George Galloway is currently being fawned over by BBC Radio Scotland, on of all things football programme ‘Off the Ball’.
‘…It’s a pleasure and a privilege…’
‘…You showed them…’
‘…Heroic…’
‘…Americans are thickies, just look at the president!…’
UPDATE ADDED 29 MAY: USS Neverdock saw this post and expanded on it, including an audio clip.
Over at Samizdatathey have an interesting post about how, according to the BBC, capitalism is causing famine in North Korea (as opposed to Stalinist communism being the root cause of that country’s ills).
I particularly liked “Market reforms introduced in North Korea in recent years mean most people only get about half the food they need through the state and have to buy the rest themselves.”
A leader from today’s Telegraph:
“…in the BBC’s world, being called Right-wing is every bit as injurious to your good name as being thought to be a genocidal monster…”
Click here for full article (registration may be required)
A subject previously covered on this very blog, good to see mainstream media catching up.
Discussing the arrest of seven people and recovery of £2.3M by the Irish police, which is almost certainly linked to the IRA robbery at Northern Bank, BBC Radio Scotland news ‘anchorman’ Andrew Cassell in discussion with a fellow BBC hack came out with the following gem:
“So they [the IRA] must be bricking it”
For the uninitiated, bricking it means to have, er, loose bowels.
This morning, impartial and objective BBC Radio Scotland decided to discuss the death penalty as practiced in the United States.
So who did the BBC choose to join presenter Gary Robertson for this impartial and objective discussion? None other than Sister Helen Prejean, long time campaigner against the death penalty.
The discussion then proceeded along the lines of ‘how could something so awful still be part of the US legal system?’ with both Helen Prejean and Robertson offering nothing but criticism.
Here’s the reasons why:
Of course, Bill Clinton’s endorsement of the death penalty whilst in office both in the Whitehouse and Arkansas went unmentioned, as did his reasons for doing so.
I’d also point out the opinion polls here in the UK frequently show considerable support for the death penalty for certain crimes, for all our ‘sophistication’ and ‘maturity’.
Personally I don’t support the death penalty, but if the subject is to be covered it should not be covered in such an openly partisan way.
It seems to me as a listener that anti-Americanism is ingrained as an acceptable bigotry within the BBC.
More on the BBC ‘US Terror Poll’ over at the Daily Ablution
Of all the BBC programmes on a poor (cheap) Radio 4 daytime schedule, You and Yours is the most openly and regularly biased. It expresses its BBC soft left bias in a number of ways – in the way it approaches subjects, and the subjects that it chooses to cover. Here is You and Yours in a nutshell:
– People are never responsible for their own actions, people are various types of victim
– Companies are bad
– Government intervention is always good
– ‘Something must be done’
Today’s programme was a classic.
‘Why don’t black and ethnic minority people visit rural places like the Peak District?’
First of all, let me tell you about visiting the Peak District – I did this on a weekly basis not so long ago.
1. Get up at 6:00 am
2. Buy train ticket to Matlock, Derbyshire
3. Take train to Matlock
4. Exit station
5. Start walking, ideally in a north or north-west direction
6. Avoid fields with bulls in them
7. Return when tired, wet or sunburnt (or all three together on some days)
8. Er, that’s it
Now, back to racism in the countryside.
Cue a lunatic from the ‘Black Environment Network’. Non-whites don’t access the countryside due to ‘blatant racism’. Apparently some lunatics are holding a conference somewhere on this subject.
Cue black BBC reporter sent to Hathersage. Hathersage is a pretty little village by the Derwent on the Manchester/Sheffield train line. Our reporter laments a ‘lack of black faces’, but admires the view and buys a cake from a cheerful young woman. I’ve obviously missed this, but I didn’t think that black people were now compulsory in every location – but evidently they are.
To be fair to the hapless reporter, I think he was rather embarrassed about this assignment. Even he said the reason he was not a regular rural visitor was because he preferred cities – ‘I prefer cinemas’.
Cue more lunatics, explaining it’s all about racism. The You and Yours presenter laps this up.
