271 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. The General says:

    Re the forthcoming election of a new Pope, is it true that Tony Blair has put his name forward ?

       33 likes

    • Generalist says:

      Father Dougal Maguire and Bono are 1000 to 1 on Paddy Power.
      Richard Dawkins is 666 to 1.

         14 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      He doesn’t have to, he knows that God will nominate him anyway.

         2 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      No I’m afraid that’s not true, Tony BLiar thinks he’s God & the Pope answers to him !

         5 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        I notice the Beeb has not mentioned the circumstances immediately surrounding the Pope’s resignation although they are aware of the fact because it can be found in an article they link to in their ‘elsewhere on the web’ bit on the search page results for ‘canonisation’.

        “The pope made the announcement [of his resignation] in Latin on Feb. 11 before a public consistory ordered the canonization the martyrs of Otranto”
        The martyrs of Otranto were victims of Muslim persecution.
        (in “Account of a great resignation] What’s behind Pope Benedict XVI’s renouncement?(1)
        by Eleonora Galasso”)
        He resigned at the same time that a council of cardinals ordered the creation of 815 new saints and they don’t even consider it worth telling their Catholic fee payers. I hope the Vatican has contacted the Guinness Book of Records.

           3 likes

  2. Rufus McDufus says:

    Not quite BBC but not far off. Guardian comments generator. Superb!
    http://www.tomforth.co.uk/guardiancomments/

       36 likes

  3. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC cultural Marxists take the oppurtunity to give us plebs a good telling off this morning. Nicky Campbell’s phone-in asks ‘is our food too cheap?’

    So Prof So-and-so of wass-it-called, ‘you advise the Government on food policy….’

    ‘Well Nicky, I used to advise the Government – they decided that they don’t want me anymore’

    Perhaps that’s because you’re a steaming leftie and Gordon Brown is no longer in power.

    Which has me thinking….

    ‘So, Gordon Brown, you used to run the country…’

    ‘Och, well Nicky, I used to run the country – but the electorate decided they didn’t want me anymore – aye!’

    OK so what does the former adviser have to say for himself?

    Inevitably a breathless Marxian rant…. I’ve just come from a climate change cheap food anti capitalist industrialised West dangerous disease link seminar……

    So BBC, such crap

       49 likes

    • A.D says:

      Just imagine the BBC response if a Tory MP were to say this, it would be rolling headline news, with calls for the MP to be sacked:

      “Let’s just say that I’m not very keen on mince at the moment, I think I know a bit too much now and would not buy mince in a ready meal or in a packet as a precautionary principle”.

      Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh. Labour.

         23 likes

      • Doyle says:

        Gavin Esler’s interview (if you can call it that) with Mary Creagh on last nights Newnight was more like a conversation around a dinner table in Islington … ‘as a mother how do you feel about this ‘ etc. No mention by Esler that meat testing ended in 2003 under Labour’s reign of terror. You’d think that this fact would be pertinent to the story. Pathetic.

           46 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        I’m not very keen on mince at the moment
        Ah, such talk takes me back.
        Wasn’t the divine Ms. M the one Andrew Neil took apart on this?
        Is that on YouTube yet.
        Or was it a different time?

           13 likes

  4. AsISeeIt says:

    H/T to Guido Fawkes for pointing out this one…

    ‘Politically correct’ BBC ignoring Harold Wilson’s pipe in five hour tribute’

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9865535/Politically-correct-BBC-ignoring-Harold-Wilsons-pipe-in-five-hour-tribute-says-Lord-Donoughue.html

    However, I wonder whether this 5 hour BBC Labour-fest will refer to Harold Wilson’s trade mark raincoat?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kagan,_Baron_Kagan

    “Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan (6 June 1915 – 17 January 1995) was a Lithuanian-British industrialist and the founder of Kagan Textiles, of Elland, which made raincoats from the waterproof Gannex fabric he had invented. Gannex raincoats were most famously worn by Harold Wilson. Kagan was sent to prison for ten months in 1980 for stealing from his own companies.”

    “Huddersfield was the home town of Harold Wilson, later Leader of the Opposition in 1963, and Kagan became close to Wilson and provided funding for his private office. Upon Wilson’s first resignation honours list in 1970, Kagan was given a knighthood.”

       27 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Yet, supposedly, “sleaze” was invented by the Tories.

         19 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Ex-Oxford University lecturer Wilson is rumoured to have preferred cigars, the pipe being used in public to show what a man of the people he was. Don’t suppose this will be admitted in the 5-hour tribute.

         6 likes

  5. Umbongo says:

    Victor Gregg, a witness to the bombing of Dresden, was interviewed on Today. Why? This was the 68th anniversary of the raid and Mr Gregg is still appalled at the death and destruction wrought. Today allowed Mr Gregg to repeat his condemnation of Churchill, Attlee etc for allowing this raid. Now suppose instead of interviewing Mr Gregg, Today had – in respect of the anniversary – brought on a disinterested historian who sought the truth concerning the raid, its rationale and its consequences (eg like Fredrick Taylor or Michael Burleigh). Suppose that historian would have exonerated the men authorising the raid and provided evidence that the raid was not merely a massacre of innocent civilians but a more or less necessary part of the destruction of Germany’s military and industrial capacity.
    Would Today have bothered? The question answers itself: of course not. The BBC is forever picking at the scab of “controversial” aspects of WW2 and other parts of British history where the British military can be portrayed as no better than the SS. The interview this morning fits right in with that agenda. Mr Gregg’s only importance in all this is that he actually saw the horrible results of the Dresden raid. His opinion concerning the rights and wrongs of the raid has no more validity than mine – less in fact since, in all humility, my first interest in the raid is not to assign guilt but to attempt to understand the whys and wherefores. Terrible things are done in war (and in peace, as it happens) but sometimes – often – such terrible things are necessary and justified: in my humble opinion – an opinion bolstered by evidence rather than understandable emotion – Dresden was one of those terrible but necessary events.

       48 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      There are some aspects to this which are rarely discussed – like the conditions which create a firestorm.

      And why is the bombing of Tokyo in 1945 never mentioned?

         15 likes

      • RCE says:

        Because the anti-Americans at the BBC don’t want people to know that conventional bombing killed more people than the atom bombs.

        Cultural Marxist history has it that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were acts of unwarranted disproportionate evil by the US and this cannot be challenged in any way.

           22 likes

    • Doublethinker says:

      You are right on target so to speak.
      After years of watching and listening to the BBC an unbiased observer, me, is forced to the conclusion that the BBC must hate Britain and in particular Britain’s past.
      They find the most damning interpretation of any event , never put it into to context , never judge it by the standards of the time , never compare Britain’s record with that of other Powers. In my opinion the British were neither better or worse than other world power in any time period. No they just trot out their favourite ‘weren’t the British terrible’ line and how much suffering we inflicted on the world etc etc etc.
      Basically their history programmes and historical dramas are now so utterly biased against Britain that they aren’t worth watching. Of course the problem is that many people still trust the BBC and swallow this tripe as the truth and slowly start to believe the BBC leftist narrative that Britain should feel guilty about its past and go round apologising to just about every country on the planet. The BBC believes that we can only expiate our sins by adopting an open door, multicultural society in which we denigrate our past and our own culture but celebrate alien cultures. Sadly, with their immense power , near monopoly and undemocratic methods they are winning the argument.

         49 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Stumbled across a link someone here provided to some daft BBC WM vehicle for a peroxide sink in jeans to wander around a museum before linking a story about Bomber Harris.
        Interesting enough, and I viewed it with mixed feelings.
        It was based around some ex-RAF type who had interviewed him.
        First of all I was struck by how utterly wet the interviewer was. For sure he was aware of what he was expected to say now, but at the time it was cringeworthy. Harris’ expression and body language were a treat.
        He actually apologised in case he came across as too sycophantic! Compared to a BBC market rate with a Labour Minister he was like Paxo with Howard.
        It was of course intercut with ‘right on’ contributions from today, including some shaven-headed, blazer wearing academic (it’s like they have central casting for such guys) who actually got into ‘interpretations’ from the off, meaning facts were out and feelings were the order of the day.
        I was not around at the time, but chatting to my parents I did not get the impression ‘people were uncomfortable’ with the area bombing of Germany after the Blitz.
        What next, some boy scout from the Red Army asking Marshall Zhukov if the guys might not have been a wee bit heavy-handed after things started going the wrong way for those sweethearts in the SS Panzer Divisions after Kursk?
        It was all worth it for a final line (not the one the interviewer liked, about war being awful… yadayadda).
        Asked if he would do the same again, Harris nailed the idiotic nature of such questions (still used now to provoke) by saying that if it was the same time he’d have done the same thing.

           21 likes

      • Fred Sage says:

        The british were much better than many of the others. The Russians were dreadful, The Chinese worse. The Germans including the inhabitants of Dredsen. Many in Dresden, men were away fighting on the Russian front committing atrocities and having Stalin committing atrocities against his own people and the Germans. (Kept his German prisoners in prison for more than 25 years) The Brits were pussycats as usual. The Japenese were also very bad.

           8 likes

        • Doublethinker says:

          During the second world war I agree that the British were the upholders of decency , as far as upholding decency is compatible with fighting an evil enemy.
          My point though was about the last several centuries eg the period of maritime expansion and empire.

             0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘The BBC is forever picking at the scab of “controversial”
      A scab they more often than not have seen created by a ‘critics are saying’ stab from their own quarter.

         16 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        That was Lustig’s approach on the World at Ten a while back when he referred to Bomber Command’s activities as “what some have called [or ‘would call’- can’t remember exact phrase] a war crime.”

           10 likes

        • Ian Hills says:

          Even if it was just revenge for the blitz, it would have been worth it. But revenge is like punishing criminals – not acceptable to the effete elite.

             7 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Just wait until the hidden truth about Churchills hopeless war record comes out. Most of his mistakes were hidden from the public fopr propaganda purposes, and his memory has remained unsullied for decades, but the truth is very different. If it had’t been for Roosevelt & Stalin there would never have been a D day invasion which he remained resolutely opposed to right up to the day it happened.
      I’m surprised that the bBC hasn’t revealed the poor record of Churchill, especially with his revered Tory background, he should be an ideal target, but maybe they’re afraid of the backlash?

         2 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        “(Churchill) Most of his mistakes were hidden from the public for propaganda purposes….”

        thoughtful

        And now most of his mistake are aired for what…? Propaganda purposes.

           13 likes

        • thoughtful says:

          Sorry AslSeelt I can’t understand your post

             0 likes

          • Joshaw says:

            Or don’t want to.

            Seems clear enough to me.

               8 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            So, ‘thoughtful’ (sounding suspiciously like Nicked Emus), in your opinion, Churchill’s/Britain’s contribution to the war was what, exactly?

               8 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            ‘I can’t understand your post’
            As has been pointed out before, it is hard to address the comprehension abilities of others when they are either inherently limited or deliberately constrained.
            Alluding to ‘hidden truths’ without any sourcing or support may be fine for Newsnight, etc, but some less inclined to swallowing the BBC manner of tainting reputation will always still require more.

               13 likes

      • Alison says:

        Your simplistic post tries dishonestly to give the impression that Churchill was in favour of doing nothing. In fact he wanted to ensure that the Allied reoccupation extended as far East as possible, which, as things turned out, wasn’t a bad strategy.

           16 likes

        • thoughtful says:

          I really wish people would leave emotive language out of threads like this.

