216 Responses to Weekend 17th February 2024

  1. Northern Voter says:

    Sorry girls, I was lurking.

       16 likes

  2. Thoughtful says:

    Well here’s te video I promised in the last thread. Don’t be fooled by this guys working class demeanor he’s a multi millionaire maths genius who was top of his class at the LSE and then joined citibank where he was their number one trader. When he talks about inequality it’s not from the usual standpoint, he’s used to earning £2 million a year and he’s talking about the extinction of the middle class in Britain.

    He talks of the ordinary people using money to buy products and services, while the wealthy buy assets they are buying the things your childen/grandchildren need such as houses, and how is some youth in their 30s going to compete against a multimillionaire for a home they want to buy?

    It’s worth a watch for one of the most intelligent people around.

       16 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      I picked on someone talking about the class system in the UK the other day – there is the benefits class – the working class – and the inherited class …. That sort of rings a bell – the geezer from ilford is just too much …. White powered …

         7 likes

      • MarkyMark says:

        Political class? – cannot be effected by consequences.
        Celebrity class? – cannot do anything wrong.

           6 likes

  3. Sluff says:

    In their lunatic search for equality at all costs, the BBC continue to big up women’s football. But what does the public think ?

    At the time of writing, a Have Your Say on the Women’s so-called ‘Superleague’ has, after 8 hours, attracted a magnificent…..114 responses.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68315967

    A way to go, BBC. A way to go.

       29 likes

    • JohnC says:

      … and 12 hours later there are only 117 comments and the highest rated comment has 11 likes.

      Just the BBC trying to force the agenda against what the public want again.

      By yet another of the BBC’s finest quota employees:
      emma-smith-12.jpeg.256x256_q100_crop-smart.jpg

         27 likes

  4. Foscari says:

    I know that there are more important topics to
    write about on ” Biased.” BUT has anybody any
    idea how celebrities are picked to go on ” Celebrity
    Mastermind?”
    Do the producers ask them do they really know anything
    about their specialist subject? For example if their subject
    is the two times table. do they even ask them what 2 times 2
    equals? Or if the subject is spelling their names. Might
    they ask them if their name in Norman , How many N’S are
    there in Norman?
    Or as Manuel from Faulty Towers used to say . ” I know
    nothing.” Or is really all about “quotas” and nothing else
    really matters. Getting nothing correct on their specialist
    subject. is not important. Ticking the right boxes to get on
    the programme . Is all that counts.

       28 likes

  5. Sluff says:

    Since when have high taxes and big government produced economic growth?

    Some people actually believe the solution to our problems is to tax more and spend more on the NHS. The current government seem to believe this every bit as much as Red Labour.

    I am completely amazed. How thick can they be?

       36 likes

  6. Emmanuel Goldstein says:

    On Talk TV, plank of the week, they mentioned recruitment and the Forces going for the diverse lot.

    Here’s a suggestion.

    Get a whole load of them trained up. It shouldn’t take long as they are all young fighting fit men.
    Next, tell them they are going on exercise.
    This exercise will be a beach landing type with all the ships and landing craft.
    Put them all into the landing crafts and do a beach landing, they could use the D Day landing beaches in France.
    Then, have all the landing craft rejoin their boats and return to GB leaving the enrichers back where they were before crossing the Channel.

       31 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      An advert for the army popped up whilst I was watching YouTube last night. I honestly thought it was for the Indian Army, and a women’s battalion at that. Not exactly ‘die-verse’ when single group predominates.

         27 likes

      • Rob in Cheshire says:

        Join the British Army. Get sent abroad to fight in wars which are nothing to do with us. If you are not killed or maimed, expect to be sued by ambulance chasing lawyers, or even your own government, when you get back.

        Yes please! Where do I sign?

           14 likes

  7. Flotsam says:

    Attending many of the pro Palestine and pro illegal immigrant demonstrations it’s notable how many white women there are. Looking to be mostly middle aged plus, these deluded, do-gooder, middle class sex starved women will probably start marrying said illegal immigrants. That will scupper any attempt to remove them for good.

       38 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      There have been several studies on this, often by left-leaning academics. A lot of these women are in their 20s and 30s and childless, with many of them destined to remain childless and eventually become cat women. They often refer to migrants as ‘childlike’, ‘innocent’ and ‘vulnerable’, and the theory is that they appeal to their frustrated motherhood aspirations, which are biological in nature and not impacted by their politics or social conditioning.

         33 likes

  8. tomo says:

    So, Trump has to pay damages eh?

    In a splurge of “how will he pay?” detail, Nada Tawfik, Madeline Halpert, & Kayla Epstein evade the “cui bono” part….

    The BBC are wholly reticent about *who* those damages are to be paid to?

    AS usual…. the BBC evade + omit uncomfortable facts.

       21 likes

  9. JohnC says:

    Trump ordered to pay $354m in New York fraud case
    https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-68132436

    So we have a case brought by a Democrat Attorney general and the case handled by another Democrat Judge with no jury. All while Trump is trying to run an election campaign in which Biden said on camera that they will use every means they can to stop him running. In yet another ‘landmark’ case.

    It seems all these charges against Trump are that or ‘unprecedented’ or ‘historic’ which makes the fact it’s political persecution as clear as day.

    And the BBC don’t mention any of it. The whole report (apart from one small paragraph) is just quotations of people telling us how bad Trump is.

    Yet whenever the supreme court is mentioned, the BBC tell us they will be biased because they have a Republican majority.

    Scandalous bias yet again from the BBC.

       40 likes

    • tomo says:

      Yep – “cui bono”

      The jury said there was no crime … Judge Engoron ignored the jury.

      Don’t mention the coordinated lawfare action involving the sticky fingered Fanny Willis

         17 likes

  10. Deborah says:

    Watching GBNews and tonight they have Joanna Joejue on their panel. They also have Tom Slater (Spiked) and James Heale (Spectator). The young woman is Left supporting and as thick as porridge. I am not racist, Amy Nickell Turner sounds just as thick. It is hard to think of any men who sound quite as stupid as these two women. I am also thinking of Dawn Butler and Claudia Webbe. (I will never forget her Belarus moment). Does the Labour Party and TV attract stupid women or are there people behind the scenes thinking they are a good contrast to intelligent men? Having written this, I take it back. Prince Harry has just be mentioned, is just as stupid.

