Nought to do with BBC bias…..but I think you really need to know this.
Have no fear…Owen Jones hasn’t been recruited by the Russian intelligence services going on this precedent:
Tony Benn, a KGB spy? No, he was far too dangerous for us
To the KGB, he was major threat to the stability of Cold War Europe and too “stupid” to be recruited as an agent.
For Tony Benn, the former Cabinet minister and Labour radical who died in March this year, was too left wing for the Soviet Union, the KGB’s top agent in London has revealed.
A two-and-a-half hour lunch in late 1983 at the Soviet embassy with Benn led Viktor Popov, the ambassador, to declare him unreliable.
At a meeting that December, Popov ordered agents from the KGB, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military intelligence directorate to remove any information gleaned from Benn from dispatches to Moscow.
“He was not intelligence material,” Gordievsky said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
“Popov said, when going through your reports about meetings with different politicians to be sent to Moscow, be careful. Some of them are not truthful. I said, who are you talking about? He said Tony Benn.”
“He was an unnecessary simpleton, who told left-wing fairytales and falsified stories,” Gordievsky concluded.
The view on the Left that he was an intellectual titan was not shared by the Russians, he added.
A simpleton who told left wing fairytales and falsified stories…sounds familiar.
Ah…of course…there is a link to the BBC, its bias and Jones….Owen famously inventing the fairytale that the BBC is in fact a right wing organisation, something Peter Hitchen took issue with and put to bed quite easily:
Does Owen Jones really think the BBC leans to the Right?
Owen Jones, now writing for ‘The Guardian’, has made a daft claim about the BBC. He writes here http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/bbc-leftwing-bias-non-existent-myth that the belief that the BBC is biased to the left is a fairy tale which apparently allows ‘the right’ to police the corporation.
Well, first, let me go through a number of horse’s-mouth sources which directly contradict him…..
An unnecessary simpleton who tells lies and propagates lefty myths.
Which ought to written on the tombstones(or carved on the nearest humanist tree) of 99% of our current media, academic and political elite.
Yet not THAT simple- it`s not easy to create those deeds of variation that allowed him to keep £5Million out of the HRMC hands, and ensure that his children of the Revolution-like Hilary(MP) and Stephen( the new Lord Stansgate-it`s what Tony would have wanted eh?)…manage to keep their inherited dosh…and ensure those Toricutz aren`t countered by those rich and needing to pay their “fair share”.
Benn was not so stupid as to pay his fair share, but the likes of Brand and Dimbleby won`t mind that…for their accountants will be doing the same too.
Yet none of this will matter to the BBC or Milibands, Harmans etc…it`s all in the words and poses…don`t expect any of them to practice what they force on the rst of us.
They are the beautiful people…they keep it cos they`re worth it.
We however are the plebs, the beige civilains and the grunts, the foot soldiers too stupid to upend a Harman or a Jaones.
This is what a feminist looks like?…won`t be appearing on any BBC Review of the year now will it?
But as for Nigel Farage eh?…..
“…an unnecessary simpleton, who told left-wing fairytales and falsified stories’ – Now, there’s an operational definition of a Leftist if ever I heard one!
Or a CAGW activist, even.
Tony Benn backed the release of the male and female Palestinian terrorists who were convicted of blowing up the Israeli Embassy in London and detonating a car bomb in Finchley, London in 1996. Over 80 innocent civilians were injured. There were no warnings.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/nov/02/israel
Here’s an extract from the above link:
—-The terrorist Samar Alami’s social and political connections, through her work on Palestinian women’s issues and her wealthy banker father, raised the profile of the case. Lord Gilmour, a former cabinet minister and a friend of the family, was one of her sureties. A support group included the MPs Harry Cohen, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as Jewish and Arab activists. ——–
The terrorists lost their appeal.
but don’t you see Tony Benn wasn’t injured nor were any members of his family so those that were are merely collateral damage for the cause
I think it does have something to do with BBC bias as well.
The BBC lavished praise on Benn whenever the opportunity arose.
He was feted in Broadcasting House which propagated the loony left myths about the ogre at the drop of a hat.
I recall one audience participation discussion with Benn where the inestimable John Bolton was live linked in on a large studio monitor.