          You call a post simplistic, would you have me write a whole thesis on the subject? Would you even bother to read it if I did?
          The problem emerged at the Tehran conference, where both Stalin & Roosevelt forced Churchill away from his disasterously mistaken belief that Southern Europe was Hitlers ‘soft underbelly’
          The Yalta conference was so badly handled that it’s still controversial to this day, it resulted in a three day debate in the house of commons culminating in a no confidence vote in Churchills leadership – not the only one he faced during the war.

          Hindsight is a wonderful thingand we should judge in context, but we should be able to present the truth in a disspassionate manner free from political bias regardless of the past reputation of the people concerned.

             2 likes

          • Mat says:

            ‘soft underbelly’ sorry this one annoys me the failure of the operation in Italy to close the campaign quickly falls squarely on the appalling behavior on US General Mark Clark who like Paton , Stilwell and Ernest King lost many allied live through vanity and Anglophoba

               8 likes

          • Alison says:

            “I really wish people would leave emotive language out of threads like this.”

            You mean words like “hopeless”?

               3 likes

          • Andy S. says:

            Churchill’s “soft underbelly” plan was achievable and strategically clever. The road to Rome was open when the Anzio landings took the Germans completely by surprise. It was the timidity of U.S. General Lucas who preferred to consolidate his bridgehead instead of sending his forces onward to occupy Rome.This was despite accurate intelligence he received that the way to Rome was practically undefended.

            His reluctance to advance gave Kesselring time to push reinforcements forward and prevent an allied advance. It was the Yanks who were responsible for the failure of the Anzio landings and the resultant deaths of thousands of Allied personnel.

            It may also be noted that when British troops were advancing on Rome. that supreme publicity seeker, General Mark Clarke, threatened to fire on any British forces that tried to enter the “Eternal City” as he wanted the “honour” of being the first Allied General to be seen liberating the Roman citizens from the Nazis.

            Remember Churchill’s views on the outcome of the Anzio landings _ (I paraphrase, but I hope it’s reasonably accurate) ” I assumed we would be throwing a tiger against the Nazis, instead we ended up with a beached whale.”

               2 likes

      • John Wood says:

        It’s amazing how so many people on Blogs know ‘The Truth’ about something. perhaps you might wish to enlighten us about his poor war record.

        ‘The Truth’ is that Hitler should have won the war

           7 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          It’s all been aired in the discussions surrounding Alanbrooke’s diaries: if Churchill favoured a more roundabout ‘Balkan’ strategy (the soft underbelly) strategic approach, it doesn’t matter because McArthur called the shots and he insisted on a Clausewitzian engagement of the enemy’s main force in Northern Europe. Even the Dodecanese campaign, the failure of which some have laid at Churchill’s door, was partly (it could be argued – to use a BBC phrase) the result of American refusal to divert their air power in that direction.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecanese_Campaign

             8 likes

          • wallygreeninker says:

            oops -For ‘McArthur’ above read ‘Marshall’

               6 likes

            • John wood says:

              Well D Day happened on the same day as the Liberation of Rome and there were tremendous logistical and technical difficulties crossing over to Le Havre peninsula – so you can understand why WLS Churchill would have preferred coming up from the South.

              D-day was a very near thing. If it had failed (there weren’t sufficient barges for a fast evacuation should the enemy’s response been effective – as it would have been were it not for Fortitude North and Fortitude South and other deception measures) then the war would have lasted for at least another 12 months as the allies recuperated (not to mention the fact that the German’s would have been more alert as to the possibilities)

                 6 likes

    • DJ says:

      And then there’s the question of how the BBC would react if a conservative organisation started pushing a bogus historical narrative that traces its roots back to Goebbels his own rotten self?

      You never hear the end of it if UKIP started borrowing Nazi talking points.

         14 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Wasn`t he brilliant?
      Webb the lettuce introduced him as a man due to be executed in Dresden….but the bloody British saved him from death, by firebombing the place.
      So-a true Beeboid, and by no means a thankful and grateful bastard…the Nazis should have “chopped him up” to use his parlance…and sent him back to Lord Haw Haws radio ship.
      Which got new livery and calls itself the BBC these days.
      Victor Gregg?…hardly Michael Burleigh or David Starkey is he?….but emotes like Webb at any of his dads retirement do`s.
      Gregg of course has got a book out….free white flag with the first four copies…

         15 likes

      • Mat says:

        Funny how those who use this attack as a war crime tend to also have issues with Israel today ! and seem reticent when you mention the Wannsee conference on 20 January 1942 where in 2 hours the fate of 11+ million Jews +anyone else they didn’t like was decided, funny as we evil war mongers gave the Germans the tools and help to rebuild oh nasty us ! but they if we had left them alone they were planing to kill millions more !what is even odder is the BBC put up some cash for the brilliant HBO film ‘conspiracy ‘? that must be embarrassing !!lol

           6 likes

  6. David Lamb says:

    Can I predict BBC bias? So far no mention on the BBC about the invitation to Marine le Pen to speak at the Cambridge Union on 19 February. Trouble is brewing as the Association of Black Students (is there one for white students?) are objecting and are being sponsored by Cameron’s pals in the UAF, who have called for a demonstration against giving her a platform. Could be a riot, or will Cameron ban the meeting? Worth watching the BBC’s reporting of this event.

    http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Education/Universities/Far-right-politician-and-editor-join-union-line-up-12022013.htm

       36 likes

  7. thoughtful says:

    Today is the first day of Lent – a time of fasting and reflection for Christians the world over, a holy month not that you’d know that from the bBC output who haven’t even deigned to mention it.

    Please bear this in mind when in July Ramadan comes around again and you won’t be able to turn on a bBC receiver without hearing all about.

    Please feel free to write to the governors controlers MPs and who ever else about this proveable inexcusable bias from an organisation which cares nothing about white people & their religion & culture.

       45 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Maybe the horse/beef/halal/pork stuff is a Catholic plot to make us all avoid meat on Fridays-as well as during this Lent season.
      Shall we consider it a blessing…I think that I will.
      I`ll try and find a local BBC outlet to get me to say this!

         7 likes

  8. Elesdee says:

    Thoughtful- not to be nit-picking as I agree with you, but claiming that christianity is a white people religion is part of the problem. The religion is very widely spread and was in places like India before it ever hit the west. And as we know it began in the middle east. The BBC tend to blame christianity (wrongly) for all the west’s evils but it’s older than that and had been a force for good in the east and west.

       12 likes

    • stewart says:

      But liberal inquisition,and BBC in particular, view it as a ‘white religion’ hence their unremitting animus.

         18 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Elesdee, I’m not actuall suggesting that Christianity is a ‘white peoples religion’ however it is the majority religion of white people.
        You need to pay regard to how the twisted liberal left wing mind works with this. Before the invention of ‘Islamophobia’ or Islamorealism as I call it the loonies on the left decided that an attack on Islam was a ‘racist’ (what ever that means this week) crime as all Moslems were ethnic, usually labours favourite brown eyed boys the Pakistanis.
        Hence religion is conflated with race in the left wing mind & that is why it’s important in this context.

           18 likes

  9. George R says:

    “Stephen Fry’s Bafta performance fails to impress BBC veterans”

    http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/stephen-frys-bafta-performance-fails-to-impress-bbc-veterans-29067284.html

       11 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      His gay sex innuendo (care with the spelling, there) on QI is repulsive, even more so when I know my teenage granddaughters watch the programme.

         10 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        I recently started watching a bunch of episodes of this on YouTube, and while I’ve mostly really enjoyed it, I have noticed that every single one is filled with sexual innuendos and outright penis gags. It’s a show for adults, after the watershed, I know, but it can be tedious. A lot of it – including many quips about Fry’s homosexual preferences – is down to the panelists and not Fry himself, but because sexual and sexuality humor has become so much a part of his schtick these days it’s an easy way to get laughs from the very progressive studio audience.

        The last one I watched was an older episode with Jeremy Vine’s unfunny brother and the lame Rob Brydon. The panel were asked to prepare a limerick for some thematic reason which I’ve forgotten. Brydon and Vine came up with weak stuff making fun of each other, and Fry closed the show with a recitation of a limerick about a choir director lusting after a young boy’s buttocks. Oh, how they all laughed, ain’t he a national treasure. It’s funny because it’s true, eh? Oops…..

           16 likes

      • pah says:

        What is it with gay comedians? They seem to think that is all they have to offer – jokes about anal sex and choir boys. Perhaps it is the only type of gay comedian the media, especially the BBC, will let us see.

        Is it really beyond the wit of Fry, Norton and co to tell jokes that aren’t crude? Surely there must be a gay comedian that can manage that?

           6 likes

        • Scott M says:

          “What is it with gay comedians? They seem to think that is all they have to offer – jokes about anal sex and choir boys.”

          Or maybe those are just the ones that people like you pick out to work yourself up into a frenzy about?

             2 likes

          • pah says:

            Whose in a frenzy sweetie?

            Name two that don’t.

               4 likes

            • pah says:

              That’s ‘who’s’

                 1 likes

            • Scott M says:

              Pretty much every gay comedian makes jokes on a wide range of topics, including their own life experiences. And some of that may include references to relationships and sex, just as straight comedians may make references to their own experiences.

              So there’s no point providing a list of comedians that meets your spurious criteria: it’s a list of all c

                 0 likes

      • Alison says:

        Seems to be the latest attempt to “push the envelope”.

        Accepting gays is one thing, but I don’t want to be confronted by their sexual practices or the medical conditions which arise.

        A step too far.

           9 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      agreed – Fry is tedious enough without all the cock up the arse jokes at the BAFTAs.

      Utter embarrassment.

      Yes, Stephen, the actors are roaring with laughter but they are actors.

         21 likes

    • Reed says:

      Stephen Pollard…

      At points on Sunday night, it seemed as if it was all merely a sideshow to what Mr Fry believed to be the main event: namely, Stephen Fry. Every award was introduced with the same elaborately ponderous faux-wit – moderately amusing once, but simply tiresome on repeated hearing.

      There must, I suppose, be someone who still finds his “look at me, I know all sorts of words and can speak in contrived sentences” excuse for wit still amusing. In fact, I know there is. More than one person, as it happens. And, to Mr Fry’s good fortune, they happen to commission TV programmes. Because no matter what the channel or subject, there he is.

      http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephenpollard/100202457/a-bit-of-fry-has-become-a-lorryload-enough/

         5 likes

  10. David Brims says:

    Horse or beef ? I don’t know how anyone can tell the difference, since all that processed food tastes like wall paper paste.

       8 likes

  11. uncle bup says:

    One for the This Is What Four Billion Quid A Year Buys You slot.

    Jolly hockey sticks 5 Dead presenter Anna Foster…

    ‘The search for Christopher Dorner has widened considerably. It started in California and now it’s down near the Mexican border.’

    Anna, luv, take a look at an atlas, there’s a good girl.

    Dreadfulshire, Bacon, Gameshow Nikki, Shelagh Eekamouse, Emily Titless, Raworth, Poly Williams et al et al – all a result of the BBC’s ‘human resources’ policy where they hire some thickie to go and fetch the coffees and eventually, after a decade or so, feel obliged to promote them.

       32 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I wonder if a few Beeboids in the US weren’t annoyed that the man went up in flames in predictable suicide-by-cop fashion right in the middle of the SOTU, potentially upstaging their beloved Obamessiah’s big night.

         13 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      They promote them when they get too old to shag.

         6 likes

  12. David Brims says:

    It’s gone very quiet on the Jimmy Savile front, you may say it was 6 months ago, well, Stephen Lawrence was 20 years ago and the BBC is still talking about that, aren’t they ?

