Category Archives: BBC bias

Here you go, a brand new Open Thread to start the week. Detail the bias here….

Should he get to Number 10, he said simply, he would not press the nuclear button.

Think of it this way: Corbyn declared to Britain’s potential enemies that with him in charge they could disregard a multi-billion pound weapon system.

BBC 2015

Apparently Corbyn has made a massive ‘bombshell’ u-turn on his nuclear weapons policy…once an ardent, fanatical nuclear disarmer and someone who would never, ever press the button he would in fact now use them, he would press the button if Britain were attacked.  The BBC hasn’t noticed.  Apparently this has always been his policy and there’s nothing new here.  Or he’s lying to win votes…and again the BBC makes no comment on his exploitation of ‘fake news’ and post-truth politics’….free ride to No 10 from the BBC?

Corbyn is even anti-nuclear power stations having said so in 2011..

“I say no nuclear power, decommission the stations we’ve got”.

The Conservatives have said Corbyn’s position on nuclear weapons is a threat to national security and thus he is unfit to be in office as PM.  Nick Robinson says the Tories are ‘smearing’ Corbyn with such a claim.  Robinson said Corbyn had a legitimate argument and that the Tory claim was thus a smear….Corbyn is perfectly entitled to his position but then his opponents are also entitled to comment on that…aren’t they?  Apparently not according to Nick Robinson who is obviously suggesting that the Tory argument is thus not legitimate.

Trouble is it’s a claim that Corbyn’s own party must agree with as they back Trident.

And what of that slippery phrase now being used by Corbyn, that he wouldn’t use a ‘first strike’?  He used it on Marr and Marr did not blink, and Humphrys on the Today show, despite noting that Corbyn had previously said he wouldn’t use nuclear weapons, quoted the ‘first strike’ phrase without comment on the importance of that phrase and Corbyn’s slippery u-turn….the significance of which can be ascertained by the way the Labour man immediately jumped in saying ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head…he wouldn’t use it as a first strike’...leaving open the suggestion that he would use it as retaliation….when he would not, ever.  Post-truth politics?

Here’s Marr not reacting at all to the ‘bombshell’ u-turn in Corbyn’s position that he now would use nuclear weapons…just not as a first strike…

Why did neither Marr nor Humphrys challenge that positioning by Corbyn?  Corbyn would never, never, use nuclear weapons and to imply he might is utterly dishonest.

The BBC hides the  story about Corbyn’s nuclear stance on the politics page….why is such an important story not on the frontpage, or maybe even just on the UK page?  But no, you have to dig into the politics page to find it…

Speaking to Andrew Marr on BBC One, Mr Corbyn – a long-standing opponent of nuclear weapons – said he would never launch a “first strike” attack as prime minister and wanted to de-escalate global tensions, working with other countries including the US, Russia and Iran.

But hang on, is that a massive u-turn or a convenient lie?…he has made his views quite plain in the past…here’s his own Stop the War Coalition praising his position…

The new leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has sparked a political firestorm by challenging the myths around nuclear weapons and Cold War deterrence. Corbyn announced that he would never use a nuclear weapon.

Here’s the Guardian reporting his stance…

Jeremy Corbyn: I would never use nuclear weapons if I were PM

And here is the BBC itself reporting his ‘never, ever’ position…

Jeremy Corbyn row after ‘I’d not fire nuclear weapons’ comment

It did not take a debate, within Labour or the House of Commons. A few words on the Today programme did the trick.

Should he get to Number 10, he said simply, he would not press the nuclear button.

Think of it this way: Corbyn declared to Britain’s potential enemies that with him in charge they could disregard a multi-billion pound weapon system.

“I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons. I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible.

“I do not think we should be renewing Trident.”

Pretty clear isn’t it?  Under no circumstances would Corbyn, the terrorist sympathiser, ever press the nuclear button.

Why is the BBC now pushing all that down the memory hole and peddling Corbyn’s new ‘not a first strike’ pose as if this was his policy all along with nothing unusual going on, nothing to see here?

It’s a lie.  A lie intended to con the British public into thinking Corbyn can be trusted to defend British interests and maintain our security when in fact he has no intention of doing so and would happily surrender to the first threat in order to avoid any bloodshed at all.  And the BBC is backing that position by not challenging his lie and the subterfuge that he might use nuclear weapons if attacked….he would never use them, he has said so many times.

Shame the BBC has forgotten….a massive apparent policy u-turn by Corbyn in order to fool the voters and win an election…where is the BBC’s famed ‘Reality Check’ where are the cries of ‘Fake News’?  There came none….just as there came none when Corbyn completely fabricated a story about there being no seats on a train in order to bolster his Marxist drive to nationalise the railways.

Earlier this month we noted that the BBC was giving the views of ex-British ambassador, and pro-Assad mouth-piece, Peter Ford, complete credibility…The BBC…doing Russia’s dirty work for it.

