Touching to see the BBC lead the news this morning with the Ed Balls line that “working families will suffer” as a consequence of Osborne’s benefit reduction plans. It’s a favoured Labour line to suggest that most Benefit goes to those in work but on modest income. Rubbish. Labour’s favoured clientele, the wilfully idle, are the primary recipients of this cash and this is the Leftist way to try and obscure this central fact. And when we are at, did “working families” suffer when Labour all but bankrupted the economy? Did those TRYING to get work suffer when Labour opened pour borders to millions of immigrants? The hypocrisy from Labour does not vary but the BBC peddles a line that is virtually identical. It is an echo chamber for Labour talking points.
LABOUR TALKING POINTS
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Some of my best friends are wilfully idle.
BBC didn’t shirk criticising Balls’ performance. Mason, Lansdale and Robinson on 10 o clock news pointed out its inadequacies. So not peddling the Labour line there (or are they…..).
And Andrew Neil was corralled by Flanders, Robinson and Peston to analyse what Osborne was meaning to say…but without the stammer, without the 13 years of fucking up the economy to the basket case it is now…and without any privileges accorded to Mandelson, Brown and Miliband(R).
I`m pleased we pay the BBC to get in the way of what Osborne is saying…and to tell us that this seedy troika of BBC editors( plural=a slime mould) really speak for us all.
Wake up Jim…it`s very sinister when I don`t get to hear an elected Chancellor being allowed to give the history of why we`re so deep in socialist shit!
Not analysis-just anal!
‘Some of my best friends are wilfully idle.’
Two of ’em at least, to be ready to add their ticks to your inevitable, relevant, on-topic box from their public-funded iPads in the BBC Green Rooms of the nation.
Just because I may disagree with you (or anyone else here) does not mean that I work for the BBC. This comment was posted from my personal PC and from my own home both of which were purchased without recourse to any BBC or other public body funding. I have received no payment from the BBC or anyone else for this comment.
You do realise that my comment was to JD, and ‘likes’ are anonymous?
But thanks for the… input.
Prole has real competition now.
I take my instruction from the Common Purpose central control volcano in darkest Islington.
Via your brain implant?
It’s in my DNA.
‘Via your brain implant?
Some may see a slight technical complication there.
But at least it does continue the OT distractions which, uniquely, JD seems not only tolerating as hall monitor, but actively promoting.
Conceded :I was surprised at how much BBC made of balls rather minor (i thought) balls up.
However on substantive analysis of budget they continually pump the ‘hurts the top and the bottom’when only last month they were repeatedly castigating torys on behalf of the ‘squeezed middle’ (like they care).
Still that’s journalism I suppose (good news is no news) except they wilfully refused to include the effects of raised personal allowances.
On news night effectively disappearing them in true ministry of truth style
Is that an agenda or simply that not being on PAYE and having accountants to take care that stuff it just doesn’t register with BBC journos (or any others for that matter)?
Thing is I ,being on PAYE and bumping along just below the 40% bracket it does matter to me and I suspect a lot of others
That’s the problem with the BBC being, if not biased ,then being completely disconnected from the millions of people that foot the bill for there soapbox and much else that they hold sacred.
You are deluded – gave him 20 minutes and a full page to make fake excuses for his dreadful performance and to repeat the old Liebour mantras : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20623667
I never remember any Tory being offered the same courtesy.
And note the BBC Home headline now :
“Labour: Osborne hits working poor”. Chancellor George Osborne denies Labour claims the working poor will be hit hardest by tax and benefit changes announced in his Autumn Statement.
How is that for reversing into the facts with a negative viewpoint headline from the opposition?
And Montague now putting it to Balls that he ballsed up his speech yesterday.
More of a “Please give us your excuses for a bad speech yesterday, Shadow Chancellor” question.
Apparently it was these nasty Tories shouting at him and he suffers from a stammer, but that just him and he wouldn’t change anything. Aww!
And he struggled because the conservatives were ‘howling’ him down. Of course that is something that the Quisling Party never does.
And speaking of ‘howling’ that was something Owen Jones, the fat woman, and Matilis did to Dr. David Starkey when he tried to point out that with respect to the 2011 August Festival of Enrichment and Vibrancy virtually all the remaining white yoof of London have essentially adopted black culture as their behavioral norm.
Obviously, I’m speculating here as he was never able to articulate his train of thought.
It was his stammer that got the better of him, and the BBC covers his excuse. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20623667
‘the BBC covers his excuse.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20623667
I wonder if the archives of the nation could be mobilised to see what the precedent for this is?
The BBC is really rushing, like a crisis management PR team, to ‘explain’ why their boy can’t ‘do’ oratory … in the House of Commons… because it’s a bit noisy?