Bolton comprehensively destroyed Benn, but being a rigged BBC audience, Benn was cheered to the rafters when he fell back on “I fought against the Nazis in World War Two”
The truth, as we know, is that the charlatan and fraud spent his entire ‘active service’ time having a jolly with his Spitfire over the skies of Rhodesia and South Africa. The only Fokker he met there was himself.
On another note have a look at this from Conservative Woman (hat tip Guido)
“The BBC’s leftist bias is endemic and risible. But it is also counterproductive”
http://conservativewoman.co.uk/nicholas-booth-bbcs-leftist-bias-endemic-risible-also-counterproductive/
He has a point, TPO (Merry Christmas, BTW!) but I’m afraid I feel the BBC is unreformable now – not least because the well has been so polluted for so long that even if it were purged there aren’t sufficient unindoctrinated professionals left to staff the place.
As for Benn, I agree. The BBC treated him as a secular saint. He was, of course, just a rather dim-witted narcissistic fantasist.
He disliked the undemocratic nature of the EU, so he wasn’t a completely lost soul. ‘Narcissist’ sums him up quite nicely, though.
He felt that the EU was a capitalist venture, as did much of the Labour party at that stage. They were caught between the ideals of a single European state (for which many who had seen the last war was the end game, despite the fact that they could not openly say so), and the idea of central planning and full socalism. Benn chose the latter – France proved that this could not work n the early 1980’s – socialism in one state (as opposed to the soviet model of expansionist socialism).
The truth is, Labour were won over to the EU when Mitterand went to the TUC and gave his now infamous speech on Union Rights. That’s when the real change began in the Labour party, with the EU used as a social legislation ratchet. Benn became irrelevant before then, but at that point his view point as shunned and he became largely invisible in the Labour party.
Wasn’t it Jacques Delors? The point is valid though.
Yes, of course it was! Slip of the key
Merry Christmas to you too. Living where I do we thought we’d have a white Christmas but this year the Chinook Winds blew the Pacific warm air over the mountains and it’s very patchy.
Certainly set the ‘warmists’ off again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_wind
Yes, Benn certainly intended fighting against fascists in WWII,
but was not so keen to fight for Britain when war broke out. Didn’t he wait until Stalin entered the war at which stage an imperialists’ war became an anti-fascist one? Probably Milliband père was of a similar opinion.
Owen Jones is a hunk.
is that socialism see in his glass? You know the Champagne type?
Only socialists in this country now rich ones, seeing the prols abandoned the revolution decades ago.
It appears we need not worry
http://conservativewoman.co.uk/nicholas-booth-bbcs-leftist-bias-endemic-risible-also-counterproductive/
Hope all (well nearly all) had as pleasent a christmas as I and wish all (again nearly all ) a happy new year
Seems to me that the Tories are every bit as complacent & out of touch as we all feared. They haven’t got a clue that a guaranteed income regardless of results makes the BBC idle complacent and as biased as they want to be.
Until they are forced to produce output that people value then it will never improve.
I believe that it does mean scrapping the corporation because I don’t think enough people would pay the enormous amounts needed in subscriptions to keep it afloat.
Conservative woman was doing great until she admitted that she wanted the bbc behemoth to be saved, it sort of made her argument pointless.
The comments below were more interesting though, overwhelmingly in favour of getting rid of the bbc. Amen to that.
Tony Benn v Ali G
Wasn`t Bob Crow seen with Owen Jones that last weekend of his, in mid-March earlier this year(Brighton I believer, yer honour!).
And we see Benn with wee Owen above?
Both Bob and Benn die soon after being photographed with Owen…and is that a knife that Owen is holding behind the U1#!( Useful Idiot No 1 according to the Kremlin).
Maybe it balances his champagne flute?…it`s not for me to say…but maybe the Met might care to investigate the mysterious cases of Lefties pegging it soon after meeting Mr Owen Jones!
Benn and Crowe died in the same week…one out all out eh?
We can only hope for three useful idiots to snuff it one week in 2015….Kaufman, Baker and Ming Dumbell maybe for April? Bets now being taken!
If the odious little c**t Jones was stood behind those two with something sticking in them it wouldn’t have been a knife!!
I utterly despise the little shit, if it wasn’t for the overtly left wing biased bbc and guardian how else would he be able foist his warped views on the public?
The gimp doesn’t even get the fact that the bbc is a free platform for the likes of brand, hasan, owen, toynbee and co to spin their lies.
