OPEN THREAD

And time for yet another NEW Open Thread as the last one exceeds the 200 comment mark! Off you go..BBC being annoying you?…Have something to say about it..detail it HERE!

Bookmark the permalink.

273 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC doom and gloom is suddenly dispelled

    Rachel Burden on BBC 5 Live is playing at Pollyanna* this morning.

    In a discussion about nuclear deterrents she states…

    ‘…but the idea that the world is increasingly dangerous – that’s an entirely subjective view…’

    *Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children’s literature, with the title character’s name becoming a popular term for someone with the same optimistic outlook. Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as “Glad Books”, were later published.

       31 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      So no danger at all really……….Iran developing nuclear weapons, the possibility of the Taliban getting its hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, chaos in the Middle East with Egypt and Iraq on the brink of civil war and Syria already there.

      Yet more proof of the BBC bubble, if it were needed.

         51 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      She really is a tit that woman.

      Not as eloquent as your post, but quick and to the point.

      BBC Light News™

         44 likes

    • Idiotboy says:

      Please bear in mind the fact that Rachel Burden is only there to make Nicky Campbell sound more intelligent than he actually is.

         33 likes

      • Stewart says:

        I thought was Richard Bacon’s job.
        Or is he specifically tasked with making Stephen (I’ll come round and give you a slap) Nolan look of average intelligence?
        If so then that’s another failure to add to his extensive list

           22 likes

      • Buggy says:

        “Please bear in mind the fact that Rachel Burden is only there to make Nicky Campbell sound more intelligent than he actually is.”

        A breeze block would fulfil that function easily enough (without needing a salary).

           15 likes

        • chrisH says:

          Is Radio 5 the Special Needs Division for radio 4 wannabes that have been weaned of the Ritalin….only to be replaced by Sanatogen?
          Glad to say that I don`t know who any Radio 5 types are..Bacon is an affront to Islam with that name…so let`s tell Anjem!
          Same for Victoria Pork!

             12 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      Whose bitch is Rachel Burden?

      In today’s ‘Wileyeron’ slot as Cleggy was on to talk kiddies’ edyoocayshun Cacklin’ Rosie hijacked the interview by moving him onto Lynton Crosby, in the pay of big tobacco, plain fag packets.

      I would say Burden was suspiciously well-briefed (she doesn’t really do news and politics) but she was actually just reading it out from a script.

      Duly slapped down by Clegg who pointed out that Crosby was not in the pay of the government and Clegg doesn’t even know what Crosby looks like in any case. (And Rache, treacle, if Cleggy can slap you down, maybe look to a new career).

      So who put the Cackler up to it. Chucklin’ Nikki? Their red Producer with his Che tee shirt? Or just one of their many chums at the Labour Party. I mean someone wrote her script.

      Corrupt is what it is.

      Nothing more, nothing less.

         8 likes

      • uncle bup says:

        …and by amazing coincidence, a few hours later, Empty Ed majors on Crosby at PMQ’s.

        So Rachel Burden, the Labour Party’s bitch then.

           1 likes

  2. AsISeeIt says:

    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2013/07/alan-yentob-laments-as-austerity-reaches-aunty/

    ‘I hear that upon arriving at Glastonbury recently, the Beeb’s Creative Director had an almighty tantrum when the news was broken to him that he was staying in a Travelodge.’

       51 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      Could always have, yer know, paid for an upgrade himself.

         22 likes

      • lojolondon says:

        WHAT??? OUTRAGEOUS TREATMENT OF A SENIOR TROUGHER! I’LL NEVER GO TO GLASTO AGAIN! (shouts)

           27 likes

      • Chop says:

        “Could always have, yer know, paid for an upgrade himself. ”

        How very dare you, Sir….I shallt meet thee at dawn, with pistols drawn!

           5 likes

    • ROBERT BROWN says:

      Name him/her, come on, work it into them.

         2 likes

    • Buggy says:

      I sincerely hope the licence payer wasn’t footing the bill for said budget Treblinka. Couldn’t the sod have taken a tent like all the others ?

         5 likes

      • Chop says:

        “I sincerely hope the licence payer wasn’t footing the bill for said budget Treblinka. Couldn’t the sod have taken a tent like all the others ? ”

        Thou shalt surely feel the sharp steel of my rapier for suggesting such a folly….meet me at dawn, you scoundrel!

           3 likes

  3. George R says:

    “BBC, ITV and Channel 4 face Ofcom probe over decision to interview hate preacher Anjem Choudary after Lee Rigby’s murder”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364212/BBC-ITV-Channel-4-face-Ofcom-probe-decision-interview-hate-preacher-Anjem-Choudary-Lee-Rigbys-death.html

    And Choudary connection here:

    “UK: Muslim who worked for Royal Mail jailed for jihad terror offenses”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/07/uk-muslim-who-worked-for-royal-mail-jailed-for-jihad-terror-offenses.html

       35 likes

  4. Kyoto says:

    On Monday 15th July around 7.45 in what the papers say segment, Justine Webb read out the first paragraph of this rant by Gary Younge http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/14/open-season-black-boys-verdict, the Qusiling Newspaper’s (formerly from Manchester) ‘Race-Baiter-in-Chief’.

    As a matter of openess would it not have been fair to point out that Gary’s brother Pat, is Head of Creative Vision at the Quisling Broadcasting Corporation, or perhaps in a more Justine chatty-chat-way he could have added that he met Pat the other day whilst having a wazz in the executive loos. And after saying ‘great piece by your brother in the Guardian’ I also managed to pop in the fact that one of my kids was doing well at uni and has been thinking about a job in telly.

       46 likes

  5. pounce says:

    So the bBC finally breaks with the news that around 13,000 extra people died with NHS between 2005 and 2010 and here is how they report it:

    Hospital trusts to have high death rates exposed
    Standards of care at 14 hospital trusts with the worst death rates in England are to be laid bare in a report later.An investigation was launched earlier this year after the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal.The trusts all had higher-than-expected death rates from 2010-11 to 2011-12.

    The bBC, the traitors within our midst.

       59 likes

    • #88 says:

      ‘Toady’, this morning, was banging on about us all participating in some international opinion survey – creating a question that we could ask people of other nations. As an example, they gave one that was sent in by a listener; ‘ What was the last thing you thought of when you went to sleep last night….and the first thing when you woke this morning’

      Well mine was the biased piece by Allegra Stratton on NN last night (I’ve copied a post from the old open thread below)…and I’m still seething this morning. And the BBC claim that their political coverage is fair honest and impartial.
      The BBC will do anything to deflect criticism of Labour or muddy the waters, particularly on the NHS.

      Never mind BBC there’ll be a royal baby along soon. That’ll save Burnham’s neck.

      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>In preparation for tomorrow’s report on poor standards of care in the NHS, BBC Labour Newsnight are running a puff piece on behalf of their sponsors.

      Particularly disgraceful was former Guardian journalist Allegra Stratton’s, breathless, disgraceful, dishonest, politically overt piece, designed it seems to deflect any Tory attack on Labour (and Burnham’s) mismanagement of the Health Service.

      An outrageous piece that facilitates more Labour denial by pointing the finger at Tory motives – just as Labour with BBC support last week changed the subject on candidate selection fraud.

      The BBC cannot be trusted. Stratton should be made to explain herself or leave.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

         56 likes

    • noggin says:

      this transparency is to be lauded, a pre-requisite even,
      for the future.
      Lets not forget the political bigger picture, what the real political aim is here, putting Lord Carter in charge of NHS competition? … gets over £790, 000 a year from an american private health company?, that recently voted on bill allows private companies in on the NHS voted on by at least 100 peers, (who incidently, have direct links to healthcare companies).
      The get rich quick,(yet again at our expense), money boys smell one of the last cash cows … their toryboy arrogance and greed has blinded them again …
      all those years in their self and well deserved wilderness, and they have learned nothing

         3 likes

      • Ken Hall says:

        NHS Privatisasion is the result of EU competition directives and has also led to the privatisation of the Royal Mail. Labour also privatised great chunks of the NHS services whilst they were in power too.

        The left is using privatisation now, however, as a big smokescreen to try and hide their own complicity in the massacre of the elderly and vulnerable in labour’s NHS.

        Unless you subscribe to a particularly insane version of a conspiracy theory which appears to posit the crazy and physically impossible notion that current tory cuts, and the Keogh Report are a tory plot which opened up a rift in time which killed 13,000 patients back when labour was in charge of the NHS, in order to make the public support privatisation now…

        Labour Ministers were warned over 1500 times about failings in their NHS when they were in power, and they covered these warnings up! That is NOTHING to do with tory privatisation plans now, unless you subscribe to the insane time travel conspiracy theory.

        These vulnerable and elderly patients were left to die in pools of their own urine, because health “care” “professionals” were too busy with paperwork and meeting political targets, to provide CARE to the patients and it all happened on LABOUR’S watch!!!

        It has taken 3 years of intensive breaking down of taxpayer funded gagging orders, breaking down secrecy and blocking union and executive bullying to get to this appalling truth and that truth is that under labour, the NHS was run for the benefit of greedy executives wanting more and more perks, unions wanting more and more power and the PC politics of promoting uncontrolled immigration.

        The Cost of the NHS doubled in real terms under labour, yet the quality of care regressed to something out of the dark ages across a whole swathe of NHS trusts.

        And now the left have adopted insanely lunatic conspiracy theories to try to defend the indefensible and are, sickeningly, trying to play the “victim” in all this now.

        Burnham should face prosecution for this and every lefty who defends this shameful failure of our NHS should hang their heads in shame.

           52 likes

        • uncle bup says:

          … the faux gasps, shreiks, and howls on QT a couple of weeks back when one of the panel mentioned the NHS and privatisation in the same breath.

          Grow up ffs. 🙁

             28 likes

        • noggin says:

          labours watch? … what condition was the NHS in after the Tories last stint eh!,
          anyway, that aside … don t try to drag away from the agenda at hand NOW

             2 likes

          • Alan Larocka says:

            Does Burnham wear eye makeup?

               15 likes

            • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

              ‘E alus reminds me of one o’t men as come straight from’t pit ‘ead baths!

                 1 likes

              • Mo says:

                Dwi’n ddysgu Gymraeg rhy. Ond unig tipyn bach.
                Siarad i chi would benefit me , as you can see!

                Hwyl Mo

                   0 likes

                • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

                  Mo, that bit above was supposed to appear in an english oop north accent.
                  Not welsh lol.
                  I would welcome a dialogue direct by e-mail with you in our mother tongue.
                  Dont think I ought to put my e-mail addy in here ? What say you sport?

                     0 likes

                  • Mo says:

                    Well most people use g llytherau.com
                    cyfenw am “rebellious prince (rhif) pimp.”

                    Da ffawd

                    If no mail from you in a day I will try again less cryptic!

