The egregious ‘Hacked Off’ is trying to impose EU diktat upon the Media..something that could well backfire upon the Hacked Off friendly BBC.
This is one of their slides from their presentation (Via Guido):
We all know that…and yet Labour and Hacked Off don’t seem to have a problem with the BBC dominating the Media scene.
Strange that they don’t mind such a right wing organisation (h/t Owen Jones) ruling the roost.
It’s small and short but poisonous:
Ruth tells of her travels and then how her son follows in her footsteps…going on a journey they hadn’t realised the dangers of….going to Gaza.
The dangers of course being in a land infested with murderous terrorists and religious fanatics….or not.
The danger was the Jews.
Travelling in his boat to Gaza across the water, like Jesus, to bring salvation to the Palestinians Adie was suddenly surrounded by 8 Israeli gunships and then attacked….thrown to the ground by Israeli soldiers in full military attire (what no beach shorts and sandals?), they beat him up, dragged him in and imprisoned him for a week
Just another poison pill from the BBC about the awfully awful Israelis.
If you’d like a laugh there’s always Marx…Karl Marx this time, and the BBC’s ‘of the moment‘ meme:
Anne McElvoy talks to the social theorist Jeremy Rifkin who foresees the gradual decline of capitalism and the rise of a collaborative economy. As new technology enables greater sharing of goods and services, Rifkin argues that it provides a challenge to the market economy. The sociologist Saskia Sassen warns that the majority of people may not enjoy the fruits of this new world as increasing inequality, land evictions and complex financial systems lead to their expulsion from the economy. The Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng looks back at the history of international finance and how gold and war have shaped the economic order of today.
Jeremy Rifkind has a great theory…except he has never heard of the garden shed or garage in which individuals create new stuff that takes on the giants of industry….has he never heard of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? Rifkind’s theory?….Old hat idea using new technology….in other words nothing new to see here.
Saskia Sassen is tr’ffic value…..as dodgy as Delboy at his flypitching best….whatever you throw at her won’t throw her…she’s always got an answer…and it’s usuallly ‘well, what I’m saying may not be happening now…but just you wait…it’s coming….it’s on the curve….I’m right you know’
Kwasi Kwarteng was doing OK, mostly by not saying much, but ran into trouble when blaming 9/11 for the crash in 2008….I thought it was the dastardly Chinese trick of lending us back our money to buy more of their stuff and give them their/our money back which they could then lend to us so we could buy even more of their stuff ……and of course the Hand of Gordon.
Any BBC bias?…probably not other than the choice of subject, the end of Capitalism, which was a theme past its sell by date even in the 1930’s when we heard the same things being predicted, and now only kept alive by the BBC and Occupy (remember them)….I should take a leaf out of Sassen’s book and predict Capitalism may have looked down and out for a bit but it bounces back…check the ‘curve’.
The presenter, Anne McElvoy did do a good job and took issue with most of the ridiculous points…so she was quite busy.
And speaking of BBC journo’s doing their job…there’s this clip of one taking the Labour Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Angela Smith, to task (11:48) for her, what can only be described as, bullshitting….the journo nailed her and saw right through the spin and doubletalk. It should be kept as an example of how to cope with lying, misleading and dissembling politicians….a classic for the College of Journalism.
Three cheers for Victoria Derbyshire!
And, while social media can make anyone into a journalist, citizen journalism has, to my mind, reinforced the value of the professional journalist. When there are so many voices out there, so many with hidden patrons and private axes to grind, so many confusing opinions for news, then there is something simply priceless about a voice you can trust.
That’ll be the BBC then.
Fate and copious amounts of public money has put the BBC in a dominant position in the media world..it aims to stay there…the adoring Public needs us…..says James Harding.
Professional journalists cannot expect to have the influence we once did, but, if we’re clever, if we’re innovative and if we’re trustworthy, we can earn it. This is because we live at a time when there is an unprecedented hunger for information and ideas……there has never been a greater need for original reporting, insightful analysis and challenging opinion. People making choices need information and intelligence. We need journalism. And, in Britain, we are extremely fortunate to have a boisterous, curious and courageous Press.
