The BBC, most recently in the shape of Mardell and Bowen, disregard history and context at will in order to push a particular narrative of events in the Middle East. They should realise that the ISIS blitz is an echo from the past…a modern day recreation of the first Islamic conquests by Muhammed…..the difference being that ISIS are unlikely to succeed long term considering the number and power of its opponents should they have the will to combat them.
Last night Channel 4 broadcast a deep and seriously important programme. ‘Isis: The Origins of Violence’ was written and presented by the historian Tom Holland and can be viewed (by British viewers) here.
In a nutshell he posed the question ‘Why do Isis, and groups like Isis, do what they do?’ And he answers this with the only honest answer anybody interested in truth could possibly come back with – which is that although they may be inspired by many things, their most important inspiration is a version of Islam whose roots can be traced to the origins of the religion, its foundational texts and the behaviour of Mohammed.
In a profoundly moving sequence, picking his way up a demolished street, on the lookout for explosives amid the rubble, Holland speaks to camera. What he said needs thinking about:
‘There are things in the past that are like unexploded bombs that just lie in wait in the rubble, and then something happens to trigger them. And there are clearly verses in the Koran and stories that are told about Mohammed that are very like mines waiting to go off – Improvised Explosive Devices. And they can lie there maybe for centuries and then something happens to trigger them and you get this.’
The documentary will doubtless have many detractors from the many people – non-Muslim as well as Muslim – who want to cover over those IEDs. Holland’s documentary profoundly and carefully reveals why this is such a terrible mistake, and why from London and Paris to Istanbul and Mosul, the effects of failing to be honest in our assessment of the past has such serious repercussions for our present and future.
Finally it is worth saying that Channel 4 deserve a huge amount of credit for having the commitment to public broadcasting demonstrated by their commissioning and airing of such a documentary. Meanwhile, I see that the BBC has commissioned Nadiya Hussain, from the Great British Bake Off, to present a documentary about the wonders of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (where of course non-Muslims are forbidden to go). I wonder whether during that documentary Nadiya will make any acknowledgement of the IEDs of her faith? Or whether the BBC will continue to ignore the vast leaps forward in public knowledge demonstrated, and led, by Channel 4 and a few brave individuals like Tom Holland.
The BBC scoffed and sneered yesterday when Trump stated that he and his administration were the subject of a witch-hunt…trouble is, as we all know, Trump is right…the Media are almost 100% against him…including the impartial BBC.
Which media organisation is one of the most balanced? Fox News. How does the BBC fair? Of its reports on Trump 74% were negative in tone…the only surprise there is that the figure is so low.
Interesting to hear one of my concerns about the BBC’s manipulation of the news agenda confirmed today as the BBC interviewed a Tory supporter who said he would vote Tory as they’d provide that ‘strong and stable’ government…he then became embarrassed and apologised for using the phrase..before adding though that that is precisely what we do need.
The fact that he was embarrassed to use the phrase shows how powerful and intimidating the BBC’s brainwashing is. As soon as the Tories came out with the phrase ‘strong and stable’ the BBC began to attack it, mocking and ridiculing it and its use…in a way that they have never once done for Labour’s ‘for the many not the few’…a phrase stolen from Blair and used by the LibDems in 2010….nor has the BBC raised an eyebrow to the repeated uses of the assertion that Labour policies are the result of a ‘democratic process’ or that Labour is a ‘democratic party’…repeated again and again in the same interviews.
The BBC knows Corbyn is seen as disorganised, weak and incoherent economically so they set out to destroy the Tory message that they represent the only alternative…providing in contrast a strong and stable government.
They seem to have done that successfully…I even heard a Tory minister have to laugh off using the phrase….it shows the power of the BBC to create that toxicity so fast and so widespread that people self-censor themselves now and hesitate to use the Tory slogan.
The BBC must be very pleased the cunning plan worked out so well.
What standard has the BBC’s election coverage reached? Hard to really tell accurately as no one can watch it 24/7…of the bits I have caught some has been good, some questionable either for competence or bias, some is outright bias. However now that the Tory manifesto has been released into the wild we can at least get a feeling for the coverage overall….and it seems to be pretty much what we have come to expect from the BBC….Labour gets a positive spin and a less than rigorous going over whilst the Tory policies get forensically examined and torn apart. Pienaar used to specialise in this approach telling us there may be some problems with Labour policies but you know what, they could work and they sound good, whereas the Tories’ are pretty well unworkable and ill-thought out.
