Apparently Alex Salmond would like to ship the BBC’s Nick Robinson off to a desert island and abandon him there….the spat continues as Salmond uses Robinson as his whipping boy.
Alex Salmond has said Nick Robinson should be “embarrassed and ashamed” of his coverage of the Scottish independence referendum as he hit back at the outgoing BBC political editor’s attack on the “Putin”-like treatment journalists received at the hands of nationalists.
The former First Minister described as “ludicrous” the outgoing BBC political editor’s comparison between the separatists’ mass protests against his reporting of the campaign last year and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
He said this was “ironic” as the BBC coverage, which he described as a “disgrace”, resembled propaganda produced by Pravda, the Soviet Union’s notorious press agency.
Robinson bites back…the SNP are the anti-Establishment party, one which, Robinson suggests, organised the protests against the BBC….
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@GeorgeMonbiot What you call “anti establishment” runs govt in Scotland. Governing parties protesting outside a media HQ not a good look
Nick Robinson
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@GeorgeMonbiot Don’t know who organised protest. Do know Salmond praised as “joyous”, talked of BBC being “scarred” & “gains” for@theSNP
We know the BBC can’t’ be biased because Nick says so…however…other news organisations can’t be trusted:
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I also warned against the dangers of “echo chamber” media – people only reading/hearing those they agree with eg Twitter, Fox News, RT
Thankfully the BBC doesn’t suffer in a similar way from people who supinely accept it as a truthful and accurate news broadcaster and instead has an intelligent and perceptive audience who are more than happy to point out the bias, prejudice and the blatant lies that it peddles.
Unfortunately, rather than celebrate this active interest in its output the BBC seems always somewhat put out by the criticisms, constructive though they are.
What we need on this site is a tame MP and a banner…and at least three people to hold it……
Hmmm…. whose side to take? BBC or SNP? Tricky choice, but I’ll plump for neither. I do recall at the time wondering here how that anti-Nick Robinson banner was produced so quickly.
“Putin-like”
I do not think so.
Stalin-like, I could agree with that.
Anyone daring to disagree with the Salmond line threatened with violence, or in receipt of actual violence. Free violence, so not as careful as painted.
None of which was any surprise South of the Border.
Those North of the Border having a six hundred year long record of violence towards their Southern neighbours.
I say six hundred years but the time span could be extended back until the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, who, it will be remembered, arranged for the construction of a small fence to stop the Salmond’s of his day pinching knickers from English washing lines.
Fast forward a little in history and we reach that glorious period when England had problems with another state, a state which remains antagonistic to England to this day, the French.
The French? Yes the French. Remember the sacrifice made by the UK in support of the French in two World wars?
You may remember these events, but the French have forgotten.
No surprise, why did we bother? The triumph of hope over experience.
During the period referred to above, the loveable French, and the loveable Scots, had an alliance, against England. On every occasion when England had problems on its Southern borders, the barbarous Scots would invade the North of England.
And I do mean barbarous. Nicola and Alex may have forgotten the period before the 22nd August 1138, that day being when the Scots came second in The Battle of the Standard, but the English have not.
Prior to this battle, as those with strong stomachs can verify for themselves, the invading Scottish army committed atrocities which the Islamic State would love to have on its CV.
Atrocities which reached a zenith in 1138 but were preceded and followed by centuries of similar acts.
Acts which have all but vanished from Scottish “history”, being replaced by lies about the English.
When the Labour party imported millions of Muslims, they did not import them into the UK, did they Nicola?
No, they imported them into England, deliberately.
What sort of people arranged this importation? Correct, Scots. Blair, Brown and many of the other members of
that treasonous Government.
Spicing your entirely justified outrage Delenda, it may not be common knowledge that our noble and entirely stalwart and trustworthy neighbours charged for every kilometre our troops and equipment travelled on the French railway system, and in a truly heroic demonstration of entente, also made the BEF pay rent for all trenches dug on French soil. We supplied the blood and bone fertiliser gratis.
To add to your justified exposure of French grasping duplicity it should be better known that every time a passenger/car travels through a French port we get charged a small amount to pay for reparations for the damage we did to those ports during WW2 – STILL!
“Cheese-eating surrender monkeys ” !
Grant
They were not monkeys during the Battle of Verdun.
That is the big mystery. What went wrong since then ?
Would Labour have done to Edinburgh they did to London? No.
Would have the sanctimonious “holier than thou” Scots allowed it? No.
Labour would not antagonise their preferred race -the Scots.
The English (and Welsh) have always been secondary to the Scots under Labour.
Unfortunately for the vile party their beloved Scots (who even they eventually took for granted) wandered off in to the warm embrace of the SNP. Leaving Labour in the lurch.
