Another view of Diane Coyle and her application to take over from Patten:

David Keighley: Europhile quango queen and climate change warrior. No wonder Dave wants her as BBC chief

One thing is certain about Ms Coyle if she does land the chairman’s role. She won’t be pressing for any significant changes in the BBC’s journalism. She has already declared:

“I’ve always valued the BBC, not least as the best provider of news coverage in the world. Its impartiality and comprehensive coverage underpin its vital civic role.”

Given that the BBC Trustees are supposed also to be watchdogs in terms of standards, that’s a terrifying expression of complacency.

There is also this:

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.

Now I hadn’t seen Hastings’ comments from 2012 before but they make for interesting reading:

Trusting what you see and hear: the media’s role in covering science accurately

Climate change is 90 per cent likely to have been caused by humans. That was the conclusion of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.

The BBC Trust, the body which is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the BBC’s programmes are impartial, and of which I am a member, recently asked eminent scientist Professor Steve Jones to take an independent view of the BBC’s science coverage.

Trouble is JOnes wasn’ that eminent…being comlpetely unable to get funding for nay project he admitted he was going nowhere…untitl the BBC saved him and gave him a job.

As for independent…he’s along term fanatical pro-climate change advocate.

Hardly impartial owing his living to the BBC and desperate to advance the cause.

She went on:

‘When something moves from opinion to well-established fact, viewers should be aware of this’

I’d be fascinated to hear what those well established facts are….where are the facts that prove it is man who is warming the climate?….not even the IPCC goes that far so unequivocally.

Ah here she goes:

‘A body of evidence – like that assessed by the IPCC report – changes how the BBC’s obligation to cover issues with ‘due impartiality’ is applied.’

Unfortunately the IPCC AR5 is not a body of evidence but a conflation of supposition, conjecture and wishful thinking…..

It admits it has no idea why there has been a pause in warming…you can assume from that it has no idea therefore how warming is caused.

Hastings has no doubt been suitably briefed by the relentlessly on message Roger Harrabin.

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.

 Alex Proud, of the Telegraph, BBC and C4 tells all:

Why I love the BBC

The BBC upholds genuine British values at home and offers great PR for our country overseas. What’s not to like, asks Alex Proud

Straightforward, intelligent coverage that we can trust.

The BBC is also one of the greatest exponents of “British values” there is – assuming that by British values you mean things like decency, fairness, humour and intelligence, rather than Humpty-Dumptyish political expedience. It’s one of the few British institutions that still seems to embrace a multicultural Great Britain and show how it can work.

I know that US cable has produced some great box sets. But here, you are cherry-picking the very best of a market that is six times as big. And while the US does make Breaking Bad and The Wire, it also produces Fox News, talk radio and the despair-inducing sea of brain-dead commercial squalor that is American terrestrial TV.

Anyway, enough meta-economics, let’s move on to the accusations of political bias. These are easily dealt with as they’re just tosh – and endless studies prove this. The Beeb bends over backwards to be impartial and, given that it is a state broadcaster, has a rather an amazing record of attacking governments on both sides of the political fence. I just wish the BBC would call these people out a little more often – as they’re usually cheap opportunists or politicians who have enjoyed a little too much hospitality.

Actually, come to think of it, I am totally happy for politicians to be as unpleasant as they like about the BBC with one proviso. Before they say their piece, they have to list every single meeting they’ve had with the Murdochs and their minions in the previous two years.

Probably no coincidence this comes out just after IDS says the BBC is damaging democracy with its biased pro-Labour broadcasts….from a man employed by the BBC, one who hates Fox, Murdoch and has pretensions of being ‘intellectual’….’In your 40s though, cerebral pursuits are celebrated… those of us who prefer brainy stuff have been quietly putting in the spadework for 20 years. We really do know what we’re talking about.’

Nah…not so much Alex.

When not writing puffs for the BBC Alex Proud runs various enterprises including the Proud Cabaret where one recurring event is the ‘Killing Kittens Cabaret’:

Killing Kittens Cabaret
We have found ourselves under the heel of London’s most renowned sexual deviants… and we’re all too happy to be there.

In their first ever public outing – Killing Kittens will host a night of the finest burlesque on the London circuit, with a little extra something added. Prepare for a roster of the raunchiest variety performances in the capital and a window in to the exclusive world of whispers that has taken London’s vice-driven nightlife by storm.

Each table will be numbered and equipped with a telephone.

As the restaurant guests acquaint themselves with the spirit of the evening, they will be given leave to place anonymous phone calls to diners of their fancy. Through playful conversation, the night offers a window to London’s thrill seekers to the immersive world of erotic rendezvous.

Yep…it’s all about the intellect, having a good chat and some fine wine…..and a naked romp with some complete strangers….

Don’t think I’ll be lectured about the iniquities of American TV, Fox and Murdoch by someone who works for the BBC and who peddles this ‘filth’ on that crazy free market….not that I’m opposed to filth…just hypocrisy.

