Author Archives: Andrew

Bombs (sorry, blasts, as you term them) take lives – they do NOT ‘claim’ them (see News Online homepage and Turkish resort blast claims lives).

Sky News’ online version, Deadly explosion on bus, is appropriately unequivocal. Unfortunately, the twerps presenting Sky News just now are also using the emollient ‘claim’ for the apparent murder and grievous injury of real people, all of whose lives mattered as much to them and their families as those of you and your families do to you. Think about it.

Update: As if by magic, the BBC News Online headline now says Turkish resort blast kills four.

Tom Leonard has followed up his article in the Telegraph yesterday (see post below) with an excellent article today, BBC language that Labour loves to hear, where he writes that:

Within hours of the explosions, a memo was sent to senior editors on the main BBC news programmes from Helen Boaden, head of news. While she was aware “we are dancing on the head of a pin”, the BBC was very worried about offending its World Service audience, she said.

BBC output was not to describe the killers of more than 50 in London as “terrorists” although – nonsensically – they could refer to the bombings as “terror attacks”. And while the guidelines generously concede that non-BBC should be allowed to use the “t” word, BBC online was not even content with that and excised it from its report of Tony Blair’s statement to the Commons.

Ah yes, we mustn’t offend the non-tellytaxpaying World Service audience, must we! I wonder which parts of the World Service audience might be offended by calling a terrorist a terrorist? And why should the BBC pander so desperately to the sensibilities of people who might be thus offended anyway? Surely the BBC’s job is to tell it like it is, as understood by the highest standards of British common-sense and decency, whether or not it offends those who are so backward or primitive that they regard the random murder of civilians (in London or anywhere else) as anything less than terrorism.

Whether funded through the telly-tax or the taxpayers money given to the World Service, the BBC is supposed to be the British Broadcasting Corporation – it is high time for the BBC’s voluminous news output to reflect and represent the views, values and standards of those who are forced to pay for it – the great British public – particularly since the BBC’s enormous tax-funded dominance stifles all but the most hardy of alternative news providers, thus perpetuating the BBC’s distorted White City Goldfish Bowl view of the world throughout Britain’s broadcast media (for instance, almost every broadcast journalist in the UK (with a few well-established exceptions*), whoever they work for, has to stay relatively close to the BBC line, unless they want to severely curtail their future career options). For the good of our democracy and our society it is time to break-up the BBC’s enormous monopoly of broadcast and online news in the UK.

All is not lost though – there are still some sensible, decent people speaking out within the BBC – as Tom Leonard continues:

A row has now broken out with a handful of the corporation’s most senior journalists and news executives, fighting what one described yesterday as a “disgusting and appalling” edict. He was particularly angry, he added, because most World Service listeners don’t even pay a penny for the BBC.

and:

The same senior BBC journalist who expressed contempt for the “terrorist” ban was withering about the corporation’s current Africa season. The BBC’s interminable series of programmes highlighting poverty in Africa has been a “disgrace”, he said. “We’ve simply been advancing Gordon Brown’s agenda and in an entirely unsophisticated way.”

Do read it all for the full story. Stephen Pollard has also been asking So whose side is the BBC on? Writing in the Daily Mail, he says:

But terrorism is not a value judgement. It is recognised as a crime against humanity under international law. Professor Norman Geras defines it as “the deliberate targeting of civilians with a view to killing and maiming them and if possible in large numbers”. To describe Thursday’s bombers as terrorists is merely to observe the reality of human rights law.

This is, of course, about far more than labels. The refusal to use the word terrorist goes to the heart of the BBC’s world view, in which such murders are simply a response to the West’s provocation.

It is all our fault, according to the BBC’s ‘experts’. On Friday night, a Newsnight correspondent, Peter Marshall, informed us that “What the war on terror was supposed to prevent, it has brought about.”

Turning to the BBC’s Frank Gardner, Pollard writes:

Speaking on Radio 4 on Monday, Mr Gardner declared that Western policies in Muslim countries, and ‘harassment’ of suspected Islamists in Britain and Europe, was ‘offensive’ to Wahabis. But what Wahabis find offensive is the very existence of the West, which they are committed to destroying.

He then remarked that that it was extraordinary that they planted a bomb in Edgware Road, since this was a Muslim area. Yet not only did they not plant a bomb there (it went off in a moving train), they have as long a track record of murdering Muslims as they do of killing apostates.

Mr Gardner concluded that it was “doubly tough for Britain’s Muslims…it’s more of a blow for them than for everyone else”. Really? The relatives and friends of the victims might disagree with that.

