170 Responses to MONDAY MORNING OPEN THREAD

  1. Old Goat says:

    Trougher Yeo on the Today this morning, and Lord Smith. The former worrying about the lack of nuclear generation facilities in the pipeline, and the unlikely event of any being constructed before the lights go out (didn’t mention wind turbines, strangely – but I expect he firmly believes that they’ll save the day whilst lining his capacious pockets). The latter bemoaning the absence of a national water distribution infrastructure (even though they’ve had ever since 1976 to think about, and construct one), and telling us how things are going to get much more extreme weatherwise because his “climate scientist” chums have told him that climate change equals more extreme weather. He failed to remind us that climate change has been ongoing for billennia, and that over a relatively short space of time (say, a few hundred years) it ain’t gonna make much difference to anyone. They forget that the weather is a chaotic, non-linear collection of phenomena, which have a habit of occasionally biting us in the bum when we’re not looking (or busily making wild forecasts for the opposite).

    Notable weather happens, on occasion, always has. always will.

    Neither of them considered it important to tell us that the current quiescent phase of the sun, when it’s activity should be peaking, is far more likely to have an effect on us all, and will necessitate considerably more power generation in the near future than hitherto, and that they’d better get their collective arses in gear.

    They are fiddling, whilst we potentially freeze (and fiddling may be construed in any way that the reader should see fit…).

       26 likes

    • Deborah says:

      Heard today on BBC Radio 4 that Ludlow town walls are falling down due to climate change. I know it was claimed by Ludlow’s head of conservation but trust the BBC to take up this story. But the publicity will all be grist to the mill when the application to the lottery fund is made.

         16 likes

    • Idiotboy says:

      Anyone noticed the way the BBC are now adding little items into every weather forecast telling us that the ball-freezing cold winter we have just gone through, exemplified by massive amounts of white stuff and burgeoning profit margins at British Gas, was “about average”?

         11 likes

  2. thoughtful says:

    Humphries really tried hard to denigrate the profits made by HSBC, he didn’t give up when told the bank was international; that the profits were lower than expected; that the return on capital was not particularly good; the earnings per share was in line with most other companies, nor that the tax on those profits would help the exchequer & the country.

    Then he started having a go about the CEOs bonus of £2 million despite this being a small percentage of a possible £12 million. It seems that some people will not be happy until companies make no profit at all, and the directors are paid less than bBC presenters. I wonder where the money would come from to run such a left wing workers possible.

       34 likes

  3. starfish says:

    Enjoyed JH talking to the Cardinal and stating that a lay organisation that permitted such activities and the cover up would be shut down………

    Ooops! Open goal for the Cardinal – he should have said that the BBC seems to have operated just such a policy for 30-odd years with Jimmy Saville (and the LibDems too it would appear)

       37 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘JH talking to the Cardinal and stating that a lay organisation that permitted such activities and the cover up would be shut down’
      Unless ‘unique’, presumably?
      It would be nice to think an AudioBoo/YouTube of that may make it to public record and capture in the near future.

         9 likes

      • Louis Robinson says:

        Ah, “starfish”, I too enjoyed the Humphrys interview with Cardinal O”Connor this morning on Today about recent scandals in the Roman Catholic Church

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0cbj from 3.10.00 onward.

        “Can you not blame the structure that allows this to happen?” asked the grand inquisitor, and “in any other organisation they (the priests) would be thrown out…” Two questions which were asked with no sense of irony and cried out for the substitution of “Roman Catholic Church” with “BBC”. I’m afraid at times during the interview I just laughed out loud at the wireless.

           14 likes

        • Out of town says:

          exactly, how Humpher did the bbc manage to silence all those children and women abused by Saville and Co?????

             2 likes

    • +james says:

      Problem is that the Cardinal is a bit of a div.

         1 likes

  4. AsISeeIt says:

    I’m Cameron…. David Cameron…. British Prime Minister. They say my favourite drink is a wet Martini…. liberally shaken, not straight. Oh my aching head…. Am I still dreaming? Where on earth am I? What is this place? I appear to be incarcerated in some secret dungeon hidden deep within a cavern. Let me think…. it was Wednesday….I was at the Argentine Ambassador’s ball…. the Ferrero Rochers had just been passed around. Someone wanted to talk to me about the Malvinas – of course she was from the BBC. So whilst I was distracted something must have been slipped into my drink. How on earth did I get here? Think man, think. I do believe I recognise the peculiar rock strata…. ah, the advantages of a non-State education. Yes of course…. a cursory observation of the geology suggests I must be a mile beneath the centre of Salford! Why have I been brought here of all places? It’s not Comic Relief again is it? I’ve never done anything to upset the BBC. Why this elaborate abduction? If not the BBC then who? Did I bad mouth the Israelis this week? Surely Boris Johnson couldn’t have managed to organise all this on his own. Tony Blair is too busy coining it to bother with extraordinary rendition these days. How do I get out of here? Release me at once – whoever you are! Don’t you plebs know who I am? And what’s this…. why have I been connected to a radio set? What kind of torture could they have in mind? Wait, I recognise that supercilious drawl…. that self-righteous cant…. that has to be the Today programme. Yes, BBC Radio 4, I recognise James Naughtie and Evan Davis…. I’d know that hypocrisy anywhere…. Oh my God! …. there’s no way to turn it off. And Women’s Hour will be coming up! It seems I’m doomed. Now what’s this? Some new torture. Another BBC radio station. It sounds common and unfamiliar to me…. it’s certainly dumbed down…. apparently inconsequential random nonsense – but it’s just as corrosive. Could this be what they call Radio 5 Live? Nicky Campbell, Richard Bacon…. now I understand, you dastardly fiends! I can’t take any more. Do you expect me to talk?
    No Mr Cameron, we expect you to listen. Please forgive us our little subterfuge. I hope you will excuse the theatricality of your surroundings. It’s not what you think – we are not working for Miliband or Balls, far from it. You see, we are not the BBC, we are Biased BBC and the name of this game is ‘know your enemy’. Mr Cameron you say you love and admire the BBC. We find this inexplicable. There are two schools of thought: Either you are unaware of what the BBC is pumping out hour by hour, day by day; or alternatively you do know, and yet you do nothing – and in that case you can’t be a real Tory. You will remain here connected to the sound of our national broadcaster until we have our answer – one way or the other.

