Author Archives: David Vance

PART OF THE UNION

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. I caught Brendan Barber TUC General Secretary being interviewed on what was billed as the appropriate level of pay for public sector workers just after the 8am news on the Today programme. What an easy ride he was given by Evan Davies! We all know that the Public Sector has been the primary beneficiary of ten years of Labour magnanimity and those who work in it have enjoyed salary and pension benefits dramatically higher than those in the wealth-creating sector. Barber’s job however is to ensure that the parasite sector gets more and more for doing less and less and this can only be achieved by squeezing the pips out of those who work in the private sector. Corporate Britain is NOT paying it’s fair share, Barber claimed, and Evan Davies let him get away with this outrageous claim. I also noted the way in which Davies made a point of differentiating between the “middle-classes” and the “public sector”. There are plenty of those in the public sector who are very comfortably off and Davies displayed a shocking lack of economic understanding for a man who has an economics background. Comrade Barber was left to waffle and the toughest question he got lobbed his way was “How angry is the public sector”? A better question might be how angry is the private sector at the special treatment Government hands out to those in the public sector. What chance the BBC focusing on that??

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SO GRAHAM NORTON.

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BBC comedy these days is a rare beast insofar as the humour is frequently heavily laced with political overtones and these are only ever in one direction – LEFT. I caught a few moments of the Graham Norton show on BBC2 last night to hear UK impressionist Jon Culshaw describe President Bush as “even more chimp like” to guffaws of laughter all round. Wonder would the intrepid Culshaw care to describe Obama as a chimp as well? I enjoy good impressions but to describe someone as “a chimp”? Susan Sarandon – that doyen of the political left in the US – was on the show expressing her devotion for Obama. Now I know that shows like this are all about light (very light) entertainment and that Norton specialises in camp vulgarity but there is a political vein that runs through even these programmes and it is conforms to that expressed in more mainstream political programmes. The beat is always left, though the BBC denies it.

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QUESTION TIME WATCH.

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So, did you see last evening’s edition of Question Time? Universal Shami was on the panel again, naturally. In fact the panel was once again heavily weighted leftwards. Mr Bean look-a-like David Miliband was there is his position as heir apparent to Mr Broon (and didn’t he perform poorly?), Vince Cable was there to represent the uberLiberals, Douglas Hurd that soaking wet conservative was there, doe-eyed Shami- naturally and finally Peter Hitchens. Now I like Peter and he mostly on the side of the angels BUT he is an avid opponent of the Iraq war and so his constant carping on that issue fits in nicely with the BBC narrative. I don’t think the opening debate on Zimbabwe got more than a few minutes before some left wing moonbat in the audience chirped up that had their been oil in Zimbabwe then we would have invaded – to cheers from the assembled masses. The imagined wrongness of the Iraq war kept coming up in entirely unrelated questions. The only two good moments were when Hitchens pointed out that if the nation keeps voting for Labour then raised taxation is all it can expect – to the evident irritation of Mr Dimbleby and when a man in the audience rightly eviscerated the serial incompetence of the Labour government. It all finished with the predictable panel love-in for Obama – no bias there folks. I thought Shami was pathetic, Hurd was smug and forgetful, Miliband ill-informed, Cable irrelevant and only Hitchens had the guts to opine at least some uncomfortable issues. But a ratio of 4:1 seems the going rate on a BBC panel for left/right expression of opinion. It’s not balanced, it’s not reasonable and it’s a weekly disgrace.

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RACE HUSTLING.