How was their robust defence when Labour decided to mock the guy with cerebral palsy?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354147/Labour-MPs-mocked-disabled-Tory-Paul-Maynard-like-hyenas-going-kill.html
I find this..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12376300
And that’s it. Couldn’t avoid it, shared the grief around a la noncing and then… what?
‘Ed Balls has said responding to the Autumn Statement was like “doing a wedding speech when you don’t know either the bride or the groom”.
Been to a few weddings, and best man at three. None have involved speaking by anyone who doesn’t know either bride or groom.
The analogy is therefore as utterly facile as the excuses now tumbling out of the Labour Party machine and… for some odd reason, the BBC broadcast machine that serves it in complement. Like their endless ‘what Obama meant to say was’ tripe.
And what, rhetorically, is the expected outcome to this once through the BBC vox-poo filter?:
Do you expect your family to be affected by the changes to tax and benefits?
Since when does a stammer make you say the wrong thing? He said “the deficit continues to go down….” when he meant the opposite. The Tories were laughing at his verbal cock-up. There was no trace of a stammer when he made that goof -watch the playback.
I seem to recall it was some news “commentator” making that excuse for Balls, which he then gratefully used as an excuse for his poor performance thereby turning himself into a victim.
Funny how the narrative must have changed then Jim!
When I heard Evan Davis and his cocaine contretemps with Osborne later on, all I got was that the Tories were beastly to their boy…he`s got a stammer,and it demeaned the “gravity” of the occasion to mock their man!
Absolutely disgusting BBC stitch up to set a story rolling once nuLabour have got onto them.
And pathetic…Davis drug fuelled ( it does have long term effects you know!) shouting over Osborne was awful, but expected.
Luckily Nick Robinson was on the line(not the kind Evan would know) to tell us all what George Osborne couls and would have said…had he not been a toff without a stammer.
The BBC are truly desperate-when will Osborne and Co just send a tub of lard along for interview, and just call it ” Labour Hate -we the Elite say thus”from 6-9am on weekdays!
Why elect Osborne when we only get Davis and his weirdities!
Amazing. Balls has a reputation for being one of the most aggressive hecklers in the Commons. And it was Labour MPs who took the mickey out of the Conservative MP with Cerebral Palsey that time. Hypocrites? You bet!
Jim is right, Ms Montague did a decent job of interviewing Balls.
Something of a ‘compare and contrast’ with Evan Davis’ bickering with Gideon an hour later, though.
Agreed. But then Robinson said the stammer excuse was weak.
harry cole (mini-Guido) Tweeted:
“@MrHarryCole: Nick Robinson debunking the stammer excuse. Balls got the words wrong and loves making other people mess up. ‘Politics is a contact sport'”
I actually agree with JD that Toenails got this right. Politics is a contact sport.
I couldn’t help but think that Davies or his editors must have reached for the ‘Guardian’ (in the way that Peter Sissons tells us that beeboids do) and saw the photo of Osborne laughing at Balls. The ‘Guardian’ could of course have published a photo of Balls and Miliband who moments earlier were laughing at Osborne.
So I give credit to Robinson, but none whatsoever to Davies who should be taken to task for perhaps the most outrageous interview I have ever heard on the BBC. Davies has form. If he cannot show balance or control he must be removed.
I suppose “working families will suffer” sounded better than errrmmmm ammmmmm uhhhhhhhh errrrrrrrrrr
When Evan Davies interviewed George Osbourne on the Today programme this morning. Davies assumed he would not get the answers that Davies wanted to hear and so would not let Osbourne answer. Osbourne spent the whole time trying to get Davies to allow him (Osbourne) to be heard. This meant he had to shout over Davies and Davies shouted back at him. It was dreadful radio and probably achieved what the bBBC wanted because it stopped the Conservatives putting across their message in a coherent way and made them look nasty. I think it will have just turned most people off politics still further and made both Davies and Osbourne sound rude. Not want anyone wants to hear on the “lovely Auntie BBC”. Biased indeed.
I have submitted a slightly revised version of this as a complaint to the BBC.
I have complained many times, it is deeply depressing – writing a coherent complaint with evidence, dates, times, and a logical argument, only to receive some boilerplate and ‘the BBC is the most respected broadcaster’ as a reply…
The BBC CECUTT system is a bad, sick joke.
And by their logic, their stuffing up such that licence fee payers need to complain… is the fault of the licence fee payer, who they will then, uniquely, punish with expediting.
The STASI would have been in awe.
I have complained again as well. It will be interesting if we compare the replies we get on this site from now on. It might make the BBC less likely to copy and paste their responses.
‘It will be interesting if we compare the replies we get on this site from now on’
Totally agree.
