Start the Week Thread 24 May 2021

Fortunately for those of us who see the BBC as a monster the Bashir Affair is continuing to fester. However there is little sign of the current government being willing to do anything about it at all – even with the outright condemnation of the future King . But public pressure is building . It won’t take much to force reform or better still – destruction.

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440 Responses to Start the Week Thread 24 May 2021

  1. BRISSLES says:

    Er, is it black interview day today ? Had both news channels on in the background, and notice there has been a never ending line of BAME interviews – whether its the shooting in sarf London, the ‘confusion’ (or not ) on the mixed messages on continued lockdown (or not) in mainly muslim areas of Britain – but no one dare say that, and endless bloody references to George Floyd. Oh and just now on Sky there was a black guy just discussing a letter he had written to his son – WTF ?????

    QVC here I come for some sanity and bedding !!!! 🙂

       36 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      In his devastating new book The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray examines the twenty-first century’s most divisive issues: sexuality, gender, technology and race. He reveals the astonishing new culture wars playing out in our workplaces, universities, schools and homes in the names of social justice, identity politics and ‘intersectionality’.

      We are living through a postmodern era in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity, both accelerated by the new forms of social and news media. Narrow sets of interests now dominate the agenda as society becomes more and more tribal – and, as Murray shows, the casualties are mounting.

      Readers of all political persuasions cannot afford to ignore Murray’s masterfully argued and fiercely provocative book, in which he seeks to inject some sense into the discussion around this generation’s most complicated issues. He ends with an impassioned call for free speech, shared common values and sanity in an age of mass hysteria.

         22 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      Er, is it black interview day today ?

      No. It’s black interview day every day.

         39 likes

  2. StewGreen says:

    ITV local news
    item #4 Classes for refugees in Hull
    item #5 Special worldwide school assembly
    to celebrate Afro Hair Day
    child “I wasn’t aware there was so much discrimination”

       13 likes

  3. brexiteerkent says:

    BBC Pidgin Website on Sahsa Johnson

    https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-57242748

    When this came up on google news I thought it must be parody site.. but it seems it is genuine ! Who knew ( you probably all did) there was a BBC pidgin website ??!!!!

    Keeps a fair few box tickers in jobs I guess, at our expense

       23 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      Is this an attempt to trigger me? I’m not sure it will work. Lobbie, Grant and ChrisH – much missed contributors to this site “Hope you are well, guys.” – are not around to appreciate it.

      I hope Halifax is OK, too, and fully recovered from his bout of Covid.

      Oh well, just because the BBC are so vile this week and it’s only Tuesday:
      ‘Dem BBC? ‘im orl buggerupp.’

         10 likes

  4. StewGreen says:

    BBC local news opens
    “on this anniversary day we will be hearing some of your RACISM stories and experiences”

    …. I suspect it will be BBC selected racism
    … not brown against black/white racism etc.

    6:42pm item starts
    footage makes it seem like a million people marched for George Floyd in Hull
    .. I expect it’s stock footage from the US
    now genuine footage from Lincoln.
    Presenter “we’d like your views email/text/Twitter”
    ended 6:46pm

       10 likes

    • Banania says:

      “…marched for George Floyd in Hull.”
      How do those words belong together?

         13 likes

  5. Up2snuff says:

    TWatO Watch #1 for yesterday – “Nuffink to do wiv me, Guv”

    Richard Sharp, Chair of the BBC Board was given quite a hard time, yesterday, by the Montacutie* over the Bashir Scandal. He still managed to weasel his way out from under some firm questions using the above, but in a much smoother Public School-type voice.

    TWatO Watch #1 for today – the BBC roll into attack mode with the Montacutie as tank commander outside No.10

    The Government has given advice that there are areas of England that should not be travelled into or out of unless for work or other serious necessities. There are eight areas in all, including the famous Notlob. Unfortunately the Government did not consult with Andy Burnham, the other one who’s in charge of something – Angela that’s it, the Mayors, the local Health authority, the MPs, the Councillors, the Parish Councillors, the Vicars, the Imams, the Headmasters, the teachers or the tea lady called Gladys and has upset everyone especially the BBC and the Montacutie.