       27 likes

    • Doublethinker says:

      A good spoof, but seriously I think that the Tories must have decided that their project to detoxify their image ruled out any attempt to sort out the BBC as this would unleash the hounds of hell and send them back to the start of their journey. So in their view it is better to move to the centre ground and avoid policies which they know the BBC would oppose. Of course their image was so toxic primarily because of the BBC in the first place!
      Of course the Tories are right in believing that the BBC would violently attack anyone they saw as out to curb their excesses, let alone privatise them, and use all the power of their armoury, propaganda, lies ,deception and censorship to make sure they were not brought down. Their liberal left establishment chums would man the barricades as they know how valuable the BBC is to them. It would be a long and bloody struggle in which large amounts of political capital would be expended by the Tories in order to secure victory.
      But the Tories should realise that if they want to govern the country without the consent of the BBC and their liberal chums, they will have to take on the over mighty state broadcaster sooner of later.
      Once the people hear the truth they will support a Tory agenda. But they will never hear the truth with the BBC in so dominant position.
      The BBC undermines democracy in Britain.

         32 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        Yes, all the Tories have succeeded to do is pay the Danegeld. And we know where that leads.

           16 likes

  5. Demon says:

    As Dopey Dezi would say, where is your evidence for your wild claim?

       5 likes

    • Demon says:

      Of course 😉 that’s all the BBC needs to substantiate the claim. Just like the NHS being the envy of the World.

         14 likes

      • David Lamb says:

        I believe Harriet Harman has said something along these lines. So it must be true

           8 likes

    • noggin says:

      agreed absolutely … keep signing
      oh on dez … he would probably get his info from yet another tory f-ckwit, who on the bbc said, it will only be highly skilled Romanian IT workers who would come.
      (shakes head)

         0 likes

  6. David Brims says:

    I’m shocked, shocked to the core, just found out that 76 year old actor, confirmed bachelor Richard Wilson has come out of the closet and announced he’s homosexual !!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

    Who knew that a pretentious old ham, who loves the theatre, the performing arts, a Labour Luvvie who thinks Right wing people are vile, vile, vile would be gay ?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2285971/Richard-Wilson-I-dont-mind-people-saying-Im-gay-I-am.html

    Richard Wilson gushing about Red Ken

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNCM-oLJVYk

       27 likes

    • David Brims says:

      I’ve never seen an episode of Richard Wilson’s BBC ”comedy” One Foot in the Grave, cue riotous laughter and his catchphrase ”I don’t believe it”, cue riotous laughter.

      But I’ve had the misfortune to have seen clips of it and it’s about as funny as filling in a Tax Form.

         15 likes

      • Tim says:

        Each to his own. I love the programme, but that might be because, to paraphase my wife, I tend to agree with Victor about most things… As an example – who hasn’t wanted to pour a load of household rubbish into the car of some-one who has just chucked a load out in the street… (Or maybe it’s just me!)

           12 likes

        • Demon says:

          I liked the programme and identified with some of the character’s flaws too. But I can’t stand Richard Wilson.

             9 likes

          • Mat says:

            Oh great another waste of breath /life haunting this place another sad little jerk shouting at cars while off their face on jelly shots sorry mate but you really should have paid attention at school and not just looked up naughty word in the one time you actually held a dick head -tionary and getting ignored by the girls /boys you stalked for attention !

               8 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Suspected that for years.

         5 likes

  7. Old Timer says:

    I know this is the Biased BBC web site but the BBC is now a lot more than just biased. It now has a specific agenda that it is deliberately undermining the interests and stability of this country.

    More and more people through the many blogs on the net and in the comment sections of newspapers can see this aggressive and disingenuous behaviour and remark on it but they don’t yet seem to understand why. We put it down as being a bit whacky and the elite overpaid just being out of touch with reality in their Salford ivory tower.

    The fact is that the BBC’s agenda is not a political one any more, it is simply the agenda of survival, it is beginning to see that they have a big problem and is starting to fight for its life. Like a cornered bad tempered cat it will fight and scratch anything and everyone in its way. As we know the BBC has the power to destroy people that get in its way and of course it’s not just the Tories and Murdoch that get in the way, it is anyone that has an different point of view, they are derided, booed, sneered at, shouted down and humiliated.

    We have wrongly come to accept this childish bad behaviour from the BBC but it keeps on being pumped into our houses 24/7 and for 365 days a year without fear or shame and without any accountability whatsoever. It is not just news programmes of course, the pervasive stench of anti Britishness runs through all programs, from light entertainment to drama and particularly the nasty left wing so called comedy shows. This country does not deserve this kind of corporation, paid for only by enforcement and with this horrible agenda.

    The BBC was originally set up as a private company but then in 1927 given autonomy and paid for by taxes, a so called licence. That may have been the right decision back then 86 years ago but times have changed, the BBC is now sympathising with our enemies, both within and without. It is doing this simply to create chaos and then of course it purports to be the shining light that shows the way. It aggressively undermines responsible governments and energetically supports irresponsible ones. This country will never succeed whilst this thing still exists, an extinction event is long overdue.

       61 likes

  8. AsISeeIt says:

    When BBC Call the Midwife is busily at work you’ll find me quickly leaving the room to go pacing up and down a corridor somewhere contemplating a cigarette.

    Sadly I did catch a glimpse through the window in the door before I could look away. I saw a lonley-looking friendless and uncomfortable ethnic minority woman in an antenatal clinic waiting room, surrounded by white women.

    I’m afraid as usual the BBC had an eye to social engineering here – but have dropped a clanger.

    The only way that scene will resonate with the British mainstream is as an odd inversion of the current situation in the NHS in 2013.

       26 likes

    • Aerfen says:

      Jennifer Worth (author) said there were NO black people in Poplar in the fifties, only foreign sailors around Cable Street.
      The Windrush Indeed even in the eighties Poplar was still an ethnic British stronghold – very ‘white’ with just a sprinkling of foreign ethnics.

         8 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        The way it worked was that the Liberal council in the late 70s and early 80s (Labour should have been able to put up a donkey around there and control the council – I wonder why they couldn’t) divided Tower Hamlets into half a dozen districts, each with its own responsibility for maintaining waiting lists and providing houses. The area around Brick Lane was full to bursting point but there was no way they could expand out of the area and free public housing was not much of a pull factor for immigration. Then in the course of the 80s they were taken to court by the Council for Racial Equality and forced to house people from Brick Lane on an authority wide basis (this led to Bangladeshis turning up in semi-island type communities so isolated the locals had been interbreeding for a century). Inevitably immigration figures rose and TH is now one third Bengali.

           6 likes

        • David Brims says:

          Emu squeals ‘waaycist’

          Groan.

             1 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          Say that to the Liberal Party and the former majority of voters in the East End (the council ‘cabinet’ is now 100% Bengali – and Jamati -Islami at that) not me.