       36 likes

    • BRISSLES says:

      I agree Deb, where the “bookers” for this channel dig up these people heaven knows. I saw Amy Knows-Nothing on Sky newspaper review and she knew she was out of her depth as the other male reviewer wiped the floor with her. As for that Joanna, well, like most young blacks, she’ll turn the conversation to racism in this country. And they have the nerve – like Luzzie Cundy to call themselves “broadcasters” or “political commentators ” Just waiting for thst drip Peter Andre to retitle himself. Switch off when he’s on, I mean, what the hell is he even doing on there ???

         9 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        Ladies,
        I disagree. It makes no difference whether a leftist is male or female, when they are confronted by facts and reasoned argument their arguments fall to pieces. The shame is that only on GB News does this ever happen. If the MSM wasn’t a leftist hyperglobalist cabal and interviewed and reported fairly the country would not be descending towards third world islamism.

           10 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      Amy Nickell Turner is easy on the eye, but as you say, thick as mince.

         7 likes

  11. tomo says:

       14 likes

  12. Fedup2 says:

    Lord Frost DT
    STARTS The lights have been flashing red on the Conservative Party’s flight deck for some time now. On Friday morning, a few more lit up. The plane is spinning to the ground fast. Some of the crew are pulling on parachutes and getting out while they can. But the passengers are still being told: don’t worry, we have a plan, we know what we are doing. Maybe there is a plan – but is it just to carry on doing the same thing until we hit the ground?

    If you had any hope that things were picking up for the Conservative Party – and I must admit I have had a few glimmers of it this year – Thursday night’s by-elections will, or should, have killed that off.

    The Kingswood result is roughly what you would expect from the current state of the polls – a 16 per cent swing, consistent with a heavy defeat nationally. But Wellingborough is a truly terrible result. A 28 per cent swing is much, much worse than the national polls. At a national level, it means utter disaster.

    Now, of course, by-elections are different, and both of these had special factors. It’s not obvious that choosing the partner of Peter Bone, the previous Tory MP who had been expelled from Parliament, was the best strategy for holding on to Wellingborough. And in Kingswood, Chris Skidmore’s precipitate departure to join the green bandwagon, and the imminent abolition of the seat itself, won’t have boosted enthusiasm. In neither place did the Tories really bother campaigning. So a bit of interpretative caution is justified.

    But you can’t hide the general picture – and it is the same as with all previous by-elections: Conservative voters didn’t come out and vote. In Wellingborough, Labour got the same number of votes as last time and in Kingswood, their vote actually fell by 5,000. But in the latter, nearly 20,000 Tories sat on their hands as did 25,000 in Wellingborough. When that many of our voters won’t vote for us, we aren’t going to win elections. It’s as simple as that.

    The other story of the night is of course the Reform Party. For the first time they delivered on their national poll ratings of 10-13 per cent of the vote. But they still got only 3-4,000 votes in elections where vast numbers of Tories stayed at home.

    Two decent Reform candidates
    These numbers still suggest that the positive appeal of Reform to Conservative voters is quite low – and this in elections where they had two decent candidates (which, to put it charitably, won’t be the case everywhere), which weren’t about choosing the government and accordingly where the “vote Reform, get Labour” slogan had little real purchase.

    Reform can hamstring us, they can certainly damage us badly, but I don’t think they can get ahead of us.

    I don’t want to give up on the general election. I am frightened by what the Labour coalition of anti-Brexit self-righteous woke control freaks, on the one hand, and Marxists with a dash of anti-Semitism on the other, might do to our country. But we have to acknowledge that many voters seem less troubled. So we must do more than try to make the flesh creep and give people a positive reason to vote for us.

    That brings me back to what I have been saying for the last few years, both within and outside government: if we want the many Conservatives in this country to vote for us, we have to give them Conservative policies and show why these fit into a Conservative vision and philosophy for the country as a whole.

    But time is running out now. I still hope the March budget may confound expectations, but the apparent outsourcing of the decision-making to the OBR doesn’t leave me optimistic.

    So the plane is spinning faster; the ground is getting closer; and only serious corrective action can now make a difference.ENDS

    Frosty is deluded and so out of touch – has no idea what crap party he is part of …

       25 likes

    • Doublethinker says:

      I read and two other columns in the DT this morning, one by the PM and one by Camilla Tominey.
      The PM basically wants a coalition of the right to keep Labour out. That was a viable argument until the last decade or so when the Tory have proven to be a Trojan Horse stuffed full of neo liberal hyperglobalist leftists who welcome immigrants with open arms and can’t wait to push Net Zero down our throats. So it’s on yer bike to Rishi.
      Camilla was much more on the money when she prophesied that Reform would grow much larger by the next election and wreck the Tory party from stem to stern such that even with very few seats it would dictate Tory policy when they were in opposition. With Nigel Farage on board they would do even better.
      With a Europe swinging to the right and a Trumpian USA policies which put nation states and the well being of their citizens first will be adopted everywhere but in the UK under Labour. At the next but one GE even the British will vote for parties of the right , whatever they may be at that time!
      We can only hope that after another few years of Labour mayhem the country can be rescued from the entrenched forces of Islam and Wokism.

         12 likes

      • Up2snuff says:

        Fed and Double, a musical comment from me:

           5 likes

      • moggiemoo says:

        I suspect that after another couple of general elections the ‘right wing’ will be Marxists and the left will have fallen off the end of the rule.

           8 likes

        • Fedup2 says:

          The script is that red labour come in – tax everything in sight and then get thrown out in 5 years time – to be replaced by a Party of the Right . But my fear is that the huge majority red labour gets enables them to do just about anything they want – particularly fixing the voting system to make Britain an absolute one party State …..

          …. I think they’ll do stuff like increase VAT – cut tax free savings – retain the tax thresholds – and wack out all sort of stealth taxes – travel taxes –

          But I was thinking about the challenge a true Right wing government wouid have to meet – for instance – withdrawing from treaties which stop us dealing with invaders . A lot of people will find it ‘distasteful ‘ – but there is a need for toughness on so many fronts – welfare – civil service – which will be difficult to achieve ….

             11 likes

  13. tomo says:

       18 likes

  14. tomo says:

       12 likes

  15. vlad says:

    How sickening to see Biden paying tribute to Navalny – while conducting the very same lawfare against Trump as Putin did against Navalny.

    “Navalny had been held in jail since 2021 on charges wiely viewed as politically motivated.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68316979

       40 likes

    • JohnC says:

      Just what I was thinking as I was reading vlad.