But be warned. The BBC monitors this site and places teams to tie complaints via their system with anything they can connect that is critical outside and beyond their control.
Remove all codes, and people’s names, and in any reply reject their disclaimer implied right to ban you for sharing communications.
The generic first “auto reply” is in as expected. Promises a further response within two weeks and reserves the right to use another standard response. It is the usual waste of time. BBC complaint? Whistling in the wind.
‘It is the usual waste of time
Irony being, a major factor in an expediting is them claiming you waste their time by not accepting their invitations to piss off.
http://smartblogs.com/social-media/2012/12/06/tricks-defusing-angry-customer-social-media-rampage/
Nice theories… but sadly of little use with a public sector behemoth that is uniquely funded as well as unaccountable.
Well the BBC has apologised to Downing Street.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244328/George-Osborne-No10-fury-Radio-4-hostility-presenter-Evan-Davis-talking-Chancellor-interview.html
I’ll wait patiently for my apology and the full and fair statement on the BBC website with equal prominence as Leveson demands.
And will Davies be asked to “stand aside?”
Evan thinks people want to hear him deliver monologue of Labour mantra and seems annoyed when interviewee tries to get a word in. Couldn’t get beyond ‘if you exclude 4G receipts it would be worse’ – – you cant just exclude bits you dont like otherwise we would exclude public sector excesses & EU contributions and say things are looking rosy
no ‘u’…
Davis did what he did to Lord Young a few years back…an economic Q&A turned into a rant into legalising cannabis as I recall.
Evans voice and tone was much the same as then-and I suspect Davis had had a late night on the line to Nick…or with Owen, for all I know.
Do they do random drugs testing at the BBC in the morning-or just supply them c/o Dwayne at Shepherds Bush Market once they get “into work”?
I make no apology for being concerned, yet compassioned re the mental health of noble public sector workers like Mr Davis….FoI request on its way?
Newsnight last night was very glum as Paxo, Paul Mason and Allegra Stratton had to accept a very poor performance from Ed Balls which seemed rather more important to them than what the Chancellor actually said.
That final shot to Osborne was a disgrace, not least considering what had come before in the interview. We’re supposed to feel sorry for the Ed-Case because he’s got a stammer and the big boys are picking on him?
The main problem with his stammer is that it isn’t bad enough to stop people understanding that he’s talking crap.
Besides, it’s the only way his name will ever be used in the same sentence as Churchill’s.
As a speech therapist from the Institute of Scientific Studies here in Bushey, I can confirm that all stammers do say “rising” when they mean to say “falling”.
It`s what we call a “truth serum indicator” of fitness to lead, to abuse, connive and crave power and expenses with a significant other that rides the gravy train on the white line.
So …Balls was perfect, is perfect and only cares too much…indeed his larynx sticks because his big heart sometimes swells with loveliness and love for the little people…and goes up his trachea.
You questioning me?…right…outside…NOW!
Let’s just, for once, give Balls TBOTD and say he has a bad stammer and couldn’t get his words out. Bare with me, please.
You would have to question Ed Millibands selection of a man with an acute stammer to be a spokesperson. All PC notions aside the Labour party surely wants its message put across and not mangled by a speech impediment.
Let’s say Balls is an economic miracle worker with a magic solution at his fingertips. (I know, I know.) All he needs is a chance to implement his wonder. But he just can’t get the words out. Then Milliband minor is excused, sort of, as he needs this chap to hand, no matter what the problem.
So why not get his deputy to do the speech? After all if Balls was mute they would need to do that. No one, except the grossest monsters, would object to Balls words been read for him.
Or could it be that Balls is a fake? His ‘stutter’ could be no more than an excuse for poor performance. He could be just a man with no vision, just a bruiser, like Prescott, who has forced his way to the top but who has nothing to offer but incoherent aggression.
Why then, does the BBC not raise this as an issue? Why do they just turn to blaming the Tories? Why are they not questioning Balls’ fitness to oppose the Tories? Why do they obscure the real issues with trivia like this?
Where are the BBCs balls?
Where are the BBCs balls?
Drowned in a mire of left wing idealism.
Let’s just, for once, give Balls TBOTD
OK. It’s what he would do, one is sure.
And as part of BBC selective Bunter-bating season, entirely apt.
Bare with me, please.
OK. To Mr. Balls, and his BBC minders, lighting bolts at the ready…
“You would have to question Ed Millibands selection of a man with an acute stammer to be a spokesperson.”
Emotional blackmail. They can exploit it to get sympathy and paint their opponents as callous and uncaring.
Lo and behold:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20623667
Yebbut.
