Author Archives: David Vance

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

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I fully accept that the Royal College of Physicians has every right to lobby for the view that the pub industry is acting irresponsibly by offering customers larger glasses for wine than they (the RCP) would like. Some 14% of licensed premises say they now offer only 250ml sized wine glasses – equivalent to a third of a bottle. Of course the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers is just as entitled to hit back claiming that it was in the business of offering customers choice. A balanced exchange of views, until that is, BBC correspondent Keith Doyle puts his pennysworth in by suggesting that there was “even anecdotal evidence that some pub staff were under pressure to maximise profits by encouraging customers to opt for larger drinks.” The evils of capitalism, eh? exposed by the BBC. Keith’s “anecdotal” contribution means nothing and it injects a bias we do not require.

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SHAME ON YOU.

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The BBC’s relentless hostility to the United States is evidenced once again in the faux headline that “US Shamed by Mandela terror link.” This concerns the news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for “embarrassing” travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa’s governing party and its leaders as terrorists. Now I realise that Mandela is the patron saint of leftworld and the ANC are immune to criticism in BBC land but the fact is that Mandela DID plan terrorist acts and there are plenty within the communist ANC who relished carrying out other terrorist atrocities. The United States has NO “shame” as the BBC puts it in trying to exclude terrorists, although of course here in the UK the opposite situation prevails where we cannot exclude terrorists as the Court of Appeal made clear the other day.

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MILITANTS.

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Even Islamic killers are clear that they engage in premeditated acts of terrorism. “This was a martyrdom-seeking [suicide] operation aimed at kidnapping Zionist soldiers,” the Islamic Jihad spokesman said. But to the BBC it was an “attack” by “militants.” I am sick of the witless BBC equivocation on this subject. These Palestinians are JIHADISTS, they even call themselves this. They enjoy taking the life of innocent Israelis. They are, by any standard, engaging in act of terrorism, so why will the BBC not call it like it is?

I also hate the way in which the BBC buries away another little lie in this same report. It innocuously states ” Fighting had subsided since early March, when the Israeli army launched an offensive that killed around 120 Palestinians. ” It conveniently leaves out the fact that a/ This Israeli strike followed the terror attack on Israel that resulted in the death of young teenage Jewish students in Jerusalem and b/ The 120 figure quoted includes a significant number of Hamas terrorists with others dying because they either voluntarily or involuntarily provided sanctuary to Hamas terrorists. What justification have the BBC for calling Islamic killers “militants” when even the Islamic killers boast of their terrorist ambitions?

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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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DASCHLING FOR THE DEMS

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. Tom Daschle, the Democrat who holds the distinction of being the first Senate party leader in more than 50 years to be voted out of office, was on BBC Radio 4 this morning to discuss the US Presidential election. Talk about being given an easy ride! Daschle is firmly in the Obama corner and got stuck into Hillary Clinton’s prospects. I was entertained when the BBC interviewer cooed in open-mouthed agreement at the “extraordinary power” Obama generates when he speaks. No bias there folks. There was plenty of discussion about how Obama can unite the American people and no talk of the Obama/Rev Wright debacle that has played out for some weeks now Stateside. The big concern raised was Iraq and the fear of US success. The BBC interviewer wondered how Obama could cope if “the surge” continued to work; the answer was that things had failed anyway and so getting out was the main priority. All these really weak points made by Daschle were let pass – no hard questioning and for one simple reason; the BBC is salivating at the prospect of a black liberal in the White House. This was an excellent opportunity to press Daschle on a range of issues such as Obama’s post-Iraq plan; Obama’s plan to counter Al Queda; Obama’s plan to enforce border controls, to manage a free-market economy; there were so MANY questions that could have been put across but in the end all we got was a cushy push for Obama the great. Listening to this wrapped in cotton-wool interview, one could be forgiven for thinking that no-one is running against the Democrats!

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NO DISPUTE – OCCUPIED.

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I was listening to the BBC “Today” programme early this morning cover the news that the worlds “highest moral authority” – the United Nations – has appointed a law professor in the shape of Richard A. Falk – who has compared Israel to the Nazis – as special investigator on Israeli actions for a six-year term. Nothing odd so far – after all comparing Israel to the Nazis is a favoured rhetorical device for the morally bankrupt. But I then noticed that the BBC interviewer referred to the “Occupied Territories” as the location for these imagined genocidal crimes that the UN will investigate and I wondered WHY it is that the BBC gets away with this routine parroting of Palestinian propaganda? The territories concerned are “disputed”, they are not occupied. In fact last time I checked the only people “occupying” Gaza were the Jew-hating barbarians Hamas. The use of language is of fundamental importance in all news reporting and the BBC should not parrot terms which can clearly be seen to favour one side and not another. The neutral term to use in this situation is to define the given territories as “disputed.” Why won’t the BBC use it?

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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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SHILLING FOR BEIJING.

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Did anyone else out there happen to tune in to Gabby Logan’s programme on BBC Radio 5 live this morning? The topic of the Chinese Olympics took great prominence as the Olympic Flame travels through London today. We had wise old cove Former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, in the studio to tell us that protests about the Olympics were all very fine but that the Chinese thought in terms of centuries, so they would achieve nothing. Indeed I felt that this was the theme running throughout the programme – protest is futile so better to just lie back and enjoy the BBC coverage of the Games and never mind about the oppression in Tibet. Even as blood runs through the streets of Lhasa, the BBC publicity machine runs through the streets of London, sanitising the behavior of the tyrants in Beijing and with its eye firmly focused on summer ratings. Could it be that with all that investment in its planned coverage of the Beijing Games the BBC is reluctant to grasp the barbarity of the host nation?

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THE BIG PICTURE.

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Ok, this is the third and last one of these posts (I promise!) but I draw to your attention to the BBC’s Northern Ireland site today and a posting entitled “Northern Ireland’s Big Picture.” And what, you may ask, does this reveal? Why it’s a smiling image of the President of the Republic of Ireland Mary McAleese on what is one of her numerous cross-border sallies. As part of advancing the territorial claim to Northern Ireland, McAleese will turn up at the opening of a letter if it generates favourable publicity. She has of course no constitutional position in Northern Ireland as we already have a Head of State in the shape of Her Majesty the Queen but the BBC appears to believe that tree-planting visits to primary schools by the roving McAleese is part of some “Big Picture.” I’ll say it is – it’s all part of their big picture to soften up the people of Northern Ireland into believing they are not quite British.

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MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS.

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Meant to ask you if by chance you saw “Question Time” last night? We had the predictable LOADING of the panel with Douglas Alexander (Left) Sarah Teather (Even more Left) Clare Short ( Very Left) Rod Liddle (Left but sensible on some things) and … yes, the sopping wet as a lettuce Conservative MP Theresa May. Isn’t it amazing how at some point in virtually every edition of QT some lunatic from the audience gets the chance to shout out about the wrongness of the Iraqi war and as in last nights case about the nasty American’s evil desire for oil that prompted the invasion? Where DO they get these identikit moonbats? Has there ever been a QT audience that was reflective of British society and if not, why not?

Some years ago, I was in the QT audience in Belfast, at that time I was representative of the 50% or so of unionists that opposed doing any deal with the IRA. Out of the 100 or so people in the audience, there were three others that shared my view. 97 supported the government driven Belfast Agreement agenda. In what WAY was that programme giving a balanced view of political opinion? Even if one considers that just under 30% of the people in NI voted against the deal, that audience should statistically have had around 29 other people who more or less took the line I put across. It didn’t and they don’t, do they? This is symptomatic of how editorial bias works and shows just how pernicious it is in creating faux impressions of what the British people think.

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