    Came across this gushing BBC tribute to Savile, it features the one and only Nicky ” I joined Radio One the week after Savile left ” Campbell.

    Nicky Campbell does a chimp like impression of Savile and says

    ” In 1987 I joined Radio One, I spent a couple of hours with Jimmy. He took me to one side and said ” Young man, you have just attained the keys to open the Bank of England.”

    Hmm, so Campbell was telling lies that he never met him.

    The Campbell clips are at 14.15 and 21.50 and 28.20

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHzvBQNFwsY

       26 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      ‘It’s gone very quiet on the Jimmy Savile front…’

      Let’s see how they can hush this one up….

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21440827

      “Jimmy Savile estate and BBC sued over alleged abuse”

      Vicky Derbyshire asked the victims’ lawyer this morning two out of character questions…

      ‘How come you are not sueing the NHS?’

      ‘So this is about compensation?’

      Backs to the wall luvs!

         28 likes

    • noggin says:

      “my life – governed by my fun – nothing wrong with a bit of fun – every days christmas day – every nights new years eve”
      jimmy sovile

      the “Dame” – all this i entered, he left, – in one door out the other palava.
      😀 deliberate … just the right chap to depend on eh! …

      in a few years he ll be on, chatting to some “panto” worshipper about how he stood all alone at the al bbc speaking out, about all these facist islamic terrorists, that are now taking over. … self serving smug tw-t!

         6 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        Campbell is – to put it mildly – being somewhat selective with the truth. He previously implied his only meeting with Savile was at a BBC staff party where everyone waited for Savile to arrive as if he were royalty. Campbell said Savile eventually arrived, held court for a while and then left. No mention of this ‘couple of hours with Savile’. Campbell has also claimed that BBC colleagues believed Savile to be a ‘sexless eccentric’.

        It is worth recording these statements as the story develops.

        Already there has been quite an epidemic of amnesia at the Beeb.

        Michael Palin ‘forgot’ that he had appeared on the same edition of Parkinson with Savile.

        Michael Aspel ‘forgot’ that he hosted an edition of This Is Your Life featuring Savile.

        Gosh that Jimmy Savile must have been quite a forgettable chap.

           14 likes

  13. AsISeeIt says:

    Bias, a case in point.

    The Blair Government’s anti-fox hunting laws represented an important symbolic social and political event and the issue continues to signify a cultural battle that goes far beyond the practical importance or implications of the actual legislation.

    Where should the BBC stand on this? Support the law as it stands of course. But the BBC are more than happy to criticise certain of our laws (on drugs euthanasia etc etc).

    The banning of hunting with dogs – this was the victory of town over country, of environmental sentiment over history and tradition. Be in doubt the Left hais this as a class victory. It was one in the eye for what they see as old fashioned British toffs.

    So when a fox is reported as having attacked a child and when Boris Johnson gives voice to the anxieties of many Londoners that actually Mr Fox is not quite so cuddly as the liberals would have us believe…..

    Then of course the BBC do what they always do; they feel the need to redress the balance of comment and indeed sentiment back toward the left.

    This week Nicky Campbell almost instantly provided a platform for BBC man Chris Packham to shed doubt on the story as related by the parents.

    Here is his Twitter and some examples of his fox-love…

    Neil Phillips ‏@UK_Wildlife

    @ChrisGPackham I did some maths and in the UK you are 62 times more likely to be bitten by another human than a fox! http://www.uk-wildlife.co.uk/fox-attack-stories-and-the-numbers/

    10 Feb Chris Packham Chris Packham ‏@ChrisGPackham

    @UK_Wildlife Top stat . Ill use it !

    Chris Packham ‏@ChrisGPackham

    This piece by a real Fox expert , Stephen Harris , hits a nail on the head http://j.mp/YPE60s
    Hide summary

    Stop hounding Britain’s urban foxes

    Stephen Harris: Drummed up by the hunting lobby, news reports of giant, baby-threatening foxes are little more than myths and nonsense

    On Campbell’s show Packham went further. He said forensic evidence would have to be produced before he would take the parents’ story seriously.

    The by product of this foxy-love and of a BBC man casting doubt on the honesty of the parents seems to have been a hate campaign agaist this distressed family….

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cull-the-foxes-demand-family-forced-to-move-house-after-attack-on-fiveweekold-boy-8492552.html

    “The family, who have been attacked by internet “trolls” over the incident, believe the front door was left ajar when Mr Dolan left to collect Ms Cawley’s two other children Ellouise, nine, and five-year-old Lee from school, and slammed it shut, meaning the latch did not catch.”

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/parents-blamed-fox-to-save-family-pet-from-being-put-down-online-trolls-false-claims-about-attack-on-baby-boy-8491508.html

    “The family revealed their distress was made worse by outrageous internet comments attacking them. Ms Banks Cawley’s stepfather, David Slack, said: “The things people are putting online about Paul and Hayley, it’s unbelievable. It’s just terrifying. There is no thought for the parents at all, about what they’re going through.”

    “Callous comments posted on various online forums have labelled the parents “chavs” and falsely suggested they blamed a fox for the horrific injuries to avoid having a pet dog put down.”

    “That explanation was dismissed by “trolls”, one of whom even mocked a picture of Denny issued after his operation. Mr Dolan posted the picture of the injured baby on Facebook with the tag “my poor boy”. But a troll posted: “Ha ha!! What a ridiculous story! That child’s bandage looks even more ridiculous…. save this for April 1st!”

    So Chris Packham I reckon you are personally responsible for stoking up this hate campaign and BBC you are responsible for giving this supposed nature expert (in fact a political activist with an animal theme) the free rein to spout his hate because he fits your political agenda.

       21 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Certainly , in such a case, Mr. Packham may have been better advised to err on what was known, and proven, as opposed to pushing a notion he could no more support than any other, to back an agenda.
      But then, that’s not really the BBC way any more, is it?
      Shoot first, apologise insincerely later, then get promoted.

         7 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      The Disneyfication of the killing machine that is the fox continues as ‘expert’ after ‘expert’ is dragged before the microphone by the BBC to explain what peaceable cuddly creatures they are.

      Try telling that to a couple of young kids who have seen their pet rabbits dragged from their hutch and torn apart by the ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’.

      The country gets more surreal by the day.

         16 likes

    • Reed says:

      Perhaps Mr. Bacon will do a follow up programme in which he examines the broadcast media’s culpability in encouraging ‘trolls’ to engage in campaigns of ‘hate’ against innocent people.

      Probably not…wrong kind of victims, wrong kind of issue, wrong kind of aggressor.

         5 likes

    • pah says:

      This happened last time a fox attacked a child in London.

      It is typical of the way the left treat ordinary people when they hold inconvenient truths. Violence, verbal and physical are the only offerings the left has for the working man.

         2 likes

  14. Glen Slagg says:

    Oh-oh! It’s those naughty militants!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21437938

    They’ve blown up and shot people but don’t qualify as terrorists. Still what difference does it make? (c)Hilldog

    But the report is somewhat deficient. I don’t know anything about the politics of Thailand but according to the article most people are Buddhists and some are Muslims…..but what faction do these “militants” represent? What are these “militants” fighting for? Are they conservative Buddhists gone postal? Probably but it doesn’t say anywhere in the article. Either poor reporting or bias by omission.
    I wonder which?

       12 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Don’t be unfair. The ‘M’ word occurs at the end of the tenth paragraph. They clearly didn’t have room to add background about similar, if not worse, behaviour of Muslim minorities in the Philippines and the likelihood of much the same thing happening in Northern Burma and N. E. India in the near future.

         10 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      “More than 5,000 people have been killed since a decades-old separatist campaign reignited in the Muslim-majority region in 2004.”

      It doesn’t matter where in the world you go wherever Moslems meet another religion there’s violence, even with peaceful Buddhism. It doesn’t stop them even when the state is enormous and doesn’t care about human rights very much, as the Uighurs in China prove.

         9 likes

  15. Aerfen says:

    Currently on Radio Four, Afternoon Propaganda Drama, a nineteen year old Iranian homosexual is about to be deported. If only!

       21 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Was it a Hans Christian Anderson Fairytale ? because no one gets deported.

         16 likes

      • Aerfen says:

        Grimm fairy tale more like!

           11 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Loads of them fail the appeal process I think the figure is over 80% but then when it comes to removing them from the UK nothing much seems to happen.

        This is like so many of the Labour governments public sector managements, what I call facades, they appear to shallow scrutiny to actually be working, and many are there only to fulfill a legal requirement, but they don’t actually do anything!

        The program was flawed because you don’t get a second bite of the cherry just because a witness changes their mind & decides to give evidence.

           9 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      And on ‘Doctors’, the lunchtime soap (I know, I know*), following the heartwarming lesbian themes on Monday, a romantically-inclined middle-aged bloke proposes to the new love of his life only to discover ‘she’ used to be a ‘he’, and as the transformation wasn’t fully completed ‘she’ still had ‘bits’ where she shouldn’t have.

      To think when I was a kid it used to be ‘Watch with Mother’ and the Flowerpot Men on at that time.

      (*Makes the time pass a bit more quickly at the gym.)

         22 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Would “Doctors “care to bid to replace the mid-Staffs schutzstaffel I wonder?
        They could not do any worse…and must have learned something about medicine during their years of…er “acting”

           13 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Next time the Iranians string a couple of them up, can we say they’re merely “deporting them to heaven”?

         10 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        I caught a bit of this play and thought I heard the young asylum seeker describing a homosexual being hung from a crane in his home country.

        I’m confused, BBC. Is it unequivocally the ‘religion of peace’ or in part some barbaric throwback to the middle ages which persecutes gays?

           12 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        The thing is that the Iranians haven’t executed anyone for being gay in an age, although the punishment theoretically remain on their statue book.
        There’s another problem too, and that’s the burden of proof required, four righteous men have to witness the act, which begs the question what on earth four ‘righteous’ men were doing watching it ! If anyone knowing this is stupid enough to have gay sex in a place where they might be seen then I guess they have it comming to them. Note that this act in public would also be illegal in most countries.

        So it’s yet another flaw in a play written to an agenda and without any knowledge of the real facts.

           5 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          Check out the section on capital punishment:

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iran

          Then get lost

             2 likes

          • wallygreeninker says:

            Apologies for that last line -perhaps it was a little intemperate.

               3 likes

          • thoughtful says:

            Don’t forget that this evidence is often ‘found’ by people looking for it, i.e. with an agenda. Since 1990 there have been very few executions, and those which there have been often contain other charges, or political motivation.
            Don’t forget that the press is controlled in Iran and what is reported is not necessarily the truth.

               1 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              ‘Don’t forget that the press is controlled in Iran and what is reported is not necessarily the truth.’

              You know, that rings a bell. Now what was it I came on here for…….?

                 3 likes

            • Guest Who says:

              ‘evidence is often ‘found’ by people looking for it, i.e. with an agenda.
              …the press is controlled … and what is reported is not necessarily the truth.’

              Words to treasure indeed.

                 4 likes

            • Alison says:

              Depends what you mean by “very few”. IMO there have been quite a lot – mostly for rape and drug dealing.

                 2 likes

        • Aerfen says:

          In that case no asylum seekers should be accepted from Iran on the basis of homosexuality. Frankly I dont think asylum seekers should be accepted from anywhere on this basis. They choose to be sexually active, even though they don’t choose their sexuality, and since there are countries in the world that would accept them as immigrants, they should just lie low until such time as they can seek work in another more tolerant country, not creating a ‘crisis’ as an excuse to enter Britain easily and be mollycoddled, as refugees are.

