Today the BBC will deliver coverage of the inauguration as president of a 78 year old man in a foreign country . How will it be covered ? A celebration ? A festival for the Far Left ? Or something more neutral ?And how will the BBC treat the outgoing President ? 5pm UK time – we ll get the answer .
Midweek Thread 20 January 2021
Bookmark the permalink.
Wow – sopel on the 6pm doing a Biden broadcast on behalf of the Democrat Party . Then they sent a reporter to Glastonbury to say that the Glastonbury festival is cancelled again – great news …
Meanwhile the BBC is debating when will the lockdown end ? I recall they were pressuring the government to bring it in . Far too early to even talk about it ……
7:30pm ITV doco about Covid in care homes
ITV local news yesterday ‘Hull is vulnerable to flooding .. Climate Change scary scary.’
ITV local news today : ‘here we are in the centre of Hull which used to be big docks, but they got filled in.’
… So hang on places where you built over the drainage
are now vulnerable flooding .. and that’s caused by Global Warming ?
It’s not 100% simple cos if the docks didn’t have gates, the tidal water from the Humber could have come in.
But with gates you can accept flood water and then drain it out at low tide.
My mother was born on the banks of the River Hull, every house had wooden sliders fitted on their doors to take boards to stop water ingress, that was in 1916, what climate change? If you study a map of Hull you will find that all the town docks, were actually just the old town moat deepened to accommodate shipping. In fact the dock nearest the River Hull is where HMS Bounty was built.
At 21 minutes past 9 tonight it will be:
21.21
21 day.
21 year in the 21 Century.
Ha ha – and no mention of clapping any more ….
as David Sedgewick said one BBC function is to make minority opinions seem like, they are THE MAJORITY
.. and thus direct society.
.. They don’t always win.
maxincony
“BBC Faces Financial Risk Over TV Licence”
https://tv-licensing.blogspot.com
Start paying your Telly Tax maxi.
A bit of forward thinking: Something Bo Jo does not appear to posses , what happens to this site when, and if, Al Beeb goes down the proverbial toilet PAN ?
Taffman
I was thinking the unthinkable – if the decision not to decriminalise ‘no licence ‘ is any indication of ‘no change ‘… then the charter will be renewed in 2027 and we will still be here in 2037 …
Personally I’d love to see this site close if the BBC ever became British and unbiased again …
Local radio has been running a narrative all day
“Wow look at the town of Ingomells it has hardly had any cases of Covid, aren’t those people good at locking down !”
FFS Ingomells is a bunch of beach side caravan parks at the end of the road.
It’s not on the way to anywhere so Covid won’t be passing through.
Also there’s no hospital or factories
and no care homes AFAIK.
… another thing is that since it’s so far from Covid test centres, you’d probably miss most cases if they did have any.
======
The second item was
“And in Skegness there were 15 bad people in a pub during November
and they smoked inside. even though they were children there”
Skeggy is similar to Ingomells, hardly a Covid hotspot
The men in the photos mostly have orange tabards on as if they all work together.
Sleepy Joe
I’m not comfortable with cruelly sneering at Biden cos he’s an old man
cos that is not better than the school bullies who spit hate at Trump.
Biden is what he is, once the Democrats nominated him he was locked in, probably not a free agent to make any decisions himself.
Sitting back sneering at him as an individual does nothing for stopping lib policies like : vendettas against conservatives, greater censorship, screwing the energy system and increasing costs thus making us all poor, damaging fairness by favouring special victim groups, the Orwellianisation of society etc.
I am – but I am concerned that this old man has early stage dementia which will be accelerated by the office he has stolen
If your face fitted there was (is?) a scam in the civil service where someone coming up to retirement would get promotion.
Because their pension was based on final salary that gave a nice boost to those who were part of ‘the system’. Once retired their post would be filled by the next in line, Buggins’ turn.
Perhaps Joe is just putting in some time to boost his pension?
It will be interesting to contrast the Leftist US media’s treatment of Mr Biden with their cruelty towards Ronald Reagan during his two terms (1981-88). Whilst I believe that it would’ve been better if Reagan had become President sooner (say, in the late 1960s or 1970s) he was still nobody’s fool even if quite old; and he lost a lot of blood and some mental sharpness after the 1981 assassination attempt, something which the BBC didn’t make allowances for. I will have no sympathy for Mr Biden if he is lampooned for gaffs: he knew what he was letting himself in for when he went for the Democratic nomination. He must know that he’s not up to the job and even the biased media can’t cover for him all the time.
For those who favour submitting views to ‘consultations ‘ or signing petitions – today the red Tory government has announced it is not to decriminalise non possession of a TV Licence –
I have cut and pasted a piece from a lefty national newspaper about it below –
START
The government is not going ahead with plans to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee but will keep the issue under “active consideration”, it has said.
Culture secretary Oliver Dowden said switching to a civil enforcement system risked being seen as an “invitation” to evade the fee and could reward those who declined to pay.
But he said the government remained concerned that a criminal sanction was “disproportionate and unfair”.
The government launched an eight-week consultation in February last year, and it closed after receiving 154,478 responses from individuals, campaign organisations and other stakeholders.
Responses from individuals were split with 17,652 for decriminalisation and 19,199 against. From campaign groups, there were 18,869 for and 92,831 against.
The issue will be revisited as part of licence fee negotiations between 2022 and 2027, when the BBC’s royal charter expires.
The BBC has previously warned that decriminalising licence fee evasion and switching to a civil system would cost it more than £1bn and lead to significant cuts to programmes and services.
In a statement Dowden said: “After carefully considering the responses received, the government remains concerned that a criminal sanction for TV licence evasion is increasingly disproportionate and unfair in a modern public service broadcasting system.
“The consultation responses showed that a significant number of people oppose the criminal sanction with some highlighting the considerable stress and anxiety it can cause for individuals, including for the most vulnerable in society, such as older people.
“However, the government recognises that changing the sanction for TV licence evasion would have wide-ranging impacts for licence fee payers, including the potential for significantly higher fines and costs for individuals who evade the licence fee requirement under a civil regime.