As mentioned in a previous post we’ve had Kuenssberg explaining away Labour’s nationalisation as ‘buying assets’ and so essentially costless, today we had Nicky Campbell telling us that ‘many people are worried about immigration’….what the BBC concerned about immigration????…hold on, don’t be daft…Campbell finishes with….‘they are worried about immigration being stopped…because the NHS will grind to a halt.’
Campbell went along with all the critics of the government…and all the callers were critics, Campbell had to ‘assure’ us that this was just how things were and make a plea for Tory supporters to call in. Of course that should mean he would be sure to be even more rigorous in challenging callers…but no, he at best nodded in agreement and at worst fully agreed and even added his two penneth worth as above. No challenge to the woman who criticised Tory care povision and went on to say all care homes should be closed as that would free up 60,000 nurses for the NHS…Campbell seemed to see no problem there as he treated her as if she was speaking complete common sense.
Then we had the actual manifesto launch with the big talking point being the sale of homes to pay for care. On World at One Martha Kearney mentioned a couple of times that ‘people are calling the policy a ‘dementia tax’…er…just who are these people? Oh….yes…it was Jeremy Corbyn. So the BBC picks up a highly perjorative and loaded phrase that’s been ‘weaponised’ by Labour in order to demonise the Tories and the BBC tries to get it into common usage by repeating it again and again. This is the BBC that supposedly doesn’t use words or phrases that are obviously highly political and which they claim can mean different things to different people. The BBC that doesn’t like to use the word ‘terrorism’ if it can help it but does like to use the term ‘bedroom tax’ and now ‘dementia tax’….guess their principles go out the window when it is a word that can be used to attack the ‘Right’.
And why did the BBC bring in Andrew Dilnot? He was on just about every programme throughout the day giving us the benefit of his wisdom. He is highly political and has his own agenda to sell in regard to how social care is paid for……you can see how the Left enjoyed his intervention as illustrated by the Guardian
Andrew Dilnot, who reviewed social care for coalition, expresses alarm at proposal that will mean elderly are ‘completely on their own’
Of course they are not completely on their own…they do not have to sell their house whilst alive and if they use up all but £100,000 worth of their home’s value the state then picks up the rest of the bill….and so if you have less than £100,000 in your home’s value, or rent, you pay nothing.
He thinks the Tory proposal is unfair and there should be a universal spread of the cost through out society, rich and poor to pay…pay somehow…in the programme I heard him suggest we pay by getting insurance cover…but previously he has suggested higher taxes…..both systems mean the poorest will have to cough up more money they can ill afford…how exactly is that fairer than having the most wealthy pay for their own care as much as possible?
What we don’t hear much of on the BBC is that the previous cap on what a care patient could keep of the value of their house was around £23,000…that is, any value above that could be used to pay for care…and note that cap was going to be raised to £118,000 anyway by 2020….so pretty much as May proposes now….you will be able to keep 4 times the value of what you can now….or more if the costs do not actually use up all the value.
Dilnot’s logic seems somewhat skewed and not thought through….but nice of the BBC to give such a critic of the Tory position such a big platform to strut his stuff.
The BBC has belatedly jumped on the bandwagon and has moved to claim the story about the rape and abuse of so many white girls in Rochdale and Rotherham as its own…after having ignored, downplayed and misreported it for so long. It has produced a docudrama on events in Rochdale detailing what happened to some girls there and how it was allowed to go on for so long….the Telegraph acclaims the BBC’s programme…
As an act of bearing witness, it was, however, a sterling example of public service broadcasting.
Really? Where was the BBC when the abuse was actually happening and they knew about it? Must leave a sour taste in the girls’ mouths as they see the BBC reaping rewards for all their suffering that was for so long ignored with themselves dismissed as white trash.
I heard this comment from a presenter on Woman’s Hour the other day as she discussed the programme with those involved in it…
‘If this makes you angry wait until you see the programme.’
From the BBC which was one of the organisations that turned a blind eye to the real time abuse as it happened and only now is coming out pointing fingers…not at itself of course.
We also had Laura Kuenssberg making an interesting comment about Labour’s re-nationalisation of utilities….
The spending to buy back these companies is apparently not like any other government spending and debt….why? Because…er…we then have an ‘asset’ that we’ve bought….and so it’s a positive on our national balance sheet.