That, like the occupy movement, don’t wash …
Just look at the Wallace and Grommit lookalike to Ballsup’s left gurning like there’s no tomorrow. Harman’s impression of Gwendoline is top notch too.
Slightly O/t but the other bit on the Today programme that tickled me when I was waking up was an arts feature by Will Gompertz with a woman (didn’t catch her name or job title) talking about how there aren’t enough roles for wimmin in Shakespeare’s plays, and that hopefully the “European Union or someone” will require a 50/50 gender spread in drama companies so that we can have more wimmin playing traditional men’s roles. When they went back to the studio after playing it Evan Davis gave a lovely soft purr of approval.
As my brother said-the Gandhi film was all about an Indian gentleman who made his own clothes…and my wife said that the film was OK, but there was nowhere near enough about Mrs Gandhi!
Can she hop the BBC gravy train and go up Saviles tunnel?…ooer!
Gompertz still sad about Rothkos masterpiece getting a marker pen on it from those barbaric vandals…the Yellowists?
Or has he now seen it as edgy, challenging the Saatchis and …oh so punk and a good rebellion…as Owen, Grimy and all radio 1 types would have to say?
Maybe we need a younger and more funky arts correspondent-like that lovely Matthew Cain on Channel 4 news…seems like a very nice boy!
Talking of Beeb arts’ correspondents reminds me of an article (in the Graun perhaps?) some time ago in which Mark Lawson was agonising over whether subtitles in films might be racist. Gave me a good larf.
Sorry, another off topic comment – but it matches so well the utter rubbish from progressive lefties on the BBC/Guardian axis.
I think it was 22 August 2009 that Peter Jones in the Guardian wrote a piece in which he codemned the “meerkat” advert for being “racist”.
His reasoning was:
“A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were watching TV at home when the advert for compare the market.com appeared on our screen. I had seen the ad before and not thought anything of it. However on this occasion, my girlfriend, who is Ukrainian, turned to me and said: “I don’t like this advert, it is very offensive to me.” I mentioned it to a friend who said his Latvian lodger also found it offensive”.
He took up his complaint with ITV and the ASA without success.
I think he needed to get a life, or at least a sense of humour.
Simples.
Alexandr Orlov is brilliant…the Putin we should have had as President of Russia.
I would have liked him to be a police commissioner in the recent elections…and would CERTAINLY propose him as DG for the BBC, Trust Chairman or Middle East .
Correspondent.
In any of those roles, he`d be wonderful…far better than the lardlords of misrule like Bowen or Patten.
He `s a friend of mine on Facebook-and he said nothing about MacAlpine so would happily replace Monbiot…and is far funnier (by choice!) than Alan Davies!
Alexandr the Great!…they`re all jealous of his toff status, and has no plans to run Chelsea…the Russian of the Year, yet again!
…the best part – his autobiography ‘A Simples Life’ outsold Tony Blair’s horrid title ‘A Journey’ when it was released. Deep pleasure.
http://metro.co.uk/2010/10/24/aleksandr-orlov-book-tipped-to-beat-tony-blair-to-christmas-no-1-561147/
I too have never managed to work out why Meerkats (from Africa I believe) are given Russian accents. However, I cannot see why they can be construed as in any way offensive. (Except to Meerkats of course!)
Oh no, surely not, you mean meerkats dont come from Russia? damn!
More on the Meerkat outrage…
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2009/08/racism-detected-.html
…or get a new girlfriend
What I couldn’t understand was why the BBC should want to give publicity to a play being put on by someone who thinks there aren’t enough Shakespearean roles for women and who thinks it’s up to the unelected EU to legislate for this. I mean, what could possibly have attracted them to this play over hundreds of others?
Ah Shakespeare that well known right wing misogamist. The BBC should investigate if he had a Swiss Bank Account and diverted his royalties through a series of bogus companies based in Bermuda in order to avoid British tax.
I just thought it was April 1st
Robinson wrapped it all up with a masterly analysis on Today by allowing that Balls’ stammering affliction had ruined what could have been a Churchillian riposte to the Chancellor’s manifest rubbish. No bias there, just a disinterested view on differing styles in oratory.
This is the same Nick Robinson that leftists quote as proof that the BBC is “balanced” because he was a Conservative at Oxford.
‘Once a Conservative always a Conservative’ certainly does not apply when a career with the BBC is in the offing. Chris Patten, Michael Portillo.
Or Chris Bryant, Shaun Woodward, Quentin Davies, Alan Howarth,
Whose nickname is Toenails.
It’s not how you say it, it’s who… sort of… and when..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20621313
H/L:’George Osborne denies working poor hit hardest by Autumn Statement’
S/H:’Chancellor George Osborne has denied his Autumn Statement will hit the working poor harder than the rich.’
