

    i hear from our paragons of impartiality corporation this morning, that insane pally nutjob yasser, is being dug up
    as “more suspicions have been raised, arafat widely believed to have been poisoned” … widely believed …. ha ha ha ha
    where? … at the bbc? … ROFL.

    panto nikki … is all, on about the rights of abu qatada this morning …
    he should have a rough time, if the british public are truly represented, well shouldn t he …
    lo and behold – over 50% of our public must want him here, if the bbc is to be believed 😀

       34 likes

  2. Guest Who says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:00 am

    ‘a new one of these before the Monday one explodes’
    Is that because of all the folk coming here to say how no one pays any attention to what is written here, no BBC people or other MSM read it and it has no impact?
    Then again, I’m presuming these folk are the same as responsible for, or still content with other aspects of BBC ‘analysis’ & ‘reporting’ accuracy-wise.

       24 likes

    • Rueful Red says:
      November 13, 2012 at 1:07 pm

      This site went past 12 million hits on October 17th. It’s had just under 800,00 since. Quite busy, for a mere blog of minority interest, one imagines.

         34 likes

      • johnnythefish says:
        November 13, 2012 at 1:55 pm

        Massive failure of a site, read only by angry white men who will all be dead soon anyway (funny, thought I had a about another 30 years to go – but the likes of Nicked and Prole might have other ideas).

           16 likes

        • ltwf1964 says:
          November 13, 2012 at 2:22 pm

          I recall one of the DOTI remarking the other day that the site traffic for this blog was pitiful,and that it was easily proved

          good luck with that

             16 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:
        November 13, 2012 at 4:18 pm

        I say it’s mostly Nicked emus constantly refreshing the page looking for material for his nightclub act.

           6 likes

  3. Hannah says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:04 am

    I was listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 and I learned from John Humphrys that Israel attacked Syria for no reason and that Israel occupies Golan Heights. I don’t remember anything else.

    Is this what they call subliminal brainwashing? Would listening to BBC make me, in the end, want to blame Israel for all that is wrong with the world and hate Israel? Would it turn an educated, professional man into a frothing at the mouth, Israel hating zombie?

    Ahh…questions, questions…

       50 likes

  4. leha says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:10 am

    would that be the golan heights buffer zone for the protection of Israel?

    anyone with an ounce of common sense would do the same.

       20 likes

  5. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:14 am

    “Bull’s testicles tipped as next BBC Director General”

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/bulls-testicles-tipped-as-next-bbc-director-general-2012111348811?

       4 likes

    • Bob Nelson says:
      November 13, 2012 at 10:31 am

      I think Andrew Neil would make an excellent D.G. and Norman Tebbit a first-rate Chairman of the BBC Trust.

         42 likes

      • joshaw says:
        November 13, 2012 at 10:45 am

        If only.

        Unfortunately, his time is taken up caring for his wife, who was injured by another unspeakable bunch of bastards.

           49 likes

      • Misterned says:
        November 13, 2012 at 2:05 pm

        Just give the job the the bloke who has a proven successful track record in international media for being able to run an international media empire. Rupert Murdoch.

        It would be worth it just to see the heads explode of the hate-filled, bigoted liberal lefty bastards who are still defending the corrupt, incompetent and perverted BBC!

           25 likes

      • Cosmo says:
        November 13, 2012 at 3:02 pm

        David Elstein, he’d sort the f*****s out.

           1 likes

  6. Danny says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:30 am

    I tuned into BBC News 24 last night, briefly. Or was it a Labour Party broadcast? Firstly, we were shown a ‘live’ interview with the inarticulate Caroline Flint on gas prices – a Guardian story. It was obviously a scripted interview, where she had been briefed on the presenter’s questions. Then we had a lengthy broadcast of Margaret Hodge questioning a Starbucks director on tax avoidance. It was carefully edited to show her looking strong and powerful. There was no mention of her hypocrisy on the subject. It had been widely reported elsewhere that she personally benefits from tax avoidance by her family business that pays tiny CT, despite £2bn revenue. They then moved to review of the papers by a left-wing Independent journalist.

       68 likes

    • Invicta 1066 says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:00 am

      Spot on!
      If I was the subject of an MP’s Committee interrogation, I would ensure that I had a full dossier on the business connections, the alleged shady dealings, (Vaz) the inflated expenses claimed by each MP. I would address each questioner and confront them with my list of double standards, hypocrisy and activities that would loose the rest of us our jobs and probably end up in court. I would then suggest they are not fit to sit in judgement on others, should examine their own consciences and do the decent thing and resign.

         45 likes

      • Jim Dandy says:
        November 13, 2012 at 1:11 pm

        Interesting approach. Might have been more effective a strategy than the chap from Amazon adopted ( er, don’t know)

           4 likes

      • Invicta 1066 says:
        November 13, 2012 at 1:23 pm

        Listening to R2 and learned that Paddy O’connel (in place of Vine) would be have as a subject ”should you boycott businesses that do not pay full UK tax and use avoidance schemes’
        I e-mailed the programme to say ‘Yes’ and could the BBC start by refusing to allow anyone from the Guardian (off shore tax haven exploiter) to appear on any BBC programme?
        My e-mail hasn’t been read out, so I suppose it must have got lost in the ether cannot think of any other reason!

           47 likes

    • Misterned says:
      November 13, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      Correct and the news report surrounding that issue was woefully misleading.

      It also did NOT mention:
      1). The massive number of BBC staff who are personally enriching themselves through tax avoidance for personally selfish reasons, NOT lawful duty. these same BBC staff who criticise these corporations for doing what they themselves are doing.

      2). The fiduciary duty of companies to their shareholders to maximise their revenue and pay ONLY the tax which is legally required of them. In other words, they are following what the law obliges them to do.

      3). The report showed how much the companies turnover and sales are compared to the corporation tax they paid, without ever saying that corporation tax has NOTHING TO DO WITH TURNOVER!!! it was a deliberately misleading comparison designed to promote a bigoted, prejudicial “class war” agenda.

      4). They only showed one of the already discredited (in the BBC’s report’s eyes) executives defending themselves, (rather than the “trusted BBC hack”), so as to leave the viewer in the position of disbelieving what the executive said. The executive was correct. These companies pay hundreds of millions in other taxes. Income taxes and national insurance generated by the hundreds of thousands of people that they employ, and the business rates on the thousand of premises they all use.

      There was so much wrong with that item. it is yet more proof that the BBC is not fit to hold a broadcast licence.

         38 likes

      • Misterned says:
        November 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm

        Sorry, I forgot to add, in Item 2). above, that the tax regime which these companies are following is the same mega complex one which Gordon Brown created, filled with loopholes for his corporate banking buddies (when he was in power) and which the current coalition government have done sod all to change, they have just fiddled at the edges of it.