“The consultation also highlighted significant impacts in terms of both the cost and implementation – particularly as the current system is very efficiently handled in the magistrates court – and challenges posed to the ongoing collection of the licence fee.”
Dowden said the government remained “determined that any future change to the TV licence sanction or enforcement scheme should not be seen as an invitation to evade the TV licence requirement, nor should it privilege the rule-breaking minority over the rule-abiding majority”.
He said the issue would remain under “active consideration” while more work was done to understand the impact of alternative schemes.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The current system remains the fairest and most effective. The responses to the government’s consultation shows the majority back the current system. The BBC will fully engage with the government going forward on how we can continue to play an important role for the public.”
ENDS
It’s gonna be an even longer fight .on the upside apparently the criminal justice system is in such a mess that the backlog of cases will take years to resolve ….
Now that they fraudulently got their man in, Big Tech and the MSM are still fraudulently protecting Beijing Biden and falsifying downvotes and other stuff online to hide how disliked he is.
Elected in fraud, sustained in fraud, soon to die or be outed in fraud.
The Beeb won’t tell you any of this.
“Did Biden Just Get Caught Needing an Earpiece To Walk Him Through Job?”
🙂 Good News 🙂
“Pound Sterling Rallies as Global Markets Eye Biden’s Stimulus Programme, Euro and Dollar Decline”
https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/gbp-live-today/14877-pound-to-euro-and-dollar-biden
No mention on the BBC, of course.
Dover Sentry
You beat me to it .
I spotted the rise of the value of the Pound to Euro earlier today but did not take heed of the significance .
Once this Covid thingy is over things could be looking good for Great Britain!
Taff,
And, I think the dollar will continue to fall because of Biden and the Euro will continue to fall because of…..
Yep, forget “Build Back Better” , our Bo Jo should be saying “Build Britain Bigger!”
I just read a piece in the New York Times where the obviously Democrat political reporter warns Democrats that their situation in the Senate means that they will struggle to enact anything other than bland bills.
So it seems that Joe is to become a token President and in for a very difficult term.
The reporter even suggested that if Biden struggles to make headway he could be unseated at the mid-terms in 2022.
And all this from a dyed in the wool lefty, but music to my ears. I think Trump knows this full well and will create havoc which is probably why the Dems are so anxious to get him impeached.
You don’t think that some Republican politicians are going to have unfortunate car accidents ?
libmob have thrown everything they can so far .
And politicians also seem to make strange decisions as if someone has kompramat on them.
Just looked at this, Digg.
It’s Ezra Klein’s opinion column, and the key piece you mention is C&P here: –
“But none of these bills will pass a Senate in which the filibuster forces 60-vote supermajorities on routine legislation. And that clarifies the real question Democrats face. They have plenty of ideas that could improve people’s lives and strengthen democracy. But they have, repeatedly, proven themselves more committed to preserving the status quo of the political system than fulfilling their promises to voters. They have preferred the false peace of decorum to the true progress of democracy. If they choose that path again, they will lose their majority in 2022, and they will deserve it”.
Love the bit about ‘preserving the status quo…etc’!
Translation = ‘swamp’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/biden-inauguration-democrats.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Opinion
Just caught a bit on radio 4 – a chat between 2 BBC droids chatting about a Russian politician being banged up in Russia . Once upon a time I’d have just thought – not our business – but now – after the BBC has been complicit in the theft of the American election – it doesn’t give them much – any- moral position to talk about injustice in another country .
And Mr Putin knows he can play the stolen election card when it suits him …
FE2 – I think after the the crooked election fiasco we have just witnessed in the states and after we here elected a “conservative” government which appears to have adopted every manner of wokeness and socialism and now totalitarianism at its core – I personally think Putins Russia is a shining light of democracy in comparison to what we have here.
And at least he actually places some value on what actually being “Russian” means unlike here in the West where patriotism is viewed as “waycist”
Unfortunately I have taken the view of Katie Hopkins – Democracy and freedom in the West is now dead and any hope now lies with the East.
Mrs Voter likes wildlife so she’s busy watching Winterwatch. I looked up and thought Michaela Strachan’s been overdoing the fake tan.Some bimbo just informed the nation (well those can be arsed) that a razor bill is called that because it’s bill is as sharp as a razor! The same bimbo is busy talking down to the same nation.
“Covid: ‘Too early’ to say if lockdown will end in spring – Boris Johnson”
………………..do lockdowns work ?
Time for a new strategy. Perhaps The Reform Party has one?
hangon @Taffman posted that earlier on the previous page AT 5:55 PM
Cue an upcoming announcement of the furlough
giro handouts scheme being extended until September?
Hi all,
Haven’t posted here in some time – never had that much to say anyway!
Was just watching a documentary on BBC 4 about the Bermuda Triangle (“The people disappear!”). It was preceded by a trailer plugging Steve McQueen’s Small Axe on iplayer which included a screen full of unanimous five-star ratings from the broadsheets, NME etc.
Now I never watched it when it was on telly proper but considering it was so heavily promoted at the time I wondered what reviewers on IMDb thought. Turns out its 5 episodes have a fairly high 7.9/10 but from only 1,410 ratings and a mere SEVEN people have bothered to review it!
(In comparison, Netflix’s similarly recent The Queen’s Gambit [7 episodes] has 8.6/10 from 229,151 ratings and garners 2,120 user reviews.)
So that one really resonated with audiences, didn’t it? Well done BBC!
The Bermuda Triangle finishes. Coming up next, the female announcer promises, “All The Precedent’s Men.”
Now that really is unprecedented.
Small Axe was not watched by 98% of the UK population
AFAIK only 2% watched
..despite the Sunday night primetime slot during lockdown
I wrote here on 28th Nov
Ha. My series got 2.7 million and 12% of the television audience…..when the BBC2 audience average was 10%.
It was a hit.
World Peace .