I’ve got news for You and Yours. Just because some nutters are holding a conference, it doesn’t mean you need to take them seriously, or devote 15 minutes of airtime. So long as people are free, and not impeded from spending their time as they choose, what is the problem? Although the BBC indoctrinates its staff to believe that race is the root of all evil, sometimes it just might not be true.
– it’s like the normal missionary position, except you approach it from the left.
When the corporation that spent a reported £2M on Popetown (an everyday story about corrupt Catholic cardinals and a mad Pope ) and the presenter Gavin Esler (author and presenter of The New Jerusalem, a hymn to the welfare state in Britain) decide to discuss the subject of Christian missionaries, the outcome is decidedly predictable.
So it was during yesterdays edition of ‘Four Corners’ on Radio 4 (sadly not available online) – one of a large number of cheap ‘talking head’ programmes that typify the Radio 4 schedule. Hosted by Esler, one of the subjects was the decline of Christian belief in Britain contrasting with the strength of Christian belief overseas. This is a subject worthy of discussion.
The focus of discussion was primarily on the work of Christian missionaries overseas, where Christianity is a growing religion. To discuss this with Esler, they had a researcher and a Muslim cleric (I’m sorry I did not get the names – no pen to hand at the time). Needless to say, Christian missionaries are generally a Bad Thing because…
– They sell Christian beliefs on the basis of ‘this religion gets you a better job, and a nicer car’
– You can be as greedy as you want with these Christian beliefs
– They don’t respect local customs
– Christianity is the religion of computers and progress (presumably opposed to Islam)
The researcher and cleric did not bring differing points of view – just the opposite, they kept falling over themselves to say ‘how right you are with that point’.
So, what was wrong with this programme? Simply this – it’s one-sidedness. It would have been nice to hear from some of the recently converted – maybe from Africa or China. Many Africans I’ve met have had a compelling Christian belief. It would have been nice to hear from organisations involved in missionary work, such as the Catholic church. Most importantly, just some other point of view other than the BBC view – this was a good example of an inward-looking BBC talking to itself.
The BBC has a ‘Disability Champion’ – none other than Mark Byford, arch lefty from the World Service. I’m sure he could give you a lecture about the importance of seeing through a person’s disability to their true capabilities.
Alas, Newsweek Scotland (BBC Radio Scotland) hasn’t been to any of Byford’s seminars.
The show today carried a long article about the killing of Sheikh Yassin, which commenced with
This week Israel used all it’s technology to kill a blind man in a wheelchair
Whilst this is strictly true, the subtext here is that ‘this was a Bad Thing’, and in no way was impartial or unbiased. It is a good example of how you can be both truthful and biased. The presenter, the hopeless John Milne, wanted listeners to be outraged – after all, it isn’t nice to kill blind men in wheelchairs.
That the Sheikh was (according to the BBC) ‘the inspiration behind suicide bombing’ is neither here nor there, but I’d ask the BBC to see through the disability to the man inside.
As a footnote, I’d compare this with the recent BBC coverage of the murder of Leon Klinghoffer (as detailed on this and other blogs) who was also in a wheelchair, but according to the BBC ‘died’ during the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, much like he’d forgotten to take his medicine, rather than ‘shot twice in the head and thrown overboard’.
If saying anything remotely critical of Islam, criticise another religion first.
As reported by 21st March World at One on BBC Radio 4, al-Qa’eda issued a statement after the Madrid bombing, part of which said
You [the West] love life, we [al-Qa’eda] love death
World at One decided this was worthy of discussion, which I though was surprising. The BBC tells us constantly how ‘peace-loving’ Islam is.
So how does this discussion continue and progress – by talking about Christian martyrs of course, and the willingness of early Christians to kill freely, and be killed. So, that’s all right then – it’s nothing new, nothing to get excited about.
Except this. It’s much less of interest to me when people did 1500, 1000 or 500 years ago – many religions seem to have turbulent pasts. What matters to me is what people do and think now. World at One is a news programme, not a history programme.
It should have been the here and now that was the focus of the discussion, not some equivalence-seeking PC nonsense. Needless to say the Islamic cult of death as exhibited by al-Qa’eda, and supported by many, and it’s roots in scripture, were not examined. It’s simply too hot a subject for the BBC.