Interestingly, it seems that Peter Marshall is unimpressed with Pollard’s analysis – as demonstrated in his thoughtful response, recounted by Stephen Pollard today:

When I pointed out that I did not distort a word of what he said, he responded thus: “You fat fuck. You fucker” and terminated the conversation.

I wonder what the BBC’s PC Thought Police would make of such ‘fattist’ language? Aren’t those who are undertall entitled to the same respect that the BBC extends to the sensitivities of those who think that suicide bomb terrorists are mere ‘militants’, ‘extremists’ or ‘insurgents’?

* e.g. Andrew Neil, Adam Boulton, Nick Robinson – but they are very much the exception among the vast army of broadcast journalists reporting for the UK.

as noted by commenters here. The story reports that:

The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as “terrorists”, it was disclosed yesterday.

Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC’s website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as “bombers”.

The BBC’s guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the “careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments”.

Consequently, “the word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding” and its use should be “avoided”, the guidelines say.

Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of “institutionalised political correctness” in its coverage of British Muslims.

A BBC spokesman said last night: “The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC.”

Though many of us here welcomed the BBC’s, albeit hypocritical, use of the word ‘terrorist’ (where, according to the BBC, London bus bombers are ‘terrorists’, while Palestinian bus bombers are mere ‘militants’) to describe murdering scumbags who are, clearly, terrorists, if the BBC have actually gone to the lengths of re-editing material, after the fact, to remove the word ‘terrorist’ then their hypocrisy knows no bounds – the rewriting of history, BBC Ministry of Truth style.

If the BBC is truly honest, next time (and sadly I expect there will be a next time) there is a terrorist atrocity in the UK, let them refer openly, as is their wont, to the cowardly murderers as ‘militants’, ‘insurgents’ and ‘bombers’ – then let’s see how long the BBC’s politically-correct fifth-column naifs last when their adoring telly-taxpaying public sees the stark reality of the BBC’s detachment from the common-sense and decency of the hard-working compulsory telly-taxpayers that it supposedly serves.

Sickening.

Update: Examples of rewrites at BBC News Online, courtesy of Harry, and an update explaining how the leftie-PC view was reimposed at the BBC.

mother of Anthony Fatayi-Williams, missing since last week’s terrorist attacks, gave a powerful and moving speech in London, broadcast in full on Sky News, also reproduced in full on their website.

Afterwards, Sky News’ Ashish Joshi reported that Mrs. Fatayi-Williams “reserved most of her venom, most of her anger, for the terrorists”, yet on the BBC’s lamentable One O’Clock News bulletin, their short excerpt of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams was used mostly to imply criticism of the delays in identifying victims of the atrocities. Whilst such criticism may well be merited, the main thrust of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams eloquent speech, as omitted from the One O’Clock News, was that:

“We know of New York, of Madrid and of London – there has been widespread slaughter of innocent people,” she said.

“There have been streams of tears and rivers of innocent blood. That is not the cause of God or Allah. God only gives life.”

BBC News Online’s coverage of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams was better than the One O’Clock News version, although curiously, whilst Mrs. Fatayi-Williams said “It is time to stop this vicious cycle of killing” towards the end of her speech, this line is reported at the top of News Online’s version of events (and is also included in the much abridged broadcast soundbite – see video clip, linked from the same News Online page). It’s just as well that we have Sky’s coverage to give us the full picture – both on TV and on the web.

Meanwhile, on the BBC’s subsequent local news programme, their cub reporters managed to have a good dig, with the help of a Muslim spokesman and a new Labour ministerial non-entity, at Lord Stevens (formerly Sir John Stevens), the recently retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, following his News of the World analysis, Young, clever… and British, in which, among other things, Lord Stevens says:

THE terrorists at the centre of the London bombing this week will almost certainly be British born and bred, brought up here and totally aware of British life and values.

Yes, I’ve heard pundits suggesting it could have been Algerian terrorists, or Moroccans, or various other nationalities. But that’s dangerous wishful thinking, a damaging illusion.

It is true that such international terrorists may have provided expertise, know-how or even possibly foot soldiers for this week’s onslaught. But essentially, sadly, this will almost certainly have been a home-grown operation.

I’m afraid there’s a sufficient number of people in this country willing to be Islamic terrorists that they don’t have to be drafted in from abroad.

We have already convicted two British shoe bombers, Richard Reid and Saajid Badat, there were the two British suicide bombers Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif who killed themselves in Israel, plus upcoming terrorism trials involving British nationals that I cannot discuss now for legal reasons.