    Nobody knows what they should do and it is half-term and a Bank Holiday weekend coming up. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! A group of complainants is trailled across the R4 airwaves, to vox pop their complaint about HMG a.k.a. the Conservatives and Boris Johnson into a convenient microphone.

    It’s all his fault.

    I suspect I know what happened. Data was examined by SAGE last Friday. Whitty and/or Vallance went into panic mode and worried the Cabinet enough to instruct Civil Servants to send out the word to all those listed in the paragraph before last. The CSs thought ‘How can we make life difficult for a Conservative-led Government and make it look like no-one in the Cabinet, PM included, knows what they are doing.’

    They decided to just put the info on the Gov.UK web-site instead.

    If the PM needed any further incentive, this was it:
    1. Privatise the BBC, after giving every man woman and child legally resident in the BBC one share each in the Corporation. It is, after all, our Corporation. We have paid for it.
    2. Get down, with Carrie, on bended knee before Dominic Cummings and plead with him to come back as Chief of Staff to the PM.

    (* I’m still worried about the health of the Montacutie. Absences from the programme, stumbling over words, disorganised. Definitely not the Montacutie of old, handling the TOADY presentation with confidence and doing ‘off the cuff’ jokes with The Humph.)

       15 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Perhaps she is auditioning to be the new Religion Editor – if she converts to Satan worship or the Mo one she might be blessed with the job – following on from such an honest predecessor …

         12 likes

  6. Jack in the Green says:

    Back in the days of good old East Germany, you know – the Stasi, Trabbies, re-education and a particular dodgy place to climb any walls, the State ran a TV programme called Der schwarze Kanal, a weekly current affairs reworking of West German news items to suit the communist raison d’etre. The title translates as “The black Channel” a Geman euphemism for sewer pipe. I mention this because it brings to mind a current UK channel. Now, if only I could remember which one. Hmmm……

       16 likes

  7. StewGreen says:

    Tonight’s TV
    7:30pm ITV cooking show hosted by black guy Ainsly Harriot
    7:30pm ITV cooking show hosted by 1 black guy and 1 gay white comedian

    BBC2
    7pm Alice Red Roberts
    8pm Chris Red Packham
    BBC4
    9pm Ian Red Hislop

       9 likes

  8. theisland says:

    Today’s bBC Newsround propaganda aimed at schoolchildren.

    The bBC shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near children. Shut it down.

       25 likes

  9. taffman says:

    “Babes in the Wood victim’s mum wants Martin Bashir inquiry”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-57242995
    And there’s more ?

       11 likes

  10. Foscari says:

    The anarchist Marxist editors allowed the Londonistan
    programme run riot on George Floyd day this evening
    on the BBC. This was a party political broadcast on
    behalf of the BLM organization like you have never
    seen.
    The Metropolitan police are racist in fact there
    is absolute institutional racism in the capitol and all
    of us minority indigenous whities are responsible for it.
    Liz Rateef the presenter was in her element I haven’t
    seen her in such a state since eulogizing on the gangster Mark Duggan.
    Oh the shooting of BLM activist Sasha Johnson by black
    gangsters was not mentioned. You see when blacks are shooting,
    stabbing and slaughtering other blacks it doesn’t matter as
    much, if anything at all. Anyway so far as the BBC London
    programme is concerned.

       32 likes

    • Mustapha Sheikup al-Beebi says:

      Meanwhile, just to “keep it fresh”, Radio 4’s “Front Row” (from 19:15) starts off with a piece on how a Dutch Museum is doing displays on the country’s involvement in the Slave Trade … and this on the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd!

      I usually only listen to a few minutes of this biased sermonizing, just to hear what meager fare is being served up, but I can say that almost every day there is something about Blacks, slavery, colonialism, BLM, racism, etc. It’s supposed to be an arts programme but you could be forgiven for not realizing that. So, off switch as usual.