Now that Joe’s in and evil baby eater Trump ( spit ) is out we will have that and
An end to Covid19 and all its variants.
Jobs for everyone at four times the salary
All tyrants like Putin , the North Korean fellow and Chinese see the light and resign .
The climate will be controlled by a world committee
No racial prejudice anywhere, even on an intergalactic level
Everyone in the world recycles and coal becomes a quaint substance, like Jet , that ladies wear as jewellery.
Everyone lives to 154
Crops flourish everywhere, even in the Gobi desert .
The EU finalises becoming a superstate so beloved that we ask to rejoin.
Everyone finally sees the magnificence of the BBC that even Eskimos and Martians that cant receive it send tributes, like seal blubber and rocks to Portland Place.
Al Beeb finally sort the discrepancy between male and female staff – in future both will receive twice the Prime Ministers salary .
Two suns will be in the sky .
Yes the futures rosy after four years of rule by the devil incarnate.
Hopefully Biden will be carried away with covid laws and regulations and they’ll get more than they bargained for.
Cancelling thst Keystone oil pipeline won’t help him much either.
Northern Ireland news
Donegal: Peat landslide had ‘significant’ impact on Tyrone river
Really terrible, peat being really important to SAVING CO2 etc.
what happened ?
Talk about lying by omission.
The full story says nothing about windfarm construction
.. but when you go back to the 20 November report you find that was the cause
It’s amazoning they didn’t mention the windfarm construction
Who could behind this windfarm construction that damages peatland ?
.. No BBC report mentions them
but the Irish newspaper does
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/01/22/news/stormont-committee-told-river-peat-slide-was-catastrophic–2194389
Perhaps the BBC is biden their time to tell us?
Rules for thee but not for me…
Can you imagine the media uproar, led by the BBC, had that been Trump? But because it’s Beijing Biden… crickets. And this is how it’s going to go on.
Why isn’t Psaki wearing a mask?
(Actually there isn’t anything as daft as politicians/media trying to communicate while wearing a mask, particularly when speaking with the aid of a microphone. How can you tell when a politician is lying? When you see their lips move! Wear a mask and no-one can tell.)
https://gab.com/TerrenceKWilliams/posts/105596000702459115
Which claims:
“Joe Biden only got 10 million inauguration tv views but got 80 million votes? Where were all his voters?
President Trump had over 50 million tv views during his inauguration. “
But Biden’s wasn’t a real inauguration – it was merely a pantomime.
All those fabulous singers from another era Sinatra / Martin/ Como – admittedly now dead, and /Streisand, and the best they come up with is a woman who likes to cover herself in fresh meat – Lady Gaga and J-Lo who should stick to acting.
Clearly there is an opening for real talent to come through, instead of those polluting the airwaves with crap music.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55760104
BBC NEWS UK
2021-01-22 00:30
“Police arrest 320 dangerous UK child sex offenders”
“The Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy aims to identify and convict offenders who operate in groups
by gathering more information about their characteristics, including ethnicity.”
[
Characteristics?
#1 They really, really, really, love multiple voting.
#2 They really, really, really, love multiple constituency voting.
#3 They believe they are the most special organisms on the planet.
#4 They believe the rest of us have no value whatsoever.
#5 They cannot argue their way out of a wet paper bag.
#6 Their resistance to injury is amazing, they can survive 200 whiplash car crashes unharmed.
#7 In the NHS they are so concerned about the possibility of patients being given overdoses
they steal drugs to prevent it.
Etc
Any help Cressida?
]
It used to be said of polite society that one didn’t talk of religion and politics with strangers.
The BBC shows its bias and arrogance daily as it ignores this rule broadcasting, as it does, to strangers but with the assumption that we are all its friends.
I had been listening to an episode of Quote… Unquote from December 2019 with a panel trying to answer questions on quotes from Lewis Carroll , Casablanca and Gone With The Wind when one of them slips in a sly Trump reference soon to be followed by one from the chairman, all ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’, we are all pals together and we all think like the BBC.
These are the people who assured us that ‘political correctness’ was just being polite and that Corbyn was giving us a ‘kinder, gentler politics’ and an end to personal abuse.
“Google threatens to withdraw search engine from Australia”
Is this the fight back against the big tech companies ?
Will other countries follow? Will it go the same way as Al Beeb ? People power.
taffman – If there is hope then it will come from something like this. The – Aussies famous for being warm hearted but awkward bastards. Just as we rejected the EU for their overbearing ways let us hope the Aussies will react to google in the same way.
Unfortunately there appears to be just the same amount of troffers , crooks, globalists and woke bedwetters infecting the Aussies government, establishment and media as there are here.
It is one thing to take affirmative action – it is another to actually keep the faith when you are being undermined at every level.
“Nissan says Brexit deal ‘positive’ and commits to UK”
Despite Brexit ?
In fairness to Al Beeb some good Brexit news from them, although not under their “Brexit” heading .
“Covid-19: Ministers to consider £500 Covid payment to boost self-isolation rates”
A ‘nice little earner’ for the youngsters ?
The Covid numbers will go through the roof .
t
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55760467
“Covid-19: Government sources downplay £500 self-isolation payment idea
It is among the suggestions in a leaked document from the Department of Health.
There are fears the current financial support is not working because low paid workers cannot afford to self-isolate.
But a senior government source cast doubt on the idea, saying it had been drawn up by officials and had not been considered by the prime minister.”
[
So some left wing parasites in the Civil “Service” spend another day trying to create instability, more problems for the Government.
The “document” was then “leaked”. To an unwilling lefty rag?
Nigel, your manifesto should include a committment to sack all these enemies of the UK without compensation, redundancy payments or pensions. Let’s see how they prosper in the real world.
]
That £500 idea seems absolute cack
I am surprised anyone is wasting their time talking about it.
However it is worth considering what carrot & stick options they are going to use against low paid like Amazon drivers to make sure the do take their isolation days.
Maybe tax them all £5/week to pay into an insurance scheme
then on a Covid test give them a rent/mortgage voucher paid from the scheme.
