Author Archives: David Vance

MONEY FOR NOTHING

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I’m on the BBC this morning discussing the alleged story carried in The Guardian (where else?) about the firm Close Protection UK, which provided security services for the Jubilee celebrations, and which says it is going to investigate reports that it left unpaid workers stranded in London during the Jubilee celebrations.

Obviously four days of non-stop celebration of Monarchy must have stuck in the caw of the BBC and it’s print wing – The Guardian because it’s clear to me that this is  not so subtle way of raining (a little more!) on the Jubilee Parade whilst attacking the Coalition and those evil capitalists who abuse the unemployed by…erm..providing them with work experience. It is well seen that Prescott is leading the charge on this story into the abuse of non-workers. Today places the story as its LEAD item. 8.10am Normal service is resumed.

My line is to attack the BBC for giving such a non-story such major publicity. The fact is that those in receipt of Benefit SHOULD be asked to give something back to the taxpayer who fund them and one night helping prepare for the River Pageant seems very reasonable. The meme that something for nothing is OK has to be challenged although that is a BBC article of faith which I will confront on Nolan in about an hour’s time.

BBC AND THE DIAMOND JUBILEE…

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Well, anyone who endured the BBC’s coverage of the long weekend of National celebration of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee won’t need me to tell you how awful it was. The BBC decided to treat is as a kind of rolling “One Show” with lightweight presenters asking inane questions. This contrasted with the excellent images the BBC provided. I enjoyed this from Stephen Pollard …

At various points during the day we were removed from the flotilla to hear from Sandi Toksvig, Griff Rhys Jones and Omid Djalili. Tess Daly, the Strictly Come Dancing presenter, was in Battersea Park with a bunch of cross-dressers (no, I’ve no idea why either). Anneka Rice was standing on the Millennium Bridge with some amateur artists. And there was an interview with a clearly startled new mother at St Thomas’ Hospital (it’s on the river, geddit?). The intellectual high-water mark was the former political correspondent John Sergeant talking to the actor Richard E Grant, who then read some Wordsworth.

We also had pop singer Paloma Faith discussing drag queens and vomiting, for the more heavyweight coverage.

I notice the BBC was forced to cover this on Today this morning but you can tell that they think they got it right. God help us all and God Save The Queen.

THE BBC AND THE THAMES PAGEANT…

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Oh dear.

“The verdict is in and it isn’t good. The BBC’s coverage of the Thames Pageant has been trashed in today’s papers, and rightly so.

The Corporation has in the past set the benchmark for broadcasters around the world when it comes to covering great state occasions. Last year it did a superb job on the Royal Wedding, for example. But yesterday was a car crash, or rather a sinking with all hands. From the moment one of the BBC’s commentators referred to the Queen as “Her Royal Highness” you knew it was going to be a stinker.”

Read more here.

IN THE WINDMILLS OF THEIR MINDS

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Windfarms. Why they are a matter of faith for the BBC as Biased BBC’s Alan explains…

“What the papers did say apparently was that 70% of people in the UK love windfarms and would welcome them spreading across the UK…so says the Independent and Roger Harrabin. The BBC launched its own little pro windfarm offensive this morning on the Today programme….strangely all coinciding with the report that the government may cut subsidies to them. The Greens have marshalled their forces and they are on the offensive.

Far from me to doubt the truth of this latest poll….what was the selection process for choosing who to poll? Did they flick through the wind turbine construction applications at the local planning offices….kind of think they might have.

But who am I to doubt it in reality because here is Rob Norris, a spokesman for RenewableUK, the trade association representing the wind industry, to put me right….he said: “This poll is evidence of the true level of support for wind energy in the UK……. the better-informed majority understand the many benefits.”

I’m just ignorant obviously.

Today had Evan Davis interviewing a Lincolnshire County Council representative who was issuing advice that applications for wind turbines would not now have the presumption that they would be acceptable.

Davis wanted to know if he was a sceptic and then asked if centuries ago he would have been opposing church spires in our landscape. Funny how Davis stoops to abuse rather than judging the merits of the explicit argument that the interviewee laid out quite clearly for his actions….never mind how reasonable those were… he must have some agenda or luddite tendency…because windfarms are so wonderful and 70% of people want them.

Thank goodness we had Tim Yeo on the Today programme to further our education……the Planet will burn unless we have these turbines, the price of CO2 will be extortionate if we don’t act now….yes off shore windfarms are too expensive….the answer is vast windfarms on land. I wonder how many windturbines Yeo has on his own land? I’m sure it’s purely for the benefit of the Earth and nothing to do with the bundles of cash that are pushed the landowner’s way to persuade them to be ‘green’.

However it seems he is quite prepared to forget his principles and the Earth when it comes to votes in his own constituency…..
Tim Yeo has pledged his full support to opponents of a wind farm at Chedburgh.