           25 likes

        • johnnythefish says:
          November 13, 2012 at 2:02 pm

          Ah, would that be Gordon ‘The City of London is about to enter a new golden age’ (Mansion House, 2007) Brown?

          Funny how the BBC never quote that one, eh, scottnickdezjimprole (along with ‘no more boom and bust’, ‘sorry but all the money’s gone’ etc etc)?

          Bias? What bias?

             27 likes

        • Misterned says:
          November 13, 2012 at 2:09 pm

          Funny how I have posted the above about Gordon Brown on loads of forums filled with lefty bastards demanding bankers be hung and claiming tax avoiders should be burned at the stake (while defending all manner of benefits cheats and layabouts) yet NONE of them ever reply to the fact that these companies are following and obeying the tax laws that Gordon Brown created. It’s like they can’t even read those words.

             27 likes

          • johnnythefish says:
            November 13, 2012 at 2:21 pm

            And funny how the same bastards when they default on their credit card debt say ‘So what, it’s only the bank’s money’.

               15 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:
        November 13, 2012 at 4:25 pm

        The BBC does the same sort of thing.

           9 likes

  7. Deborah says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:35 am

    I watched Newnight last night and noticed Miss Maitlass said that Helen Boaden had ‘stepped aside from some of her duties’. Now it is the only place I have heard the ‘some of her duties’ – what did Emily mean – it is all about trust.

    I also heard the line oft repeated yesterday that the BBC last had a crisis 10 years ago and that they had rebuilt listener’s trust that it must have been the decided ‘line to take’. So even when people like Dimbelby and Alan Yentob were interviewed they were just following the Corporation line but I think they forgot about Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand which by my reckoning was only 4 years ago. And they treat the public’s trust so lightly if they can say – ‘Oh dear – we need to temporarily build people’s trust again’.
    The real damage the BBC has done is not to themselves but to Lord McAlpine and people who have been abused as children – that is where their efforts into rebuilding trust should go rather than their breast beating and navel gazing. When Patton spoke about Entwistle resigning being the saddest evening surely that should have been when he realised the BBC had deliberately slandered a man and abused Messham by using him dreadfully.

       47 likes

    • Scrappydoo says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:18 am

      The BBC arrogantly expects that if it carries on and keeps telling us how wonderful it is , things will eventually go back to normal, after all it just about worked last time. This time it is different, it is a turning point , the public have seen behind the veil . Australian and New Zealand viewers just refused to pay for a TV license years ago at a time when their state broadcaster was benign. As others have pointed out, we have a state broadcaster which is the enemy within. The TV license has to go and the BBC has to be dismantled.

         49 likes

    • Sres says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:26 am

      The Yentob interview was scripted, he had paper in front of him, while she was asking a question, he was getting his answer ready to regurgitate.

         16 likes

  8. wallygreeninker says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:45 am

    Humphries presided over a discussion of how much current criticism of the Beeb is fair and how much over the top (see what he did there), and whether Levenson should become involved today on R4. It was between former Beeboid managing editor, now media consultant, Phil Harding and Trevor Kavanagh, from the Sun.
    Humphries began with an attack on News International, which Kavanagh had to field then, but the ensuing discusion ended up with Harding maintaining that the McAlpine business was just an editorial error while Kavanagh put forward the view that institutional bias came into the issue, asking if they would not have checked and double checked if it had involved a Labour peer from the Blair era – they almost certainly would have and their recklessness over McAlpine was the product of wishful thinking. Harding replies that that is an outrageous smear, and on that bombshell, Humphries terminates the item. It’s a pity Kavanagh thinks the Beeb is a wonderful institution that just needs to cut back on excessive bureaucracy and overblown management. I’m notsure what he thinks should be done about bias.

    2hrs 33 mins in: (the tough bit about a background hiss of left wing bias comes at 2.38)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nt4bt

       26 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:
      November 13, 2012 at 12:54 pm

      Yesterday’s vox pop on Today included the option “or do you think coverage of Newsnight’s f***-up has been disproportionate?”. “Disproportionate” yesterday, “Over the top” today.

      Remind me, how long did it take them to speculate whether coverage of phone hacking was disproportionate? More than three days, I’d bet.

         28 likes

      • Rueful Red says:
        November 13, 2012 at 1:11 pm

        How long did it take them to realise that Savile’s BBC-facilitated sex assaults were an issue? More than three days, at a guess.

           17 likes

        • Misterned says:
          November 13, 2012 at 2:11 pm

          More than three decades!

          BBC Vox pops are a joke. They can easily find up to three arseholes who will happily spout any propaganda bullshit they like.

          Sorry for the swearing, but the scale of the BBC’s crimes against this country’s telly tax payers really and seriously piss me off.

             24 likes

          • Guest Who says:
            November 13, 2012 at 2:57 pm

            ‘BBC Vox pops are a joke.
            They want to hear [ ]* views.
            *Wild guesses on a postcard: editors’ decisions are final.

               4 likes

    • Wild says:
      November 13, 2012 at 2:53 pm

      “a background hiss of left wing bias”

      A succinct summary of the raison d’etre of the BBC.

         20 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:
      November 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm

      Must be going deaf: Kavanagh used the phrase ‘background hiss of left-wing support’ and Harding finished the discussion with ‘that’s an outrageous slur.’ and not ‘bias’ in the first quote and ‘smear’ in the second.

         4 likes

  9. uncle bup says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:48 am

    I like Guido Fawkes’ suggestion of James Murdoch for new Top Droid position.

    They have tested to destruction, with the hopeless hapless Entwhistle, the idea that the job should go to a time-served, ‘safe’, one-of-us, seat-warmer whose aim is to leave the BBC exactly as he found it, with perhaps a few more layers of management, much larger compliance and diversity departments, and perhaps, yer know, another couple of pointless channels.

    The aim of the new DG *should* be to get the BBC back to being impartial (perhaps start by sacking Mason, Bowen, Nicky ‘Yerve Only Gorra Google Thatcher And Paedophile’ Campbell, Harrabin, Guerin et al) Then take a chainsaw to the vast overmanning, featherbedding, spanish practices, gross overpayment of ‘top talent’, and overpayment of everyone else. Then prepare the BBC for life after the licence fee with a target of five years.

    Realistically of course, not least with our excuse for a Prime Minister blathering on about ‘national fabric’ and as usual putting his own re-election above the national good, we’ll just get another identikit droid, a ‘review’ by Ernst & Young or KPMG for which we will pay many millions, and the usual load of pointless tinkering, again at a cost of many millions. Said tinkering to be PR-bunnied to the nation with lots of chuff about wholesale this, thorough that, and how fit it all is now to face the challenges of the 21st century.

