Author Archives: Laban

The very wonderful Jane Garvey is just too honest. Listen to her reminiscences (mp3) of May 2nd 1997, the morning after the Labour Party’s overwhelming election victory – from the Drive show of 10th May 2007.

Ah, well – I had been up for most of the night but I was doing this Five Live breakfast programme with our colleague at the time – it was a bloke called Peter Allen so – I had to get a bit of sleep, and I do remember I walked back into – we were broadcasting then from Broadcasting House in the centre of London – all very upmarket in those days – and the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles – I will always remember that (Allen laughs) – er – not that the BBC were celebrating in any way shape or form (Allen, laughing – ‘no, no, no, not at all’) – and actually – I think it’s fair to say that in the intervening years the BBC, if it was ever in love with Labour has probably fallen out of love with Labour, or learned to fall back in, or basically just learned to be in the middle somewhere which is how it should be – um – but there was always this suggestion that the BBC was full of pinkoes who couldn’t wait for Labour to get back into power – that may have been the case, who knows ? but as I say I think there’ve been a few problems along the way – wish I hadn’t started this now …

The mp3 gives you the full effect. Champagne socialists ? Hat-tips to Barnet Pete and al-dumbdown in the comments.

UPDATE – blogger (and B-BBC reader) Not A Sheep was first to pick up on Pete and dumbdowns good work.

The Today programme (RealAudio) this morning reported that vote fraud in Birmingham – which took place three years ago – may have been more extensive than originally thought.

“There was even a riot” said Ed Stourton.

There was indeed – in fact there were a couple of incidents – all reported at the time in the local media and on blogs – and all completely ignored by the £3bn BBC. Even postmen weren’t safe.

Yet the BBC is fascinated by some forms of alleged vote fraud or electoral malpractice, devoting report after report to the subject – where the alleged fraudsters are US Republicans.

The BBC are catching up with the Birmingham frauds three years late – and they still can’t report it correctly – Ed Stourton stating that the (Kashmiri) People’s Justice Party is ‘now defunct’. Maybe they shouldn’t rely on Wikipedia. As Brummie gossip site the Stirrer and Labour councillor Bob Piper report, the PJP is actually standing in the 2007 elections.

But at least they’ve caught up with the Brum news. In contrast, BBC listeners and viewers remain blissfully unaware of last weekend’s Sunday Times allegations of postal vote malpractice in Leeds or the joint police-council statement on the subject. Expect an in-depth Today report in 2010 ?

The main item on Today’s 7 am news was to the effect that “Peter Halliday is to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to abusing choirboys over a period of five years. But the Church of England knew that he had admitted the offences 17 years ago.” An in-depth report (RealAudio) follwed at 7.35.

Now it’s not unreasonable that they should be reporting such things, although the prominent billing is probably because the story is a Today exclusive.

But what’s this item at 7.15 ?

“Academics have uncovered a book written by a man who could well be considered the first advocate for gay rights (RealAudio). We speak to Dr Hal Gladfelder of Manchester University.”

John Humphrys even invited Dr Gladfelder, author of such seminal works as “Plague Spots: Deviance and the Body in the Writings of John Cleland” to give a potted history of homosexual rights in the UK, interrupting Dr Gladfelder at the mention of Roy Jenkins with the enthusiastic comment ‘that great reforming Home Secretary !‘.

The actual document discovered by Dr Gladfelder is called ‘Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified’. It is available to Project Muse subscribers.

Perhaps the BBC, so exercised by people who abuse choirboys without criminal sanction, should check out the definition of ‘pederasty‘.

Prague Tory points out that the early BBC coverage manages to attack both the successful first round candidates from a left perspective.

At Not Proud of Britain …

Gerard Baker in the Times :

You really do have to leave the country to appreciate fully how pernicious the BBC’s grasp of the nation’s cultural and political soul has become. The groupthink and assumptions implicit in almost everything broadcast by BBC News, and even less explicitly by much else of the corporation’s output, lie like a suffocating blanket over the national consciousness.

This is the mindset that sees the effortless superiority, at every turn, of benign collectivism over selfish individualism, exploited worker over unscrupulous capitalist, enlightened European over brutish American, thoughtful atheist over dumb believer, persecuted Arab over callous Israeli; and that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world — from colonialism to global warming.

And Frank Stewart in the New York Times fears the kind of output the BBC’s Arabic TV service is likely to feature. I’m not qualified to judge this, as I don’t listen to the BBCs Arabic output. Let’s just say it wouldn’t be much of a shock if it’s true.

” … the authoritarian regimes and armed militants of the Arab world get sympathetic treatment on BBC Arabic. When Saddam Hussein was in power, he was a great favorite of the service, which reported as straight news his re-election to a seven-year term in 2002, when he got 100 percent of the vote. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria enjoys similar favor. When a State Department representative referred to Syria as a dictatorship, his BBC interviewer immediately interrupted and reprimanded him.

The Arabic Service not only shields Arab leaders from criticism but also tends to avoid topics they might find embarrassing: human rights, the role of military and security forces, corruption, discrimination against minorities, censorship, poverty and unemployment. When, from time to time, such topics do arise, they are usually dealt with in the most general terms: there may, for instance, be guarded references to “certain Arab countries.”

By contrast, the words and deeds of Western leaders, particularly the American president and the British prime minister, are subject to minute analysis, generally on the assumption that behind them lies a hidden and disreputable agenda. Last summer, when the British arrested two dozen people alleged to have been plotting to blow up airplanes crossing the Atlantic, a BBC presenter centered a discussion on the theory that these arrests had taken place because Tony Blair, embarrassed by opposition to Britain’s role in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, wanted to distract the public while at the same time associating Muslims with terrorism.”

via Wat Tyler, who examines the Today programme’s coverage of ITVs current woes, this little gem from ex-Beeb business editor Jeff Randall.

