TODAY REDUX

Mike Cunningham, one of my fellow writers on A Tangled Web posted this review of the BBC Today programme this morning and I wanted to share.

“This morning, courtesy of the BBC’s Toady (sorry) Today Programme; we were treated, if that is the appropriate term, to selective segments of propaganda disguised as news items; I term them ‘propaganda’ because only one side of an argument is given or portrayed; with absolutely no chance of a considered discussion, especially from opponents of whatever subject is being discussed. They ranged from an impassioned critique of an EU Commission proposal to harmonise Wildlife protection measures; to the maundering pronunciations of a Lame-duck US President on why the United Kingdom must remain wedded to the European Union.

• A five minute report on the evils of gambling in Australia, and how awful it was, and all that compulsion, ‘n everything: innit?
• We heard how Prez. Barack Hussein Obama is heading back to his (Partly) ancestral homeland of Kenya, and how excited he was to speak of the ‘entrepeneurs’ who were enlivening the Kenyan business culture: and we then heard from two of Kenya’s ‘business elite’ about how successful they were, and it was all due to capitalism; or sleight of hand, or something ( No mention of the billions stolen by the larcenous Kenyan governments; but thats all because ‘boys will be boys’, and that).
• Some RSPB woman commenced  an impassioned critique of an EU Commission proposal to harmonise Wildlife protection measures; and how it was all wrong, and the birds were all doomed, and it was just terrible!
• A Sutton Trust spokeswoman declared that ‘social mobility’ was at risk because Academy schools in England were unable to improve the results of their ‘disadvantaged’ students. No mention was made of two facts which may impinge on those same results: it was possible that the whole idea of ‘Comprehensive education’ was actually ‘shit’ and; the other possibility was that the kids were either uninterested, or just plain thick!
• We were told that Chris Froome, a cyclist, was believed to be loading up with high-performance chemicals and drugs during the ‘Tour de France’, which I discovered was a form of mental torture for millions of fat Frenchmen who just could not get over the fact that yet another Englishman was beating the crap out of their fellow countrymen.
• Glaxo SmithKline informed us all that they had discovered a vaccine for malaria, but it would only be suitable for kids over one year old. It was also implied that, because the African countries where malaria was endemic were very, very, poor; lots of liberal idiots believed that GSK should give this vaccine away, despite this medication costing literally tens of millions to invent and produce, and GSK should not be allowed, under any circumstances, to actually make a profit!
• Obama featured once more, in an interview in the White House (oh how they must hate that name) and stated that Great Britain must stay in the European Union, becozz its such a good place, and becozz of ‘trade’, and becozz of the UK’s former lap-dog approach to America’s military adventures; spoiled only by our blunt refusal to bomb Syria’s Assad.
• We were then told of the dicovery of a planet named ‘Kepler-452b’ and how it was just possible that life may exist outside our Solar System, and how exciting this was, and how squillions more money was needed for more ‘research’, and telescopes, and things like that!
• Some bloke then was interviewed about some snake, or it may have been a lizard, which had lived some hundred million years ago, which had been re-discovered in some museum in Germany; which was ‘dead interesting’ and also exciting; or something.
• The NHS also featured, and we were told how Emergency Care  stuff and things were gonna’ get better, but not, unfortunately; for a long, long time; probably about the same length of time as the snake’s remains had been in the museum!