A petition demanding a fresh general election has now exceeded 1.5 MILLION signatures …after it has been ‘up ‘ for 4 days … the BBC chooses not to report this – and there is only limited coverage in the ‘free press ‘.. welcome to soviet Britain ….
Start the Week 25th November 2024 -petition
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“Seeing as Jonathan Powell is over in Mauritius finalising details you might expect the government to give any information on funding for the deal. Anneliese Dodds swerved the question and mocked the Tories for doing ten rounds of negotiations on Chagos in the first place, before claiming “all the details of this situation are in the public domain.“Wrong!”
https://order-order.com/
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wants ‘transparency’ over donations
https://news.sky.com/video/prime-minister-sir-keir-starmer-wants-transparency-over-donations-13216100
Sir Keir Starmer is facing an investigation over a possible breach of parliamentary rules after initially failing to declare that some of his wife’s high-end clothes were bought for her by his biggest personal donor, Lord Alli.
https://news.sky.com/video/prime-minister-sir-keir-starmer-wants-transparency-over-donations-13216100
Dodds! Yet another clueless unintelligent labour apparatchik – in the words of sgt Schulz in Hogans Heroes – I know nothing.
Dodds! Effing cheese eating surrender monkey!
BBC quite happy to call Israeli cabinet members it doesn’t like ‘far-right’ but still won’t call terrorists terrorists. If you kill, torture, rape it’s a bit militant of you…however if you’re a bit of a Zionist you’re a Nazi.
Why would any Jew trust the BBC to give them fair and accurate coverage?
Hamas Are Our Friends (c) Corbyn – BBC’s old God!
Spending more time on X – I note that Brillo is still in the bad books of the Labour Party because he described the shadow cabinet as ‘ 3rd 4th Rate during the election campaign .
Apparently he has a programme on TImes Radio and Labour is refusing ‘invitations ‘. …..
Judging by the actions of the cabinet so far, I’d say that 3rd or 4th rate is high praise indeed.
Sports Personality of the Year set for 17 December
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c1e7yq7gpjxo
Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and Clare Balding will present the show live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 19:00 GMT.
It will celebrate an incredible 12 months of sporting action, including Great Britain’s success at the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, and England men’s run to the final of Euro 2024.
To get Britain growing again, we’ve got to get Britain working again.
Our country’s greatest asset is its people. However, the talents of too many are being wasted because of spiralling economic inactivity. We’ve got 2.8 million people locked out of work due to long-term sickness.[footnote 1] 1 in 8 of our young people are not in education, employment or training.[footnote 2] 9 million adults lack the basic skills they need to get on.[footnote 3]
Behind these statistics are human stories played out time and again across the country. Young people with mental health problems, waiting for treatment, or lacking the basic qualifications they need to get a job and kick-start their career. People in their 50s and 60s struggling with chronic pain like bad joints, with women often caring for elderly relatives, who have huge experience to offer employers but far too few opportunities. The school-leaver let down because employment support is not designed to help them seize today’s opportunities.
Helping people into decent, well-paid jobs and giving our children and young people the best opportunities to get on in life. This is how we get Britain working and growing again.
The Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education
The Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/get-britain-working-white-paper/get-britain-working-white-paper
Scaling up and deepening the contribution of the NHS and wider health system to improve employment outcomes
Backing local areas to shape an effective work, health and skills offer for local people, with mayoral authorities leading the way in England
Delivering a Youth Guarantee so that all 18 to 21-year-olds in England have access to education, training or help to find a job or an apprenticeship
Creating a new jobs and careers service to help people get into work and get on at work
Launching an independent review into the role of UK employers in promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces
Box 1: A bold, long-term ambition to reach an 80% employment rate
** 81% for Net zero!!** 81% for Net zero!!** 81% for Net zero!!
Apparently this is news in the bbc bubble:-
‘I am first wheelchair user to direct Eastenders’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vn91dxvxzo
Mr Tooth described working on the flagship show as “dreamy”.
tick tick tick
Well worth paying the tele tax, for those that do
“Yes, a mosque was planned to be built on the set of the BBC soap opera EastEnders to make the show more representative of real East London: “
Would it have cost as much as the set did?
Boom! BOom!
The Poundland gaydar I bought went off, and a quick Google search later
“There, I am a disability role model, proud LGBTQ+ ally, and active member of the Decolonisation Board which I helped to set up.”
But..
“In my (rare) spare time, I play guitar, compete in wheelchair-basketball and enjoy exploring the muddy mountains of the Peak District in my all-terrain wheelchair with my wife. ”
?