      The Left here are guilty of everything they criticise Putin for.

      I particularly like these whinges from that BBC article:

      ‘On state TV channels, the media outlets with the biggest audiences in Russia, there has been minimal coverage of Navalny’s death, and the first reports were largely slow to come and perfunctory.’

      Exactly like the BBC do with all the inconvenient violence and murder articles by the blacks in London and immigrants then.

      ‘These reports provided no contextual information of who Navalny was, nor why he was in prison.’

      Again, just like the very basic facts-only reports we get from the BBC when blacks or Muslims murder each other. I still remember the Muslim woman burned to death on the street by her husband and his brother which only made a sub-pane in the news, quickly disappeared and was never mentioned again.

      ‘When a liberal politician appearing on another popular state TV channel tried to express his condolences on Navalny’s death he was cut off by the programme’s host, who asked him what this had to do with the topic they were discussing.’

      Again exactly like the BBC HYS moderation which uses ‘off-topic’ as a reason to delete perfectly reasonable comments which might not be directly on-topic, but are definitely related to it.

      And of course the huge elephant in the room for this one is how the Democrats are going after Republicans just the same. The Jan 06 trials and the persecution of Trump are scandalous – but as we know by now, it’s only wrong for the Left when other people do it.

         39 likes

  16. Ian Rushlow says:

    A short, balanced, reality check on Navalny from a slightly unexpected source (this guy is often a shrill for American exceptionalism):

       7 likes

  17. Flotsam says:

    The various Trump legal cases, both Civil and Criminal are proceeding along what might be broadly described as relatively conventional lines, at least for the time being. That is not to say that these cases are reasonable or fair. Any negative verdicts would, more than likely, be appealed. There is a problem however, if American Law is the same as the UK in Civil cases, that permission would have to given by the Judge for ‘Leave to Appeal’. An interesting tactic that Biden/Democrats might employ would be to find an excuse for a Judge to employ ‘Contempt of Court’ which would give power to immediately imprison Trump. I think the Judge’s power in Contempt is absolute and there cannot be any intervention.

       20 likes

  18. pugnazious says:

    Different strokes for different folks.

    Putin kills his opponents off.

    Biden rigs the legal system to take down his opponents and the media to cover it all up for him and to provide the justification for his autocratic abuses.

       29 likes

  19. Thoughtful says:

    Shame they don’t do anything about it though

       12 likes

  20. vlad says:

    One by one, the long march through our institutions has all but destroyed this country. The military was one of the last to hold out but, tragically, that too is being taken over.

    Article in the DT: “The Army officer exodus is about to get much worse. Woke new housing rules set by a weak Ministry of Defence undermine the attractiveness of service life.” – Iain Duncan Smith

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/16/army-officer-exodus-about-to-get-much-worse

       28 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Vlad – it does make one wonder just how worse will it be under red labour – if 14 years of blue labour can do eagerly undermine the army ?

         15 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      This Is Belonging 2018 – TV – Keeping my Faith – This is Belonging – Army Jobs

         5 likes

  21. Fedup2 says:

    BBC News – I wonder if the bBC can link the death of an opposition type in Russia to the persecution of an opposition politician in the USA? If Obama could kill Trump he would – Obama wants that 4th term ….as does the BBC …..

       29 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      BBC N. America and Verify to look at this?

      https://x.com/trhlofficial/status/1758596442468295025?s=61
      Agents of the state claimed Mar a Lago was worth $18Mil.

      Let me break down for you exactly how reetarded this is:

      Mar-a-Lago was built for $7Mil, 100 years ago, which is equivalent to $122Mil today.

      Since then, it’s been updated, maintained, and appreciated— appreciation factors? Location, supply and demand, condition, updates, etc.

      Appraisers often use cost comparison to appraise properties. What is that? Well, A 5 bedroom 6 bathroom 13,000ft.² oceanfront home in Palm Beach Gardens recently sold for $20,000,000.

      2.4acres of oceanfront property in Palm Beach gardens sold for $18,500,000

      Mar a Lago has 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms. It’s 62,500 ft.² and on 17acres of land.

      See how reetarded this is? Do you see how evil the state can be when it wants to shut someone up?

      They are agents of the state too, after all.

         24 likes

  22. Fedup2 says:

    Not directly the BBC – but the outgoing green card occupant of 10 Downing Street writes some plan in the telegraph today . I didn’t bother reading it as it really would be a wasted minute – but the comments ? …. Wow – 100% vitriol – most going to reform and promising never to vote blue labour again . Me too .

       29 likes

  23. Guest Who says:

    https://x.com/alex_oloyede2/status/1758563607720112594?s=61
    🇷🇺🇺🇸 The US government can solve a murder mystery in a Russian prison, but has no answers about a high profile prisoner, in a US Federal prison, committing suicide while in protective custody.
    Did I get that right??

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/26/nick-robinson-bbc-radio-4-today-programme-ratings-slump/

    Telling folk only what the bbc wants them to hear is another reason.

       27 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Guest – bit like the democrats/ bbc going on about political prisoners in Russia when there are plenty in the US. If people here had more courage ( eg Tommy Robinson ) then there’d be more banged up and deaded too …

         20 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Weirdly, the U.K. media have the ‘racism’ shut down honed here much better than the US.

        Trump has handed his opponents a bunch of open goals but not that one.

           7 likes

  24. AsISeeIt says:

    So much official regime propaganda plus some shocking and real consequences edition

    The bromance may have waned a little of late but something must have rekindled the flame… Starmer is back on the cover of the Times and he’s getting a nice write up: Who is the real Keir Starmer? By his wife and friends – so no fear of partiality or predisposition there then [sarc]

    ‘Putin is responsible’ – Biden speaks out after report of Navalny’s death – shrieks our BBC’s own top headline and they like the pound shop junior Guardian that is the ‘i’ newspaper for their top online press pick this morning. The youth-orientated left-leaning organ is just as shrill, just as keen on the old scare quotes: ‘Murdered by the Kremlin’ (‘i’)

    The corporate globalist voice of the Financial Times has a more moderated factual tone but the implication is clear: Fierce Putin opponent Navalny dies suddenly in Arctic prison… Cause of death ‘being clarified’… Biden blames Kremlin

    Jeffrey Epstein unfortunately was unavailable for comment

    The neocon US poodle forever war Tory boys warm to their task: Putin will pay for what he did to my husband (Daily Mail); ‘Evil’ Putin will answer for what he did to my husband… Grant Shapps calls on allies to ‘battle against terrible regime’ (Daily Express)

    When will the West learn that it’s all well and good winning the propaganda war… but the facts on the ground are not looking quite so fine and dandy are they?

