339 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. PhilO'TheWisp says:

    Nikki Campbell doing his best on 5Live to turn Pryce and Huhne into martyrs. Who’d have predicted that?

       62 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      As any good liberal will tell you – we shouldn’t send anyone to prison: women shouldn’t ever go prison; drug dealing shouldn’t be illegal; etc etc. Come on, this is the BBC.

         54 likes

      • Mat says:

        Good point prison is only for Tory’s, anyone who has a issue with immigration or the E.U and those who choose not to pay the BBC tax !

           60 likes

        • Bannerman says:

          Shameful hour of “poor Huhne’s”. What can they expect blah blah….who cares, as long as Huhne comes out with an arse like a wizards sleeve.
          Maybe we can have a phone in soon on Soviet Gulags?

             27 likes

          • David Brims says:

            Chris Huhne will probably find God in prison, they always do, then when he comes out, he”ll become a campaigner for penal reform, they always do.

            It’s a script.

               26 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              And will be all over the BBC when he does. Paxman will not treat him the same way he did Conrad Black, though.

                 11 likes

          • Mice Height says:

            Yep, let’s hope he’s sharing a cell with ‘Big Winston’.

               2 likes

    • Kyoto says:

      Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was on the toilet, I mead the Today programme, saying Pryce’s sentence was unfair. She did confess to being a friend of Pryce’s as did Evan Davis. And as I understand from another poster Putrid Tonybee was touring ITV over the weekend to say Pryce should not go to prison.

      I think it would be good to know who Pryce’s media chums are, so we know where they are comming from.

      Also I wonder if the sisterhood will be laying into Pryce for her use of marital coercion as a defence. Surely to the sisterhood a woman should demand equality in all things – even when at trial – otherwise they are guilty of sexism by claiming to be a ‘weak woman’. Marital coercion is particularly sexist as it is not open to men as a form of defence.

      Finally, since we now know that Pryce called Trimmingham a ‘man’, at least twice should that mean she should forever be cast out of the BBC for offenses against LBTG sensibilities. After all has Carol Thatcher been on the BBC since being cast out for using disapproved words in a private conversation.

         66 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        Can we find anyone in the leftist commentariat that did not hoot with triumph at the imprisonment of Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitkin?

        Did they do the round of studios bleating for them? Was the BBC there to commiserate or were there a rash of BBC ‘comedies’ commissioned to mock the Tories and advance the Labour ‘Sleaze’ agenda – where only Tories were sleazy (just like it was only Tories who abused the expenses system to pay for moat cleaning and duck houses)

        Do I get the impression that they feel as Lord Oakeshott who says

        “We sorely miss Chris as a doughty warrior for liberal and social democracy. lt’s a bitterly cold day for the future of radical, progressive politics in our country.”

           45 likes

        • Doublethinker says:

          If that is the liberal left establishment view of this liar and convicted criminal we can expect that he will be pop up in government again . Then they wonder why the people are so cynical about politics.
          No doubt the BBC will fall over themselves to have him on programmes after his release to aid in his rehabilitation. After all they are loyal to their liberal left friends.

             37 likes

          • graphene fedora says:

            The Toynbee gang will stage a jailbreak. Huhne/Pryce magicked to Brazil, via safe houses in Barnes, Islington & Tuscany. Huhne becomes the Ronnie Biggs of the left-liberal metro establishment, singing ‘No one is Innocent’ with a re-formed Sex Pistols. Beeboids remain impartial, but Chris Patten comes out for UKIP.

               30 likes

        • pah says:

          The Archer case was a particular miscarriage IMHO – his perjury did not materially change the evidence as he was with his mistress not a prostitute ( conveniently killed just prior to the trial). It may have affected the payout but not the outcome.

          Only the fact that he is a hated Tory prevented the likes of LIberty from saying so.

          As to the ‘Duck House’ agenda it is particularly notable as no payments were made for it, unlike the multiple frauds commited by Labour MPs.

             41 likes

          • Invicta 1066 says:

            Jeremy Hardy is copping some flack over a programme where he appparently made a load of leftie snide comments about anyone and anything not left wing. I didn’t listen, in fact if his name comes up I avoid the programme.I heard him about two years ago he was making snide, sneering comments about Archer and his jail term; he was referring to something that happened in the last Century! Good to see his material is so up to date.

               27 likes

            • Reed says:

              Poor Jeremy – still imagining that Thatcha is in Number 10 and that the miners are on strike. A ordinary, mild mannered man using the subversive power of comedy to undermine the right-wing establishment and bring about a social revolution which will topple the fascist powers that be.

              Walter Mitty Syndrome.

                 9 likes

              • wallygreeninker says:

                Shh -don’t mention the miners’ strike – you’ll have Dan Ash back here determined to re-fight the whole damned thing blow-by-blow.

                   6 likes

        • Mice Height says:

          “lt’s a bitterly cold day for the future of radical, progressive politics in our country.”

          It’s also a bitterly cold day for those who can’t afford their heating bills because of this vile c*nt’s insane ‘green’ policies!

             15 likes

        • london calling says:

          lt’s a bitterly cold day for …..all of us suffering the rigged energy market at the behest of subsidised unreliable renewables. Glove puppet Huhne as Minister for non-existent Global Warming whose ministerial diary was packed with endless briefings from the unelected environmental activists. It was indeed a bad day for democracy and common sense when Huhne took up his ministerial post.

          Were his replacement Red Ed not an even a bigger stooge in the pocket of the eco-mentalists, I could almost miss Huhne.

          Could someone not “find something” on Davey? How many points on his licence? Seems a good enough precedent.

             2 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

        There must be more to come, with Constance Briscoe – a black Conservative judge who happened to be a neighbour and friend of Ms Pryce, and probably encouraged her in her foolhardy stunt – said by the Police to be an unreliable witness, and for the last six months suspended from her job.

           33 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Ah the Jowell defence!
        Remember when this harpie in charge of the Olympic money suddenly dropped her hubby into the mire over his dealings with Berlusconi in Italy?
        This doughty feminist and tribune of the left?…well she left her husband to do such things as mortgages, and the finances-so quite how Berlusconis gold ended up on her Amex Card….well that`ll be the handbag fairy. Tessa and the girls simply could not be expected to understand such beastly, complex things as those.
        Titter…giggle….anyone for a shoe shop?
        That`s Tessie!..come on Vicky, she got away with it…you MUST have been psychically battered, and suffering from PMTSDs( Post Menopausal Traumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome).
        I may yet catch it from my wife if Plod comes a calling!

           25 likes

      • Ian Hills says:

        “Marital coercion – as in “Oo, I’m just a wiccle woman whose huthband Jack Dwomey made me fiddle my expentheth” said Harriet Harman.

        Who needs feminism when you can blame a bloke without it.

           11 likes

        • Ian Hills says:

          (She didn’t actually say it but she could have done.)

             6 likes

        • Cosmo says:

          There used to be a similar caracter in “The fast show” the one with big arse. Meet these hypocrites on a daily basis. The problem is they are in good jobs for all the wrong reasons.

             2 likes

      • JaneTracy says:

        Yes and Evening Standard has been ridden with it showing how corrupt our media class is. They genuinely do not expect the law to be applied to them!

        http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/friends-of-vicky-pryce-fear-for-her-health-shes-not-a-hardbitten-monster-prison-could-break-her-8532385.html?origin=internalSearch

           5 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Try expressing political views different from his, then you’ll find that he has a use for prisons after all! Amazing how intolerant of diversity ‘progressives’ are when that diversity refers to political beliefs.

         9 likes

  2. George R says:

    “We struggle to find right-wing comedians, admits BBC chief .

    “Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation led to complaints from Radio 4 listeners.
    “Show criticised for ‘Tory bashing’ and ‘prejudiced extreme left wing views.’
    “Commissioning editor Caroline Raphael has now admitted it is a struggle to find comedians with a right-wing point of view.”
    By PAUL REVOIR

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291952/We-struggle-right-wing-comedians-admits-BBC-chief.html

       53 likes

    • George R says:

      Beeboids:

      ‘We don’t put on right-wing comedians because we don’t find them funny.

      ‘We do put on left-wing comedians, who are anti-Tory, because these comedians definitely do make us, and our left-wing friends, laugh.’

         77 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      Finding funny comedians would be a start.

         65 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Of course, there is another way around this lack of balance problem. Simply take Hardy and his unfunny left-wing diatribes off the air. The nation will survive the loss.

         82 likes

      • Phil Ford says:

        “…Simply take Hardy and his unfunny left-wing diatribes off the air. The nation will survive the loss.”

        I lol’d. Well said.

           45 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Maybe there is a shortage of right wing comedians, but perhaps the BBC has contributed to that. Let’s face it, telling right wing jokes doesn’t look like a very good career move at the moment, does it?

      “Producers…spend a lot of time in the comedy clubs looking for people with a range of views.”

      Perhaps they should try harder. They seem to be able to find a black person to interview almost anywhere.

         69 likes

      • Deborah says:

        Well of course there is the charming Jack Whitehall who started off reasonably OK but then realised he has to be coarse and play down his background to succeed with the BBC; the dreadful Chris Addison who has tried to play down his private school education (although I see it is now clearly there on Wiki) and tries so hard to be one of the boys and plays his Left wing credentials for all it is worth and the lovely Miles Jupp who I don’t thing has been polluted with Left wing attitudes yet.

           21 likes

        • stewart says:

          That would be Jack ‘Pavel Morozov’ Whitehall who secured his place on the BBC by arbitrarily denouncing his grandparents on HIGNFY for racism?

             24 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Don’t forget Miranda, who is also from a rather aristocratic background, and is also properly ashamed of it.

             13 likes

      • Mark says:

        Morecambe and Wise didn’t mock the afflicted and were not political.

        Ken Dodd is not political.

        Bob Monkhouse supported the Tories but never made any vicious anti-Labour comments.

        Kenny Everett’s comments about bombing Russia and kicking Michael Foot’s stick away were as far as the Right-wing political satire went.

        So, how hard can it be to find a comedian with Right-of-centre, slightly bombastic views ?

           49 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Since the darlings have been getting that food pellet for pushing the “Thatcher” button all these years, nobody is going to stop them doing it now. And the BBC isn’t going to condition anyone to push a different button any time soon.

             18 likes

      • Leon says:

        Young comedians are merely working within
        well established tropes. Left=good, right=bad. Political comedy means merely being left wing. So any comedian with a non left wing act is already working against the established norms. Even in the dog days of NuLabour, when things got really bad the ‘edgy’ comedians pulled their punches, they gave Labour an easy ride as the ‘good’ party.
        Comedy’s big business now and the guys playing places like the O2 arena must be earning serious money: unlike bands they don’t have to split the takings four or five ways and don’t have as many roadies or expensive light shows, so more profit. They tend to keep quiet about this while at the same time boasting about comedy being ‘the new rock n roll’
        Do you think they are socialist with their own money or do they want to be nicely tax efficient with all this new found wealth?