             2 likes

        • aerfen says:

          They also did away with the ‘sons and daughters’ policy designed to keep adult children near their parents, which had favoured indigenous Cockneys and indirectly kept some estates ethnic British. Hypocritical Bangla councillers have recently lobbied to reintroduce it , in order to favour their own against more recently arrived Africans and Eastern Europeans. They claim it wouldnt be ‘racist…’

             6 likes

  9. Joshaw says:

    Yes, but at broadcasting WHAT exactly?

       8 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      ‘progressive entertainment’ care to define that for us?

         4 likes

      • colditz says:

        The BBC is in a conspiracy to turn the UK into a western arm of the New Caliphate to be set up in Istanbul. It first intends to turn all right wing males gay and then convert them to Islam which will permit them to be executed under sharia law. Wishy washy liberals and socialists are already secret islamists in league with the Green Party to turn most of the UK into a giant Wind Farm. run for benefit of the EU and Roma immigrants. This is a conspiracy run by the BBC Governors and senior management of the BBC. I know because this website constantly tells me so.

        Only the EDL and UKIP can save us.

           10 likes

        • Old Goat says:

          Better still, with a cannon.

             6 likes

        • Kyoto says:

          Dear Colditz,

          Again are you the small ‘c’ colditz who thinks regular posting on this site means you are sad and lonely.

          If so I thought I’d better keep you company with my post.

          By the way the worst thing about this site it that it charges £145 a year even if you don’t read it, but only only want to read CIF at The Quisling!! And if you don’t pay you can ultimately go to prison!!!!!!

          Best regards

          Kyoto

             9 likes

        • Pounce says:

          Well it won’t be Hugo coming to the rescue will it.

             0 likes

      • Demon says:

        Earl’s Court, I wish you wouldn’t keep changing your name.

           4 likes

  10. AsISeeIt says:

    Bashing the Bishops. Taking a cudgel to the Cardinals. Having a poke at the Pope. If only they were a bit less Catholic!

    Suddenly it is de rigueur at BBC central to criticise the Catholics at every opportunity.

    And there was me thinking the Beeboids were all Glasgow Celtic fans.

    Still, at least the Cof E gets a quiet couple of weeks before a renewed BBC onslaught on behalf of women bishops.

    Hang on here they go again. It’s Nicky Campbell trying to man-strangle a Monsignor

       13 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Funny how the BBC can manage to talk about the cbuse of children by ‘Catholic priests’ but when it comes to Moslems they’re only referred to as ‘men’

         25 likes

      • Andy S. says:

        Local programme “Look North” tonight had an item about Rotherham Council’s lack of action over “local men grooming vulnerable young girls” and showed statistics of such cases across the Yorkshire region. Sheffield, Rotherham and Bradford were specifically mentioned.

        The item lasted around ten minutes, withy interviews and archive clips of the Chief Executive of Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire’s Chief Constable appearing before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee. AT NO POINT during this item did the reporter mention the ethnicity of the groomers, both young and old men.

        Typical BBC, bending over backwards to suppress the ethnicity and, especially, religion of the culprits, but have no reluctance to mention the Catholic faith when reporting child abuse in the church.

           17 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      The BBC does indeed support Celtic, but only when it needs to bash protestants and loyalists.

         8 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      …5….4….3….2…1…

         2 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Please, is there anywhere I (we) can go to escape from “GAY”? I’m heartily pissed off with it all. Give us our English word back, with its proper, long-accepted meaning, and consign all these strange homosexual beings to their own world, where they don’t have to keep telling us all about it, and demanding to be “different” They ARE different, and quite frankly, not in a nice way. Please can they keep their weird sexuality to themselves, and leave us be.

         31 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Very neat attack on Christian and Jewish attitudes toward gays, whilst leaving moslems out completely. But then the koran is gay-friendly, of course –

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12486003

         8 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Some things in life are bad,
      They can really make you mad.
      Other things just make you swear and curse.
      When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,
      Don’t grumble, give a whistle,
      And this’ll help things turn out for the best, and…

      Always look on the bright side of life etc

      Fat chance!

         0 likes

  11. Guest Who says:

    I am intrigued by the ‘accuracy wouldn’t fit’ message being sent out by this BBC tweet:
    BBC Radio 4 Today ‏@BBCr4today
    LISTEN – Making the UK less attractive to potential immigrants http://audioboo.fm/boos/1245532-making-the-uk-less-attractive-to-potential-immigrants

    Unless the BBC hierarchy have had a very odd change of heart, inferring the UK is under assault from without, and our powerless national governance is reduced to well poisoning within, seems… unique.
    One is sure it is clarified if you click the link and then wait a week until the full thing is explained on an Editor’s log that is changed by PR & legal and then rexxxxx.

       9 likes

  12. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Here’s the real reason why Purnell has been appointed Director, Strategy at the bBBC.
    Labour man at BBC produced report calling for record ten-year licence fee
    A former Labour Cabinet Minister hired by the BBC to renegotiate the licence fee helped to produce a report calling for households to be locked into funding the corporation until 2027.

    James Purnell is chairman of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which published the report proposing that the licence fee be set for a record ten years when it is renewed in 2017. He will join the BBC this month as director of strategy.
    Mr Purnell will play a key role in negotiating a new Royal Charter and licence fee.

       29 likes

    • Demon says:

      In 2017 there will be another left-wing Labour government screwing the country as usual. What they are frightened of is the possibility that a right-of-centre government, with balls (not Balls), will be in by 2020 when people have realised how stupid they were to let the left back in again. This way they will have another 7 years to further pollute the weak-minds that believe what they are told.

      A decent centre-right government (not Cameron’s) would put the BBC out to grass for once and all and that is what frightens them most.

         27 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Thatchers government had enough chances to end the BBC franchise and failed to take it. I can’t see a future government even UKIP ending the 100 year old corporation, the same old weak arguements about privatising Royal Fail would be trotted out again.

           2 likes

        • Demon says:

          As bad as the BBC was in Thatcher’s time, it was relatively sane (with a distinct left twist) but now it’s out of control.

             6 likes

      • aerfen says:

        We’ll never have a centre right Government if Milliband wins this next election. Britain is finished. He’ll let in so many immigrants and probably give a parliamentary vote to EU citizens thus ensuring we have an ‘elected’ one party state.

           5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Ah, the sweet smell of conflicts of interest that only the BBC could learn to love.
      ‘report proposing that the licence fee be set for a record ten years when it is renewed in 2017’
      Guessing that, having ushered Ed & Co back into power on the back of the impartial choices in political leadership that can only be presented to the populace with a trusted £4Bpa PR agency, if Labour in turn start pondering the value of a 1,000 year Reich it would be churlish of the uniquely (by then much better) funded BBC to respond in any way other than full prid pro quo support.

