Author Archives: Andrew

– the intro to a packaged piece by Carole Walker on BBC Breakfast News at 8am this morning. Yet again, nowhere in the package is it mentioned that the people who are ‘detained without trail’ are free to leave the UK at any time (for any other country that will take them – not just their home countries with the allegedly dodgy human rights records).

All that is needed to cover this story satisfactorily are seven extra words “foreign terrorist suspects who cannot be deported for legal reasons“.

Why is it so difficult for BBC journalists to grasp (and mention) this essential aspect of this story? Are they ignorant? Don’t they pay attention to such details? Or is this detail just inconvenient?

– unfortunately BBC News Online have managed to forget to mention, even in passing, who was responsible for these IRA atrocities in 1974 – not once does the article mention the IRA, Northern Ireland, terrorism, murder or even how many people were murdered or maimed in Birmingham that day. Shameful – shameful incompetence or shameful bias – either way, this shoddy journalism doesn’t justify a compulsory annual BBC Telly Tax.

BBC News Online have a major story (second story on their UK edition homepage this morning) headlined Police ‘can cope’ with hunt ban, complete with a picture of a ‘toff’ drinking, rather than a more relevant picture, such as a fox or hunting dogs (the use of which is to become illegal). BBC News Online informs us that:

Senior police officers say they have enough resources to deal with the ban on hunting with hounds.

The BBC story is supported with a quote from Suffolk’s Chief Constable, Alastair McWhirter:

Suffolk Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter promised a “proportionate response” to any illegal hunting, adding: “We have been policing hunting for 30 years.”

The Times covers the same story, headlined Hunt ban impossible to enforce, Police say – which informs us that:

THE ban on hunting will be almost impossible to enforce, police chiefs said yesterday, hours after it became law.

Senior lawyers also predicted that the level of proof required for a successful prosecution would be difficult to obtain.

Photographs or a video of riders chasing a fox or deer would be needed to prove that unlawful hunting had taken place.

The Times quotes the same Chief Constable, Alastair McWhirter, but at greater length:

Alastair McWhirter, the Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman on hunting with dogs, said last night that prosecutions would go ahead only if people admitted that they were hunting or if an animal were seen during a chase.

In a statement which will come as blow to supporters of the ban, Mr McWhirter said: “It is not an offence to wear red or pink coats or jackets, it is not an offence to exercise hounds or keep up traditions of using horns or meeting for a ride on horseback on private land.

“Unless someone owns up, you need a wild mammal in the picture to show that someone has committed an offence.”

However, Mr McWhirter later added: “We would enforce it to the best of our ability.”

The Times also quotes some other eminent people, including:

Peter Neyroud, the Chief Constable of Thames Valley, said: “Enforcement is not going to be easy.”

Chief Superintendent Rick Naylor, president of the Superintendents’ Association, said that there would be problems with forces having to deal with mass disobedience.

David Spens, QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that the hardest matter would be proving that people intended to go hunting and to break the law.

Courtenay Griffiths, QC, public affairs spokesman for the Bar Council, said: “If there is no proof that people were chasing a fox or a deer, then that will be difficult for the police.

“Without some sort of independent evidence whether that is an affidavit from a witness, electronic, video or photographic evidence, I don’t see how they could bring a prosecution.”

Meanwhile, The Guardian, usually required reading at the BBC, reports that Police fear hunting ban strain:

Police could be stretched to the limit dealing with widespread public disorder following the hunting ban, the leading representative for rank and file officers warned yesterday.

Jan Berry, who chairs the Police Federation in England and Wales, admitted that vociferous opposition to the new law would put huge strain on the resources of small rural forces and create problems for officers on the ground.

At the same time, Alistair McWhirter, the chief constable of Suffolk, said he expected the new laws would be “tried to distraction” in the courts.

“I foresee it being the most tested piece of legislation since the drink driving laws were introduced in 1967,” he said.

