Author Archives: Ed Thomas

As is typical for the Beeb, this BBC article about the Euro is notable for inventing history. Contra the report, ‘Is Europe’s passion for the euro fading?’, which states that
‘It was a idea that could barely be whispered inside Europe’s corridors of power – might the European Union lose its appetite for the euro?’,
there was never a time when Europe demonstrated a passion or appetite for the Euro, which has endured a very chequered history including a dramatic Danish ‘No’ when they were given a referendum to decide the issue. Hiding behind the idea that this is some tacit criticism of the EU’s ostrichism simply doesn’t cover the facts: Euro-enthusiasm is clearly suggested.

The BBC shows an amazing symbiosis with the EU powers in its ability to forget democratic votes which go against their chosen narrative. A few years ago they unaccountably found themselves reporting that ‘The poll result is a vote of no confidence in a euro which has declined so far that the world’s central banks felt it necessary to intervene on the markets and boost it.’

Now of course that’s been air-brushed away in time for the valiant ‘down but not out’ Euro to fight another day. Meanwhile the choice to lead with the Germans’ discontent rather than an Italian’s genuinely revolutionary (and quite popular) anti-Euro passion shows the BBC’s preference for Euro insiders rather than sceptics despite the fact that the Italian made the real splash, both in the hearts of Europeans and the pockets. The Beeb journalist dismisses this as ‘posturing’, yet I don’t think I’ve heard much about pro-Euro, or even pro-EU (amounting to the same thing) ‘posturing’ recently, despite the absurdities of Chirac and co.. Can it be that the Euro is too unpopular for supporting it to be populist? Seems like the Beeb have had enough of that nasty democratic nee-saying posturing for the time being.

Check out this juicy morsel in the mouth of the Rottweiler Puppy! Naturally the fellows at the R.P. fully deserve this link for assiduously linking this site and others supportive of Our Cause (and for invaluably antagonising the Enemy- see R.P.’s comments box). Well done chaps! Adda boy, Puppy!

While the BBC get all excited about cool new British cloning, and fresh monkey business, they apparently haven’t noticed a whacking blow to their greatest environmental news fetish- news that the Antarctic is putting on weight. (via A Tangled Web)

Oddly no-one ever seems to learn that when it comes to a lot of the investigations we perform in science today our knowledge is in its infancy. At least one guy the BBC interviewed seemed to get it:

‘”A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife research over the last century has been hidden right under our noses,”‘

Makes you wonder what else has been hidden from them that’s right under their noses. Especially those scientific minds that bring us the Beeb in all its glory.

Update (Sat)– In response to Natalie’s interest, expressed in the comments, here are a few links gleaned from a commenter at the aforementioned ATW- post here– that highlight the fact that the BBC really have bought into a political agenda with their relentless enviro-spin. All over the web I’ve found people quoting the BBC as a source for global warming warnings- including in the post I’ve just linked from ATW. I hope these three links– posted in order of technicality, with the most technical first- illustrate that the Beeb has sidelined debate in favour of left-tinged crusading politics, as usual. From the second of the three sources linked, this quote impressed me a lot, and it was good to read-

‘the predication of government, and United Nations’, policy for energy growth on the unsustainable myth of ‘global warming’ is a serious threat to us all, but especially to the 1.6 billion people in the less-developed world who have no access to any modern form of energy. The twin curses of water poverty and energy poverty remain the real scandals. By contrast, the political imposition on the rest of the world of our Northern, self-indulgent ecochondria about ‘global warming’ could prove to be a neo-colonialism too far.’

…but the same conclusions. Helen Szamuely and The Rottweiler Puppy take on the BBC over bias. Helen reports the work of Robin Aitken, former BBC journalist:

‘Robin Aitken is writing a book on the BBC bias. He has already done a good deal of the research and marshalling of the material for a dossier he presented to the Governors in the 1990s. It was comprehensively ignored…’

It was only a couple of days ago, and it was a story about Africa- but the UN’s renewed choice of Zimbabwe to sit on their human rights commission cannot be found in the Beeb’s Africa section. In fact it is difficult to find anywhere- and the relevant article is filed as an ‘Americas’ news item. Bizarre.

It is considered an ‘Americas’ story because the US has been one of the complainants against this action.

Surely this is another case of protecting Annan from the consequences of what happens on his ‘watch’?

But meanwhile, by contrast, this story about a Burundian woman being honoured by the UN for humanitarian actions has been prominent everywhere, including where it belongs, in the ‘Africa’ section.