I warned in these pages some months ago that there were up to 200 home-grown terrorists willing and able to slaughter innocents for their perverted view of Islam…and I got some stick for being so outspoken.

But today, after 7/7, I’ve absolutely no reason to change my mind.

I said in public what had previously only been discussed behind closed doors in Whitehall because I believe the public are entitled to the truth, that knowing it will help energise communities to fight back against this horror.

Given his recent experience, Lord Stevens is probably in a position to know what he’s talking about, whether or not that suits the BBC, their ‘new’ Labour minister or their Muslim spokesman. His analysis may prove to be wrong, but until we know for sure who was responsible for last week’s atrocities, it’s a bit rich of the BBC and their pet contributors to glibly dismiss his opinions without even balancing the piece with a counter view or a contribution from Lord Stevens himself. Rich, but not surprising.

Update, 4.27pm: Sky News are reporting that detectives believe four bombers died in last week’s atrocities, and that they are believed to have been born in Britain. Looks like Stevens opinions count for more than those of the BBC and its fellow-travellers.

In at least two of the news summaries on this morning’s example of the lamentable BBC Breakfast programme they reported that “Tory” Sir Patrick Cormack had been re-elected in Staffordshire South with a “reduced majority” in the much delayed General Election vote there following the death of the first LibDem candidate.

Nonsense. Sir Patrick, standing as a Conservative (i.e. not the pejorative ‘Tory’ nickname hissed out by disapproving lefties everywhere, including at the BBC) was re-elected with a hugely increased majority on a much reduced turnout.

For the benefit of BBC Breakfast Beeboids, the figures for 2001 and 2005, according to BBC News Online and The Times Guide to the House of Commons, are:

I look forward to a correction being broadcast in each corresponding news summary in the next edition of BBC Breakfast – to do anything less would be glib acceptance of gross stupidity – even the most cursory glance at the figures shows Sir Patrick’s majority is considerably up. At the very least this repeated error should be noted and explained in Newswatch, the BBC’s error graveyard. Don’t hold your breath!

When is a 55.5% increase “almost double the amount”?

A. When it’s BBC London* reporting today on Camden Council’s planned increase in school dinner spending from 45p per head to 70p per head.

This is most likely straightforward incompetence rather than bias – but the tendency for journalists to hype and over-hype stories is ever present, particularly among younger journalists reporting on run-of-the-mill stories like this – but please, BBC London, next time you’re reporting on Camden’s school dinners, do pop into a maths class while you’re there!

Since I’m in a generous mood today, here’s a suggestion for genuinely revving up this story a bit – try contrasting Camden’s school dinner spending per head with Camden’s town hall canteen spending per head – might be interesting! Or, if you’re feeling even more righteous, how about contrasting school dinner spending per head with prison food spending per head – that’s an angle that’d be worth exploring further too.

* I don’t know if it’s a result of Camden’s schooling or not, but I note that BBC London appear, at long last, to have dropped their silly ‘BBC LDN‘ affectation. Either that or they’ve finally got the ‘O’ on their keyboard fixed!

– as spotted by one of our ever observant commenters. Here’s a taster:

Do you remember Today’s James Naughtie, who gave the game away in the run-up to the general election by referring to Labour as “us”? Do you remember on election night how Andrew Marr said that things were going “worse” than expected, when what he meant to say was “worse for Labour”. You have only to imagine Marr saying that things were going “better”, meaning “better for the Conservatives” to see how unthinkable that is, and how the mental default position of the BBC journalists is essentially Left of centre.

All their instinct and culture is to support state funding over the private sector – which is not surprising, since they are state-funded themselves. They are all located on a political spectrum running from Ken Clarke, via Menzies Campbell, towards Robin Cook and Clare Short. They are instinctively anti-American, though they of course make much of how they “love” American culture. It is an axiom that Bush is a dangerous lunatic, the war in Iraq about oil, and so on. They are anti-Israel, but also find Christianity – or any strong expression of Christian faith – deeply embarrassing. In any argument, they will instinctively gravitate to what they think is the most civilised and liberal option, irrespective of the merits of the case; so they tend to be completely caught out by events such as the re-election of George Bush (all the fault of loony Christians, says the Beeb) or the total failure of the British economy to suffer in any way for the rejection of the euro.

Do read it all!

, our old friend Brian Wheeler (see here and here) is back in print at BBC News Online with another gushing piece concerning Gorgeous George “Sir I salute you, your courage, your indefatiguability” Galloway. Brian concludes his piece by noting that in the contest between Gorgeous George and Oona King, the sitting Labour MP in Bethnal Green and Bow, that “things could get very ugly indeed before the final bell”.