“ Brexit: Retailers could burn goods stuck in EU”
As :the French start getting awkward with their border controls we should fight back by buying more British ‘home grown’ goods. Also I am informed that Australian wine is just as good and much cheaper than the stuff we import from Europe .
And some South African, Taff!
Rorkes Drift – 140 odd years ago today
Hey Taffman, as an expat Aussie I can assure you our reds are the ducks n_ts. Kiwis do better whites though from my experience. Yellowtail is a good middle of the road Aussie brand. Usually £5.75 at Tesco. (Other brands and suppliers are available) ????
What do retailers do with stock from China ?
https://rumble.com/vd41ov-give-me-a-break-man-biden-unable-to-answer-basic-question.html?
Has Jon promoted Lurch yet to the BBC Acosta role of ‘Give Me A Break, Man’ Editor?
So, looking back, not forward. All they have.
BBC Moaning, Unsubstantiated Moaning Emole.
***
Trump ‘prank-called by Piers Morgan impersonator’ [ed – Allegedly*]
Donald Trump was called on Air Force One by a prankster posing as Piers Morgan last October………
*At least, that’s according to the ITV presenter, who told the BBC’s Americast podcast …………
the president – as he was at the time – only realised he had been tricked when he phoned the real Morgan while on his way to vote in Florida the following month. The pair had been friendly but fell out in recent months. It’s not clear who the alleged hoaxers were. The BBC has asked the Secret Service for comment.
***
The BBC is pretty desperate, too.
Have they any photos of Trump peeing on immigrants in the back of a coyote truck yet?
Not on Al Beeb yet.
When will Bo Jo move the goal posts next ?
It’s about time he employed scientists instead of behavioural psychologists.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time but you cannot……….
Dan Bongino has a video of the, er…. best…. MSM hagiographic peans to Joe so far.
They are… impressively emotional, mostly.
Especially CNN.
I wonder, did BBC American BS RT them all, or compose their own?
A straight cut and paste from the DT today – which doesn’t need a comment from me –
STARTS
‘ The BBC has spent more than £1 million on external lawyers to fight equal pay and race discrimination cases brought by its staff
Action has been taken by employees over disparities at the corporation, including the gender pay employment tribunal won by Samira Ahmed in 2020.
It has now been revealed that the publicly-funded broadcaster has spent over £1 million fighting cases of equal pay and racial discrimination brought by its own staff.
External barristers and solicitors were paid to deal with tribunal claims, and in-house legal experts also spent 2,000 hours tackling cases.
The broadcaster has been criticised by MPs for spending funds that could be better used paying journalists facing job cuts, and supporting the free licence for over-75s.
The costs have been laid out in a letter to the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, which pressed Director-General Tim Davie for the figures in 2020.
DCMS Committee chairman Julian Knight MP said: “It is unbelievable that the BBC has spent more than £1 million of licence fee payers’ money fighting claims brought by its own staff about equal pay and race discrimination.
“Money that could have gone into making programmes or alleviating licence-fee costs for the over 75s has instead been used to pay the salaries of barristers and lawyers.
“And this at a time when the corporation is struggling to balance its books with hundreds of journalists’ jobs being cut.
“This disclosure sits uncomfortably against the BBC’s claim that it offers value for money.”
Mr Knight added that the delay in furnishing MPs with figures showed a “disregard for public scrutiny”, but the BBC is understood to be struggling with staff details during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The BBC could not provide figures on the number of claims made against the corporation.
A spokesman for the broadcaster with said that like other employers the “BBC does need to be able to make its case”.
ENDS
One million pounds equates to 6339 TV licences ….
I wonder if the lucky lawyers were personal ‘friends ‘ or ‘relatives ‘ of BBC management ….
Fed,
“I wonder if the lucky lawyers were personal ‘friends ‘ or ‘relatives ‘ of BBC management ….”
I guess that this would be these lawyers:
G
Thanks – it’s a long five minutes for this chap to name Nicola Cain as a Lying Lawyer and her firm RPC – the BBC legal representative .. worth keeping an eye on them and her …
TOADY Watch #1 – ooh, watch out ! there’s a Grinch about!!
Mishal and Justin are on TOADY and you can tell from the tone (I started listening just after 7.30 a.m.) that something and someone has upset the BBC. Mishal is obviously out to get a tilt at someone and is quick to use a phrase ‘putting their health at risk’ in a segment about vaccination.
I wouldn’t want to be the 8.10 a.m. Interview ‘victim’ if Mishal is doing it.
There’s already lots ‘to poke the BBC bear’ over but it sounds very grumpy this morning. Has China Joe disgraced himself already? Brexit coverage, NI Govt in the dock over Van Morrison’s music and crisps. To me, Van often sounds as though he’s trying to sing with and through a mouthful of crisps so a shortage in N.Ireland may not be a bad thing for obesity and music.
Up2
Perhaps they are missing their number one hate figure already ? Or worried that the vax programme is going too well for their liking ? I noticed they were trying the ‘regional variation ‘ number on – as though it is ever going to be uniform week by week …..
……………they must also be a bit thin on material – but no doubt Biden will start a war with someone or there’ll be a disaster to occupy them sooner or later ….
Fed,
Biden’s immediately digging into the 11 million illegals right now and laying the carpet out for them to become legitimised. And stopped any further construction on the Border Wall. Both meant to show signs of being welcoming to any Tom Dick or Harry that turns up. I’ll bet the rump of those who voted DJT both times round will become increasingly p*ssed off.
Attached is a link to a chart of TV licence costs around various countries which the Express online has put up . There is mention in the article that as many as a million over 75s have not bought a licence since the free one was removed …..
https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/139/590x/secondary/BBC-news-bias-brexit-Northern-Ireland-Fiona-bruce-Brandon-lewis-opportunity-single-market-remainers-brexiteers-2864879.jpg?r=1611301951773
https://www.licenseglobal.com/streaming-and-tv/bbc-studios-expands-hey-duggee-portfolio?