There’s that Alastair McWhirter chap again. The Grauniad then goes on to discuss at some length law enforcement contingency planning for dealing with possible widespread civil disobedience and the government/police priority for dealing with this (presumably compared to things like murder, rape, robbery, theft etc.).

It seems clear that, unless The Times and The Guardian have been foolishly making up quotes from a lot of eminent and well connected people, the BBC version of the story is complete spin, selectively taking one quote from Alastair McWhirter that supports their story, whilst omitting entirely any mention of the anticipated difficulties in enforcing the new Hunting with Dogs Act (also known as the Class War Against Toffs/Troops Out of Iraq Now (Alternative) Act).

If you want the news on this subject then do read the articles in The Times and The Guardian (and doubtless in The Telegraph too). If you’re a leftie looking for solace in the face of a possibly pyrrhic parliamentary victory just stick with the BBC.

BBC News Online’s article concludes with these assertions:

Fox-hunting, the main focus of the debate, has been practiced for about 300 years in Britain.

Hunt enthusiasts say the ban infringes their human rights and that it will be a bitter blow to the rural economy.

Opponents have been campaigning for a ban for decades and say the practice is appallingly cruel and unnecessary.

Just for good measure, in contrast to these BBC assertions, we should note here that, according to The Guardian at least, the Act brings “to an end almost 700 years of foxhunting in England and Wales”, that there is more than a little debate (outside of the BBC at least) about the relative cruelty of hunting with dogs vis-a-vis the alternatives, and furthermore, again according to The Guardian, that the ban in Scotland, enacted in 2002, has almost doubled fox kills from 500 to 900 per year and that hunting dogs have fallen from 1,100 to 550, 400 of which were put down.

It almost goes without saying, of course, that the resources of The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph etc. are available free of charge to UK online readers – in complete contrast to the pathetic and biased BBC News Online coverage that we are dragooned into paying for via the BBC’s Telly Tax.

George Galloway, friend and idol to the lefties at the BBC, has had his back scratched again, either intentionally or through incompetence, in today’s reporting of his court case against The Daily Telegraph.

BBC News Online’s story the full quote is “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability” – note that crucial word ‘Sir’ at the beginning – the word that implies almost conclusively that the reference is to Saddam specifically rather than his long-suffering people.

I suppose it is possible that The Telegraph’s legal team omitted that part of the film clip in court, but I suspect it’s far more likely that it was omitted by the BBC in their report. Would anyone from BBC News Online care to comment?

This morning’s BBC Breakfast News has been noticeably sombre so far – Natasha Kaplinsky (daughter of South African political refugees and former employee of Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith, for those who don’t already know) looks as if she’s in mourning. Barbara Plett and Lyse Doucet, reporting from the West Bank, are both suitably attired in black (a privilege the BBC didn’t have the grace to afford to the Queen Mother when she died), Plett looking as if she’s shed more tears for Arafat (“when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry“) etc.

We are told by Kaplinsky that Arafat’s health “has declined steadily over the last few days”. How does she know? I haven’t seen any BBC reporters (or disinterested parties for that matter) saying anything definitive about Arafat’s health amidst all the speculation over the last few days.

In an oft repeated summary of responses from around the world, the usual suspects (Tony Blair “condolences”, George Bush “condolences”, Kofi Annan “deeply moved”, etc.) are quoted, juxtaposed, in suitably disapproving tones, with an abridged quote from a rather less well known Israeli, Justice Minister Tommy Lapid, who said that it is “good that the world is rid of him”, tsk.

Their correspondent in Jerusalem, a man I don’t recall seeing before, seems to be taking a more objective line though – even going so far as to quote Tommy Lapid referring to Arafat as a terrorist. I wonder how long he’ll last. (Actually, not long it seems – he was on once around 6.45am and hasn’t appeared since (it’s now 8.30am), even though other segments have been re-run two or three times. Lapid is quoted at greater length by Australia’s ABC.