I’m sure Corbyn was very grateful for that piece of propaganda…but it’s only an asset if we think we might want to sell it in future, not likely under Comrade Corbyn.
Second it’s just like any other debt, it’s got to be paid back and any other spending by government also creates ‘assets’…if the government borrows to build a bridge, or schools or hospitals we have the buildings as ‘assets’….they still have to be paid for though.
Absurd comment from Kuenssberg that seemed intent on helping make the case for nationalisation.
What else have we got?
Oh yes…Brexit was the BBC’s goto bête noire to blame any economic downturn on whilst also claiming immigration was great for the economy and vital for employers.
Curious then that on the Today show we had Remain’s favourite BBC journo, Kamal Ahmed, tell us that the economy is in meltdown with a consumer squeeze as pay is cut and inflation rises. Ahmed tells us it is the government’s fault for not creating the right atmosphere where ‘work pays’. Also companies are, get this, too reliant on low paid, low skill workers and are not investing to boost productivity and hence pay.
Yep…low skill and low paid workers keep wages down and are used by businesses so that they don’t have to invest in new technology and upskilling their workforce.
So the BBC is now admitting immigration has held back the British economy, stalling productivity and keeping wages low.
And it blames the government, during an election. Funny how a new BBC narrative pops up when needed, as suits its political agenda. The BBC quite happy to sacrifice the immigrants for a couple of weeks if it can damage the Tories by trying to blame them for the economy. Normal service will return after the election.
Did note the BBC trying to blame the government at first for the NHS computer crash, with Marr trying to suggest ‘deaths’ will be the result. They had to reel back on this line as expert after expert, and many NHS insiders, said it was down to the NHS Trusts themselves…90% of hospitals being OK indicated that it was failure on the part of individual organisations not to update and secure their PCs rather than government cuts as the BBC initially tried to suggest…along with Labour.
Also of interest, Buzzfeed told the BBC that there is not a problem with ‘fake news’ in the UK…presumably Buzzfeed did not examine the BBC’s output especially concerning fake news…which the BBC insists is the world’s biggest problem and we must crack down hard on it….the BBC appointing itself judge and jury as to what is fake news.
The BBC has also been filling the airwaves with the voice of US General Hayden as he attacks Trump….without telling us he is a known enemy of Trump and who previously stated that he thought Trump was unfit for Office.
Is Trump working for Russia or is it the media organisations like the Washington Post, amongst others?
US politics is in chaos, the democratic system under attack internally, talk of impeaching the President, and an economy sent reeling.
Just who is damaging America…just who is it that is causing the chaos that Putin could only ever have dreamt of in his wildest dreams? Just who is it that has sent the US stock market tumbling as they destabilises the political system and send out the message that they are intent on bringing down the government and at the very least will upend and block the legislative process?
Just who is doing Putin’s work? The Washington Post, New York Times and the BBC.
The left-wing media…supporters of democracy, free speech and progressive politics…or the useful idiots of dictators?
He has the legal right to blurt out classified information, but his ignorance, vanity and foolishness endanger the nation.
New York Times.
The real question is…can the New York Times, the Washington Post and the BBC be trusted not to blurt out classified information in their foolish ignorance, vanity and arrogance? An irony that the traitor, Bradley Manning, has been released early from prison [due to Obama] and he is the hero, along with Snowden, of these organisations…. Snowden quite probably a Russian spy….they both did enormous damage to Western intelligence and security and put lives at risk…but the BBC et al cheer them on. Clearly they cannot be trusted. And now they work to undermine the US President, US democracy and it seems the economy.
On conservative media, President Trump’s supporters have used unfounded allegations, diversions and conspiracy theories to keep his troops behind him.
LOL…‘unfounded allegations, diversions and conspiracy theories ‘.…The NYT, WP and BBC know all about those tactics..in fact they’re using them right now.
The Left-wing media like to chuckle that Trump gets his intel from Fox News….nothing wrong with that you may think. However as the anti-Trump Washington Post and New York Times run an orchestrated campaign, along with Obama stay-behinds still in Office, to derail Trump by claiming he revealed top secret, sensitive information about an ISIS bomb plot relating to laptops on aircraft, we might consider where Trump might have got his information…was it Fox News or was it the New York Times which on March 21 2017 published this detailed report…
Intelligence showing that the Islamic State is developing a bomb hidden in portable electronics spurred the United States and Britain on Tuesday to bar passengers from airports in a total of 10 Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptop computers, iPads and other devices larger than a cellphone aboard direct inbound flights, two senior American counterterrorism officials said.
