201 Responses to OPEN THREAD

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  1. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    January 12, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    Now that it has been announced that the two men tragically stabbed in Birmingham yesterday were Big Issue sellers, how long shall I give it before some loony leftie links the murders to ‘Tory cuts’?

       6 likes

  2. Reed says:
    January 12, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    “BBC faces huge payout over Jimmy Savile”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261077/Jimmy-Savile-scandal-Report-reveals-raped-34-women-girls-sexually-assaulted-450.html

    That’ll be us then, paying for their employees’ depraved behaviour and their complicity of silence over decades.

    Cheers. #mosttrustedbroadcasterintheworldmyarse

       4 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
      January 12, 2013 at 5:54 pm

      The bBBC’s Dame Janet Smith Review has so far been contacted by 355 people. According to her Terms of Reference
      We would very much like to hear from:

      1. people who were the subject of inappropriate sexual conduct by Jimmy Savile on BBC premises, or on location for the BBC
      2. people who knew of or suspected inappropriate sexual conduct by Jimmy Savile on BBC premises, or on location for the BBC
      3. anyone who raised concerns about Jimmy Savile’s sexual conduct (whether formally or informally) within the BBC
      4. people who worked for or with the BBC during the time that Jimmy Savile worked there (currently believed to be 1964 to approximately 2007) whether or not they were aware of any inappropriate behaviour and:
      a) who worked with or for Jimmy Savile or on programmes he presented (whether in junior or senior roles)
      b) to whom Jimmy Savile reported (directly or indirectly)
      c) who were familiar with the culture or practices of the BBC during that time insofar as they may have been relevant to preventing or enabling the sexual abuse of children, young people or teenagers
      d) held senior positions at the BBC and who may have relevant information which would assist the Review e.g. people who worked in Human Resources, former Director-Generals, directors or producers.
      It will be interesting to see how many in categories 4 c) and 4 d) (in bold above) have put their heads above the parapets. I expect they’ll get it about right.

         4 likes

  3. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    January 12, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    So, Ed Miliband has made a speech and “BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said Labour was hoping the speech would help it move on from its time in office.”

    Apparently Mr Miliband said “One NationClass Warfare Labour” had “learnt the lessons” of the financial crisis. “It begins from the truth that New Labour did not do enough to bring about structural change in our economy to make it work for the many, not just the few.”
    No mention of the truth that New Labour spent more money than the country could afford, and that Class Warfare Labour wants to do the same? Will Ross Hawkins be asking Miliband about that? Don’t hold your breath.

       5 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:
    January 12, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    The utterly useless Mark Mardell went to Chicago the other day to wring his hands over the latest murders and stand on the victims’ graves to push the gun control cause.

    He pretends to wonder why all these killings in Chicago don’t get the same attention as the recent mass murders in Sandy Hook and Colorado, but we all know the reason: the Chicago victims are mostly black, and mostly criminals themselves. Of course, the BBC’s US President editor can’t come out and say it, because then he’d have to make some kind of commentary on how the black President isn’t looking out for young black men, and only cries when little white girls die. And never mind about His connection to Chicago. Mardell can’t touch that one with the proverbial ten-foot pole, so just starts talking crap instead.

    But tonight was just another night when someone you have never heard of died.
    Someone whose face you will never see on a TV screen. A murder most local reporters did not turn out to record. Why bother?
    I guess more people are shot than die in road accidents, although that is just a guess.

    He guesses. He doesn’t know, hasn’t bothered to look it up. He just guesses, because he feels like it must be true. Mardell knows in his heart, apparently, that gun violence is just that bad.

    Two seconds after typing “gun deaths versus car deaths”, I found this Slate article (owned by the Washington Post, not Fox News, not Breitbart) which says Mardell’s an idiot, although not in so many words.

    The pro-gun control group based its analysis on federal data, finding a total of 31,236 firearm-related deaths nationwide (good for a rate of 10.19 per 100,000 people) and 36,361 motor vehicle-related deaths (for a rate of 11.87 per 100,000). For the moment at least, car deaths are still more common nationwide than those caused by firearms, although they may not be for long….