                    Bydd wych

                       0 likes

          • Ken Hall says:

            I remember being ill when the tories ran the NHS. Even after 18 years of tory rule, I was ill in the middle of the night. I picked up the phone, called my doctor and he came out to visit me at my house, within the hour, gave me a prescription and I felt better within a couple of days.

            I sometimes have to wonder if I did not dream that. Doctors dedicating themselves to the service of their patients. Labour changed all that with the unaffordable GPs contract. Now if I am ill, I am lucky if I can get an appointment at all at the GP and instead have to travel for miles to the hospital to see a complete stranger at the CHOC doc.

            Also there were not thousands of people left to rot in pools of their own filth and hospital inspectors could actually inspect…

            Whereas…
            “NHS wards were so bad that inspectors felt compelled to abandon their impartial roles and step in to alleviate patient suffering.”

            That is what we got for labour’s DOUBLING of spending in real terms of the NHS budget.

            Thousands more managers, executives and union reps, less doctors and less beds and much worse care.

               16 likes

        • noggin says:

          the left 😀 sorry .. no fan of Millibland
          but on this … i m right 😀

             1 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      To put it in perspective, in Srebrenica in 1995, an estimated 8,000 Bosniaks were murdered.

      And this is generally referred to as a “massacre”.

      Amazing how little the BBC, and the MSM in general, have to say about this.

         36 likes

  6. AsISeeIt says:

    A good talk spoiled

    BBC 5 Live specialises in mixing sport with Left-wing campaign politics.

    This morning Dame Nicky Campbell gives a puff to Alex Salmond’s boycott of some upcoming golf competition. Why? Because it is being held at a ‘men only club’. Goodness only knows what kind of a handicap is also required and what the annual membership fee might be at this ancient club – but, hell, this is all about putting out a right on feminist message – right?

    Then at the end of the phone-in our Baroness Tanni Grey-Campbell is placed in somewhat of a quandary.

    The BBC PC agenda says the ban on female membership is very bad. But BBC 5 Live are carryng very extensive broadcasting of the event.

    So Campbell says to the final right-on caller…..

    ‘….. but you’ll be listening to it though – and enjoying it!’

    The BBC: A good talk spoiled.

       24 likes

    • #88 says:

      Do you know, I was sure Gameshow was going to run with the 13,000 deaths at NHS hospitals on his phone in, this morning.

      Can’t for the life of me wonder why he didn’t.

         35 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        Apparently he has ‘editorial meetings’ to decide on the subject matter for his phone-in. Transcripts please? Any BBC Whistleblowers?

           17 likes

        • #88 says:

          Perhaps tomorrow?

          Maybe Owen Jones, SWP’s Charlie Kimber and his usual coterie of lefties were otherwise engaged this morning (getting briefed and rehearsing).

          Yes – they’ll all be lined up, and the rebuttal unit at Marx central will be creating texts to read out and callers for Gameshow to speed-dial…’I work in the NHS and since the Tories have got in I’ve had to work 80 hours every week leading to the deaths of hundreds of patients…’ ‘The NHS isn’t safe on Tory hands’.

             28 likes

          • pah says:

            I think you are being very unfair.

            After all it is not the job of any of Unite’s members to look after patients and make sure they don’t die of starvation in their own excrement is it?

            Unite’s members are far too busy doing the very important job of fighting the Tories.

            Please get back on message ASAP.

               8 likes

    • chrisH says:

      I like this slogan sir!

         1 likes

  7. Thoughtful says:

    Wimmins hour interviewing Yvette Cooper wife of Ed Balls, gushing all over how wonderful she is to manage being a mum of 3 children and holding down a full time job, and all the time allowing her to attack the Tories and promote Labour views.

    When will we have a Tory on in the interests of balance & impartiality?

       53 likes

    • Andrew says:

      Well, Justine Greening was on recently, causing a stir by being from Rotherham and being a Tory (oxymoronic? Probably just moronic, if it’s the BBC’s prejudices!)

      I just LOVED the bit where right-on Lefty Jane Garvey played devil’s advocate for a brief moment with la Cooper. It was that old question of privilege, usually so good to bash our Dave and Gideon Osborne and BoJo with. But the BBC has “impartiality in its genes” (or jeans? Or skirts even? No sexism intended, of course.) So …

      I paraphrase: “You went to a comprehensive school, your grandfather was a miner and your father was an active union member, ALL BRILLIANT SO FAR, but … Oxbridge … Harvard … etc.”

      They just can’t help themselves; it’s in their genes. At least when they are about food there is a bit less bias.

         45 likes

      • Kyoto says:

        It appears that they can’t even bring themselves to be honest about how far up the labour aristocracy Cooper’s daa was. According to Wiki Tony Cooper was General Secretary of the trade union prospect, so not some ordinary foot-soldier.

        Also was any mention made that her state school was not in some enriched/vibrant enclave but in white-flight Hampshire.

        So on a leftie privilege-checker-app for Quisling Yvette Cooper Oxford and after is the culmination of her favoured upbringing.

        I assume Quislings like Garvey can’t delve too deep as it would mean they would also have to look how much better off they were viz-a-viz the white-prole they bleed for during weekend dinner parties.

           33 likes

        • Andrew says:

          There are few things worse in life than middle class “pseudo-proles” like Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Hardy, the late John Peel and so many in New Labour. The BBC is full of them, it’s fun to watch them squirming and trying to pretend to be less privileged than they actually are.

             48 likes

          • Joshaw says:

            “Imagine no possessions
            I wonder if you can
            No need for greed or hunger
            A brotherhood of man
            Imagine all the people sharing all the world”

               10 likes

            • Tell us it how it really is BBC says:

              Existentialist nonsense from an IRA supporting, property owning ,multi millionaire, socialist leaning expatriate.
              “The poor you will always have with you” because of human greed.
              I didn’t see St John giving away most of his millions.
              Have you ever seen a gritty BBC investigative documentary on the riddle wrapped in an enigma, that was John Lennon? Imagine that.

                 9 likes

              • chrisH says:

                No…think you`ll find that Yoko wrote it all.
                And what a voice-what a legacy!
                A prototype Bonnie Greer in her way.

                   6 likes

                • pah says:

                  Now, now don’t be mean. ‘Open Your Box’ was a seminal piece …

                     3 likes

                  • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

                    I’d like to embed the video here of the python sketch where they all try to outdo each other in the poverty of upbringing, ending up with life in a hole in the road. But i am so shit at the embed thingy.

                       2 likes

                    • pah says:

                      For a horrible moment I thought you were planning on embedding the caterwauling of Ms Ono.

                      What was Lennon thinking?

                      Have this one on me.

                         2 likes

                    • Joshaw says:

                      Monty’s Law:
                      In any discussion, sooner or later someone will quote Monty Python.

                         2 likes

                • Tell us how it really is BBC says:

                  Sorry Chris, you really need to do your research – I have.
                  “Several poems from Yoko Ono’s 1964 book Grapefruit inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for “Imagine”—in particular, one which Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original Imagine LP titled “Cloud Piece”, reads: “Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in.” Doesn’t have quite the same ring does it Chris?

                     1 likes

          • MartinW says:

            The late Jeremy Hardy is the worst of the lot (whoops – wishful thinking).

               16 likes

            • CCE says:

              Much though I despise Hardy – he is a vile unfunny excresence, a livid pustule oozing bolshevism on radio 4 – but he is not a self important pseudo prole like Brigstock.

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

              “He was expelled from King’s School, Bruton for “beastie-ing” a car (that turned out to belong to one of the groundsmen) and shoplifting from the local shops to feed both his alcohol needs and “excessive appetite”

                 29 likes

              • Buggy says:

                Surprised that Kings needed an excuse for expelling the proto-Prickstocke. . I’d have kicked him out on his second day simply for being a junior twat.

                Still, “Beasting” > “Watch Out For The Wolverine !”: Eh ? Eh ? This is surely destiny at work, so come on Ch 5 !

                   3 likes

              • pah says:

                Don’t like BrigShitHouse one bit.

                I see that, for artistic reasons, the Frankenstein’s Monster Look-a-Like has changed the owner of the VW he vandalised from a grounds man, i.e. an ordinary working man, to a ‘master’.

                What a shit, trashing a working mans car for kicks and then using that act to big himself up by pretending it belonged to a toff – not that being a master at a private school pays that well anyway.

                What a socialist warrior eh chums?

                   8 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          God bless our Jane….

          In May 2007 in a discussion on the tenth anniversary of the Labour Party gaining power in the United Kingdom Garvey unwittingly revealed an apparent pro-Labour bias at the BBC. Garvey reminisced how in the morning after the general election “the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles – I will always remember that”

             27 likes

          • Andrew says:

            “The Model (- BBC ‘Woman’s Hour’ remix)” with my sincerest apologies to the great synthesiser group Kraftwerk. It’s best sung with a German accent … or else some of the rhymes don’t work. Ein, zwei, drei …

            “Jane’s a model but not looking good,
            I’d hate to take her home, that’s understood,
            She’s playing her game and you can hear them say,
            ‘She’s sounding good, for bias we will pay’.

            She’s toasting Labour victory drinking just champagne,
            And she has been checking nearly all the men [for sexism],
            She plays hard to get and scowls from time to time,
            It only takes a microphone to change her mind.

            She’s standing in for Jenni every now and then,
            For every Labour woman she does the best she can,
            I saw her on the cover of a magazine [Ariel],
            Now she’s a big success I’d hate to hear her again.

               17 likes

            • AsISeeIt says:

              The more of this the better. Conservative satire. And Radio 4 say they can’t find it.

                 14 likes

            • chrisH says:

              Adrian Childs…crap at most things but a good judge of women perhaps?

                 7 likes

        • Mo says:

          Superb turn of phrase Kyoto. Nice one

             1 likes

      • uncle bup says:

        You went to a comprehensive school, your grandfather was a miner and your father was an active union member, ALL BRILLIANT SO FAR, but … Oxbridge … Harvard … etc.
        ———————————————————–

        Did Jane Gruesome then go on to say,

        ‘… and you were part of a government which bankrupted the country ALL BRILLIANT SO FAR !!!!’.

        Nothoughtnot.

           28 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        I assume the “ALL BRILLIANT SO FAR” was a direct quote from Jane “Champers in the Hallway” Garvey?

           16 likes

        • Andrew says:

          Yes, “ALL BRILLIANT SO FAR” is a direct quote; the other bits are more of a gist of the points made, but close enough I think for you to get an idea of the interview if you were lucky enough to have missed it.

             16 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            So she didn’t approve of the Oxford and Harvard bit? Leaving aside for the moment this was a Labour woman being interviewed and temporarily ignoring the fact career politicians aren’t up to the job, who does Garvey want running the country if it’s not our brightest and best?

               4 likes

    • Buggy says:

      Having three kiddies means she’s done the deed with Ol’ Blinky at least three times.

      Damned if I can see why she’d want that fact broadcast to the nation.