“ Hey Duggee,” a Studio AKA production with BBC Studios, is available on BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Apple iTunes and Google Play”
So, little chance of getting banned.
In fact Duggee looks pretty likely to be soon educating kids on the importance of voting for Joe and Kamala soon.
Holding power to account BBC styly.
Radio 3 this morning marks the birth of Sam Cooke this day in 1931 by playing A Change Is Gonna Come”.
As it finishes we are told, “A change appropriate to us all.”
Sam Cooke perhaps not the best role model for a black life ‘that mattered’?
JimS
Pretty pitiful that R3 has to achieve its tick box numbers by digging into the R2 playlists – maybe there are too many unnecessary BBC radio stations ….? I can think of at least 9….
1,2,3,4,5,6,Asian, local….world ….
JimS,
“A change appropriate to us all.” That would be the, Great Reset I guess.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/
Nice of the BBC to alert the sheeple. That’s what a, National Broadcaster does, is it not?
The only word in the English language where the five vowels
follow each other is facetious. And I know that I can be as
facetious as anybody. But should Naga Munchetty
use of sarcasm as her default presentation style on her BBC
breakfast programme? Be it bantering with the weather
forecasters,questioning the following programme presenters
of such programmes as Rip off Britain on how smart they look, in itself is not
the end of the world.
It’s when she thinks that being facetious about empty high
streets with shops boarded up is amusing, that we enter into the area
of her being contemptuous . Munchetty may well think ,and
she is probably right that she is untouchable in her position
at the BBC. We can only guess why.
Iz it ‘coz she’s blick?
Sorry Foscari,
“The only word in the English language where the five vowels
follow each other is facetious.”
These spring to mind …
abstemious
abstemiously
abstentious
arsenious
caesious
[facetious]
facetiously
parecious
Pedantically yours,
SG
Yu No Wat
The metallic voice emanating from the speaker sounds jovial but is nonetheless demanding. As the number of cases of you-know-what must inevitably decline, how can we still keep the numbers up somehow and above all keep the fear stoked? The question causes the select group of experts to fall silent.
Someone ventures “well, when the statistics won’t scare the public into lockdown anymore, we must emphasise stories of personal tragedy and drama to bring the message home. There’s a good example planted on the front page of the Guardian this morning: ‘The great survivor back home after 306 days in hospital. Geoffrey Woolf, a Covid-19 patient, arriving home with his two sons, Simon and Nicky’ – the photo is brilliant, it gets the message across nicely, our sainted NHS has taken the best part of a year to save the life of the poor frail old sod, but now, being overwhelmed and all that, has deposited him back outside his front door in a wheelchair with a tartan blanket over his knees. The implication is the two sons are going to have to take time out to care for him. It really is a brilliant narrative. If it were a simple sad story of a grandma’s death, the family would mourn and be done with it. They might even look on the bright side, conclude she had a good innings and now they inherit the house. This story hammers home the on-going commitment which the young will find far more scary. One of the sons will be whispering to the other, I can bath him, but you can take him to the toilet.”
The metallic voice blusters. Yes, that’s all well and good, but the numbers gentlemen, someone will point to the numbers…
Another voice pipes up “we’ve leaked a real corker this morning. Look at the Daily Mail: ‘Minister’s astonishing plan to give EVERYONE testing positive a one-off payment – at cost of £456m a week. £500 covid cashpoint’ – obviously, it’s a daft idea but we’re just flying a kite here and we can backtrack if it doesn’t fly. The Guardian doesn’t seem to mock it: ‘Overhaul of scheme as figures show just 17% of people with symptoms go for a test’ – obviously don’t ask how we know that. A £500 bounty would certainly squeeze the numbers up: ‘wishing to avoid self-isolation is biggest barrier to taking test’
And there we must leave the bunker and return to the reality of today’s newspaper headlines.
‘No decriminalisation of licence fee evasion’ (Telegraph) – well, this would be a sensitive moment to upset the government’s main propaganda arm.
Looks as though the politicians won’t serve us on this one. We’ll have to bring the monster down ourselves: ‘We won’t pay! 1m BBC TV licence revolt’ (Daily Express)
‘North-west and Wales devastated by floods’ (Guardian) – we’ll have none of your £3.99 of damage jokes. I’m guessing there was indeed some localised flooding whereas the vast majority of the region saw predictable seasonal rains and puddles.
The very worst of puns tend to be the preserve of the sports pages but the freebie Metro frontpage puts in a strong bid this morning: ‘Floody Hell’
I’m assuming the floods are localised since the pictures of the same rescue dinghy makes the frontpage of the £2.50 Telegraph and the giveaway Metro and the self-same flooded living room makes the frontpage of the 70p Daily Mail and the £2.20 Times – you pays your money but you don’t get much choice of narrative – personalise it, we’ll advertise it: ‘Gabrielle Burns-Smith inspects the damage to her flooded home in Lymm, Cheshire’ – or accommodatingly stands knee-deep in the water at the request of the press photographer. It’ll help with your insurance claim, luv.
‘Monkey image pulled’ (Times) – I wonder where this one is going…? ‘Academics at the University of York have removed an image of the three wise monkeys from an art history conference website to avoid offending ethnic minorities’ – racists!
Spare a thought for the ‘i’ newspaper, it is in mourning: ‘Glastonbury cancelled again’
The ‘i’ does ask the daftest of questions, but does apparently have the answer: ‘What’s it like being a bin collector in a pandemic? Rubbish’ – all this reader gleans from that is the new PC term for binmen is bin collector. But what do we now call people who collect rubbish receptacles as a hobby – skoupidilists (from the Greek)?
The teacher unions want to push themselves to the front of the queue for vaccination. Labour is hand-in-glove with the teacher unions. The Mirror is hand-in-glove with Labour. Hence: ‘Schools vaccine plea. Give teachers jab in memory of caring Donna. Sister backs Mirror’s call to protect classroom staff. Tragic Donna died at age of 42’ – it’s what she would have wanted. Sympathy of course is due to friends and family. Described as one-in-a-million, she obviously is a rather rare case of having died with, we are assured: ‘no underlying health issues’ (Burnley Express)
Man bites dog being news rather than dog bites man, as the old journalistic aphorism goes, but doesn’t seem to be a good argument for public policy. Lawyers used to remind us that hard cases make bad law. I’d venture, so do sad cases.