Deny, deny!
But who is prompting such a thing?
Copy… eventually: ‘…But Labour says…’
As far as I am concerned the Tories are weak enough to deserve culling for their own ineptitude, but to find what is left are Labour’s hyenas with the BBC vultures in support… not really the Lion pride of Britain option the country deserves.
He did not say that.
Without some indication of who ‘he’ is, or what he said/didn’t say, you could be perfectly correct, or totally wrong.
Robinson. It’s a response to the original post, which is a fabrication.
‘It’s a response to the original post, which is a fabrication.’
Which ‘original post’ please?
Preferably with no more teasing out needed.
I think Jim Dandy is stumbling towards the claim that Robinson didn’t actually say the words “Balls’ stammering affliction . . . ruined what could have been a Churchillian riposte to the Chancellor’s manifest rubbish”. Indeed he didn’t but, allowing for a slight exaggeration, that was the tenor and substance of his analysis. If I were going to quote Robinson’s exact words, which I’m sure Jim Dandy will be able to access – it’s on the Today page of the BBC website – I’d have put the words in quotes.
‘the tenor and substance of his analysis’
Thank you.
If so (and confirmed), I’d be then interested in Mr. Dandy’s views on Mr. Robinson doing the same thing in his blog post on what Mr. Osborne might have said and how the house may have then responded.
As opposed to reporting what did.
Mr. Dandy, would that or would that not make the latest offering from the BBC’s political editor, a fabrication?
Jim-you may well quibble about whether we read the fuel gauge correctly, and whether our estimates of it match your digital readout until the cows come home.
This is the majoring on minors line of attack, so beloved at the BBC…and not in any Savile kind of way.let me add!
It`s a minor detail what Nick said or did not say- fuel gauge set or not-but the direction of travel that Nick, Steph, Paul etc want for us all is pretty f***in` clear…and you`re daft to say otherwise.
The Autumn Statement was predictably dealt with by the BBC like any other effort to undo what Labour did to us all from 1997-2010…the BBC/Guardian and the critics section like yourself…are only happy as long as none of us remind you that it was you lot that caused all this. Your trifles mean nothing, we know what the BBC want us all to think-and you think it for them Jim!
Spirit of the Beehive indeed…
Nick followed on from his remarks quoted in The Week by being at pains to report Balls’ claim that the hesitancy was all to do with Balls’ stammer and nothing to do with the policies. Of course, “Mole” in The Week is reporting on the politics and not on BBC bias.
“Robinson wrapped it all up with a masterly analysis on Today by allowing that Balls’ stammering affliction had ruined what could have been a Churchillian riposte to the Chancellor’s manifest rubbish”
He said nothing approaching this. I’ve posted Harry Cole’s tweet elsewhere.
See here for a similar view on what Robinson said:
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/uk-austerity/50449/ed-balls-blames-his-stammer-poor-show-against-osborne
The original poster made it up.
Evan Davis’ interview: now that’s happier territory for bias finders. Robinson’s comments offer nothing, other perhaps than being anti-Balls. But I wouldn’t say that. I think Robinson is balanced.
‘But I wouldn’t say that. I think Robinson is balanced.’
Mandy Rice Davis must be wishing she’d copyrighted her famous retort.
‘I’ve posted Harry Cole’s tweet elsewhere.’
Doubtless in the same Beware of the Leopard place the BBC prints stuff like the polar bear ‘clarification’.
‘He said nothing approaching this…
The original poster made it up.’
I notice you have again avoided my question. There’s a surprise.
In terms of Hall Hall Monitor duties, the new Jim Dandy measure of correct approaches and uniquely acceptable making stuff up… is it published anywhere?
I’d be keen to see where things in public record from the BBC would lie.
Or does your attention only extend to niche blogs when it comes to calling foul on interpreting events?
This blog should be renamed Confirmation Bias. I’ve seen and heard quite a lot of BBC output in the last couple of weeks without visiting this site, and it’s as if you’ve all been watching and listening to different programmes.
I was intrigued by the Nick Robinson dispute, so I’ve transcribed what he actually said. Needless to say it bears not the slightest resemblance to Umbongo’s account of it. He either wasn’t listening very hard or deliberately misrepresented it in order to join in. This is what was said:
“People may be slightly baffled by this because on television news yesterday, I think on radio news too, we didn’t make a huge deal of Ed Balls’s poor performance, but let’s be clear: it *was* poor, we called it hesitant, we called it faltering, but I focused on his argument in my report. He did mess it up, let’s be clear. Ed Balls tried to say that the national deficit was rising, he got his words wrong and said it *wasn’t* rising. There was uproar, there was shouting. Politics is a contact sport, Evan, Ed Balls is a bruiser; he regularly shouts at his own opponents and they shout back at him, and they delight when things go wrong. It was terribly revealing this morning that Ed Balls wanted to talk about something rather private, his stammer, and say that’s what he thought had gone wrong. I think the reason he did it was this: he is concerned that people thought he was hesitant because he’d been wrong-footed economically, wrong-footed politically, and what he wants to do is say, no, it was a personal mess-up, it was nothing to do with the policies.”