Alan,
“…..but I think you really need to know this – ‘ “He was an unnecessary simpleton, who told left-wing fairytales and falsified stories,” Gordievsky concluded.’”
Of course, it’s just a coincidence that the Telegraph waited until Tony Benn was dead before making these claims.
Of course, it’s just a coincidence that Gordievsky made similar allegations against Michael Foot when he was still alive, who promptly sued and won substantial damages.
Of course, it’s also just a coincidence that the Telegraph then waited until Michael Foot was dead before disgracefully repeating the exact same accusations.
Who cares if it’s true or not; dead men can’t sue, and a good smear is a terrible thing to waste.
Liberace famously sued for libel for being described as a homosexual – and won. A libel victory in the UK means little.
In any case, Gordievsky was simply confirming what any intelligent observer already knew: that both Foot and Benn were Communist fellow travellers and loose cannons.
Only a fool ever thought otherwise.
GCooper,
“In any case, Gordievsky was simply confirming what any intelligent observer already knew: that both Foot and Benn were Communist fellow travellers and loose cannons.
“it’s true because it’s true, so there!”
Oh If only Gordievsky had known that Liberace was gay he would have had at least one piece of proof to back up his claims. All other examples of proof being strangely lacking…
Dez, you are profoundly ignorant, as well as quite mad. The following from Wikipedia – hardly a source of ‘reactionary’ thought:
“Throughout his career, Liberace publicly denied his homosexual orientation and successfully sued both The Daily Mirror newspaper and Confidential, who reported some of his gay relationships, winning damages and legal fees. Towards the end of his life, his former chauffeur and lover, Scott Thorson, unsuccessfully sued him for palimony, slander and conversion of property. Liberace also released a coffee table book on his life and performed 21 sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall which set box office records a few months before his death in Palm Springs, California on February 4, 1987. Liberace’s death remains controversial because there had been rumors prior to his death that he had contracted HIV, which his management, publicist, friends, and even Liberace himself had vehemently denied. Against the wishes of his estate, the Riverside County coroner ordered an official autopsy and determined that Liberace had died of an AIDS-related illness, making him the second major celebrity after Rock Hudson to officially succumb to the illness during the early days of media frenzy surrounding the disease.”
Perhaps you would now like to recount the achievements and triumphs of Messrs Benn and Foot that disprove Gordievsky’s observation?
Clearly he was quite right. They were both on the far Left. And both too useless to be of any help to the Soviets. Gordievsky, as high ranking KGB officer, knew what he was talking about. You, clearly, do not.
GCooper,
“ Liberace had died of an AIDS-related illness ”
Yes well done [applause]; and this has exactly what to do with Michael Foot?
“ Clearly he was quite right. They were both on the far Left. And both too useless to be of any help to the Soviets. Gordievsky, as high ranking KGB officer, knew what he was talking about. You, clearly, do not.”
Erm, Gordievsky claimed Foot was a KGB agent so useful that they paid him shed loads of money. Although strangely, when challenged, he didn’t actually have anything to back up his claims.
It did help the sales of his book though.
And 10 years later there still hasn’t been any evidence… Until now, and your shocking revelation that Liberace was a homsexualist. Biographies of Foot and Benn are no doubt being re-written as we speak with GCooper mentioned in the footnotes.
“Yes well done [applause]; and this has exactly what to do with Michael Foot?”
Because it exposes the fatal weakness of your desperate pretence that Foot’s libel victory was of any value in assessing the truth of Gordievsky’s claims.
Both Foot and Benn were imbeciles, political failures and Communist fellow travellers.
Small wonder you find common ground with them.
if the middle class pint sized minnie marxist owen jones from leafy stockbroker belt stockport thinks the bbc are right wing leaning well that confirms to me that he indulges to much in smoking allegedly the wacky backy to much,here is a question for you owen,how many bbc and radio 5 live presenters do you think will vote for ukip or the torys at the next election,right wing owen,more like a marxist enclave is the bbc and radio 5 live.
When will the BBC do a series on cottaging?
Scotty – some great country properties featured on this BBC show:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vb2f
Given the circumstances developing in the 1970s the liklihood of senior UK socialist figures being linked to Soviet intelligence is not surprising;
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/3665728/we-came-close-to-losing-our-democracy-in-1979/