    Ukraine war: Is Avdiivka’s fall a sign Russia is turning the tide? …Ukrainians are having to ration ammunition and manage low morale. And Avdiivka may not be the only withdrawal Kyiv is considering (BBC)

    Have you noticed there’s a distinct correlation between Ukrainian defeats on the battlefield and our mainstream media turning up the propaganda level to eleven?

    World leaders blame Russian regime for death of opposition leader in penal colony (Telegraph) – World? Really? Or is it just the collective West?

    We seem to have gotten over this incident: Khashoggi was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi operatives. His body was dismembered and disposed of. The consulate had been secretly bugged by the Turkish government and Khashoggi’s final moments were captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public. (Thank you Wiki)

    Britain has invited Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for an official visit later this year, as the two countries seek to deepen… (Reuters, August 2023)

    We may collectively enjoy the memory ability of Joe Biden’s pet goldfish but the world – as the Telegraph would have it, notices our western hypocrisies

    UK PM Sunak, Saudi crown prince to meet in move condemned after killing of journalist. Meeting comes as Britain seeks to develop trade and investment relations with the Saudis and diversify energy sources after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Critics oppose Sunak’s plans to meet a man whom Western leaders believe ordered the murder in 2018 of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (South China Morning Post, August 2023)

    Our favourite cartoonist Matt in the Telegraph keeps his humour on a sound conservative track and rarely succumbs to shilling for the latest thing. No distracting Putin gags thereabouts this morning. Instead a bemused-looking capital commuter observes a notice outside his railway station: “New London Rail Lines. Delays due to problems with virtue signalling”

    Just as the Daily Express seems to have Esther Rantzen continuously on speed dial from her sick bed, our media have established a direct line to: Esther Ghey ‘I refuse to harbour hate for Brianna’s killers’ (Telegraph) – So tell us, given your media spotlight position of late, where exactly are your regime complient campainging efforts going to be directed then?

    Brianna Ghey’s mother and Molly Russell’s father join forces to combat online harm (BBC); Brianna Ghey’s mother warns tech bosses more children will die without action… ‘I want to make things better’: Esther Ghey on her hopes for online reform (Guardian)

    Many of our youth do seem to be a tad demoralised recently and… how shall we say this… disorienated, these days? Dysphoria may perhaps be the word I’m thinking of?

    An interesting diagnosis of the problem is asserted here: Talking to the Guardian, the 37-year-old food technologist [Esther Ghey] said tech bosses were also culpable when it came to the wave of anxiety and mental health problems affecting children, which she said had led to “a complete lack of resilience in young people” (Guardian)

    Hmmmm… so nothing to do with this then…?

    Officials urged tough Covid messaging… The recommendations were drawn up by civil servants working for a team in the Cabinet Office in charge of government Covid campaigns… ethnic minorities and younger people – were among those believed to have a “reduced fear of the virus”… recommended stronger warnings of the “shocking and real” consequences of getting Covid, similar to hard-hitting campaigns in recent years to demonstrate the health dangers of smoking (BBC)

    Officials apologize for UK ad showing Santa Claus with COVID-19, saying it wasn’t meant for children (Business Insider)

    Let’s lighten the mood somewhat – although come to think of it none of us honestly relish a visit to the dentist for a check up

    Checks on foreign dentists in NHS to be dropped to ease crisis (Telegraph)

    “Open wide please… wider… that’s right… the nurse will have to act as our translator… upper right, one occlusal… three Albanian… two Tatar… lower left four Ghanaian… one Upper Volta… two Lithuanians… now take a sip of my amateur distilled in a shed pink drink… you’ll want to spit that out… we can’t afford a hygienist but we do have two newly arrived keen squeegee merchants, Mo and Ali”

       23 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Asiseeit … yesterday …? Anyway – thanks for the info about foreign dentists . I might set up a recruitment agency in Islamabad or Calais to sell dental school certificates ……. After all ‘vetting ‘ wouid be racist wouldn’t it ? And the vetters won’t have been vetted either …( 77 brigade to file )

         14 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      AISI, Brainna Ghey’s mother was a ‘food technologist’ could that explain where Brianna’s eating disorder came from or was that the parental divorce and the new boyfriend of the Mother?

         6 likes

  25. Guest Who says:

    https://x.com/bbcwomanshour/status/1758756918812889112?s=61
    ‘I just thought: Somebody has to tell this story. We have to know what our NHS has done for us’
    ITV’s Breathtaking tells the story of NHS staff battling to save patients in the pandemic. It’s based on Dr Rachel Clarke’s memoir.
    @jofroggatt & @doctor_oxford joined us to discuss.

    Not Drs Shola or Rosena?

       8 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      ‘I just thought: Somebody has to tell this story. We have to know what our NHS has done for us’

      ……………….

      Nottingham: Mum found under coat in A&E died days later
      Published
      9 February
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68243636

         11 likes

      • Fedup2 says:

        Don’t forget to clap – they going on strike again £ ?

           15 likes

        • MarkyMark says:

          Statistics attained by Labour show that roughly 120,695 people died in England while waiting for treatment. Last year on NHS waiting lists, more than 120,000 people died while waiting for hospital treatment – this figure is a record-high number of deaths and is double the 60,000 patients who died between 2017-2018.12 Sept 2023

             8 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Also Beeboid Wimmin

      https://x.com/omnologos/status/1758788058567073796?s=61
      Hello @BBCWomansHour please keep ignoring this extraordinary story of misogyny. I understand that climate change is too important to think about women scientists

      Lawyers, lawfare, discrimination and selective media.

      A heady minx.

         9 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      I expect it will show doctors refusing to use the cheap and effective early treatments? Maybe not. I doubt that Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine will be mentioned. I shan’t be watching.

         7 likes

  26. tomo says:

    The BBC news cycle is about to move on from The Post Office …. after carefully skirting the topic of nailing the swines who did it and opening the restitution floodgates for some eye-for-eye action.

    £10K payout?- from public funds no doubt, when the first funders of any restitution should be the perpetrators – who as far as I can see haven’t lost a penny.