Robinson makes no excuses for him – in fact rather the opposite: he suggests that Ed Balls’ reference to his stammer was a tactical move, an attempt to deflect attention from the inadequacy of his performance in the Commons.
Churchill had a stammer. Perhaps that’s what was meant.
Or perhaps as you show the OP made it up.
So did Aneurin Bevan, who for all his faults didn’t import millions of migrants to drive wages down – the real reason why so many Brits are on benefits, DV.
So Robinson is saying that Balls meant to get it wrong but got it accidentally right because of his stammer? Clever of him.
But why is it okay for the BBC to slam non-Left politicians’ performance (aside from analyzing message content) when they admittedly demur from doing it here?
‘This blog should be renamed Confirmation Bias.
Or, maybe, ‘Darwin’s Fly Trap’? Like the Awards, but more inclusive and proactive on not just showing its victims up but through also inviting them in to get stuck and then dissolve away in full view.
‘you’ve all..’
This ‘you’ and ‘all’, presumably with certain unspecified exclusions? Otherwise there will be sulky looks over the halves of shandies at the handover debrief..
‘I’ve transcribed what he actually said. ‘
Other than Craig, the ability for the entire Flokk to acquire full transcripts to order never ceases to amaze.
As you’re on the line RWB… how’s about you try and explain the odd precedent of the BBC’s staff being able to offer summaries to taste, and maybe offer a pointer as to where there is leeway in interpretation that is allowable for the purposes of ‘professional analysis’ or satire, and what the BBC and it’s merry band of groupies get so exercised over if it is done in ways that are suddenly not now approved of.
Much as may be wished, and enjoyed by some, having it both ways seems ultimately risky.
“the ability for the entire Flokk to acquire full transcripts to order never ceases to amaze.”
I ‘acquired’ it by the revolutionary means of listening to what was said, and typing it as I did so. This is hardly mysterious. As Umbongo points out above, the audio is available on the Today website. As for your question: as I pointed out above, the ‘summary to taste’ in this case is a *criticism* of Balls, not a defence. And as my original post proves, Umbongo was spouting complete nonsense.
Never claimed mystery. But the time and commitment is nonetheless impressive.
What you and some others prove, or not, is really for others to decide.
And you didn’t answer my actual question.
No surprise there.
A career in BBC CECUTT awaits. Some directorships will soon becoming vacant.
Indeed it does.
Only slightly off topic:
It seems the lovely lucrative BBC / Guardian / Arts Quango merry-go-round contrinues
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2012/12/alans-swan-song/
‘Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony Hall, relinquishes control. Quite a wrench for Rusbridger, who has stewarded the profit-averse newspaper since 1995. Last year alone he amassed losses of £44 million, so he’ll be relieved to know that the Opera House comes with an annual subsidy of £28 million from the Arts Council.’
I guess the next Royal Opera tickets giveaway will be via the Guardian instead of The Sun, and the BBC won’t be denigrating.
While Osborne made the best of a very bad job indeed and the BBC mourned that it’s champion was hobbled by the vacuity of his case (and its style of delivery) the seriousness of the UK’s economic position (engineered by Brown and Balls and unaffected by Osborne’s tinkering at the edges) is pushed to the sidelines. Don’t forget, by the way that Osborne was as much a cheerleader for Labour’s economic policies as anybody else. Until August 2009 he was still enthusing over “sharing the proceeds of growth” between the government and the “little people”. Steph, of course, refuses to draw attention to this: not to shield Osborne from his culpability here, but to minimise damage to Labour by drawing a veil over the pre-2008 world of Labour triumphalism.
What AFAIAA is never front and centre for the BBC’s economic gurus are the UK’s appalling prospects no matter what party is in power. The usual “analysis” we get from the BBC broadcasting team is a barren comparison – usually including the word “fairness” and a drive-by kicking for those not paying more tax than they’re legally obliged to – between a Labour party still in denial about its economic uselessness and a coalition paralysed by the LibDems’ need to demonstrate that they hate the rich too.