    And for the BBC to end up where it is now, so shit that it cannot survive without coercing, on the fear of imprisonment, £145.50 from ever television owning family in the country.

    Shameful really.

       43 likes

  10. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Next BBC D.G favourite is ex-Labour Party adviser,ED (another) RICHARDS.

    Another sick BBC joke on licence payers.

    ‘Guardian’-
    “.BBC executives could face disciplinary action over Newsnight error.
    “A BBC internal inquiry has concluded that there had been ‘unacceptable’ editorial failings involved in the broadcast.”

    Dan Sabbagh and John Plunkett

    [Concluding extract]:

    “Meanwhile, Ladbrokes installed Ofcom chief executive and former Labour adviser Ed Richards as the favorite to become the next director general at 13/8, amid speculation that the BBC Trustees led by Patten now want an outsider to get the job in the wake of the failure of Entwistle, a BBC lifer.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/12/newsnight-executives-face-disciplinary-action

    Nothing to change at BBC: same old leftist propaganda, and demands for increases in licence fee to fund it all.

       32 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:
      November 13, 2012 at 1:05 pm

      In what bubble must one live to consider a Labour adviser an outsider?

         21 likes

      • Guest Who says:
        November 13, 2012 at 3:00 pm

        ‘In what bubble must one live to consider a Labour adviser an outsider?’
        The kind that brought us, via them, Savile, Newsnight and now 26/1?
        And it seems to be going…

           5 likes

  11. Framer says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:03 am

    The MacQuarrie report, so far as it goes, is badly written and devoid of the key facts as to why Newsnight’s McAlpine report was dreamt up, and why and when the Bureau of ‘Investigative’ Journalism was selected to make it.
    The report concentrates on the absence of normal editorial higher-ups post Savile, being the culprit.
    Listening to Steve Hewlett and various Professors of Journalism on the BBC, today and yesterday, I know now the real issue behind Newsnight can never come out.
    One did mention the Bureau, but in the same breath he spoke of the (imaginary) 20% cutz as being to blame for their use.
    MacQuarrie has therefore to be a mixture of a whitewash and a cover-up; perhaps an unconscious cover-up, which is both the most devastating and yet unremarkable fact.
    The BBC et al. just cannot conceptualise that it was bias, and particularly anti-Tory bias, that led them into this disaster.
    The Bureau must have approached Newsnight, out of the blue, and proffered a reheated version of Angus Stickler’s Welsh Boys Home report. No new facts were on offer while Stickler, at best, was so incompetent he did not know Messham had previously said his abuser was dead.
    But the Bureau must have emphasised the top Thatcher Tory nature of the story. Newsnight thought Christmas had come early and common sense went out the window, as their bias was tickled.
    Can MacQuarrie or the pro-BBC professors say that?
    Of course not, so we will never read anything convincing about the whole matter.
    Meanwhile, Cameron in a panic over the witch hunt that Newsnight and Tom Watson had generated, with Hague as a former Welsh secretary, yet again, in the frame (and a spokesman who is ex-BBC) instituted two pointless enquiries.
    The BBC should pay for them.
    The Northern Ireland Controller, Peter Johnston, who we now know signed off the Newsnight programme, could only allow it to be broadcast after the Savile one had been suppressed and the view that the children should be heard – without question or investigation – had taken over.
    Only if Johnston had conceptualised the anti-Tory prejudice behind the programme, could he have had the strength to say no, and only if he had perceived the tendency to witch hunting in such matters (think Orkney for one) would he have stopped it.
    However, he probably wouldn’t have survived a day if he had.
    The NI Controller plainly lacks an enquiring mind or was too frightened to question the anti-Tory orthodoxy of Newsnight in this instance and of the BBC in general, but he had a sense of self-preservation. (He is paid more than the Prime Minister.)
    Johnston may be sacrificed if MacQuarrie and the professors can’t tell the truth, leaving most of the nation still baffled and, they hope, eventually bored.
    But that didn’t stop the BBC hunting down the Murdochs for nearly two years now, without pause.

       35 likes

    • Misterned says:
      November 13, 2012 at 12:56 pm

      “But that didn’t stop the BBC hunting down the Murdochs for nearly two years now, without pause. ”

      For far lesser crimes, than those of the BBC too.

         31 likes

      • prole says:
        November 13, 2012 at 1:05 pm

        Murdoch’s ‘crimes’ were less than the BBC’s???? Tapping into dead girl’s mobile for starters.

        Not seen many BBC staff arrested but lost count of the number of highly paid Murdoch people facing a bit of time in HM Prison. I suppose the police and judiciary are all fellow travellers with the Marxist BBC!

        Total and utter dishonesty at the Heart of News International rightly condemned by everyone else.

        Already the BBC story is fading away. Dead on Friday.

        Murdoch’s cronies still in the dock!

           5 likes

        • Misterned says:
          November 13, 2012 at 1:12 pm

          Serial sexual abuse of hundreds of children over several decades is FAR WORSE, than tapping into a phone. The police deleted the messages of Millie Dowler’s phone, NOT News international. Not that the Guardian have ever apologised for pushing that lie.

          If you think that tapping the phone of someone who is already dead, is worse than the serial abuse of hundreds of children, then I seriously worry about your state of mind and your motives Prole.

          As for your blatant lie

          “Already the BBC story is fading away. Dead on Friday.

          Murdoch’s cronies still in the dock! ”

          Well the Met police are STILL gathering information from hundreds of victims of abuse by up to 30 BBC staff in what the Met Police have called the BIGGEST PAEDOPHILE RING INVESTIGATION ON RECORD!!!

             42 likes

          • Demon says:
            November 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm

            Prole is best ignored. He keeps peddling that sick fantasy of his (it does make you wonder if he really feels the grooming, abuse and rape of minors is acceptable). Even the other Beebatrons like Racist Nick don’t go that far to defend their beloved Beeb.

               26 likes

        • Rueful Red says:
          November 13, 2012 at 1:16 pm

          So the paedophile attacks have stopped taking place on BBC premises, eh? And the BBC has stopped facilitating sex assaults on children, has it? Good news if true, but the public needs certainty. Confidence in the management at the Beeb is not great – how do we know they’ve got rid of all the paedos?

          Murdoch closed down NotW. We should close down the BBC – or at the very least make funding it a voluntary activity. Funding should be earned, not exacted.

             26 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:
            November 13, 2012 at 8:13 pm

            Technically, the equivalent of closing NotW would be closing Newsnight, no? Murdoch didn’t shutter his other papers or media outlets. Although the people involved (at all levels) should then not be allowed to work for the BBC at all, somehow I don’t see that part of the analogy ever being fulfilled.