             7 likes

        • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

          Do you get your inside information from the Tehran office of Amnesty International? I’m sure the mad mullahs could keep stuff like this to themselves.

             3 likes

  16. Richard D says:

    And now we have a wonderful local paramedic rushing to commend Julie Bailey, the lady who may well have started the investigation which eventually divulged so much about Stafford Hospital…

    Well, maybe ‘commend’ is too strong a word…. as the paramedic, Murph Guest, wrote on facebook to the lady …

    ‘Julie Bailey, I hope you suffer a life threatening illness at night where you have to travel further than you should do because your local hospital is closed (your fault).’

    Mate, I’m pretty certain she’d be delighted to go right past the hospital with the direct link from the entrance door to the mortuary…and hopefully someone will see to it that you personally won’t be driving her, or anyone else, to any hospital, with an attitude like that.

       30 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Murph Guest?…a caring paramedic, currently in the employ of the NHS?
      Should lose its job….or at least be sent around the country to show why the likes of mid-Staffs not only happens, but is willed by those it employs.
      Muck out the barn!

         22 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Women of the Year!
      Melanie Phillips
      Janet Daley
      Julie Bailey
      Heather Brooke
      Dionne Warwick,
      Carol Hill
      Margaret Thatcher
      Ann Coulter
      Sarah Palin.
      Ruth Lea

         24 likes

      • Reed says:

        Good list – but I’d replace Palin and Coulter with Ann Leslie and Erin Pizzey.

        …with a special mention for Sue Cameron for this considerable contribution to the national debate over the EU…

           9 likes

    • Frank Words says:

      I expect “Murph Guest” (sic) is a member of the “nice” party – Labour – and a paid up member of Unison.

      I also expect he either has forgetten or isn’t interested in all the hospitals closed by Labour when they were in power (or are still in power in Wales).

      Just to read the comments of these self righteous gits pn twitter is enough to convince me they are not merely nasty. They are depraved.

         18 likes

      • chrisH says:

        And those Unison/Labour scum would berate Margaret Thatcher for not using their NHS.
        They would kill her-then get Francis or similar to say that no-one is to blame…and this is not a time for scapegoats.
        How on earth did we end up with the likes of Murph….was he one of Shipmans apprentices or something?

           13 likes

        • Frank Words says:

          I recall two Labour Party members who last year wished and Conservative Conference would be bombed and Margaret Thatcher would burn in hell (Sunderland councillor Florence Anderson) and another who wished Mrs Thatcher would go blind (Tameside councillor Ann Holland).

          Just worth remembering them…

             21 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      “Hospital whistle-blower Julie Bailey has become the target of hate mail and death threats…..the Labour Party were forced to apologise to Ms Bailey after a video appeared on their website joking about her dying.”

      http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/stafford-hospital-whistle-blower-receives-98219

         13 likes

  17. johnnythefish says:

    Join the dots:

    1. Obama announces in his State of the Union address that he will do more to tackle climate change.

    2. BBC lunchtime news reports* an Obama intiative to agree new trading agreements with Europe.

    3. Manuel Barroso in THAT acceptance speech for you-know-what: ‘This federalist vision is one of the most important contributions the EU can make to a global order in the making’.

    * Hailed by our impartial newsreader (yes, the newsreader not the correspondent) as ‘positive news’. Bias? About as biased as a bowling wood doing a 180 degree turn.

       24 likes

    • Number 7 says:

      There will be much wailing and gnashing in the newsroom. Those nasty republicans have thrown a spanner in the works and the Obamessiah’s great cause has been disrupted.

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/13/new-bill-to-limit-ipcc-funding-from-usa/#more-79546

      Wait for the denunciations on PM.

         15 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        ‘…emails publicly released from a university in England showed that leading global scientists intentionally manipulated climate data and suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals. Researchers were asked to delete and destroy emails so that a small number of scientists could continue to advance their environmental agenda. Since that time, more than 700 acclaimed scientists have challenged claims made by IPCC.’

        Presumably that’s 700 who aren’t part of ‘the consensus’ then.

           22 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Probably all in the pay of Big Oil. Isn’t that right, BBC science correspondents?

             13 likes

  18. lojolondon says:

    I saw this and thought – apart from the obvious ( taxpayers money being used to defend the BBC and in the end to plead guilty and pay damages) – that this private prosecution could be far more effective at digging out the collusion than us amateurs have been so far!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9867564/Lawyers-suing-BBC-and-Jimmy-Savile-estate-over-sex-abuse-issue-High-Court-writ.htm

       10 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Link seems down?

         1 likes

    • +james says:

      And this story was not mentioned on the BBC News at Six.

      More coverup?

         6 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      I’ve seen several articles in the media recently related to Leveson and the hacking scandal, and many to do with the horsemeat found in beef products. The Savile scandal, which I believe is worse than both of the above by far, seems to have dropped off the radar. It goes to show how powerful the media is in shaping the day to day behaviour of its followers, who follow the stream like sheep.

      So it’s good to see that some of those who suffered the abuse by Savile are not so willing to ‘let it go’ because the media is not running with it, and are still looking for some sort of compensation.

      I hope it runs it to the £millions, and causes our spineless politicians to take more action than they have so far.

         12 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      About now, a Flokker gris would be wondering what this had to do with BBC bias.
      Ooo, look… a squirrel…!

         5 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Perhaps you might like to find the story on the bBC news website, because although it’s been carried on PM and is on other news sites, it is conspiuous by it’s abscence on the bBCs. (that is at the time of writing)

           4 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Compare the hissy fits of “sexist maan!” type probings and whinnying from the BBC when THEIR “person” is being got at ( Angela Eagle, or her twin)..by posh boy Cameron-compare that with the “can`t you take a joke/compliment” type of line as exemplified by Eddie Mair(P.M tonight), when asking some body image MP(Tory, of course….boo, humourless cow) about Vaz and his Twitter.
      Not that I care a jot-but the BBC bias and double standards, two-faced “critiques” of their “news” is pretty obvious and is sickening.

         12 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Just put it down to envy – Vaz obviously has a pie problem.

         6 likes

  19. Pounce says:

    So has anybody seen this bBC news article.
    Waltham Forest to issue £80 on-the-spot spitting fines
    A north-east London council has introduced on-the-spot fines for spitting and urinating in the street. Waltham Forest said its enforcement officers were to start issuing fixed penalty notices for them in same way they sometimes do for littering. The council believes it is the first local authority in the UK to introduce on-the-spot fines for spitting.Councillor Clyde Loakes said it brought in the policy after residents complained about the problem.

    So the question you must be asking is just who is doing the spitting. Common amongst Asian people is this bad habit of spitting. Amongst the people of the Indian sub continent is this habit of chewing a kind of nut, leaves and a paste which results in a dark red saliva . This is spat out and stains the area it has landed on red. is is also known as Pa’an I quote wiki :
    Paan is a ubiquitous sight in many parts of India and Southeast Asia. It is known as beeda in Hindi and vetrrilai or thambulum in Tamil, killi or tambulam in (Telugu), sireh (in Malay language), sirih (in Indonesian), suruh (in Javanese), mark (ໝາກ) in Lao, and bulath (in Sri Lanka). In urban areas, chewing paan is generally considered a nuisance because some chewers spit the paan out in public areas – compare chewing gum ban in Singapore and smoking ban. The red stain generated by the combination of ingredients when chewed are known to make a colourful stain on the ground. This is becoming an unwanted eyesore in Indian cities such as Mumbai, although many see it as an integral part of Indian culture. This is also common in some of the Persian Gulf countries, such as the UAE and Qatar, where many Indians live. Recently, the Dubai government has banned the import and sale of paan and the like
    http://khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=theuae&xfile=data/theuae/2008/october/theuae_october191.xml

       9 likes

    • Pounce says:

      But just in case somebody wants to play the racist card with me, here is something the bBC made earlier (3 years ago)
      on the very same subject:
      Paan spitting clampdown launched by Brent Council
      A north-west London council is cracking down on people spitting a tobacco leaf-based mixture called paan because it is staining pavements.Brent Council said the amount of paan being spat on the streets of Wembley has dramatically increased. When it dries, the mixture leaves a dark red, blood-like stain which is difficult and costly to remove. The council is planning an education campaign about the problems of paan spitting, which carries an £80 fine.

      Hang on the article from today has this to say:
      “The council believes it is the first local authority in the UK to introduce on-the-spot fines for spitting.”
      It seems that the person who wrote that doesn’t know how to search on google. But if you look at the top article about spitting it points in the direction of white sportsmen and women.

      I take it the bBC have made a mistake here, which they will rectify in the near future.

         16 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        The BBC doesn’t have to make the effort to look it up, apparently. They just asked the Department for Communities and Local Government, who didn’t bother to look it up either. “We asked the authority, and they didn’t know, so we don’t have to bother now.”

        I blame the budge cuts and the poor management structure.

           12 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        I lived next door to a paan shop on Wembley in the ’80s. The pavement ouside it was covered in wonderfully diverse and vibrant dark brown/reddish stains. The simple solution would be to make the business responsible for cleaning it.

           15 likes

  20. George R says:

    More Beeboid censorship, of Beeboids:-

    ‘Guardian’-

    “Paxman criticism of BBC on Savile scandal to be redacted.

    “Evidence given by Newsnight presenter to Pollard inquiry to be removed from published transcripts.”

    By Tara Conlan.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/13/bbc-jeremy-paxman-savile-scandal?

       12 likes

    • John wood says:

      I like the comment in the article
      “One insider said: “Lord Patten wants total transparency. But it is going to bring the whole issue up again. People were speaking frankly when they gave evidence.””

         11 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        What’s the betting that most of the stuff being redacted will be the key information on which the Pollard inquiry judgments were made?

           10 likes

        • Ian Hills says:

          Reminds me of Hutton’s fake inquest into the murder of David Kelly, another “internal” inquiry. (Terms were dictated by the government, not Parliament.)

             9 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘Jeremy Paxman spoke freely when giving evidence to the Pollard inquiry, as it was not known at the time that the material would be published’
      Interesting precedent implied, especially when referring to a bloke who is tasked to hold others to account, on what one presumes is a basis that they are there to speak freely and honestly.
      Is the BBC held, and allowed to hold itself to a unique, other standard.
      If so, why?

         6 likes

  21. Teddy Bear says:

    I followed the Archers for a brief time back in the 80’s but never had real interest in it. I know it’s come in to a lot of criticism recently, one to do with plans to make it more ‘multicultural’ in line with society. For a small farming village in England its clear the writers are stretching it somewhat to put that in it.

    But it does have a following, and the BBC has been running a message board where those interested could post comments on a particular show. It appears that recent ones have attracted quite a bit of criticism. Even according to the BBC, the message board attracts 10,000 views with 1000 regulars posting there, although it doesn’t say over what period of time. But with the recent criticism the BBC response has been to notify everybody that ‘due to lack of traffic’ they will be closing the boards.

    If the BBC were being true to their charter they should welcome the attention their show receives, as well as taking on board any criticism those who pay for their programme have.

    But that’s not how the BBC operates. They prefer to stifle the criticism under some pretext. Clearly many of those who have been regular contributors are upset by the BBC action, and I have to say – I’m glad. More people will wake up to what the BBC are really about.