         10 likes

  8. Beeboidal says:

    Obama and the law, part 128.

    Barack Obama ‘may have prejudiced hundreds of military sexual assault trials’

    Military legal experts said the remarks were particularly prejudicial to military juries since Mr Obama – as America’s commander-in-chief – represented the highest possible authority for a serving soldier and could be perceived to have been directing juries on how to decide.

    Gaffe! Gaffe! And not some just a minor nonsense gaffe, but a gaffe which is affecting trials.

    In Hawaii, a Navy judge ruled last month that two defendants in sexual assault cases, if found guilty, could not be punitively discharged because of Mr. Obama’s remarks

    Where’s the BBC on this?

    Obama taught constitutional law, you know.

       33 likes

    • Andrew says:

      So much for the “smartest guy in the (barrack) room”.

         21 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      That’s another one for the “Nuance of His Finely-Tuned Brain” file. And more evidence that the rule of law is something for other people to worry about, not Him. And more evidence that the BBC won’t report things which make Him look bad, at least not until they can find a way to defend it or shift blame.

         19 likes

    • MartinW says:

      Obama’s remark, made before the Zimmerman trial, that if he had a son he would like Trayon, was also highly prejudicial. Had Zimmerman been found guilty, the defense would surely have unassailable grounds to claim that Obama’s remarks had influenced the verdict. As it was, the BBC has seen fit to ignore Obama’s outrageous pre-trial intervention.

         36 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        Well, it can’t be as serious as the heinous crime of saying Lee Rigby was murdered. Otherwise He would have a Journalist and Lawyer on his case warning of the dire consequences.

           26 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        “Obama’s remark, made before the Zimmerman trial, that if he had a son he would like Trayon…”

        Before the trial? It was made immediately after the incident when many places were in full race riot mode. Obama is such a dumb schmuck.

           8 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Not so dumb, really. He needed the pump up the black vote for His re-election, which was waning at the time, and – far more importantly – needed to re-energize the white base whose faith was seriously faltering, and were otherwise starting to question whether or not they really needed to vote for a black man again to prove that they weren’t racist. That’s also why He sent the DoJ to help instigate protests for Zimmerman’s arrest.

             12 likes

  9. Joshaw says:

    Oh joy! – Muslim listeners will no longer feel neglected:

    Presenter Mishal Husain joins Today programme

       25 likes

  10. George R says:

    SAUDI ARABIA and ISRAEL.

    Is it counter to BBC-NUJ policy to even report Islamic discrimination against Israel?:-

    “Will Saudi airline be kicked out of US over anti-Israel policy?”

    http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10723

       14 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Yes. The BBC understand this sort of thing, so it’s not newsworthy. Although one would think they’d see it as an opportunity to push the “Boycott the Apartheid State” meme again. Maybe even the morally twisted Beeboids realize Saudis aren’t the best examples to hold up as enlightened arbiters, so they’ve left it alone.

         12 likes

  11. AsISeeIt says:

    Another snippet from Today’s new gel……

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1509681/Hello-good-morning-and-heres-my-news.html

    ‘I don’t know what they thought at the BBC when I told them I was pregnant again, but it’s a very right-on place in that way and they seemed to take it in their stride. They just said, ‘Right, how long will you be around for?’ Lately quite a few presenters have had babies in quite quick succession, so they are just having to deal with it.”‘

    ‘The new job at BBC Breakfast is a result of a maternity merry-go-round that was kicked off by Sophie Raworth, the Six O’Clock News anchor, who has just had her second child. Natasha Kaplinsky, the BBC Breakfast presenter, is filling in for Raworth, while Husain and Sian Williams took Kaplinsky’s slot. The same thing happened two years ago when Raworth had her first baby. ‘

    Yep, when you are Licence Fee funded money is no object

       25 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      The part-time mummy merry-go-round sounds bit like our local surgery.

         5 likes

  12. CCE says:

    The BBC report on the deaths of 13,000 people is little short of scandal itself.

    You wouldn’t know it from BBC coverage but there are two huge related but different NHS scandals under way at the moment. I wonder how many more horrors we are being ‘protected’ from by our fearless impartial BBC – will they stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this, they can examine every second of an incident and provide hundreds of hours of coverage ………. when it comes to a Tory whip allegedly swearing at a chippy copper. No deaths, but rudeness is so much more important

    1) The Care Quality Commission [Vanished from the screens of course] that suppressed a critical report, hounding and gagging whistle blowers and secretly trying to have a non exec director sectioned under the mental health act because she wanted to pursue the issue. Why? Because of the reputational damage to the CQC and the fact that [Labour] ministers had told them to avoid bad publicity in the run up to an election.

    2) Highly critical reports and up to 1,500 formal notifications to [Labour] ministers of serious issues and high excess death rates ignored and suppressed to avoid politically damaging publicity in the run up to an election.

    Does anybody recall the fact that the Labour Party used a new NHS hospital to launch their 2010 manifesto? This was criticised by the Tories at the time…

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7581781/Gordon-Brown-accused-of-abusing-NHS-site-for-Labour-manifesto-launch.html

    “Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: ”It is absolutely typical of the Labour Party to abuse the NHS for political advantage.

    ”This is a hospital paid for by the taxpayer, which Gordon Brown described as an NHS hospital and will serve NHS patients in a matter of weeks.

    ”Labour have exploited a loophole in the law so that they can exploit the NHS, which is supposed to serve everyone in the country, not serve as a prop for Gordon Brown.”

    It is absolutely clear that the NHS was a fundamental part of the Labour election strategy – and will be in 2015 and beyond – and any hint of 13,000 deaths would have been catastrophic for them.

    http://www.labour.org.uk/labour-manifesto-launch-gordon-browns-speech

    “And for those who say that the promises made at election time never come to pass – I say just look around you at this building – a new acute NHS hospital that will open within weeks. A modern building that embodies the timeless ideal of compassion in action.

    Look at what, together, we have built – we didn’t just fix the roof – we built the entire hospital. ”

    Surely the story is that the government of the day was more interested in its electoral prospects that the welfare of NHS patients, and allowed poor conditions to continue rather than address the issue. Could there be a bigger more important story short of general war?

    Delusional extreme partisan bias appears to be the only reason I can think of as to why the BBC unwilling to examine the political aspects of the issue.

    It is vital that it is properly examined as the NHS has been treated by the left, since its inception, as an explicitly political entity [Olympics anyone?] and one that is completely beyond proper scrutiny or any form of fiscal restraint. It seems to me that, primarily, the NHS has a political rather than a medical purpose.

       28 likes

    • Ralph says:

      The BBC is in full save Andy Burnham attack the Tories mode at present. The coverage on the Daily Politics was farcical with their reporter going on and on abut how Burnham had only been Health Secretary for a few months and that criticising Labour was making political capital over dead people.

         36 likes

      • Wild says:

        Norman Smith the Chief Political Correspondent for the BBC News has just said on News 24 that the Tories attacking the last Labour government over the way they ran the NHS is just partisan politics. He then spent the next 10 minutes asking a Labour MP for her view – with not a single critical question.

        The next BBC news “package” was about the BBC paying over 5 million for a few superficial reports. They asked Chris Patten for his thoughts. Again no critical voices, although the reporter mentioned that some Tory MP’s had been complaining. The reporter ended by saying that BBC has never been more popular.

        There are times when the BBC pro-Labour (and anti-Conservative) bias is so blatant it is almost funny.

           37 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          You could build a whole series of a right-wing Spitting Image just on the BBC.

             10 likes

        • Ralph says:

          Jeremy Hunt being talked over and attacked for being partisan. And now we’re onto Lynton Crosby. It’ll be Lord Ashcroft next.

             13 likes

          • Ralph says:

            …on Newsnight.

               7 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              Funny that. Eddie Mair was also skewering Hunt over Lynton Crosby on ‘PM’ – during an ambush about their (the BBC’s) plain packaging for cigarettes obsession when Hunt had been invited on to discuss the Keogh findings. Mair at his prickly anti-Tory best. Can’t remember him being similarly exercised by Alastair Campbell when he was at number 10. Funny that.

                 8 likes

  13. Alan Larocka says:

    No sign of this on the BBC either…………………. https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/09-1
    Perhaps they should ask George Galloway why no aid flotilla this time……………….

       14 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      ‘The unrest gripping Egypt threatens humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, with Egyptian authorities moving quickly to toughen the siege of Gaza as the densely populated area spirals into fuel and water crises.

      The Egyptian military shut down the Rafah border crossing and tunnels connecting Egypt to Gaza on July 5, stranding thousands at the border and choking off one of the few openings that the 1.7 million people living in Gaza have with the rest of the world.’

      Wake up BBC and show some impartiality by reporting this on your news.

         6 likes

  14. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The BBC Proms tonight will hit on one of my pet peeves: bringing in non-Classical music to a Classical music festival. There will be a Gospel Proms tonight. I have no problem with film music or Dr. Who Proms, as that’s more or less inspired by (when it’s not directly lifted from) orchestral/symphonic music. It’s pandering to a non-Classical audience as well, but at least there’s some connection.

    With the Gospel Proms, however, it’s simply not there, even if they have an orchestra playing the accompaniment. It’s no more part of the Classical music tradition than those godawful David Palmer arrangements. At least the Urban Classical Prom on August 10 is making an effort at fusion of some kind. I’ll reserve judgement until I hear it, of course, but on paper it looks like they’re at least acknowledging that this has something to do with the Classical music tradition. There’s also going to be a Charlie Parker Prom, another violation. Why do people always have to do this with Classical music?

    Will they be having John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists at next year’s Glasto? Xenakis at the next urban music or Haydn at the next folk music festival? I think not. It’s disrespectful and intellectually dishonest the way the BBC does this. Lots of other festivals and organizations do it as well, I know, and they’re all just as wrong. This is something I’ve been complaining about for going on twenty years. It’s nothing new, but that doesn’t mean the BBC is right. If you’re going to be “inclusive” and appeal to a wider audience, BBC, then do it both ways. If it’s just a desperate attempt to shoehorn more “people of color” into a hideously white showcase of music by dead and living white European males, then get off your asses and recruit some non-white performers and proper composers. There are loads of them out there, and could be loads more if the BBC spent a little effort on that kind of education instead of yet more pointless light entertainment fare.

    It should be a good Proms this year, lots of interesting stuff, and I’m looking forward to Barenboim’s Wagner concerts probably most of all. But keep non-Classical music out of it until you start having Britten and Monteverdi at Glasto and your jazz and hip-hop festivals. Until then, it’s BS, and disrespectful to the rest of the music and heritage.

    PS: Note to the dopey Beeboid who wrote the blurb for the Gospel Prom: slaves in the US turned to what we now call spirituals as a way to maintain their sanity and hang on to a sliver of their African heritage (there’s still a significant amount of it in contemporary African-American music, even though most people don’t realize it. Where does this Beeboid think those tight harmonies and melismatic stylings come from?), not as part of any fight for freedom. Get a clue.