In its coverage of the private-equity debate, Newsnight, BBC2’s main current-affairs programme, depicted those in the industry as stand-and-deliver Dick Turpins. When I asked the editor of another leading BBC news show about impartiality and the internal reaction to Newsnight’s approach, he said: “Nobody even mentioned it.”

Sounds par for the course. It’s not a conspiracy – it’s “unwitting and unconscious”.

Slightly late (my reporting it, not the review), Tory councillor Harry Phibbs reviews the BBC’s political drama Party Animals.

What is so pitiful about this is that I think there was a genuine effort to be fair politically but the script writers just can’t get it into their heads that Conservatives have come, through a process of honest and intelligent thought, to a different conclusion about the world to themselves.

Little Bulldogs looks at the BBC’s coverage of arrest figures under anti-terror legislation and the case of the wrong photograph. And via anonanon in the comments, this glowing review of Adam ‘Power of Nightmares’ Curtis’ new BBC offering ‘The Trap‘. The review’s at Socialist Worker, the organ of that party which is so prominent in the left-of-Labour political landscape yet so strangely invisible to BBC news reporters.

UPDATE – the midnight news is again (as noted in the comments) referring to ‘the Islamic prophet (or perhaps Prophet – it’s difficult to capitalise speech) Muhammad’ rather than the usual ‘the p/Prophet Muhammad’ we’ve come to expect. And the BBC religion page on Muhammad, reported by Andrew here, has been moved and I think altered. Has anybody got the original ? Is this a move towards equality of treatment in news and factual programmes for all religions and none ?

via commenter anonanon:

 

The BBC is advising MEPs on how to improve the “image” of the European elections, as part of a drive to make the next round of voting for the European Parliament more “viewer friendly”. Senior executives have held meetings with officials in Brussels who are seeking ways to draw more viewers into the “excitement” of the 2009 European Union-wide polls.

James Stephenson, the editor of the BBC’s election night programme, and Peter Knowles, the controller of BBC parliamentary coverage, took part in meetings in Brussels late last month to discuss which techniques from British election nights would help boost viewing of the EU elections, both in the build-up to voting and on the night of the Europe-wide results.

Their presence as consultants to the most federalist of the Brussels institutions will give ammunition to critics who claim the publicly-funded broadcaster has a pro-EU bias.

 

Scots blogger Mr Eugenides points out that the BBC also propose live coverage of the Treaty of Rome’s 50th anniversary celebrations – which is more than they managed for the late Queen Mother’s one hundredth anniversary. He’s quite sanguine about this, believing that “By the time Nana Mouskouri launches into her third encore, UKIP’s website will have crashed under the deluge of traffic, and sturdy yeomen will be erecting barricades along the beach at Dover.”

Also via Mr. E – is your website banned in China ? I’m pleased to say B-BBC is available to the citizens of the People’s Republic.

Robin Aitken, author of “Can We Trust the BBC ?” writes in last week’s Sunday Times.

Damien Thompson at the Telegraph blog notes the BBCs plugging of a report from the lefty think tank Demos.

Do you enjoy multiculturalist drivel? No? Tough luck. If you’ve paid your BBC licence fee, then you have subsidised free publicity for a report on “cultural diplomacy” by the Labour-friendly think tank Demos.

And finally – John Humphrys’ last Tony Blair interview on the Today programme (RealAudio) revealed his intriguing take on democracy, Iran-style. David Aaronovitch examines the entrails in the Times.

Hate President Bush ? Got a new record out ? The Today Programme can meet all your UK publicity requirements – just ask Patti Smith.

Presenter (RealAudio) – “Ry Cooder, I’ve never heard of you, but our editor listened to ‘Bop Till You Drop’ a lot back in 1980. Would you like five minutes to abuse President Bush ?”

Cooder – “Why, thank you … I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hate George Bush … two stolen elections … America is a junk-food diner and Bush is the head waiter …”

Presenter – “Thank you very much”

The above may not be a verbatim transcript. But it ‘illustrates a wider truth’.

UPDATE – commenter anonanon offers up some more of Today’s Greatest Hits:

“Which historical figures make President Bush look good by comparison ? The Ceasars, Hitler, Stalin – that’s, anyway, according to the composer Randy Newman whose latest song ‘A Few Words in Defence of Our Country’ has just been released on iTunes. He spoke to our reporter Sanchia Berg …”

“That was a Burt Bacharach song. The king of easy listening music has joined the ranks of musicians queuing up to write anti-George Bush songs …”

“But what makes a great protest song ? One man who should know is the singer-songwriter John Prine. He wrote one of America’s best-known anti-Vietnam war songs. 35 years on he’s turned his attention to Iraq. Mark Coles caught up with him on his British tour …”

Blimey, that’s a lot. 30 million miles further than the Sun. Commenter J.G. writes :

Fed up as I was with the constant bleating about man-made global warming we get on the BBC, I thought I would find out just what they are doing to help the planet. So I put in a FOI request asking about the air miles the BBC fly, the carbon that this produces, and how the BBC offsets this. Get ready for some amazing numbers (all relate to the last reporting year):

Total UK domestic flights: 17 million miles

Total European flights: 14 million miles

Other flights: 94 million miles

Total air miles: 125 million

Total cost: £15,147,000

TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS: 25,676,000 Kgs

TOTAL CO2 OFFSET: 0 kgs. Yes, 0 Kg.

The FOI document is here.