But I believe in journalism. I believe that journalism can enable democracy, improve society and empower the individual. When it comes to stories in the public interest, I generally believe that society has more to fear from secrecy than to gain from privacy.
I hold that Fleet Street is one of the best things about this country and the BBC is the best in the world at what it does. If either are inhibited or diminished, I think that both the British people lose out and Britain’s standing in the world falls. And so I worry when politicians and judges weigh in, either frequently or eagerly, on the behaviour of journalists and news organisations. At a time when our society needs curious, inquisitive journalism more than ever, I think we need to be extremely vigilant against encroachment on press freedom and freedom of expression.
The BBC has a team dedicated solely to harvesting User Generated Content and, in the short time I have been there, I have seen it transform the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, the street-fighting in Cairo, the political row over Tesco’s and Next’s employment practices, not to mention the recent weather.
The BBC must, if it is to be a public service broadcaster, deliver on its obligation in local news. I say this because there is what I consider to be a mistaken view that the BBC should rein in its local news coverage for fear of aggravating the economic woes facing local newspapers. We have a direct interest in the health of local newspapers and regional newsrooms. We thrive thanks to vibrant public debate and courtesy of the stories and ideas unearthed by our colleagues in rival news organisations. But, let me be clear, the problems facing the local newspaper industry are not the BBC’s fault.
I am acutely concerned by the pressures facing the local newspaper industry and we at the BBC will do anything to help. But the BBC’s primary responsibility must be to serve licence fee payers – and they want and are entitled to the best possible local news services we can deliver.
And, while social media can make anyone into a journalist, citizen journalism has, to my mind, reinforced the value of the professional journalist. When there are so many voices out there, so many with hidden patrons and private axes to grind, so many confusing opinions for news, then there is something simply priceless about a voice you can trust.
Which brings me, by some happy coincidence, to the BBC.
The power of the BBC lies not just in the 8,000 journalists who work for News and Current Affairs but in harnessing the 300 million people who use BBC news.
The real strength of the BBC comes down to one thing. We are trusted. Trust is our most prized asset – and the key to our future. It is rooted in the BBC’s uncompromising commitment to accuracy, impartiality, diversity of opinion and the decent treatment of people in the news. It requires us to guard jealously our independence. And it depends upon us striving, ceaselessly, to be fair, reliable and open to ideas. In what will be an ever noisier world, there is, I believe, a great future for the voice you can trust.
In this, WT Stead’s rallying cry, defining the ‘New Journalism’, holds true for the BBC as for all other journalists. “It is something to have an inspiring ideal, and it is well, to be reminded of the responsibilities that attend upon the power which has come to the journalist as an unexpected heritage from the decay and disappearance of the bishop and the noble.”
It’s not whether you are right or wrong, it’s who you are that gets a response from the BBC panjandrums….if you’re Lenny Henry clearly you’ve some influence at BBC House.
A few headlines in the newspapers and a private meeting with Tony Hall and the BBC falls over itself to seem ‘relevant’ and ‘diverse’. (But only with regard to gender and race.)
As James Harding says: ‘Anyone with a story, a point of view and a Twitter account can set the agenda. If you choose, the ‘Powers that Be’ are you.’
Well anyone as long as ‘you’ are ‘ethnic’ and famous.
Quoting Harding quoting Marx (Groucho…the only Marx that you can take seriously) “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing,” he said, “…and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Faking sincerity? With that in mind lets have a look at what the BBC has concocted to reassure us that they are sincere about being impartial……
Senior BBC staff have taken a course in “unconscious bias” in a bid to stop them recruiting new employees “in their own image”, the director of news has disclosed.
James Harding, who joined the BBC last year, said his staff had been given training to improve the diversity of new recruits, with targets to increase the representation of ethnic minorities.
In a speech to staff at New Broadcasting House yesterday, he disclosed the senior recruiting board were so concerned about continuing to employ staff with similar backgrounds that they had each take a course in “unconscious bias”.
The speech follows findings from the BBC Trust, published yesterday (Mon), which order BBC management to increase the number of ethnic minority faces in news and current affairs, both on screen and behind the camera.
Mr Harding said: “If we really are determined to make the BBC more representative of the audiences it serves, then we have to intervene.