       17 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Interestingly Glasto used to be hippy/indie/white boy rock orientated until relatively recently when for some reason hip hop was shoehorned into the mix. Methinks the reasoning here is similar. Proms without gospel whould be like Midsommer without the Murders – if you catch my drift. I guess the Beeboids felt this change to their summer beano was a safe enough move since it is a damn long haul down to the west country for most gun and knife-toting postcode gangsters. ‘De cold weather it shrinks yer junk an dis gansta no gonna park im brown bus inna dem chemical commode – innit – yo’

         21 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Are you suggesting that the BBC is so racist as to assume that black people won’t be interested in music by non-blacks, and so added other genres to the line-up? :0

           20 likes

        • Andrew says:

          Was there not charm in the origin of the name of the former US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice? She apparently misread the Italian musical instruction “con dolcezza” when young, as anyone might do, and the mistake endured. Am I right on this?

             2 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            Er, she was born with that name. She is, though, an accomplished Classical pianist, nearly at concert level. This is someone who grew up in the deep South, during the Jim Crow era, with the Klan and actual racists all over the place. Her friends were killed in one of the infamous church bombings as well. Yet, somehow she managed to enjoy music written by white people. Imagine that. The BBC can’t.

               21 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      I believe the ENO did some Walkure thing at Glastonbury a few years ago, but yes, it’s a one-way street.

      The audience may be white but the music isn’t; it’s there for anyone who wants to listen. When I was growing up in’t North, classical music was only respectable when played by damn brass bands, which don’t even use the same instruments. Not helped, of course, by the fact that the largest county in the country didn’t have a single professional symphony orchestra. I find it a little irritating, therefore, when people at the BBC and elsewhere agonise over the colour of audiences in concert halls and opera houses. A lot of black people prefer to listen to something else. So what?

         13 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Sure, and Ozzy Osbourne used to play ‘O Fortuna’ from Carmina Burana before shows, as do other rockers. Doesn’t really count.

        The main thing I hate about this racial profiling of audiences is that it’s also a one-way street. It’s apparently okay – expected, even – for non-whites to have ethno-centric musical tastes, but not for whites. This is another facet of the soft racism of lowered expectations. Every area of music should be considered open to all, regardless of race, color, or creed, and there should be no racial excuse to exclude someone – or for someone to exclude themselves – from any of it. If you don’t like something because of personal taste, it’s fine. Everybody has their own tastes in everything, and race doesn’t have to enter into it.

        By making things ethno-centric, they’re sending out the message that this is “your” music, and the other kind isn’t. As the sage of Manchester might say, Social Cohesion, my arse!

           10 likes

    • Deborah says:

      I am someone who used to regularly have season tickets to the Proms and attend virtually every performance. In those days the proms were all at 7pm or 7.30 pm (depending on their duration) and all performed at the Albert Hall. They would sometimes be a very strange mixture of modern and old but every prom was from what could be described as the Classical genre. As today audiences were all ‘hideously white’. But like today anybody was free to queue up for tickets and stand in the arena. Certainly for the last 40 years there have been no signs outside the Albert Hall saying ‘black/muslims/Jews not allowed’ – or anything of that ilk. But why for at least the last 10 years has the BBC tried to manipulate its audience? At Wimbledon, the BBC invited black athletes to attend on free tickets so that they would be positive role models and to show tennis is accessible to all. At the proms the BBC feels the need to provide music to draw audiences from the ‘ethnic community’ by their choice of programme. I don’t want to go to Glastonbury or the Nottinghill Carnival. My choice. Let black people choose either to attend the proms or not – let it be their choice but don’t change what it is -that is insulting the very people they are trying to pamper to.

      Sorry not well written and it appears to be a rant but I hope you all understand my point of view.

         24 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        It’s a fine idea to try and recruit a non-white audience for this music. I approve whole-heartedly of most efforts to expand the audience, and build on its future. But giving free tickets to ethnic community groups for a Rachmaninov concert is not the same thing as dispensing with Classical music altogether simply to get a non-white audience in the building while they’ve got the BBC Proms sign out front.

           6 likes

        • George R says:

          Yes, the Beeboids are attempting social engineering with the Proms, more and more each year, desperate to get into its audience more ‘working class’ and ‘ethnics.’

          More only are Beeboids attempting to socially engineer the composition of the audience ( a familiar tactic with ‘Question Time’), but they are ‘dumbing down,’ away from the traditional Proms content to have a ‘Dr Who’ music session, etc.

          The Beeboid cult of ‘diversity’ also is being applied even to moving to venues away from the Albert Hall (as mentioned above by Deborah), which dilutes the whole nature of the Proms season.

          So the Beeboids are politically converting the Proms into another of its ‘multicultural’ propaganda exercises.

             13 likes

          • Joshaw says:

            But surely there’s an argument for moving smaller scale stuff to a more suitable venue?

               2 likes

          • Mark says:

            Wayne Marshall is the orgainst in residence at Manchester’s Bridgewater hall, but his ethnic origin did not force him to become an edgy gangsta rapper.

               1 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              Nor was Marshall somehow put off the Proms band Classical Music because of the lack of people who looked like him. He’s very good. I remember when he was a new artist on the scene, on the cover of BBC Music Magazine.

              Coincidentally, this topic is one of the questions put by members of the public to Proms director, Roger Wright last year.

              Q: I watched the first night of the proms last night and it was a wonderful concert. However there was one thing which concerned me greatly. There was not a single black or brown face in the orchestra. The same was true of the very large choir apart from one man.
              This is a disgraceful situation and I would like you to advise me what steps you are taking to rectify this.
              Maureen Swage

              A: This is an important issue, Maureen, so thanks for your question. The situation which you observed with regard to the ethnicity of orchestras and choirs is no different from classical concert halls across Europe. Audience development is at the heart of the Proms vision which is why our Learning and Community programme plays such an important part in our summer offer. The BBC orchestras and BBC Singers also work closely on outreach and education projects to introduce classical music to the widest possible communities.

              I hope the BBC’s answer isn’t to dispense with Classical music altogether when addressing the question of getting black and brown faces on stage.

              There is no quick-fix, of course, and no single solution. Wright realizes this, and I hope he understands that adding non-Classical music to the program is never going to put more non-white faces in orchestras.

              PS: “My Fair Lady” is not Classical Music! Let’s see West End revues include a Mozart concerto first.

                 4 likes

              • Joshaw says:

                You can lead a horse to water…..

                A few years ago we used to go to a monthly wine club. It was a very laid back affair, run by an engineer and amateur wine enthusiast in his spare time. The club met in a local school, benefited from advertising in the local council brochure for evening classes, and presumably received some contribution to expenses. The cost of the wine, however, was fully met by members.

                Choosing and buying the wine, researching its origin, and preparing notes, were surprisingly time consuming. I know because I did it once or twice. However, as a stand in, I didn’t have to endure the constant haranguing from the council about the lack of black members.

                What the council didn’t make clear was how an amateur organiser was supposed to find time for his career, organise the club, AND persuade ethnic minorities to join, since advertisements in the council brochure were not attracting black people either.

                In the end he’d had enough and chucked it in. Nobody else volunteered.

                We resented the implication by the council that we were in some way guilty of racism for being wholly white, when the council’s own brochure was failing to attract black people.

                You can only do so much….

                   8 likes

                • David Preiser (USA) says:

                  I don’t disagree with you. In fact, I’d suggest that one of the biggest obstacles to expanding the color palette of the audience is convincing the youth to rebel against their betters who tell them that things created by dead white European men can’t speak to them.

                     3 likes

        • Joshaw says:

          But the levellers have this strange idea that, if you bring in those least likely to choose a classical concert, you will end up with something in the middle – like mixing paint of opposite colours. Unfortunately, it tends not to work that way, as John Drummond (I think it was) discovered when he bussed in a load of black kids to the Royal Festival Hall. Not a huge success.

          In my opinion, the best approach is to make it as open as possible, and leave it at that.

             6 likes

  15. George R says:

    At last : Patten OUT!

    (What will his ‘severance’ pay be?)-

    “‘Annus horribilis’ Lord Patten steps down as report says BBC splashed £5m on Savile probe.

    “BELEAGUERED Lord Patten today revealed he would not stand for a second term as chairman of the BBC Trust after overseeing the “darkest days” of the corporation.”

    By: Giles Sheldrick.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/415230/Annus-horribilis-Lord-Patten-steps-down-as-report-says-BBC-splashed-5m-on-Savile-probe?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-uk-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed%29

       27 likes

    • Andrew says:

      An A to Z of Fatty Pang:

      Atten -borough: BBC wildlife good so political bias ok.
      Batten -ing on the TV license fee payers.
      Cat-‘n’-mouse games with the select committee of MPs.
      Dat ‘n – looks nice, can I have a slice?
      Eaten – all the pies!
      Fatten – and then slaughter?
      Latte ‘n’ pastry for me please!
      Mattening evasion.
      Patten-t nonsense.
      Rat ‘n’ sewer.
      Sat ‘n’ did nothing.
      Tat ‘n’ trash on TV.
      Vat ‘n’ stuff paid?
      Wat ‘n earth did he do all day?

      [That’s enough! – Editor]

         11 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      BELEAGUERED Lord Patten today revealed he would not stand for a second term as chairman of the BBC Trust…

      I bet most people who’ve been paying attention wouldn’t stand for a second Pattern term, either. It does seem like he’s blaming everyone else for everything, though. Poor baby.

         19 likes

  16. Douglas says:

    Harrabin

    The BBC report by Harrabin on RWE’s statement that green taxes will cost the consumer far more than DECC claim is downplayed by quoting a report “suggesting” that consumers will be happy to pay more.

    This is utter rubbish. The report is by UK Enery Research Council. The author, a pyschologist Professor Pidgeon employed at Swansea, may well have that opinion in conversation with Harrabin but nowhere can the evidence be found to support that conclusion.

       16 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Happy to pay more? Of course they will, once they learn that it is “clean, green, renewable” energy derived (when the wind blows) from those awful statues to satan springing up all over the place.

      They love ’em, and will be over the moon to pay a bit more, whilst getting less, and losing their views and wildlife into the bargain. What’s not to like?

         11 likes

  17. Douglas says:

    Harrabin’s report is here
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23323318

       4 likes

    • Wild says:

      These are the same people who love telling you what a crime it was that writers with the wrong political views (i.e. anti-American pro-Stalinists) were blacklisted in Hollywood.

         11 likes

  18. Chop says:

    BBC bosses have spent more than £5million so far investigating the Jimmy Savile sex scandal and its aftermath, it was revealed today.

    Almost half that figure went on the Pollard Review into at why a Newsnight investigation into the late DJ was dropped, according to the Beeb’s annual report.

    The review – by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard – cost licence fee payers a staggering £2.4million.