         14 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      IPPR report recomendations re the Licence Fee

      ‘The next BBC charter and agreement is due to begin in 2017. At that point the BBC
      should be offered the certainty of a 10-year charter and agreement and the licence fee
      level should be clearly set for the same duration. The debate about the level of the licence
      fee will likely begin a year or two earlier. It needs to be a much more open and transparent
      process, with the BBC clearly setting out what it wants (to) do over the charter period and
      costing the programme accordingly. Parliament and licence fee payers need to be more
      openly consulted and involved in the process too, with licence fee payers being asked
      more searching questions than the standard ‘willingness to pay’ research designed to
      underpin a BBC bid. At the point at which ministers eventually decide on the appropriate
      level of the licence fee, it should be made clear to all stakeholders what levels of service
      the BBC will be able to provide on the basis of a secure income’

      Can’t you see it now? Balls and Miliband must be rubbing their hands. Go for bust Labour ‘investment’ of loads of out lovely cash in a BBC out for EU and 3rd world-wide media domination.

         17 likes

  13. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    The Grauniad/ Observer runs a ‘story’ Doctors cry foul at NHS ‘privatisation by stealth’ which the bBBC has turned into NHS ‘privatisation’ reform ‘could place people in danger’. No other news organisation thinks it is even worth reporting.
    But of course the bBBC can’t find space for AT LEAST 1,165 people have starved to death in NHS hospitals over the past four years.
    Or NHS failings cause 1,600 child deaths every year.
    And they hid away in the last line of their report If breast cancer survival rates matched the best in Europe, 1,000 extra lives would be saved in England alone.

       31 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘But of course the bBBC can’t find space’
      Ah, but… if they can wangle the 10 year lock down they can surely afford to hire a bunch more redactors, astounding uncurious market rate directors and uni-directional investigative journalists to not find heaps more that won’t suit in the coming years.

         13 likes

    • #88 says:

      It’s part of the fight back Sir Arthur.

      After Labour’s awful failings in Stafford were exposed (exposed but that was all – nothing more), expect the BBC to mobilise to counter, minimise and outweigh the atrocities there.

      Bacon started it last week, taking a report from a Beeboid about the Stafford Trust going into administration; obtuse and using the lowest number of apparent deaths (400) he extrapolated the financial failure at Stafford into what it will mean for the rest of the heath service and arrived at famine and pestilence. This is a technique that Bacon cleverly used following Savile in a, ‘quick everyone, look over there!’ sort of way.

      Expect more and more horror stories about NHS failings under the Tories and for balance, ‘delighted’ users of the service who don’t want change.

      Observant b-bbc’ers will also have seen this tactic employed on the ‘climate change’ front as the disastrous discovery (for them) that there has been no warming 20 years is countered with increasingly frenetic references to man made warming, in line with the position that BBC has settled for itself and for us. The attendees at that infamous meeting, being sent away to ‘dutifully’ spread the word in every programme at every opportunity.

         14 likes

  14. Deborah says:

    The BBC’s agenda and desire to be on message seeps into every programme. To get some value out of my TV license I have been watching ‘Great British Menu’. The banquet this year is to celebrate 25 years of Red Nose Day. We can imagine the Labour/BBC luvvies who will attend.
    But the programme is desperate to have a woman cook at the banquet. How can I tell? The very odd marking that has gone on in the series so far. Terrible food, if cooked by a woman, has had only one mark dropped. Beautiful food, cooked by a ‘classically trained chef’ is very harshly marked. But the funny thing is, however hard they try, it is still the male chefs that are going through to the final.

       12 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Awful, awful programme.

         6 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        Hooray, hooray, it’s International Women’s Day today. Not only Germaine Greer picking her fave raves this morning on R3 but at teatime female conductress Marin Alsop is interviewed about some festival of women’s music held somewhere this week. Besides tedious moaning about how difficult it is for women to become conductors (it’s a scandal, apparently) and a passing condemnation of a German critic who said in the papers last week that women can’t paint, a good word was put in for Sandy Toksvig. It seems she’ll be compering part of the festival and she’s incredibly clever and witty. Is there no refuge from this sort of thing anywhere on the Beeb?

           9 likes

    • Aerfen says:

      Surely they’re ethnic minority males though?

         1 likes

  15. AsISeeIt says:

    ‘Four live mortar bombs were intercepted by police in XXXXXXX minutes before being launched, a senior detective has said.’

    [XXXXX = my redactions of the location in the BBC report]

    ‘A van had its roof cut back to allow the mortars to be fired.

    Police believe the target was a XXXXXXX police station. Three men have been arrested in the operation linked to XXXXXXX.

    XXXXXXXX said the bombs could have caused mass murder.

    Two men, aged 35 and 37, were arrested at the scene at 20:15 GMT on Sunday. One was in the van and the other was driving a motorcycle travelling behind.

    A 37-year-old man was arrested later after a house was searched.

    It is the first time XXXXXX have attempted this type of mortar attack.

    About 100 families had to leave their homes at XXXXXXX in the overnight alert.

    XXXXXXX said there could have been “mass murder” if they had hit the intended targeted.

    He said the mortars were “primed and ready to go”.

    The officer described it as “a reckless attack by XXXXXXX to murder police officers in the city of XXXXX”.

    “These were people who were mindless, totally reckless, willing to drive four live mortar bombs through a built-up area with no regard to the people, the residents and the families living in the area,” he said.

    “We believe those devices were destined for one of the police stations here in the city.

    “I have no doubt they would have caused mass fatalities. They were on their way to a target. These are crude home-made devices. There is no way the people who planned their attack would have known they would have hit their target.”

    And the location was of course not the Gaza Israel border but ….

    Nothern Ireland.

    Things do look so different when they are close to home.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21651900

       17 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      It was hallmark IRA from the third sentence. Didn’t they even try to use the technique on Downing Street?

         9 likes

  16. Old Goat says:

    The world continues to go mad, as HRH Prince Numpty joins the BBC:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9907459/The-Prince-of-Wales-teams-up-with-Countryfile.html

       8 likes

    • David Lamb says:

      In which case we should repeat our prayers for a full recovery for his mother – long may she continue to reign.