               5 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:
          November 13, 2012 at 1:17 pm

          The story that the NoW deleted Milly Dowler’s voicemail looks like being wrong:

          “Milly Dowler: New evidence suggests the murdered schoolgirl’s voicemail messages were accidentally deleted by police investigators
          Police face mounting evidence that they were responsible for inadvertently deleting voicemail messages left for Milly Dowler”

          http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072851/Phone-hacking-Milly-Dowlers-voicemail-messages-deleted-police-News-World.html

          Piers Morgan, editor of the Labour supporting Mirror was into phone hacking up to his neck. The evidence against him is largely from his own mouth, but during the Levenson enquiry he managed to be evasive and vague: Cameron had foolishly allowed the enquiry’s remit to be that it should focus on News International.

          http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2021/morgan_mensch_the_daily_mirror_and_me_proof_we_don_t_need_more_press_laws/page/2

             21 likes

        • royof the rovers says:
          November 13, 2012 at 1:22 pm

          i have only two words on the subject…
          common purpose.

             16 likes

        • Doublethinker says:
          November 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm

          Please stop posting just to annoy us all.We know that you don’t believe what you have written. Your just being naughty.

             7 likes

        • PhilO'TheWisp says:
          November 13, 2012 at 4:45 pm

          As far I can tell so far just Clive Goodman has been convicted of hacking. Others are facing charges in court cases yet to be tried.
          Nobody in their right mind will condone phone hacking or child molesting. But I am guessing if an underage girl is given the choice between being hacked or f***ed I am pretty sure she will choose the former.
          Prole appears to believe the latter is less serious based on his comments.
          He should also be in no doubt there will be BBC types having their day in court for their part in the offences and I am dead certain the charges will be more serious than phone hacking.

             8 likes

        • TPO says:
          November 13, 2012 at 5:02 pm

          Oh dear, oh dear, what an amazing bubble you live inside.

             2 likes

        • Frederick says:
          November 13, 2012 at 9:43 pm

          The Murdoch journos did not know she was dead at the time they were hacking the phone. They, like the police, were trying to track her down.

             1 likes

        • Andy S. says:
          November 14, 2012 at 2:24 am

          Prole likes to perpetuate the Guardian lie that a NOW journalist tapped into and deleted Millie Dowler’s voicemail when the phone’s manufacturers have admitted the voicemail was on 72 hour auto delete. Given that Mrs. Dowler has said she constantly left messages on her daughter’s voicemail, it’s hardly surprising existing messages were deleted. Even Plod admitted they cannot prove or find any evidence that the messages were deleted by a third party.

          Still, Prole, why let the truth get in the way of a good Murdoch-hate fest.

             3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:29 pm

      Well said, Framer. No wonder prole can only moan about Murdoch and not the substance of your remarks.

         9 likes

  12. joshaw says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:26 am

    Some good points here:
    The BBC license fee: Should it be a crime not to pay?

    Apologies if this has been covered already.

       16 likes

  13. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:27 am

    The political ‘left’ is an uncritical of the BBC as it is of the European Union; but then the ‘left’ thinks it has a vested interest in the continuation of both undemocratic, imperial institutions.

       30 likes

  14. Backwoodsman says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:38 am

    Go to Guido and see the list of “28 experts on climate change”, that the bbc decided settled this issue !
    Obviously the beeboid reluctance to publish the list was a bit of a red flag, but this is commedy gold.
    There were infact 4 scientists and sundry third sector activists, plus a god botherer.

       23 likes

  15. GotItAboutRight says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:47 am

    This article on the BBC website is a perfect example of the BBC ostensibly reporting something neutral with a not-so-subtle underlying anti-Conservative message;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20309441

       8 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      November 13, 2012 at 3:03 pm

      As used, in complement, a lot, by BBC Editors, selectively.
      Nick Robinson once managed a series of blog headlines and tweets.
      Oddly, about one party alone.

         2 likes

  16. leetay says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:57 am

    Thought this debate between The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh and the BBC’s former director of editorial policy Phil Harding on R4 this morning about the ongoing crisis at the BBC is worth listening to.

    TK asks the question I’m sure most on here would like an honest answer to…

    Would the Newsnight witch hunt over Lord Macalpine have been so recklessly pursued without being checked and tested to descruction as it deserved to be had it involved a Labour peer who is close to Tony Blair rather than a Tory peer who is close to Margaret Thatcher?

    TK basically went on to say he thinks not Paul Harding denied it and accused TK of an outracious slur.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9769000/9769038.stm

       25 likes

    • DYKEVISION says:
      November 13, 2012 at 12:31 pm

      Hear, bloody hear…
      Trevor Kavanagh brings out the very large elephant in the room and does not get his question answered!
      Trevor’s question at the end of the clip is the raison d’être for this site.

         31 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:
      November 13, 2012 at 1:03 pm

      How is something which is extremely plausible an “outrageous slur”? That reaction suggests a raw nerve was touched.

         20 likes

      • Guest Who says:
        November 13, 2012 at 3:06 pm

        ‘How is something which is extremely plausible an “outrageous slur”?’
        Where’s a cherry vulture when one needs to get on their high horse?

           5 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm

      Would they have gone after someone close to Blair? Probably, especially if they had even the remotest connection to Iraq, the reason why the BBC turned against him. A Brown aide, on the other hand….

         5 likes

  17. Umbongo says:
    November 13, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    As David Preiser put it so succinctly “new bias, same as the old”. There is no way, this side of Armageddon, that the new DG is not going to be another piece of metro-lefty dung from the same Augean stable as Davie, Entwistle and Thompson. After all what is the point of the political class supporting the BBC if somebody in sympathy with its group mindset isn’t running the thing?
    Also, there is no way Patten is actually going to resign (this side of a massive compensation payment or the promise of yet another over-generously rewarded public sector sinecure). Again, where is the pressure coming from for his head? The government? The opposition? The Culture, Media & Sport Committee? OK, maybe some of the MSM might be murmuring but such lese majeste can be dismissed as sour grapes re Leveson.
    Nothing will change guys. Look at what happened after the disaster (to the BBC) of the installation of the coalition government. The BBC was treading on eggs. Blimey there were even one or two items somewhere on radio 4 where AGW sceptics were not dismissed to their faces as holocaust climate change deniers. Well, that soon changed.
    Once the BBC knew it’s licence fee was going to be guaranteed (or “frozen” in the cutz jargon) and Patten – so wet he was talked of as a back-up reservoir in the event of national drought – was appointed the new head of the BBC Trust, the BBC was off its self-imposed leash and the Conservatives were back in at Target No. 1.
    This is exactly the same: once the pressure is off; once the BBC’s existence at the taxpayers’ expense is confirmed; once a Davie-like pillock (maybe even Davie himself) is in post the BBC will continue its merry, if biased, way having, in the words of Patten, “learned lessons” from the current debacle.