Asiseeit
Thanks – I think all those MPs and Peers should be getting the jab so that they can all go back and sit together – even the ones on bail from Labour and the SNP. Then -there is the parliamentary staff – their families – and friends – which means ordinary voters will get their vax around 2024….
I wonder what we should call collectors of supermarket trolley-collectors of easily removeable metal?
One would think that there can be few crimes more easily spotted than an East European pushing a clearly labelled trolley, laden with a broken washing machine, along the pavements of our big cities.
Reminds me of those characters in the Beano with eye-mask, striped jersey and carrying a bag enscribed ‘swag’.
Theisland,
If the ports holdup’s problem continue, what stop’s the UK from playing the same game with imports? More comes in than goes out we are told.
Good to see Hungary getting vaccine from Russian because of the inept corrupt EU version failed it .
Seems like Hungary is covering themselves, cos they have already ordered enough doses of Western vaccines to do the population twice.
So far, 138,983 people have been vaccinated, 6K twice. Government page
In defiance of Brussels, Moscow & Budapest sign deal making Hungary first EU country to get Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine
Hungary’s decision to register the vaccine followed in the footsteps of Turkmenistan, Paraguay, Algeria, and Bolivia, all of which also opted to do so in January. Thursday also saw the United Arab Emirates approve the jab, citing “the results of its effectiveness.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/513304-moscow-budapest-sputnik-covid-vaccine-deal/
Stew – perhaps the Magyar timescale is a bit faster than the EU – which seems to speak in terms of quarters rather than weeks .
I’ve started watching the French24 news which gives a better angle on stuff – and the presenters sound like they are speaking to adults rather than 6 year olds …..
It is currently featuring the trouble within the EU with countries wanting to keep borders open and those who want to close them …..
……..
Boris Johnson is doing a 5pm gig Friday evening – I wonder if he will announce a 6pm curfew – which is fashionable in other countries – eg Holland ….
The issue for Hungary is that they have ordered from 5 western companies but only 2 are licenced by the EU so far.
Toady tells me that there is another National Census to be held in March. The representative interviewed explained that when the Census comes round, it is an, “exiting time”. Well, whatever turns you on I say. It is meant to be a snapshot of who and what lives where at an address on that day. The exception is, not Scotland immediately. And, Mr. Interviewee, I guarantee you the Lithuanians next door will, as the local census register shows, not be filing a reply. Times that by a factor for all other Eastern Europeans living in the UK and, yes, you will have really accurate census.
Btw, the £1,000 fine for not filing a list is an absolute joke.
G
I recall there was talk of the census being done away with – no doubt because of mass avoidance by certain ‘types ‘…. maybe they’ll have a last bash . ….
Civil duty is a bit out of fashion as well. Maybe – no census – no benefits will cause a bit of ‘duty ‘…. BBC would love that one ..
The BBC fails to ask the simple question ‘some people have raised’ (to use the BBC vernacular) as to whether Ncola Sturgeon is simply trying to create different civil systems in Scotland to those in the rest of the UK, in order to claim that Scotland is as good as independent in so many ways that we the government of the UK may as well go the whole hog and let Scotland break away without any further dscussion.
Free money
He hits that nail. Have you ever heard anything so hair brained ?- apart from the Sunnak free food scam last year .. . What a great idea that was … I’ve said before – I’ve worked with fairly senior civil service / politicians and didn’t realise until then that they were not as bright as they sound …. ( a very few might be )….
No doubt we will see a lot of this now. As with the vaccine announcement just after the election.
Sickening !!!!!!
There was a proposal to end the ban just before the election day ..but it was voted down
screenshot .. tweet about that
Note about the fakenews claims for that November vote
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/16/rush-limbaugh/no-american-medical-association-didnt-rescind-stat/
This is not about the BBC so look elsewhere – it’s a moderator ranting . …
I’ve been in lock down like a good citizen for a week . But the government has required me to leave my home to go to a main post office for the administrative renewal of my driving licence – the online renewal didn’t work.
So – post office opens 0900. -I’m in there 0920. I get out at 1000. Mask gloves distance . If I go down with COVID now I know where I got it .
As an example of government incompetence -last year – if your licence was up for renewal they gave an 11 month extension – this ended at the start of 2021 .
So I’ve written to my MP and that idiot sec state transport – Shaps telling them about this . People are in the same position for MOTs – so stay home – unless the government tells you going out doesn’t matter .
By the way – at 0900 Friday morning the beggers in my bit of NE London don’t ask for money – they ask for fags ! Stay well.
Inoreader helps us see what’s been happening today so far
Mode : list-view, newest posts at the top
– smaller 1/2 …. smaller 1/2
– snapshot 2/2
https://www.inoreader.com/
More cut and pasting from the Daily Telegraph – this is their view of the BBC and its ‘ funding –
STARTS
‘The Government has decided that the BBC license fee will not be decriminalised, but that does not let the Corporation off the hook. It still needs reform. The media market has changed radically and Netflix’s parallel decision to raise its subscription price, though welcomed by BBC insiders who insist that this makes their product better value for money, is in fact a very worrying sign for the Corporation.
Many consumers clearly consider the streaming service worth paying more for, solidifying its position as a long-term rival to the BBC. Netflix now has around 200 million paid members globally, up more than 30 per cent since 2019, adding 8.5 million in the last year alone – and an announcement, this week, that it can stop relying on debt to bankroll operations saw its share price jump.
A great deal of content now available online – including foreign language drama and documentaries – is better than the BBC’s, and while it is true that the Corporation continues to offer news and current affairs, its coverage is rife with bias, there are plenty of alternatives in print or online, and its plethora of channels only adds to the impression of being overstretched at the expense of quality and originality.