           20 likes

        • Big Dick says:

          All the usual lefty comics will be appearing on Red Nose Day Nite , so don`t dig deep into your pockets , for them ,go to the pub instead ! They have all got enough , so they can all have a whip round ,for their poverty stricken “African Brothers” !

             17 likes

          • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

            They’ll get nowt from me!

               7 likes

            • stewart says:

              Perhaps if they payed their full share of income tax and national insurance’
              (like for instance a P.A.Y.E. employee of starbucks ) instead of exploiting their self employed status,there would be more money available for the welfare state and foreign aid and less need for charity.

                 3 likes

    • +james says:

      Jeremy Hardy is a comedian?

         46 likes

      • london calling says:

        Jeremy Hardy a comedian? No, he is a Socialist Worker activist who tells jokes as a sideline.

           14 likes

    • Dave s says:

      The BBC hive mind has no interest in promoting alternative views. I find their weasel words typical of that smug liberal condecension masquerading as concern.

         42 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      How’s about an apolitical comedian – you know, they just tell jokes and do funny things.

      Tommy Cooper did – just like that.

         30 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Just how many of these comedy panel shows does the BBC need, though? And it’s not like there’s a wide variety of comedians on them, either, regardless of their political views. Perhaps if the BBC didn’t rely so heavily on certain darlings, it might seem a little less relentless.

         14 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      The BBC ‘struggles’ to find right-wing comedians.

      Could it be because they mostly advertise in the Guardian?
      Could it be because any right wind comedian would immediately make the BBC the obvious target for their humorous observations?

      I recall quite a few BBC presenters snubbed appearing with Sacha Baron Cohen following his recent movie The Dictator, a take off of a Islamic despot. They were clearly afraid he might appear in character.

      No doubt the BBC tries ‘real hard’ 🙄 to find right wing comedians.

         17 likes

      • Teddy Bear says:

        Anybody seen Billy Connolly doing a comedy routine on the BBC lately?

        Thought not.

        That would be too easy, and the BBC prefers to try hard.

           5 likes

  3. Selohesra says:

    Can BBC employees stop referring to ‘bedroom tax’ – it is not their job to promote the Labour lie – they are there to report the facts.

       79 likes

    • noggin says:

      not their job to hide it either.
      it is what it is, and to people affected by it,
      a bedroom tax is what it is
      what would you call it.

         5 likes

      • john in cheshire says:

        I’m not sure how to term it, but I think it’s a terrible thing to do. This means that the one place where people should feel secure is being controlled by government. And of course, I suspect that because it’s happening to ‘just’ those in rented accommodation, well us home owners are unaffected and anyway why on earth should we care what happens to those who only rent? Well, I think this is the thin end of the wedge because once this is fully embedded, with no public outrage, the next step will be to increase council tax for those who live alone in premised with more than one bedroom. This reminds me of the poem about ‘they can for the Jews and I did nothing because I’m not a Jew’ etc. Well, they’ve come for the old, possibly poor and weak and we’ve done nothing because we don’t fit that profile. When they come for us, will anyone actually raise a voice in protest?

           14 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          john in cheshire
          You have an interesting point there suggesting that the concept of a surcharge on unused bedrooms may one day be spread to privately owned housing. It will be Miliband and Balls who have that idea and then the BBC will see the good sense in it

             37 likes

        • pah says:

          Where to start with this one?

          1. It is not a tax, even by labours standards that is a calumny.

          2. It is no different to reducing HB due to working non-dependants being in the property.

          3. Since 1988 there was been a defacto bar on paying for properties that were considered too big. It was never possible to rent a three bedroom property and claim for all of it if there was only one occupant of the property. These new rules clarify a rather vague area of the 1988 act.

          4. The simple solution is not declare the bedroom – it’s a study/store room M’Lud.

          5. Council Tax is payable on a building and the one person reduction is a hang over from the Community Charge which was raised per occupant. The left have often argued that OAPs living by themselves should have to pay full whack so you are probably right; but only if the Tories are stupid enough to piss off home owning pensioners.

          6. Where were the complaints when labour introduced the very same legislation for private tenants? All the Tories are doing is leveling the playing field by making social housing tenants work by the same rules.

             38 likes

        • JimS says:

          The young ladies around here that live in ‘social housing’ only stay in the same house for a few years as another new ‘father’ briefly passes through their lives and they need a new bedroom for their expanding brood.

          The ‘system’ therefore provides larger houses when needed. Shouldn’t the ‘system’ also reclaim those houses when they are no longer needed?

             21 likes

      • Selohesra says:

        taxes are when govt take from people – this is govt capping what they hand out so not a tax

           34 likes

        • Colditz says:

          It is a tax. They are taking money away from peoples income…most people claiming are workers. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221111/Working-families-housing-benefit-soar-Number-applications-rising-10-000-month.html)

          As big an own goal as the Pastie Tax last year!

             4 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            It’s a benefit.

            Assuming you’re in favour of keeping it, Colditz, what would you cut instead?

               17 likes

            • thoughtful says:

              So by your logic people on benefit do not pay VAT on purchases the government merely reduces their benefit !

              If you give someone an amount of money and then a seperate deduction is made from it which goes to the state it’s a tax!

              If the benefit was reduced at source then you might have a point!

              BTW do you actually know what the official name of the ‘bedroom tax’ actually is? This is down to rank incompetence on behalf of the government in trusting the institutionally incompetent civil service, who have come up with such a gob full it’s not surprising people find ‘bedroom tax’ easier.
              A competent party would have learned the lessons from the ‘poll tax’ !

                 0 likes

              • johnnythefish says:

                They get benefit which is paid for by people’s taxes – it doesn’t matter how they take it back, it’s still reducing their benefit. Paying tax on the state pension is similar.

                As for ‘learning from the poll tax’ (which ‘many believe’ was a lot fairer than council tax) – I’d prefer some straight talking from Cameron and co. about spending beyond our means for too long and having to cut our cloth. Housing benefit, which has gone through the roof over the last 10 years or so, is a prime target for cuts. If you don’t like it, suggest some other cut to our £200,000,000,000 annual benefits bill.

                   1 likes

          • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

            In terms of cock-ups, MacDoom’s abolition of the 10 pence tax band was the biggest of them all, closely followed by his 75 pence pension rise. Now HE REALLY knew how to fuck things up!

               26 likes

          • Selohesra says:

            They are not giving me free housing – does that mean they have introduced a special Millionaire’s tax?

               5 likes

      • Ralph says:

        Odd then the effort they go to not to have the TV licence described as a tax. So a tax is a licence and reduction in benefits is a tax? Oh yes and a terrorist is an activist?

           31 likes

      • Cosmo says:

        A tax is what you pay, this is a reduction on their freebie.

           16 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Just like when spending rises slightly less than it would have otherwise is a “budget cut”, reducing a freebie is a “tax”. Humpty Dumpty was so right.

             13 likes

          • JimS says:

            “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
            “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
            “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

            —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

               15 likes

      • Margaret Thatcher stole my bedroom says. says:

        No, it is not a bedroom tax. The fact is, it was the last Labour government who introduced legislation which mainly affected the private rental market (which most renters have to use). The housing “benefit” is set by a fair rent assessor. The number of bedrooms you are allowed depends on whether the members of your family meet the right criteria. In other words, you can’t live in a three bedroomed house, if you are only a couple, unless you are willing to pay the difference between the state housing benefit and the “fair or average” rental.
        Also, people should remember that in the private rental sector, there is not the same security of tenure as there in in a local authority or housing association property – typically 6 or 12 months contract at a time. It is heart breaking to see families being uprooted from an area, schools attended etc, because they have been given notice and can’t find another property to rent at an affordable rate.
        All the coalition has done is to apply the same kind of legislation to the public housing sector, because currently there is such a lack of family accommodation. Just listen to the howls of rage now, but back then, the BBC was completely silent about tenants in the private sector facing exactly the same problems because of Labour legislation.
        Housing in this country is a disgrace. The BBC could for example carry out a series looking at this. For example, in one typical London borough, I know a lot about, it is not unusual for up to 4,000 people representing 4 thousand families) to bid on line for the one or two 3 bedroomed houses which become available each week. The total waiting list is over 14,000
        All politicians know this.
        The fact is there is Land available to build on everywhere, including London. There are really well designed prefabricated houses which can be erected in weeks and last upwards of 30-50 years. They could be mass produced in some of Britain’s empty factories on an assembly line basis, and many of the dreadful sink estates in our Cities could be demolished and decent homes provided.

        The truth is the housing shortage could be eased considerably, but you are never going to hear a balanced viewpoint from the BBC. The facts about Housing, like so many issues in the UK seem to censored or presented only from one viewpoint.

           14 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          All comes down to this overcrowded little island we live on with the situation getting worse every day thanks to mass immigration . Railways are maxed out too, and hospitals, and roads and…..

             5 likes

          • pah says:

            Actually it is the increasing number of singletons that has buggered up the housing market not just immigration.

            All those divorces Labour wants to promote create a need for two houses rather than one.

            There is not a huge amount of suitable building land either – that is a convenient myth. Why are we building on flood plains for example? Because they are flat or because there is no where else that offers the opportunity to increase the housing density? (as dictated by Fatty Prescott’ s planing laws.)
            Then there’s the planning laws themselves which hinder the extension of properties forcing granny to live alone etc.

            It all adds up

               0 likes

    • Colditz says:

      So all the workers on housing benefits because of low wages (not shirkers) who are going to have pay this tax (for it’s a TAX on the income they receive, just like Council Tax etc) are freeloaders on freebies?

      What a terrible view of other people you have.

         6 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        And what an unrealistic view of government spending you have.

           20 likes

      • Cosmo says:

        Just have to cut back on the smartphone, laptop, tablet, broadband, Sky, TV TAX, takeaways, fags, booze, recreational drugs, sex toys, soft bog rolls, Ocado deliverys, 3 holidays a year, gym membership, gardener, window cleaner, I’m sure Iv’e missed plenty of other things. I bet a good audit of their incomes and an attitude of, if I cannot afford I cannot have would help them and the country.

           19 likes

        • It's all too much says:

          Man who attacked a shark in Australia – a media “hero’ (?) has been sacked after it was revealed that he was on long term sick leave – but his stress seemed to permit him to take a two month holiday in Australia.

          http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9924601/Shark-wrestler-sacked-because-he-was-on-sick-leave.html

          a) I am always told that these are a ‘tiny minority’ but there seems to be one exposed pretty frequently and for every idiot who wrestles a shark and ends up on TV how many others who are grossly abusing the system go unnoticed on their state funded Finca in the Rondo or ‘havin a laugh’ whilst in Aiya nappa?

          And as for the so called bedroom tax – Colditz you really are an idiot. Are mothers “taxed” when they cease receiving Child Benefit when the offsping reach 18? Child Benefit stops when it is considered unnecessary – just like those additional ‘unused’ bedrooms. If people want to live in bigger houses fine, they can get a mortgage and buy somewhere to their liking

             19 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        No!
        Workers are having to have wages supplemented by benefits because successive governments have loaded lifes essentials with stealth taxes.
        Now they cry fuel poverty and blame the energy companies whilst failing to mention there are so many taxes & levies they’ve introduced that no one can tell how much tax is being paid! All so they can say they’ve kept income tax at an unrealistic low level.