Accordingly, the BBC – and, to be fair, most of the other media – concentrate on knockabout politics and ignore the unfolding disaster. A couple of billion here or there is arguing over what pocket money to give to the kids. The solution I would favour is unimportant but I’d like to hear something other than crapola about tax avoidance. The solution to our woes is not about forcing extra-legal payments out of multi-national companies. By concentrating on what is, after all, gossip the BBC (together with other media) avoids having to facilitate genuine and informed discussions about both the UK’s awful economic position and possible ways of extricating ourselves.
Unfortunately, in asking for an adult discussion from the BBC, we have to deal with an organisation mired in infantile leftism: more interested in demonising a pathetic government than permitting the airing of a diversity of possible solutions to our problems. When I hear the likes of Liam Halligan and Allister Heath given the same airtime – and respect – as the likes of Will Hutton or Richard Murphy I’ll believe the BBC is attempting to be impartial; a prospect as distant now as it was in 2010 (or 1997).
.
The usual disclaimer here: yes, I’m sure somewhere in the BBC archives there are more nuanced analyses of the UK’s position than we receive over the air. However, most consumers of the BBC product receive it through radio or TV so wordage never in reality accessed by most of its audience (and given the BBC search engine’s deficiencies) doesn’t count in assessing the “impartiality” quotient.
The uncomfortable truth:
As things stand, Britain is going bust.
http://tullettprebonresearch.com/2012/12/05/a-real-autumn-statement-part-1-lemmings-in-denial/
But why is it that smart liberals talk so much cack?
See “The Fatal Flaw” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Heard Martha Kearney on the World at one allowing some singalmuvva from Kent tell us all about how Osborne is “persecuting the poor”…and wee Martha brings the muffins and cow eyes to console our damaged lady…bless her heart!
Yet-when the cuts crop up and welfare is getting slashed by the vicious Tories..the BBC never seem to be able to lay their hands on the usual drug-dealing, Stella-swilling, pit bull owning babyfathers in stolen cars who seem to make up one large segment of the dole wallahs.
Any idea why the BBC never seem to be able to bring one of the scuzzy hooded community with its guns and knives to rap their pain out to poor Martha-who could surely provide a dope brownie by way of “off the records” payment?
I know far more of this type than all those work-driven supermums that seem to clog up the BBCs radio cars as and when Pollys people seem to need the voice of the Labour Street….
‘pit bull owning babyfathers’
As the proud cashcow and walker of our sons’ new puppy, my social life is expanding as my waistline reduces.
Recently I had occasion to chat with one local stalwart, and the matter of those who do not pick up the poo of their beartraps on legs, which also appear to like the taste of flesh, came up.
Appears that amongst many other benefits their owners ‘enjoy’, as kids starve and pensioners freeze, our local drug community are eased through the boredom of not having jobs by getting money towards their enforcement weapons.
Is this true?
Personal Tax allowance now nearly £10000, this is the most significant thing in Osbournes’s statement for those on low income. The BBC as before, does not understand the effect it will have (because they are all on wacky wages) and Ed Ballsup ignores it completely when claiming that low wage earners will be worse off.
Labour has changed its slogan, and so has their PR department of course. Now the bBBC headline ‘news’ is about Mr Osborne’s ‘striver’s tax’.
Sorry to go off topic, but I spent the yesterday away from all TV, Radio and other sources of news, funnily enough I found this cleansing. Must be like a detox diet or colonic irrigation I suppose. Welcomed the Boss home from her sojourn abroad, so did see or hear much off the BBC coverage of the Autumn Statement. However, I am shocked to hear that there was any bias in to reporting.
As I am innumerate, thought I would ask for some help with a little maths question. Here goes:
If you can answering following:
o 1700 delegate at Doha Ha Ha Climate Confabulation
o How many traveled by Green Transport e.g. camel, donkey,bicycle, foot and mouth, wind assisted land craft, solar powered transporter etc ?
o Of the remainder, how many traveled by commercial airline, private jet, expensive luxury car etc?
How many of all the delegates:
1. stayed in tents with no air con?
2. used hand held fans to keep themselves cool
3. Did not take a cooling swim in their air conditioned 4/5 star hotel swimming pool?
Finally, can it be calculated how much additional CO2 was generated as a result of this great Jamboree?
If unable to answer can any one can recommend a reputable and authoritative source that could provide with this information
My current thoughts are:
a). The BBC
b). The Intergovern(mental) Panel on Climate Change
c). The University of East Anglia Climate Unit
d). NASA
e). A non-partisan NGO such as Green Peace, WWF
f). My preschool nephew.
h). The man I met the other day who told me that in a recent conversation with big G on a land line phone the world was going to end today as the result of a outpouring from the heavens of candy floss. Or may be it was dental floss?
Thanking you all in advance for kind help with this.