         22 likes

  11. Jack in the Green says:

    Danke sehr, Herr Snuff!

       3 likes

  12. vonrecht says:

    Anyone wondering what Nigel is doing in all this madness? Apparently he is holding a rally in Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow, to assist in the defence of US sovereignty. He certainly has the CV for the job…
    Wonder who is going to be keeping a look out for illegal boatloads arriving daily in Kent, in his absence, now that the weather is turning summery?
    What we do know for sure is that our authorities charged with the task of protecting OUR borders against same, won’t be doing so…And isn’t the navy simultaneously putting on a big worldwide show of “power”?
    Summat weird going on in all of this!

       17 likes

    • vonrecht says:

      Interesting to note that Arizona is also the state in which a forensic audit of the votes cast in the US “election”, is taking place. Initial action in this regard is also taking place in the corrupt state of Georgia (US), with other ‘battleground’ states like Wisconsin and Michigan due for same.
      Don’t wait for the corrupt BBC to tell you about any of this….

         17 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Von
      Mr Farage has been twittering from the states across the last couple of weeks .
      I think he gets better treatment there than he does here.

         14 likes

      • vonrecht says:

        Fed – never been tempted to go anywhere near Twitter, so thanks for that. Let’s hope the party doesn’t get rough for him; can’t imagine that BLM/Antifa and their Dem pals are lolling about, contemplating the deep blue of the sky…

        Re Twitter: Been listening to a certain MIT PhD, Dr Shiva, explaining how Twitter co-operate with various governments WORLDWIDE to suppress free speech – incl UK.

           6 likes

  13. Philip_2 says:

    The BBC cannot be trusted to keep the BBC honest – and nor can Ofcom
    After each scandal, the BBC pledges to reform and learn from its mistakes – and carries on as usual. Will the Bashir affair change anything?

    By Robin Aitkin writing in today’s Telegraph.

    There’s a rather depressing sense of deja vu about the Martin Bashir scandal. After all, we have been here before in previous BBC disasters. The holding pattern goes like this: first we get the shock revelations followed by grovelling apologies from the Corporation’s top brass; then we get the “lessons will be learned” pabulum; everyone, including government ministers, chorus in unison “this must never, ever happen again”.

    And then, slowly the outrage subsides, the news cycle moves on, and the BBC reverts to its deeply held conviction that it is, in fact, a shining city on the hill, created to enlighten the huddled masses. And gradually everything goes back to how it was.

    What I have described above is what happened in the Jimmy Savile scandal and then, subsequently, in the disastrous episode where Newsnight managed seriously to libel Lord MacAlpine, a former Tory Party treasurer, by falsely accusing him of abusing little boys in a children’s home. In both these instances the Corporation promised to make changes in “governance” and “oversight” so that such enormities could be prevented in the future. Which is exactly what is being said now; yesterday the Board of the BBC promised an overhaul of the institution’s culture so that catastrophes like the Bashir saga can never happen again.

    Forgive me for raising a dissenting, sceptical voice: I don’t think this is anything like enough. In my view the BBC has now forfeited its right to have a say in how it will be regulated in the future. This is an organisation with recidivist tendencies; why should anyone trust it now to correct deep-seated flaws when it has so obviously failed before?

    To understand how and why things have gone so wrong at the BBC we have to look at its history. The BBC was originally created as an institution which would always be independent of government. That was done for very good reasons: there was a clear understanding that the BBC could not be under the political control of the government of the day. So independence was written into the foundation constitution and that raised an immediate question; if the BBC was to be independent of government who should oversee it?

    The first answer to that question was the Board of Governors. These 12 wise men and true (in the first instance they were all male) were to be the keepers of the flame; people so upright that they could be entrusted to ensure that the Corporation stayed true to the principles of honesty, fair-play and impartiality.

    For 80 years or so the governors were the people who sat in judgement on what BBC journalists, and other employees, got up to. And by the time the new millennium dawned they were utterly toothless. I know this because in 2002, when I was a staff reporter on Today, I compiled a closely researched dossier of evidence which, I believed, showed the BBC to be hopelessly biased to the left.