He added: “Across News, we worry that we have a tendency to recruit in our own image, so all members of the News Group Board have taken a course in unconscious bias.”
According to the BBC Trust, research has shown that some viewers and listeners find BBC News too “distant” and “formal” in tone, and failing “to reflect the diversity of life in the UK today”.
The Trust said: “In part, this audience need could be addressed by BBC News and Current Affairs looking, sound and, more importantly, being as diverse as the audience it serves.
“This is not a new challenge and it is one recognised by the entire industry, but the Trust believes the BBC must take a leadership role for the sector as a whole.
“Audiences need to recognise their own lives, perspectives and concerns duly reflected in the BBC’s programmes. BBC News needs to be heard as having a multiplicity of voices, with its own authority grounded in its experience and understanding of the many interests, cultures and communities that make up the UK.”
The BBC has already been publicly challenged to improve the representation of ethnic minority by actors including Lenny Henry.
The Trust has now given management a year to produce “concrete proposals from the BBC to achieve this, and further progress in terms of both gender and ethnicity”.
So….representative of the nation…..but only in terms of gender and ethnicity…..to me that’s almost an irrelevance….that’s not the BBC’s job…its job is to provide the news, regardless of gender and ethnicity, and to do that impartially they must recruit people not using skin colour or whether they sit down to piss as a critieria but their politics and their world view.
It’s possible to do that…obviously…..just look at who the BBC recruits now….more often than not they are like minded people…if they express views that align with those in the BBC bubble they might get a tap on the shoulder…much like the good old days when MI5 or the KGB were touring the universities….‘we like the way you think…fancy a job?’
I’ve already mentioned in a previous post the likes of Giles Fraser and Stacey Dooley getting ‘tapped up’….and what to make of Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim, as head of religious programming?…especially when he was already controversial when at C4….and then there’s Labour’s James Harding himself….or Alastair Campbell or Jacqui Smith.
And of course (h/t David ) Doreen Lewis.
Then there’s the ‘Asian Network’…what’s that about? Ghetto radio…are people of ‘Asian Heritage’ not British then? Does having brown skin mean you don’t like The Rolling Stones or Blue Peter and have to have ‘Asian’ themed news and culture? Why is it that white people can watch Trevor McDonald but brown people apparently can’t watch Huw Edwards?
In fact why is that so different to the thought of UKIP’s William Henwood who said if Lenny Henry wanted to be among Black people then he should go and live in a black country….the BBC has just altered that slightly…instead of shipping Asians who would prefer to be Asian out to Pakistan or India they bring Pakistan and India here.
The ‘Asian Network’…..a bit of ‘Apartheid’ brought to Britain by the BBC….its motto…..’You’re not really like us’.
Whilst people like Giles Fraser are seen as acceptable the BBC would never recruit anyone who had views in any way similar to Henwood’s….despite their own segregationist policies in regard to Asians….scoff at the European Tyranny, the climate orthodoxy, the benefits of uncontrolled immigration or the delights of Islam and you won’t find yourself with a parking space at BBC house or indeed granted a whole network dedicated to meeting the cultural and social needs of your personal ethnic, philosophical and political background.
The BBC reflecting “the diversity of life in the UK today”? Just reflecting what they see in the mirror still.
Gender and ethnicity are easy to ‘deal with’….you can just wander around the office with a clipboard and do a count…Black, Asian, gay, female, male, Cornish…dealing with the lack of political balance is clearly beyond the abilities of the BBC…or rather not something that registers as a concern that needs to be dealt with…..they pay lip service to it but the reality is that the BBC is predominantly leftwing in its leanings….and intends to stay that way.
The BBC Trust wants to chat to you about all of this:
On Tuesday 29th April the Trust will publish the conclusions of its service review of BBC News and Current Affairs.
To mark publication, BBC Trustee Richard Ayre and Director of BBC News James Harding will discuss the review’s findings and the actions the BBC will be taking in response, as part of the BBC’s News Festival. The event will be broadcast live via the Trust’s website www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust from 1.30pm – 2.15pm.
The BBC once reported on Wikipedia edits by interested parties….and …em…failed to mention its own activities in that area.