Oh indeed, Brian. It’s a pity that you didn’t see or haven’t learnt of the very newsworthy political nastiness that occured when Oona King, along with jewish and other WW2 veterans, was pelted with eggs and abuse during a WW2 commemoration event in the constituency. Fortunately for us, the concerned telly-taxpaying public, Brian isn’t the only set of eyes and ears in Bethnal Green and Bow – other non-telly-taxpayer funded reporters have managed to discover and report this serious incident.

Also noteworthy for its complete lack of coverage of this story is the BBC’s execrable ‘LDN’ local TV news, who managed instead to find time for a lavish talking heads outside-broadcast with three political has-beens (actually, it was two has-beens, Tony Banks and David Mellor, along with a LibDem never-was, whose name, unsurprisingly, escapes me). Something tells me that the BBC’s selection of the repellent David Mellor as a Conservative ‘representative’ has more to do with leftie BBC researchers than it does with any notion of selecting a genuinely representative Conservative to receive the BBC’s telly-taxpayer provided appearance fee.

This morning saw the launch of the Conservatives (sorry Beeboids – that’d be Toriees to you – never call a guy a Conservative when a 200 year old political insult will do) election manifesto. All the usual BBC subtleties have been indulged in, but perhaps the plainest example of this has been the selection of photographs to accompany the story on News Online’s home page.

First attempt: yellow smirk

Second attempt: ‘vote con’

Their first attempt was the ‘silly yellow smirk with a hint of Nazi salute thrown in’ photo. Their second attempt, when even they realised how partial the first photo appears, is the carefully cropped ‘vote con’ photo. How subtle. Perhaps we could see a bit more manifesto and a bit less of the BBC’s ‘con’ next time. Honestly Beeboids – do you think we’re as dumb as you think you are clever?

Update: The ever astute B-BBC commentariat satirises the Beeboids.

Viewers of BBC3 were recently treated to a showing of Castaway – complete with “an on-screen message promoting Casanova… for the duration of the film”, which, apart from being annoying, presumably obscured some of the more, shall we say, revealing aspects of the film.

According to BBC Complaints, people were unhappy, and “some viewers found this ‘programme pointer’ distracting”. What a surprise! They continue “We do not usually put such pointers over films but on this occasion wanted to draw people’s attention to Casanova and felt this was a useful service”.

Aw bless! The poor old BBC, doing its best to provide a useful service to those ungrateful viewers! What utter tosh. It’s the same old BBC arrogance that we see time and again, obsessed with promoting itself and its expanding media empire before all else.

The BBC’s constant adverts for itself are a constant source of irritation – taking up more and more of our already paid for viewing time. It’s not unusual for a programme break to feature: 1) closing titles with a split screen and voice over trailing something else; 2) a ‘coming next’ clip (i.e. next after the adverts!); 3) a lengthy trail for the BBC; 4) another lengthy trail for the BBC; 5) a summary of what’s on other BBC channels; 6) a voiceover about what’s coming up after the programme that’s about to start; 7) a BBC ‘ident’ – e.g. on BBC1 we get one of the red themed artsy people prancing around to simpering music idents (what was wrong with the popular hot air balloon idents featuring beautiful landscapes from around our beautiful country? Presumably they weren’t red enough or artsy enough or non-British enough for the comrades that run BBC1). We’re even getting BBC adverts stuffed into the previously non-existent gap between the Six O’Clock News and the local news!

On terrestrial commercial TV in the UK, advertising is limited, on average, to a maximum of seven minutes per hour. I read recently that the BBC currently spends up to five minutes per hour advertising itself. If this is really the case, the BBC’s case for refusing paid for advertising is weak – they could replace some of their own blather with paid-for adverts – and we viewers wouldn’t notice the difference.

Well, actually, we would notice a couple of differences: 1) The Telly Tax (a.k.a. licence fee) would be cheaper; 2) there’d be less repetition of boring BBC adverts*. Additionally, TV advertising would be more plentiful, which might open up UK TV advertising to more smaller, leaner businesses rather than the high-price high-cost operators who currently dominate TV advertising. Before anyone asks, ITV, C4 and Sky are all more than big enough to look after themselves in a changing world!

* Technology will soon deal with boring, repetitious adverts – a PC could filter out crap advertising as soon as it spots it – e.g. by turning down the volume or by automatically switching to another channel and then back again when the programme resumes and so on (just imagine, no more of those slit your wrists “The Big Game. You know it… blah blah blah” adverts that Sky News insist on running month after month!). Adverts that work will then have to be either useful and informative or amusing and entertaining, or, at the very least, not plain irritating.