Author Archives: David Vance

UPDATE

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Just to let you know that there has been a slight improvement in Geoff’s condition and his chances of survival are a bit better. This is welcome news and I hope that more will follow in the days ahead. I would ask those who have offered up a little prayer for Geoff to please continue – he needs all the help possible.

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FAT CATS…

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I read that the astonishing salaries and expenses claims of the BBC‘s most senior executives are revealed for the first time today.

They show the corporations’s 50 highest earning executives take home up to £13.8 million in taxpayers’ money between them. The salaries of the executive board members of the publicly-funded corporation range between £310,000 and £650,000 excluding bonuses.

Should Sir Fred Goodwin apply for a job? Nice to know where your license-tax goes, isn’t it? It’s that “special link” that the BBC are SO keen to keep!

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NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH?

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It’s not JUST MP’s who like to take our taxes and lavish them in entirely unsuitable directions;

The BBC is poised to provoke a fresh row over expenses by refusing to disclose how much its executives spend on entertainment for their stars. Days after MPs caused public outrage by blacking out details of their expenses, the BBC is refusing to reveal how much is spent on hospitality and gifts for its best-paid celebrities.

Ah yes, the old hospitality business. I have to be honest here and say that during all MY time in BBC studios, hospitality has not extended beyond a coffee and a sandwich! (But then again, I’m no star.) So just HOW MUCH is being spent to entertain the celeb culture with which the BBC is so pathetically infatuated?

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THE GRAND PLOT?

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I wonder what you make of BBC DG Mark Thompson’s suggestion that there is an ideological plot behind plans to “topslice” the television licence fee…..

In an impassioned attack on the proposals, Mark Thompson said that the Corporation was the victim of a clique of Labour policymakers who want it to hand over £130 million a year from the levy to prop up regional news bulletins on ITV. In a surprising display of rhetorical aggression, the BBC’s boss said that they were “ideologically focused” on attacking the Corporation’s funding structure.

Well, I have to say that I take an ideological position on the BBC license tax. I think that it is outdated, inappropriate and unfair. In the 21st century we do not need a State broadcaster as currently manifest by the BBC and it’s not a question of “top-slicing” it, it is question of AXING it? Oh, and it’s not the BBC which is the victim of a clique of Labour policymakers – it is the people of the United Kingdom.

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NO QUESTION TIME ….

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Given current circumstances, I just cannot bring myself to do the weekly QT liveblog tomorrow night. It has always been a (fun) part of my week and Geoff has been central to making it work. It will return when things improve. Hope you understand.

This is the update on Geoff….

He is intubated, on a ventilator and sedated, the next 24/48hrs are critical.

Please continue to spare a thought and a prayer to help him through his darkest hours.

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THE OXLEY MORON?

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Here is an item looking at Australian immigration in the 1990’s and how it dealt with “far right” parties. How can this be applied in the UK with the rise of the BNP, asks our wonderful BBC? It is a demolition job on Pauline Hanson and her “One Nation” Party and I have little interest in her but the thing that struck me was the sneering of Nick Bryant at the end and the consequential snickering of Sarah Montague. Listen to the last twenty seconds.

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NO BAN ON THE BURQA

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I’ve covered this issue elsewhere BUT the BBC have chosen to run an item critical of the speech by French President Sarkozy in which he suggested that it would be a good idea to ban the Burqa in France. He sees it as a symbol of oppression and I entirely agree with him. In fact I see it as much more than that – it is a way in which Islam tries to assert its primitive values on our culture, imprisoning women in walking shrouds. Anyway, cue BBC and up pops a human rights lawyer who spends his time fighting cases of Islamophobia in France, to slap down Sarkozy. Naturally no counter-view was allowed. It’s pathetic to see the BBC continually waste our taxes finding new and more exciting ways to excuse the pathology of Islam. Dhimmis to a man.

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ONE IN A MILLION

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I listened with incredulity to this item on the BBC this morning. It concerns the utterly farcical Home Office scheme to help failed “asylum seekers” (Welfare tourists) return home that has resulted in just one family leaving the country, whilst costing us, the Brits £1m. Listen to Evan Davies blithely dismiss the waste of £1m on “an idea that was good” on this “pilot”. It’s all about “being nice” to “children”, you see.

The BBC brought on some liberal bozo from the Children’s Society on to argue that more time should have been given and more should have been spent on this madness. And where was the counter-balance? Oleaginous Labour spiv Keith Vaz was there to to superficially criticise the particular scheme but simultaneously shill for Labour’s risible immigration policy. To listen to Vaz one could be forgiven for wondering WHICH government has been in power since 1997?

Most bizarre of all was Evan Davies constant refrain about the need to be “nice” and not “nasty” when it comes to dealing with welfare tourists, sorry, I mean children. How about having someone on to comment who believes that the bigger issue is how these people get INTO our country in the first place and then how can government recklessly waste £1,000,000 of our money? I guess those dimensions fall outside “the narrative”?

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LEADING THE JIHAD

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Abu Ghraid is SO 2004. It’s 2009 and time for a new onslaught on US forces abroad and so the BBC is heading Today this morning with an item which promises “uncovered allegations of abuse the US-run Bagram military base in Afghanistan. Correspondent Ian Pannell reports on former inmates’ claims that they were beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with dogs and hung from the ceiling.” I understand the American military eat their own babies too. As a propagandising arm for the Taliban, you just can’t beat the BBC. Every captured Jihadist knows the form by now; Allege the most hideous crimes of torture and humiliation against US armed forces and a BBC reporter wanting to believe such pigswill will appear, microphone in hand, prepared to provide an echo chamber for the enemy.

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A LITTLE INFORMATION…

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Just to let you know that Geoff – he is my much valued helper on B-BBC Question Time and also a positive force in the redesign of B-BBC, is not very well having had an accident. What this means is that I will be stepping into the breach on Geoff’s “All Seeing Eye” blog to keep it going until he is feeling better. This will inevitably mean less blogging from me here but I hope you will understand why. Geoff has been a great supporter of this blog and I hope you may join with me in wishing him a speedy recovery so he may be back with us all. I will be posting daily over on The Eye and you are all welcome to visit there whenever you feel so inclined.

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