       32 likes

  18. Teddy Bear says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:06 pm

    Excellent and timely article at The Commentator on how ridiculous the licence fee is, and considering the implications, there is no way the public would ever have agreed to what it has become.

    The writer is Julian Hunt: a barrister and has been practicing law since 2005. He was a Crown Prosecutor and Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2011 but now defends. He lives in South London

    The BBC license fee: Should it be a crime not to pay?

       15 likes

  19. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    Here’s an idea for a piece of investigative ‘journalism’ by the BIJ or bBBC. There are now five MPs convicted of fraud for fabricating expenses claims: Elliot Morley, Jim Devine, David Chaytor, Eric Illsley and Margaret Moran. Denis McShane will be the sixth.
    All six are Labour. Why is it that some Labour MPs did this? Are they just more likely to be dishonest? Are they so stupid that they got caught? Surely it couldn’t be their socialist principles that makes them feel it’s OK to take money from the public?
    What does the bBBC think?

       35 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:41 pm

      BBC: Moats and duck houses. ZZZzzzzzzz

         4 likes

    • Chop says:
      November 13, 2012 at 9:28 pm

      Missed out Margret Moran…

      Oh, of course, she can’t be jailed on account of her being a fruitloop.

      Didn’t stop her being elected and thieving though, did it?|

         2 likes

  20. Mark says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:08 pm

    In the wake of all the Beeb’s troubles, I find it amazing how quiet our comedians are. Where is the edgy humour from Carr, Brand, Izzard, Gervais and Fry when we need it ?

       37 likes

  21. Phil Ford says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    BREAKING: The ‘secret’ list of the BBC 28 is now public – let’s call it ‘TwentyEightGate’

    The entire list of names the BBC didn’t want any of us to see was obtained by a sleuthing climate sceptic using nothing more arcane – and totally legal – than the internet’s own wayback machine. Ain’t technology wonderful?

    You can read it all at wattsupwiththat

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/12/breaking-the-secret-list-of-the-bbc-28-is-now-public/#more-74210

    All the usual offenders can be found, along with a wagon load of bottom-feeders and eco-scroungers. Not quite the ‘scientific experts’ a certain Ms Boaden would have us believe. Still, perhaps she ‘got it about right’. Perhaps.

    Enjoy!

       19 likes

  22. joshaw says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    Since we don’t seem able to get rid of Abu Qatada, why not put him in charge of the BBC?

    Couldn’t make things worse and has the virtue of keeping all our useless shits in one place.

       18 likes

  23. Richard Pinder says:
    November 13, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    Talk about an excuses for paedophilia at the BBC.

    Just caught a talk on Radio 2 about teaching toddlers how to breast feed.

    Switched off the radio immediately.

       6 likes

  24. uncle bup says:
    November 13, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Christopher Bland – they just can’t give us enough of this utter utter arse, can they.

    You’re part of the problem, mate, not the solution.

    Get back into your bath chair and take your medicine, there’s a good lad.

       13 likes

  25. johnnythefish says:
    November 13, 2012 at 2:19 pm

    Supporters of the ‘not for profit’ (political profit excluded, presumably) Bureau of Investigative Journalism include Oxfam, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (‘We fund political campaigns in the UK to promote democratic reform, civil liberties and social justice’), City University and Save the Children.

    Sounds completely apolitical, then, and an organisation committed to the highest standards of impartial journalism.

    Ah, f***k it, it’s part of the leftie network* which infests every fibre of our national life, and the BBC have been caught unashamedly in cahoots with it trying to smear an innocent Tory politician.

    Bias? What bias?

    *See also earlier thread, ‘Roger the Dodger’.

       27 likes

  26. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    PESTON: pontificating on BBC.

    Yes, I suppose Robert Peston presumes that this is what BBC licence payers’ money should be spend on:

    -speculating whether Boaden and Mitchell of BBC News should be ‘stood aside’.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20294794

       5 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:
      November 13, 2012 at 2:42 pm

      they should be stood on,not “stood aside”-A euphemism for an unscheduled holiday on full pay

      off to the tuscan villa it is, then

         16 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:44 pm

      I bet Peston is walking the corridors trying to gin up support for putting his name forward as a DG candidate.

         3 likes

  27. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    November 13, 2012 at 2:45 pm

    It’s amusing to see BBC News bashing the bishop.

       4 likes

  28. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    BBC-NUJ more interested in Petraeus affair, than in Benghazi scandal?

       10 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:48 pm

      That’s the big smokescreen for the US MSM as well. Unfortunately for them, I think that the real scandal is going to be revealed in the end: the President knew early on that this was a planned attack and He and His minions lied to the public for two weeks about it being caused by that video.

      The more we learn about the timeline of events, the more we learn just how much He and they knew before that Rose Garden statement, and before Sec. of State Clinton and Amb. Rice and the rest of them publicly blamed the video over and over.

      We’re also going to learn that the attack was really about a CIA secret detainment center nearby where they interrogated terrorist suspects. Remember when the BBC hated those?

         15 likes

      • Nicked emus says:
        November 13, 2012 at 4:58 pm

        We’re also going to learn that the attack was really about a CIA secret detainment center nearby where they interrogated terrorist suspects.

        Don’t we know that? The Wall Street Journal, which I use as my main source of US news, had an excellent story on all of this.

        http://on.wsj.com/Yu9YIc

           3 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:
          November 13, 2012 at 5:25 pm

          Yes, Nicked, but I meant the liberal MSM. It’s not all over everyone’s front pages yet.

             6 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
        November 13, 2012 at 5:12 pm

        But the Messiah managed to keep it quiet for long enough to get re-elected so it doesn’t matter now.
        Unless it is deemed to be an impeachable offence?

           6 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:
          November 13, 2012 at 5:58 pm

          Probably not. And any investigation into it all now will just be dismissed as partisan sour grapes, His enemies still trying to bring Him down out of spite.

             6 likes

  29. harry_toe says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    What a fantastic few days! Beeboid lefties and greentards all in meltdown…. So much fun, following the blog here and Blossom Hill and Delingpole too. I must say that the list of the 28 who attended that meeting is truly shocking. This secret and now “notorious” meeting that the bBC spent thousands of pounds of licence-fee money trying to conceal has more long-term legs than the Savile and McAlpine scandals. This is going to run and run.. I see that JT has labelled the affair “28Gate”, a coinage I rather like..

       19 likes

    • prole says:
      November 13, 2012 at 3:46 pm

      It’s going to run down a drain and disappear. Nobody outside of a handful of deniers still hold to the preposterous notion that our activities have no impact.