    Mark Mardell is not a journalist. He is an editorialist, an opinion-monger, a propagandist. Don’t trust him or the BBC on US issues.

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 12, 2013 at 6:23 pm

      ‘He guesses. He doesn’t know, hasn’t bothered to look it up. He just guesses, because he feels like it must be true.’
      From editorial to CECUTT adjudications, variations in personal belief without recourse to even accessing actual facts is becoming the norm.
      Not in a good way.
      These are people with access to a £4Bpa megaphone to ensure what they ‘guess’ becomes what ‘is’.
      And we are required to pay for it if a flickering screen in our 2013 connected abode has the capacity to receive a broadcast signal that may include such an offering.
      Unique.

         3 likes

  5. Guest Who says:
    January 12, 2013 at 6:13 pm

    A double-helping of uniqueness from a valued resource…
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/nuisnight-vacancy.html?
    I was more interested in this bit…
    ‘Like all BBC news programmes Newsnight has an impact on the BBC’s policy and its relationship with politicians, the Government and public bodies.
    So the monkeys choreograph the organ grinders?
    And this..
    ‘This is the opportunity to take control of the content, production, and style of BBC Two’s flagship news programme and to be a key figure in the evolution of BBC News.’
    Hey, it worked well on Lord McAlpine, and as it seems that as simply reporting is so last genetic evolution, being a person who influences policy is all to play for. Even if it’s via inaccuracy, unprofessionalism and lack of impartiality.
    Unique.
    And have to love the ’email to a friend’ invitation, as if this role is not already totally stitched up between a cabal who have already got Allegra and Paul on the books.

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 12, 2013 at 6:17 pm

      http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/in-and-out.html?
      ‘We can’t have been paying two DGs at the same time, can we ?’
      Hey, why not? Double has been the magic multiplier of late.
      ‘George and his family continue to get private health cover ‘
      If they don’t too, Andy Marr’s bedside crowd will be livid. He’s still employed there.
      How those who rely on the BBC to do as they speak, perhaps, not so much.

         3 likes

  6. Alex says:
    January 12, 2013 at 8:16 pm

    Did this puerile nonsense really merit BBC news status?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20997144

    Oh, I momentarily forgot… It’s the Obama Government… So of course it did.

       1 likes

  7. George R says:
    January 12, 2013 at 8:23 pm

    INBBC, and Islamic jihad threat to Europeans.

    INBBC shows an interest in the Islamic jihad threat now that ‘leftist’ Hollande at last has some inkling of the global nature of that threat to Europe.

    “Hollande steps up France security over Mali and Somalia.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20999348

    The Islamic jihad interconnections from Middle East, Indian sub-continent, Africa to Europe (inc France and Britain) are obvious; and they are being facilitated by the E.U. political class’s campaign for mass immigration.

       2 likes

  8. fitzfitz says:
    January 12, 2013 at 10:02 pm

    What a remarkable cull of alpha caucasoid presenters from Radio 4 at the New Year … yes, yes, the famous fem voices but also many others including Robin Lustig … all out – and in comes diversity and quotas to keep All Day Woman’s Hour chugging on its leftist way …

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 12, 2013 at 11:54 pm

      ‘also many others including Robin Lustig … all out’
      The BBC cull in many areas is interesting.
      I use the BBC Newsnight blog as a start point for my daily surf of editors’ insights.
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/
      Beyond the fact this blog actually has been pulled too, note how many others in that blog roll at right that are no more than bizarrely retained heads on pikes to mark the passing of free and open discussion…
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/editorsblog/
      Peter Rippon | 13:01 UK time, Monday, 22 March 2010
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/michaelcrick/
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/petermarshall/
      Out of 7 listed, 2 are still active.
      An Urban might make 5 posts before being closed.
      Mason is again gunning for one a month status, and as UK Economics Editor seems to hardly ever come near the studio, or country lately.
      No idea why.
      The rest are starting to see activity as the school hols end and the lure of the slopes give way to the ‘analysis’ the country seems to have managed quite well without for a month or more.
      Of them all, ‘The Editors’ itself seems to have stalled in a time warp all of its own ironically, at a point where they trumpeted the BBC bringing its unique brand of reporting to Burma, but didn’t like the comparisons that got drawn in the comments, almost getting to double digits before a closing.
      If not noticing any difference could justify further culling, I can see several mill in savings right there.