           2 likes

  4. Paul B says:

    Archbishop Welby’s comment on benefits were trumpeted a lot on the BBC over the weekend.

    Welby has also said that he doesn’t think the proposed EU cap on banker’s bonuses will work.

    Surely the BBC are hanging off his every word on this subject of banker’s bonuses!?

       31 likes

  5. AsISeeIt says:

    Leftist hero Ken Loach airs his wares on BBC Newsnight – and they are more than happy to have him.

    Tweet, tweet!

    BBC Newsnight ‏@BBCNewsnight
    Film director Ken Loach: Capitalism will never provide work or a decent life for the vast majority of its people #newsnight

    BBC Newsnight BBC Newsnight ‏@BBCNewsnight
    Next on #newsnight : Film director Ken Loach discusses his new movie The Spirit of ’45

    Now who shall we have on the show to counter Ken’s brand of nationalise the lot Marxism?

    How about a Tory? Nah, apparently the BBC couldn’t find one. A spokeswoman for the BBC said their producers searched high and low. They spent hours scouring golf clubs and coctail bars up and down the land but the only vaguely less left-winger they could possibly find was the Labour MP for Stoke on Trent. Well at least his name was Tristram! That’s posh (says Allegra)

    Did he make any non Marxist arguments?

    Tweet tweet.

    BBC Newsnight ‏@BBCNewsnight
    Tristram Hunt MP: Poverty was the challenge of 1945. Today’s challenge is worklessness. #newsnight

    Apparently not.

    Compare to the first Newsnight Tweet. The BBC have found a quote that actually reinforces Ken’s argument. BBC Bias QED

       44 likes

    • George R says:

      Yes, BBC-NUJ Trotskyist chum LOACH was on ‘Start the Week’ (morning and evening yesterday), so it figures that NUJ Father of the Chapel, MASON, at BBC 2 ‘Newsnight’ would want Loach on at ‘Newsnight’ too.

         34 likes

      • london calling says:

        Loach’s films are feted on each year at the Cannes Film Festival, an event popular among young homeless asylum seekers and benefit claimants on the Cote d’Azur.

           12 likes

    • Colonel Blimp says:

      capitalism and free trade are responsible for the greatest and fastest increase in living standards in history; Loach is a revolting old Oxbridge Marxist who would have us all toiling in crappy manual jobs to fund his self-indulgent polemical film-making.

      I was on the receiving end of a rant from an independent film producer a while ago who was complaining that while he makes movies that get watched and make money, he can’t get funding from the likes of the Film Council as it all goes to “worthy bloody Ken Loach films that no-one watches”. He then veered off onto the subject of Comrade Ken’s “mansion” in the most expensive part of Bath

         58 likes

      • Reed says:

        Related…

        Mr Loach had been holding forth on the publicly funded BBC, as he often does, grumbling about “Tories” and once again taking umbrage with multiplex cinemas and the “very narrow” range of films they find viable to screen. The proposed solution to Ken’s problem was, inevitably, greater public funding of independent filmmakers – much like Mr Loach, in fact – and the public funding of a chain of independent cinemas in which these publicly funded films could then be screened, having been selected by publicly funded people much like Mr Loach. This, he said, would “fulfil the possibility that cinema has.” Writing in the Guardian in October 2010, Loach suggested that cinemas should be owned collectively, i.e., by the state, and “programmed by people who care about films – the London Film Festival, for example, is full of people who care about films.” The term “people who care about films” is used frequently by Loach yet is never quite defined, though one doesn’t have to reach far to find the implication. Clearly, he isn’t talking about thee or me, no matter how many times we may excitedly visit a cinema. Bums on seats are not his bottom line. No, our tastes must be guided and elevated, until they conform to the expectations of our professional aesthetes and socialist betters. See? No ego at all.

        http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2012/05/no-ego-whatsoever-just-an-urge-to-control.html

           14 likes

    • +james says:

      Ken Loach must live in cloud cuckoo land. As a movie director, he must realise that his camera, lenses, film stock, sound equipment, developing, film distribution are a result of Capitalism.

      He kept mentioning how he liked democratic socialism. But his idea of democracy is like the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany). Now lets have a case study. West Germany produced VW Golf, BMW and Mercedes and East Germany produced the Trabant.

         43 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Red Ken Loach has done rather well out of capitalism.

      Wonder what kinds of films Stalin and Mao would have had him making.

         15 likes

  6. George R says:

    SAVILE.

    Note how BBC appears to be attempting to be shifting any blame from itself, and towards the police.

    “Jimmy Savile: Police watchdog criticises ‘failures'”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21750548

    This attempted shift of blame is not new.
    This is Beeboid EASTON ( Jan 2013), who manages not to mention the BBC once, in his long piece on Savile!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20993692

       36 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      I hear the Police found several warnings about Savile in their records.

      The Police should send a team along to the BBC for a lesson on how to redact.

         32 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Yes, Vicky D is sticking it to the police on 5 Live, but it is clear that the police failed in respect of allegations made against Savile. Here’s just one example of the BBC’s failure. Subsequent to the suicide of Claire McAlpine in 1971, a Guardian article reports measures to protect teenagers on Top of the Pops.

      But Savile’s BBC bandwagon rolled on.

         29 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Hey, maybe if some of the Beeboids who knew all about Savile’s “dark side” had gone to the police, they would have arrested him ages ago and the BBC would then get claim innocence of harboring and abetting a known sex offender.

         8 likes

      • TigerOC says:

        From accusations made this weekend many of the staff took part in the sordid affair.

        If there is justice we may even see some of these lovelies that proclaim their concern for the disadvantaged of society in the dock for their part.

           6 likes

  7. Mark says:

    I wonder when the BBC will interview the three voters who voted ‘No’ in the Falklands referendum.

       51 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      So I guess there were 3 postal votes.

         41 likes

      • Mark says:

        One was a BBC employee, the second was a Muslim oil worker doubling up as a one-man mosque, and the third had just had their medication changed.

           45 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        All with a Tower Hamlets postmark.

           23 likes

    • George R says:

      BBC-NUJ headline?:-

      ‘Three lions support Malvinas’.

         27 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Ah, the Falklands “referendum” – in my view, tantamount to asking squatters illegally occupying someone’s premises, if they think they should stay put…

         1 likes

      • Mark says:

        Maybe we should ask that question to the Spanish settlers who founded the colonies of La Plata, later to become the Republic of Argentina.

        At least, the Falkland Islands were uninhabited when the whaling boats and shepherds arrived in the 19th century.

           41 likes

      • Dave s says:

        I assume you being ironic. If not that is just plain silly.

           15 likes

      • John wood says:

        Hardly! – whatever the result ‘the squatters’ would remain on the islands.

           2 likes

    • Ian says:

      Who would have guessed it? There will be a defence of their views (the Falklands Three) on the Jeremy Vine Show today. Can’t wait.

         28 likes

    • Adi says:

      As of now there are no dry handkerchiefs at al-BEEB.

      I wonder how The Messiah feels right now that the Maldives have voted to be part of the evil British Empire.

         16 likes

  8. George R says:

    ‘Daily Mail’:-

    “Spiteful, unfunny, …why I find Toxic Toksvig such a bore”
    By A.N. WILSON.

    [Excerpt]-

    “The BBC has a tendency, when some pushy person has come to prominence, to wheel them out over and over again. Toksvig, with her strident, brassy voice, is brimming with over-confidence.

    “Doubtless, as a vertically challenged and openly lesbian mother with three children born by artificial insemination, she will strike some of the BBC organisers as an ideal voice of our non-judgmental times.

    “The BBC is not content to make her just the (albeit scripted) Witty Woman of the News Quiz. She also presents the travel show Excess Baggage, the TV show Antiques Master, and is habitually cropping up on chat shows.

    “As far as the jokes go on these non-political shows, she is a bit of a one-trick pony – with endless rather unfunny allusions to her much-vaunted lesbianism.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291854/Spiteful-unfunny—I-Toxic-Toksvig-bore.html

       49 likes

    • Mark says:

      The repulsive Jo Brand is another irritating cleverpants with a mean, bossy voice.

         44 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      I’m sure the BBC would say that she’s a (Danish) National Treasure.

         16 likes

      • Mark says:

        Yeah – that’s why the Danes exported her, but, unfortunately, unlike Lurpak, she leaves a rancid taste in the mouth !

           26 likes

        • Ian Hills says:

          Even in Soviet Russia people weren’t forced to pay a licence fee to hear the Politburo cracking anti-western jokes.

             8 likes

          • Ian Hills says:

            I just had an image of Brezhnev’s bushy eyebrows shooting up and down as he growled “It’s ze vay I tell zem!” into the microphone.

            Cut to footage of huge audience standing up and clapping in unison.

               0 likes

    • stewart says:

      Ms.Trollvig seems to have a problem with people achieving their position in life through inheritance.
      Ironic when you consider that she, like most of bourgeois socialists that dominate the BBC,is the offspring of a media luvvie
      I long for the day when Victoria Coren has to supply the answer ‘nepotism’ for the connect wall.

         35 likes

    • Despairing of England says:

      One of the most salient comments to the Daily Mail article is by “cheribaby” “What a well-written piece! Unlike silly Sandi who knows that Kate cannot respond to her spiteful writing. A N Wilson makes a valid point that leftie’s seem to think they have a right to personally insult anyone they choose, while being deeply offended by comments made against them. Kate keeps her opinions private which is absolutely her right to do.”

      Says it all really – the “lefties” right to be offended is always backed to the hilt by the BBC.

         40 likes

      • Joshaw says:

        “A N Wilson makes a valid point that leftie’s seem to think they have a right to personally insult anyone they choose”

        And this is not confined to the media. In my experience, lefties anywhere can dish it out but can’t take it.

           18 likes

        • Corran Horn says:

          Yes I must agree and it’s a point Owen Jones was proving quite well in my opinion over at the Spectator the other day with regards to his QT rant about Israel .

             10 likes

          • Span Ows says:

            Yes, there’s some great replies there. OJ used the excuse that other media had done he same thing to which somebody replied “a big boy made me do it”, hilarious.

               12 likes

            • Corran Horn says:

              Yeah, I had a good laugh at that one.

              A mate said to me he must know that he’s on the wrong side of the argument on this and I said I think it’s more to do with the fact that if he admits he dropped a clanger on this one then he’s dropping all his left wing BBC mates in the muck and that may put an end to him getting invited on to their shows as well and it may force him to face the fact that his whole world outlook is wrong and that may make his head go off with a bang.

              But the whole event has settled in my mind that the left never heard the old saying “If your in a hole stop digging”, I know they defenitly haven’t heard the one about “if your out of money stop spending”.

                 12 likes

              • Wild says:

                “if your out of money stop spending”

                But it was other people’s money they were spending.

                   5 likes

    • DYKEVISIONS says:

      Sandi Toswig has the chutzpah to charge punters up to £20 to suffer her ‘comedy’ on the upcoming tour! Look out for those sold out venues like the ‘Dog and Duck’ In Islington.
      As AN Wilson quite correctly observes, outside the bubble of the Biased BBC, her squeaks are without any humour whatsoever.