         13 likes

  17. noggin says:

    5live scrapes the barrel again this morning
    VD (what a moniker :-D) … breaks new ground by reporting on … a doctor who … wait for it, has a drink problem.
    drearybyshire lives up to her name, by droning on for inestimable time … tries to big it up, by reporting that she still has people stopping her to tell her
    “where they were, when they heard that …
    this dr had a drink problem?”
    the VD fan club … e mail, and tweet in ya da ya da ya da
    just a dreadful waste of radio
    oh well at least the bbc has forgotten that jihadist terrorists
    are in syria … again even forgotten they are militants today

    “Rebels ‘seize most of Syria police academy” …
    a bunch of “james dean” lookalikes perhaps?
    full of teen angst?

       17 likes

    • Manfred VR says:

      Yes,
      I too find “Rat Face Vicky, The Salford Slapper” particularly trying these days.
      When she first worked on radio, she had a voice like clotted cream.
      Now she sounds like a middle aged feminist with a voice range that oscillates between patronising purring for her Socialist guests, and screeching fishwife for Tories.
      Mind you, as she is a middle aged (Socialist) feminist, I suppose that explains it all.

         22 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

        But at least there’s only one of them now. Whatever happened to her sister? Radio 5 Dead was unbearable when the two of them were droning alternately.

           10 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          I have a particular aversion to the VD trademark sharp intake of breath…. the ‘VD gasp of horror’ whenever she hears something vaguely non-PC. ‘So the black footballer found an extra banana in his lunchbox? Gasp!’ Or ‘So when you reported this rape the Policeman called you what…”deary”? Gasp!’
          Let’s hope nothing serious or life threatening happens in the news Vicky…. you might just over inflate.

             14 likes

      • Big Dick says:

        Wish the Commies would try and jam 5 dead ! Oh I forgot they are all on the same side now ! Think the Chinese & N . Korea do so ,still ,for World Service ! Anyhow I cam`t put myself through that torture anymore! Thank god for Nick Ferrari !

           4 likes

      • noggin says:

        i d say check it out, just to get 5live “down wiv de kids” at the rehab clinic …
        and “we sistas yea” as she visits her home
        but i wouldn t wish that drivel on my worst enemy. would i VD eh!.
        cue the sycophantic ones weasley drone
        … “oh no, lord, poor thing”

           3 likes

  18. Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

    Resisting the urgeto feed the trolls!

       2 likes

  19. Reed says:

    Ignore these one line trollers, for goodness sake.

       5 likes

  20. Old Goat says:

    Harrabin pushing the agenda – again:

    http://climaterealists.com/?id=11244

       4 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:

      the priest of the church of global warming was on the bbc views at lunchtime

      a swivel eyed card carrying eco loon

         12 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        He even managed to slip in ‘climate weirding’. The BBC are now more than ever shamelessly pushing the AGW agenda of their eco-socialist mates shared at their secret 28gate meeting.

           5 likes

  21. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Oops! At the moment the nine rapist/ grooming suspects have become ‘Asian men’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21658910 (15:10 version). Keep an eye on newssniffer for when someone at the bBBC realises they should be just ‘men’.

       17 likes

  22. Pounce says:

    I see the bBC is reporting on how f-ing Islamic terrorists who ambushed an army patrol and then died for allah when instead of sitting back and letting the bBCs fav Islamic militants kill them, found out the hard way that the British army don’t give up without a fight. According to the bBC there was signs of torture of the iraqi bodies brought back. What the bBC don’t mention is that instead of hiding behind their wagons waiting for support the British troops advanced into contact with fixed bayonets and took out the enemy with the use of cold steel. But the bBC won’t tell you that, instead they go into overdrive because a muslim terrorist was killed and that just isn’t cricket.
    The bBC the traitors within our midst

       31 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Perhaps traces of blood were found on the dead Iraqis.

      You must admit, that’s not very nice, is it?

         3 likes

  23. Guest Who says:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100205189/labour-eastleigh-and-the-crucifixion-of-st-john-ofarrell/

    One might have opined this would make the next HIGNFY outing a smidge awkward, but as the BBC has erased all mention of Labour at Eastleigh (Flokkers, start your engines), and Paul & Ian seem contractually obligated only to mention and hence read the Daily Mail, Mr. O’Farrell may yet ease back in.
    ‘This morning I rang the Labour Party press office and asked if the party had been aware O’Farrell had a book coming out the week after the Eastleigh by-election when they selected him as candidate. They haven’t rung me back.’
    Odd, usually a novel plugging from such a quarters would have the sofas from Breakfast to Newsnight booked out all week.

       12 likes

  24. Aerfen says:

    Much talk on Five Live about rules being changed to reduce ‘rights’ of Romagarians to claim benefit.

    The BBC dare not reveal their objection to this so instead seem to be pushing the line that this cannot be done without hurting Brits too due to EU rules.

    While it is true that the EU demands equal treatment for all EUers, it is surely NOT beyond the imagination of clever Whitehall policy advisers to come up with ways to word the rulings that favour people who are local, born here, have a period of residence which ensures that most Brits are not hurt, while most new arrivals are.

       15 likes

  25. Guest Who says:

    Not sure, but it’s possible that, on average, a whole series of BBC sub’s heads just exploded and the entire PR & legal teams will be pulling an all nighter.
    Maybe the top floor market rates have even had to stay past 4.30 to have a conference call with Lord Hall Hall wherever his extended holiday leave has him located currently.
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bowl.html?
    Personally, the BBC Ark seems pretty well stacked already, and really what the nation needs is more middle media managers to debate Editor’s blog posts… over engineers, programmers, vets, etc.

       3 likes

  26. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC in house magazine Aerial

    Overheard at the BBC (a jolly little feature which I’m surprized has not been reXXXXXXXted)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/19558501

    ‘..Fingers crossed the queen doesn’t die until next sprint (a software development term which means two weeks) then…’

    [Just about as respectful as you would expect from the BBC]

    ‘..The only item of any use they’ve got on the sat-truck is a butt plug…’

    [as a hideously hetro middle aged man I don’t think I’m even supposed to know what that means]

    ‘..Eddie Izzard has discovered that people came from Africa…’

    ‘…If Jesus really could make water into wine, I’d totes be his friend…’

    Have a read. They think they are funny. You will find them far from endearing.

       6 likes

  27. Dazed & Confused says:

    Ah the BBCs good friend and programme maker Comrade Nick Lowles….He’s not wanted on British streets because of the out and out lies he tells all over the Internet…..And yet the BBC gave him carte blanche to produce a Panarama programme about the evil football supporters of Poland and the Ukraine, which as usual with Lowles, turned out to be nothing other than militant leftist scaremongering and propaganda…

       11 likes

  28. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ’s ‘massive’ report on KENYA.

