Author Archives: David Vance

The BBC paint one picture of the Mau Mau but a B-BBC reader paints another;

“I was there as a Police Inspector in the Kikuyu Reserve. I am astonished that the British Government should be giving compensation to Mau Mau. of course it is a different Government to that of the 1950s. Mau Mau murdered large numbers of their own Kikuyu tribe. They didn’t beat them up they chopped them up. What about their families? Oh I forgot, they murdered the families as well.

Mau Mau was not the Kikuyu tribe it was an aberration of the tribe forcing its will on the majority of the tribe. The Mau Mau strategy was enforced oath taking or murder. Kikuyu houses were scattered around the country side.  I personally dealt with more than a hundred murders as did colleagues wherever Kikuyu people lived. This was contained only when the people were moved into fortified villages and their men folk were armed. Latter day historians now call these concentration camps, not safe havens.

Once they felt safe the Kikuyu people went after the Mau Mau and played a major part in their defeat. After the defeat of militant Mau Mau they obviously became more clever in the field of misinformation. Latter day historians should note that Jomo Kenyatta would not have any Mau Mau in his Government. How could they get it so wrong? Perhaps rewriting history is their only way to get noticed”

Middle of the week, end of the month, and so time for a new OPEN Thread. Play nicely, no abuse but detail the bias from the comrades…..

I don’t think that Lord Howell said anything he needed to apologise for but thanks to the predictable baiting in the Lords from Labour, picked up and magnified by the BBC, he ended up saying sorry for suggesting that “desolate parts” of the north-east with no obvious natural beauty could be potential spots for tracking. Maybe he should have said the north-west? The BBC seized on this with glee and given the BBC opposition to a/ fracking in particular and b/conservatives in general, they have sneered at this for the last 24 hours. Following the logic put forward by Labour and echoed by the BBC  it appears that every inch of the UK is so beautiful that we cannot frack anywhere. How curious.

The BBC has been hailing the efforts of John Kerry in the past few days as he cobbles together another doomed set of “peace talks” in the middle east between Israel and Palestinians.  The BBC have been pontificating about the tough choices that BOTH sides have had to make to even get this far. On examination (mine!) this reduces down to Israel releasing 100 Palestinian criminals (bad call, btw) and Abbas agreeing to talk!! Hardly a concession from the Palestinians and yet portrayed as momentous. Throughout this new charade, the BBC will do everything possible to posture for the Palestinians “Judenfrei” solution and if Netanyahu thinks he will win media approval in the likes of the BBC by releasing Palestinian thugs he is in for a nasty surprise in my view.

When it comes to the ongoing friction between Spain and Gibraltar, and in particular the current bully boy tactics used by the Spanish Government to inconvenience Gibraltarians  crossing the border, it will be interesting to see the BBC approach. I thought this was a pretty fair commentary on it but am aware that Today are covering it later this morning and one can’t help but feel rather in the Argentina/Falklands situation, BBC sympathies must lie with the Spanish bullies.

Yes, here is an Open Thread ON TIME! Enjoy it and fill it.

BBC Sunday Morning Live was particularly appalling this morning. The lead debate asked whether whether Muslims were being demonised. We had Mehdi Hasan asking the question and talking over everybody else. We had Anne Atkinson who agreed Muslims were being demonised and Douglas Murray who opined that they weren’t. We had Fiyaz Mughal, from Tell Mama, lined up to back the meme but when the poll result came in, once again viewers rejected the notion  by some 4:1.  Naturally Mehdi was allowed the last word on this and claimed this proved just how demonised muslims were!!!

Honestly, you would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the overt bias this item exudes at 8.10am (prime time listening)  on the Today programme exudes! It is the latest attempt by the BBC to thrown as much gloom and doom over any nascent economic recovery as is possible! In an attempt to point out that “the squeezed middle” is not becoming “the eased middle”, the BBC pick two inner city public sector types who they last interviewed in 2012.  Guess what? Yup, life is not really that much better. I think one admits to being a Labour Party member. I laughed at the headline “trickle down not working”. My but Ed Balls must be pleased at the efforts of the comrades.

I was reading on the BBC “that former BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall’s 15-month sentence for a series of indecent assaults has been doubled by the Court of Appeal.” Oh, how MODEST of the BBC. But please, they must have forgotten JUST how much they praised Hall..

Arriving a little late but still on time for the weekend! Off you go….