This just sums up the wrongheadedness of the Beeb and the UN, who often these days seem partners in crime. The cause of suffering, ie. the tolerance of foul and callous leadership in Africa, is demoted to a footnote, while the sticking plaster of what amounts compassionate gesturing (whatever the great good that this hard-pressed woman has done) is foregrounded- and thus we get warm and fuzzies about the UN and totally misled about our failures to confront the evils that plague Africa.

Interestingly, this article, about the UK cutting aid to Uganda in a political gesture, is considered relevant to Africa. Somehow the US (and others unnamed) complaining about Zimbabwe being given a human rights podium at the UN is not.

(p.s.- also check out the articles for UN apologism eg. making Annan seem in tune with UN critics- rather than out of touch as he is; not mentioning the UN’s failure in Rwanda and Burundi as they proceed to honour a woman who didn’t fail.)

The fantasy of objectivity that the BBC cherishes is exposed again and again as a farce. The Rottweiler Puppy gives notes and comments on an example of where the BBC reports an issue so obviously part of a liberal agenda that it barely needs saying (about on a par, on the opposite coast so to speak, with the wilder shores of Nick Griffin’s mind), yet gives an illusion of objectivity by at least offering a glimpse of the immensely cogent case against this agenda of liberals and charlatans.

Who on earth could make a serious argument that it was sensible to give criminals the vote (Come on. I’m waiting.)? I mean, without wishing to digress from talking about BBC bias, picture the slogans used electioneering the prisons: ‘vote for me, I’ll release you’, or (if you’re a ‘conservative’): ‘vote for me, and a free DVD player to every prisoner’s room will follow’ (please do add some more in any comments offered; could be fun!). I understand from the Beeb’s spouting of the ‘reformers’ ‘arguments’ that the changes of law they want would bring us into line with seven other unnamed European countries, which leaves quite a lot more unmentioned ones (unmentioned by the Beeb, that is) who don’t let crims vote

So, given this senselessnes, why the need to be giving these moonbats (admittedly moonbats with an establishment history and more than a cat in hell’s chance of changing the oh so old and fusty law) the airtime (which of course increases the chances of getting the desired bandwagon a’ changin’ things) and covering the shameful farce of it with a figleaf called Anne Widdecombe? (Via House of Dumb). I wonder what proportion of the chums who want to water down the porridge are (/were, in the context of the rubber stamp of the Beeb’s charter) also supporters of the television tax which keeps the BBC afloat?

The Beeb journalist is reporting about Iraqi kidnappings. It’s bad news. Naturally he gets over-excited while interviewing people:

‘On the wall behind him the faces of the handful of kidnappers they’ve captured stare out. Black and white images of the men who terrorise their fellow citizens.

“What I want is for the government to apply the law that deals with kidnapping. They should hang criminals to keep the peace.”

Most Iraqis are the same. People here – children and adults, civilians and the police – all tell you that for now security is more important than democracy.’

THAT’S NOT WHAT HE SAID, NOW, IS IT?

He said he supported the death penalty as part of following the laws of his land (according to the testimony the BBC have presented us with), not that he was prepared to sacrifice democracy for security. Of course the Beeb think that democracy and the death penalty are incompatible, but that’s just their opinion. Maybe a cross-section of Iraqis would say that they prefer security to democracy, but that didn’t appear to be their answer when they faced insecure elections and the terrorists asked the questions.

of this article by Paul Reynolds at BBConline I couldn’t find a needle of criticism or even meaningful analysis of the UN. Maybe you’ll be luckier. All I found was Reynolds regurgitating Mr Annan’s lofty sayings and emphasising how important they were at a time when there is a lot of ‘hostility’ in the US:

‘In the United States, there is still hostility to the UN and Mr Annan’s own position has been weakened by the oil-for food programme, in which his own son has been the subject of inquiry.’

Here’s Reynolds’ laughable version of powerful ‘for and against’ arguments in the US (hint, it’s not the arguments that are powerful, just the pedigree of the arguers, as is usual with Reynolds. Almost as laughable is the title ‘High Level group’ conferred on one advisory panel Annan has drawn on):

‘The former American UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a Democrat, who negotiated an end to the Bosnian war, said: “Without us the UN will fail. And if it fails, we will be among the many losers.”

But another UN ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, in a terse statement, said that “only the officers and functionaries of the UN” could “restore confidence in the United Nations”.’

However, I could find some useful stuff from Claudia Rosett. She knows how to needle:

‘in much the same way that despots faced with popular unrest like to announce giant patriotic dam-building projects involving the pouring of huge amounts of cement, Mr. Annan is presenting his new improved save-the-world reform plan, conveniently timed to serve as a distraction from the oil-for-fraud, sex-for-food, theft, waste, abuse and incompetence stories that for the past two years have bubbling up around the same U.N. he already reformed for us back in 1997.’