Kind regards
Mr Average Joe Mushroom
Radio 2 news at 4pm referred to the ‘cuts’, then had to explain that a 1% increase in benefits is a ‘cut’ in real terms but oh how ridiculous it made their headlines sound. (I know technically they were correct but it was the tortuous way they had to work at their wording to explain an increase as a cut that showed their ‘left’ bent. Goes back to a comment from Redwhiteandblue earlier – sometimes transcribing a script is not enough ..it is the enunciation eg ‘Tory Cuts’ anyone?
Blatant political bias by BBC-NUJ ‘Today’ programme this morning with EVAN DAVIS acting as Ed Balls’ press agent.
Davis interrupted Chancellor Osborne about 18 times in 13 minutes in Davis’ attempt at Labour inquisition of Osborne.
Davis even demanded that Osborne answer whether Parliament ridicules Balls because of Balls’ stammer!
The BBC political bias begins at 8:10 ‘Today’:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9775000/9775975.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9775000/9775975.stm
‘Davis even demanded that Osborne answer whether Parliament ridicules Balls because of Balls’ stammer!
At risk of Jim Dandy getting his degree of acceptability tape measure out, Mr. Davis said Ed Balls couldn’t figure stuff out because he’s ‘special’, and should be treated differently, like the Ralph Wiggum of UK politics.
Preceding that, from ‘Things are not going to plan..’ to ‘my next issue…’ to ‘a lot of people.. Mr. Davis seems to be a man with a mission. And professional objectivity does not figure.
ps: Evan, maybe the Chancellor could ‘touch’ the licence fee as an unnecessary cost burden to pensioners? Maybe not in a way you’d favour, though.
BBC ‘Today’ link to above Evan Davis’ attempted inquisition of Chancellor Osborne, on behalf of Labour’s Balls:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9775000/9775975.stm
they’re even making excuses for Balls’ stammer on newsround on cbbc
just in case the kiddies get the idea that he’s actually a buffoon,you understand
Completely pissed off with Tory mantra about the strivers and the shirkers with their curtains drawn. This really is the nasty party.
And I’ve voted Tory all my life, by the way.
Welcome!
New here I believe?
Always nice to get new names in the mix, especially those whose first share is what they don’t like about topics off remit, and who then go on to explain how this conversion comes to a lifetime’s commitment that, this being a blog, is impossible to verify.
Never fails in debut, trust me.
BBC-NUJ adopts Labour Ed Balls as its top ‘Balls speech/King’s speech’ stammerer.
Speech ‘experts’ on stammering now paraded on BBC saying how difficult it must be for people like Balls in Parliament.
There is no mention of how Balls, from his position on the Labour front bench, perpetually interrupts speakers from the other side in Parliament.
So, from now on, whenever Balls appears to get something drastically wrong, don’t forget what BBC-NUJ tells us: it’s down to his stammer.
Not being a PR expert of the calibre of, say, Max Clifford (producer iPhones getting flushed down the entire BBC estate as we speak), I cannot but wonder if this is another case of making the man the story rather backfiring?
Had it been a usual ‘move on’, I doubt the public would even register.
Now the spotlight is lingering, and some darker areas catching spill, I suspect Erich Rohm’s answer to Ralph Wiggum may come to regret having the BBC’s Milhouse making a fuss over the fact that he is, indeed’ ‘special’ as they are ‘unique’. Neither in good ways.
I never remember any mention of the late King using the fact he had a stammer, which he went to great lengths to overcome when he realised he had to become Monarch, as an excuse for anything so comparing his stammer to Balls’ incompetent performance is a none starter, and there were times when the late King’s speeches were made inder greater stress and more difficult circumstances than Balls will ever face.
The simple truth is that Balls was caught completely wrong footed by what the Chancellor said and as a result, instead of being able to spout his usual nonsense he was left sputtering and rambling. Any stutter, which never seemed to have caused him problems previously, especially when he is in full bullying flow, had nothing to do with his totally incompetent performance yesterday and it is rather pathetic of both him, and his sychophants, to put it forward as an excuse.
Anyone watching QT ,another socialist love-in, from the heart of the capital, of benefit culture ,screaming banshee`s wailing at tory cutz ,” Children will die in the streets cos we are`nt giving them constant higher benefits ” Blah ,blah !
But surely you know, as one of the audience said, ‘The children of Liverpool have a RIGHT to our money’.
Total bollox , I have the RIGHT to claim their property then , & women , as I keep em all from starving !
Have Beeboids forgotten all this about Balls?:-
“The Chancellor’s medicine may be harsh.
” But Ed Balls would be economic poison.”
By MAX HASTINGS.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2243683/The-Chancellors-medicine-harsh-But-Ed-Balls-economic-poison.html#ixzz2EJl6FIgH
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