      I would pay much more for a full colonic irrigation procedure than sit back and bask in her acerbic charms! Radio 4, as we have experienced, is littered with comedy shows which have bussed in, the usual North London lefty suspects, clapping like trained penguins at ‘Thatcher’ this and ‘Thatcher’ that and also at those terrible evil ‘Daily Mail readers’.

      I am afraid that this is the pinnacle of their comedic invention and it will only get worse. Surely punters have had enough of this and the BBC will finally catch the ball and realise we are bored to tears with these comedy ‘giants’ who are not only thoroughly prejudiced but simply not funny.

         29 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      I thought exactly the same as the author here when I heard the opinion of Toksvig regarding the Duchess about a week ago.
      I remember Toksvig when she had her LBC programme always needing to surround herself with sycophants to make herself believe she was interesting and amusing.

      No doubt the Duchess has seen how the ugly media deal with those in a similar situation to herself for voicing opinions, and prefers instead to keep below the radar. Even here, the ugly media, championed by the ugly Toksvig won’t let her be.

      Trust the BBC to give Toksvig work, – they belong together.

         9 likes

    • Reed says:

      I thought the most interesting revelation (if true) was this…

      ——————
      Toksvig does not even write her unfunny gags herself. The chairman’s ‘jokes’ on the News Quiz are scripted beforehand by a panel, which is chaired by the show’s producer.
      This is currently one Victoria Lloyd, under whose tutelage the show has become little more than a Left- wing rant.
      ——————

      If true, it’s not surprising that the guests and the content all uniformly parrot left-wing assumptions to their audience. If the ‘panel’ that writes for the programme produces such consistently slanted output, it’s proof that the show is institutionally biased. No wonder they don’t invite anyone who’s not ‘one of us’ if their writing is any indication of their political ̶p̶r̶e̶j̶u̶d̶i̶c̶e̶s̶ leanings.

         8 likes

  9. AsISeeIt says:

    Chris Huhne in an interview with Channel 4 owns up to the truth about Man-made Global Warming.

    Interviewer: We spoke a number of times, you spoke to many people behind the scenes about what had and hadn’t happened…. you looked me in the eyes, as you did many others you lied again, and again to people. What happens…. do you start believing the lie, at any point?

    Chris Huhne: I think the crucial point…. is that you can’t believe that something that seems at the beginning to be a relatively minor infringement, that most people don’t actually regard as a crime…. I think that’s the key point – that it gets out of hand. I should have put my hand up at the beginning and I should have said sorry and I should have got it out of the way and I very much regret that I didn’t. But once you get involved in that – it tends to spiral out.

    Interviewer: At the heart of you is that you lied and lied again to save your own career and didn’t properly count the cost on your family and others.

    Chris Huhne: Well I certainly lied and lied again and part of it was about my own career…..

    Just kidding about the Global warming. Huhne is only owning up to one of his lies.

       38 likes

  10. Pounce says:

    The bBC, the propaganda mouth piece for Islamic terrorism

    Israel’s Iron Dome: Doubts over success rate
    A leading US expert on missile defence has raised doubts about the efficacy of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system. Israeli officials say it hit some 84% of the targets engaged in last year’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza. But Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests the defence system’s success rate may have been “drastically lower”.

    Ah the bBC, brings succour to its blood thirsty masters and in doing so, it gives Islamic terrorists the Impetuous to start another war and thus allow the bBC to play the victim-card for Islamic terrorism :
    Oh look everybody even thou the UN said Hamas killed the bBC Baby, we still say the Jews did it. Inshallah

    Mind you I did love this main sidebar in the debunking Iron dome article:
    Continuing such a deception can only result in the misappropriation of limited defence assets.”

    Here’s a question for the wankers at the bBC, if Iron Dome failed to intercept 85% of all those warheads heading towards inhabited areas. Why was the damage and death toll so low on the Israeli side after Hamas launched 1734 rockets and 83 mortar shells at Israel. 4 killed.

    So why is the bBC shouting out that Iron Dome is ineffective? Becasue its Islamic masters want Hamas and Hezballah to attack Israel and start a war in which to promote a cause which will take the worlds eyes off of Syria. allowing Assad and Iran the time to wipe out the rebels.

    The bBC, the propaganda mouth piece for Islamic terrorism paid for by the British Tax payer

       24 likes

    • Pounce says:

      Here’s an interesting question, the only news agency reporting that iron Dome failed is…the bBC. The only other websites who report as such are leftwing wack jobs who funny enough are all anti-Semitic .

      Gee you think the bBC has an agenda?

         24 likes

    • +james says:

      What a snide headline “UN disputes Gaza strike on BBC man’s house”

         19 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      Excellent point Pounce 🙂

         4 likes

  11. George R says:

    INBBC’s Muslim presenter, Ms HUSAIN (‘one of five most powerful women Muslims in Britain’): blaming Saudi Arabia, not Islam for societal repression.

    “Female Saudi director: ‘I had to direct from a van'”

    (video clip).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21746195

    Also:-

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2009/mar/25/muslim-women-power-list#/?picture=345016465&index=2

       12 likes

  12. Pounce says:

    bBC headlines:
    Savile failings ‘could happen again’
    Police failings identified in the Jimmy Savile sex abuse case could happen all over again, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police has warned.

    What do you mean could. It is happening as I type. Muslims across the land are raping women,children and the bBC and police close their eyes. Here’s something try and find one bBC article where a muslim is referred to as a paedophile. It just doesn’t happen.

    The bBC the traitors within our midst.

       37 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      If there are links to articles calling them paedophiles, I’m sure Dez will enlighten us all. He usually comes up with the goods.

         3 likes

  13. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    More news from the Nationalised Death Service that you won’t find reported by the bBBC. As well as Sir David Nicholson, former head of mid-Staffs abattoir, keeping his job as NHS chief executive, he has now appointed as his deputy Barbara Hakin, alleged by a senior whistleblower to have been responsible for hundreds of deaths at Lincoln hospital. She was made a Dame on Gordon Brown’s nomination in 2009 to recognise her services to the NHS.

       35 likes

    • Doublethinker says:

      No surprise. Eichmann got a Nazi Party Gold Star from Hitler for running a very similar operation.

         11 likes

  14. Michael White says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20617088#
    Anyone catch this page on the economy? It rightly identifies debt as the reason this recession is so stubborn compared to those of the past. But then it ruins it all by omitting the elephant in the room – the last government. Instead, the cause is “..a massive overhang of debt left over from the property boom years”. The closest the article gets is “..that debt built up in the decades before 2008.” No mention of a government spending at all. Very poor.

       32 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Interesting that that article refers to the report from the Resolution Foundation.
      While real-terms wage growth was negative across the board from 2008 to 2011 as the financial crisis tipped into a protracted downturn, the five years prior tell a different story. The wages of ordinary full-time workers barely grew during this period (2003-2008) and were negative for the lowest earners, despite relatively healthy economic growth.
      Now, who was Chancellor during those five years? Surely it can’t have been the Labour champion of the poor?

         28 likes

  15. Ralph says:

    When discussing the Falklands referendum on the Daily Politics that world renowned expert on the islands George Galloway was a guest but nobody from the islands appeared.

    Whilst it is always fun to see Galloway make a fool of himself he hardly warranted inclusion in the discussion.

       24 likes

    • pah says:

      Ah The Treacherous Galloway!

      Didn’t see the prog in question but was he, by any chance, agin it? Did he consatntly refer to the Islands as Las Malvinas? Did he ignore the plebecite? Did he blame Thatcher?

      Still, i suppose he should get some credit as the only treacherous lefty prepared to go on TV and spout such arrant nonsense. You can bet Milliband wants to ‘hand them back’ – but is too yellow to say so.

         22 likes

  16. AsISeeIt says:

    We shouldn’t be surprised that the BBC sheds tears for Chris Huhne.

    The BBC/Guardian/liberal elite never like to see one of their own go down.

    Chris Huhne was quite obviously one of their own. On every issue from Climate Change to Europe through mass immigration to hatred of the tabloids and love for the BBC – he is one of their own on every issue.

    Now, the BBC are unwilling to reveal to us plebs how he may have been a dodgy operater at times and I will return to that thought below.

    As for the integrity expected of a Leftist these days – watch his interview with Channel 4 where ‘he deeply regrets asking his ex-wife to take his parking points’.

    http://www.channel4.com/news/chris-huhne-lied-and-lied-again-vicky-pryce-guilty-prison

    Yes I bet he regrets it – he got caught!

    Watch and notice where the interviewer says ‘at the heart of you there was a lie’, ‘you looked into my eyes and others’ and lied’.

    Not a flicker of remorse. I generally avoid psychobabble but Huhne strikes me as a psychopathic type. I’ve seen more genuine regret from Hannibal Lector.

    As for Vicky Pryce. – all you need to know is that her new main squeeze is none other than Denis MacShane.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2198348/Is-love-air-Chris-Huhnes-ex-wife-Vicky-Pryce-Labour-MP.html

    Yes indeed, former BBC man and Labour MP. Disgraced expenses fiddler Denis MacShane. The man who told us that our little MPs’ expenses scandal was really no big deal. Well I guess he should know.

    Oh and just to show what a conniving shit Chris Huhne is and why the kiddies at the BBC love him nonetheless….

    Have I Got Old News For You (coincidentally?) reminded us just this week of ….

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/8817183/Chris-Huhne-caught-trying-to-smear-Tory-ministers.html

    ‘The Lib Dem minister admitted briefing against Theresa May by tipping off a national newspaper that a section of her controversial party conference speech on human rights appeared to have been plagiarised.’

    ‘And Mr Huhne was embarrassed again after claiming in a television interview that Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, had recently received points on his licence for speeding. ‘

    Aaaaaahhhh! Irony, irony everywhere, but not a drop exposed on the BBC

       22 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Ah yes, Denis MacShane, whose expense fiddling was exposed by Rotherham “racists” – hence the ban on UKIP foster parents (head of Children’s SS being in CP didn’t help).

      How awful that “racist” UKIP came second in the subsequent by-election, endangering cohesion with the large grooming community. If it hadn’t been for postal votes they might have come first!

      Time for Greater Manchester Police to frame some more white blokes for child abuse – that should keep locals distracted from the real problem!

         11 likes

  17. David Brims says:

    James

    ”Ken Loach must live in cloud cuckoo land.”

    He lives in a 18th century townhouse in Bath.

    Always find out where these Liberals / marxists live, it reveals more about them than what they actually say, for example Billy Bragg lives in a Great Gatsby style mansion in Dorset far far away from the multicultural ghetto.

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/billy-bragg-has-absolutely-gigantic-house-201101063402

       27 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Old Cock Loach was not only on Newsnight-but had a berth on Start the Week as well.
      The BBC allowed this old Trot plenty time to wring his hankie out before us…topping and tailing the day at the BBC, we so kindly paid him to set camp up in.
      Loachy, Kirsty and Labours Tristram Hunt…we if that`s BBC balance then grand…just three shades of lefty all creaming it in from the public trough…opinions unwanted, but by Harry; we`ll be getting them.