      Notable that most people in the real world talking about the greed of US Multinationals in avoiding tax and the collusion (possible) in the gas wholesale market.

      Now put all the micro concerns of the BBC against the impact of climate, tax dodgers and cartels. Oh and inflation rising. And petrol rising. And road tolls.

      That’s how utterly irrelevant this is. As time will prove.

         6 likes

      • Old Goat says:
        November 13, 2012 at 4:05 pm

        The irrelevance is with you, Prole.

           13 likes

        • TPO says:
          November 13, 2012 at 5:05 pm

          I think he lives in an echo chamber.

             5 likes

          • ltwf1964 says:
            November 13, 2012 at 5:35 pm

            i think he lives in a secure medical facility

            good job jimmy saville ain’t around,isn’t it?

            or maybe that’s who put him out of his tree

               7 likes

      • joshaw says:
        November 13, 2012 at 5:20 pm

        Prole has got hold of his carer’s smartphone again.

           10 likes

      • Bunny Fuchs says:
        November 14, 2012 at 1:29 pm

        You really tick all the lefty boxes, don’t you Trole? Wonder what you do for a living and where your particular expertise lies? I work in polar sciences, have done for nearly 30 years. I have worked with many of the famous warmists and have worked on “global warming” related projects in both the arctic and antarctic and I can tell you that I have not, so far, seen any evidence, whatsoever, of man influencing the climate. So, given that I have more faith in the scientific method than in a power point presentation by Albert Gore, I will continue to be a denier until such time as someone can actually prove that man is causing global warming. Then, when that happens, we can all get together and think about what we can do to mitigate the problem, if it is a problem.
        Your unfailing belief in this shit, along with your predictable repetition of all the other lefty talking points, is a perfect demonstration of the power of the BBC and why it needs to be seriously curtailed. Try a bit of independent thought, you never know, you might actually like it.

           5 likes

  30. Roland Deschain says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    BBC Editor: “Tories are Lower Than Vermin”

    “As Aneurin Bevan said: ‘No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.’”

    Martin Plaut, BBC World Service Africa editor

       22 likes

    • mat says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:03 pm

      Thanks Roland for posting this link to show up an BBC evil git!
      Love this creeps Q&A list he thinks one of his great things is fighting against the bigotry and hatred of apartheid then turns out to be a hateful bigot against anyone not of his politics !!
      Not normally nasty but this smarmy tosser deserves a good roasting !!

         22 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:13 pm

      The bias is institutional.

         17 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:41 pm

      And one of the commenters on Guido’s blog (Tooth Fairy) cites this biography of Plaut noting that “in 1978 he [Plaut] worked for a year as an Industrial Relations officer with Mobil Oil before joining the British Labour Party as secretary on Africa and the Middle East. In 1984 he joined the BBC . . . “

         19 likes

  31. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    Excellent piece by Simon Heffer on leftist BBC’s ingrained anti-Tory bias.

    “Was the BBC’s blind hatred of Thatcher to blame for McAlpine smear?”

    By SIMON HEFFER.

    [Excerpts]-

    1.)

    “And in Lord McAlpine’s case it wasn’t just that he was a Tory that had some BBC journalists slavering. It was that – as Conservative treasurer for 15 years until 1990 – he had been a close associate of Lady Thatcher.

    “Little wonder Newsnight pursued what they mistakenly thought was an accurate story about the peer with such relish – for the BBC’s institutional leftism is invisible only to the deaf and the blind. Even its last-but-one director general, Mark Thompson, told the left-wing New Statesman magazine in 2010 of the ‘massive’ left-wing bias of the Corporation.

    “It had had a ‘struggle’ to achieve impartiality, he said. He was speaking weeks after the election of a Tory-led coalition, at a time when he might have felt it politic to atone for the BBC’s sins, not least those committed during the 13 preceding years of Labour rule.”

    […]

    2.)

    “However, the Corporation’s institutional leftism runs more widely and deeply even than this. It is debate over some of the most important and divisive issues in our political life – including the EU, climate change and multiculturalism – that has provoked, with much justification, the greatest charges of BBC bias. Mark Thompson has admitted that the BBC’s coverage of Europe has been ‘weak and nervous’. If only that was all it was. For the truth is that for decades the BBC has systematically treated anyone of a Eurosceptic persuasion as if they should be in a lunatic asylum.

    “As Greece, Spain and Italy head for the knacker’s yard, do we hear any apology from the BBC for the catastrophic misguidedness of that former Euro fanaticism? In terms of the environment, the BBC’s orthodoxy is that man-made global warming is indisputable, and anyone who questions it must also be an imbecile. This was confirmed by the distinguished former newsreader Peter Sissons.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2232062/Was-BBCs-blind-hatred-Thatcher-blame-Lord-McAlpine-smear.html

       26 likes

  32. Frank Words says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    Guido Fawkes has just posted a nice item on how politically impartial the BBC. It concerns BBC World Service Africa Editor Martin Plaunt. To quote Guido:

    “In a Question and Answer Martin Plaut was asked “who do you hate and why?” His response was, well, rather straight to the point:
    “Tories.

    As Aneurin Bevan said: ‘No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.’”

       16 likes

    • Frank Words says:
      November 13, 2012 at 3:59 pm

      To add a bit about Plaut’s CV:

      Born in South Africa in May 1950, Martin Plaut received his first degree in Social Science from the University of Cape Town, and an Honours degree in Industrial Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand, before going on to do an MA at the University of Warwick.

      In 1978 he worked for a year as an Industrial Relations officer with Mobil Oil before joining the British Labour Party as secretary on Africa and the Middle East. In 1984 he joined the BBC, working primarily on Africa.

      Would you believe it….

         19 likes

  33. Dinsdale says:
    November 13, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    I have no idea why site traffic is at an all time high, I mean everyone loves the bbc at the moment.

    Such a dignified institution.

       30 likes

  34. harry_toe says:
    November 13, 2012 at 4:01 pm

    Obvious typo in my post – “Blossom Hill” should have been “Bishop Hill”.

    – No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.

       15 likes

  35. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    “Ed Richards is optimistic if he thinks Tories
    will let a Labour man head BBC.”

    By Dan Sabbagh.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/03/ed-richards-optimistic-tories-bbc

    -Given the political vapidity of the Tories, Richards is right to be optimistic.

       14 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 4:14 pm

      They let Patten run it, and can’t stop praising it. Why would they start having integrity now?

         10 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      November 13, 2012 at 5:32 pm

      ‘let a Labour man head BBC.’
      Seems the politico-media estate is so consumed with this on a petty political basis, they have rather significantly forgotten the voting public, many of whom are also currently compelled licence fee payers, and may have an interest in this that transcends which tribal extreme in management gets to guide which tribal extreme running editorial, and which may extend to information and education and even entertainment that is, currently, totally bent to suit the social engineering arrogance and aspirations of an inbred elite.
      Didn’t work out too well for the Pharaohs either.

