You have to laugh…the BBC sponsoring a ‘festival of ideas’ based on free thought.
Today (09:00) on R4 we have ‘Start the Week’...which I’m pretty sure I heard Anne McElvoy just introduce as looking at the evils of consumerism and asking is it a result of the worst economic system known to man?…that’ll be capitalism of course.
Not sure she did say that but it would certainly fit with the BBC anti-consumerism, anti-capitalism narrative….I will check later….update….just checked and she did say that (08:34) but added ‘apart from all the rest’. Still the BBC flinging mud though in the direction of….keep asking those questions and raising doubts….subtle agitprop? Thoughful in the comments says the programme was quite good and couldn’t detect any bias so I will have to bow to someone who has listened to it.
Back to free thinking and the BBC are all over Merkel’s stomping on David Cameron’s supposed intention to cap immigration saying that this would lead to the British exit from the EU…getting the 08:10 spot on Today this morning.
Strange the BBC totally ignored Andrew Neather’s explosive revelations about Labour’s dangerous immigration policies.
Free thinking not usually allowed if it’s about something the BBC disapproves of.
Perhaps UKIP should hold an alternate Festival of Ideas….call it perhaps a ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’.
“a result of the worst economic system known to man?…”
You man like communism, responsible directly for the deaths of over 100m people? No, of course she means capitalism…
The trouble is, the left (including the BBC, of course) have zero self-awareness and they sincerely believe that they are the ‘free thinkers’.
The irony of this position is 100% lost on them.
Rather like the UAF drones – living and hating in an irony-free-zone.
Capitalism has its problems but is the least worst of all options.
BBC free thinking will have to include the evils of fracking, multiculty enrichment, a personal viewpoint from muslim wimmin, and opinions on Russell Brand’s proposal for a cultural revolution.
They can push forward their ‘thinking’ for free but I still don’t want any of it, ta all the same.
I listened to the program on Radio 4 and have to say that I enjoyed it. For a change I didn’t detect any bias which for a program of this kind was remarkable.
The thrust of it appeared to be that since big bang and with electronic computerised trading & banking, no one person actually understands how the money markets and the economy actually works.
This includes the people running the bank of England, and the politicians. How everyone in power has to tell the populace that they know all about how the economy works, and that they have all the answers to put it all right again – when in fact they have as much idea as you & I do.
This was illustrated by the economic crash when it became clear that those in power around the world didn’t have a clue what had been going on, nor what was happening.
Worse still the people in charge of the banks didn’t even know how their own banks worked let alone the larger economy, and there was a question raised whether this was because no one knew, or the information was deliberately withheld from them.
The gap between rich & poor is not as a result of the rich getting richer, but because the middle classes are getting poorer.
How we squandered the money lent to us by those economies in surplus, and have nothing to show for it now, except a debt to pay
McEvoy droned on a bit about people being encouraged to live within their desires instead of their means, but it was very much a minor side issue to the main piece.
How the wealthiest pay 30% of income tax, but the poor pay more tax as a proportion of their income
Worth a listen to in my opinion, if only for how occasionally the BBC can get it right (when they don’t meddle too much, probably because they don’t understand the content).
She said ‘the worst syste apart from all the others’.. it was garbled tho
This has to be a wind uo. The BBc and free thinking.? You made this all up Alan.
Have to give the BBC credit for sticking to the ‘tell it often’ enough and brazen approaches to nomenclature.
To the BBC Trust I can now add BBC Free Thinking.
Is there an early-closed HYS on it, like the one Hugs had on ‘holding power to account’ that closed after two comments, one of which they modded.
I also learned that people prefer Zombies in a time of recession, and Vampires in a boom !