         15 likes

  18. David Lamb says:

    Dangerous encounters with polar bears are likely to increase because of global warming.

    ‘Conservationists are predicting that such events will become more common in the future as Arctic sea ice, which is the bear’s hunting ground, disappears.

    According to WWF, in many places in the Arctic, polar bears are spending more time on land during the summer as temperatures warm.’
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21622349

       8 likes

    • Bob Nelson says:

      But surely dangerous attacks will decrease because polar bears, as we all know, are dying out as a result of global warming.

         19 likes

    • Chop says:

      “Dangerous encounters with polar bears are likely to increase because of global warming”

      Yes, because I often have to cross Exchange Road in Watford to avoid marauding gangs of them.

      Bloody polar bears, always got something to gripe about…Mind you, it might be safer on “Bear Side” of this road, as Watford Mosque is on the other.

         10 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Well given the billions of ‘green’ taxes we’ve all been forced to pay as penance for our addiction to fossil fuels…. surely more than enough dosh there for environmentalist governments worldwide (read: UN) to move the WHOLE polar bear population to the Antarctic where there’s LOADS of ice.

         7 likes

  19. wallygreeninker says:

    Anyone catch the discussion about thee Papal election on Today, this morning at 8.10. They’d manage to get hold of a married Catholic priest (not allowed to practice), Bernard Lynch, who made frequent references to his being a gay man, living happily with his husband. A female journalist from the Tablet made it plain that the fundamental teachings of the church were not up for debate but nobody seems to have told the Today team – the discussion had largely consisted of propagandising for gay marriage with the the church’s loss of moral authority as a follow up. Lynch was llowed to have the last word: when the lady from the Tablet told him that he had to obey the teachings of the Church he replied: ‘Not if they are pathologically based.’ I don’t like to say which of the participants had views that I would call pathologically based.

       13 likes

    • chrisH says:

      As soon as I heard Humprys say that he was about to go over to Ed Stourton in Rome, I baled out.
      Stourton-like Clifford Longley is a media catholic…
      Thankfully I`d heard Chris Evans do a sensible interview with Cormac O Connor there in Rome just beforehand …between them, I learned all I needed to know…and truthfully as well.
      I`d drop Radio 4 in the morning-Chris Evans is by far the better broadcaster, and much more balanced than Radio Guardian.

         9 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      …..living happily with his husband’.

      If these were the BBC’s words, sounds like gay marriage is a done deal.

         7 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        No, it was the priest himself. If he hadn’t said that, I might have missed the fact he was gay, because I’m sure it was barely mentioned. 😉

           5 likes

  20. Bob Nelson says:

    It has been noticeable that the BBC have not reported any extreme weather around the world for almost five weeks. No mega-storms, floods, droughts or heatwaves. This is the longest period of ‘normal’ worldwide weather observed since records began.

    Some scientists say this is a result of global warming.

       23 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      I’m sure I heard the Beeb mention that this is the coldest March for 25 years following the wettest summer for fifty, yesterday but, oddly, they seemed to avoid the temptation to draw any conclusions of the ‘weather weirding’ variety.

         10 likes

    • london calling says:

      Perhaps the weather is becoming more average than normal. Extremely average, if you think about it.

      Reminds me of the wily old joke about the jews: ” they are just like everyone else, only more so!

         2 likes

  21. Aerfen says:

    Watched the second and last part of the BBCs crime drama Shetland last night, which you might imagine, given the location, would have been totally free of any Multikultiism. Not so.

    The BBC couldnt resist a couple of not to subtle random indictations that we are supposedly a ‘nation of immigrants’.

    Predictably Jimmy PEREZ the heroic *local* alpha male detective (with apparently Portuguese ancestry) solved the murder mystery just before the mainland DCI arrived to takeover.

    The murdered (saintly)Glaswegian girl was by appearance half Chinese – eulogised in the closing scenes, while all the bad eggs and unpleasant aggressive individuals with alcohol problems were of course ethnic locals.

    However there wa smore anti British race hate, it turned out that the greedy murdering family were the wealthy ship owning local family the Haldanes (old Scottish name and it was mentioned they had lived there for centuries) and a sif that wasn’t enough, they were also responsible for the murder of Norwegian resistence hero and one time lover of ‘goody’ formerly unhappily married murdered granny Mina.

    The negative portrayal of British people by the BBC is relentless! Some of these things are done exceedingly subtly too, Auntie is clever, and the message is always there – nasty inbred locals need *improving* with *good* foreign genes.
    The Shetlanders were claimed to be inbred, and implied to be mean minded prone to alcoholism and violence. Racist stereotyping at it’s worst! Imagine if they portrayed say the inhabitants of a small Caribbean Island such as St Kitts in
    the same way? It simply WOULD NOT HAPPEN!

       40 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Shetland is full of multiculturalism, it’s like Ellis island.

         10 likes

      • +james says:

        Reminds me of their last documentary about a remote Scottish island …….

           6 likes

        • Phobic-ist says:

          I posted a version of this in the last open thread, not noticing that there was this one now running. Doh!!
          Your comments (Aerfen) regarding the ‘quality’ of BBC drama and the underlying PC garbage that it always seems to contain is the reason I came across this site. After watching an episode of a forensic crime scene type series (I can’t recall what it was) where a character started opining that the English were all a nation of immigrants blah blah sodding blah, I googled ‘Why is the BBC so biased to the left?’ and the previous site to this one popped up. Trouble is, I feel that the vast majority of Beeb watchers are either unaware of this constant pernicious agit-prop or don’t care one way or the other. I do enjoy visiting this site (thank God for Candesartan) and agree with most (but not all) of the views expressed by the regular contributors here. However, what’s to be done about the mind rotting sewage that masquerades as children’s programming on CBBC, polluting the minds of myriads of youngsters that are plonked in front of it every day. Only yesterday I caught a portion of ‘Just kidding’ and was amazed at (if you believed the Britain that it reflected) the huge number of black and ethnic minorities that live here. Hardly a white male face in sight to be victims of the various er…….pranks on this show. Just unbelievable, and naked propaganda from our dear Auntie. Dramas are by and large twee or stultifyingly dull, but with an oh so edgy and real sheen to give it ‘relevance’. What’s to be done? I wish I knew friends, I wish I knew.

             12 likes

          • stewart says:

            Phobic-ist As a grandfather I share your despair .Clearly the ‘liberal inquisition’ see the indoctrination of the young as vital to maintaining their control (as did their medieval counterpart)that’s why they defend their dominance of education and the media so viciously.
            Whats to be done? what can be done?
            they are so entrenched and with all the power of the stae at their bidding
            it is difficult to see how power can be
            prised from their cadaverous hands.
            But who could have predicted the fall of the soviet union and its eastern block,not the bourgeois socialists of the BBC that’s for sure.And when that fall did come it was from mechanisms unguessed at.
            Consider the apparatchiks of the BBC live a cosseted and privileged existence but those other foot soldiers
            of the liberal establishment,poorly trained,poorly equipped,held increasingly in contempt even by their patrician class masters.Face,at the chalk face, daily and painfully the contradictions between the received truth and first hand experience.
            They of-course must keep their concerns private,for fear of their jobs
            But the old guard of the education establishment,like the stalinists of the USSR,are coming to the end of the days

               10 likes

    • imaynotalwaysloveyou says:

      I long ago stopped watching any beeb ‘drama’, cop story or whodunit. 99% of the time the villain is a prejudiced white businessman, preferably involved in child abuse. I’m only surprised they picked on the Shetlanders, makes a change from the usual safe Home Counties (ie Toryland) setting.

         14 likes

      • aerfen says:

        99% of the time the villain is a prejudiced white businessman

        As was in this case the dark and ‘bigotted’ old Shetlander ship owner Halden (‘xenophobic’ words had already been put in his mouth the previous day, when he made remarks about the number of strangers in Shetland now, and how you used to be able to leave your doors open).

        And add to that the ‘alpha male black’, always in a professional role, either senior policeman, or perhaps soem other ‘expert’: example the dramatisation of Kate Atkinsons Jackson Brodie series, Jackson himself, the hero, is Scottish, but the boyfriend of love interest DI Louise Munro is a black surgeon, even though in the book he was Irish! So there we are presented with an example of even the heroic white Alpha male being *trumped* by a better educated, black male, in a more respected profession.

        Another thing they do is often choose a really unattrcative black male winning the heart of a pretty ethnic British woman.
        This was the case in Jackson Brodie, White Teeth (where the ‘man of colour’ was that really ugly elderly Asian actor who is in everything, I dont know his name but he actually is a good actor, just ugly), and in a recent comedy drama aimed at older teens on BBC4 about a black girl growing up in London, who is of course smart and focussed on getting to university, while her dizzy ‘white’ friend is constantly shagging her ugly black boyfriend.

           9 likes

        • David Brims says:

          Reminds me of Sidney Poitier in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

          He was a brain surgeon, working for the UN, who was trying to find a cure for malaria, to help all of Africa !!

          Directed by arch liberal Stanley Kramer, they’ve been doing this Cultural Marxist garbage for decades.

             13 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        The latest manifestation of the BBC pogrom against middle England is the vile “Mayday” – I have posted on this before – Why are monocultural heartlands of Torydom just so filled with bile, perversion crime and suppressed violence?

        My proposal was for the BBC to commission a factual analysis of crime called “One week of murders in Stockwell” with a detailed look at the back history of the victims and the perpetrators – they could do it in the style of Truman Capote’s “in Cold Blood”

        Never happen though – reality and truth are not required – just liberal fantasy and propaganda.

           10 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          And the only face of gentle humanity was the Turkish kebab shop owner (yes, in a country village) who offered everyone involved in the missing person hunt a free doner. Gawd….

             9 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Next week a visiting film crew rescues the satanic abuse victims, no doubt.

         3 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        Isn’t it interesting to compare the abject panic and [literal] witch hunting fervour of the ‘protective services’ in the late 80’s to the mid 90’s – where there was “astonishingly weak inconsistent and contradictory evidence*” with the denial and apparent refusal to believe any allegation made in connection with very numerous instances of “Grooming”

        Time for a BBC in depth analysis comparing and contrasting both in a responsible “we are professional investigative journalists looking at a vital public service” sort of way.

        Unlike Violet Elizabeth Bott – I will not ‘hold my breath.”