The BBC interviewed him and then proceeded to use quotes from him throughout the day to promote the idea that the chemical attack in Syria may well have been a false flag operation by the rebels…in every news bulletin that I listened to the BBC did not inform us that Ford was in any way a supporter of the Assad regime, introducing him solely as ‘former British ambassador’.

The Telegraph reports Ford has indeed got very close links to Assad…

Revealed: How Britain’s former Syria ambassador appeared on BBC to defend Assad… after quietly taking a job with dictator’s father-in-law

A former British ambassador to Syria who appeared on the BBC to defend the Assad regime had already become a director of a lobby group run by the dictator’s father in law.

Peter Ford, 59, courted controversy this month by claiming that President Bashar al-Assad would not have carried out the chemical gas attack on his own people.

Now the Telegraph can reveal that just weeks before the April 4 attack  Mr Ford had become a director of the controversial British Syrian Society.

This was founded by Fawaz Akhras, a London-based cardiologist whose daughter Asma is married to President Assad, and is closely linked to the regime, frequently accused of acting as its mouthpiece in the west.

The BBC’s response was to claim…

The BBC yesterday defended its use of Mr Ford as a commentator on events in Syria.

A spokesperson for the broadcaster said: “When Peter Ford has appeared on various BBC outlets this year his particular viewpoint has been signposted in the introduction in terms the audience will understand, for example he has been variously described as a ‘long term critic of Western Policy’, or part of ‘a dwindling group who still think Bashar al-Assad is the solution to Syria’.”

Now that’s just untrue, certainly on the day in question.  The BBC was spreading doubt and pro-Assad messages purely to try and undermine Trump and his missile attack on Assad.

The BBC so hates Trump they are prepared to do anything to do him down….including supporting a man who has bombed, tortured and attacked his own people with chemical weapons.

Did the BBC splice together video from one event and add comment about another to make it sound as if Trump supporters were attacking loveable Liberals?…Seems as if the BBC did indeed do that…

The election is on and the manifesto’s are being forged as we wait breathlessly……Nick Robinson has been dissecting the media response, the Tory supporting media response that is and found that the Daily Mail is abandoning its principles and supporting May regardless….but is that true?…here’s what reliable old Nick says…..

‘Striking the leeway a Tory paper like the Daily Mail is willing to give to her…they hate that pledge on aid and yet nowhere is it on the front page and you have to turn to page 6 to find a fond headline…Theresa bites the bullet….as if she is doing precisely what the paper asked instead of exactly the opposite.’

Trouble is that is a load of old twaddle…the Daily Mail in no-way gives May complete unquestioning support over ‘aid’…and the headline was not just on aid but on two other possible manifesto issues…

Theresa bites the bullet: Mrs May risks upsetting Tory supporters saying she will KEEP the 0.7% foreign aid law, DUMP the ‘no tax rise’ pledge and may DROP their commitment to the pension triple lock

And note none of those other issues were ‘on the front page’ either….so Robinson’s focus on aid alone is misleading in itself.

And does the Mail not mention that it thinks the aid budget is bonkers?…[note that the print edition which Robinson is talking about also states that the Mail itself opposed her aid plans]…..

Meanwhile, Theresa May confirmed the Government will stick to its controversial commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid, quashing growing speculation it would be scraped.

Speaking in her home town of Maidenhead, Mrs May said the party will stick to its controversial foreign aid commitment which last year equated to more than £13billion of taxpayers’ money.

And this in the same report…

Theresa May insists she will KEEP controversial target on foreign aid spending

Theresa May has said she will she will keep the controversial target for minimum spending of billions on foreign aid at her latest campaign stop today.

The Prime Minister said it was important to ensure the money – equivalent to 0.7 per cent of national income and more than £13billion last year – is spent properly.

But as she returned home to Maidenhead for the first time since calling a snap general election, Mrs May ended speculation she would dump the controversial policy.

 

The Mail makes it quite plain that the aid budget is controversial and that the Mail opposed it [in the print edition].

Robinson just seems to make it up to suit his own agenda…that the Mail is supinely cheerleading for May regardless of what she says.

  Pat Marie The BBC is the propaganda arm of the Tory Party. Watch Newsnight 19th April. Constant bashing and negative comments about Jeremy Corbyn. Not one single voice from the other side. The BBC is a bloody joke.

Oh…and have to laugh at this after Robinson warned his colleagues about badmouthing Corbyn…

BBC journalist Nick Robinson sparked an impartiality row as he appeared to criticise Jeremy Corbyn after his first major campaign speech. 

The Radio 4 Today programme presenter faced a barrage of criticism after posting a tweet in which he accused Labour’s leader of being “long on passion and short on details”.

“No-one should be surprised that @jeremycorbyn is running v the “Establishment” & is long on passion & short on details. Story of his life,” Mr Robinson’s tweet said.