    Ambridge umbrage! Archers fans are up in arms as BBC ‘censors’ criticism of racy plotlines

       14 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      The Archers along with womans hour is one of the most politically correct affected programs of the stations output.
      The wealthy characters are made to be evil, uncaring except for money, minorities are introduced on a baffling scale unrepresentative of anywhere in the UK, and everyone gets along without a cross word between them.
      This is the rose tinted politically correct paradise the left in London believe they are creating for us, and cannot understand our ingratitude when we complain. They cannot comprehend that real life is very different from their fantasy world, and always blame the same people for not acheiving that fantasy.

         17 likes

  22. chrisH says:

    Don`t bother my arse looking at BBC news anymore to be honest.
    Still-have they given any prominence to the Courts decision not to reject last years GCSE grades.
    The case was brought by unions, Labour types in the hope of trashing the Coalition…well Gove….yet again.
    Indeed Evan Davis was drooling about it on the Today show-you know..got the Tory scum on the run and all that.
    But The Government won…will the BBC be running wild with this one as they they did over Poundland, Qatada and all?
    Or is this “unelected judges slapping the court of public opinion with a fey limp hankie”?….
    Hard to say…not having seen the news, I myself cannot imagine how the BBC will play this one!
    Do tell-and will the BBC be telling us when we hit that target of 100 claimants for compo over Saviles Travels whilst nested at the BBC….come on…surely we can seek a few more victims if institutional abuse by those unelected, unaccountable, hideously white privately educated nonces and perverts with their tax fiddles and stuff?
    At least the Pope WAS voted in….as opposed to the Masons of the Gramscian Order who give us Patten and …well Savile I guess!

       13 likes

  23. wallygreeninker says:

    Weird bit of hysteria on the Bakerloo Line today – it’s obvious the passengers feared another 7/7 but how idiotic they were being it’s difficult to say. In the semi-Kafkaesque world of public information created by journalists, the police and definitely by the BBC, we’ll probably never know.

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/chanting-man-sparks-panic-on-bakerloo-line-train-at-charing-cross-8492986.html

       10 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      But, as charlie stayt would ask: what did he look like?

         7 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      One of the comments posted on the article was by somebody that was there, and this is what he had to say.
      Actually, the guy was walking from carriage to carriage, with what appeared to be an open book of some sort in his hands, clearly saying something as he moved down the carriage. Quite what he was saying, I have no idea as I had my headphones in as I always do. I can only assume he got to the very front carriage and had nowhere left to go and continued doing whatever he was doing.
      In terms of suffering dementia, he seemed relatively sane. By this I mean there was nothing untowards about his appearance and certainly was not homeless .
      I think, given the circumstances, it is not an irrational action that was taken by whoever pulled the emergency stop lever. Certainly, much better to be cautious than complacent and suffer the consequences.

      I think in today’s day and age, the response by the public was understandable, and most of us would have done the same. Why would anybody think that behaving in such a way would be deemed ‘normal’?

      Shows that when it comes down to it, people are not buying the ‘multiculturalism’ that the BBC wants to sell them. As soon as they feel their lives are in danger -screw that.

         13 likes

      • Pounce says:

        After the tube bombings in 2005, I caught the tube at Finchley Central and on hopping on board I (as did everybody else noticed that sat in the middle of the carriage was a woman covered head to toe in Islamic garb.) I (as did everybody else, moved on into another carriage leaving Muslim features on her own.
        I wonder how the bBC would report that little incident if they wanted to?

           22 likes

        • Teddy Bear says:

          I also recall a man travelling on the tube with an Asian appearance after 7/7. He had a tee-shirt with the words written: Relax – I’m a Sikh

          Now that’s what I call integration.

             24 likes

          • Reed says:

            According to the BBC, all those terrorists/extremists/militants are ‘Asian’, so being a Sikh wouldn’t necessarily have excluded him.

            BBC = racists!

               15 likes

        • Llew says:

          Gets you a seat in a crowded carriage though.

             9 likes

        • Deborah says:

          At the same time, to ensure that the Police couldn’t be accused of racial profiling, a friend’s mother, aged 83 and from Germany (but had lived in London for 60 years), 5’2″ had to be searched as she got off the tube at Finchley.

             12 likes

  24. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Blatant propaganda at the start of the One Show tonight. Horsemeat is in British food because environmental health departments have had their funding cut ‘since 2009’ (pause for viewers subliminally to think ‘Tory cuts’).
    No mention of the fact that Labour stopped the Food Standards Agency checking for horsemeat in British food in 2003.

       26 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      The EU decides what kind of meat can be eaten. Bet they didn’t report that either.

      http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/eu-horseplay.html

         14 likes

    • Llew says:

      This is the problem. I don’t think I’ve heard any Tory say that. on the BBC or elsewhere. Maybe they have, but they aren’t getting their message across very well and as usual and with the help of the BBC, it is only the Labour version of events that we hear.

         3 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

        I wonder if the Conservatives are being complacent, having seen the results of the YouGov opinion poll (1,946 people polled, 12-13 February) that only 3% blame the government, way behind 49% meat processing companies, 20% food manufacturing companies, 10% supermarkets, 8% the Food Standards Agency. So in political terms, at the moment it is probably a non-story, despite the media hype.

           3 likes

  25. Mavis Ramsbottom says:

    Newsnight 13/02/13….a party political broadcast for the Labour party

       10 likes

  26. johnnythefish says:

    North West News today doing a feature on the ‘horsemeat scandal’, even though it had been covered ad nauseam, then ad nauseam again, on the main news. Lots of coverage of local butchers seling only locally-sourced meat – you know, burgers at a tenner each and beef at 3 thousand quid a pound. Our young female correspondent wistfully wonders whether everybody should buy their meat in this way to avoid the uncertainties exposed by ‘the scandal’.

    Where do they get these imbeciles from?

       13 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘Where do they get these imbeciles from?’
      Guessing those even Poundland can’t employ.
      During the plastic bag banning frenzy I recall one who cheerfully shared her lifestyle solution since she was a gel, and that was to pedal the old bicycle around, filling its wicker pannier with fresh veg and meats from rosy-cheeked retailers who offered such a service inclusive in the slight premium such Islington establishments tend to be able to garner from their clientele. Even her milk was delivered by cow to her door.
      Her next piece was a bit of travel fluff funded by the 5* eco resort in Peru that she was ‘testing out’.

         7 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      One interviewee today commented that someone would have to eat 600 large horsemeat burgers contaminated with ‘bute’ to get anywhere near a clinical dose, followed by the fact that this is a legal certified medicine for treating humans. – So why’s it banned from the food chain, nasty side effects, but only if you eat a lot for a prolongued period .

      The big question is though, if these products are fit for human consumption, why aren’t they being given to the food banks for feeding the poor? No doubt the leftie mind cannot countenance the thought that poor people might have to eat what they’ve rejected, and the Hampstead set probably think food poverty means not being able to afford organic free trade everything.

         3 likes

  27. Pounce says:

    Has anybody noticed this fluff piece from the bBC about how safe women feel around the world at night.
    How safe do women feel on a night out?
    Maisaa Bazlamit, 22, Ramallah journalist
    Thursday is the big night out for me in Ramallah. I like to go wherever there is good music and good company. I like drinking shots – fewer calories, instant effect.I love to dance, so I never wear heels. I like to make a statement with what I am wearing. As Oscar Wilde put it, you can never be over-dressed or over-educated.

    That is the first entry for how safe women feel at night around the world and for some reason the bBC have a burkaless woman who lives in the West Bank, who loves to drink and dance.. Does she really represent somebody who lives in the West Bank? But then, for some reason the bBC leave out that the lady lives in the West Bank. Love how the bBC censors missed out how she paints Islam as intolerant:
    I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy the attention of men – but only from certain people. I don’t mind getting attention from open-minded people, but they make up only 20% of Ramallah, if not less. However, getting it from the [others] is rather repulsive to me and upsets me a lot.

    Funny enough while the bBC reports on life for women around the world, they left out what it is like for women in..East London.

       13 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      With those concerns about rampant sexual harrassment, I can’t tell if she’s talking about living in Ramallah or working at the BBC. Sounds like a nice nightlife, though. Those damn Israelis sure are lousy at this oppression and genocide game if they can’t even keep young women from going to clubs and doing shots on a weeknight.

         12 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘how safe women feel around the world at night”
      Can’t wait to discover the result when they give Maisaa a blonde wig, microphone and drop her in Tahir Square.
      And maybe they can arrange the disrobing accorded one of her sisters by the local beaus live as opposed to on YouTube this time? It’s news 24/7 now, after all.
      This young lady sounds like all the others we see quoted on the BBC, and thence here, like the recent ‘have a Hijab day’ devotee gushing away.
      It’s almost like their vox pops are rigged with pre-determined ringers.

         7 likes

  28. Pounce says:

    Faster than a speeding bullet the bBC bring you the news.
    Nato Afghanistan Kunar air strike ‘kills 10’

    It seems that while the bbC can bring you the news from the darkest corners of the world even before they have been carried out, somehow it takes them years to report on the news closer to home.
    Community order for Llandudno Muslim man who claimed religion allowed him to hit wife

    Funny enough the muslim in question has form and the bBC have actually reported on him.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/6174344.stm

    Wonder why they haven’t this time?

       11 likes

  29. Rufus McDufus says:

    Oscar Pistorius shoots his girlfriend! Logic nightmare for the BBC – disabled, South Africa, guns – does not compute, does not compute!

       14 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Give ’em time to reboot. I think white, and perils of gun ownership by all other than agents of the state will soon kick in.
      Gated community will give a few Beeboids pause as that’s how they live in some communities without suffering the joys of being actually too close.
      Then again, there’s that Zimmerman angle.

         10 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        He’s a former BBC hero. Overtaken by Mo Farah. BBC heros – they tend to have feet of clay.

        No win situation BBC-wise. S African is a happy rainbow nation. Who would need a shooter to defend their home?

           10 likes

    • David Brims says:

      South Africa , a multicultural utopia ! The reality, South Africa leads the world in rape. 175 a day.

      http://www.voanews.com/content/south-africa-leads-world-in-rape-cases/1580500.htm

         10 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:
    • Glen Slagg says:

      According to BBC News (website)

      His arrest over the death of model Reeva Steenkamp has stunned the country where he is considered a national hero.

      Now, I know that this kind of hyperbole is not unique to the sainted BBC but, as the worlds most trusted and only news source with impartiality “in its genes” I would expect better – or at least some evidence that the entire country has been “stunned”. In what way has this stunning manifested itself? Or is it merely the projection of a BBC journalist (no name supplied with story) that one of their liberal heroes could do such a thing in a country which is, itself, a shining beacon of rainbow joy.

         2 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘at least some evidence’
        This morning, over our scrambled eggs, my wife and I agreed on one thing: that poor girl. And her family.
        We could, because her being dead was the only fact to emerge from any of the 24/7 void-filling waffle spewed out across the airwaves as PAs booked the last SAA 1st class seat to get an anchor or peroxide sink to stand in front of a wall on location and emote.
        Since this morning, we have apparently moved from her being a secret Valentine to it being a domestic.
        So… no one still has a clue.
        I’d say that sums up the story thus far, and the state of ‘news’ today.
        Cue a priest being asked how the community comes to terms with it all, and there may indeed be no operating TV in this house.

           3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Big front page news now, including video of local police saying he had previous for domestic violence. It took the BBC a while to get it all up there because they had to collect the obligatory shocked reactions and analysis, because that adds so much to the journalism.

         4 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

        Doesn’t the bBBC see the irony in showing pictures of the world’s most famous leg-less man but with his face covered?