         2 likes

  9. Chilli says:
    January 13, 2013 at 3:41 am

    Did anyone catch the ‘joke’ in Graham Norton’s opening monologue this Friday:

    “The D in ‘Django Unchained’ is silent…. like the n in Tory cuts”.

    That’s stange. I don’t recall any ‘jokes’ about Gordon Brown being a ‘cu*t” when he bankrupted the country.

       7 likes

    • chrisH says:
      January 13, 2013 at 6:30 pm

      Why didn`t Father Teds team leave this hopelessly unfunny rent an Oirishman in that cave, as their show implied that they did?
      Surely his country needs him…they could do with some Haughey satire.
      Go on, go on….and they can have Dara and the useless Mrs Browns boys back too.
      Irishmen over here who really need to raise a laugh in Mullingars Fish Market on a Thursday…not pimping off OUR BBC.
      RTE surely would take them back, Gay Byrnes surely has something saved up under his mattress!

         2 likes

  10. deegee says:
    January 13, 2013 at 8:26 am

    Lyse Doucet writes about Living and working in Qatar and finds the daughter of a billionaire to interview. I guess I should go there and find myself a simularly wonderful job.

    According to the US State Department, Qatar is a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and, to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution. The victims (sic) voluntarily migrate to Qatar as low-skilled laborers and domestic servants, but some subsequently face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude. These conditions include: threats of serious physical or financial harm; the withholding of pay; charging workers for benefits for which the employer is responsible; restrictions on freedom of movement, including the confiscation of passports and travel documents and the withholding of exit permits; arbitrary detention; threats of legal action and deportation; threats of filing false charges against the worker; and physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

    I have news for you, Lyse, billionaire’s daughters don’t have money problems and they work because they want to in Daddy’s firm. Give the piece an honest headline How the super rich live and work in Qatar

    Perhaps her father will write Lyse a reference when she applies to work at Al Jazeera?

       3 likes

    • chrisH says:
      January 13, 2013 at 6:25 pm

      Let`s hope that Starbucks over there are paying their taxes eh?…and what of those polluting Big Oil types Lyse?
      Go on-give it an investigation-under cover of a burqa-go on, you know you want to…and we here who are friends of israel would just LOVE to see your piece on You and Yours.
      Which piece?…let the Sharia court decide, you lazy , liberal , faether-bedded,Canadian fakeroonie!

         2 likes

  11. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 8:32 am

    “BBC BUILDS A BOMB-PROOF NEWS BUNKER”

    http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/370426?

       2 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 13, 2013 at 9:47 am

      ‘The best-kept secret is the so-called “graphics halo”. The insider said: “There’s a huge LCD display above the newsroom. It’s the big secret. It’ll have live scrolling graphics.”’
      I wonder what the BBC insider thinks the best-kept secret really is then?
      On matters bunker, one of the problems is how less great they are when detonation is from within.
      Given their favoured interviewee, and such folks’ partiality for undie-based expressions of anger and protest, I hope the search facilities are on par with such as the often decried US Homeland security/airline versions. Be funny if they found that a unique exception to their ‘critics saying’ had to be made in-house.
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20772573
      But in outhouse terms one is sure there will be no shortage of volunteers to take a rummage for the team.
      Cheery enough, Dez?

         3 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:
      January 13, 2013 at 7:19 pm

      Apparently the BBC have constructed a bomb proof newsroom at their £1Billion newly remodelled Broadcasting House, which is designed to withstand a terrorist suicide bomber.