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I was watching the BBC News last evening as it was in full Obama cheer-leading mode. One of the things that struck me was that the BBC instantly played the race card, showing images going back to the 1950’s of the discrimination faced by coloured people then. This was followed by images showing the rise of the Civil Rights movement. In the BBC mind, if Martin Luther King was John the Baptist, a President Obama would be Jesus Christ. It’s all about race and the enlightenment of (at least some) American people, or so the BBC would have you believe . However when the hated George W Bush promoted both Colin Powell and then Condi Rice to the very senior position of Secretary of State, I don’t seem to recall similar BBC euphoria. Then the skin colour did not matter so much. I read somewhere that people should not vote for Obama because of his skin. I fully agree. Not because it is black (which is neither here nor there for any civilised person) but because it is too thin. Obama reacts badly to any criticism and between now and November you can be certain that the BBC will flay those who point out his many defects. If only Obama was gay then I suspect the BBC would be in 7th heaven. Instead , when he is beaten byMcCain to the horror of the BBC, they will be in hell. Can’t wait.

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General BBC-related comment thread!

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Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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LORD SNOOTY.

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You would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the BBC’s dismay at Gordon Brown’s fall from popular grace. Nowhere is this more evident than at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Commons where Conservative leader David Cameron regularly hammers poor Gordon. The BBC can no longer disguise the fact that dysfunctional Brown gets flattened at each of these encounters so instead it resorts to one of its favourite tactics – sneering class-war. Reporting on the Brown vs Cameron clash yesterday, on this morning’s “Toady” programme the BBC angle was to focus on Cameron’s hair-style. The BBC reporter opined that it made Cameron look “posh Beano character Lord Snooty”. Cue smirks all round and re-assurance in BBC land that all is well – even as their paymasters in NuLabour head for the rocks. The BBC agitated like hell to get rid of Blair and get Brown enthroned, but now that he is seen as the king with no clothes, it is getting harder and harder for the BBC to accept that a change is a coming and the years of Labour rule are near an end.

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POLE DANCING.

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Yes, I know I’ve come to this one a bit late today and I know you’ve been discussing it elsewhere but I wanted to single out the BBC’s denial that its coverage of immigration has led to an increase in attacks on Poles living in the UK. Daniel Kawczynski said the BBC “liberal elite” was using “white Christian” Poles as a proxy to avoid covering “more controversial” immigrants. Kawczynski has done us all a favour by pricking the BBC bubble on this issue. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to groups like Somalis, for instance, the BBC provides a very sympathetic picture. However white Christian Poles are entirely another matter and I think the BBC protests of innocence on this ring very hollow. All immigrants may be equal in multicultiland, but some are more equal to others.

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It’s Obama time!

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Been away all day so first chance to post. It’s Obama time at the BBC today with celebrations all around hailing Hamas/Fidel Castro/Jimmy Carter’s preferred Presidential candidate. The breathless tributes on BBC Radio 4 that have filled the airwaves from 6am this morning would lead one to almost believe Obama is already in the White House such has been the BBC refusal to engage in any substantive discussion on the GOP’s John McCain’s prospects – other than parroting the Dem line that he presents “a third Bush term”. The highlight for me was having Eddie Mair do the sign off from the PM programme tonight as follows “Tonight’s Barack Obama was Roger Sawyer, and Hillary Clinton was Fiona Leach” Thank you and goodnight! A black liberal who wants to talk to Ahmadinejad, who wants to run away from Iraq, who wants to socialise healthcare, and who worships at the shrine of Kyoto is the BBC dream candidate for the Presidency. Now if ONLY those white working class rednecks could see it in the same enlightened way…!

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THANK YOU

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. Just wanted to say thanks to all Biased BBC readers for making May our second biggest month in the past year! I am enjoying my time here and trust you all approve. I find it tough sometimes getting the time to blog here every day as well as on my own site, A Tangled Web. However such is the rich vein of bias that runs through the BBC that mining it is a joy.

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THE BBC IS NOT BIASED.

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This glowing report of life in Ramallah in the “occupied” West Bank by BBC reporter Aleem Maqbool is well worth a read for anyone who thinks the BBC is no biased. Is Aleem a BBC employee or does he by chance work for for Fatah? I’m sure the next of kin of all those Israelis murdered by the Palestinian Jihad spawn that infest modern downtown Ramallah will greatly appreciate Aleem’s chilled out report. Maybe they’ll join him for a cool ice-cream at Rukab’s?

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