       13 likes

  27. tomo says:

    Quality Front Bench there /sarc

       11 likes

  28. Sluff says:

    In the Telegraph last Thursday.

    According to Shell, Asian demand for LNG will not peak until the 2040s.
    China’s coal-based steel sector accounts for more emissions than the total emissions of the UK, Germany, and Turkey combined.

    And now, over to Justin Rowlatt who will be reporting on the latest cycling lanes introduced by Sad Dick Khan……..

       20 likes

    • Emmanuel Goldstein says:

      url=https://postimg.cc/McmYkGgH]IMG-0365.jpg[/url]

         38 likes

      • atlas_shrugged says:

        I think damage to the road is to the 4th power. So if the ICE car is 1/2 the weight it does 1/16th of the damage. The ICE car is even better than suggested above.

           10 likes

        • Scroblene says:

          The roads around here (The Weald of Kent), have huge surface problems, and the patches which are applied last about as long as a bluelabour promise!

          It’s worse in Sussex, and thank goodness we have had a mild winter so far, as the roads would soon be perfect for looking like a track in an illegal’s ex-country if/when we get another decent cold spell…

          Still, that’s what we pay the poll tax for – plenty of holes!

             8 likes

  29. tomo says:

       5 likes

  30. Fedup2 says:

    From our biased correspondent- highly entertaining- not meant to be Bowen spouting clever anti israel stuff – moaning about the msm not being allowed in combat zones ….
    Would be great if they did – bowen the hostage …

    Then thr Trump hating nick bryant really pouring out the anti – it was about books biden might read – when in real life biden wouldnt know what a book is now

       16 likes

  31. micknotmike says:

    You have to hand it to the bbc – front page headline –

    “Is Russia turning the tide in Ukraine?”

    Bang up-to-date reporting from the nations finest. Only 18 months late with the news. That’s approximately how long the tide has been in Russia’s favour.

    Still, Mr. zelensky, Mr. biden and friends have made a lot of loot and it’s only cost the lives of half a million of ukraines finest young men.

    An agreement had been reached in Istanbul early in 2022, which could have prevented this. Then biden sent Boris the poodle to Kiev. “We’ve got your back”. Oh yes, you most certainly have.

       17 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      The might of the Russian army has spent months trying to take one Ukrainian town. They will now occupy a ruin not worth having. Hardly blitzkrieg is it?

         7 likes

      • BRISSLES says:

        Bit of a pedantic point, but when did THE Ukraine become just “Ukraine “, and should we now say United Kingdom without “the” in front of it.

           8 likes

        • moggiemoo says:

          The UK is made up of 4 countries and they are treated as such. The Soviet Union was made up of countries but viewed by Moscow as regions in the same way we see regions in this country. So, the Midlands, the North West etc. As an ‘independent’ country the ‘the’ is neither required nor wanted. That’s my understanding of it.

             4 likes

          • Fedup2 says:

            Got to admire the ruthlessness of Putin – the dead politician will have been cremated by now …. And his calculation that the soft West will get tired of Ukraine … looks about right ….
            … I suppose he’ll go for somewhere soft like Moldova before a clever undermining of a NATO country ….

               4 likes

      • micknotmike says:

        Well it’s a fair point Rob, I’ll give you that. My main point concerned the bbc reporting of events, which border on the film of “comical ali” in Iraq, talking about counter-offensives when the American tanks could clearly be seen in the background. Putin’s actions came about due to NATO expanding ever-eastward, despite assurances to the contrary. Whether you agree with his actions or not, this is his “Cuban missile crisis” moment.
        As I say though, my main complaint is with the bbc propaganda, which is dialled up to 11 on this one.

        PS Bris, I don’t think it’s ever been “The Ukraine”. The Ukraine is a region, Ukraine is a country. We don’t say “United Kingdom”, nor do we say “The Scotland” or “The Wales”.

        Disclaimer : I could be completely wrong, of course. No malice intended.

           9 likes

        • Rob in Cheshire says:

          Some countries have a “the”, such as the Argentine, the Gambia or the DRC. I quite like it. But Russian (and I suppose Ukrainian) has no word for “the”, so that is not what they call the Ukraine.

             4 likes

          • Ian Rushlow says:

            Correct – most Slavic languages do not have definite articles (‘the’) or indefinite articles (‘a’). For the few that do (e.g. Bulgarian) it is added as a suffix at the end of the word. There is no way of saying ‘The Ukraine’ in Ukrainian or Russian. Or indeed in most languages – articles are much more common in Western European languages than elsewhere in the World and don’t exist in Chinese, Korean, Chinese, Turkish, Hindi, Indonesian, Swahili etc.

            Disclaimer: I speak Russian and am married to a professional linguist and translator.

               9 likes

            • StewGreen says:

              “The Ukraine” I do have on the ground experience when I stayed in Ukraine before the first invasion.
              Locals in the traveller’s club made a huge point that in English we should never say “the Ukraine”cos having the definite article implies possession ie it’s equivalent to saying Ukraine belongs to Russia
              I had a laugh that these university students were making up false rules about my own native language.
              I pointed out that they were wrong and that we used “the” about other countries eg The Lebanon, the Philippines, the Seychelles, the Maldives, the Netherlands, The Congo, The Gambia

              The conventions on use of “the” are complex eg seas and rivers ..those last 2 countries are named after rivers

              Also often things that don’t take in singular, take it in the plural
              eg isles and mountains .. The Andes the Bahamas, the Channel Isles

              Names made out of an adjective and noun seem to take “the”
              The United KIngdom, The Soviet Union
              Names with “of” in then seem to take “the”
              The Republic of Taiwan, The University of Bath
              Whereas it’s Bath University, and Leeds United etc.

              Reddit says : The whole ‘the Ukraine’ thing most likely comes from a translation error. ‘
              Украина’ (Ukraine) means ‘borderlands’ in Russian and Ukrainian,
              so “я в Украине” = “I’m in the borderlands”
              So some Russian speakers perceive saying The Ukraine as The borderlands
              ( I was writing at the same time as KingKP)

              I seem to remember finding that old Victorian newspapers called it the Ukraine
              but I couldn’t prove that now

                 6 likes

        • kingkp says:

          The word Ukraine derives from the Russian word окраина, meaning on the edge of or on the outskirts. For example
          Я живу на окраине города – I live on the outskirts of the town.
          Above we have окраина in the singular prepositional case following the preposition на because there is no motion implied in the verb (similar to German) and город (city) in the genitive singular. As noted already there are no definite or indefinite articles in Russian.
          The word was used as early as the 12th century when the area of Ukraine formed the south-eastern extremity of Kiev-Rus’.
          The term ‘The Ukraine’ only has a meaning in English and other countries in the West because I suspect ‘The Ukraine’ was once one of THE Soviet Republics and these countries use articles in their language.