Meanwhile, Kaplinsky has just fed a question about the nature of Arafat’s death to an Arab journalist on the sofa with her, who solicitously opines that “it is indeed puzzling” and that “nobody is willing to go on the record, not the hospital, not the doctors… one of the best hospitals in the world for this sort of thing…” etc. etc. – thus propagating all the wild conspiracy theories of the day (in contrast to this more measured item of record where it is stated that “It has not been made clear what illness the Palestinian leader was suffering from, though doctors ruled out cancer and poisoning”).

I fear, as with Mr. Arafat, that things will steadily decline from here…

– the picture below (in a radical new departure for Biased BBC) is an unretouched screen grab of Richard Perle being interviewed in the third part of the BBC’s recent series The Power of Nightmares*. Note how Perle was filmed with a bright window behind him and little, if any, lighting in front of him – leaving one side of his face washed out and mis-shapen, the other dark and sinister, like a thug with a black-eye.

The Power of Camera Tricks – Richard Perle with a BBC style black eye.

Needless to say, no other interviews in the same episode were filmed as poorly as this. Co-incidentally, the programme credits list the same name for ‘Camera’ and ‘Assistant Producer’.

There are many manipulative camera tricks that sharp-eyed viewers can spot from time to time in the media, including using unusual camera angles, fish-eye style lens filters (to subtly distort facial features) and so on – do keep an eye out for them!

* – a subject to which I intend to return when I have time. Suffice it to say for now that it was a mish-mash of opinion presented as if it was a factual documentary.

On Friday morning BBC Views Online’s front page News Ticker’s headlines included:

Commons speaker’s press chief quits after secretly colluding with the Conservatives

This then linked to a story headlined Speaker’s aide quits in Tory row.

Both of these headlines suggest some Conservative, sorry Beeboids, Tory skulduggery or wrongdoing.

The real story – in fact, there are three real stories – is that, according to the BBC’s own report (once you read through the spin), John Stonborough, an employee of Michael Martin, the Commons’ Speaker, tried to send an email to the Conservatives’ Guy Black, following last week’s publication of MPs expenses, suggesting that the Conservatives attack the Labour Party over their MPs expenses because “Most of the abuse was Labour”.

Except that the clot sent the email to ‘T. Black’ – Teresa Black, who works for a Labour MP – thus prompting his resignation because the Speaker and his office are supposed to be impartial (link for the benefit of Beeboids!).

Now this is where it gets complicated Beeboids – collusion means:

A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.

Given that the message was unsolicited (there is no evidence to suggest otherwise) and given that it didn’t get to its intended recipient anyway, where then is the collusion? Why is it a ‘Tory row’ rather than a ‘Speaker’s row’ or somesuch? Is it too hard to resist the urge to spin the facts into ‘Tory collusion’ and ‘Tory row’?

And what of the second and third stories I alluded to? Well, the second story is precisely what Mr. Stonborough attempted to highlight – that Labour MPs appear to abuse, sorry, claim more expenses than other MPs – which isn’t something that the BBC have gone out of their way to investigate. The third aspect is that it is, to coin a phrase, widely believed that the political parties agreed not to attack each other over MPs expenses – presumably because they think they are as bad as each other when it comes to snouts in the trough. That, Beeboids, is where the real story of collusion, if any, exists.

News Online’s first version of the story, timestamped 10.14, was the same as the second version, timestamped 11.56, save for the addition of the final paragraph in the latter – “Mr Black later stressed he had neither requested, nor received, any information from Mr Stonborough.” – which, for alert and persistent readers at least, rather highlights the BBC News Online spin in the story and its headlines.

Hannah Bayman, a BBC journalist, well known to longstanding BBBC readers, has her own blog at bayman.blogspot.com. Hannah’s posts are usually quite banal, but yesterday’s post, reproduced here in full, offers an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and objectivity of a doubtless up and coming BBC journalist:

Only hours to go before the Land of the Free starts to vote and I already have butterflies in my stomach.

My mother emigrated from the US to Britain in 1966 when she was 21, after falling in love with Harold Wilson and The Beatles. My brother and I are both joint passport holders and the three of us registered to vote for the first time especially for this election.