Two additional American officials said the explosives were designed to be hidden in laptop batteries. All four spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the sensitive information.
So the NYT is leaked fairly precise information about a bomb plot and it is such sensitive info that the sources want to stay hidden and yet the Washington Post, NYT, BBC et al are making headlines out of the fact that Trump discussed information with the Russians in the presence of his intelligence and security team who all deny it was in any way sensitive or inappropriate to reveal…the same information the NYT has published months before….and the NYT goes on, as it tries to hunt down Trump, to actually publish the name of the country that provided the intel…Israel supposedly….if the name was so sensitive how come they publish it? And how did they and the WP get to know the name…because the anti-Trump leakers told them…..so these concerned officials [one strangely an ex-official..so how does he know what was said in the meeting] were so worried that the source of the intel might be compromised they told the NYT and the WP who it was? Really?
How is it the NYT can publish such sensitive information that, the WP is keen to tell us, the Russians must be able to ‘backwards engineer’ in order to identify sources and methods and thus compromise the origin of the intel…as the WP and NYT claim Trump has done?…and yet Trump is legally able to do that just supposing he had…bet the NYT isn’t.
Not a lot of thought and analysis going on when this story is being reported…the BBC has not bothered at all with informed and considered comment and reporting…it has just cut and pasted the WP and NYT’s tripe almost verbatim reporting it as fact. Talk about fake news.
The real story here is who runs the country…is it an elected President or the left-wing media working in cahoots with shadowy spooks?
Katty Kay was on the radio a short while ago sniggering about Putin’s offer to provide a transcript of the meeting with Trump, she went on to say that Putin will be looking in and enjoying the chaos he is causing in America and Europe. She also opined that Trump is blaming the Media as all politicians do…but of course the Media isn’t to blame…just doing its job she thinks.
Well..really? Lets look at Kay herself who has just made a claim that Putin is causing chaos in America and Europe….but she has absolutely no evidence for that. Then there’s the WP and NYT, and the BBC on their coat-tails, inventing stories about Trump in order to damage his credibility and authority….they are causing chaos politically and economically as the markets fall due to these almost certainly fabricatedand exaggerated tales….and who knows how many Americans, Trump supporters, would react if the Left-wing media forced Trump out of Office.
If I was Trump I’d be hunting down the Washington Post, the New York Times and the those who leaked the story to them and prosecute them every inch of the way. Lock ’em up.
And as for upsetting Israel…hmmm….where to start with the Muslim loving Obama who made a deal that would help Iran get the nuclear bomb [we all know that’s going to happen]…
The Obama administration faced its share of accusations that it leaked sensitive Israeli intelligence or military operations.
In November 2013, Israeli officials were reportedly furious at the Obama White House for confirming the Israeli Air Force was behind a strike on a Syrian military base. Israeli policy is not to confirm strikes carried out beyond its borders.
Israel’s Channel 10 TV on Friday night quoted Israeli officials branding the American leak as “scandalous.” For Israel’s ally to be acting in this way was “unthinkable,” the officials were quoted as saying.
A second TV report, on Israel’s Channel 2, said the leak “came directly from the White House,” and noted that “this is not the first time” that the administration has compromised Israel by leaking information on such Israeli Air Force raids on Syrian targets.
It said some previous leaks were believed to have come from the Pentagon, and that consideration had been given at one point to establishing a panel to investigate the sources.
In 2012, Israel suspected the Obama administration had leaked information to prevent the Jewish state from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The first report in Foreign Policy quotes anonymous American officials saying that Israel has been given access to airbases by Iran’s northern neighbor Azerbaijan from which Israel could launch air strikes or at least drones and search and rescue aircraft.
The second report from Bloomberg, based on a leaked congressional report, said that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so dispersed that it is “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be…” A strike could delay Iran as little as six months, a former official told the researchers.
“It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking,” analyst Yoel Guzansky at the Institute for National Security Studies told ABC News. “I think the [Obama] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.”
Check out the BBC video…it claims Trump ‘inexplicably’ told the Russians the source of the intelligence….even the Washington Post has not claimed that….claiming only that it was the nature of the intel that could have revealed sources and methods…but offers no proof of course as to what was said….