Words like glass, house and stones spring to mind, because we weren’t exactly sharp about the other obvious question that springs to mind… What about people inside the BBC?
This was an irritating oversight. Some of you have written to complain, others have given the issue a significant airing online (see here, here and here) and beyond.
I still think it was a good piece to write, but we should have asked the question about ourselves – and reflected it in the report – before it was published. That may be the sound of the barn door closing, but we have now put a line at the end of the story about the BBC and the fact that the Wikipedia scanner shows updates from people at IP addresses traceable back to the BBC.
Some of the examples are pretty unedifying, but for every dodgy one there are many, many more uncontroversial edits where people at the BBC have added information or changed a detail in good faith. The scanner also shows the same kind of results for a wide variety of other media organisations.
Oh and as for tracing or controlling those ‘rogue individuals’?…..
You are hardly the brightest button if you choose to make unpalatable updates to Wikipedia when you are sitting at a BBC computer, but policing every keystroke of more than 20,000 staff is impossible.
And The Times reveals the Labour Party’s outrageous behaviour that undoubtedly ‘went all the way to the top’ (h/t Andy Burnham)
Among those he alleges have been updating their entries are Wal-Mart, the world’s largest grocer, AstraZeneca, the drugs giant, Britain’s Labour Party, the CIA and the Vatican.
From the Independent:
BBC officials repeatedly altered the Wikipedia internet encyclopaedia to water down attacks on the corporation, The Independent on Sunday can disclose.
An investigation of “anonymous” edits on the site has revealed that the broadcaster’s staff rewrote parts of a page entitled “Criticism of the BBC” to defuse press attacks on “political correctness”. Also included in more than 7,000 Wikipedia edits by BBC workers are unflattering references to rival broadcasters and even the corporation’s biggest names.
An entry claiming that a BBC report found the organisation was “out of touch with large swathes of the public and is guilty of self-censoring subjects that the corporation finds unpalatable” was replaced with a brief paragraph saying the document “explored issues around impartiality”.
A BBC spokesman said staff should use the internet “in a manner that’s consistent with the BBC’s values of accuracy and impartiality”. He added: “At no time should that use bring the BBC into disrepute.”
Noted all the way back in 2007 by Biased BBC and linked to by the BBC:
Apparently someone at the BBC was editing Tony Blair’s entry:
Original:
Downing Street aides later suggested that the palpitations had been brought on by Blair drinking lots of strong coffee at an [[European Union|EU]] summit and then working out vigorously in the gym
Altered:
Downing Street aides later suggested that the palpitations had been brought on by Blair drinking lots of strong vodka at an [[European Union|EU]] summit and then working out vigorously in the bedroom
And George Bush’s:
Original:
George Walker Bush
Altered:
George Wanker Bush
The BBC have put this on their frontpage about a local council candidate for UKIP:
“I think if black people come to this country and don’t like mixing with white people why are they here? If he (Henry) wants a lot of blacks around go and live in a black country.”
Along with this:
Must be a major news story….will the BBC be covering every ‘controversial’ Tweet by every candidate in local/Euro and then the national elections? Let’s hope so eh.
Henwood is of course being denounced as a racist. Why? All he said was that if Henry wanted to be amongst Black people so much then he should go and live somewhere where that was possible….presumably Birmingham…perhaps Henwood meant to say ‘The Black Country’.
Unsure where the racism on Henwood’s part comes in….he’s just questioning why Henry feels he can’t watch TV if it doesn’t have ‘X’% of black faces on it.
Why, you might legitimately ask, are there is no such outbursts from the Media about Henry’s demands that white people be sidelined from jobs on the basis of their race to make way for Black people on a positive discrimination type of scheme?
Is that not racist? It is.
And yet Henry gets a bye on that…because he is black and we know that no Black person can be racist (h/t Jo Brand)…and anyway after centuries of white oppression they are entitled to be so, if they so wish.
Remember where that sort of patronising thinking got us:
Victims say that officers in the borough of Tower Hamlets have ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they fear being accused of racism.
If Henwood is racist then how about this example:
‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?’