    Unbelievably, that sum includes £101,000 to cover the “legal and related costs” of senior BBC executive Helen Boaden.

    Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/5016446/licence-fee-payers-5m-bill-bbc-savile-probes.html#ixzz2ZDrb4gBU

       18 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      That’s a lot of dosh, innit?

      Have they come to any conclusions, yet?

      I have…

         10 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        It was a different time….management structure was sub-optimal….it was an isolated incident, no reflection on BBC culture….budget cuts affected the journalism and editorial process….most of the girls were up for it anyway…..

        Not necessarily in that order.

           13 likes

  19. hadda says:

    In a footnote to this report on how hot it is, for those who might not have noticed you can find the following:

    “The hot weather has prompted Rabbi Alan Kimche, one of London’s leading orthodox rabbis, to warn his congregation about dehydration during a fast, which is due to begin on Monday night for 25 hours.”

    No mention of what the fast might be, perhaps because it’s Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple. You know, that building sacred to Jews that used to stand where that big dome thing has been plonked in Jerusalem.

    Wouldn’t want people being reminded of (‘East’) Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish connections, now would we? Might upset our resident Saracens, you know.

       20 likes

    • Cyclops says:

      Which would be quite telling as the Nabka always gets a mention on the beeb.

         8 likes

  20. Henry Wood says:

    For Middle East news I shall now be checking this:
    http://www.i24news.tv/

       4 likes

  21. #88 says:

    Typical Norman Smith / BBC tactic again in evidence with this Tweet (which not surprisingly has been re-tweeted by the Shadow Health Minister).

    norman smith ‏@BBCNormanS 5h
    No 10 reject claims political blame game over Keogh risks undermining confidence in NHS.”Public has a right to know”

    Following his very (as usual) one-sided analysis of the debate in Parliament, Smith’s tweet puts number 10 in the position of defending itself against Labour attacks. All very subtle, all very typical.

    Smith could arguably have tweeted something along the lines of ‘Burnham defends his record on NHS deaths’…..but chose not to.

    It’s also interesting that Dianne Abbott relies very heavily on BBC stories to provide her with the bullets that she fires on Twitter – particularly, at the moment Ross Hawkins’ innuendo about ‘big tobacco’ influence (despite Labour taking the same position as the Tories while in Government.

    With the BBC running a cost of living season (cost of living being a recurring Labour narrative), and yesterday the BBC basing much of its news output and building resources around a left wing Resolution Foundation report, it sounds increasingly like there is a BBC / Labour co-ordinated activism in play.

       22 likes

  22. hadda says:

    Well, well, I thought, as I noticed an item entitled “Pakistan grapples with rising tide of extremist violence”. Perhaps we have some welcome and some long-overdue coverage of the increased persecution of Christians by their extremist Muslim compatriots.

    But no, it’s all Sunni vs Shia stuff. Maybe the plight of the Christians will be the topic of the next article.

       15 likes

  23. Alex says:

    Something that’s beginning to worry me is that after all of the scandals, corruption, greed, left-wing bias and incompetence within the BBC NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING has or will be done to cut this socialist propaganda machine down to size. We just have to carry on being coerced into funding it with absolutely no say. Why on earth do the Tories put up with it? I’m sick of hearing comments from politicians (mostly Liebour) like ‘the BBC is the envy of the world’ and ‘it is the jewel in the British crown’ ad infinitum. It’s not. It’s a corrupt, anti-English mafia-type organization which is politically motivated… bur what can we do? Will there ever be enough of us to make a change? It makes me sick that I have to depart with my hard earned money to the likes of the BBC. It disgusts me.

       39 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      No, no – it’s ‘the envy of the world’.

      Oh, sorry, that’s the NHS.

      Um, thinking about it, same thing really.

         7 likes

      • Wild says:

        Mafia is the wrong word, the BBC do not kill people, run protection rackets, or trade in drugs, they just downplay high death rates in the NHS, extract a telly tax with menaces, and consume [if recent tests in BBC lavatories are anything to go by) large amounts of Charlie.

           18 likes

    • tommy says:

      Heart breaking isn’t it?

      But you answered your own Q.

      “Will there ever be enough of us to make a change?”

      No. As David Vance has discovered, the far right has very little support just like the far left (here’s a lovely far left rant stating the BBC is biased against Trade Unions http://www.organizedrage.com/2012/07/the-bbc-displays-out-dated-class.html)

      So why is that? Why are your views so unpopular? Why does hating moslems, anyone on Benefits (shirkers), EU, teachers (lazy), anyone coloured, women, Scots, Obama,the NHS, the BBC, trade unions, immigrants etc etc not result in a huge majority for your viewpoint?

      Because you don’t reflect the majority viewpoint in England. The BBC does.

      Yes, it must be hard being constantly reminded that you don’t count.

         13 likes

      • Tommytanker says:

        The BBC does NOT reflect the majority viewpoint in England, although it does try very hard to shape it.

           30 likes

        • Ken Hall says:

          You are right tommytanker.

          Polls regarding the EU, Climate Change and welfare caps all show that the prevailing BBC view is a small minority view, yet they still try to shape or mould public opinion according to values that the BBC groupthink believes are the only “acceptable” opinions.

          They have succeeded in changing opinions regarding homosexuality over the last 40 odd years, from one of it being a an illegal perversion to being a queer perversion which can be tolerated if only practiced by consenting adults behind closed doors, to being a minority practice and why shouldn’t homosexuals be allowed to hold hands in public, to being why cannot gays kiss in public and aren’t they brave to “come out”, to they should be allowed equal rights in law deserving of their own special “civil partnership”, to being gay is equaly as valid as being hetero, to allowing equal sex marriage. They are now almost entirely Equally Valid In Law.

          The BBC and the left have shaped that public opinion. I did not know anyone 40 years ago who thought being “queer” was acceptable at all and sayings such as “bums against the wall lads, he’s queer” were common acceptable insults back in the 1970s… Now I only know one person opposed to same gender marriage. The BBC did not follow public opinion. It actively shaped and defined it through the full range of its media broadcasting and it’s 24/7 pro homosexual propaganda so that now a hell of a lot of people are so “pro gay” as to believe that homosexuality is normal.

          Homosexuality is entirely natural, as is any abnormal mental state or physical deformity which occurs in nature, but mathematically, it is a sexual preference which occurs in less than 3% of people and so is entirely abnormal. That does not make it wrong. It is something that a lot of people naturally find repulsive though and they are wrongly ostracised and labelled bigots for their own natural feelings regarding such sexual preferences.

          I am not anti-homosexual, I am just a lot more realistic about what it actually is and how the BBC have succeeded in changing the public’s perception of it from being something it is not, to being something that it is, to being something that it is not again.

          The BBC are trying to shape public perceptions about a lot more things now than they used to. And ironically, for an organisation which preaches diversity, there is not much diversity in what they consider “acceptable thought”

             8 likes

          • Persona non grata says:

            Sorry to burst your bubble, old chap, but attitudes towards gay people were changing long before the BBC started even acknowledging our presence. The Naked Civil Servant and, to a lesser extent, the gay couple in Agony, helped shape a better, more realistic portrayal of gay people – and those were both ITV programmes.

            When EastEnders introduced its first gay characters, it was just reflecting modern day London. And yes, greater visibility of gay characters on television and film helps improve people’s perception of gay people, so that they realise that juvenile forms of abuse are aimed at actual human beings instead of concepts that can be laughed about with impunity.

               2 likes

      • Andy S. says:

        Tommy,you need to get out and live life a little more. Get yourself out on some of our wonderful council estates and see what the hoi-poloi REALLY think. You will be in for a great shock when you find out they don’t follow the tenets of the BBC/Guardian/New Statesman axis.

        I spent thirty years working in many council estates and social housing developments and can attest to their views that make the posts on this site seem further to the left of Ken Livingstone.

        Typical Leftie though, presuming to speak for the rest of society.

           24 likes

        • Wild says:

          He obviously thinks that The Guardian newspaper has a circulation of in excess of 30 million. Back in the real world however it struggles to get over 200,000 (and approximately 199,000 of those copies are bought by the BBC and various other tax funded public sector collectives).

             21 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        And the ‘majority viewpoint’ is what, exactly, Tommy?

           10 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          Ok, Tommy, as you’ve suddenly gone all bashful (funny – seems to happen a lot on here, Lefties not being able to follow an argument through), I’ll give you a little help: the BBC is not there to reflect any viewpoint, but to remain impartial in any debate, discussion or report (see charter).

             6 likes

      • Stewart says:

        “Yes, it must be hard being constantly reminded that you don’t count.”
        LOL Tell me something I don’t know
        I guess you think that’s a devastating put down because you believe you do .
        As for the BBC reflecting a majority view
        On Welfare, taxation, law and order (especially capital punishment) ,the environment and immigration ,you really think so?

           11 likes

      • Crazy horse says:

        “So why is that? Why are your views so unpopular? Why does hating moslems, anyone on Benefits (shirkers), EU, teachers (lazy), anyone coloured, women, Scots, Obama,the NHS, the BBC, trade unions, immigrants etc etc not result in a huge majority for your viewpoint?”
        You know what really disproves your thesis?
        You just (incorrectly) accused everyone here of being racist, misogynistic, and of committing various other kinds of thought crime against Right Think. Fair to middlingly insulting on your part.
        But what was the response? Mild mannered friendly deconstruction of your argument with no reciprocal ad hominem whatsoever.
        You know why? You think even mildly right wing people are evil.
        They just think you’re a fool.
        I foresee a bright future for you at the bBC. You should apply if you don’t work there already.

           14 likes

    • Dave s says:

      It’s in it’s death throes. We should really encourage it to go the whole way and turn into the propaganda channel it wants to be. To admit it openly.
      I never take a word it says seriously. And a lot of people are now thinking the same way.
      It cannot be reformed. Send it on it’s way with few regrets.

         20 likes

  24. mike walker. says:

    The Times.Tue.16th.July.
    Any comment on the poisonous cloacal seepage from the BBC’s former North American Corres.Another spiteful,small minded anti-American diatribe,this one woven into the warp of the Zimmerman acquitall.An event about which,I venture to suggest,he knew little and understood less.Nasty,nasty little man.

       13 likes

  25. David Preiser (USA) says:

    First Germany has given up on solar energy subsidies and is expected to let the entire industry wither and die, now Spain is making drastic cuts to their own wind and solar industry subsidies, which have not even begun to produce the allegedly expected profitable green energy companies.

    BBC: ZZZZzzzzzz Huh, wassat? Oh, Germany’s tarriffs are actually harming the growth of renewables. And anyway, the reason the industry isn’t wildly successful is because of the sun. But there was this one day last year where green energy provided 60% of Germany’s energy, so all is well.

       14 likes

    • Arthur Penney says:

      As I write, UK wind energy production is 815MW out of a total production of 38,500 MW.