             4 likes

  32. Cooper_Man says:

    At the top of the page Sluff and JohnC mention the HYS on the Beeb’s webshite concerning women’s football and the lack of responses to it, namely only 117.

    Well it’s worse than that for 79 of those comments have been deleted, presumably because they were unenthusiastic towards women’s football and/or overly critical of the Beeb’s relentless pushing of its agenda. So in the end, the HYS has all of 38 comments! Nice try BBC, but no one’s interested.

       25 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      The BBC are very excited that the wimmin’s football between Arsenal (sort of) and Manchester United (sort of) was in front of an alleged ‘record crowd’. In fact, it’s apparent that they consider the attendance to be more important than the result.

      Here’s what they don’t tell you. At the Emirates stadium, the attendance is NOT the number of people who actually go to the match. Rather, it is the number of tickets which have been sold or allocated. Go to a proper football match (i.e. the men’s football) at the Emirates and notice how many empty seats there are, even though the stadium is always described as ‘full’. One reason for this is that they have large numbers of wealthy season ticket holders, who don’t bother to go to the games. Arsenal are not the only team guilty of this, but they are a well known example.

      So, one possibility is that today’s ‘attendance’ of 60,000 at the Emirates could be made of up of, say, 30,000 real people, of whom the majority have received free or very low cost tickets anyway, with the other 30,000 being imaginary attendees who were given free tickets but didn’t bother turning up.

         18 likes

      • Fedup2 says:

        Ian let’s face it – girl footy is so mediocre that sky won’t even buy it … they no there’s no commercial reality in it …

           17 likes

  33. tomo says:

    And who’s to blame?

    GGh-Wcbr-WYAAZRX.jpg

       15 likes

    • taffman says:

      tomo
      “And who’s to blame?”

      The present false Tory government.
      They were in power when we achieved Brexit and are still in power now , just.

      “Stop the Boats ”
      Simples.

         23 likes

      • moggiemoo says:

        I love the idea that you think the government are in power.

           16 likes

        • Fedup2 says:

          Yes – best I can come up with is ‘regime ‘ as it’s never been a government – tories ? Never ever again ….

             15 likes

  34. Fedup2 says:

    The BBC ‘give me more tax money show” – called “moneybox “…. It seems the waiting time to get probate via the government office has at least doubled …. The reason “ a big increase in unexplained deaths ( ) “ …. There was no ‘because of the covid vaccine “ inside the commas …. Look squirrels …

       15 likes

  35. Tabs says:

    On the BBC News channel there was a short interview with Kier Starmer:

    Starmer, “if Labour win, we will work with whoever the American people vote in as president”

    BBC, “Even Trump?”

    Starmer, ” whoever the American people vote in as president”

    Why does the BBC think Labour shouldn’t work with Trump? Are they thinking we should boycott Trump if US democracy is allowed to run?

       32 likes

    • BigBrotherCorporation says:

      Like him, or loathe him, it’s got to be easier for anyone to work with Trump than with the current, dementia ridden, UK hating incumbent (or should that be incompetant?)

         25 likes

      • moggiemoo says:

        Surely, with a dummy/mannequin/cardboard cutout you just do what you want?

           9 likes

        • Scroblene says:

          At least with President Trump, we won’t be ‘at the back of the queue’, as promised by Bamalam during the second of his three stints in The White House…

          The trouble may be, however, that Mr Trump, being the consummate businessman, will not wish to tolerate the immature squealings amd shrieks coming from the new redlabourites, none of whom have come from a proper working background which creates capital!

             8 likes

  36. tomo says:

       28 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      The whole trial was a set up. As if banks just accept the valuation which a borrower gives them for collateral. Has the judge never heard of banks employing their own surveyors? Whatever figure Trump gave, the banks must have been happy with their valuation of his properties. They advanced him the money and got paid back with interest. This was just a show trial in a Democrat one party state. Disgusting.

         23 likes

      • Scroblene says:

        The promised appeals should take all these ‘cases’ well into the new year and beyond, by which time, the swamp will hopefully be steadily draining…

        I’ll need some good news when he’s elected, because the trepidation I’m already experiencing for the time when redlabour eventually get in is palpable!

        Reform just have to up their game, so why can’t they get a couple of Tories to quit, force a by-election, and then represent themselves to their electorate as Reform candidates?

           8 likes

  37. Lunchtime Loather says:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68325842

    Now, I’ve not really listened to Radio 1 since Terry Wogan did the afternoon show, and I have no idea who Jordan North is, but…

    “BBC News has contacted North’s management, and Global, which owns Capital FM, for comment.”. And guess what? They didn’t get one from either source. Why do they bother? Why do they even mention it?

    This is becoming a regular thing now.

       10 likes

  38. Guest Who says:

    https://x.com/johnsimpsonnews/status/1758901625932972475?s=61
    Nearly 75% of journalists killed in 2023 died in Israel’s war on Gaza: CPJ | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

    Given he is quoting AJ, and a headline inferring a ‘war on Gaza’ with no apparent cause, is it possible Simpo has considered some of these noble seekers of truth may not have been solely scribes?

       15 likes

    • Deborah says:

      With such a round figure, I assume 4 journalists have died, 3 in Gaza. Could they possibly have been embedded with UNWRA or Hamas?

         5 likes

  39. tomo says:

    No apology for double posting this

       8 likes

  40. StewGreen says:

    In the old days, you had to have led a sin free life to get to Heaven
    .. Now you just pay someone £2000K in Calais to put you on a dingy
    Then the RNLI saints bring you in through the gates to Heaven.

       19 likes

    • Scroblene says:

      Or you could get these buses, F (bus routes 11, 15, 91, N11, N15, N26 and N91) & E (bus route 87) to get to ‘Heaven’ (qv) in Villiers Street…

      A good friend once told me that if he found himself in Gordon’s Wine Bar opposite, he knew he was p****d, but it was (relatively) easy to get up the stairs to Charing Cross station, but, finding the platform was always a challenge! The wine bar is a fabulous place and well worth a visit when the place opposite gets a bit ‘heaving’!