I hadn’t realised he was talking about Corbyn….thought he was actually referring to the BBC…long  on compassion, short on details…and truth.

Oh dear. Merely meant that people should expect Jeremy to do now what done his whole life – ie give passionate anti establishment speech.

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) April 20, 2017

Gina Miller always insisted that she wasn’t trying to stop Brexit, merely interested in the proper democratic process…hence she is now trying to buy up that democratic process and rig the election in order to get anti-Brexit placemen shoehorned into Parliament so that they can vote for her pet project…stopping Brexit.  At least one BBC journo, Andrew Neil of course, called her out on it…

A question Neil didn’t ask was where is all her money came from originally…a type of question that the BBC is often very keen to ask….such as when Leave put that famous wording on the side of their bus….

A stupid mistake to make…how could they not foresee being hung out to dry for such a claim?  However having been taken to task by the BBC in a relentless witch-hunt over this claim in a way that the BBC does not do for Remain’s highly alarmist and exaggerated claims, the BBC then does exactly the same….and claims money coming back to the UK is ‘from the EU’.

Even this morning the BBC were at it as they discussed farming subsidies…Sarah Montague told us, several times, that farming only exists now in the way it does because of the money that the EU sends us, the £3 billion that comes from the EU.

So now the BBC tells us that we do send money to the EU and it becomes the EU’s money, even though we get it back…whereas when the BBC wants to undermine the Leave campaign Leave are lying when they say we give the EU the money…because we get it back…so the BBC tells us it cannot be counted as money we have given to the EU….unless it suits the BBC agenda…in this case farming will collapse without the benevolent EU handouts.

If Leave were misleading people before the BBC is just as guilty of doing exactly the same here.

It’s perfectly obvious that the Conservatives led by Theresa May are going to record a historic victory in June. The only question is just how big will the majority be? This is bad news for the BBC and in typical form it will now spend the next six weeks trying to undermine May and prop up the useless Corbyn and Farron. I note that Laura Kuenssberg has already been sneering about May’s “broken promises” and assuring us that the polls “will narrow” before Election Day. The one thing that is certain is that if you look to the BBC for fair and balanced media coverage of the Election you won’t get it. I REALLY wish that Theresa May would include an election pledge to remove the BBC License Tax. That would surely be a vote winner!

Friday and the weekend approaches! Time for a new Open Thread on which to detail the daily putrid bias of the BBC.

So, another Islamist attack in Paris. One Police officer dead, others injured. How will the BBC cover this given that France prepares to go to the polls? Well, I listened to BBC Radio 4 Today this morning and they were speculating that this terror attack might well bring extra votes to…..Francois Fillon! Yup, despite the fact he is just another part of the bland cowered French establishment the goold old BBC reckons voters may flock to him rather than…Marine Le Pen!!! Incredible bias. They can barely say her name without blurting out “far-right” – and I caught a profile of her the other evening on the BBC News and they used – yup – footage of Hitler. Ken Livingstone would be proud of them.

Trump, Farage, Le Pen etc have all been dismissed by the BBC as ‘populist’ politicians…a contemptuous sneer that says not only are their policies not serious or worthy of consideration but that anyone who votes for them is somewhat stupid and driven by emotion and feelings rather than reason and good sense.

Oddly one politician who goes for the exact same rhetoric and style, Jeremy Corbyn, is not labelled in the same way  by the BBC, they treat him with the utmost respect despite him using the same language of raging against the Establishment…the People vs Power, the People Vs the Establishment, the People Vs the Media and Big Business…..he’s fighting against a ‘rigged system’ and not playing by the ‘rules’.

Remember how Gove was ridiculed by the BBC for saying the ‘experts’ were not always so expert?  What has Corbyn said?…

In his first major general election speech, he said 8 June’s poll was not a “foregone conclusion” and Labour could defy the “Establishment experts”.

No outpourings of ridicule and derision from the BBC here.  Indeed very little in the way of analysis of his speech and its contents…we have been mostly treated to the BBC asking random members of the public what they think of the speech…a tactic which naturally isn’t likely to produce much indepth comment and is designed to avoid any real discussion or criticism of the speech.

There is a difference of course between Trump and Corbyn, Trump wants to bring jobs back to America, he wants to rebuild the manufacturing base and encourage business, he wants to make money for America.  Corbyn wants to take money and destroy the economic base of the country, the same old Labour….welfare not jobs, handouts not a handup.

The other difference is that Trump wants to deal with immigration, to control the levels and who it is that is allowed into the US…Corbyn not so much.  The BBC sees Trump as a racist but looks the other way when people accuse Corbyn of being an anti-Semite and certainly of overseeing a party that seems run-through with anti-Semites.

Any doubt that if Corbyn was Right-Wing he’d be on the BBC rack?  And yet he’s not.  Bias?  Think so.

And oh yes?  Fighting the Establishment and entrenched privilege?  Really?…