“I fully understand why anybody in a community as beautiful as this will be concerned. On shore wind turbines are visually a very considerable intrusion on any landscape. This happens to be one of the most beautiful parts of my constituency which stretches from here to the coast.”
“You don’t have to take a view about whether you are in favour or against wind energy in principle. This is not about that.”
“But where they are clearly quite inappropriate for the local community as, in my view, they most obviously are here, the voice of the local people should be decisive.”

“Now, unfortunately, of course that is not the way it actually works .”

Strange the inquisitive Davis didn’t ask him about his blatant hypocrisy….perhaps he is a sceptic and a luddite!  We’ll never know as the respectful Davis didn’t ask.

The BBC…never knowingly unbiased.

Panorama In Poland & Ukraine – A Polish Perspective

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A Biased BBC reader has sent me this very interesting analysis of BBC spin on BBC alarmism over possible football crowd problems in Poland.

“With just a week to go before the start of the 2012 European Championships, the BBC stands accused of spreading alarmism over concerns regarding crowd trouble and racism at this summers tournament. Patryk Malinski felt that there was plenty left to be desired in this particulate programme.

Last Monday evening the BBC broadcast their programme Panorama: the Stadiums of Hate in which they made a huge step towards biased and sensationalist journalism rather than objective, factual reporting. The BBC journalist, Chris Rogers, spent two months in Poland and Ukraine, the host nations of this year’s European Championships, and his main aim was to prove that football fans in both countries are mindless racists, and together with his guest, Sol Campbell, they tried to convince the viewers that going to those countries to watch the competition may somehow be unsafe and that potential fans from other countries may even risk their lives should they go to Poland and Ukraine. The programme, however, was so full of inaccuracies and generalisations and, as a Pole, I feel the need to respond.

Read more here please.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK…

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This is a wonderful example of BBC political bias, in this case pro-Obama. Even better it is gloriously self-unaware.  It’s by Reggie Nadelson and it concerns a  corner of New York that traditionally votes Republican – the city’s holiday destination, Brighton Beach.

“Everyone smokes on Brighton Beach. The waiters, on their break, smoke. Over a bench not far away, an elderly couple in wide-brimmed hats raise a pair of nylon umbrellas against the sun and light up. But why is that slightly scary fellow staring at me? Then I realise it is the “Re-elect Obama” button on my jacket. This is a little bastion of Republicans in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.”

Yes, and the BBC remains a bastion of pro-Democrat pro-Obama sentiment, just as it was in 2008.

Hat-tip to the eagle eyed B-BBC reader for alerting me to this..

WHERE’S WALLY?

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Once such a BBC hero, he’s been hard to find since May 2010. Biased BBC’s Alan asks;

“Victoria Derbyshire asks (48 mins in ) ‘What’s happened to Gordon Brown?’ as he seems to have disappeared making only about 3 appearances in Parliament since he was deposed.

A fair enough question, one that many people have been asking.

It went along the lines of ‘He’s made a few mistakes, not of his making though…but what a good bloke he is really…so misunderstood…the people love him.’  And did you know that the financial crash wasn’t really his fault…he was just unlucky, bad timing…he took on a poisoned chalice.

Hmmm…the economy was starting to boom in 1997…by 2000 it was in surplus…no debt in sight….and then Gordon Brown began to spend…and tax…and spend and tax….just like every other Labour government that sent the economy into a tailspin.

Just think what Gordon would have done to an economy that was in trouble when he took over!

Whilst flagging up people’s doubts about him it seemed only as an excuse to exonerate him of his misdemeanours…his very own Leveson Inquiry in reverse….finding the Glory rather than the Guilt.

The Glory of Gordon was burnished to a high shine….he is a secular saint almost….although jetting around the world getting highly paid for doing the odd speech you must know that not a penny goes into the pocket of the venerable Brown, his sole income being his meagre MP’s salary that he ekes a living out of (an austere one?).

A salary that he doesn’t seem to earn as a member of Parliament, one elected to represent his constituency in Parliament overseeing or proposing new legislation and seeking to improve the lives of his constituents via that legislation.

Apparently the reason he fails to turn up is because he is subject to ‘Tory vitriol’ when he does….this being the man who had raging temper tantrums and made angry phone calls to opponents and newspaper editors who didn’t say what he wanted them to say….that’s when he wasn’t throwing the phones around.

Apart from the nasty Tory Yahboos he is too busy helping the Third World to do any work here….there are 67 million children living in poverty and he is on a mission to save them all.

He could of course start in the UK where the poverty rates and inequality went up under his government.

Good of the BBC to keep us informed.

Shame they couldn’t find the same time to talk about Labour’s open door immigration policies and the effects it has had on the working classes here….and on education, health and welfare, housing, roads and crime.

13 years of Labour….it was just a dream, it never happened. lalalalala….