    I sent this to each of the governors knowing that in doing so I was taking a big risk in career terms; whistle-blowers were not popular then or now. The governors’ response was truly pathetic: they wrote congratulating me on the clarity of my writing (!) but as to the substance of my complaint they had nothing whatsoever to say.

    By that time the BBC governors amounted to little more than cheerleaders always on hand to tell the country what a wonderful organisation they headed-up. But the governors’ days were numbered and after the Blair government fell-out with the Corporation over the Iraq war they were abolished. In 2007, something called the BBC Trust was created which, though itself supposedly independent, proved to be a body indistinguishable from the one it replaced.

    The Trust lasted just 10 years and was itself replaced in 2017 by the BBC Board – a body which, supposedly, would be tougher and more independent than its predecessors. And in that same year the BBC was placed under the scrutiny of the communications regulator Ofcom – a move which, at the time, was supposed to herald the advent of a new era of – you guessed it – “tougher and more independent” regulation.

    And here’s a funny thing about Ofcom; if you look at its record it has, since its inception, shown itself to be remarkably tolerant of the sort of biases of which, back in 2002 , I complained to the old BBC governors. As it happens I am myself party to a long-running complaint to Ofcom about the BBC’s outrageous and quite obvious bias against the Leave side in the Brexit debate. Without wearying you with the details of what is still an ongoing action, suffice it to say that Ofcom has used every excuse so far to avoid arriving at a judgement. Their chosen strategy seems to be to spin-out the process as long as possible (well over a year now) in the hope that eventually we will just give up.

    This is not terribly surprising when you look at the personnel who run Ofcom; a strikingly high number of them are themselves ex-BBC. In fact the person who virtually designed Ofcom, Tim Suter, walked straight into his job at the regulator when he left the Corporation.

    This is the same Tim Suter who was the BBC’s managing director of current affairs and who carried out the initial investigation into Bashir’s interview with Princess Diana. His verdict on Bashir’s actions were unequivocal; they were, he said “absolutely straight and fair”! Mr Suter resigned from Ofcom last week when the details of what really happened were laid bare by Lord Dyson.

    What does this potted history tell us? To me it shows very clearly that neither the Governors, nor the Trust, nor Ofcom is up to the job of controlling the BBC; each of them failed to be tough-minded enough to challenge the BBC’s arrogant assumption of its own inherent virtue. Which means that throughout most of its history the BBC has been accountable to no-one. It has been allowed to mark its own homework with the result that misdemeanours great and small have passed unchecked and unpunished.

    What is the answer to this puzzle? Going back to first principles the BBC’s independence from government is absolutely essential: no one wants it to become just another state broadcaster pumping out the line dictated by whoever was in government. But it must not be allowed , any longer, to get away with the distortion of news values which have so disfigured it in recent years; its failure to treat Eurosceptics fairly, its adoption of the ‘woke’ agenda, the way it ‘took the knee’ for BLM – these are all things that a proper regulator would have identified and forced the BBC to correct.

    The former BBC director-general Lord Grade thinks the answer is for a new, devolved, editorial board to be created. This body of experienced journalists would directly oversee the BBC’s journalistic output. This might work: if it was tough-minded and courageous it could take on the BBC and confront its elitist assumptions. For it to make a difference it would have to be prepared to challenge the BBC’s entrenched world view; in other words it would have to be sensitive to the semi-Marxist ideology which underpins so much of the Corporation’s journalism.

    And yet, and yet. Tinkering with governance structures at the BBC has so far yielded nothing. The BBC has sailed serenely on, going its own way regardless of the formal architecture imposed on the institution; to all intents and purposes it has been unaccountable. The three iterations listed above have made no discernible difference – would another “oversight” board change anything? Perhaps – but only if the BBC is wholeheartedly committed to change and shows it by delivering real diversity.