           5 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          No irony. It’s a classic perp walk photo, which means he’s being treated just like any ordinary fully-legged person. A success for equality!

             1 likes

  30. AsISeeIt says:

    Newsnight last night. Labour ‘thinker’ Jon Cruddas leads their ‘policy review’ and comes on to chat to Gavin Essler.

    What a jerk. I refer to Cruddas. Poor old Mr nice guy Gavin was so desperate for the Labour MP to give their friends at the BBC just a few scraps of policy – only so they could eulogise them.

    No, I’m not tellin’ says Cruddas.

    Working class accents but wonky words a-plenty. ‘Beltway’ ‘Commentariat’ bleats Cruddas.

    Oh dear. Back to plan ‘A’ : Attack the Tories.

       12 likes

  31. AsISeeIt says:

    Chavs

    Owen Jones is a young Marxist who made a name for himself (thanks to the BBC) after he wrote a rather journalistic book about the demonisation of the working classes. Openly partisan (an anti-Conservative outlook is taken for granted) his book is primarily intended for those already on the left being a counter to the bougeois tendencies of New Labour.

    The BBC are rather keen on the Jonesian analysis on the subject of benefits claiments. Have you noticed how every single mother appearing on the BBC appears to be a hardworking Afghan War widow? Every benefit claiment presented to us is a salt of the earth law abiding individual.

    Crime and Court cases can be interesting. They reveal the facts about lifestyles of the sub-groups within society that would otherwise go under the radar.

    The reason we are so familiar with Victorian London prostitution is not due to contemporary social commentators (the Owen Joneses of their time) or due to Parliamentary Commissions – it is because of the Jack the Ripper case.

    There is currently a Court case concerning a family that built their lives arround benefits. Their lifestyle and motivations would require a Jeremy Kyle Show to unravel. It ended in the deaths of children.

    I am looking forward to Owen Jones being invited back onto the BBC to explain.

       15 likes

    • DJ says:

      Meanwhile, we are on approximately day 1147 of the BBC refusing to tell us how many copies of ‘Chavs’ by voice-of-a-generation Owen Jones were actually sold?

      And I mean ‘sold’ in the sense of normal people going into a store and buying one with their own cash, not bulk orders from certain uniquely-funded broadcasters or quangos.

         14 likes

  32. AsISeeIt says:

    Nicky Campbell is busy this morning chairing an in-depth debate on the ins and outs of PE teaching.

    Well I suppose with Wheel of Fortune having ended in 2001 one supposes Campbell has to keep his eye in for this – his fall back career path.

       6 likes

  33. AsISeeIt says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies/boaden_helen/

    * On Thursday 14 February it was announced that Helen Boaden would take on the role of Director of Radio starting on 15 April 2013.

       6 likes

    • Deborah says:

      Just been looking at Miss Boaden’s expenses. Any idea why she should fly to Tashkent last July at a cost of £1890? And why she should stay at the Ritz in Madrid at our expense?

         16 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Holding accounts to account probably falls under FoI exclusion territory as well as that of BBC power, vs. the other kind.
        If anyone can find out, I’d like to know too.
        Dez? Scott?

           8 likes

  34. Deborah says:

    Last night BBC 1 news had an item on about housing. Apparently there is some sort of payment made from central government to Local Authorities in relation to new houses. Now the news item wasn’t at all clear about it (and I am having trouble remembering enough key words to google it) but the BBC news had Simon Henig, the Leader of Durham Council, attacking the government and complaining it wasn’t fair that the government was favouring southern Tory councils. The BBC was careful not to inform viewers which party Mr Henig belonged (could it be chance or amnesia) but it took away some of the strength of the argument when I found out he was a Labour man.

       12 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘The BBC was careful not to inform viewers .. he was a Labour man.’
      They are professional and impartial you know, so any possibility of bias is not possible.
      But thank you for your comment which they don’t take seriously as they don’t have to, but may log to fall about laughing at as they… well, simply can.

         7 likes

  35. AsISeeIt says:

    James Purnell to be Head of News?

    Are the BBC serious?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Purnell

    “Purnell was selected as the Labour candidate for the seat of Stalybridge and Hyde in 2001, and won the seat in that year’s general election”

    “In June 2007, he entered the Cabinet as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; he was its youngest member. He was promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary after the resignation of Peter Hain on 24 January 2008”

    “In September 2007, a photograph of James Purnell was faked and released by the press office at Tameside General Hospital as part of a press release for the Tameside Hospital Private Finance Initiative (PFI) rebuilding deal”

    “In 2009, Purnell was one of many MPs involved in a political scandal following the disclosure of expenses of Members of the United Kingdom Parliament”

    “he did not rule out returning to Parliament in 2015, but declared his support for Ed Miliband and his leadership”

    “Has returned to BBC in senior management position 2013.
    Contents”

    Nice quote from a Beeboid this morning…. ‘This may be seen as controversial as he has WORKED for Labour as a Cabinet Minister’

    I see that membership of the Labour party is now considered by the BBC as no more than a job.

       21 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      So not quite Head of News

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/14/james-purnell-to-rejoin-bbc

      Former culture secretary to become director of strategy and digital

      So I guess that’s alright then

         12 likes

      • Dickmart says:

        Labour further increasing its stranglehold on the BBC.

           12 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Amazed the number new roles and roles being filled at the top now the last little series of awkward unpleasantness shined a light in places really not suited for scrutiny by outsiders.
        Still nice to see the revolving doors between Labour and the BBC still spinning, with not a stubbed toe in sight.
        Possibly future DG material? No real issue as the ex-Labour OFCOM (that’s the outfit which overseas the BBC) head was in the frame.
        And it would make things so much easier, if not cheaper, as even when they source from within (often to great effect), Lord Patten’s headhunting sideline still gets their cut.

           9 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        “Rejoin”. And the new DG is returning to the fold, as is the new head of Worldwide. So just more Beeboids being shuffled back in while others are shuffled around to other positions like some joke Prime Minster’s Cabinet.

        It brings to mind this very revealing comment from the Pollard Review (bottom of Pg. 40, item #87):

        I found it interesting that many of the people involved in this story seem to have spent all or nearly all of their working lives at the BBC. There is no easy or quick solution to this – if indeed a ‘solution’ is required at all – but to my mind it does raise a question about the insularity of some people within the BBC and whether all parts of it are sufficiently open to outside industry practices and attitudes. SimilarIy, I got the impression that in some quarters there is a lack of awareness about the rest of the BBC coupled with a fierce loyalty to an individual programme or team rather than to the BBC itself; not necessarily a defect in itself but a feature which poses dangers for the BBC if taken too far.

        Looks like he’s been reading my comments. 🙂

        Oh, there’s a quick solution to this, alright, but it’s not easy. Good thing they’re going to fix the management structure, eh? That’ll help.

           6 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          The loyalty aspect is interesting.
          It appears acknowledged as being to colleagues or the BBC.
          What is not mentioned is any to the truth, accuracy or licence fee payers.
          Mr. Pollard seems equally trapped in that bubble.

             3 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            One other thing I noticed while reading this was the way Helen Boaden slagged off poor Meirion Jones. With the recent news in mind about how Paxman’s and others’ statements were being redacted from the transcripts publication for being defamatory, Boaden’s comments about Jones having a reputation for leaking were clearly defamatory in my view. I’m surprised that Jones doesn’t have a lawsuit going about this.

            So I’m now wondering, if Boaden’s statements about Jones are left in, how bad is the stuff they’re censoring? Not that I necessarily want to know about it if it’s just snarky insults and general bitching (Paxman, probably) which is unrelated to the real issue or at least unhelpful, but it really leaves a bad impression about just how awful the workplace environment must be. Fiddling with the management structure is going to change this?

            No way. It’s the people who are sinking the ship, not the way the chain of command is delineated. Re-arranging the desks will solve nothing.

               4 likes

        • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

          Has the ‘new’ DG published the ‘new’ structure and salaries for the ‘new’ bBBC?
          It would be interesting to do a newssniffer-type comparison of the two.

             2 likes

    • Fred Bloggs says:

      At £300,000 a year.

         3 likes

      • Deborah says:

        Difficult to click ‘Like’ to this one. I don’t ‘like’ it at all that Purnell is getting £300,000 but I do like that Fred Bloggs has brought it to our attention.

           5 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      The pure arrogance and disdain of the BBC for its responsibilities knows no bounds. But so long as the British public raise no outcry, and are content to follow the manipulated route they are led down by the BBC, it can only get worse.

      The BBC show that there is no amount of insidious and wasteful corruption they will not stoop to, and nobody appears to impose any kind of constraint or sanctions on them.

      Consider the following:
      Despite the continual accusation of already being left-wing biased, as also confirmed by the previous director general who noted it was a MASSIVE BIAS, not only have the BBC done nothing to address it, but they are now set to hire the previous Labour culture minister for a new role as ‘director of strategy and digital’. The cost to the licence fee payer for his position is £295,000 per annum – over twice that of the Prime Minister.

      Helen Boaden, one of the key players in the Savile debacle as head of news, is to move to head the corporation’s radio networks.

      Instead of heads rolling, they become heads of departments!
      Contrast this with what followed in the hacking scandal, or the horsemeat scandal. Isn’t what happened with Savile, and what he was permitted to do, and how his actions were covered up even after his death FAR WORSE?

      The only difference is where the BBC chooses to focus its brainwashed public can only oblige.

         5 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      ‘In September 2007, a photograph of James Purnell was faked and released by the press office at Tameside General Hospital as part of a press release for the Tameside Hospital Private Finance Initiative (PFI) rebuilding deal’.

      Implication: it was Tameside Hospital doing the faking.

      Fact: he organised it.

      ‘Mr Purnell turned up too late for a photo-shoot to promote a new development at a Tameside hospital, so he told the organisers to doctor the picture with fellow MPs to look like he had been there.’

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1564465/James-Purnell-in-fake-photo-row.html

      Your BBC – bending the truth for Labour.

         5 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        Conservative MP says appointment inappropriate:

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9869855/BBC-accused-of-leftist-bias-after-hiring-former-Labour-minister.html

        ” Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East, said that Mr Purnell is not an “appropriate choice” and said that the BBC has “learned nothing” from the recent criticism of the exorbitant salaries paid to executives at the corporation.

        “Many have long had suspicious about a metropolitan, leftist bias to the BBC’s output, particularly in news,” Mr Wilson said. “With the BBC under greater scrutiny in recent months, I find it hard to think why the BBC think a former Labour Cabinet Minister is an appropriate choice for a leadership role.” “

           4 likes

  36. noggin says:

    in a surprising turn, the bbc can make welsh small town news the most important story in the world, re a car crash in Saudi … then just can t find the time for even a snippet on this ….

    http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2013/02/13/community-order-for-llandudno-muslim-man-who-claimed-religion-allowed-him-to-hit-wife-55578-32802656/

    now why is that? 😀

       11 likes

  37. Old Goat says:

    Anyone hear Melvyn Bragg this morning? “In our time” was supposed to be about ice and ice ages, but became a full-blown BBC- style report on the horrors of CO2, and how it was never as high, and how it’s all the fault of us humans. There were 3 geologists discussing this, and all gravely thought that there was too much CO2 around, thanks to humanity, and that the climate should be “engineered”.

    Interestingly, there were several references to the “glacial period we are now in”, when I could have sworn we were currently at the arse end of an interglacial known as the Holocene.