      Well first this shows just how vital and important the BBC news announcers regard themselves. After all, reading the news can only be done by a select few

      But I’m curious after seeing how the BBC agenda is to promote Islam as the religion of peace, just what kind of suicide bomber do they anticipate?
      Christian?
      Jewish?
      Bahai?
      Buddhist?

         1 likes

  12. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 9:10 am

    “‘Must never shy away from the controversial’: BBC launches search for next Newsnight editor in wake of Savile scandal (with some good advice).”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261291/Must-shy-away-controversial-BBC-launches-search-Newsnight-editor-wake-Savile-scandal-good-advice.html

       2 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 13, 2013 at 9:55 am

      Wonder if they got it off good old trading as wdr?
      Liked this bit:

      ‘However, it is understood they returned to their roles before Christmas.’
      You mean they did, or may have… but no one actually knows?
      That doesn’t seem the best validation for market rate salary contributions.

         1 likes

  13. noggin says:
    January 13, 2013 at 10:50 am

    big questions – one only 😀
    denial of evolution
    is there one ideology, that deliberately, forcefully
    rigourously, brainwashes it adherrents under pain of physical threat, violence even death? … into believing
    that jews have genuinely evolved?, and that, is to seen as to be abhorrent, the worst of thought, these “creatures”?

    will do literally anything to isolate impressionable its own children, to continue its supremacist agenda?
    and even on a so called debate like this, will turn up and under the poisonous eyes of the MB shill bungalawa, play blinkered hard man/soft man … wheel out the well known “doctored” debate guys from the Deen Inst, so that
    muslim talks with muslim, (yawn! … well worn/used islamic trait).
    and panto, he just just laps it up, oops does, makes the mistake of mentioning a jew, is told straight “i am NOT a jew, i am a muslim” hmmm, (note the sleight of hand) …
    has anyone? non muslim questioned these muslims?, the koran? here ……. hmmm no, didn t think so … 😀
    now why? is that exactly? :-D, when immediately straight after the bible is forcefully questioned?
    now why? is that exactly?

       6 likes

  14. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 11:52 am

    The Islamic Republic of PAKISTAN:
    -a key source of ‘diversity’ for mass immigration into Britain.

    INBBC doesn’t make that connection, of course:-

    “Formidable power of Pakistan’s anti-Shia militants”

    ( i.e. of Sunni jihadists)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20983153

       1 likes

    • Leha says:
      January 15, 2013 at 10:08 pm

      Orla (smiler) Gueran “Is this the start of a Pakistani spring, or something more sinister?”

      wtf is the difference?

         0 likes

  15. noggin says:
    January 13, 2013 at 3:52 pm

    after al bbc – was all gushing, excitedly announcing “whose gonna join team obama”?
    oh on kerry – bbc highlights this nugget
    “the Foreign Service. Mr Kerry has lived abroad and speaks French. He can sit for hours sipping tea with world leaders”
    ,,, ya don t say, well theres news for ya

    kerry, hagel, brennan – the 3 stooges? … strange, all pro muslim yes men – iran sops, and without a single spinal vertebrae between them … and anti Israel to boot, goodness …
    ahmm glad that obama ain t no mooslim, boy …
    imagine the damage he could do eh!

    another excellent piece …
    “These are people who are the living embodiment of civilisational exhaustion and decline. In any healthy society, they would be considered marginal, third-rate figures characterised variously by moral spinelessness, stupidity and knuckle-dragging prejudice. Yet not only has Obama put such people forward to manage the security of America, at a time when Iran is racing to build its nuclear bomb and Islamic radicals are destroying lives and freedom across the world and making headway into the west — in part because of the policies of Obama himself; even more stunningly, the American liberal media, along with timid or ideologically partisan US Jewish leaders, remain silent about these astoundingly destructive appointments because it is Obama who is making them”.
    mel phillips.