Guess we’d need to explore his definition of wife, before i ask for my pound refund
Perhaps it’s one of the modern ones? You know, the ones with a knob?
A volume knob would be good
“Fixing the foundations of the NHS
50. The government will deliver an additional 8,500 new mental health staff and provide 40,000 extra elective appointments each week.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/get-britain-working-white-paper/get-britain-working-white-paper
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The analysis found 25.1% of nurses were obese compared with 14.4% of “other healthcare professionals”, which included doctors and dentists. Unregistered care workers had the highest prevalence of obesity at 31.9%.5 Dec 2017
https://www.nursingtimes.net/research-and-innovation/deeply-worrying-research-suggests-25-of-nurses-in-england-are-obese-05-12-2017
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4,345 jobs found for liaison and diversity
https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate/search/results?keyword=liaison%20and%20diversity&language=undefined&skipPhraseSuggester=true
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager
Save this job
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
317 01 Freeman Hospital NE7 7DN
Salary: £46,148 to £52,809 a year
“The collaboration between the government and Eli Lilly ”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/get-britain-working-white-paper/get-britain-working-white-paper
………………………………………..
“Eli Lilly and Company, doing business as Lilly, is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and Union Army veteran of the American Civil War for whom the company was later named.[6]”
……………………………………………………….
“Homes England is seeking to establish a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to replace the Delivery Partner Panel (DPP3) for housebuilders, contractors and residential developers to work with Homes England and other contracting authorities who may wish to develop homes on land that they own. ”
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search/Results
Contract value £20,000,000,000
Looks like the latest tedious iteration of the ‘band aid ‘ chaadee record disc is continuing to cause discord – now it’s Geldoff v Sheeran ( who ?) over permission to use tunes …
Personally for me charidee begins at home – no overseas budget – no Green crap red give aways – no aid at all – apart from to Israel fighting the demon moor ….
Use the money saved to pay for the 4000 plus coffins needed for frozen pensioners – courtesy of Rachel from accounts …
Sorry Bob, Band Aid millions DID pay for guns: Charity’s man in Ethiopia tells his disturbing story
By ZOE BRENNAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated: 00:01, 19 March 2010
……………………………………
Now the BBC has reported that substantial amounts of money – some of it raised by Band Aid – were siphoned away from relief efforts and went to fund guns for Ethiopian warlords during the Eighties.
…………………………………….
michellemone
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Lady Michelle Mone
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Watch the Documentary: Baroness Mone and the PPE Scandal ⬇️
youtu.be/cb_DvKEcxrM
Followed by ruthhobbs_property_derby and amberrosegill
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175 other PPE contracts were disputed by UK Gov but only Medpro has been litigated against so far.
We are being scapegoated by the establishment who are deflecting from their own failures.
Why did @rishisunakmp & DHSC build up 5 years supply of PPE instead of 4 months as planned?
Tory MP Richard Holden posed a pointed question to David Lammy today on why the government publishes online policy updates on Israel in Arabic but not in Hebrew. Lammy responded with a muddled word salad coupled with BBC praise, finishing in a dismissal of the question:
“The art of diplomacy is speaking to foreign leaders foreign nations as best we can. Sometimes that does involve foreign languages that’s why for example we support the BBC World Service. It was a slightly bizarre question.”
order-order.com
Hamas are our friends(c) Jeremy Corbyn
2024 .. . “Supreme Court hearing case on definition of a woman”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgv8v5ge37o
……………………
2017 … “To cite the other person you just said that would *trigger you Sam Harris*, Mark Steyn said this the other day, *this is the conversation we will be having when the Mullahs nuke us*.Everyone will be discussing if someone is transgender despite the fact they’ve had no operation (ref Jack Monroe in UK)” – Douglas Murray when he’s angry, but he still makes sense.
I’m surprised the BBC didn’t purchase the Paramount drama I’ve just seen the first few minutes of. That’s about all I could handle without smashing my head into a wall.
It’s called ‘Curfew’.
I knew I was in trouble when I spotted BBC presenters in it, like Jeremy Vine and that young bloke who does the football sometimes. I think a few newsreaders too, but I don’t watch the BBC, so I’m not 100% sure..
Anyway, this drama is the sort of thing TTK would toss himself off over.
The worrying thing is it might give him ideas.
Basic premise:
All (yes, all) men under strict curfew to be indoors (with electronic tags on that you can’t take off) from 7pm to 7am.
This is to protect wimmin from all men raping and killing them or something. Well, white ones anyway.
I watched a bit, hoping that it would be about such a thing being a bad thing (locking up half the population), and perhaps, that the media and wimmin should dial back their misandry and anti-white hatred a bit. There’s a bit early on where women out on the piss are teasing men looking out of there windows. The white ones are being ‘creepy’ but the black one was nice and ‘understanding’.