      I once went to Gordon’s with my business partner, and we had an interesting discussion with one-armed South African gentleman about something or other!

      What this has to do with the BBC, I don’t know, but Steve Allen once mentioned the ‘Heaven’ place on his LBC show before he was kicked out, so as he was a good mate of Dale Winton, there’s your connection!

         2 likes

  41. vlad says:

    London has fallen, as hundreds of thousands of Leftists and Islamo-fascists occupy the streets… again!
    Funny, they never seemed to care much as long as muslims were massacring other muslims throughout the Middle East and nearby countries.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68326846

       24 likes

  42. Thoughtful says:

    The Hague is on fire tonight as black migrants riot destroying everything they can get their hands on.

       25 likes

  43. Philip_2 says:

    Hooray! OFCOM to oversee BBC (false news) online*
    https://i.ibb.co/VCppP2j/ofcom-and-bbc.png

    The BBC likes to call it ‘News and Opinion’ which is exempt from bias accusations as defined by parliament TV License Broadcast Charter (that is has MUST be impartial), and yet clearly it is not, not if ever… because if it was – it could not claim the £175 TV license fee collection and admit that it was a ‘tool’ of whoever pays them. Today ‘Globalist’ net zero power trendies, and tomorrow, the socialist anarcho-marxist who need political propaganda to claim the planet has been stablised (again). And the BBC cannot lie, after all net zero is a unique opportunity to save the planet, is it not?

    BBC TV License SCAM
    And then, just when you think the BBC TV license could not get any more perverse and exploitative, another SCAM for the unwary who may think (stupidly) that the TV license will ‘Save The Planet’ or face ‘jail’ (for non-payment), perhaps both…!

    https://i.ibb.co/2kTyx3q/tv-license-scam.png

    Both of these nuggets, featured in this weeks ‘Computer Active’ magazine, warning weekly many of its readers on the huge increase of online SCAMS and so called bargains usually on FaceBook,. For some reason, The BBC seems to feature a lot in the SCAMS dept., hardly ever in The Guardian (BBC is its largest single client).

    Elsewhere (In other ‘Tory’ newspapers) the BBC fights off any claims that it is, – in any way – even a tiny bit -, ‘biased’. Its rather like denying the SKY is blue, because its ‘subjective’ and at night, not blue.. And because if the Sky was blue, and even IF proved to be that colour that would be called ‘prejudice’. So they would claim ‘balance’ can only be restored, by the BBC itseld as arbiter of good taste. who know the ‘truth’ and offer subjective and informed balance.

    Therefore the sky is ‘Brown’ and that will cost you £175 for a BBC TV colour license. You white racist.

    OFCOM will only accept your complaint, if and when you complain to the BBC first, that’s because, by previous agreement with ‘OFCOM’ by the BBC itself. This was designed to keep the number of BBC complaints down to a ‘manageable level’. So only 2% of complaints are received by OFCOM as the BBC don’t address (or respond to) all complaints. Even under FOI they can blank you out, with a cost claim limit (£240 max or other limit they invent). That is unlikely to change when you include the many BBC ‘official’ Channels TV and Radio that is looking for an audience to insult and ridicule. That’s us, the UK public forced to pay for it and watch as we do not in increasing numbers. Therefore the BBC must raise its TV license fee to pay for its wisdom and magnificent organ of state. Its mission, to undermine, reinforce whoever pays them ignoring the UK people forced to pay for it.

       11 likes

  44. tomo says:

    Can we send the Welsh Senned to Kampala, permanently?

       14 likes

  45. Sluff says:

    And now an advertisement for the International Health Servive.
    You know the one. It’s also known as the NHS and is funded entirely by taxation on British people..
    But somehow it has time and money to look after Senegalese Siamese twins

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68145224

    ‘….. They have round-the-clock care but go to a mainstream school in south Wales with their friends.’

    When the twins were born in Senegal in 2016, their parents had been expecting one baby. Doctors didn’t expect them to live much longer than a few days.….’

    After calling hospitals around the world “begging” for help, the family arrived in the UK for treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London in 2017.…..’

    Those on waiting lists for kidney transplants, hip replacements and the like will be mighty relieved to know how their rptaxes are being spent.

       24 likes

    • Deborah says:

      Stuff, it seems extraordinary what NHS doctors will undertake. There were news reports a few months ago, about NHS doctors attempting a womb transplant. Large number of theatre staff were required for the long operation. The reason given was so that the woman could bear her own child. I’m sorry, but whilst the waiting lists are so long, the infertile woman should have considered adoption or surrogacy. As I type this, a horrific thought has struck me. I hope this operation wasn’t carried out as a forerunner for trans women to be able to give birth. It would explain all the publicity on the BBC news reports.

         13 likes

      • Deborah says:

        Had I been voting last week the Raving Loony Party candidate would have had my vote. A 99p coin and the shortening of NHS waiting lists by typing them in a smaller font would have been good enough for me.

           11 likes

  46. Sluff says:

    BBC Final Score.

    Time taken to show each of the four men’s football division results with up to 10 games per division- 20 seconds per division.

    Time taken to show the single result in the Women’s Super football league………20 seconds.

    The BBC. Desperation writ large.

       16 likes

  47. JohnC says:

    Donald Trump hit where it hurts most in New York fraud ruling
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68323086

    … and another sneering, gloating article by a BBC ‘reporter’.

    And not a single mention that the prosecutor and Judge are both Democrats nor that no jury was involved.

    This is how it ends:

    ‘The ruling in the city where he rose to the top – while always remaining something of an outsider – is undoubtedly a big loss. And for more than six decades in New York real estate, there’s no figure Mr Trump has derided more than the “loser”.’

    Let’s see which BBC scraping from under someone’s shoe wrote this:
    C-yG5vCXoAQ17kS.jpg
    With the caption: ‘For those curious what I wore to the #metgala2017 – here you go!’

    Nobody was curious love. You and your narcissism are the only ones in the room here.

       20 likes

    • Deborah says:

      What amazes me JohnC is how many of these lookalike girls the BBC employs. I suspect they are all vegetarian and wouldn’t have got a single old fashioned ‘O’ level between them.

         14 likes

      • JohnC says:

        Quite so Deborah :

        I began to notice how the general standard of BBC reports had dropped and read like some distinctly average student had written them as part of one of those courses they take which are no use whatsoever in the real world. It used to be ‘social studies’ in my day.