Who said that? John Humphrys to Trevor Brooks….who, a double whammy, is both black and Islamic.
It took much of the afternoon for Mahmud Hashash to die, writhing, gasping for breath and spluttering blood as the chlorine gas corrupted his six-year-old lungs.
The doctors did all they could to save him. Using a nebuliser and oxygen pump they fought the noxious chemical that was burning his throat and capillaries.
But, in the end he died.
And so too did his sister, Maryuma, 16. His mother Sana, 30, is in intensive care.
The BBC is always happy to broadcast claims that British foreign policies increase radicalism in the Muslim world.
When Muslims, including ironically those ‘radicals’, are demanding ‘Western intervention’ in Syria, and chemical weapons, amongst other horrors, are being used against Syrians en masse, perhaps the BBC would like to flip that…and start asking if non-intervention is increasing radicalism….as British Muslims go to Syria to join the Jihadists and fight Assad in their hundreds because no one else is doing so.
So to be clear…British non-intervention in the Muslim world is creating radicals in the UK.
And the BBC isn’t interested in that line of thought.
Perhaps it should be and start asking the person who is reponsible for that non-intervention, and, considering his self-professed and new found Jewishness, how does that play into the Muslim world’s view of Britain and its foreign policy?
Miliband claimed he would be the first Jewish Prime Minister….no doubt that is due to the Left’s habit of re-writing history when it suits…Disraeli (Clue in the name) was the first PM of Jewish heritage….an odd lack of knowledge as Miliband ‘wrapped himself in the cloak of Disraeli’ for his conference speech in 2012….can it all be mere spin you ask.
As Miliband is proclaiming he will be the first Jewish PM and presenting it and his Jewishness as an electoral strategy what might Muslim voters think of his actions with regard to Syria…from where UK Muslims are having to retrieve the bodies of their sons killed as they fought for their beliefs and a free Syria? Free of Assad anyway.
Last year this was the headline BBC news:
Ed Miliband has insisted he did the “right thing by the British people” by helping to block UK involvement in any military action in Syria.
The Labour leader said an “ill-thought out” intervention would make things worse for the Syrian people in the wake of last week’s chemical weapons attack.
MPs rejected the principle of UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to deter the use of chemical weapons by 285 votes to 272.
So Miliband voted against possible military action designed to deter chemical weapon use.…but he claimed the vote for military action was ill-thought and that….
“They don’t want a rush to war. They want things done in the right way, working with the international community.”
He said Britain “doesn’t need reckless and impulsive leadership, it needs calm and measured leadership”.
This is the basis for the vote and military action if there was to be any:
The UK government’s motion was in support of military action in Syria if it was backed up by evidence from United Nations weapons inspectors, who are investigating the attack.
So let’s get this right…the vote was for the threat of possible military action to deter future chemical weapon use, a threat that will only be used after an investigation by the ‘international’ UN has carried out inspections to confirm chemical weapons have already been used.
Is that ‘reckless and impulsive’ or working outside the ‘international community’? Doesn’t sound like it…sounds very much like great care was being taken to gather the evidence and get the international community to back the actions….and never mind the unusual vote in the Commons.
So just more spin to justify Miliband’s spineless charade.
Miliband could have accepted Cameron’s motion and taken credit for getting proper process established, he said. But instead he chose to exploit and scavenge….a political vulture.
Miliband was frequently praised for his double dealing vote…this is Oborne in the Telegraph drooling over him:
Mr Miliband’s great achievement: his opposition to David Cameron’s foolish suggestion three weeks ago that Britain should take part in an impetuous military attack on Syria. The Labour leader stood up against this – and changed the course of events. Whatever the fate of Mr Miliband from now on, even suppose he falls under a bus tomorrow, he has made the history books.
Well, ‘made the history books‘?…for a while…but it seems the BBC has already forgotten that ‘brave’ stand on Syria and seem coy about mentioning Miliband in relation to this anymore.
Over the last couple of days reports have come out of Syria that chemical weapons have been used by the regime over the last few weeks :
Allegations that Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemical weapons in recent attacks gained traction on Sunday when France said it had “information” of toxic gases being used against opposition targets.