I watch with smiling satisfaction the Labour party’s demise and if I can do any thing to help it on its way – I will.
“Putin-like”
I do not think so.”
Putin is currently behaving just as badly as Stalin – both were/are prepared to bump off their opponents at home and abroad, to invade sovereign countries and to suppress free speech.
PG
Invade foreign countries?
If you were referring to the Ukraine I believe the EU invaded first.
You will have noticed that the Russians were welcomed with open arms by the “Ukrainians”.
You will have noticed that free speech is being suppressed all over Europe, By Stalinist methods,
creating new laws restricting both the subjects that may be discussed and the vocabulary which may used in the discussions.
Killing opponents, approved of by the author of “The Prince”, that’s good enough for me. US drone strikes now a common occurrence.
Putin, with all his faults, is a strong leader we need to be on good terms with. We may need each other as allies. Putin is not trying to destroy the UK, that would be The Labour Party and the EU.
“Invade foreign countries?
If you were referring to the Ukraine I believe the EU invaded first.”
Then I think you believe wrongly.
Delenda, you should study the history of Ukraine which you clearly haven’t ! Please explain why you have put “Ukrainians” in inverted commas ? Do you work for the BBC ?
Grant
“Ukrainians” were the people in the Ukraine who did not believe, or feel, themselves to be Ukrainians.
They felt themselves to be Russians who were not in Russia because the borders were in the wrong place. A commonplace in history and the source of a great deal of bloodshed.
Hence they welcomed Russian efforts to “correct” the border error.
Delenda , you are so funny . Ukraine is populated by at least two major peoples , Russians and Ukrainians. They have different languages, traditions and cultures and hate each other. At least that was what I learned by studying the country and living there for 1 year. Maybe your experience is different. LOL !!
”to invade sovereign countries”. And which country bombed the hell out of Libya ?? and we can see the consequences of that action, the invading hordes in the Med
”’and to suppress free speech. ” Sounds like Britain.
It would be interesting indeed if the BBC attempted to smear its critics by associating them with the SNP. It might just work.
Je suis swivel-eyed.
On Nick Robinson’s perceived bias
I have been a follower of, and commentator on, the senior BBC Editor’s Blogs ever since I got broadband and found the politics & economics forums provided by MSN & Yahoo News too horrific to participate in. (Some of you will no doubt recognise my posting name/internet identity from these BBC Blogs.)
Over seven years or so, I have seen Nick frequently criticised for being biased to the Left and biased to the Right, in probably equal quantity. This rather indicates that he must be at least trying to be neutral and, suitably for an apparently new cricket lover, to play things with a straight bat.
He’s probably not perfect, none of us are. He attracted my soubriquet ‘Nick Holiday Robinson’ for his frequent disappearances that we later learned were mostly for intensive periods of programme making, usually for television, rather than his usual reporting and blogging duties across the three media. Then commenting on his Blogs started to be ‘suppressed’. The BBC will no doubt prefer the word ‘ended’. Suppressed, however, is the effect. I don’t know whether it was at Nick’s request or whether it was diktat handed down from above or a mutually agreed decision. Later we learned of his serious illness. That may have been a factor. We haven’t been informed on any of this at any stage by the BBC. I consider this rather strange for someone who works both in such a senior post and one which is so central to our lives and to BBC News. Strange, too, for an organisation or business to which news and information is so central.
There are some hard questions there for the Heads of News & Digital Media, together with the Director General, to answer as part of the Charter Review & Renewal.
On the off-chance that Nick Robinson may read this, I hope all the treatment for his illness has been successful and he is making good progress to a full recovery.
Well said
It may well be true that Al Beeb and Robinson receive just about equal numbers of complaints of bias to left or right. The real problem is that most of the complaints from the Left are faux outrage, including those against ‘Toenails’ Robinson for his Scottish independence referendum coverage, and the all too few complaints from the Right are mostly about bias by omission, the deliberate leaving out of contrary evidence or opinions.
Just as with MiniMiliMania prior to the GE and with Corbynuttism now, the Leftoids certainly know how to bombard the supine Al Beeb and other media outlets with their propaganda.
Isn’t is strange how so many leftwing/socialist/communist orgs/states have restrictions on the freedom of speech
Russia
Cuba
Venezuela
China
SWP (regards the rape case)
bBC (Islam)
SNP
Change the banner to ‘Sack the lot of them at the BBC’
Great to watch this….Toenails v Salmond = Labour v the SNP…
And if you relocate to Labour List, you witness the Corbynistas calling the Blairites warmongering right wing Fascists…
The left have spat the dummy, and are now eating their own..