         8 likes

  36. harry_toe says:
    November 13, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    nay worries “Blossom Hill” actually works as the place is blooming great fun at the moment !!

    The mix-up becos “Blossom Hill” is in my line-of-sight right now. It is on the label on the side of the bottle of the cheap ASDA plonk I’ve treated myself to today. 3 quid a bot… Cheers everyone here for all the fun.. Of course, if I was a bBC lefty I would be drinking Krug champagne at £75 a go (paid for by the lincence-fee payer).

       11 likes

  37. EB says:
    November 13, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    Anyone listening to A Good Read on R4?

       2 likes

  38. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    November 13, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    Now the bBBC gives plenty of publicity – lead item on the bBBC NorthWest ‘News’ – to another Labour MP using Commons privilege to smear a senior political figure over child abuse. But this time it’s a Liberal Democrat and he’s dead.

       10 likes

  39. Louis Robinson says:
    November 13, 2012 at 5:32 pm

    I DON’T BELIEVE MY EYES. At last the BBC has mentioned – Benghazi – however only in passing.

    They write “Gen Petraeus had been due to testify before a closed-door congressional committee meeting about the 11 September 2012 attack on the US consulate in BENGAHZI, Libya, that killed the ambassador and three other Americans.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20308225

    So why, one wonders, is there going to be a “closed-door congressional committee meeting about the 11 September 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi” BBC listeners and viewers will have to guess at the reason as they’ve been kept in the dark so far about the facts of the case.

    By the way, is it only me who sees some humor in the title of Gen Petraeus’ autobiography “written by” his gal pal – “All In” (!?!). I say “written by” because it now appears the vamp had a ghost writer. Has the world gone mad? Now even biographies have ghost writers! What was the credited “writer” Paula Broadwell doing if not “writing”? On second thoughts, don’t answer that.

    Seriously though, when will the Beeb explain to its hapless audience the real implications of this sordid little soap opera. How instead of being fired on the spot (standard operating procedure) Petraeus was kept in place till AFTER the election. How Petraeus’ appearance before the committee and his evidence (probably the truth) will appear tarnished by his behavior? How the Obama administration knew about him and held on to the information about the affair till they could use it – politically. It appears the only blackmail the good general had to fear was from his masters.

    One thing is certain: Petraeus can’t stand for President of the United States now as a Republican. His Clintonesque antics make him the perfect Democrat candidate.

       12 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 5:40 pm

      If the mainstream MSM aren’t making a big deal out of it, the BBC doesn’t have to report it. Simple as that.

         5 likes

  40. chrisH says:
    November 13, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    Saw Owen Shouty Jones in the Independent…author and commentator doncha know?
    He tells us that MacAlpine was “wronged”, but this is nothing as to the abuse suffered by those boys in North Wales.
    Love that word “wronged”…like not getting a 10p back from the parking metre!
    Don`t recall Owen giving two hoots for the poor boys up to the point where MacAlpine might be traduced by Monbiot, Bercow and suchlike.
    And-of course-by Owen Jones in his low grade rant in yesterdays Indie.
    No Newsnight-no Jones…hence his new-found interest in the life chances of kids abused in North Wales, long before he was born.
    As for those girls in Rochdale or Blackpool, Derby or Norris Green… no, Owen has nothing to say.
    Unless a Tory election bus went within twenty miles of such “Islamic corridors” back in 1987…THEN he`ll take an interest!
    Creep!

       21 likes

  41. chrisH says:
    November 13, 2012 at 5:37 pm

    Meter-not metre(line 5)…just in case the BBCs squalid champions want to make something of it!
    Anybody seen them?….

       3 likes

  42. chrisH says:
    November 13, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    An “outrageous slur”.
    So said Phil Harding(how many ex BBC stiffers are still getting free rides back to base to tell us how great the BBC is…you ingrates out there!).
    This was in reply to Trevor Kavanagh saying that the shafting of MacAlpine was due to him being a Tory as opposed to one of Tonys cronies…who would have been rigorously checked out before any slur.
    Only an ex Beeboid would use such a phrase, when -in fact is is Lord MacAlpine-who is being slurred…but Phil Harding wouldn`t give a damn…the target is Thatcher every time, and MacAlpine was just collateral damage….hopefully with good lawyers, and willing to compost Monbiot, Bercow and as many Beeboids as poss.
    Note too-Harding was one of the BBCs grandees who got the message of “climate change is the new religion”..but has stayed secretly schtum about it…national security, don`t tell the civilians etc.
    Just the kind of bloke we can relate too…any chance of a version of the Yentob song?…remarkably similar to that on the hymn sheet that all BBC trillers, shillers, and compromised canaries are giving us at the moment.
    Peacocks, vultures that don`t sing…not one of them as credible as Partridge…who turns out to have headed a documentary, not a comedy.
    Desperate!

       14 likes

    • Jim Dandy says:
      November 13, 2012 at 8:45 pm

      I fear it is a slur from Aussie Trev. No evidence at all the story was driven by anti – Thatcher animus. It was The Guardian after all that exposed Newsnight.

         2 likes

      • Chop says:
        November 13, 2012 at 9:57 pm

        Are you actually registered blind Jim?

        ffs, the evidence is all there, right in front of your red tinted spectacles.

        The Guardian “exposed” Newsnight a full week AFTER the BBC had set tongues wagging on Twatter, I.e. after the clear bias was beginning to unravel itself.

           9 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
        November 14, 2012 at 8:12 am

        ” No evidence at all”

        Errr…something like the “we can find no evidence in our files” from Bentwhistle Jim?
        A comment not qualified by where he looked or even if he looked. The plain truth is if you dont seek you won’t find any inconvenient truths.

           3 likes

      • Rueful Red says:
        November 14, 2012 at 10:01 am

        ‘Ow’s about that then, guys and gals!

           2 likes

  43. Guest Who says:
    November 13, 2012 at 6:37 pm

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9672466/The-BBC-must-do-lessand-do-it-better.html
    Millions of licence-fee payers are left feeling baffled and let down
    Speaking purely personally, I think my feelings are a little more robust than that, and are being followed by actions slightly stronger in effect, more quickly than BBC mandarins can muster.

       7 likes

  44. Dave s says:
    November 13, 2012 at 7:52 pm

    The BBC ME page informs me that the recent fracas between Israel and Syria is the worst since 1973.
    What about the near destruction of the Syrian air force in 1982? One of the biggest air battles of the last 50 years.
    Tip to the BBC. Look it up in Wikipedia

       8 likes

    • deegee says:
      November 14, 2012 at 12:37 pm

      Not to make a big thing of it but surely the Syrian attempt to bus hundreds of Palestinian ‘refugees’ to the border and storm it in June last year must have caught someone’s attention at the BCC?