      Nuclear is 8100 MW and imported from France (mainly nuclear) is 2000 MW as can be seen here

      Nice to see all those hundreds of wind turbines contributing so much to the UK economy.

         15 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Nice little piece on Today this morning about NPower saying how the government has underestimated the projected average household cost of energy due to it overestimating the savings that can be made through energy efficiencies.

      Over to our BBC energy expert who tacks on to the end of his report how NPower back the government’s initiatives on renewables. But….but….you wait to hear him say….it’s the rnewable subsidies which are driving up prices!!

      **Tumbleweed**

      As ever, Christopher Booker nails the latest Pythonesque episode in our spirit-sapping energy drama. This is about government plans to plug our looming energy gap by paying smaller power generators (which, I would guess, not many people know about): ‘The first lies in the fact that there are thousands of hospitals and commercial and industrial concerns, such as banks, data centres and water companies, that have their own back-up generating facilities, largely powered by diesel…….

      ‘Although this may offer a clever solution to our shortage of conventional power supplies and the huge problems created by the erratic nature of wind power, it comes, of course, with a massive downside – the prospect of yet another dramatic rise in our already soaring electricity bills. These new power sources are far from cheap; the current wholesale cost of electricity is around £50 a megawatt hour (MWh). Thanks to the subsidies levied through our electricity bills, we are already paying nearly £100 per MWh to the owners of onshore wind farms and £150 for those offshore. But, as the National Grid reveals, the tender prices submitted by those signed up to the STOR scheme can be as high as £400 per MWh, eight times the market rate. The average payment in 2011 was £225 per MWh, plus a fee of £22,000 for every megawatt of their capacity (for these fees in 2010-11 alone we stumped up £75 million).

      In other words, just when we are already facing a doubling of our electricity bills through “carbon taxes”, subsidies to renewables and the “strike price” demanded by energy companies as their price for building new nuclear power stations, we are now looking at another huge spike in our bills to pay for the electricity the Government plans to call on to cover that fast-looming gap in our energy supplies — created by the way its policy has been so disastrously skewed by our politicians’ obsession with global warming, and their fond belief that the earth’s climate could somehow be affected by Britain reducing its “carbon emissions” by four-fifths. The final irony, of course, is that we not only pay for their dreams through a further hike in our energy bills, but also those diesel generators emit almost as much CO2 as the coal-fired power stations the politicians would like to see eliminated. Not only will we be bankrupted by their idiocy. It won’t even help to “save the planet”, either.

      Just when you thought the ‘climate change’ saga couldn’t get any more bizarre, it does – in spades.

      Full article here:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10163570/Our-lights-will-stay-on-but-it-will-cost-us-a-fortune.html

         13 likes

  26. George R says:

    “It’s a start-the-day pleasure to hear Beeb presenters being kicked up their bien pensant backsides by IDS.”

    By ‘Ephraim Hardcastle’.

    “Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith rebuked Radio 4’s John Humphrys while discussing the government’s new welfare cap, saying: ‘John, this is absurd. What you’re doing – as always happens on the BBC – is seeking out lots of little cases from people who are politically motivated to say [the policy] is wrong.’

    “IDS has also accused BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders of ‘peeing all over’ British business and pixie-like presenter Evan Davis’s contributions of being ‘a joke’.

    “It’s a start-the-day pleasure to hear them being kicked up their bien pensant backsides by IDS.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2364556/Its-start-day-pleasure-hear-Beeb-presenters-kicked-bien-pensant-backsides-IDS.html

       22 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      ‘…pixie-like presenter Evan Davis…’

      Subtly put.

         16 likes

    • The PrangWizard of England says:

      If only more of our MPs were like Mr Duncan-Smith. I’m sure there are many who think like him. Who will be next I wonder to speak out? I’m looking forward to speeches in parliament too. It won’t take many more to make a big change, the edifice is on weak foundations.
      Remember what happened to the Soviet Union, we were led to believe that it was all-powerful, unshakable. But it collapsed almost overnight when people saw it was built on lies and it realised it had been ‘rumbled’.

      It is the same with the BBC, the scale is different of course but there are many similarities and it will fall too. The nations will be the better for it, especially England.
      ‘Keep on keepin’ on.’

         15 likes

  27. George R says:

    “BBC in embarrassing admission: Pay for top bosses soared by 60 per cent.
    “Increased redundancy payments and £100m wasted on a bungled digital initative revealed in annual report.”

    By IAN BURRELL.

    [Excerpt]

    “At the end of a year which the BBC admitted had been characterised by its ‘chaotic handling’ of ‘some of the darkest days in our recent history,’ the organisation revealed that it had actually increased its expenditure on senior staff by 60 per cent.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-in-embarrassing-admission-pay-for-top-bosses-soared-by-60-per-cent-8711732.html

       19 likes

    • George R says:

      Supplementary: ‘Daily Mail’ –

      “BBC Savile scandal cost YOU £5million: Shocking report reveals how probes into corporation’s bungled handling of crisis left taxpayers with huge bill.
      “Bill for three reviews into abuse scandal hits £4.9million – and rising.
      “Pollard Inquiry into Newsnight’s axed report into presenter cost £2.4million.
      “Includes £894,000 for lawyers and £391,000 in legal costs for BBC staff.
      “BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten condemns ‘unforgivably poor journalism.’
      “Lawyers for Savile’s victims say inquiry bill is ‘a very bitter bill.’
      “Jeremy Clarkson paid £14million for work on Top Gear last year.
      “Total pay bill for senior managers also soars by 60% in a year.
      “£251,000 lump sum for Caroline Thomson after missing out on top job.
      “I will not write a tell-all book on BBC crisis, Lord Patten says.”
      By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR and ALASDAIR GLENNIE.

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2365251/BBCs-navel-gazing-Jimmy-Savile-crisis-cost-5million.html

         16 likes

      • Thoughtful says:

        The thing about Clarksons pay is that it includes the income from his DVDs which sell incredibly well at Christmas. It isn’t really a £14 million cost to the BBC it’s more like an income in excess of £14 million.

        Clarkson actually makes money for the BBC something which must really stick in the craw of the hideous lefties

           5 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          That’s the main reason why Clarkson can make one or two offensive remarks per year and get away with it. Unlike Carol Thatcher, he’s never required to admit racist (or sexist or anti-whatever) intent, only that it was a joke and he’s sorry for any offense caused. And it’s why they let him pose as a conservative.

          Clarkson is a licensed jester, who makes the BBC a serious amount of money. Unless he gets bored or ill, or is found in bed with a live boy or a dead woman, he’ll continue.

             5 likes

  28. bodo says:

    This tweet made me chuckle. Short and to the point;
    ====================
    Old Holborn @BanTheBBC 34m

    NHS Trust (sic)
    BBC Trust (sic)

       19 likes

  29. OldBloke says:

    There has been a tragic *accident* of a young girl swimmer who has been attacked by a shark off the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and unfortunately died in the attack. The local authority have issued warnings about an increase in shark numbers and attacks. Now, what is the betting that somehow, somewhere the BBC manages to link it to Global Warming/climate change? There is a reason for the increase in shark numbers and it isn’t GW/CC. (But then they might have read this post first!)

       8 likes

  30. thoughtful says:

    Alan Yentob presenting a program on leading Labour architect the Albert Speer of the party. No surprise the BBC are so keen on him.

       15 likes

  31. Alex says:

    Newsnight in full Labour defense and attack mode, tonight regarding the NHS. Unbelievable! It might as well be Labour in the interrogator’s chair. Pure BBC siding with and defending Labour’s utterly criminal NHS record.

       37 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      The only clip of Andy Burnham that the bBBC used in the 10 o’clock TV ‘news’ was when he accused the government of playing politics with people’s lives over the NHS, exactly what he himself did when he hid and failed to act on information given to him about the failures in many NHS Trusts. Nothing of any substance, just the politics of trying to keep Labour’s reputation as the supposed saviour of the NHS.

         28 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Whatever Newsnight gets up to these days probably does the BBC more harm in such behaviour than having any impact on swaying people.
      About a dozen folk actually watch it.
      Their Twitter page is a joke, and their FaceBook page shuts down between Thursday to Tuesday, usually after a piece on a sports person’s mum, that may garner one comment from a weight loss spammer.
      Quite how this audience covers the market rates of Paxman, Wark, Maitless, etc, is unclear.

         7 likes

  32. ember2013 says:

    In theory the Keogh review could do to Labour’s credibility with Health as Black Wednesday did to Tories and the Economy. Although being found out a number of years from power may provide Labour with some cushion. It all depends how soft some media are towards the likes of Burnham.

       18 likes

  33. AsISeeIt says:

    Another £5 million of the Licence Fee about to disappear into the Scotch mist…..

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-23330151

    ‘Scottish independence: BBC’s James Naughtie takes referendum role’

    ‘It follows the announcement of a £5m investment package to help boost the BBC’s referendum output.’

       11 likes

  34. Old Goat says:

    Oh dear, subsidies for biomass to be cut (but not completely, for another fourteen years). All that effort and money converting Drax to burn wood. Oh, dear.

    The greenies are pleased, though, but I suppose that just means more stupid windmills (unless they can get rid of the subsidies for those, too). Oh dear.

    We told them, but they wouldn’t listen.

    Never mind, lots of new diesel generators sprouting everywhere, though, so that’s all right.

    Oh, dear.

       10 likes

    • MartinW says:

      On the ‘Today’ programme, the presenter of the item unaccountably forgot to mention that the greenies had, in previous years, clamoured vociferously for the use of biofuels. As ever, BBC deceit and lying by omission.

         13 likes

      • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

        Not so. See, e.g., this RSPB anti-biofuel advertisement (from 2008).
        http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/849157/rspb-anti-biofuel-ad-not-misleading-says-watchdog/

           9 likes

        • MartinW says:

          As I correctly stated, Greenie organisations certainly had, in previous years, vociferously supported and promoted biofuels, as any search will reveal (one here http://www.socresonline.org.uk/15/3/4.html highlights their role in pressurising governments). FoE and Greenpeace were among the main instigators. Greenie organisation such as the RSPB (and bloggers such as Monbiot) have, for the past five years, been backpedalling fast. Unfortunately, governments and the BBC have not caught up, or more accurately put, have not yet found a way to save face.

             3 likes

          • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

            Thanks for the link to that interesting paper on ‘biofuels as an alternative to conventional fuels for road transport’. I’m not sure how that relates to the original point about burning biomass in power stations, but I guess that shows the nuances in the subject, and that gross generalisations don’t work.

               4 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      The report – or the gloss on the report – failed to take the next step and inform us that with the disappearance of the direct subsidy from the taxpayer the extra expense of this policy is to be borne by energy consumers through their bills. This is not a triumph for common sense or a blow to the greenies, it’s a shift in the incidence of a green tax.

         7 likes

  35. Dave666 says:

    BBc Breakfast. The weather forecast is from a campsite in Berkshire. Why?