    BBC-NUJ’s biggest ‘World’ story online at present:

    ‘Counting starts in Kenyan’ (tribal) ‘election.

    Is this report aimed at Kenyans who have left Kenya to become immigrants in Britain? Is this what licence fee is for?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21662302

       2 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Well one thing is for sure – it’s not going to have me in any hurry to emigrate to Kenya.

         4 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        No, you wont be in a hurry to emigrate there, but what puzzles me is neither will the bleeding heart liberal lefties, who for some unknown reason want them all to come here! WTF ?

           2 likes

  29. Jeff Waters says:

    This guy won’t be appearing on HIGNFY anytime soon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8nC1dk-t4w&feature=youtu.be

    WARNING: Contains strong language!

       8 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      In the language of Doug Stanhope, priceless, f*^**ing priceless piece of youtube perfection.

         2 likes

  30. Teddy Bear says:

    BBC – The Wholly Beeble replacing the Holy Bible

    Not an issue I’ve ever looked into before, but an article today in the Daily Mail started me thinking, and a little bit of research reveals an ever increasing attempt by the BBC to alter the message as intended by Christianity to conform to its own dubious agenda.

    The story in today’s Mail concerns the BBC airing a Jewish Gay campaigner apparently telling of his experiences in ‘coming out of the closet’. The programme the BBC uses for this is one of a series leading up to Easter called ‘Lent Talks’.

    So let’s see how fitting is this topic for what one would expect from such a programme.

    In my limited understanding of religion, Lent is the period leading up to Easter where devout Christians use abstinence to identify and empathise with the trials of Christ before he was crucified.

    An interesting word in English is ‘atonement’, which some may recognise from the Jewish ‘day of atonement’ known more commonly by the Jewish term of Yom Kippur. This is the day when devout Jews fast for 24 hours and ask God’s forgiveness for their sins. The reason I mention it is their ‘atonement’ leads to ‘at-one-ment’, or harmony. It appears as Lent has the same philosophy behind it.

    So looking at how the BBC has covered this period in recent years, with their Lent Talks, there would appear to be a justifiable concern in what they deem to be appropriate speakers.

    In 2008 from what I can see there was a fair selection of speakers:

    Speakers in 2008 have included the Conservative politician Ann Widdecombe, and in 2007 featured Armando Ianucci, who discussed why the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday is longer than forty days. The final Lent Talk in 2008 was delivered on 19 March, by the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright. His talk drew upon the Bible book Lamentations of Jeremiah, emphasising the negative moments in life and times when we need to sit and reflect. The theme of his talk, delivered during Holy Week, was to reflect on the period between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    2009 appears to have provided an ‘interesting’ selection of speakers, but from what I can see, within the framework of what can be considered ‘acceptable’. If there any devout Christians reading this, and who heard these talks, I would appreciate your impression of how you found it.

    In 2009, the series of Lent Talks began on 4 March, with the first programme being broadcast by Martin Bell, talking about his experience in the war zones. The second edition was presented by Richard Holloway on 11 March, in which Holloway discussed the power of language and referred to the transcendence of God. His talk referred to both music and verbal language. He also referred to the problem of infinite regress as applied to the question of “Who made God”? providing an answer by stating that this question overlooks the transcendence of God. The third edition was entitled “Does God makes mistakes” and was presented by Sister Frances Domenica. The fourth edition was presented on 25 March by George Pattison, and was about “The Absence of God”, dealing with the theme of how we cannot see God. Early in this edition, Pattison referred to the an Anglican liturgy, in which it is said that God knows our hearts, and watches our inner movement. He later referred to the French atheist existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, describing Sartre’s early loss of faith, and stating that Sartre remained, for the rest of his life, a resolute atheist. However, he later referred to the postmodernist philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who said that although we cannot see God, God can see us, and discussed how this is important to Levinas’ philosophy.
    On 1/4 April, Frank Field presented Lent Talks. He described Lent as a time not merely of sackcloth and ashes, but as a time to divide the periods in our lives. The final edition of the Lent Talks in 2009 was broadcast on 8 April, and presented by the Jewish philosopher and theologian Melissa Raphael. Raphael’s talk, “In God’s Absence”, reflected on the meaning of God for Jews during the Holocaust. Raphael mentioned how she, as a feminist Jew, had studied Christianity while at university but had remained a Jew.

    2010 is where it seems to go off the rails with one of the speakers being Will Self.

    The Lent Talks for 2010 began on February 24 with Will Self giving a talk on religion and the arts, and the spiritual sense that one can feel in church buildings. Maajid Naawaz, the director of the Quilliam Foundation, gave the Lent Talks on March 10 2010. Alastair McGrath presented the Lent Talks on March 24 2010, on the relationship between religion and science – he mentioned Karl Popper, Peter Medawar and Sir Isaac Newton.

    Anybody not familiar with this odious individual can consider themselves lucky. I find his being an insult to humanity so I’ve no doubt many Christians would have been perturbed by the BBC selecting him for this particular role.

    The first 40 seconds will give you an idea of how Self regards religion:

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4LdjptXtOg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

    In terms of emotional development, he is not anybody that is really fit to be giving any kind of spiritual inspiration:

    Self’s parents separated when he was nine, and divorced when he was eighteen.[13] Despite the intellectual encouragement given by his parents, he was an emotionally confused and self-destructive child, harming himself with cigarette ends and knives before getting into drugs

    What on earth was the BBC thinking? Except to deprecate Christianity further.

    Not much written for 2011 – The Lent Talks in 2011 began on March 16 2011. Ian Blair was the first speaker and talked about religion in public life.

    For 2012 certainly one of the names jumps out at me as a strange choice:

    The Lent Talks in 2012 began on February 29 2012. Speakers in the most recent (i.e. 2012) series included John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University; Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University and Linda Woodhead, lecturer in Religious Studies at The University of Lancaster.

    The third of the Lent Talks in 2012 was presented by John Lennox on the theme of science and religion. Early on in the programme, he quoted Albert Einstein: “The only thing that is incomprehensible about the universe is that it is comprehensible”. He also referred to Alfred North Whitehead, as well as many scientists – such as Kepler or Galileo – who believed in God. Lennox said that Jesus Christ as the person, above all else, who did not fit into this world. He also clarified that was one of the reasons why he was a Christian.

    Now we come to 2013. I presume because the BBC has gotten away with it for a few years now they decided to ‘go for broke’.

    Not just a Jew
    Not just a Gay campaigner
    but also somebody who is clearly disaffected with religion, much like Self, as the Mail article shows.