Every time the BBC dodges a bullet on the license fee, its employees sigh with relief – yet the tension between trying to keep up with the competition while its revenue is dictated by politics only becomes more untenable. The BBC should be flourishing in lockdown, yet even with viewers trapped indoors, isolated from their families, TV viewing figures on Christmas Day were disappointing. The BBC needs both to raise its game and find a sustainable way of financing itself.’ENDS
Fed, maybe, just maybe, HMG might decide that as all this Pandemic spending splurge has to be paid for with increases in personal and corporate taxation that 1. the TV Licence Fee needs to be set at a lower level and not increased with inflation every year, and 2. the BBC should no longer be treated differently to any other Corporation and must pay full Corporation Tax on all of its income, however derived including the TV Licence Fee.
Just a distant dream … we can but hope and dream ……
Up2
The most recent OFCOM report on the BBC challenged it to be ‘more transparent” . Common sense but empty words .
No doubt there will be another government consultation about the licence due for ‘updating ‘ in 2022 – that is where the problem of transparency hits us . The BBC shelters behind various veils of commercial confidentiality , data protection and journalistic privilege to prevent us ( taxpayers ) knowing what it spends taxpayers ‘ money on…. it even shields such information from the parliamentary committee .
Not to mention job selection and remuneration ‘processes’.. with – I suggest – job descriptions written by the person who is going to get it ….
TOADY Watch #2 – aaah, so that’s it, bad news for the BBC
Glasto cancelled + Nissan confirm future of car making plant in UK
Oh dear, oh dear, now I know why the gloom had settled over JustRemainIn and Mishal was all tight-lipped and grumpy. The Bee Lady, Martha Kearney a.k.a. The BBC Good Time Party Girl, was despatched to Glastonbury to report from a muddy field that will now be relieved to know it will not be covered in litter and glitter and the contents of a few stomachs that have ingested far too much of various substances, known and unknown.
Mishal is unhappy that she might not get a free ticket. Justin is unhappy that he won’t be able to get rid of his kids for a couple of quieter weeks this summer and that a cornerstone of Brexit Project Fear v1 release 1.2, that had been fully Beta tested, has now crumbled away into dust before his very eyes and ears.
2021 The BBC helped Jim to fix-it, but now edits him OUT of all their programmes
2021 The BBC helped Joe to fix-it, and now edits him INTO of all their programmes
2030 ?
BBC producer said “on balance I think we got it about right”
A US senator has served impeachment papers regarding alleged corruption by Biden and his son …. popcorn time again …
The Dems will welcome it. It saves them the hassle of finding away to oust him for Kamala. It’s how they will manage to put their least popular 2020 Presidential candidate into the top job, without troubling the voters.
“popcorn time”
Yawn time .. she’ll never get the votes
Freshman GOP Rep. Marjorie Greene officially filed articles of impeachment against Joe Biden on his first full day in office, following through on a promise she made Jan. 13
StewGreen
Of course she won’t get anywhere near a vote but at least it is a marker – however symbolic ….
Robert Barnes take on the Trump presidency
He sounds very Red-Pilled AND he is in the with the Trump White House team
– Trump took on the DeepState and lost
– He didn’t bring his marketing genius to the White House
– He didn’t stay loyal to his followers, he turned around and let a lot of insiders come in .. crucially got rid of Bannon & didn’t replace him
… However he is the best president in the last 150 years
.. Then lists the achievements ..Didn’t go to war ..broke the bad trade agreements.. stood up to China etc. .. lots of thing actual leftists wanted.
.. Barnes compared that to what would have happened under Hillary.
Barnes spoke out against Turquoise-Pilled
‘The problem is he remained close to Giuliani
and Giuliani got sucked into the “QAnon psyop DISINFORMATION campaign”
and brought in Lin Woods and Sydney Powell with unevidenced conspiracy theories about Military raids in Berlin and the Kraken etc.’
Got that ? Barnes states that he thinks that QAnon stuff was a psyop on behalf of the Dems and people like Lin Woods and Powell created this distraction that really harmed Trump
.. “Many of us inside the WH warned Trump constantly that this was a trap”
“It was always going to backfire”
‘Trump’s mistake was to swing from these Washington insiders to these mad-grifters like Lin Woods.
He shouldn’t have had either of them’
He should have had a much better Attorney General who would have put the Russian Spygate people in jail in six months
..and prosecuted the Clinton emails which revealed that the Clinton Foundation were using the Secretary of States office as a political money machine’
Barnes : ‘ one reason why the DeepState win
is cos we let them win, let them convince us that it is futile to resist
just like the plantation owner uses that trick of getting the slaves to stay in line’
I see that more immunologists are coming out and saying the 12 week wait for the second jab renders the first jab ineffective and can be more dangerous as it aids mutations.
The politicians think they know better than the manufacturers and have decided that 12 weeks is fine and the manufacturers 3 weeks can be ignored.
In the DT and the DM there are long articles warning the politicians that they are wrong.
And, about 4 million who have so far had the first of the 12 week second jab, well, it looks like a waste of 4 million jabs as they will all have to be done again from the start if they want to have effective protection.
That’s a criminal waste.
Is it so that they can keep strict control by keeping the numbers up rather than doing the jabs properly and getting the numbers down.
If you asked the population I reckon everybody would want the jabs done correctly and not the politicians daft idea of the 12 week wait.
When it’s proven or shown to be a waste (the 12 week wait) how much will it have cost in lives, infections, price of buying and administering the jabs, the man hours in people going for jabs and all the people involved who could be doing something positive instead of wasting their time.
Then, they have to do them all again.
Follow the science.
Only when it suits.
Can I drive at 120 mph in a 30 mph zone if I think it’s still ok?
Apparently a F.O.I. request in Ireland has forced their Government to admit that they have no evidence that the virus actually exists. The ‘vaccine’ is an unrelated pathogen that they hope will trigger the immune system into protecting against a virus that they cannot isolate! Surely a Flu jab would do the same but without the unknowns of a rushed vaccine?