I think this show is going to prove the most disgusting in history, but there is no way I can get through it.
Within minutes it shows a TV showing men protesting (before the bill to ban all men goes through) about being locked up with electronic tags for doing sod all.
It claims they are ‘far right’ and ‘misogynistic’ for not wanting to be be prisoners despite not commiting any crime.
Yes, not wanting to get locked up for not commiting a crime makes you a far-right bigot who hates women.
Riiiiiggghhhhhhtttt (to quote Austin Powers).
I checked a few reviews quickly and switched off because the whole premise is all men=evil, stupid or weak or all three. And all women =strong, powerful and wise.
We can laugh, but shows like this are dangerous.
It’s clear that the writers think such a thing would be a great idea.
Interesting to see a few BBC presenters had no issue appearing in such filth though.
Good news is that everyone seems to hate it, apart from a few misandrist psychos.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt30242198/
Thanks for the warning Lazy C. Not that I would ever watch it though as Paramount is another expense I can do without.
BBC’s women’s footballer of the year…
‘Olympian Sharron Davies, a staunch advocate for women’s safety in sport, said on X: “It’s so sad the BBC are actively encouraging the destruction & loss of opportunities for female athletes in sport. I’m so disheartened & disappointed they are actively cheering this unfairness on.”’
JK Rowling tweeted
Presumably the BBC decided this was more time efficient
than going door to door
… to spit directly in women’s faces.>?i>
Private Eye (Hislop/HIGNFY*) has joined the entire left media (so, the msm) in ditching supposed satire for defence of the underwhelm.
https://x.com/privateeyenews/status/1861028014898724901?s=61
Allison Pearson claimed police accused her of a “non-crime hate incident” after a tweet misidentifying a protest photo. Essex Police say that never happened, releasing footage to prove it. Pearson now says she might have “misheard” – but not before the Telegraph ran three front pages on the claim.
#ccbgb
* And for good measure:
https://x.com/haveigotnews/status/1861447863584067651?s=61
LATEST on UK General Election Petition: some of those from over 140 countries who have signed so far
Also, scathing.
The Eye said “releasing footage to prove it”
No footage has been released AFAIK
otherwise we’d be watching it .
Instead the police have released a PARTIAL transcript
and we know police are often untruthful
Police are busy ….
Vauxhall to close its van factory at Luton and move all EVan production to Ellesmere Port putting a load of people out of work. All this because they are suffering trying to meet EV van sales without incurring Government imposed penalties if they sell too many Diesel vans.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8n3n62wq4o
Madness’s! This is peoples livelihood and skills they are trashing left right and centre!
Take this sort of decision making out of the hands of green civil servants and once more let commerce fuel manufacturing rather than hand-wringing green out of touch nutcases.
The Government response was just despicable, pitching the event as a glorious win for the Ellesmere factory. Total bloody idiots!
I can see a major recession hitting this Country if this bunch of rag-tag idiots keep going as they are, and the US will sweep up the remains under Trump and I wouldn’t bloody blame him!
UK Foreign secretary says the tradesmen can use the tube to carry their tools on – and buses.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-david-lammy-want-plumbers-to-take-the-tube/
Digg ,
Sad times indeed , having been there on Training Courses and production line visits in the 1970s ……always very interesting .
All the Governments have little knowledge or experience of Business . And that’s without the China and India stealing companies……we’re doomed I tell you doomed 😠 😡 👿
I’m still BBC free it’s such a Joy 😊
CF
Yes, I had a look round, bit like those massive oil tankers where you need a bike or electric cart to get around..
The Petition is clicking up by approximately 5 signatures per second at the moment , 17.30 pm with about 2,700,000. Will it be over 3 million by tomorrow morning ?
It’s clearly unnerving Labour , the left wing of the UK Uniparty, and there are a host of lefty commentators trying to dismiss it as of zero importance. But it has certainly got them rattled.
Obviously there will not be a GE as a result of it but the signal being sent from a large slice of the electorate is unmistakable, Labour does not have much support , certainly nowhere near what it’s majority in the HoC suggests. We already knew this of course but the political class are running scared of the people.
Further, by enacting measures which were never in its manifesto so early in this Parliament, it clearly doesn’t have a mandate for them as circumstances can’t have changed so dramatically to justify such fresh unmentioned measures .No one is buying their black hole ruse.
A recall petition for a sitting MP is difficult to organise but with this government’s unpopularity and given enough funds and organisation , it might just be possible pull it off. A few successful recalls and subsequent loss of Labour seats would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons!