I registered at my uncle’s house in Philadelphia, PA, and have since found out that Pennyslvania is one of the key three swing states, with Ohio and Florida.

But who knows if the vote I posted for Kerry and Edwards last week will even be counted.

Another close family member has voted for Nader. With most polls I’ve seen so far putting Bush 49%, Kerry 48% and Nader at 1%, I’m struggling to see this as anything but a vote for Bush.

Yeah, yeah, Kerry and Bush are both baddies if you’re a left-wing purist, but they are the only two horses in the race.

There is only one question in this election: do you want Bush in or out of the White House?

Let’s hope the US chooses a candidate who stands for international relationships, abortion rights, medical research, secular values and taxes on the richest…

…instead of a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp.

Fingers crossed polling is fair as possible. If, as predicted, there is not enough time for everyone to vote in some precincts, or many find themselves wrongly barred from voting lists, there could be serious unrest.

So who are you rooting for? Or if you have a vote, which way is it going?

I wonder how typical Hannah’s opinion of George Bush (“a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp”) is among BBC journalists? And given Hannah’s opinion of Bush, is it appropriate for her (or anyone with similar views) to report on anything to do with Bush or matters relating to the US or US policy without at least declaring their opinion up front? Can one hold such strong views and yet remain impartial and objective?

Moreover, given that Hannah was born (if I recall correctly from her past comments here), brought up and educated in Britain and continues to live and pay taxes here, it surprises me that she feels it appropriate to cast a vote in the US election, even if it is legal for her to do so under US law (if the situation were reversed I don’t think she could legally vote in the UK) – and I doubt very much that Hannah will desist from voting in the next UK general election either.

Remember, to paraphrase Rageh Omaar, it’s not your BBC, it’s their BBC!

Update: A couple of excerpts from Hannah’s follow-up posts, first, this charming effort:

So it is all about Ohio, the third of the swing states. NBC and Fox have already called Ohio for the chimp, but I think I will wait for my colleagues at BBC News Online (remember Fahrenheit 9/11).

Ah yes, better to wait for a reliable news outlet Hannah. And the tear-jerking:

I was woken first thing by two pessimistic texts from a colleague working the early shift at BBC Telly Centre, saying it would take a miracle for a Kerry victory

Oh to have a fly-on-the-wall webcam inside the BBC’s Newsrooms this morning!

P.S. While we’re on the subject of leftie journalists, if you will indulge me a little, congratulations must go to The Guardian for their splendid Operation Clark County – in 2000, according to The Grauniad, the good people of Clark County voted for Al Gore by a margin of 1% (~324 votes). Following the combined letter-writing efforts of Guardian readers I’m pleased to report that Clark County voted for Bush this time, by a margin of 2.4% (1,622 votes, by my reckoning). To paraphrase another newspaper in another election, it was The Guardian wot won it!

starting with the usual preamble about Bush and Kerry being “neck and neck” and the election being “too close to call”. This may be true, but most of the polls I’ve seen have Bush leading consistently by a point or two or three. Whilst this is certainly within the margin of error, I can’t help thinking that were the position reversed the BBC would be reminding us at each Bulletin that ‘Kerry is just ahead’ and ‘leading the race’ rather than pushing the “neck and neck” line so desperately.

Among the BBC Ten O’Clock News (WMV, 256Kbps) election coverage was this live exchange (starts 5’45” into the bulletin) between Huw Edwards in Washington and Matt Frei in Florida:

Huw Edwards: Well now let’s get the latest word from both campaigns tonight. Matt is in Florida and Gavin [Hewitt] is in New Hampshire. I’ll talk to you first Matt. Erm, What is the message that President Bush is now focusing on in these last forty-eight-hours?