    Also, there were references to the ice core samples, and how they showed the relationship between the odious CO2 and temperature. What they failed to mention (surprise, surprise) was the fact that CO2 seems to trail behind temperature by around 800 years. A convenient omission. The ‘science’ is still settled, then.

    I note from BBC trailers this morning, that on Monday we will be treated to the BBC hypothesis that the ocean levels are rising, and that Manhattan will be wiped out, and New York flooded sometime, I don’t know – maybe next week, and the good news that HRH prince Numpty is going to edit “Countryfile” – My God, that’ll be good – now one of the most lefty, greenie, stupidly biased programmes on the telly, and he has to go and put his oar in.

    The BBC are clearly having a climatic field day. Why, I wonder – is it some sort of back-up reference to Obummer and his plans to ruin America, or is there something else afoot?

       21 likes

    • Dr Foster says:

      I heard this too, and Mr Goat appears not to have been listening very closely.  What was *actually* said was the exact opposite: that for most of the history of this planet CO2 levels were MUCH higher than they are today.  I actually took the programme as a heartening corrective to most of the AGW hogwash one normally hears – it left an overwhelming impression that today’s conditions were actually pretty unremarkable compared to what was going on in earlier periods.  

         10 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Welcome Dr. Foster!
        Another new name I do believe to our merry roster of contributors.
        And what an introductory piece indeed.
        Now it is is possible that Mr. Goat did hear in error, making what he shared in opinion flawed.
        However, he does seem to have at least quoted at some length, if possibly not accurately.
        You however have, as far as I can see, come out with nothing but pure opinion of your own, with actually taking for your own ‘things’ and impressions really not being worth the keystrokes invested.
        Until listening to the piece I of course can be unsure who is really closer to the best review, but that you have garnered three likes in such a time, on such a post, suggests you are a person to watch in future, already with a waiting set of followers.

           5 likes

        • Dr Foster says:

          Thank you for your welcome, albeit that I have contributed here before.
          Would you rather I quoted inaccurately, as Old Goat has above, or gave a correct factual statement, as I did?  If you disbelieve me – and it it is not a matter of opinion – why not listen to the programme yourself.  It was quite clearly stated that CO2 levels were, for most of this planet’s history, much higher than they are today.  Old Goat made a statement which was false, and I pointed it out.  I did not offer an ‘opinion’ or an ‘impression’.  If you want a more categorical statement of fact, one of the contributors stated that CO2 levels were as much as eight times higher than their present levels in the Cretaceous.  Furthermore it was stated that CO2 levels were much higher than present levels during ‘greenhouse Earth’ periods, that is to say for 85% of the Earth’s existence.

             5 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            albeit that I have contributed here before.
            Apologies. It’s just we don’t get many Doctors, albeit self-describing, and I didn’t recall. Was it under this name? Some have changed before and forgotten their old incarnation.
            And there do seem a few new names abounding all of a sudden, that made me wonder if a new budget or server had been found.
            ‘Would you rather I quoted inaccurately as Old Goat has above, or gave a correct factual statement, as I did?’
            Not at all. I simply wondered why you felt the need to fall into areas of personal belief.
            ‘why not listen to the programme yourself.’
            Hence my stating that was an option I might yet embrace.
            ‘I did not offer an ‘opinion’ or an ‘impression’.
            How would you categorise these statements?:
            ‘I actually took the programme as a heartening corrective…
            … it left an overwhelming impression’

            The latter does rather suggest an impression you ‘took’ and then ‘offered’.
            It may be that you were and are entirely accurate in your correction(s), but now you come across more as a semantic pedant keener on the heat aspects of forum exchange than sensible light.
            Somewhat familiar now I recall.

               2 likes

            • Dr Foster says:

              Hey, lighten up.  It was a perfectly reasonable and friendly correction.  No need (in either of your posts) to be so snide or aggressive.

                 6 likes

              • Guest Who says:

                Floating free as a fevver, me.
                But every need to have my opinion on your opinion, especially when you deny what you write is what you think. Or write.
                Funny how exercised some get about being taken to task whilst expecting the right to take others to task.
                Hence you seem to be the one bearing undue weight, having weighed in upon your return in the manner you choose initially, which to me did not seem constructed in a friendly manner at all.
                But to use your words, I was not ‘being snide or aggressive’, and as I have said so it must be true.
                For this is how it works now, apparently. According to some.

                   2 likes

              • johnnythefish says:

                Dr Foster (or whoever you are – Jim Dandy, maybe? Why the need for multiple monickers?),

                Personally I didn’t hear the program, so cannot comment on what was actually said. However, if the scientists did say that current CO2 levels are nothing unusual and have historically been a lot higher, why would they make statements about needing to ‘engineer’ the climate or about the relationship between CO2 and temperature?

                If they were taking the position you suggest, the logical flow of their argument would have led towards a refutation of man-made warming, wouldn’t it?

                   3 likes

                • Dr Foster says:

                  Well, that is partly my point. This was no AGW ad. The suggestion that geoengineering would be necessary was prompted by the threat of natural cyclical CO2 increase, not human emissions.

                     1 likes

                  • Old Goat says:

                    Can’t agree with that – so much COULD have been said to give the alternative view, and wasn’t, conveniently, just as there are so many experts in their relevant fields who COULD have been invited on the programme to counter the obvious AGW spin, but weren’t – it was just more of the same BBC spin – same as always.

                       0 likes

      • Old Goat says:

        I think the gist of what I said was correct, and what I heard was the notion that CO2 levels had remained around a norm of something like 280 ppm for millennia – I can’t swear to every word, perhaps, but the programme itself (as expected) was a hopelessly biased travesty in favour of the BBC ideology that CO2 is bad, that we’re to blame, and that the world will “continue” to get catastrophically warmer unless, somehow, we “engineer” the climate. You can pick holes in it if you like, but the general flavour of that programme was as I suggested.

           4 likes

        • Dr Foster says:

          You seem to be hearing what you expected to hear rather than what was said.  The gist was this: CO2 has always fluctuated wildly, it’s not particularly high today, and natural cycles mean that it is bound to get much higher in future.  There was one – one – brief allusion to AGW, which I’ve just listened to again, in order to provide harder evidence for you.  The guy said this: “We may have been the result of climate change [by which he means the evolution of humans in the first place], we may be altering it, but anyhow we’d have to deal with it, so I think we are going to have to geoengineer our climate to deal with it.  Nothing wrong with that.”

          Note the highly equivocal ‘we *may* be altering it’, followed immediately by the acknowledgement that it doesn’t matter whether we emit CO2 into the atmosphere, because the planet’s going to do it for us anyway.  I get as annoyed as the next man by thoughtless climate change propaganda, but this is not a good example.

             3 likes

          • Old Goat says:

            It occurs to me, Dr. Foster, that you may be just another of those clever-Dick argumentative types who drop in here from time to time, and nit-pick, just for something to do. Nothing you may say alters the fact that this programme, like all the others produced by the biased BBC has all the ideological we-know-best-about-the-climate, is just one more in the catalogue of alarmist, warmist drivel they push out on behalf of their pension scheme.

               6 likes

            • Dr Foster says:

              But nothing in this programme said anything about AGW, apart from the quotation I’ve just given!  You described it as “a hopelessly biased travesty in favour of the BBC ideology that CO2 is bad, that we’re to blame, and that the world will “continue” to get catastrophically warmer unless, somehow, we “engineer” the climate.”    

              CO2 makes the planet warmer, correct.  Nobody seriously doubts this.
              We’re to blame – well, the only allusion to ‘us’ even *possibly* being to blame was the quote I gave you.  And that was far from unequivocal.
              The world will get warmer – yes, the whole programme was about the fact that *for the last 500 million years* we have been constantly oscillating between hot and cold periods.  This being a cold period, it’s going to get hotter at some stage. 
              There’s nothing ‘nit-picking’ about this – all I did was point out that your version of the programme was not actually borne out by its contents.  What would you rather they had said?  

                 4 likes

              • Doublethinker says:

                The BBC will give us plenty to chew on without us putting words in their mouths.

                   4 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Hang on. Your understanding of what was said was ‘….the acknowledgement that it doesn’t matter whether we emit CO2 into the atmosphere, because the planet’s going to do it for us anyway.’

            But then they said ‘…but anyhow we’d have to deal with it, so I think we are going to have to geoengineer our climate to deal with it. Nothing wrong with that’.

            So CO2 in the atmosphere has been a naturally-occurring phenomenon since the year dot, and historically at n times higher levels than we have now, but because mankind is now fractionally adding to it we are going to have to ‘geoengineer our climate’?

            Ever been had, Doc?

               4 likes

            • Dr Foster says:

              No, the point is that humans have ONLY EXISTED in an ice epoch, and most of us will die in a (natural, inevitable) warm world. One doesn’t have to believe AGW – and I don’t – to think that.

                 0 likes

              • johnnythefish says:

                Sorry, did you just shift the goalposts there? Humans have only ever existed in an ice epoch? What is an ice epoch? Surely if, or rather when, we enter another ice age that will be far more damaging to humanity than any warming even the most fanatical AGWers are predicting?

                So did they predict when this big natural warming is going to happen? What will the temperatures be? Why won’t Man survive it? This sounds like the warmists taking a new tack to me – mankind will not survive nature’s warming of the planet so we have to do something about it now. They’d be better off spending their money on an effing big catapult to knock out the next asteroid that’s going to hit us because the idea that we can control the climate is not only delusional, it’s dangerous.

                   2 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      Mrs Bup,
      being a hobby gardener pointed out a bit in the RHS magazine where they were quoting global-warming shills, the Met Office.

      The quote was along the lines of ‘…getting warmer but don’t go rushing out to plant cactii’.

      ‘Funny’, she said, ‘ 10 years ago they were telling us *to* rush out and plant cactii’.

      So RHS and Met Office how *is* that whole global warming thing coming along.

      Anyway, like I say, a keen gardener. So if you’re a little bit disappointed with the size of your morning glory you know who to ask.

      (Ye’ve heard em before but I tell ’em better’

         8 likes

      • Deborah says:

        I can remember when the BBC first got hold of Global Warming (assume man-made but definitely before Climate Change) on one of their programmes they had a competition where the prize was a makeover for the garden. All the plants were suitable for a hot dry climate – I wonder how it survived last summer?

           8 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        Remember when global warming was going to be the death of the skiing industry in Europe?

        Well a pal of mine has just got back from a skiing holiday over there and – guess what – no skiing!

        All week it was snowing so hard and the wind was so strong skiing was nigh-on impossible.

           7 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        And here’s another of those oddball scientists who don’t go with ‘the consensus’.

        ‘Fred Singer on the Myths of Politically Correct Science’.

        http://www.thedailybell.com/28619/Anthony-Wile-Frederick-Singer-on-the-Myths-of-Politically-Correct-Science

           2 likes

  38. Umbongo says:

    John Humphrys was getting awfully exercised about the cover-up (paid for with taxpayers’ money) at the NHS as he interviewed Gary Walker and attempted to crucify Stephen Dorrell on Today this morning. He forgot to mention – in respect of not taking responsibility for incompetence and showing contempt for the public – the appointment of Helen Boaden as head of BBC Radio (while her deputy Stephen Mitchell took the role of scapegoat for her bit of the Savile saga). Thus does the BBC ape the NHS.
    Also – in the same article – we are informed that in keeping with the BBC’s well-known reputation in respect of political impartiality “former culture secretary James Purnell is also to return to the BBC, as Director, Strategy and Digital” and that “Mr Purnell, who stepped down as a Labour MP in 2010 and has recently worked in TV production, was the BBC’s head of corporate planning in the 1990s”. Surprisingly there’s no mention of his part in the expenses scandal while he was an MP. It appears that the BBC is prepared to be more forgiving of their employees’ possible quasi-criminality (especially if their political opinions happen to mirror those of the prevailing BBC culture) than a less uniquely funded organisation.