The Uniparty establishment , both Labour and Tory , is scared of direct action by voters. Don’t be surprised if the Tories start to play down the petition.
The labour party should be concerned about circulation of the petition via ‘youth’ channels such as ladsbible and instagram. Another way of looking at it is that had there been a vaguely competent start to this government a petition probably would not have happened. That this bunch of first year student union members masquarading as a cabinet have screwed up so badly might have been the catalyst!
Nothing for the bBC to see then.
Proof was found by the BBC itself and was called the ‘BALEN report’, it was so disturbing, they thought so it was never published. And nothing has changed since then, no staff reprimanded. Noting at all. It has been since leaked by staff, but nothing officially happened…. (this was in 2004!!)
BBC never denied it exists. So they think it will blow over.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1832252/bbc-bias-israel-palestine-report
Long but very interesting
We know they’re not much interested in selling cars.
I suspect they wouldn’t do particularly well running a tit shop either.
https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1861090850475823373
The car industry is in a slow motion death slide as the nut zero realities start to hit hard.
One might suspect the green zealots are actually secretly happy to see the car industry implode….and that might include the EV industry as well. They’d rather we used public transport or didn’t travel at all. You might suspect lockdown is their preferred lifestyle[for the deplorable garbage anyway] and that we all stay home and watch their crap on TV and have ‘healthy’ ryvita and fake-cheese sandwiches fed to us through the letterbox.
Enjoy your servitude.
It could be worse, look at Germany! If anything they are further down the road to destruction. On the other hand. we are nation that does not like authoritarians, look what happened to Cromwell.!
Looking forward…. and getting away from the deep and vitriolic, I see another of our lightly entertaining programmes has succumbed to employing a non- white in the leading role. Don Gilet (?) makes his debut as DI Mervin in Death in Paradise. OK it might not be intellectual but it was tv I didn’t have to think about. Now I won’t be watching.
“THE FA wants 30 per cent of the England men’s coaching staff to be from ethnically diverse backgrounds by 2028.”
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fa-sets-diversity-target-england-coaches
“To give you an insight into what Labour has inherited, here’s brief history of the NHS.”
https://x.com/JonathanPieNews/status/1851942116236067209
End the BBC
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people in Saudi Arabia face repression and discrimination. The government of Saudi Arabia provides no legal protections for LGBT rights. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal within the country.”
Apparently the ICBM missile Putin used on Ukraine the other day was a new breed of very high speed kinetic rocket which ‘NATO can’t stop ‘ and can hit anywhere – it will destroy everything and isn’t nuclear so it’s okay .
It’s good fare for armchair generals but really …
Im waiting for the BBC site to do ‘nuclear war -what does it mean? How will nuclear war affect house prices ? …
2017
MOAB strike: US bombing of IS in Afghanistan ‘killed dozens’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39598046
The most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever used by the US in combat was dropped on IS tunnels in Nangarhar province.
No civilians were affected by the explosion, the ministry said.
Marky – military types raving over the new ‘Oreshnik.’ Missile – it’s the bestist there is ….
What colour is it? **
** Supreme court to decide if all bombs need rainbow flags
Excellent news for Labour – the Luton Vauxhall plant is to close – im sure a mixture of Green crap and increasing NI contributions and the rest – doctors will be signing off the ‘sick – on benefits ‘ left right and centre …..
So steel is gone – the motor industry coming to an end – who is going to ship out to a more friendly country next …?
Labour and Growth ? Not so much …
Hey Fedup,
But look at the bigger picture. Who needs to worry about the 1500 people at Luton who will, loose their jobs.
We have lawyers doing important things in this country like figuring out what a woman is. Even better is the execution of our OAPs. Need a stairlift? How about execution instead?
1500 = 600+600+300 = 2.5 days
“More than 600 migrants cross Channel in one day”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cden88xk6eno
…………NHS NEW JOBS …………
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager
Save this job
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
317 01 Freeman Hospital NE7 7DN
Salary: £46,148 to £52,809 a year
Apparently, some have private healthcare organised, as mentioned in Altrincham…
So tha’s alright then…
Assisted Dying (c) Labour Economics
read it https://x.com/lucaajwatson/status/1861350521308631446
‘I just can’t believe the British state housed and funded that notorious jihadi terrorist’
‘You mean the Hamas chief given British citizenship and a council house in Barnet?’
‘No, not him’
‘The Manchester attackers and their family who were rescued by the Royal Navy whilst fighting in Libya, given a council house in Manchester, and continued receiving benefits even when they returned to Libya’
‘Err, no, not them either’
‘The terrorist who murdered an MP, living in the council funded town house near Hampstead Heath?’