       12 likes

    • brett says:

      bbc breakfast,why?

         13 likes

    • tubbs says:

      Why not? Whats the bias in doing this? Should the presenter be in a box, only allowed out at home time? This is a site about BBC bias, not for moaning about adding colour to weather forecast be actually being outside. If it was from a muslim campsite or a Gypsy campsite, or a French campsite, and extolling how great the muslim, Gypsy, French campsite was, especially when compared to crappy old England, or something similar I could understand the complaint.

         2 likes

      • Mat says:

        So the BBC running up expenses for out of school trips to holiday spots for it’s staffers on our money isn’t a good line to discuss ? to me the BBC’s disgusting attitude to us as it’s fat dumb cash cow is intricately linked to it’s biases !

           12 likes

      • Dave666 says:

        Tssk tssk tssk been out in the sun to long have we?

           1 likes

      • Joshaw says:

        OK, in this instance it’s not about bias, it’s about waste. Still within this site’s remit.

        It was just a weather forecast, for God’s sake.

           2 likes

      • CCE says:

        It adds nothing and costs at the very least –

        Overnight stay in hotel on expenses for presenter and OB team. I’ll bet they didn’t sleep in tents and have a packet of cornflakes + UHT milk for breakfast

        Lost 1 day travel time (1/2 day each way) for presenter and OB team

        The Eye runs a good section “coming live” – best examples of pointless OB’s

           0 likes

  36. uncle bup says:

    In other news BBC Worldwide reportedly buying a chunk of Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear empire off him. Quick to add though that it’s not been paid for ‘with licence-payers’ money’.

    Again these magic beans known as ‘the BBC’s own money’ subject, I fancy they fancy, to even less scrutiny than ‘licence-payers money’.

    Word for you droids. If we pay you money to make a programme and you then sell the programme, the money you receive for the sale is OUR MONEY. Got that.

       24 likes

    • will says:

      Quite so Uncle, I don’t understand how the BBC appear to get away with this “non-licence money” nonsense. What a wonderful business model for BBC Worldwide. Having been given the product of £3,500,000,000 of taxes they then sell that product around the world, with any costs incurred regarded as being none of the tax payers’ business.

         5 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Bit like MP’s taxpayer-funded second homes – the investment is OURS, the equity is OURS.

         2 likes

  37. Umbongo says:

    The exciting news that Mishal Hussein is to join the Today line-up ensures that the BBC’s coverage of middle eastern – and other – politics will continue as impartially as before. We’re swapping a keen Labour supporter for, it seems, a member of another vociferous (and even more assertive) minority, Islam: for instance, Mishal’s treatment of matters Gazan is shown here. Nevertheless, I’m sure Mishal – along with the rest of the BBC’s “impartial” reporting staff – will leave her opinions (both religious and political) at the door of the studio.

       20 likes

    • The General says:

      What a bitch

         13 likes

    • George R says:

      Muslim Ms Husain comes across as disingenuous on Sharia law.

      Here’s a quote from her before she turns to a fellow Muslim (and no-one else), to ‘explain’ Sharia law.

      “Mishal Husain: When (Asia House) asked me to be a part of this event, it struck a chord with me on many different levels. My family is from one Muslim country and I grew up in two others. I’ve worked a lot in the Muslim world. I do vaguely remember something of my law degree—not very much, I have to admit. And of course my work in the news. This issue, Shari’a law, is one that comes up frequently, so it’s a fantastic opportunity for me to remind myself how little I know, and to take the opportunity to learn a bit more.”

      http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/interpreting-sharia/

      One can see already how the other non-Islamic staff of ‘Today,’ which is largely ignorant of the ideology and history of Islamic imperialism, will defer to Ms Husain on all matters pertaining to Islam for the ultimate, unquestionable biased ‘truth’.

      Alternative:

      “ISLAM 101”

      BY GREGORY M. DAVIS

      http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html

         13 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Her proposition that Hamas are also saving lives by only firing home-made rockets not only defies logic, it defies any sense that the BBC reports impartially on the Israel/Palestinian situation.

      A worthy recruit to the Today programme.

         8 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Sounds like we’re back to the old “X-number of Jews need to die before Israel is permitted to retaliate” routine.

           4 likes

  38. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Not content with driving down the pan one once-great institution (the BBC), Roger Mosey is off to do the same at another (Selwyn College, Cambridge).
    The Fellows of Selwyn College are pleased to announce that Roger Mosey MA (Oxon), HonDLitt (Lincoln), HonDUniv (Bradford) has been elected to succeed Professor Richard Bowring as Master of the College.

    He will take up the role on 1 October 2013.

    Roger Mosey is currently Editorial Director of the BBC.

    He has spent almost his entire career to date at the Corporation, having been successively an editor of the Today programme, Controller of Radio 5 Live, Head of Television News, Director of BBC Sport, Director of London 2012 (in charge of the planning across all BBC services for the Olympics), and Director of Television.
    “He brings to the role a steadfast commitment to higher education and a wealth of experience as one of the country’s most eminent broadcasting executives.” — Dr Michael Tilby

    Pass the sick-bag, please

       15 likes

    • Arthur Penney says:

      I don’t mind – I was a Sidney Sussex man myself – at the same time as a certain Andrew Rawnsley.

      (Sidney Sussex was a ‘pointless’ answer when 100 people were given 100 seconds to name as many Cambridge colleges as they could). Its claims to fame are:

      1) It is (or was, I haven’t been back for a long time) opposite Sainsbury’s
      2) Cromwell’s head is buried inside its Chapel
      3) Gordon Welchmann (of Bletchley Park fame) was a research scholar.

         4 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      Thus continuing the great tradition of importing not very academically distinguished lefties to head our great universities/colleges (eg Will Hutton at Hertford, Oxford).
      What does Mosey bring to Selwyn? As a senior BBC apparatchik he is a member ex officio of the political class with all the contacts and political friendships that implies. He’s a guardian of – and has access to – the magic money tree which showers its bounty on the BBC and all the other outposts of taxpayer-financed leftism. He’ll do wonders for Selwyn – not so much for the rest of us.

         8 likes

  39. George R says:

    “BBC’s Lord Patten recalled by MPs on same day as Mark Thompson.
    “Trust chairman and HR chief Lucy Adams to face committee again after dispute with former director general over payouts.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul/17/bbc-lord-patten-mps-mark-thompson?

       9 likes

  40. George R says:

    “Outrage over BBC golf coverage as it sends 250 crew to cover The Open.

    “BBC chiefs were criticised yesterday after it emerged that they have sent around 250 people to cover The Open.”

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/415309/Outrage-over-BBC-golf-coverage-as-it-sends-250-crew-to-cover-The-Open?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-scotland+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+Scotland+Feed%29

       15 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      BBC staff really are the big event flash mob.

         7 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The defense for things like this (Wimbledon, etc.) seems to be that the BBC ends up making money off broadcast rights, as other outlets use their feeds. So I’d love to see an accounting breakdown to see if they really do make a profit (which stakeholders don’t see, but never mind) off this kind of staffing.

      Plus, of course each channel and show needs to have their own special on-air talent providing unique commentary appropriate for each audience, right?

         4 likes

  41. Phil Ford says:

    I made the mistake last night of knowingly submitting myself to the ordeal of watching ‘Horizon – Global Wierding’, which I know was a repeat, but I hadn’t caught it the first time around.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01f893x/Horizon_20112012_Global_Weirding/

    Well before this reprehensible science-fiction film was even halfway through I was seething with rage at the blatant falsehoods being stated, at the entirely unsubstantiated claims being made, the pure, unashamed sensationalism on show from so-called ‘experts’, at the unvarnished climate record revisionism at work and the relentless pro-CAGW propaganda being rammed down the viewer’s throat.

    This was a truly biased effort, staged by politically-motivated ‘consensus trolls’ determined to ‘weird’ the message to suit their clear, unambiguous agenda – which was, of course, to justify every perfectly natural ‘extreme’ weather event as proof-positive of man-made climate change’s effect on the UK’s weather and climate. Some of the claims being made by the (pre-vetted, on-message ‘experts’) bordered on comedy, so ridiculous, so far-fetched, so divorced from reality did they sound to anyone with a modicum of common sense.

    Not one dissenting voice was to be heard throughout the programme’s 1-hour length. Not one,/b>. As if they didn’t actually exist. Stalin would have been proud.

    Horizon: Comprehensively proving nobody scrapes the bottom of the barrel better than this once respected scientific programme. A total disgrace.

       20 likes

    • The Beebinator says:

      dont know if you watched sunday politics, but Brillo but did give the secretary of state for moonbatism Ed Davey a bit of a kicking. maybe the tide is turning at al beeb. Harrabin must have been fuming when he saw it. its a good job he doesnt wear a tie, he probably would have hung himself

      [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKYszIxaUxY]

         6 likes

      • The Beebinator says:

           10 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Instead of hassling this dope, Neil should be grilling Roger Harrabin and the new Director of News.

          The vast majority of climate change scientists believe the discipline they invented is true, do they? What a shock. Unfortunately for Neil and any realists, Davey played the ultimate BBC trump card on this or any issue: “I agree with President Obama”.

          I laughed out loud when Davey said that the Met and other “experts” said that their model predicts short-term variations to dismiss the 15-year plateau. Wasn’t Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” a short-term phenomenon, yet that was supposed to be the smoking gun which proved disaster was coming?

             13 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          Credit where credit is due. Well done Brillo. The Limp Dem is gibbering idiot who simply fell back on the same old lame slogans.

             11 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          Davey needs to make his mind up whether or not sceptical scientists have a role here, and whether the government should be listening. But on the whole he sounded like any other AGW zealot, shifting the argument to avoid painful truths and repeating the same old clapped out mantras we’ve been hearing from the environmental lobby for the last 20 years or so, including use of the word ‘denier’ which the BBC needs to recognise is nothing more than an ad hominem attack instrument used by people who have otherwise lost the argument.

          I hope Neill will nail him to a return visit to discuss the specifics and for once (for the BBC) bring along a sceptical scientist to wipe the floor with Davey and his ocean warming/arctic ice/extreme weather/’consensus’ gimmicks – it would not be a pretty sight and we may even end up feeling sorry for him.

             11 likes

        • The Beebinator says:

          Davey probably thought he was going to get a free ride from the green fascist broadcasting corporation to promote his ideological beliefs, wearing his green tie and starting the interview by using the phrase “climate change deniers” repeatedly.

          Brillo invited Davey back in the autumn to discuss the ice caps, i dont think he’ll accept the invite though

             10 likes

          • Bob Nelson says:

            I just reviewed the end of the interview and when AN gives the invitation to return in the Autumn, Davey nods several times and says ‘Good’. I hope it comes off because Davey doesn’t have the intellect, or ammunition, to argue specifically on icecaps and ocean heat. AN will slaughter him (if he’s allowed to).