Matt Frei: Vote, vote, vote and please vote for me, and do it even if you’re a discerning Democrat or an Independent, not just the conservative base of the Republican Party. That’s really what he’s been saying the last few days. I went to a rally this morning and people don’t really listen to what he’s got to say any more, they just listen to that plea, go and vote. Two interesting details here – tomorrow, the President will go to six states in one day, the final swing. And, as we speak, Dick Cheney, erm, who’s not in the best of health, er, at the best of times, is travelling eight hours to Hawaii to be there for one and a half hours to persuade people in a place that wasn’t even a swing state until last week. Conclusion: they are trying to get hold of every single vote they can. Outwardly they’re very confident. Inwardly they’re worried.

Huw Edwards: Well, I was going to ask you about the inward feelings, the private feelings Matt, um, what are they telling you about the patterns of voting that they’re likely to see on Tuesday and which areas concern them most?

Matt Frei: Take this queue that’s dwindling behind me now. This has been a queue that’s been here all day long. People have waited for five or six hours. They have never seen a turn out like this before. This doesn’t bode terribly well for Tuesday to be honest, because one senior election official told us he doesn’t think they can actually accomodate all the voters without opening the polls later, so this is potentially a huge nightmare of recounted ballots, of disputes. There are thousands of lawyers in Florida as well as in Ohio and many other states who are waiting to pounce on this election if there is, if the election result is within the margin of litigation, and that’s about two percent in each state. So don’t expect to see what you saw last time, four years ago, which was a simple recount, if it is that close expect to see something much worse.

Huw Edwards: Gavin, let me turn to you in New Hampshire. We heard Matt there say that privately the Bush team might be worried. What’s the Kerry team telling you tonight?

That was their exchange in its entirety – nothing added, nothing left out. Leaving aside Frei’s failure to answer the second question (instead waffling on about queues and the likelihood of the lawyers – other than Kerry and Edwards – winning the presidential election), the interesting point for me (and this blog) was Frei’s bit about Cheney, “who’s not in the best of health, er, at the best of times” – as if he’d be standing for Vice President if his health wasn’t likely to last another four years, “travelling eight hours to Hawaii” – as if he’s going by rowing boat rather than by campaign jet, and how this is then spun into Frei’s conclusion that “Inwardly they’re worried”, repeated by Edwards “We heard Matt there say that privately the Bush team might be worried”.

Among the spin about Cheney’s health and the apparent gruelling sacrifice of his journey to Hawaii, Frei is right that Hawaii “wasn’t even a swing state until last week”. What Frei did not tell us is that the reason Hawaii wasn’t regarded as a swing state until last week was that it was seen by both campaigns as being a sure-fire Democrat win, and therefore not much worth bothering about. This is confirmed by the BBC’s own US Elections Map – where Hawaii is described as “one of the safest states in the US for the Democrats and John Kerry should easily carry the state’s four electoral votes” and where 2000’s vote is recorded as 55.8% Gore, 37.5% Bush!

What has changed is that polls are showing Hawaii may be within reach of the Bush campaign – hence Cheney’s campaign trip there. And yet Frei spins this apparent good news for the Bush campaign as being a sign of their desperation. Give us a break! If the Bush campaign is as worried as Frei claims then surely they’d be shoring up their position in larger, closer, more accessible states with more electoral college votes, rather than going the extra mile(s) to snatch, to coin a phrase, “one of the safest states in the US for the Democrats”!

is a most amusing BBC related post on Laban Tall’s blog just now – do read it. In passing, Laban also links to another excellent Guardian bashorama by Scott Burgess on his excellent Daily Ablution blog. Bashing the Guardian might be like shooting fish in a barrel – but Scott pulls off a seemingly endless variety of witty fish skewering trick shots time after time.

Meanwhile, back at the ever reliable and carefully fact-checked BBC News Online, we are informed that the removal of the wreck of the Tricolor, which sank in the English Channel in December 2002, has been completed. According to News Online, at least for the best part of the last 12 hours since the article was last updated at 17:21 on Wednesday:

Since the accident, Dover Coastguard had been broadcasting regular warnings to passing ships alerting them to the Tricolor.

“We have been broadcasting every 40 minutes for the last 20 years, so it’s one less thing to worry about,” a Dover coastguard said.

How prescient of the coastguard!