       20 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It is rather awesome..
      The appointments are the first in a series of management changes by incoming director general Tony Hall, who takes up his post in April.
      Mostly, as far as I can gather, new posts to an already bloated market rate incompetent structure.
      She returned to her job just before Christmas after the Pollard Review exonerated her of blame.
      Really? A BBC report says an internal BBC review exonerated her, did it? Tell it often enough, lads.
      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/a-busy-lunch-directorgeneral-stuns-mps-with-excuse-for-his-ignorance-over-savile-investigation-8223176.html
      ‘The director of news must explain why she didn’t give Entwistle more warning in their lunchtime talk, and what she knew and told Rippon of Newsnight’s investigation. Vulnerable.[not thanks to the unique way the BBC works, she isn’t]’
      The gems still flow…
      Mr Hall said: “I am building a senior team that will define the BBC and public service broadcasting for the next decade.”
      It’s pretty adequately defined already, mate.
      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c8a3538-49d5-11e2-a625-00144feab49a.html

      ‘..a picture of “chaos and confusion” in senior management and adherence to “rigid management chains”, also criticised George Entwistle, the shortlived director-general of the BBC, and Helen Boaden, the broadcaster’s head of news.
      Now, who do we see included back in again here:

      “It will be a team that is made up of outstanding talent from outside the BBC combined with the best people from within.
      But mostly those from outside who were within who can be relied upon to serve the BBC outside interests in that unique way only the BBC can manage.

         14 likes

    • #88 says:

      V (‘Don’t call me Vicky’) D covered this on her show today, her angle being about ‘gagging clauses’ in compromise agreements. Clauses against the public interest, that ensure that wrongdoing remains out of sight, in return for a substantial ££££ pay-off.

      The only thing was, the indignant VD didn’t mention that the BBC uses these agreements. George Entwistle’s huge pay off, is said to have been accompanied by the self, same type of ‘gagging clause.’

      Is that so VD? Do use your investigative skills to find out and let us know.

         10 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘Clauses against the public interest, that ensure that wrongdoing remains out of sight’
        Like those M&S ads, there is what is, and then an apparently acceptable BBC version of it.
        Not gagging, just BBC gagging (FoI excluded).
        Any who may have dealt with the BBC will know they do like to seed such notions in wherever they can, with whoever the feel like.
        This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.
        Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately.
        Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
        Further communication will signify your consent to this.

        So, while they can pin what you write on the loo wall, or twist and edit for Paxo to sneer at, they are trying to say that anything they may attempt to claim, threaten or otherwise impose in an outbound direction from the BBC is supposed to be their little secret.
        Who wrote that for them? Jimmy Savile?
        Hugs, unleash the lawyers!

           6 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      It gets worse!

      First we see incoming director-general Tony Hall’s appointment of Boaden to head of radio, before he even knows if the second part of the Pollard review will show her incompetence about her handling of the Newsnight report.

      It also appears that any evidence that could be considered ‘defamatory’ is to be kept out of the report.

      It’s like not permitting evidence at a trial because it might bring the perpetrator into disrepute.

      Paxman’s scathing attack on BBC chiefs over handling of Savile crisis to be censored

      *Lawyers fear that Jeremy Paxman’s comments could be defamatory
      *His scathing attack will not be included in an inquiry’s evidence transcripts
      *Evidence from BBC global news director Peter Horrocks also to be removed

         1 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Yet Boaden’s defamatory comments about Meirion Jones are there for all to see. I think we can see the writing on the wall here.

           1 likes

  39. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Even though he’s Labour, Purnell can’t be all that bad. Remember that he tried to do us all a favour by getting rid of Gordon the Moron.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/5448288/James-Purnell-knifes-Gordon-Brown.html

       3 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      True and (some) credit to him for that. What he didn’t know – although those of us outside the political class strongly suspected – was that, against Dave and the “modern progressive Conservatives (™ Francis Maude), Brown would almost win the election. Indeed, IMHO it would have been better if Brown had won (or been able to cobble together a coalition). That way Labour would have had to deal with the sh*t of its own making and Cameron would have been consigned to history, possibly to be replaced by a Conservative.

         17 likes

  40. Privatise the BBC says:

    Nevertheless, it shows perfectly what the BBC is all about.

       5 likes

  41. Old Goat says:

    Radio 4, now, (“Ramblings”) Clare Balding attempts to walk in silence. We can only hope…

       4 likes

    • Buggy says:

      Make fascinating radio if she did it. What’s going to happen to the newly-wrought Balding Empire if or (more likely given the vast fiefdom she’s carving out) when one of her new ventures clashes with, say, Cheltenham ? And will they ever dare to pair her with her Arch-Enemy “Toksvig The Spurned Shin Kicker” ?

         6 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      A generally dull overweight woman whom the BBC pr-bunny machine tried to persuade us is ‘a national treasure’.

      I lost interest in SPOTY about two decades ago – I had the first three minutes forced on me – how truly depressing it was when BBC wheeled out their ‘heavy-weights’ – Gary ‘Mogadon Man’ Lineker, Sue ‘Temazepam Woman’ Barker, and the National Treasure.

      Lets call it £3.5 million pa right there by way of salary.

      Now how many £145.50s is that.

      Truly disgusting, and of course…

      Unique.

         9 likes

      • Buggy says:

        Oh lawks, Sue “Can I Laugh Now? ” Barker, the female Lineker (same vast salary and annoying ubiquitousness, doing a job that Hazel Irvine can do infinitely better at a lower salary).

        Every bloody interview you can can hear her gurning away as she awaits the smallest opening to unleash the cackle.

           3 likes

  42. George R says:

    “Former Labour minister James Purnell to oversee BBC comms”

    http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/1170948/former-labour-minister-james-purnell-oversee-bbc-comms/?

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      The PR savvy of that move will be interesting in itself.

         3 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        Cripes, if he was a piece of seaside rock he would have Labour Party written all the way through him.

           5 likes

    • RCE says:

      I think you’ll find that appointing a former Labour minister in a 300kpa job is another example of the BBC getting it about right.

      Or getting it about Left.

         3 likes

  43. Glen Slagg says:

    In a sidebar to the Pistorius shooting story we have some info about gun crime which hopefully shows up below:
    _65887141_sa_guns304x258.gif
    It helpfully informs us of how many people per 100,000 die in shooting in the US (3.2) compared to S.Africa(17). Hey! It is far lower in the US…interesting, I wonder how that correlates to rates of gun ownership…let’s see, according to the sidebar…S.Africa…4 guns per hundred people, OK….now let’s see…USA they have…er….oh…they don’t seem to have that info, so we can’t see the correlation. Probably not enough room on their server for that.
    I just checked on Wiki: the USA has a gun ownership of 88.8 per 100 citizens over 20 times the figure for S.Africa. But…..but…doesn’t gun ownership cause murder, or something? Does not compute! What about Sandy Hook, Gabby Giffords? Or could it be that murder rates are a function of people and not weapons?
    Oops! Here we have the oft occurring BBC problem of reconciling inconvenient facts in one story with the on-going narrative built around another story. It’s tricky when you have impartiality in your genes.

       12 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      How many of the crimes in the US are committed using illegally acquired guns? And why do cities with stricter gun laws have more of them?

         6 likes

      • Andy S. says:

        I understand the statistics for gun deaths in the U.S. have been inflated by the inclusion of suicides using firearms. Are there any official statistics we can trust?

           2 likes

  44. Guest Who says:

    ‘‎”It’s not a big deal really – I just tick ‘in a relationship’.”

    Sophia, 25, was hired for $5 by BBC reporter Dave Lee to be his fake Facebook girlfriend for a week.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21446368?ocid=socialflow_facebook_bbcnews
    Bit shocked frankly.
    Not by Sophia’s casual attitudes, but that Dave was seeking a girl in this. Kinda blown his promotion chances.
    The comments are, of course, closed within the working day… employed suckers!!!

       3 likes

  45. Peed off prod says:

    Today the bbc have been reporting on the arrest of scumbag sean kelly in relation to the shooting of another scumbag in ardoyne.
    Every single reporter / report cites kellys claim to fame as being the shankill bomber and the fact that 9 civilians were killed.
    Once again the term civilians is used to try and legitamise the terrorist campaign carried out by catholic terrorists .

       4 likes

  46. Louis Robinson says:

    No mention of Mr. Kerry’s windfall in this story.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21461779

       2 likes

  47. noggin says:

    “the planners”, has an oft repeated tale, of the wonderful rich tapestry of a community flower garden , Rot i mean Roch – dale … and no i don t mean another spate of child abductions/gang rapes either.
    no this time its railroading a ahem,”muslim community centre” the size of a place, that should have 115 parking spaces, has plans for 3, an absolute horror, obviously drawn up by a madrassa 3 year old, an absolute eyesore with no provisions

    the recommendation was to replan, and drastically make provision for parking …
    but in this sh-thole that now has 17 mosques – just as with the towns in the west midlands, muslim chair, muslim vice chair, muslim councillors – doctored all the way through, hmmm openly political, the head of planning shakes her head and states ..
    wait a minute 😀 … isn t this a so called “religion”?
    then they all get together, retire to back room, to celebrate their victory over the infidel …

    at least the bbc showed it for what it was, obviously to help re educate the masses

       5 likes

    • Doyle says:

      Crimewatch tonight was appealing for information about the rape of a 19 woman on Brighton beach. The policeman on the programme gave a very good description – in his twenties, medium build, short dark hair, approx 5’7″, a light coloured t-shirt with a dark motif, blue trainers and a baseball cap. The one detail he seems to have omitted is this one, he was ‘possibly asian’ according to the Brighton Argus. rapisthttp://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10012088.Police_search_for_this_man_in_beach_rape_inqury/
      You’d think this fact might be important if you want to catch a rapist.

         3 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      An eye-opener on the Muslim approach. Ignore planning regulations and any suggestions for a better building then get their corrupt ‘community’ representative councillors to squash any discussion by any non-Muslim, and force a hurried vote along racist lines.
      See the 90 seconds from 50:00 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qrt24/The_Planners_Episode_3/
      I am very surprised that the bBBC dared to show this, however.

         7 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      I only saw the first 10 minutes of the programme during which the plans for the community warehouse centre were disclosed and the council’s planning officer opined that the proposed building would not only be an eyesore but that – setting aside the building’s vile appearance – the planning regs required a slew of parking places which the submitted plans ignored. Frankly – and almost uniquely – all credit to the BBC for airing this travesty of planning “control” (even if, as I suspect, this crept under the PC radar and somebody’s career at the BBC will suffer accordingly). As evidence that the endemic corruption of the subcontinent has been imported wholesale into the UK body politic, this example can hardly be bettered.

         3 likes

  48. Mavis Ramsbottom says:

    Question Time….it’s laughable, bloody hell what a load of bollocks

       3 likes

    • Leha says:

      load of old pantomime bollocks

         3 likes

    • Doyle says:

      During most Question Times you can usually point out one panelist who is better than the rest but on this occasion it was impossible – they were all awful and these Tory women are fucking useless. In terms of the worst, take your pick from Galloway, Creagh or Kramer.

         2 likes