               12 likes

      • Phil Ford says:

        Thank you so much for posting the Ed Davey video – I didn’t catch it when it was first broadcast, so I found it most interesting. I certainly give kudos to Andrew Neil – his questioning was both determined and informed. Who’d have thought it? A rare case where, I think, the BBC should be congratulated for – at last – taking a properly critical stance to the entire wretched issue of CAGW.

           10 likes

  42. Umbongo says:

    I turned on Radio 4 at noon to hear the news/comment concerning the Heathrow expansion proposals. Simon Calder – the BBC’s travel expert – was asked to comment. Among a lot of other blather he said there was a case for expansion on the basis that the effects of the 787 fire last week, although closing down the airport for only an hour or so, were still being felt: a new runway would have prevented such disruption.
    What Simon forgot to tell us is that the airport was closed, not because the runways were blocked (the 787 was parked at an out of the way part of Heathrow) or because of capacity concerns, but because the airport’s fire crews were dealing with the fire and would not have been available had another emergency had arisen. Hence – and probably quite reasonably – the airport was shut until fire crews became available as normal.
    Accordingly so-called “expert” analysis is nothing of the sort but turns out to be an argument in favour of airport expansion on the basis of a convenient airport closure which had little connection to capacity constraints. If anything, the effects of the 787 fire argue for more money to be spent recruiting fire personnel and buying more fire-fighting equipment. This would cost a few million, not the tens of billions and massive disruption occasioned by the construction of new runway(s). Biased reporting? Perhaps. Incompetent reporting? Certainly.

       11 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      I heard that item, too. The other thing that struck me was that Heathrow always used to have a third runway, anyway (23L/05R), although it was removed a few years ago. It wasn’t used often, was short, and had no ILS, and was generally used in times of strong southwesterlies. The airport was originally designed with four runways in mind.

      This will rumble on for ever, and there’ll be no future airport capacity for years whilst they bat it it backwards and forwards. In the meantime, the likes of De Gaulle, Schiphol. and Frankfurt, will make hay. Quite right too. The Former UK has gorn down the pan. Will the last user please flush.

         5 likes

  43. hadda says:

    I had the misfortune to catch some of The Brigg Society on R4Extra this morning. Couldn’t help but notice that most, if not all, the bursts of laughter greeting every limp quip seemed suspiciously un-spontaneous, and some bursts seemed uncannily like others in both duration and pattern. Surely they can’t have been padding out this woefully unfunny series with sampled laughter tracks. Can they?

    Mind you, he was being quite rude about Islamic extremists, so maybe he finally got the memo.

       10 likes

  44. CCE says:

    So the BBC has decided that the real scandal is Lynton CRosby and not the early deaths of 13,000 people. Odd isn’t that the Labour party line? Hmm anyway if there are any lurking BBC journalists reading this site have a butchers [apposite word] at this article by the Guardian, 19 March 2009 explaining why a public inquiry wasn’t necessary at Mid Staffs, and Giordon telling us that it was a one off and there was nothing to see anywhere else in the NHS……..

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/19/alan-johnson-nhs-stafford-nhs

    This is a huge scandal and has been swept under the carpet by the BBC. BBC bias at its most virulent and worst

       17 likes

  45. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC Radio news headlines would have us worry about the temperature.

    It seems the hot weather is bad for the ‘elderly and vulnerable’

    I getting really concerned for these ‘vulnerable’.

    These days I hear about them all the time on the BBC.

    Welfare benefits, health, weather, criminal justice, you name it the BBC are banging on about the so-called vulnerable.

    Everything seems to be a problem for them.

    They seem to be so very very…. vulnerable.

       14 likes

    • Banquosghost says:

      I diligently followed the Government/BBC advice and called my parents to check if they were okay in the sunshine; Dad called me a rude name and mum said they were off to the beach. We should all be so vulnerable! 🙂

         9 likes

    • CCE says:

      The BBC definition of “vulnerable” is one that most people wouldn’t recognise. Test question.

      Who is vulnerable in this situation?

      1) A frail but affluent widow walking her dachshund in the park in the late afternoon
      or
      2) A feral drug abusing 17 year old with an IQ of 78 who has no cash and sees the old lady walking pasts whilst he ruminates on his lack of money.

      Yes that’s right it is the scumbag who is ‘vulnerable’ – meaning that he is extremely likely to commit a violent crime of acquisition. You see he is ‘at risk’ because he has absolutelly no ability to walk past the old lady saying “good evening ma’m, what a glorious day we have had”, no he will be forced by strange powers beyond his control to assault her, kill her dog and steal her handbag containing the ashes of her husband and £12.

         3 likes

      • pah says:

        Until this scandal broke (and quickly got brushed under the carpet by the BBC) I was at a loss to explain why the BBC was so interested in euthanasia and organisations like Dignitas. They always give them free advertising and are happy to run any euthanasia story from the point of view of the murdering killing relative.

        But now all is clear. The BBC knew about the pathway and were softening up the public for its eventual disclosure. No doubt they hoped the public would understand their mothers being murdered killed by the NHS if only they listened to the Today team more.

        Cunts.

           1 likes

  46. hadda says:

    “BBC radio host Sam Mason, a single mother, was fired after she called a taxi company and requested a “non-Asian” driver to take her 14-year-old daughter to her grandparents’ home; preferably a female driver. The operator refused, and said, “We would class that as being racist.” Mason responded, “It’s not your 14-year-old girl.” A BBC spokesman said, “[Mason’s] comments were completely unacceptable…she will no longer be working for the BBC.””

    From here. Talk about fcuked up priorities!

       14 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      That story dates back to 2008 and in fact it seems she requested a driver not wearing a turban. I’m not aware of Sikhs being an increased risk to young teenage girls so perhaps the BBC can’t really be blamed on this occasion.

         3 likes

      • hadda says:

        OK, I’ll concede that detail, though I still think it’s a serious overreaction by the BBC.

        But the under/non-reporting of taxi rape raises questions about the priorities of the BBC — and the MSM more widely. As with the ‘Asian’ paedophile grooming gangs, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence for some reason.

           2 likes

        • James Stable says:

          But the under/non-reporting of taxi rape raises questions about the priorities of the BBC

          8 July 2013 Man charged over Edinburgh taxi rape
          1 July 2013 Aylesbury taxi ride woman raped in garden
          30 May 2013 Bournemouth taxi driver Terence Collins guilty of sex offences
          27 May 2013 Two men held after Windsor ‘black taxi’ rape
          7 May 2013 Taxi driver helps stop attempted rape of woman in Bury
          1 May 2013 Lukasz Kubik accused of raping woman in east Belfast
          19 February 2013 Spital Tongues rape attack: Man arrested
          16 August 2012 Taxi driver cleared of Milton Keynes woodland rape
          3 August 2012 Unlicensed Kent taxi driver Nathan Lee jailed for rape
          21 July 2012 Man charged with rape of two men in Manchester
          5 July 2012 Unlicensed Kent taxi driver guilty of Christmas Eve rape
          13 June 2012 Limavady man jailed after abuse to taxi driver
          13 April 2012 Jail term for taxi driver after Billingham rape
          12 January 2012 Southport rape: Police appeal to two taxi drivers
          23 September 2011 Man arrested over rape allegation in Byker, Newcastle

             2 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      It would be interesting to know the transport preferences of burqa and niqab clad women.

         4 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Hang about if this was 2008 there was no need to call a minicab…. Jimmy Savile still had his campervan in the BBC car park….. Or maybe Stuart Hall…. he was always up for a mini-marathon

         2 likes

    • pah says:

      I once took a taxis from Fishponds to Temple Meads in Bristol driven by a Somali. The journey is normally about 15-20 minutes. He did it in 10. Impressive? Well not when you consider he jumped every red light (including across a busy dual carriage way) , went the wrong way up a one way street and drove down a pedestrian precinct when he took a wrong turn.

      He completely ignored me shouting for him to slow down and if he had actually stopped at any point I would have got out fast. But of course he spoke no English.

      Perhaps Ms Mason was right not to entrust her daughter to any old Bristol cabbie?

         1 likes

  47. AsISeeIt says:

    Richard Bacon makes an admission:

    ‘Twitter is not a very good sample of the opinion of the public’

    Wow! BBC take note.

       12 likes

  48. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The most minor of stories about some college student rigging a vote for a campus election at a tiny, obscure California college is worthy of the BBC’s time, directing one of the battalion of Beeboids in the US to write up a report. No Democrats were harmed in this story, so it’s okay for the BBC to report on voter fraud in the US.

    What’s apparently not worthy of the BBC’s time – or your attention – is the latest plan to shred the Constitution, approved by the BBC’s favorite former Constitutional law lecturer.

    Holder announces major changes to leak probe guidelines

    This is a reaction to the public pressure the Administration felt after we all found out that the DoJ was illegally targeting reporters over leaks, and especially how Eric Holder tried to indict a Fox News journalist for being a co-conspiritor in leaking classified info. So what does the President have Holder do? Attempt to override the First Amendment.

    The new “rules” as laid out by the nation’s top law man protect “media organizations”. This is in direct violation of the First Amendment, as it does not mention organizations, specifically, nor was it intended to. Defender of the indefensible “Loyal and True” recently chided me for worrying about the President’s wont to dispense with the rule of law when it suited Him. He asked me if I knew the Constitution. I do, and unfortunately, so do the President and Holder. I say unfortunately because clearly they don’t like certain aspects of the Constitution and seek to undermine them.

    It’s actually a very simple statement:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    There is nothing in the Constitution or in any statute that the Atty. General can make a rule restricting the press (libel and defamation excluded). In fact, as most people here know, anyone could print up a pamphlet on any topic they liked and distribute it to the public. That was what “the press” meant, and the meaning was not restricted to organized newspapers. The contemporary equivalent is the blogosphere and things like YouTube. And please, nobody try to give me the old BS about how we may as well go back to slavery, too, because that wasn’t forbidden by the original Constitution and the Founders either, as there is no logical connection between the two issues.

    In any case, restricting press freedom is what the President is trying to do. By defining the press protected by the Constitution as “media organizations”, this is effectively a government license, the government deciding who is legitimate and who isn’t.

    We must remember that it was only a couple years ago that Administration officials were stating that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization. Even the President Himself has publicly called out Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for being a negative influence on government. Now we see they want to take away the rights of bloggers and independent journalists, and possibly any news organization the President doesn’t like.

    The rule of law means nothing to these people, and the BBC will continue to remain silent on all of it. Because the BBC approves of silencing independent voices (competition, and challenges to their “journalism”), and will be pleased that their mainstream media colleagues will be protected against future government pressure. They also support it because in general they support His reign without question (except occasionally worrying about His drone habit).

       12 likes

  49. AsISeeIt says:

    Another urgent headline from the BBC

    ‘The face of Nelson Mandela has been etched into the British countryside’

    Yes folks, somewhere in Kent someone has made a Mandela corn circle.

       11 likes