‘No, the other one’
‘The ISIS torturer Jihadi George with the social house in Paddington?’
‘Close’
‘Jihadi John, notorious ISIS executioner, grew up in a series of council homes in Westminster worth millions?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one I think!’
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jan/20/jihadis-next-door-review-channel-4-isis-abu-rumaysah
A30-year-old father of four with a bouncy castle business shows film-maker Jamie Roberts around Walthamstow in north east London, talking about himself and his life. He was born into a Hindu family, not far away in Palmers Green, but at the age of 19 he converted to Islam. Here is his messy garage, full of stuff, an old cooker, an H&M carrier bag, a bunch of the black Isis flags that “will one day fly high over 10 Downing Street”.
2 700 000….
Our Foreign Secretary.
https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/990904159007330305
“Walking into Parliament this morning”
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcBmE5xX4AA63kt?format=jpg&name=900×900
Why is the BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year not British, and, more importantly, not a woman?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14127995/Who-Barbra-Banda-Zambia-Orlando-Pride.html
I think we can guess.
Also in Telegraph today: As she is a Man, of course, and plays both ways.
‘The BBC honour threatens to detonate fierce controversy, with Tracy Edwards, Britain’s former round-the-world sailor, condemning it as the “destruction of women’s sports”. Tish Reid, who represented Britain in rowing at the 1992 Olympics, said the Banda case was “another example where obligatory sex screening would negate any rumours and controversy around individuals competing in the female sporting arena”.
Olympian Sharron Davies, a staunch advocate for women’s safety in sport, wrote on X: “It’s so sad the BBC are actively encouraging the destruction & loss of opportunities for female athletes in sport. I’m so disheartened & disappointed they are actively cheering this unfairness on.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/26/barbra-banda-bbc-womens-footballer-of-the-year-testosterone/
FEMALE OF THE YEAR
From Stew Above….
“JK Rowling tweeted
Presumably the BBC decided this was more time efficient
than going door to door
… to spit directly in women’s faces.>?i>”
Daily Mirror “Truth behind general election petition as identities behind signatures debunked”
Their point is that some of the signers live abroad
People point out that the In each 1,000 signers 5 live abroad and 995 are in Britain
and since the signers from abroad are largely from Australia and Spain, that does correspond to countries expats live in
It seems the likes of the odious Jon Sopel is trying to say the election petition isn’t legitimate due to overseas signatures – around 20 000 are overseas . One of those signatures is mine – although I officially am domiciled in the UK .
After sopels ‘ suppprt for his sex offender mate ‘hue’ on might have expected him to retire …
Sopes!
Ha ha ha ha!
A man to forget as a complete waste of space, everywhere he pops his smirky little bonce!
Assisted Dying (c) Implementing Labour Economics
* Men get a Cervix on the NHS
* Elderly who fought in the war for freedom freeze to death in the Country that loves them
So if there are 70 Million people in the UK. And 40% are of voting age. Except many stayed at home and only 20% of those eligible to vote did so. As a rough calculation 35 million , less 80% who abstained or voted for another party leaves approx 7 million who voted for Labour. And as we can see by the No10 Petition it is now heading for 3 million who are questioning the GE result and want another election.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
So yes the BBC can deny its of any importance, and they can ignore it, but the fact that they have upset a vast proportion of those who voted for them in such a short time, with basic incompetence in 12 weeks, which can only get worse over time.
Yes, the children have taken over the asylum. And the BBC is even less trustworthy than it was before. The more they deny it, the more pressure they will be under to under report it with hilarious results such as ‘the votes were from Australia’ or outside the UK. Some are of course, but the vast majority are upset Labour voters… and that is not good for them long term, or the BBC trying to spin it off…
https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/990904159007330305
“Walking into Parliament this morning” (c) David Lammy
1 million is a minority – BBC love minorities in everyting!
The DT on BBC VERILIE
STARTS In a culture saturated with misinformation and fake news there would, on the face of it, appear little to argue against the creation of a dedicated BBC fact-checking unit in March 2023. But 18 months later questions are being asked not only of BBC Verify’s efficacy but of its guiding principles. Can it provide a service valuable enough to justify its resources and staffing? And do its actions too often result in even less faith in the news?
BBC Verify employs 60 staff including Analysis Editor Ros Atkins and Disinformation Correspondent Marianna Spring to, in the words of CEO of BBC News Deborah Turnesss, “form a highly specialised operation with a range of forensic investigative skills and open source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities at their fingertips”. It was personally championed by Tim Davie, the director general, who described the unit as “critical”, in a speech delivered after its launch last year, and said it would “increase understanding of how we go about finding the truth”.