But here’s where she’s sure to get Reynolds and co’s sacred goat:

‘The grand failure of the U.N. is that its system, its officials and most visibly its current secretary-general are still stuck in the central-planning mindset that was the hallmark of dictators and failed utopian dreams of the previous century.’

Ouch.

Ok, first off I’ll admit that I’m a luddite sceptic when it comes to the global environmental debate that seems to have been foisted on us for an indefinite period from around the mid-eighties. I’ve heard little except grave warnings, and deep grave warnings, throughout my life about what a mess we’ve made/are making of the world’s environment. My feeling about this statement has always been that it’s a shame to lose animals but people come first. To think I thought I had done my bit when I raised 30 quid for the WWF in ’89!

So, I’m posting because I have to, because other people have been telling me to get my finger out and say something about the BBC’s enviromania.

I’ll start with something I can be sure of: the BBC’s Evan Davies (often among the more balanced BBC types) made an exaggeration in an otherwise interesting article when he compared a peasant who was watching a road being built in economically upsurgent China to a Tiennamen Square protestor:

‘The scene was reminiscent of that famous image of the man in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square. Here, there were no tanks, just earth-moving equipment.

The farmer was not exactly obstructing them, he was just gazing, but you could imagine him taking a forlorn stand against an anonymous power.’

To me this is demeaning to everyone involved in the analogy, and evidence not only of a complacent cultural ignorance, but the typical BBC dreamy mentality that what we see under capitalism is no better than what we saw under communism. Ok, China is a special case in a way, but needless to say, Davies finds that his assumption (his own word) about the peasant’s feelings about the road development was incorrect.

As for the BBC’s attitude to environmental warming issues, I suspect their prejudices are similarly entrenched. Wizbang has a couple of posts which help illustrate this. (thanks to reader Mike). Facile, trusting, picture-based journalism might summarise these instances nicely.

Unlike me and my support for the WWF, the BBC just can’t give up the causes they’ve espoused. I suspect the real reason for this is ignorance and fear of the unknown, which makes them more similar to me than they’d care to admit (hang on, aren’t you admitting that you and the BBC are similar?-ed Yes, I suppose so. Just that I know when to quit).

Ignorance and fear of the unknown aren’t enough, however, to explain the BBC’s many manias, the enviro one included. For that you need hubris and an inability to hear themselves. That’s why they should listen to people who dissent from their viewpoints, like Melanie Phillips (who no doubt has the effect on many Leftists of searing their eardrums tightly closed), who says

‘Some readers may have heard me on Wednesday night’s Moral Maze on BBC Radio Four on the subject of Kyoto (repeated on Saturday night at 2215). I was battling vainly against a green witness, my three fellow panellists and the chairman to get them to acknowledge not just that there was a division of scientific opinion about global warming but that, one by one, the key claims supporting the theory wwre being demolished.’

See, they can put her on a show but they can’t hear what she’s saying. The rest is must-read, btw.

There! I managed to post without mentioning any factual reasons at all why I disagree with both the BBC and their warming mantra. They have something to do with extensive vineyards in Roman England, skating on the Thames and a visit I made to the Orkney’s ancient settlement, Skara Brae. Ain’t Scotland ace? A good summary of this viewpoint here. For the BBC’s views on English vineyards, and some startling certainty about global warming, see here.

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Excuse the unusual title, but I remember vividly how, early last year, the phrase ‘Godfather’ was used by Orla to describe Ariel Sharon in an obscure early morning BBC TV news report. I don’t think she meant to flatter him by casting him as a genial, responsible volunteer parent.

The point? Well, the latest BBCOnline report on Sharon’s legal position (once a concern, no longer) refers to him in what I consider a related way:

‘The BBC’s Matthew Price in Jerusalem says the decision shows how the prime minister has managed to transform his political position.

A year ago Ariel Sharon was mired in scandal with three corruption cases against him and some who wondered if the cases could possibly end his premiership.

Now, our correspondent says, he appears to be home and dry.’

Perhaps this seems innocuous at first glance, but notice how it makes Sharon’s legal position appear contingent on his political position. If Price knows that Sharon pulled political levers to escape prosecution, he should say so more directly, rather than skulking in this way. Additionally, I think that the expression ‘home and dry’ confirms my view. It suggests not innocence but geting away with it. Fairly scurrilous, after the Orla school of thought I’d say.