        *It is well worth reading about the history of this witch hunt and an indication of the mind set of the left – it had ALL the hall marks of good medieval practice – where lack of evidence as proof that something was hidden, where children were subjected to horrific “medical examinations” and where fantasy triumphed over reality and lives were shattered

           3 likes

  22. AsISeeIt says:

    The BBC is devoting an awful lot of resources to coverage of the Catholic Church this week – and by the way having a good old chuckle at Catholicism’s quaint traditions and eccentricities. Gosh all those funny outfits, that unrepresentative so-called election. Justine luv, can you ask them why we can’t have UN observers in there? And all those “Saints” – what’s that about? Nigel luv, ask them how many black Saints there are and what exactly they plan to do about it?
    So I thought that I would have a look the arcane processes by which that other hallowed institution, the BBC, creates its own Saints: the “National Treasures”

    Canonization (or canonisation) is the act by which the BBC decrees a person to be a “National Treasure” upon which declaration that person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized National Treasures.
    Originally, individuals were recognized as National Treasures without any formal process by the BBC. Examples down the years include Queen Mary, Stanley Matthews, Cliff Richard and the Kray Brothers. This informal popular form of initiative has long since been consdered to be too chaotic and has been superseded by strict official BBC pronouncements.
    The first people the BBC honoured as National Treasures were the martyrs. For example: Blair Peach, John Charles de Menezes, Stephen Lawrence and The Liverpool 96. Pious legends of their deaths were considered to affirm the truth of their holiness, and formalization and celebration of these legends served to legitimize and propagate the doctrines of the BBC and serve as examples.
    More recently, however, people who have confessed their faith in the BBC and Left-wing politics not by dying but by their words began to be venerated publicly. Examples of such people are Stephen Fry and Sandi Toksvig. Similarly, Billy Bragg and Sue Perkins. Their names have been inserted in the Radio Times over and over again, the lists of National Treasures explicitly venerated in the TV listings, and their names honoured like those of the martyrs. Since the witness of their lives was not as unequivocal as that of the martyrs, they were venerated publicly only with the approval of the BBC.
    Higher acts of formal recognition, such as the commissioning of a series involving overseas filming to be presented by the National Treasure or shoehorning the National Treasure into completely unrelated programming, were of course preceded by formal inquiries into the sanctity of the person’s life and the miracles attributed to that person’s talent and intercession.
    The act of canonization is now reserved to the DG and occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person proposed for canonization lives and speaks in such an exemplary and Left-wing way that he or she is worthy to be recognized as a National Treasure. The BBC’s official recognition of sanctity implies that the persons are now in heavenly glory, that they may be publicly invoked and mentioned officially in the “Approved List for ‘non-political’ guest spot on Question Time”.
    In the distant past, the BBC began to be asked to intervene in the question of canonizations, so as to ensure a more authoritative decision. The canonization of former National Treasure Jimmy Savile is the earliest undoubted example of a BBC canonization of a National Treasure from outside Oxbridge. It is, by the way, one of only a very few known ex-canonisations to have been performed by the BBC – others being Sir Patrick Moore following his negative comments regarding the EU and David Bellamy, his fall from grace resulting from his heretical views on Global Warming.
    In 2012, after reprimanding certain BBC managers for having permitted veneration of Savile, a man who was far from being a Saint, Lord Patten decreed: “Ye shall not therefore presume to honour him in the future; for, even if miracles were worked through him, it is not lawful for you to now venerate him as a saint without the authority of the BBC.” The investigation of these procedures led to increasingly elaborate inquiries.
    DG Mark Thompson’s reforms continued the work of simplification already initiated by John Birt. In particular, the reforms eliminated the office of the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil’s Advocate, who had formerly been required to present the case against canonizations. Possibly as a result, the rate of creation of National Treasure has increased markedly in recent times.

       25 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Excellent critique sir!
      And , although it can now be said that Savile has been downgraded, if not excommunicated…the BBC still managed to rake the coals over what the police should/should not have done with evidence of Saviles travels…without once mentioning that fact that Sir James of Wood Lane was actually using the BBC car parks and dressing rooms to abuse kids.
      Now until we find that Savile was using police cells to do the same-shall we focus instead on what the BBC allowed to happen…not whether Plod used the right kind of green ink to log Saviles exploits in the mid 60s.
      As if the BBC would ever TRY to distance themselves from their Uncle Jimmy…no, really they wouldn`t…

         21 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Uncle Mac was the first Beeboid National Treasure – like some old Bolshevik in the thirties, he will no doubt get airbrushed out of the narrative,

         6 likes

      • Ian Hills says:

        The frigid fantasists fingered him for paedophilia some years ago – long after he had died, of course. I think he was too much of a masculine stereotype for them to bear – he was uncle-like, after all.

           4 likes

  23. noggin says:

    bbc – no news is good news?
    whatever happened to this story?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-21740704

    Bolton police seem to be quiet too
    A Bolton man, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and false imprisonment at an Islamic girls’ school, have (??)
    been released on bail, police said.
    A third man arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment at the school has been released without charge.
    “Our aim at this stage is to respond to the information given to us in a proportionate and sensitive way
    We will seek to minimise the impact and the disruption to the school and our local community”

    another “nothing to see move on” palava?

       18 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      ‘Our aim at this stage is to respond to the information given to us in a proportionate and sensitive way’.

      Which is why the grooming of the poor Rochdale girls continued as long as it did.

      Good old PC Plod, eh? And we all know what the ‘PC’ stands for.

         15 likes

      • noggin says:

        looks like Bolton police, are about as good
        in action, as those councillors were in “the planners ” in Rochdale … or the police in Rochdale, or in Oldham, or in Blackburn etc.
        “our local community” hmmm
        who? might that be?
        they could try try the Mosque?,
        they probably all go to the same one

           19 likes

  24. Doublethinker says:

    Dan Snow’s programme on Syria was quite a surprise in that he hardly blamed Britain for anything, apart from us having promised it to the French after the Great War. He did blame the French quite a lot though. But then he went on to describe how the various Muslim sects in Syria have had a long standing antipathy to each other and that this is one of the main reasons for the current civil war. Whether his thesis is correct or not I don’t know and of course you can’t trust the BBC on history any longer. But it was a pleasant surprise to find the BBC not blaming Britain for a world problem.
    I am sure that they will sort themselves out eventually. Let’s just stay out of it despite what the hand wringers in the BBC will soon be demanding.

       15 likes

    • Maturecheese says:

      I agree. I watched it last night on iplayer and was expecting it all to be our fault but as you have already said, it was a pleasant surprise. I found it quite informative and now understand whats going on a little bit more than I did.
      I believe that Syria is going to turn to ratshit whatever happens as these muzzies just can’t get along with each other. That good old peace loving Muslim Brotherhood eh!

         7 likes

  25. wallygreeninker says:

    BBC has colorful, glamorous (well, it is Camilla but they do their best) photo slideshow on its website of Charles’ and Camilla’s visit to Jordan – to be followed by visits to Oman, Saudi and Qatar (if he had visited Israel – in stead of his fellow royals – i.e virtually camel herding chieftains until the end of WWI -that would have been news).
    At least Camilla (and Queen Rania) didn’t wear hijabs – a female Beeboid probably would have, on principle.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21759134

       7 likes

  26. JaneTracy says:

    I see that the BBC has stopped plugging books by Robert Peston for a moment to instead plug those of his late wife Sian Busby!

    Robert Peston‏@Peston

    R4 in 15 mins, I discuss my late wife Sian Busby’s The Cruel Mother, with @bernadineEvari and Harriet Gilbert, on A Good Read

    The licence fee the gift that keeps on giving…

       17 likes

    • Aerfen says:

      I thought it was nauseating that Peston chose a book by his own wife – thus using the platform to enrich himself, as , presumably, the beneficiary of her royalties! Disgusting.

      What dreadful hypocrits these Beeboids are.

         9 likes

  27. noggin says:

       2 likes

  28. noggin says:

       17 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      BBC duped by propaganda or BBC propaganda? Unless the BBC own up to the fact their report on this incident got it wrong, it’s got to be the latter.

         6 likes

    • Alan Larocka says:

      Anyone called ‘jihad’ deserves everything they get in life.

         6 likes

  29. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Sometimes the bias reveals itself naturally:

    Paul Ryan unveils House Republican budget

    The very first line:

    House Republicans have begun the latest round of US fiscal negotiations by unveiling a budget proposal that aims to cut through the social safety net.

    An alternative perspective through which to frame it would be this:

    Paul Ryan Balanced Budget Plan Seeks $4.6 Trillion In Spending Cuts, According To WSJ Op-Ed

    House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said on Monday he can balance the federal budget in 10 years without raising taxes any further by achieving $4.6 trillion in additional government spending cuts.

    This is from the openly Left-wing, JournoList-infested HuffingtonPost, not Fox News, not Breitbart. The WSJ op-ed they’re referring to is the one Ryan wrote for the paper to publish.

    The BBC instead immediately leaps to the standard “hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest” emotional weapon, with precious little mention of the concept of balancing the budget. Worse, they spin one aspect of the plan – turning over the distribution of Medicaid (that’s free health care for the poor and not-so-poor, not the elderly, which is Medicare) – this way:

    It seeks to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law and cut spending on Medicaid, a government health programme for the poor, by giving control of its distribution to states.

    The BBC wants you to believe that this is going to cut benefits, so they spin it this way. In reality, it simply means giving the States control over what they spend on their own residents, which just might reduce the cost without actually reducing the benefits individuals received. It’s far more cost-effective to do things locally than nationally, yet you aren’t given that perspective, nor are you even permitted to think about what the plan means. We don’t know if it would cut actual benefit receives at all. All we know is that federal spending will be reduced in some way. The BBC just tells you its going to hurt people. The very first line sets this Narrative up. That’s an ideological approach: any perceived cut is a sin, period.

    As for the overall balance of the piece, while you do get a couple of quotes from Ryan himself, there’s a critics say” bit, along with the the anti-cuts spin from the Beeboid who wrote this up. Plus a couple of paragraphs are given to the Democrat Senator’s announcement, with no “critics say” allowed.

    Nobody other than Ryan is given voice to say this might balance the budget. In fact, the Narrative is that, even if it might do so, it would be wrong because it hurts the poorest and most vulnerable without making the rich pay their fair share (viz, the Democrat Senator’s call for more taxes).

    Also, while the BBC at last mentions that the Democrats’ offering would be the first Senate budget since 2009, they don’t tell you that they’ve been illegally avoiding their responsibility all these years. And they also dissemble about how this is partially why Congress is in the budgetary mess we’re in now where it seems like we keep banging our heads on the debt ceiling every five minutes. Why haven’t they, BBC? Where’s the curiosity of your intrepid journalists and astute analysts? You’ve had over 1000 days to work it out. Of course, to tell you that would destroy the BBC Narrative that this is all due to Republican intransigence. You know, like when Daniel Nasaw tweets that it’s only Republicans who keep blocking the President’s every move, or Mardell telling you that it’s all the Republicans’ fault the President never got a proper budget passed.

       15 likes

  30. Abandon Ship! says:

    Hugh Sykes, After Saddam

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/docarchive

    Hugh is back on the World service, touring Baghdad and conveniently finding Iraqis who think it was better under Saddam. ALL is doom and gloom in Iraq, and it’s us (or more specifically the Americans) who caused it. In a context-free documentary, Sykes pins the blame for most deaths on the Americans (of course). However, does anyone really believe that US troops killed more Iraqis than terrorists or brutal militias?