The claim, by the French president, François Hollande, follows accusations by the exiled Syrian opposition and rebel groups in the west and south of the country that gas has been used nine times in the past two months, killing more than 10 people and affecting hundreds more.
The BBC are reporting the chemical attacks but not a single reference to Miliband who normally gets a mention in relation to his ‘changing the course of history’ and his supposed subsequent part in the chemical weapons agreement that was cobbled together in Assad’s and Russia’s favour.
An odd omission you might think.
Miliband abandoned the Syrians, and those 2 million refugees, to their fate….never mind the barrel bombs, we now have chemical weapons being used again….and at home Miliband and his spinners are roaming the comfortable TV studios denouncing the government for their callous creation of ‘food poverty’….whilst Syrians genuinely starve….forced to eat boiled grass in some cases…as reported on the BBC (FOOC I believe)….as Miliband makes pious sounds about poverty in this country.
Possibly about time the BBC started asking questions about Miliband’s brave stand…and of Cameron’s equally cowardly ducking of the issue once the vote had gone through…saying there would be no more such votes, Parliament has spoken. Is it possible the jelly-like Cameron didn’t want to use force and only went along because he thought history would condemn him for not taking action…and then when given the chance he ducked out from similar dilemmas in the future ?
I will listen to the BBC with interest especially as Osborne left us with this thought after the vote…..
“I hope this doesn’t become a moment when we turn our back on all of the world’s problems.”
And I wonder what Muslims make of the ‘Jewish’ leader of the opposition’s abandonment of Muslims in Syria.
Children are starving to death in besieged Syrian towns and villages according to the International Commission of Inquiry looking into human rights violations in the country.
Still, at least some children in Syria are being ‘recruited’ to fight in the war…so they’ll get fed. Never mind the snipers targeting them.
In Talmenes on Friday, as the father of six-year-old Mahmud held a vigil in his memory, the doctors that tried to save him, were running a chemical weapons education campaign for the surviving residents.
“We gathered everyone in the local mosque today to teach them how to made home-made gas masks,” said Dr Jubran. “Its not much, but it is the best we can we. We don’t think this is the last chemical attack we will see here.”
Here the BBC admits there is a problem:
Bashar al-Assad and his leadership are there to stay. It did not really need one of his closest allies and saviours, the Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, to say it.
It is now the working assumption of most observers and analysts, Western diplomats who have toiled to dislodge him, and even some of the more realistic elements among the Syrian opposition.
The reason is simple.
Unless some of the elements in the equation change radically – and there is no sign of that happening in the near future – there is no foreseeable set of circumstances that would exert sufficient pressure on Mr Assad to stand down, or the regime to negotiate its own demise.
It is a startling turnaround. Many observers – including this one – who barely 16 months ago believed the collapse of the regime under rebel pressure was imminent, have had to eat their words.
What it doesn’t admit is that it was Miliband who prevented the ‘elements in the equation from changing radically’ enough to make Assad stand down or negotiate.
A ‘startling turnaround‘ in Assad’s fortunes? One engineered by Ed Miliband.
Nothing has changed….UKIP during the 2009 Euro elections was being smeared as racist:
Dear Mr. Thomas,
Complaint UKIP broadcast on the Today programme at 7.32am on May 30, 2009
The interview, by the standards of others broadcast during the European Parliamentary elections, as unfairly and relentlessly negative towards the party and gave undue prominence to claims that its policies were racist.
John Humphrys suggested that they would “scrap with the BNP” for votes, a direct insinuation that the party had racist policies. This was exactly in line with what UKIP’s opponents wanted to project about the party. Mr Humphrys could have asked tough questions about immigration without pushing into the territory of racism at all.
This morning Today had a little chat about UKIP (08:21) and what should be done to avoid giving them ‘victim status’ (and the subsequent voter appeal) and the impression that they are being bullied by the big political parties and media….asking why the Public still supports them despite the ordure heaped upon them….the conclusion…it is because the Establishment is seen as out to get them….and this interview doesn’t dispel that.
UKIP supporters are dismissed as ‘believers’ by Evan Davis….so not reasoned, thoughtful people…but merely driven by a sort of blind religious fanaticism?