Didn’t I read somewhere that the 12 week idea originally came from Tony Blair?
And Nigel also on board for Bliar to become the ‘Vaccination Tsar’ some reason.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/nigel-farage-calls-for-tony-blair-to-become-uks-vaccination-tsar/05/01/
It did, or at least from one of his ‘think tanks’.
As the saying goes: The Devil has all the best tunes…
Emmanuel Goldstein and Andydozefeet….
As far as I remember, the MHRA-authorised wait time between first and second jabs for the Astra-Zeneca anti-virus was always any time between 4 and 12 weeks. The Pfizer jab was only tested, as far as I recall, at a four-week gap, hence was not ‘guaranteed’ by Pfizer to be effective at any other time gap….but, of course, they did not request a mandate for the drug to be only given with the 4-week gap. Of course, they might have cottoned on to the fact that governments world-wide might pull the plug on their ‘jab’ in favour of Astra-Zeneca’s inherently more flexible capabilities.
Blair was probably the first to widely publicly propose the 12-week gap between all first and second jabs (but I doubt he made that proposal without any medical authority from any source). As much as I have little or no time for the man normally, he apparently was the first to put it widely into the public domain, as a way around the apparent limitations surrounding the vaccinations, as seen at that time.
@EG “I see that more immunologists are coming out and saying the 12 week wait for the second jab renders the first jab “ineffective* ”
Big claim there …show us the evidence.
Stew.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9174157/I-fear-ditching-dose-timetable-prove-costly-mistake-writes-expert-PROFESSOR-HERB-SEWELL.html
The ones I saw this morning in the Daily Express and the link in the Daily Telegraph have disappeared and I can’t find them.
I couldn’t open the DT one but the link said what the others said.
British Medical Journal copy.
What do the manufacturers say?
In a joint statement Pfizer and BioNTech said, “The safety and efficacy of the vaccine has not been evaluated on different dosing schedules as the majority of trial participants received the second dose within the window specified in the study design . . . There is no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.”
The European Medicines Agency has said that the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should not exceed 42 days. “Any change to this would require a variation to the marketing authorisation as well as more clinical data to support such a change, otherwise it would be considered as ‘off-label use,’” the agency said.7
AstraZeneca did not reply to a request for comment from The BMJ.
Firstly I would discount anything in the BMJ, that should be a given with its recent political history.
But more significant, surely, has to be timescales. When you consider the speed with which the vaccines have been created, and especially where the Pfizer model is concerned, the ‘three week’ or whatever gap, could be quite arbitrary, a figure based more on production capability than clinical benefit, and the same could just as well apply to the 12 weeks – except that it allows even more worldwide creation of vaccine which earns more brownie points.
There simply has not been time to effectively evaluate the pros and cons, the truth involves at least as much guesswork and hope as any ‘science.’ – the only thing you can be sure of is that that Starmer will blame Boris if Dame Bakewell doesn’t have her cake and eat it.
Germany records over 50,000 deaths from Covid-19.
50,000 deaths in Germany? Impossible – must be false news. Germany has a female leader and it’s well known that countries ruled by women do far better than those (mis)ruled by men. The BBC has told us this on many occasions and barely a month ago it was re-asserted by its in-house newspaper:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/16/female-leaders-make-a-real-difference-covid-may-be-the-proof
Oh, hang on a minute, maybe it’s true after all…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/female-leaders-found-to-be-no-better-in-covid-crisis-vstc8l53h
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9102585/COVID-19-Countries-led-women-NOT-fared-significantly-better-pandemic.html
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244531
13,943 men commit suicide in Japan – the BBC couldn’t care less.
The BBC, an alleged news organisation, reports that suicides in Japan have risen for the first time since 2009. Shockingly, more than 300 children took their own lives in the eight months to November. Amongst adults, male deaths fell slightly, whilst those among women grew by more than 14%. Let us be clear: suicide is a terrible business, both for those tormented individuals who take their own lives and for the family and friends they leave behind. We cannot make light of such a tragedy. But the BBC has framed the report in such a way as to imply that women are somehow suffering more. So what are the actual numbers, which they studiously avoid reporting?
According to the figures released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 13,943 men and 6,976 women committed suicide during 2020. In other words, twice as many men as women did so. This ratio is relatively low compared to other countries: in the UK the ratio is 3.4 to 1, in the US it is 3.3 to 1, in Germany it is 2.83 to 1 and in France 2.75 to 1. In Eastern European countries the ratio is much higher, between 4 to 1 in Bulgaria to around 7 to 1 in Ukraine. In every country on the planet, male suicides outnumber female ones. The BBC does not want you to know this sort of information, that men are far more likely to commit suicide, be murdered, be imprisoned, die in industrial accidents, be killed in wars, have mental health issues or be homeless, when compared to women. And the reason the BBC doesn’t want you to know is because it goes against the narrative that women suffer more than men and are perpetual victims, due to an imaginary construct called ‘the patriarchy’.
There are other metrics by which discrepancies between male and female lives can be measured, and upon which women do worse. The BBC is generally lukewarm on these too, preferring to take a faux-feminist position that concentrates on trivia such as the salaries of their newsreaders or the wages of women footballers. Bottom line: All Lives Matter, but not at the BBC.
Percentage of positive Covid cases falls slightly
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55763212
The update at 12:36 shows a couple getting married in intensive care when they both got Covid. Even from the small photo I can count 2 seprate rolls of fat around the bride’s waist and a beer gut and moobies on the groom.
GRAPHIC WARNING! This video link:
shows the man with his top off where you can see his moobies not only sit on his fat gut but they also extend under his armpits.
This couple would be short of breath walking to their fridge for their 3rd pizza each night but they are presented here as an example of how bad Covid is.
If just one positive thing can come out of Covid it should be the promotion of a healthly lifestyle. The whole country is being punished due to excessive deaths caused by people not looking after themselves.
(Rant over)