       11 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      The Beeb news magazine currently features an immensely long story, by Kevin Connolly, about the tribulations of an Iraqi girl called Marwa, who lost a leg as a result of an American bomb at the outset of the war. It’s all there: terrifying American troops, resentful locals, a graph of civilian casualties, an anti-war German politician determined to salvage some good from the mess who has the poor girl and her mother brought to Germany for treatment. Everything designed to leave an anti-American, anti-Iraq-war taste in the mouth.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21703819

         12 likes

  31. Anders Thomasson says:

    Just watching “The Railway”. This series is getting like a weekly bingo game. Gay man? Check. Muslim? Check. Provincial with funny accent? Bingo!

       23 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      I hope they don’t remake “The Railway Children”, with Jenny Agutter’s Pakistani replacement being groomed by a Roman Catholic Perks, played by a Bernard Cribbens lookalike.

         11 likes

    • #88 says:

      Not to mention the recession and depravation that has caused people to nick metal from the railway.

      Which was an echo from the first programme when we were told that ‘people must be pretty desperate to risk their lives and come on to the railway and steal cable’.

      If the BBC say it often enough they’ll eventually get their message across.

         14 likes

      • Dave s says:

        It is not just tiresome it is pernicious. But the average Beeboid subscribes to the view that there is no such thing as criminal intent. All criminals are the result of some defect in society.
        i have had it up to here weith this stupid organisation.

           14 likes

  32. wallygreeninker says:

    Mysterious events in Leicester(inexplicable as far as the Beeb website seems to be concerned):

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21757787

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21100761

    All very unusual, but it seems that these events persuaded plod to pull his finger out and make a few arrests.

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/bloga.cfm/blog_id/48000/Six-men-to-appear-at-Leicester-Crown-Court-over-exploitation-of-girl-16

       14 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It seems the BBC’s commitment to Social Cohesion made them unable to handle the cognitive dissonance. They can’t say the Sikhs are racist, and since they define Islamophobia as a form of racism, the editorial policy and Style Guide just don’t cover this sort of thing. And now “Hugs” Boaden isn’t around any more (as Head of News) to reassure the dopey Beeboids that reporting this kind of “less-nuanced behavior” (© Huw Edwards 2011 live on the BBC News Channel) from oppressed ethnic minorities does not conflict with the BBC’s commitment to diversity (pp 67-8).

      What a mess. Good thing the incoming DG is adding new layers of management, and the new Head of News is another radio person.

         19 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        Great, some bedtime reading! Cheers for the link.

           1 likes

      • TigerOC says:

        Lets dissect some of this and see where it goes.

        Lets start here on Impartiality;

        1. Impartiality is and should remain the hallmark of the BBC as the leading provider of information and entertainment in the United Kingdom, and as a pre-eminent broadcaster internationally. It is a legal requirement, but it should also be a source of pride.
        page 25

        Impartiality on the BBC began as an ambitious, home-grown aspiration which developed culturally rather than legalistically. Far from being imposed on the BBC, impartiality has been conceived by the BBC. It is part of it
        s brand, but needs to be reassessed in a more diverse society where many of the old certainties and shared assumptions have melted away.

        From this you can clearly deduce that since the BBC invented “impartiality” they are really the only ones that can decide whether they are impartial.

        4. Impartiality involves breadth of view, and can be breached by omission. It is not necessarily to be found on
        the centre ground.page 37

        The continuing changes in British society mean that the parameters of ‘normality’ and ‘extremism’ have shifted. Reporting from the centre ground is often the wrong place to be.
        Impartiality does not entail equal space for every attitude, but it should involve some space provided that points of view are rationally and honestly held, and all
        of them are subject to equal scrutiny. It is not the BBC’s role to close down debate

        In these few sentences you will see the basis of many of our complaints;
        “Impartiality does not entail equal space for every attitude”

        here is the nub of the problem. The decision to provide space is based on;

        “provided that points of view are rationally and honestly held”

        and the political stance of the decision maker will decide whether points are valid according to the above.

        Since it is quite clear that the BBC is run according to the above rules and the staff are all inherently left wing they will never change.

           10 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          The #4 bit you’ve bolded is fine. I agree with that wording. And you’re right about how their personal opinions rule the rules, as it were. But the subsequent expansion and explanation is so revealing of their mindset. It’s not that we or anyone else wants them to report as if the middle ground perspective is correct. And of course perspectives on value judgments like “extreme” can change over time in any society. The problem is that the BBC makes those value judgments in their reporting and in the everyday witterings of their on-air talent. They shouldn’t.

          A perfect fairly recent example is Stephanie “Two Eds” Flanders calling Paul Ryan’s budget proposal last year “extreme”. That’s entirely subjective, and not her place or the BBC’s to judge like that.

          When the Beeboids make value judgments on who’s extreme and who isn’t, it’s all from their personal perspective. They claim to represent mainstream opinion, and this is a problem.

             11 likes

  33. George R says:

    “Fury as BBC staff told to claim ‘extra time off’ if they fall ill on holiday.

    “THE BBC has urged its pampered staff to take extra holidays if they fall ill during annual leave.”

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/383778/Fury-as-BBC-staff-told-to-claim-extra-time-off-if-they-fall-ill-on-holiday

       14 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Please, please, no more. I give up.

      Scottnickycolditzdez – you win. Enjoy your surreal lives of taxpayer-funded luxury whilst you can before the whole country sinks beneath the heaving putrid stinking mass of socialist public sector entitlement-driven shite.

         20 likes

    • NotaSheep says:

      I think you can thank the EU for this particular legislation.

         6 likes

  34. Dave666 says:

    It’s BBc Breakfast. It’s minimum price for alcohol (abandoned?) story. It’s benefits. People in bed getting something for nothing, nothing being the tax and NI many have paid over the years I take it. Was that the end of a story on the F ing “Olympic legacy” I just missed. Deja vu at breakfast again.

       7 likes

    • Llew says:

      I didn’t see the whole programme, but did they get anyone on to put up the Government’s defence of scrapping the plans? Sure, I tuned in and they had a Tory on (shock horror) – but she was knocking the U turn not defending the Government so I guess that’s now the view of the But Labour Says party.

         10 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      You heard right Dave, it was Susannah harking back to the legacy of the olympics and paralympics once again. A link in every story!

         6 likes

  35. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    It’s in their DNA. An interesting story by Jon Kelly on the bBBC website magazine about American mountains named after former Presidents ends with irrelevant comments based on feminism – an all-women team climbing Mt McKinley didn’t think about its name – and racism – ‘remarkably’ few mountains are named after African Americans.

       11 likes

  36. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    ‘Labour says’ is the bBBC’s main news again.
    The bBBC’s take on the consultation on minimum prices for alcohol is not that the government is looking at the responses, but that ‘Labour accuses’ the government of not doing something that Labour didn’t do during their 13 years in power 1997-2010.

       19 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Perhaps the BBC should have a new digital channel called ‘Labour Says’? Then the rest of us could just have the news reported without any snide comment. Those who are interested could still watch occasional party political broadcasts. And best of all ‘Labour Says’ would tick a box for the BBC’s minority outreach programming

         22 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Knee-jerk racism, with the emphasis on the ‘jerk’!

         8 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Casual racism from Lammy. I guess he is trying to be funny. Remind me never to challenge him to chess. How will we ever choose sides without offending one another? And of course this is what reinforces the BBC’s biased PC sensitivities – the left constantly tick off their BBC for perceived racism – and the BBC listens.

         14 likes

    • It's all too much says:

      The man is clearly obsessed. I Guess the Tweet should have asked ‘will there be fumata negra or fumata bianca?’ (to be used in ALL future BBC reports, with a special training course to ensure a wildly gurning over emphasis in pronunciation – like the famous ‘Chil – LAAY’ or ‘New OR-Lay ENS’

      Wiki says…..Dark smoke signals (fumata negra) indicate that the ballot did not result in an election, while white smoke signals (fumata bianca) announce that a new pope was chosen. Originally, damp straw was added to the fire to create dark smoke; beginning in 1963 coloring chemicals have been added.

      Sadly the BBC will take this seriously and re double its efforts to be more dedicated to diversity than required by the law (form Seesaw to Wagonwheel)

         8 likes

      • Buggy says:

        Lammy, of course, is the twat who opined that all of us outside the “enriched” areas of this formerly sceptr’d isle are inbred. He’s got just enough braincells to create friction it would seem.

           5 likes

  37. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC 5 Live (or Salford’s very own Radio Grievance) just aired a stonker.

    Oh the unfairness!
    Stop this injustice!
    The inequality is an iniquity!
    It’s so unfair!

    Turns out there is an ‘imbalance’ in the military hardware available to the two sides in the Syrian Religious Civil War.

    For goodness sake. If we call ourselves ‘progressives’ we must surely rectify this glaring inequality.

    Bung us a shopping list Jihadis, tell us what you need? We have to stop this…. this…. “Tory Tank Tax” that’s handicapping the most vulnerable of our Islamic rebels.

       21 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Ah, the David vs. Goliath Narrative. It works so well for the Palestinians…..

         3 likes

  38. Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

    News headlines includes item to inform us huge % of consumers have changed buying habits post the red rum scandal.
    Next item, bear shits in woods, pope found to be catholic?

       5 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      ‘…pope found to be Catholic’
      Not if the BBC can help it!
      Even a casual listen to the BBC will tell you they want a pro-same sex marriage, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual priests… sort of Popey Catholic-ish kinda of Ghanaian lesbian woman in the Vatican.

         10 likes

  39. DYKEVISIONS says:

    I nearly pulled off the head of my plastic duck in the bath this morning when I heard a trailer for a Radio 4 programme, this Saturday;-
    ‘For more than four decades, David Bowie has entranced his followers. As he releases his first new material in ten years, Samira Ahmed looks at his particular appeal for British Asian women.
    As Samira explores Bowie’s impact on British Asian teenagers, she talks to Shami Chakrabarti, the Director of ‘Liberty’, about Bowie’s changing identities. Sociologist Rupa Huq tackles his suburban psychoses and Shyama Perera takes Samira on a journey to explain how her teenage obsession with Bowie even extended to sending costume designs to her hero – enabling her arguably to claim that “I Dressed Ziggy Stardust”.’
    Surely this kind of material should be put on the ‘Asian’ network.
    By the way I am still struggling to understand why British taxpayers, sorry licence payers, have to fund this particular station?

       29 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      I’m a political refugee who fled persecution at BBC Radio 4. I can’t say that I have found a comfortable home at BBC 5 Live – I am still subjected to intermitant politically motivated attacks and the left-wing bias is institutionalised here too. I take a little comfort from the fact that the abuse is so dumbed down that I can usually laugh it off. When I hear reports such as yours about the way things are back home in Radio 4, I’m sad to think that it will probably never be safe for me to return.

         22 likes

    • Aerfen says:

      Radio Four is the WORST, and thats saying something.
      The entire service is more like the Asian network now with Jenny Murray constantly featuring Asian issues on womans hour, drama and book readings regularly Asian stuff, Asian ‘experts’ brought in at every opportunity to comment on scientific and medical issues, many Asian reporters, selected even for uniquely local British matters of which they have no prior knowledge or cultural understanding (despite this being considered an
      importnat qualification for dealing with all matters Asian).
      Its nauseating, and I feel Radio Four, once my favourite Radio Channel has been stolen off me, as I am sure do many of its almost totally ethnic British and middle aged audience. I feel we are *unwanted* and they are trying to attract Asian listeners instead, especially perhaps younger Asian housewives.