A year and half on, critics argue that BBC Verify has serious problems: some accuse it of political bias, others of making too many errors or lacking clarity. More still, including ex BBC staff, are questioning its purpose, highlighting its inherent contradictions.
“BBC Verify claims to represent a new gold-standard in BBC reporting but the frequency with which it has had to correct stories does not suggest that it is meeting these lofty aims,” says Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC television.
Last week Verify found itself involved in a controversy over the reporting of the farmers’ protests against changes to inheritance tax announced in Rachel Reeves’ budget. In its initial report on the debate over the number of farmers who could be impacted by the new rules, it quoted Dan Neidle, a lawyer and former Labour activist, as an “independent tax expert” and cited his claims as evidence that the government’s estimate that as few as 500 farms would be affected was “likely” to be correct.
The report dismissed a counterclaim by the Country Land and Business Association that as many as 70,000 farms could be affected (the association, which represents landowners, pointed out the BBC analysis failed to take account of the loss of business property relief, which covers farming machinery potentially worth hundreds of thousands of pounds).
But the real problem arose when Sir Keir Starmer used BBC Verify’s assertions to support the policy in a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, triggering accusations of political bias. The Verify story subsequently deleted the sentence that the number of farms affected was “likely to be around 500” without highlighting the fact that the amendment had been made. It didn’t exactly help that the story had to be corrected because the original mistakenly confused hectares with acres.
By the end of the week, BBC Verify published a new article conceding that the figures were contentious but without any reference to Neidle, although it still backed the government’s estimates and cited different sources to back up its analysis.
The BBC spokesman said: “Dan Neidle’s analysis wasn’t removed – the below 500 figure was taken out for brevity as it was repetitive. The new piece is a deep dive on the numbers using analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and CenTax to explore the figures as thoroughly as possible in the light of the discussion. This article is clear we stand by our original assessment and it explains why.”
On suggestions of bias in favour of the government, a BBC spokesman said: “We’ve covered different points of view on this story and given an impartial, factual analysis of the numbers involved.”
The row over farmers’ tax encapsulates a bigger question about Verify, given that its stated aim is “fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analysing data and – crucially – explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth”, in that if its conclusions are unclear or inconclusive, what has the audience really gained?
“The aim of BBC Verify is to provide impartial, independent analysis and information to audiences, using a range of sources,” said a BBC spokesman.
“Verify is a bit of an insult to the rest of the journalists at the BBC,” says one source inside the Conservative Party, which has often found itself under the unit’s spotlight. “Why do you need a special team to check facts – isn’t that what all BBC journalists should be doing? They are filling a non-existent hole in the market. It’s been heavily resourced but you look at the people involved and most look very junior. It feels patronising.
“I don’t know anyone in the media who takes it seriously,” the source adds. “And those journalists probably feel slighted that here comes 28-year-old Marianna Spring who reportedly embellished her CV [when applying for a job in 2018] but is now the final arbiter of truth.”
In September 2023, months after BBC Verify was set up, a report in The New European claimed that Spring embellished her CV when applying for a job as a Moscow stringer for a US news site in 2018. She allegedly applied to Coda Story saying that she had worked alongside Sarah Rainsford, a BBC foreign correspondent, for the broadcaster’s coverage of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It later transpired that she had only met Rainsford in a few social situations.
Spring was then reported to have then sent an apology email to the editor, citing her own “awful misjudgment” and assuring her that she was “a brilliant reporter”. The BBC declined to comment on the report.
A month later, the corporation’s reporting of the deaths at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on October 17 presented a major test for Verify. A breaking news report on the BBC News channel stated it was “it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes”. Shortly afterwards, western countries including Britain concluded that the deaths were most likely to have come from a misfiring Islamic Jihad rocket, something reported by the BBC.
Two days after the incident that killed several hundred people, a Verify video was reporting that the situation was “still unclear” and that there were “competing claims and counterclaims”. Seven days after this, Verify produced a report looking at it again, which included the line “the exact cause of the blast is still contested”, despite reporting the UK, US and French governments had attributed the deaths to Palestinian militants. More than 1,700 words of analysis of witness accounts, the bomb scene, expert views and videos of projectiles seen on the night, ended without conclusion. Verify said it was not able to establish the truth about the footage of the rocket or draw findings from what the reporters learnt from the crash site.
A BBC spokesman said: “Without access to the site or physical evidence, most experts are of the view that it is hard to give a truly definitive verdict.”
“Maybe the hospital of Gaza made them more cautious and has led to them being less definitive but, if that’s true, what’s the point?” says the Conservative source. “I don’t see what it’s adding, other than a great big salary bill.”