“Our story says that the nature of the information provided would have allowed the Russians to ‘reverse engineer’ to discover the sources and methods. He said so much that they could figure it out.”
A while back we posted this comment on the BBC’s interpretation of what Trump meant when he said he had the right to share information with the Russians…
The BBC implies Trump’s assertion of his right to share facts with the Russians as an indication of guilt whereas of course all it indicates is that he shared facts about the terrorist threat….it says zilch about what those facts were or their security classification…
Mr Trump tweeted: “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.
“Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against [IS] & terrorism.”
It is not clear if Mr Trump was acknowledging having shared intelligence secrets with the Russian officials, thus contradicting White House statements, or whether he was simply trying to explain what had been discussed.
So now not so sure he was admitting guilt….BBC is so eager to trash Trump they don’t get the facts right first time…happy to peddle anti-Trump fake news just to spin an aura of incompetence and recklessness around his Presidency.
In his tweet early on Tuesday, Mr Trump said: “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.
“Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against [IS] & terrorism.”
A report in the Washington Post said Mr Trump had confided top secret information relating to an IS plot thought to centre on the use of laptop computers on aircraft.
How is it that the BBC opts to paint this as a negative for Brexit negotiations whilst everyone else, the Remain backing FT included, interpret it as a positive for Britain?
Listening to the radio in the car and I hear from the BBC that a recent ECJ ruling concerning an EU-Singapore trade deal means that any deal between the UK and the EU will need ratification by all EU member states and many regional parliaments as well….this will of course, the BBC tells us, be bad for Brexit and will mean we are mired in negotiations for years.
The Institute of Directors, one of Britain’s leading business organisations, welcomed the decision. “This ruling will probably make it easier for the EU to conclude trade deals without fear of as many hold-ups from national and sub-national legislatures,” said Allie Renison, head of EU and trade policy.
Er…isn’t that the exact opposite of what the BBC is peddling?
And as for all states and parliaments having to ratify…only two issues would need that….
In its widely awaited decision, the ECJ ruled that the EU had exclusive competence in all but two aspects of the Singapore agreement. Only for issues in those two areas — portfolio investments and a dispute-settlement regime for investments — would a deal require unanimous backing by member states.
Britain’s ambition to sign a quick Free Trade Agreement with the European Union after Brexit has received a significant boost after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice handed expanded trade negotiation powers to Brussels.
The much-anticipated decision from the court in Luxembourg surprised experts by ruling that on key areas – including financial services and transport – the European Union does not need to seek ratification of a trade deal by the EU’s 38 national and local parliaments.
Trade experts said the ECJ ruling could substantially reduce the risk of any future EU-UK free trade agreement getting bogged down in the EU national parliaments, opening the way for an FTA to be agreed by a qualified majority vote of EU member states.
“The Court of justice says all services – even transport – can be ratified by a qualified majority vote, which is potentially quite a big opening for the UK,” said Steve Peers, professor of EU law at Essex University. “It could certainly make things easier.”
atlas_shruggedMar 14, 04:53 Midweek 12th March 2025 The implosion in Reform is the stuff of worst nightmares, almost as though there are hidden dirty trick forces at…
atlas_shruggedMar 14, 04:42 Midweek 12th March 2025 > remit of liaising with the authorities over Muslim issues. And all because they are special. Which reminds me of…
tomoMar 13, 23:39 Midweek 12th March 2025 Wrong costume…. https://twitter.com/truckdriverpleb/status/1899844358599311702
tomoMar 13, 22:57 Midweek 12th March 2025 https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1900276204302729699 [img]https://i.ibb.co/XxHFRP5W/chrome-lvnbs-Ino-Da.png[/img]
tomoMar 13, 22:53 Midweek 12th March 2025 https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1900276204302729699
JonathanRMar 13, 22:33 Midweek 12th March 2025 The BBC mentioned in this interesting interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtS14ZO8Q-E&ab_channel=CBNNews
ZephirMar 13, 21:08 Midweek 12th March 2025 Claiming confusion regarding “carrots and sticks” is no defense.
Lefty WrightMar 13, 20:53 Midweek 12th March 2025 Al I had no idea that there were so many bricklayers,carpenters, plumbers etc.etc. among our Labour MPs. OK boys, girls…