    If I were a devout Christian, and this is what I was being offered: Gay rights campaigner Benjamin Cohen will make the comments, likening the experience of young gay men to that of Jesus on the cross,
    I would feel rightfully insulted at the BBC choice of voice for this period.

    BBC Easter message compares treatment of gay people with the crucifixion of Christ

       10 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Fact about Tariq Ramadan not in wiki -” In 1991, he went to Cairo to receive the teachings of Islamist professors. Upon his return to Switzerland, he founded the Movement of the Swiss Muslims. His objective was to re-Islamize Muslim youth…… In 1994, Alaedine Nazmi, an Egyptian Secret Service agent, who was in charge of watching the Ramadan family, was murdered in Geneva. No culprit has ever been identified.”

         10 likes

      • noggin says:

        “brother” tariq and his created chair at Oxford University a slimy mix of taqiyya-and-tu-quoque
        sorry wally, don t get me started, but if anyones interested
        check out
        “Fitzgerald: Keep Tariq Ramadan out”
        indeed … but not at al bbc eh!
        not at lent, pleeeze

           13 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Do you think he would have the courage to slag off the prophet Mohammad ? nah, somehow I doubt it.

         16 likes

      • Teddy Bear says:

        Yes, let’s see the BBC ‘balance’ their coverage by inviting Benjamin Cohen, the Jewish Gay campaigner to speak on a similar theme in honour of Ramadan 🙄

        If only!

           12 likes

      • noggin says:

        slag off mo! … yep!, you ve answered your own question,
        intellectual courage – all out
        moral courage – all out,
        physical courage :-D,
        emotional courage – all out
        hmm thats it … “worthy Self” lover
        “act crazy somewhere else,
        … we re all out here”

           5 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Not funny either – no sense of timing. Pathetic in fact.

         1 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Doesn`t look well at all.
      May yet need prayer at this rate…or is that the louche look required of the ex-junkie?

         5 likes

    • stewart says:

      First time ever found my self agreeing with will self.
      As a reasoned atheist I dislike fundamentalism,most especially secular fundamentalism

         1 likes

  31. David Brims says:

    God isn’t happy with Will Self. The roof of his £1 million pound house collapsed, just like that.

    Coincidence ?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2148792/Author-Will-Self-family-flee-lives-roofs-1-million-houses-street-collapse.html

       9 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Sounds like an old dave Allen sketch:”Let him who be without sin cast the first stone.”

         3 likes

  32. +james says:

    They don’t like it up um. However this was not on the main news. Filed away under entertainment and arts. Nothing to see here.

    BBC denies ‘gagging’ reports over staff work review

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21656226

       3 likes

  33. Jeff Waters says:

    Guerrilla knitting in Leicester ‘to reduce crime fear’ – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21659158

    “As we all know more officers on the beat doesn’t actually have a massive impact on crime rates in [an] area.

    “More officers on the beat plus community involvement – community engagement, making sure that people feel part of the community and that the community belongs to them – perhaps that’s a better way of making an area feel safer.”

    But of course…

    What use are police officers in tackling crime, compared with having baubles in trees and holding community engagement meetings?

    Jeff

       6 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Community blah blah community blah blah community blah blah community

      All warm and fuzzy.

      Most of the time there isn’t a bloody community, that’s the problem.

      What happened to them? Well that’s another story.

         8 likes

  34. jimbola says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21665322

    Check the picture.
    Will file that one along with the white muggers pics.

       8 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Hilarious isn’t it? She’s probably a Mormon.

         4 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Hideously errr…….white? What a joke.

         6 likes

    • +james says:

      LOL, here is the pic of forced marriage victim

      _66201476_woman.jpg

         5 likes

      • jimbola says:

        Can’t find this article anywhere on the site now other than through the link here.

           1 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          ‘Can’t find this article anywhere on the site now other than through the link here.’
          Ah, but it is there still?
          Good job +James took a capture to post here as it appears to have ‘evolved’.
          No stealth editting. No one reads BBBC. Oh no.
          Next, Peter Rippon moves in… redact, redact, redact!
          Unique indeed.

             5 likes

  35. noggin says:

    caught out nikki “panto” going all “meaningful looks, and interesting hair”, on 5live news this morning … over –
    “forced” marriages (around 8.40.am)
    On his best obfuscational behaviour, well i mean it is “spread over so many cultures and communities” ? isn t it.
    and of course we “need to be very culturally sensitive” ?
    don t we?, so throws in gypsies, kurds etc etc
    But as he well knows, the majority of cases involve those from South Asian communities (i.e. Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Indian), and the vast majority of these – but not all – are in Muslim families, with over half of the cases are in Pakistani families.
    oops! i m such an islamophobetional wacist, with the only problem being, i got the info from the muslim woman network.
    sheesh! … come on “panto” keep up, “get down” with the kids, anyone would think it was … deliberate wouldn t they.

       11 likes

    • noggin says:

      we have the “pleasure”?
      of a V.D. 😀 5live special, on the very same.
      where we have a victim, of the very same.
      kurd? then , gypsy maybe?, well no …
      never mind that, moving on … but we can t name
      her … so we ll call her mary,(good old christian name),
      anyway whilst … mary … was taken to pakistan, by her parents (shakes head) …
      (forced to marry a first cousin?, at all… anybody?)

         4 likes

  36. noggin says:

    bbc mews
    Oxford exploitation trial: Girl. ‘off her head’ on drugs
    do they mean ANOTHER muslim child gang rape trial?
    by any chance?.
    actually (and shamefully), it does intimate, a “druggy girl” scenario as well.
    traitors all

       4 likes

  37. AsISeeIt says:

    It’s the Sun wot done it!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It

    You see some media are proud to make the claim that they have affected public opinion.

    When our newspapers run a campaign that derails a Government minister or when they force a policy to run into the buffers they shout about it.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218387/Gary-McKinnon-extradition-Weve-won-declares-mum-Janis-Sharp-tears-joy.html

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/5352040/Victory-for-Joanna-Lumley-as-all-Gurkhas-to-be-given-right-to-settle-in-Britain.html

    Not so the BBC. The BBC maintain their supposed impartiality. The BBC aren’t meant to run campaigns that either oppose or indeed support Government policy.

    The BBC insists that it merely reflects views that are already out there. The champers may well have come out on the night of Tony Blair’s victory in 1997 but when the BBC Moet Marxists popped their corks it didn’t make the 9 O’Clock News – it was a dirty little secret.