        So I began to check who wrote them – and in the vast majority of cases they look like her.

        I can only deduce that it’s the result of quota-based recruitment targets which have led to those people who are not really up to the job getting promotion and interviewing the new staff.

        The phrase I often think which sums up the majority of the reports on the BBC these days is ‘shit by kidults for idiots’.

        What I do notice is a very distinct and similar style across all the reports which use the same BBC lie techniques to match their agenda. I wonder how they do it – maybe they all go on training courses or maybe the clones always work for a more senior political commisar who carefully adjusts what they write until they get the hang of it.

           12 likes

  48. Zephir says:

    Poor Greta. Life without petroleum and petroleum-based products.

    One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world,

    one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverized with rocks.

    “What’s this?” she asked.

    “Pulverized willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother.

    “What happened to the carpet?” she asked.

    “The carpet was nylon, which is made from butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response.

    Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles.

    “Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.”

    “Where’s the water?” asked Greta.

    “Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, “Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it.”

    “Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish.

    “Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?”

    There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined, and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tires and how ore has to be smelted to a make metal, and that’s tough to do with only electricity as a source of heat, and even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tires and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . .

    “What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting.

    “Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “Raw.”

    “How so, raw?” inquired Greta.

    “Well, . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up, start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore.

    “But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta.

    “Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.”

    “What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.”

    “Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing – being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.”

    This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet.

    Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesized.

       35 likes

  49. JohnC says:

    Diego Garcia asylum seekers feel unsafe on remote British island territory
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68326365

    ‘A group of asylum seekers on an isolated British island territory have told UN investigators they feel unsafe and forgotten, as they reported sexual assaults and harassment of children’

    ‘Inspectors from the UN’s refugee agency visited Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, to check on their welfare.
    They found that conditions there amounted to arbitrary detention.’

    So here we have Asylum seekers sexually assaulting the women and ‘harassing’ the children whatever that means. They are both the abusers and the victims.

    So the BBC (and UN) ignore the fact we are giving asymlum to all these abusers and blame our government for not bringing them here and giving them nice secure rooms and a daily allowance to go out shopping.

    The reputation of the UN is in tatters now – yet all the Leftists who agree with them (like the BBC) are just carrying on like before. Are they going to be allowed to just continue their politcial activism as if nothing has happened ?. I’m still amazed and disgusted in equal measure that the head of UNRWA has not a) resigned through honour or b) been forced to resign because he has no honour.

       21 likes

  50. AsISeeIt says:

    Ever since that memorable evening when Jacob Rees-Mogg drew David Dimbleby’s Question Time audience’s attention to the ‘despite’ Brexit habits of BBC headline writers, one has noticed how that little word proliferates throughout our mainstream media.

    The Guardian regrets: Despite Republican rumours, Michelle Obama probably won’t be the next president

    In local reporting Yahoo News is anxious to remind us all of certain dangers: Seaside village ‘denied’ £25m for new sea defences despite erosion threat… set to increase as climate change brings increasingly intense downpours more often.

    The FT is obstensibly a free markets orientated paper, and yet it frets over public sector service provision: UK nursing applications fall sharply despite NHS shortages… calls for emergency measures to boost recruitment – gosh, one wonders for a moment what those emergency measures might entail?

    Checks on foreign dentists in NHS to be dropped to ease crisis (Telegraph); Hospital allows surgery by ‘unregistered’ consultants (Telegraph) – but we digress

    And in sports news: Analysis – how Liverpool continue to ‘march on’ despite injury woes (BBC)

    You get the point, despite my digression – you’ll have noticed how the insertion of a despite clause in a headline is a big clue to bias, partiality and partizanship on the part of the author of the report. There’s a clear tendency for the despite clause to open the door to a message to be conveyed above and beyond the factual details of the report.

    Think about our above examples. As the Guardian turns against the dead loss that is Joe Biden: As Biden ignores death in Gaza, the ‘Dark Brandon’ meme is unfunny and too real… Until the president stops Israel’s violence, an evil-looking Biden looks less like a clever joke and more like a statement of fact – despite Donald Trump’s interrupted rather promising presidential efforts toward peace in the Middle East under the Abraham Accords banner – despite all that the Guardian doesn’t want to see him back in the White House and rather regrets Mrs Obama isn’t going to be the one to stand against him.

    Supranational corporate Yahoo News uses a local news item to bang on about climate change.

    The FT deploys an NHS union’s gripes about staffing levels to hint toward their obsession with open borders and free movement of (cheap) labour.

    Our BBC sports department rather fancies Liverpool for the Premier League title.

    Let’s play a little game of writing our own biased despite clauses to some of today’s BBC online news page headlines. It could be fun.

    Ukraine visa schemes to be extended by 18 months – despite Ukraine conscription crisis

    London Underground: How the Overground’s new names were chosen – despite waste of public money and needless lefty politicisation of the capital’s transport system

    Lioness line… Running through Wembley, the name is to honour the achievements of the England women’s football team – despite the fact the Lionesses didn’t win their version of the World Cup and despite women’s national football sides tending to regularly fall to humiliating defeats whenever they are matched against teams of young boys.

    No discussion over Falklands, says Lord Cameron ahead of visit… “The Falkland Islands are a valued part of the British family, and we are clear that as long as they want to remain part of the family, the issue of sovereignty will not be up for discussion.” – despite British foreign policy to separate Russian speakers living in eastern Ukraine from their Russian family and deny their Russian sovereignty.

    Of course huge under sea oil resources may lie off the coast of the Falklands and Britain wouldn’t want to give up those to the Argies – despite our Net Zero fossil fuel by 2030 policy.

       18 likes

    • JohnC says:

      Simple : Argentina should flood the place with immigrants then they can vote to change the Falklands to be the same as Argentina – even though the indigenous people who have lived there for generations do not want it.

      It’s no different from we are allowing to happen here. The duly elected mayor of London is a Muslim for exactly that reason.

         16 likes

      • Sluff says:

        John C
        Excellent idea.
        Forget Rwanda.
        Send them to South Georgia. By sea.
        British sovereign territory. How could the UN complain? Rule of law and all that. Just a bit cold and windy.
        What’s not to like?

           8 likes

      • Rob in Cheshire says:

        If 20,000 Argentines turned up in the Falklands asking for asylum, would we just take them all in?

           8 likes