Assumptions such as the one made in the moments after the blast mean the existence of Verify only adds to the spotlight on the BBC’s own errors. Although not directly related to Verify, in January the BBC apologised for reporting unverified claims from Hamas that the IDF had carried out “summary executions” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“BBC Verify seems to have an unhealthy obsession with stories related to Israel,” says Cohen. “In the year of a UK election, a US Presidential election, the war in Ukraine, conflict and famine in Sudan, climate change threats and much more it is striking how often BBC Verify has focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC holds itself to high standards of impartial reporting and rejects the suggestion that we are biased in any way in this conflict. This is a challenging and polarising story to cover, and we are dedicated to providing impartial reporting for audiences in the UK and across the world.”
Verify endured further controversy over its coverage of the war in Gaza when it used an Iranian-backed journalist as its eyewitness source for the deaths of 122 Palestinians, who were killed when an aid convoy was mobbed. Verify quoted claims by Mahmoud Awadeyah, who works for the Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian outlet with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that Israeli soldiers had fired “purposefully” and “directly” at the men trying to get to their food on the trucks. His social media feed has reportedly featured posts that appear to praise a January 2023 terrorist attack that left seven Israelis dead.
The BBC responded to this at the time with a statement to the Jewish Chronicle: “The BBC is not allowed access into Gaza, but we use a range of accounts from eyewitnesses and cross reference these against official statements and footage, including from the IDF. The fact that someone has expressed an opinion on social media doesn’t automatically disqualify them from giving eye-witness testimony. It is simply wrong to claim an agenda on our part – and ignores much of the journalism we have done, including BBC Verify accounts of the Supernova festival massacre.”
In August this year reporters from Verify and the Global Disinformation Team published a report about the overthrow of the Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the main thrust of which was to assert that stories of religiously motivated Muslim attacks on the Hindu minority during the civil unrest in the country had been exaggerated by far-Right activists online, including Tommy Robinson.
Although the activity of the far-Right online is not contested, a description in the report of an allegedly benign occupation of a Hindu temple in Chittagong during the civil unrest has been challenged as misleading and lacking context, since those the BBC described as Muslim students protecting the temple came from a madrasa founded by the radical Islamist party Hefazat-e-Islam known for its anti-Hindu extremism, something the BBC had itself reported on. This has led some to accuse Verify of playing down Islamist violence for fear of appearing Islamophobic. Verify admitted “Working out exactly what has happened in Bangladesh over the last few weeks has proved difficult.”
A BBC spokesman said: “We stand by our journalism and don’t accept that we played down anything.”
Any accusation of bias against the BBC has implications for Verify. The BBC’s decision to refer to the transgender murderer of Jorge Martin Carreno in Oxfordshire as a woman throughout the coverage of the trial and sentencing in February this year generated more controversy. Scarlet Blake was a biological male who is serving a sentence in a male prison. The BBC did not even mention Blake was transgender in initial reports. The judge at the trial said upon sentencing: “You attributed your morbid interests to a split or dissociative personality… You adopted the persona of a cat. You talked about the difficulties you had had since transitioning in childhood to live as a woman and about your troubled relationship with your parents. All this was part of an elaborate attempt to rationalise what you had done and shift responsibility to others.”
It is argued by critics that if Verify is to have meaningful value to a broader understanding of the issues it should examine and explain the intricacies of such contentious cases. The suggestion is that by omission, Verify reveals the limitations of its scope by avoiding subjects it finds problematic.
A BBC spokesman said: “Verify does not provide an analysis of every single story – however, it was covered by wider BBC News reporting. It should be self-evident Verify is not shying away from ‘problematic’ or ‘divisive’ stories.”
“The real question is what is BBC Verify doing that other journalists at the BBC could not be?” says Cohen. “Given the quality of its performance to date it does look like the licence-fee money being spent on BBC Verify could be more effectively spent elsewhere.”ENDS
Annual remuneration (as at July 2024)
£525,000
https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/whoweare/tim-davie
https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/whoweare/staff
From one Director to another….
Guest of Tony Hall
Royal Opera
Timothy Davie 03/07/2010 Hall House 2 tickets for Salome Performance
FedUp! Plus Mariana Spring was in the news for lying on her job CV! She was still employed!
‘The BBC’s disinformation correspondent is facing claims that she lied about her experience on her CV.
Marianna Spring, 27, shot to prominence with her reporting on the way social media has been used to peddle false information.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12493713/BBCs-disinformation-correspondent-chief-fact-checker-Marianna-Spring-accused-lying-CV-falsely-claiming-worked-Beeb-journalist-applying-job-Moscow.html
Philip – despite the constant ‘awards’ spring gets – I reckon the deceitful CV has done her long term damage
( hopefully ) – and running the line about why so many of us despise her existence only goes so far …..