         19 likes

    • Cosmo says:

      Are they aware of his racist comments back in the 70’s. ? Some thing like “send em’ all back”.

         2 likes

    • pah says:

      1st try didn’t work so apologies if this appears twice:

      Rupa Huq? Is that Rupa Huq the senior lecturer in Sociology at Kingston University, writer, columnist, Labour Party politician, music DJ and former Deputy Mayoress of the London Borough of Ealing.

      The sister of Konnie Huq?

      I wonder how she got that gig?

         4 likes

  40. TigerOC says:

    I note that the BBC is all over this story involving the activities of the then Mrs Mandela – NOT;

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/police-investigate-deaths-of-boys-last-seen-at-mandela-s-1-2831783

       6 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      Yes I well remember at the Mandela Aid (or whatevs) concert at Wembley (or wherevs) how the young and stupid gave an almighty cheer when Winnie walked onto the stage.

      How d’ye feel about that now, folks?

      A bit stupid? Eh. Eh.

         7 likes

  41. thoughtful says:

    Peter Hitchens complains of further bias at the bBC

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/peter-hitchens-what-the-papers-say-bbc

       5 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Nothing to back up Hitchens’ claim of an “institutional bias”, eh? Well, he didn’t provide any, I guess, but we can provide plenty. Anyone up for putting together a list we can send him for his cause? I’m thinking things like the Bacon chimp and Derbyshire, James “If we win the election” Naughtie, Kevin “Teabagger” Connolly. Instances where Beeboids use ridicule and tone and betray their personal opinions on people and things they don’t like.

      It’s not about proving a conspiracy or directive: if they all think and behave the same way, the bias will be institutional automatically.

         11 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        A list of tweets should do it.

           6 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          That will support the groupthink claim, but we need evidence of them doing it on air and/or in print, since they still act as if Twitter is outside the official rules (until they get caught, that is).

             8 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Since it’s in the Guardian the comments are 99% hostile to Hitchens -frequently vehemently so. That’s just how the conversation must sound in the BBC canteen.

         12 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        All the more reason to give him some real ammo.

           7 likes

      • Dave s says:

        Hitchens is very clear sighted about the uselessness of the Tory party.
        It surprises me that he still seems to believe that the BBC should be impartial- that is give some space to conservative views.
        It is as much a delusion as thinking Cameron is a conservative.
        The BBC thinks it is impartial therefore it is impartial. Only the mad and bad hold conservative views in BBC land

           8 likes

  42. Joshaw says:

    This fool should have known better than to accuse the BBC of such a thing:

    Labour MP embarrassed after claiming that ‘white or black’ smoke tweet about the Pope is about race

       11 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      St. Lammy of the Riots? The BBC won’t let a little thing like this stop them from trusting and respecting his word.

         12 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        I rant about this above but there is a gem in the Telegraph report…

        “Mr Lammy famously came last when he appeared on Celebrity Mastermind while he was minister for higher education.

        When asked, which king succeeded Henry VIII to the throne, Mr Lammy replied, “Henry VII”

           10 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        Another thought – this seems like perfect material for a fair degree of good natured ribbing on “The Now Show”, “HIGNFY “, “The News Quiz” and “Mock The Week”

        Aybody willing to give me odds?

           14 likes

  43. George R says:

    A critique of Islam by non-Muslims scholars.

    Not a programme one would ever find on INBBC.

    “Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer discuss Bernard Lewis and academic study of Islam.”

    ( 1 hour video.)

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/03/andrew-bostom-and-robert-spencer-discuss-bernard-lewis-and-academic-study-of-islam.html

       6 likes

  44. AsISeeIt says:

    How do they elect those Imams? And why aren’t there any female Imams? Ho hum.

    Hold onto your sides, they may just split…. BBC Five Live racing team are at the Cheltenham Festival but seem to be after a job on The Now Show – lots of giggles about the betting on the new Pope.

    They may be running a book but I, like so many others, aren’t clued up enough to have a sensible wager.

    Mind you, what’s the odds on the BBC editorial line to be taken when the new Pope does emerge?

    2-1 on : Oh no, he’s a conservative…
    3-1 : Great, he’s from the third world, pity he’s a conservative
    6-1 : Damn, he’s from Italy, but wow, he’s a bit of a radical!
    10-1 : Brilliant, he’s black! But shame he’s a conservative.

       12 likes

  45. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The President is now denying responsibility for cancelling the White House tours for the public, which was blamed on the Sequester “cuts”. Apparently, the decision to stop the White Tours had nothing to do with the….er…. White House. It’s never His fault, of course, as the BBC will tell you over and over.

    When the tours were cancelled a few days ago – as a purely political move to make the “cuts” as publicly painful and hated as possible – the first to be affected were school groups. It was about as cynical a move as there is.

    Now that He’s taking some flack for it, because running the tours cost about the same as two of His lavish vacations combined, and His Administration is looking to hire almost 2600 new government employees while the rest of the country is told to suck it, the White House is scrambling for cover. Plus there’s a new poll out showing that His political capital won after His re-election – the “mandate” Mark Mardell told you was so great – is “largely gone”. Which the BBC sure as hell isn’t going to tell you.

    Apparently, even though it wasn’t His fault, the President is “looking for ways” to accommodate the children. When the tours do start up again – and they will, because this is all about manipulating the media and the public – expect the BBC to hail it as a triumph and proof of His goodness in the face of Republican evil.

       10 likes

  46. chrisH says:

    I do remember telling the trolls that visit this site that the BBC send us their stories round the baggage carousel in the desperate hope that we might burden ourselves with their socialist crapola, so they could re-invent yet more of the same.
    And-right on cue…yes folks, it`s “minimum prices for booze” day…ran all day this clapped out old nag of a story.
    How many `elf professionals and charities, experts and nannies do we need before we agree to stump up for more leaflets, more counselling for Stella Street, and more dignitas for those OAPs who dare to grab a Baileys or a lager top(just the half?…I don`t think so, pisshead!)?
    So-for benefits for all those Mr Kites out there…boozy today, smoking next week(Happy Smoking Day everybody!)…obesity the week after, not enough sex ed or abortions the week after….then, of course, the Dignitas week.
    Repeat stories and blathering experts on a five week cycle until we`ve all complied.
    Isn`t it great to be a troll…like the goldfish, you see the same castle everyday and think it a new sight?
    Flat pack, pre strained stories and perpetual backdrop massaging and narrative formation from our BBC….predictable as f***, but don`t let THAT from telling us Nanny Hewitts old wives shite…the BBC prefer their views to be steeped in socialist chicken shit, to match their convictions!

       16 likes

  47. Pounce says:

    I see the bBC is attacking the Government for refusing a baby medical treatment on the NHS.
    Erb’s palsy baby refused treatment over family’s immigration status
    A baby could be left with a paralysed arm because of her family’s immigration status, her parents have said.Sanika Ahmed, from Southsea in Hampshire, has Erb’s palsy and needs surgery on her right arm by the age of nine months – just four weeks from now.The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Middlesex has refused treatment because Sanika’s family does not have the right to live in the UK. The hospital said it was following NHS rules on overseas patients.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-21747912

       6 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The kid’s probably better off having the procedure done elsewhere. These days it seems like putting her through the NHS would be tantamount to child abuse. The report doesn’t say, but might there be a case for blaming the birth hospital in Portsmouth for the trauma in the first place? Get out the popcorn.

         7 likes

      • Pounce says:

        DP wrote:
        “The kid’s probably better off having the procedure done elsewhere.”

        Like Bangladesh. Also for all this Islamic brotherhood I keep on hearing about, I wonder why the Local mosque hasn’t had a whipround.? They don’t have a problem when it comes to buying arms and ammo for Terrorists.

           16 likes

  48. Pounce says:

    Spot the missing Noun.
    Link text
    More than 100 women seen by midwives in Bristol over the past nine months have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), NHS data has revealed. North Bristol NHS Trust asked midwives to check all their patients for the procedure and 117 cases were found. Bristol Safeguarding Children board estimates about 2,000 girls in the city are at risk of FGM. The partial or total removal of external female genitalia is illegal in the UK.

       15 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Surely it’s racist to ask midwives to single out minorities for scrutiny like this. It’s racist to say it’s a problem in certain communities, right?

         9 likes

      • Pounce says:

        I do love the last sentence:
        “We must invest money and resources in how we address this issue with education and protection”.

        Yup blame the Tory cuts. Instead of the Islamic ones.

        The bBC, the traitors within our midst

           22 likes

        • Pounce says:

          Oh fuck the bBC have brought out a vido sob story for these free loading immigrants.
          http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-21771720

          I like the part where the bBC bitch says they are not making any claims on the government. Err 3 children all younger than 4, yeah right. Ship the fucking lot back to Bangladesh or get the bBC cow to pay

             17 likes

        • Aerfen says:

          Yes I noticed that too – the self righteous muesli knitters ever ready to give our money away not their own!

             8 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          “We must invest money and resources in how we address this issue with education and protection”.

          Can see the Imams taking that one forward in their madrassas and mosques.

             7 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      The partial or total removal of external female genitalia is illegal in the UK.
      But there have been no prosecutions to date in the UK.

         13 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        FGM is obligatory in the Shaafi madhab and recommended in Hanbali madhab (schools of sharia law) most Egyptians and Somalis follow the Shaafi school. Which do you think gains precedence – British law or religious obligation – the former of which these people are perfectly aware?
        Claims that FGM are a cultural not religious thing (because some African non-Muslims practice it, are baloney) – if it’s sharia, it’s sunna – it’s Islamic.

           8 likes

        • Aerfen says:

          Wally,
          Although some Mohammedans do strongly support it, its practised by Christians too in those parts of the world where it is rife.

          Its a pre Christian pre Mohammedan practice, the Pharaohs did it.

             1 likes

          • wallygreeninker says:

            But it is not inscribed on tablets of stone, which sharia might as well be. Many Muslims who follow other schools of Islamic law do not practice it but if it is licit, recommended or compulsory in any one of the four main schools of jurisprudence it is sunna, nobody can be accused of being un-Islamic for doing it – it has been incorporated in Islam.

               3 likes

  49. AsISeeIt says:

    Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight Economics Editor tweets about those pesky economics which keep interfering with his day job…..

    Paul Mason ‏@paulmasonnews
    On Newsnight now @alicewalkerfilm preview, and Alice Walker in studio. Forget economics, it’s time 4 great literature. Happy #IWD

    Alice Walker btw…..

    ‘Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American author, poet, feminist, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best known for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982)’

    Right on, Comrade…. forget all that quantitative easing…. go Sister go!

       15 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Comrade mason on newsnight now, oop north on tyneside.
      Carefully analysing the economic problems, even looking all the way back to……err….ummm….2010 !
      Nothing before? Well bugger me!

         17 likes