    Diversity, that is, which is not only about the colour of your skin, or who you choose to sleep with, but which is also about political beliefs and opinions. As of now the BBC is the “citadel of woke”; it treats with contempt conservative beliefs; it seems to harbour something near hatred for the history of the country it supposedly serves.

    If some of this grotesque imbalance can be remedied by hiring new personnel and if, in addition, a new way of monitoring its journalism is adopted there is a chance the BBC can be saved from itself. Without that it is difficult to see how trust in the organisation can ever be restored.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2021/05/25/bbc-cannot-trusted-keep-bbc-honest-nor-can-ofcom/

       26 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      Phil, I gave you a ‘like’ purely on the strength of the first sentence of your post. I’d like to give you another for putting up the text of the Robin Aikin piece in the DT.

         6 likes

      • Fedup2 says:

        Up2
        I guess you dont bother reading cut and pastes either . I wont bother again. Its a pain in the arse doing them and if the like of you cant be bothered i will give up on that strand for this site .

           1 likes

        • Up2snuff says:

          Sorry, Fed. Many apologies. I tend to automatically ‘like’ your posts, anyway. (Oooh, there’s some toadying for you!)

          Think I did read it but had forgotten. Am getting old and can’t keep up with the pace of life here* . . . ……..

          (* see my post at start of Midweek Thread for evidence)

             1 likes

          • Fedup2 says:

            Nah – eff it – no more cut and pastes from me . Why bother if people don’t even scan the site .

            I will will leave the cut and pasting to the trolls and if you want to read the DT – spend £4 a month on it .

               1 likes

            • Banania says:

              It is costing me 75p a month. I am not saying it is worth it, mind you.

                 0 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Philip 2 – i guess you dont bother reading the comments of other people here.

      Go back to 403pm today and see what i posted .

      I wont be doing cut and pastes if people like you cant be bothered to look .

      New thread – if you can be bothered reading .

         0 likes

      • Philip_2 says:

        FedUp – My humble apologies to all. Guilty as charged. I do skip a few posts now and then in haste. Sorry! I should get out more.

           3 likes

    • Banania says:

      The BBC is irreformable.

         2 likes

  14. digg says:

    Another UK school headmaster has to go down and prostrate himself in front of the Muslims in his area, this time over the pupils right to fly Palestine flags at the school.

    https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/25/protest-at-school-as-headteacher-calls-palestinian-flag-call-to-arms-14640198/

    The Muslim communities are rapidly growing in size, particularly in UK Northern towns and are beginning to feel emboldened and therefore launching their first assaults on British values and it can only increase.

    In my opinion there is little doubt that the Muslim population expects a time to come when they can freely dictate the laws and rules of the land.

    The alternative is to end up like the Israelis fighting a constant battle against a foe who will never accept the current norm until they hold the reins of power.

    Britain needs to come to it’s senses and quickly before it becomes open warfare. They will not stop until they are top of the heap.

    So the big question is, is this is a deliberate plan to overthrow the UK and if so is it really in the UK’s best interests to continue to import so many every day of every week of every year from every Muslim Country in the World?

    I believe that the vast majority of these arrivers are NOT seeking safety and a better life, they are invited invaders in disguise and are funded for their journey by the Muslim overlords.

    The overwhelming majority of those landing on our shores are Muslims, now why would that be?

    Overturning this tide of hate coming our way will take grit, courage, determination and strength particularly from our leaders so a dismal outlook I’m afraid and the invaders know it!

    If the British public, especially the young don’t wake up to what is really happening they are in for a massive shock. They can say goodbye to progressive music, liberal dress standards, free-speech, partying and drinking and dare I say it particularly non-hetero-normal lifestyles!

       35 likes

  15. Emmanuel Goldstein says:

    Anybody watching tv today could be forgiven for thinking they were in Africa.

       20 likes

  16. Jack in the Green says:

    Quite right FedUp, I knew it was Woke Central all along. I still can’t believe the Stasi could be so prescient with their channel naming. Perhaps they knew something we didn’t!

       4 likes