    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/05/the_bbcs_champa.html

    So from the BBC we hear a lot of:
    ‘we are getting a lot of texts that say….’
    ‘but Labour say….’
    ‘Some would say….’
    Which is pretty bulletproof – so long as there are not too many slip ups such as that Jane Garvey moment when she described for us the corridors of Broadcasting House before the office boy had collected all the empties. Remember that Friday morning our Tony entered number 10 and when Jimmy Savile happily hitched up his trackie bottoms for the zillianth time? For the BBC things looked as though they could only get better.

    I don’t believe a word of it. The BBC’s impartiality, I mean.

    Yesterday I heard a minor admission from a BBC source about their power to influence. It was a small slip – but all the more noticable for its rarity.

    There was a show about steam trains aired on BBC2 The Flying Scotsman: A Rail Romance

    ‘In celebration of its 90th birthday, Barbara Flynn narrates the story of the nation’s love affair with the Flying Scotsman – arguably the most famous locomotive in the world, and one that symbolises all that was great about British engineering.’

    We are told that in the early 1960s British Rail and the British Government were determined to modernise the railways and to elimate steam. We are then told that our airwaves were full of calls for the ‘white heat of technology’.

    But then the BBC steps up to take a bow. Suddenly we hear that the voices to be heard on the BBC changed. There were now demands to preserve our steam heritage. This we are told was one in the eye for nasty Mr Beeching and the Government.

    Leaving aside the BBC’s apparent self contradiction in supporting both Labour darling Harold’s white heat and simultaneously opposing Beeching’s Tory cut backs…..

    It is most rare that the BBC lets on that it influences public opinion. I expect they will get away it. Only a few train spotters will have been watching.

       8 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘so long as there are not too many slip ups’
      Further to the “‘We’ speak for the nation” meme, was there also not one by a seasoned voice of impartiality that has passed into legend, at least outside the BBC’s Mr. Rippon’s currently hyperactive redaction team over in archives?
      http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/observerblog+media/james-naughtie
      ‘James Naughtie accidentally fighting the good fight for New Labour on the Today programme’
      The sooner the BBC adds the Graun formally to the print arms of its media roster to nip such things in the bud, the better.

         4 likes

  38. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Who was in power 1997-2010?
    A 20 year study, from 1990 to 2010, published in The Lancet today, shows that the UK lags behind most other European countries in the quality of healthcare.
    Shadow Health Minister Andrew Gwynne said the findings show how the current government is failing patients and the NHS.
    Another example where the bBBC wants everyone to forget the disastrous Labour years 1997-2010. I’m surprised they didn’t blame it on Mrs Thatcher.

       12 likes

  39. AsISeeIt says:

    Shelagh Fogarty on BBC 5 Live is attempting to lauch a rather heavy lead balloon for the left this morning.

    Children who are fat – but actually are undernourished.

    Her ‘expert ‘is hilarious….’It’s like trying to sort out climate change… it’s very complicated’

       11 likes

  40. Guest Who says:

    Consultants ‘desperate’ about gagging
    http://audioboo.fm/boos/1247892-consultants-desperate-about-gagging#.UTX-GnF6vQs.twitter
    Luckily, the BBC is here asking the questions, as opposed to being asked them.

       2 likes

  41. Guest Who says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21667883
    Be funny if it hits the egg & spoon at Bradford West primary sports day, and the BBC finds itself with another one of those tricky ‘do we, don’t we?’ editorial coverage decisions.

       2 likes

  42. will says:

    For some reason nowhere to be seen on the BBC “Business” pages

    the service sector PMI showed a welcome (and unexpected) rise to 51.8 in February, from 51.5 in January. Though the read-across from the PMIs to gross domestic product is not always great, Markit, which produces the figures, said the PMIs were consistent with modest growth.

    This is what Markit said about the service-sector PMI: “Business activity in the UK service sector increased for a second consecutive month in February. New business also increased, leading to a further expansion of payrolls. Confidence also continued to improve, with optimism regarding future activity at a nine-month high

    Earlier, the British Retail Consortium said retail sales in February were their strongest for more than three years, with a 2.7% like-for-like increase in sales value compared with a year earlier, and a 4.5% rise in total sales.

    BBC hate it when they can’t report/anticipate recession.

       5 likes

  43. George R says:

    One-eyed BBC-Democrats:-

    They don’t see and don’t report this:-

    “See No Unholy Alliance, Hear No Unholy Alliance”

    By Jamie Glazov.

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/br0nc0s/managed-mt/mt-srch.cgi?search=islam+on+US+campus&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20

    But one-eyed Beeboids do see and report this:-

    “Oberlin cancels classes amid campus hate speech spate”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21660520

       1 likes

  44. Guest Who says:

    As the BBC gets more and more cavalier with it’s ‘Truth wouldn’t fit’ and/or ‘who needs context when you can get what you need quoting out of it’ tweets and headlines, I confess to a few double takes just now…

    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/oddities.html?

    ‘there’s a grim mood in old Broadcasting House. Jane Garvey is standing by for Women’s Hour’
    Seems harsh on the lady.
    ‘Richard Bacon on Mondays will be replaced by a toddlers’ club’
    Will anyone notice?

       4 likes

  45. Guest Who says:

    Good to see Newsnight has not let recent events in any way affect its commitment to the weighty issues of the day..
    Joe Lynam BBC Biz ‏@BBC_Joe_Lynam
    I’ve just been filming Justin Bieber fans waiting outside the Langham hotel in London and their parents. more on @BBCNewsnight tonight

       5 likes

  46. George R says:

    BBC ‘greenies’ habitually support the undemocratic rights of ‘Greenpeace’.

    Barbara Hewson at ‘Spiked’ –
    “Why shouldn’t EDF protect its gas plants?
    That greens think they have a right to protest anywhere shows how megalomaniacal they have become.”

    http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13406/

       4 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      … not just the ‘greens’ it’s the whole panoply of activists. Or when it comes to the jobs market – inactivists.

         7 likes

  47. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    What’s going on here? No sign of this story on the bBBC website. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9910777/Woman-killed-in-suspected-road-rage-attack.html
    They must know something about the women involved.

       2 likes

  48. thoughtful says:

    Apparantly left wing loonie favorite of beeb Ugo Shavezzzz is a bit poorly again so the PM program devotes a huge tranche of the news to the poor love. As for other leaders in the region they don’t even know who they are let alone their health status, but they aren’t engaged in a left wing struggle against reality!

       5 likes

    • Adi says:

      Expect the beeboids working ’round the clock to offer a sanitized hagiography of the multibillionaire tyrant champion of the poor.

      Under the lefty pretext of ‘every life is sacred’ (unless you’re a White Brit or Joo) they will shed genuine tears on the passing of Chavs.

      Just wait for the t-shirts & flags.

         3 likes