The conclusion was don’t concentrate on what UKIP actually stands for, limiting EU power and immigration, but denounce them for their apparently incompetent economic policies….as opposed to the competent policies of….?
The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman typified the deceitful approach to talking about immigration that is now adopted by politicians and the media….‘OK yah it’s good to talk about immigration, absolutely essential…….but aren’t UKIP, and anyone who does talk about immigration, racist?’
Hardman came up with a classic of hat ilk this morning (08:21)….we mustn’t say talking about immigration is racist but….UKIP’s posters were so mean spirited and xenophobic.
…that was despite in the same sentence saying Labour MP Mike Gabe’s declaration that the posters were racist was daft…..70% the Public didn’t think the posters were racist she said….so his party must have been dismayed to hear him say that they were…..Not an ideal strategy to say the public are racist if you want to appeal to them…..politicians aren’t engaging with the public’s concerns and have insulted voters (by calling them racist) for many years.
And yet Hardman states those views are ‘mean spiritied and xenophobic’ herself.
Just another Today programme UKIP smear about the UKIP ‘problem’ as they see it dressed up as reasoned debate.
Hardman is hardly someone who is a natural UKIP supporter:
Here’s another example of the stupidity and double dealing of the chatterati:
Nick Cohen in the Guardain says:
Instead of tearing into the preposterous Ukip leader, Britain’s famously aggressive media have made him a celebrity
Cohen then goes on to do that very thing…tear into UKIP……
[Farage] says he represents “ordinary people”. But he is a public school-educated former banker, whose policies will help him and his kind. He claims he is the voice of “common sense”, while allying with every variety of gay-hater, conspiracy crackpot, racist, chauvinist and pillock. The only sense he and his followers have in common is a fear of anyone who is not like them. [Yes…so afraid of foreigners that Farage married a German…and UKIP does employ many foreign staff]
When considering Ukip…… For all the bombast, they would think that, underneath, these must be civilised men with an ironic sensibility who might have been educated at Winchester………..”Actually, they’re a bunch of thugs.”
The same should be said of Ukip.
So Cohen says attacking UKIP is a bad idea…and yet Cohen couldn’t resist, just as Hardman couldn’t stop her superior moralising inner nanny coming to the surface.
Cohen finishes up with this complaint that the media created the bland politician and now complain about that blandness, but Cohen says that it is ‘sinister of [broadcasters] to promote fanaticism as a cure for the boredom it generates.’
So UKIP are ‘fanatics’ ….because they have views Cohen doesn’t agree with….isn’t he once again doing exactly what he complains of…..he hates that ‘difference’ that UKIP represents and attacks them as sinister and fanatical because of it….doing exactly what the media did to politicians, attacking their convictions and turning them all into bland copies of each other…the BBC’s effect on Cameron the most notable….always labelling the Tories the ‘nasty party’ and hence Cameron’s appeasement of them and the evisceration of his own party and its policies.
Mark Bolland ran the Press Complaints Commission from 1992 to 1996. He has some damning views on Leveson, that celebrity led witch hunt backed by the BBC:
Politicians destroyed the PCC to take revenge on the media, says the man who helped to create it
Today we are all supposed to be “Leveson compliant”. I am not sure why, when large chunks of what The Economist rightly condemned as a “shoddy” report following a dodgy inquiry have been torn apart or discredited – but let me ensure I am suitably transparent, with a declaration of interest. I was the first director of the Press Complaints Commission, appointed by its first chairman, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord McGregor. My partner, Guy Black, was its second director and is now chairman of its funding body. So every reader will know where I am coming from.
What began with the Calcutt inquiry ended with the monstrosity of the Leveson inquiry. I have no doubt that its proposal – swiftly and rightly rejected by the Prime Minister – to introduce press controls underpinned by statute was pre-determined from day one. That was why assessors like Sir David Bell who, as chairman of the Media Standards Trust, had conducted a long campaign against the popular press, were chosen to sit alongside Leveson. That is why he packed the first few months of his show trial with the so-called “victims” – a celebrity circus in which bile against the media was assiduously reported by the BBC and others day in day out.
It was a fix from the very start, and it certainly didn’t need £6 million of our money.