         2 likes

  45. Cassandra King says:
    November 13, 2012 at 8:39 pm

    A desperate BBC falling back to its comfort zone as it rehashes a four year old dead story about the civil war in Sri Lanka. The BBC wont let this story die, they provided a world wide platform for the grotesque LTTE Tamil tiger terrorists even as they denied sceptical scientists any platform to defend themselves against the massive smear attacks launched from the BBC against them.

    The BBC is handed a UN report prior to publication, big news eh?

    This report provides almost no new information and only parts cherry picked by supporters of global terrorism makes the BBC news. Only those supporters of LTTE terrorists are interested in the story and being supporters of the LTTE the BBC has to support the non story. So and old out of date story with old criticisms of the UN by supporters of the LTTE and it makes front page news.

    Same old BBC, same old strategies supporting the same allies in the same ways with biased information peddled four years ago that nobody was interested in then and nobody is interested in now, old allegations and old news presented as new, you cant polish a turd but the BBC keeps on trying.

    Note to the BBC, how about presenting news the majority is interested in instead of old rehashed partisan attack and smear jobs eh? The BBC talking to itself as usual.

       10 likes

    • Dave s says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:10 pm

      As with the BBC’s failure I mentioned above re Syria. It is getting to the stage where you cannot believe a word they say. It looks terminal to me.

         6 likes

  46. As I See It says:
    November 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm

    Radio 5 Live have a secret BBC remit to mix sport and left wing politics.

    I say that this remit is secret because it is not mentioned in any part of the BBC Charter but anyone who lends an unbiased ear to Radio 5 Live will not fail to notice it.

    In furtherance of this objective they have befriended the Society of Black Lawyers.

    [I would have linked to their web site here – as, in act of fraternity, do the BBC on their on line Sports pages – but there appears to be some problem with the site. Of course the BBC do caution that they are not responsible for the content of external sites]

    In recent weeks this organisation have garnered plenty of BBC airtime and on line references as they targeted football as an arena where they might further their campaign to discover and expose racism.

    And believe me, these race hustlers are not going to leave a stone unturned.

    First the Society of Black Lawyers mooted the idea of a separate Black Players’ Association.

    The BBC were more than happy to give this concept plenty of publicity.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20229332

    ‘Racist players ‘should be sacked’ according to new plan…..for a black players’ union.’

    ‘The Society of Black Lawyers has put out a 10-point plan to tackle racism.’

    The Black Players’ Association idea didn’t seem to fly.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20276933

    ‘The head of a world players’ union says it makes no sense to set up a separate union for black players.’

    Next the Society of Black Lawyers (no doubt encouraged by the publicity the BBC were giving them) pitched into the Mark Clattenburg supposed ‘racism’ incident.

    Naturally the BBC were keen to gve this story a lot of airtime.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/20154400

    ‘It is vital police investigate racial slur claims about ref Mark Clattenburg, says The Society of Black Lawyers.’

    Sadly – as far the Society of Black Lawyers is concerned – this alleged incident has proved barren ground for their pursuit of racism.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20319926

    ‘Mark Clattenburg: Police drop investigation into referee’

    Perhaps the moral here is that although the Society of Black Lawyers may not find actual racism but that they do keep shouting abouting it and get BBC attention and airtime.

       13 likes

    • Umbongo says:
      November 13, 2012 at 9:48 pm

      . . . and here they are again trying to get the police interested in the Spurs fans – Jewish and Gentile – who insist on calling themselves the “Yid Army” and chanting accordingly. Apparently, it seems that the only people “offended” by this belong to the Society of Black Lawyers. No-one else gives a sh*t. But, hey, if you’re in the race hustling business, any business is good business. To be fair, the BBC isn’t giving this any more – or any less – publicity than the rest of the MSM.

         10 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:08 pm

      What does the Society of White Lawyers say?

         9 likes

  47. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 9:58 pm

    “Bureacracy has become the BBC’s dieback disease.

    “So unwieldy is its vast, multi-layered hierarchy that the corporation has lost all capacity to allocate blame for its mistakes.”

    By Simon Jenkins.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/bbc-management-who-to-blame?

       6 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:31 pm

      He has a point (except for the first paragraph blaming the victim: the public who pay for the BBC’s sins). But I say it’s only half the problem, and maybe not even half.

         2 likes

  48. George R says:
    November 13, 2012 at 11:05 pm

    Delingpole’s update on BBC climate conspiracy:

    “28 Gates Later…the BBC’s nightmare gets worse and worse!”
    By James Delingpole.

    [Excerpt]:-

    “The important thing is not to let the scandal lie down and die – as the BBC and its chums at places like the Guardian no doubt hope it will. It can’t be said often enough: this is a scandal far more significant than either the Jimmy Savile affair or the Lord McAlpine fiasco. Why? Because those first two were (mostly) cock-ups whereas this one is definitely a cynical and deliberate conspiracy by an institutionally corrupt organisation which has got far too big for its boots.”

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100189491/28-gates-later-the-bbcs-nightmare-gets-worse-and-worse/

       6 likes

    • George R says:
      November 13, 2012 at 11:17 pm

      Given the time and our money which BBC expends on its group-think propaganda (and censorship) in the area of science, how easy it is for BBC-NUJ to broadcast lies and deceit in the more political areas, as it does.

         5 likes

  49. +james says:
    November 14, 2012 at 12:08 am

       3 likes

    • noggin says:
      November 14, 2012 at 11:49 am

      whoops … looks like its bye bye Norway … or a significant number of Norweigans at least, pretty soon, shocking, yes, through ignorance of the warning signs, perhaps their all too busy self flagulating over Breivik to notice.

         2 likes

    • johnnythefish says:
      November 14, 2012 at 8:00 pm

      Islamic extremists threaten Norwegian government with a 9/11 attack unless they are allowed to run their own areas independently under sharia law.

      Well, quelle surprise, never saw that one coming.

         2 likes

      • uncle bup says:
        November 15, 2012 at 10:47 am

        there were certainly moves by the last (excuse for a) government in the direction of allowing sharia law in ‘certain areas’.

        Of course the usual libby-wibby left bedwetting of on the one hand multiculti is wonderful, but on the other hand sharia law is not very wimmin-friendly.

        Ah me, decisions, decisions.

        Who’d be a bleeding-heart pretrendy-leftie legislator

           0 likes

  50. Alfie Pacino says:
    November 14, 2012 at 1:22 am

    Just starve these ‘firmly held view’ nutjobs of public blog oxygen – job done. They will fade.

       3 likes

Newer Comments →