Verify is in real trouble because the TTK regime is inflicting real damage to the UK on an almost daily basis – so verify will have to find another target …
I MAN (E) Khelif
“Comments are turned off. Learn more”
The evidence of BBC bias is overwhelming
DT (last week) also by Danny Cohen
…The BBC must answer when it comes to its reporting of Israel’s conflict with the terrorist group Hamas. They are questions that are occupying the Government too, with both Rishi Sunak and Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer commenting on BBC “bias” this week.
…They tell us that the BBC is being undermined in its duty to impartiality by institutional bias, anti-Israel sentiment and, in some cases, racism against Jews.
If you are in any doubt that there is a problem, here are 10 examples of BBC bias and breaches of impartiality since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October.
October 7: The BBC refuses to describe the massacre of children, the rape and sexual mutilation of women, the mass murder of young people at the Nova music festival, and the taking of hostages, including babies and Holocaust survivors, as a “terrorist attack”.
October 17: A BBC News reporter blames Israel for a rocket attack on a hospital in Gaza before any evidence emerges to prove this was the case.
October 30: The BBC’s reporting of a mob attack on Jews in Dagestan describes the incident as simply “anti-Israel”.
October: The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent, Caroline Hawley, uses social media to repost messages and photographs from Gaza without context or any apparent attempt at basic journalistic verification.
October: The BBC’s Arabic Service fails to maintain standards of impartiality in its reporting of the Israel-Hamas war. Among those failing to meet these standards is BBC reporter Rami Ruhayem who blames “Western media for being complicit in Israel’s attack”.
October: Presenters working for the BBC Asian Network use social media to accuse Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. To make matters worse, senior BBC managers are warned about these posts..
November 14: A BBC executive responsible for the flagship documentary strand Storyville lends warm public support to a Palestinian film-maker after he makes an anti-Israel speech that includes genocidal statements
November 15: A BBC newsreader twice claims that Israeli forces were “targeting medical teams and Arab speakers” at Gaza’s largest hospital. This was a gross distortion of the facts, apparently based on the BBC’s misinterpretation of a Reuters’ report.
December 24: The BBC reports unverified claims by Hamas that the Israeli army was carrying out “summary executions” of Palestinians in Gaza. The report is aired six times on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service before being pulled.
January 13: The BBC’s highest-paid presenter, Gary Lineker, having shared material on social media that accuses Israel of genocide, reposts a call for the racist boycotting of Israel.
In all honesty, can the BBC’s senior management look at a list this long, with this many egregious issues and not admit they face a serious problem? Far harder but absolutely necessary is for the BBC to confront the institutional bias and anti-Semitism that has become evident in the corporation and take meaningful steps to address it. It is a mission it cannot afford to fail.
Danny Cohen was the Director of BBC Television
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/evidence-of-bbc-bias-is-overwhelming/
BBC can VERIFY that! But i think they are too busy at the moment.
Bernard “Prime minister the Americans are delighted, they have a whole battalion ready if we need reinforcements!”
Humphrey “Reinforcements of what?!”
Jim: “Reinforcements, of good will.”
TRIED TO POST THIS AT THE HEAD OF THE MIDWEEK THREAD BUT FOR SOME REASON THE EDIT FACILITY DID NOT WORK PROPERLY. I must learn to get my posts to perfection before I press ‘Post Comment’!
And the BBC continue to back the Labour Party!
The BBC make things worse for us by removing the Market Data which was not as good as its predecessor. The predecessor had the silver and copper prices which are both important. The only thing that I think has improved on the BBC web-site is that it is now easier to reject the cookies that the BBC want to implant on your device.
Here is the BBC’s excuse for removing the Market Data:
“The BBC has discontinued its market data feeds on both the website and red button (UK only) services. We have previously provided delayed updates on major stock prices, currencies, and commodities.
This change is part of our broader initiative to make savings, streamline operations and improve other essential aspects of the BBC’s digital journalism.
This forms part of the BBC’s strategy to deliver value for all of its audiences. We will continue to deliver comprehensive coverage of significant business and economic stories through our TV and radio broadcasts, as well as our news website and other digital platforms.
Although we will no longer supply market data in this format, you can continue to access this information through various alternative sources. BBC News will continue to provide market data headlines on the News Channel and on BBC Radio 4.”
The BBC said they will remove Market Data at the end of November 2024. I don’t think you can trust or rely on anything the BBC says.