       4 likes

  16. will says:
    January 13, 2013 at 5:45 pm

    Tankies: Tank Heroes of WWII 9-10BBC2 Per Radio Times ” Historian and former tank commander Mark Urban concludes the story of six men from the Fifth Royal Tank Regiment during the Second World War”. Per wiki “After graduation, he served in the Army, for nine months as a regular officer in the Royal Tank Regiment”

       2 likes

    • Buggy says:
      January 13, 2013 at 10:11 pm

      I didn’t know you could resign a regular commission that quickly: must have almost sent in his papers on the day he was passed out.

      Incidentally, from the preview (I’ve taped it after last week) it looks like the Cromwell is going to get a shoeing. Whilst it’s true that it wasn’t any match for the Tigers and Panthers in Normandy, wouldn’t it be nice to mention that it would likely have been in service a year to eighteen months earlier if not for the pressing need to retool (to face invasion) after losing so much equipment at Dunkirk, and at that time would have been much more than adequate ?

      Fabbo (related) Hezza fact: the bugger frequently used to appear wearing the tie of the Wesh Guards, a regiment into which he was commissioned for his belated National Service: belated because he’d tried more or less every trick in the book to get himself exempted. Having joined in January 1959, he departed for good nine months later, having got himself selected as Tory candidate for an unwinnable seat in (AFAICR) Wales: according to his business partner this had been the plan from the start.

      The joke back in his heyday was that he’d spent more days sporting the Guards tie than he’d actually spent with the regiment.

         0 likes

  17. chrisH says:
    January 13, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    Came across this piece of polemic by a Tory of the early 19th Century called George Canning.
    I reckon he`d already dreamed of Clegg, Yeo, Gore and Toynbee, Monbiot and Bono…and decided to let his monument be a pub in Brixton instead…until Red Kens tried to expunge his name from history…

    Though th`extended globe; his feelings run
    As broad, general as th`unbounded sun.
    No narrow bigot he, his reasoned view
    Thy interests England, ranks with thine , Peru
    France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh
    But heaves for Turkeys wars, th`imperial sigh.
    A steady patriot of the world alone
    The friend of every country-but his own!

    And lest the likes of Jim,Scott, Dez etc tell me that this is not specifically BBC stuff-course not….when the BBC treats Tories like him and Tebbit with the same degree of respect as the Spitting Image bunch, the Mandelsons and the Geldofs…THEN I`ll not post the great Cannings doggerel-who seems to have already seen Bowen, Pilger and Doucet/Plett before the rest of us!

       2 likes

  18. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 6:47 pm

    “BBC Three axes lesbian drama ‘Lip Service’ after two series”

    http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a450602/bbc-three-axes-lesbian-drama-lip-service-after-two-series.html

    Also:

    “Mass Paris rally against gay marriage in France”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21004322

       0 likes

  19. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 7:02 pm

    More for Beeboid chums of Al Jazeera Gore:-

    “Gore’s Al Jazeera sale suspect”

    By PHIL MUSHNICK

    [Opening excerpt]:-

    “Former US Vice President and still fully devoted global environmentalist Al Gore last week took a lot of heat and ridicule for dumping his viewer-starved Current TV cable network for $500 million. He sold it to Al Jazeera, owned by the oil-rich Islamic monarchy and global environment-polluter Qatar.

    “Gore’s money-first hypocrisy in this matter is so self-evident that it’s hardly worth further ink. For $500 million he chose to fasten a ‘Kick Me’ sign to both his back and front. At least he didn’t go for cheap, ya know?

    “But there has been an important element to this sale that has been overlooked:”

    http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/gore_al_jazeera_sale_suspect_5nX28ItDkOlLSpUAFMuYwK?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=+TV

       0 likes

  20. George R says:
    January 13, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    “BBC digital: Just because Auntie says so, it doesn’t mean it’s true.
    “The Corporation’s £125m investment in online risks gradually crowding out all the competition.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/13/bbc-digital-investment-competition?

       1 likes

  21. Dazed & Confused says:
    January 13, 2013 at 11:22 pm

    The BBC seem to be protecting themselves from those of whose names can never be mentioned…At the expense of the licence payer of course….Who else?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261615/BBC-bunker-News-studios-built-bomb-proof-room-protect-suicide-attacks.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

       0 likes

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