A break from the usual….perhaps this explains Obama’s recent comments on Scottish independence…though I’d have thought he was more likely to be on the  left wing than centre back:

Here’s one for the UKIPer’s:

chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk

I see that John Kerry is in Baghdad and is pushing the Obama line that the staggering success of ISIS is the creation of lack of “inclusivity” by the Maliki Government. The BBC appears to accept this opinion  and no challenge is offered back on the topic. Whilst I can understand Kerry pushing this line there is the OTHER possibility that the growth and success of ISIS is down to the Obama doctrine of leaving field of battle and then declaring this a success when in fact it is obvious that the situation was highly volatile and that ISIS have filled the void that Obama created.

I heard lots of outrage on the BBC today concerning the judgement of the Egyptian court that has sent three Al Jazeera journalists to prison for being Muslim Brotherhood enablers. One of the three, Peter Greste, is a former BBC journalist and so the comrades are enraged at this “tyrannical judgement”. However the BBC were ardent cheer leaders for  the “Arab Spring”  and all the chaos it has wrought so why are they now bitching when it doesn’t follow the trajectory that they had hoped for? And as for the “Cairo Three” the fact of the matter is that the Muslim Brotherhood ARE a wicked terrorist organisation and Egypt has a right to deal with any who enable on their behalf. Would that our Government took a similar approach to those within the BBC that have shilled for the IRA for years, never mind the dhimmis that excuse Islamofascism in the UK. Thoughts?

Better late than never, here’s a new Open thread! Detail the bias please!!

Amazing that the BBC denounces a whole country and its population over a boxing match, especially as the BBC’s interpretation of what happened in the match is coloured by the colour of the two opponents…one black, one white…guess which has the BBC’s sympathy?

England’s shame

The boxing match between a freed slave and a sporting star

In the brutal world of bare-knuckle boxing a fight, more than 200 years ago, between a freed American slave and a Bristol-born boxer remains one of the most controversial and bloody battles in boxing history.

The contest – the first ever world title fight – between Tom Cribb, the son of a Bristol coal worker, and Tom Molineaux, a slave who won freedom with his fists, is an “an incredible story of racism, intrigue, gambling and above all courage”.

There may well have been racism…but not the sort the BBC want you to believe:

From Tom Cribb vs. Tom Molineaux (1st meeting)

Strangely, the main problem that England had with Molineaux had nothing to do with his color–the extreme racism of the late 19th century was still some time off. In fact, the British people were quite willing to give Molineaux credit as an excellent boxer, and his numerous affairs with white women were by and large overlooked. The much greater offense, in their eyes, was the hideous fact that he was an AMERICAN! The idea that a foreigner could take the sacred trophy of British sporting was unthinkable.

Pierce Egan’s Boxiana is the source for the majority of this fight narration. It was composed at a time shortly after this Cribb-Molineaux fight took place by a man who had seen most of the fights of the era.

The BBC gives the impression that Cribb was thoroughly beaten throughout the fight and only won through ‘dirty tactics’ such as a punch to the throat (a potential Tory MP?)…

Cribb was brought time and time again to his knees while the crowd, who sensed a Molineaux victory, subjected the US fighter to appalling racist abuse….

…Molineaux battled on for two more rounds. He threw Cribb to the floor but hit his head against one of the wooden ring stakes which concussed him. Sensing his moment Cribb punched Molineaux in the throat.

Broken, lying on the floor Molineaux raised his hand and said “Massa Richmond, me can fight no more”.

……but such tactics seemed to have been normal…Molineaux for instance putting Cribb in a headlock and punching him repeatedly in the head….Cribb put Molineaux down just as many times.

As for that ‘appalling racist abuse’ the BBC doesn’t list it nor provide a reference where it can be checked…it presumably isn’t in the contemporary report from Pierce Egan unless they mean the anti-American abuse….if so strange they don’t make that clear and prefer to give the impression the abuse was based on Molineaux’s skin colour.

The BBC doesn’t say much about Molineaux’s manager, Bill Richmond, also ‘black’:

Here perhaps is why:

Bill Richmond was a better pugilist than Thomas Molineaux in 1805 and 1815.  He was such a familiar face on the English boxing scene, as pugilist/corner man/trainer, that he would be cheered over White opponents late in his career. 

And perhaps confirms being American was the real problem people had with either of them:

Bill Richmond, despite ‘tainted’ as American born, was thoroughly British.

And it seems that the manipulation of the system was a regular occurrence with Cribb and so nothing to do with ‘race’:

‘….a Cribb/Bob Gregson 1809 English Championship bout.  Gregson was dominating by the 22nd round, a 10-1 betting odds favorite, until suddenly it was over by the 23rd round with Tom Cribb the victor.  Richmond was openly suspicious that Cribb’s patronage and power was affording him more than the legal 30 seconds following a knockdown while an opponent had no mercy.  The combination of patronage (which Cribb had) and gambling wages (better to ‘cheat’ than lose) leaves suspicion over several Tom Cribb victories.‘

Still not sure why the BBC has labelled this as ‘England’s Shame’.  It might well be Tom Cribb’s shame but to somehow transpose that onto a whole nation seems somewhat ambitious even for the BBC’s historical revisionist section that rewrites world history with a leftward, anti-Brtiish, anti-white slant.

BBC getting excited about this:

Berlin House of One: The first church-mosque-synagogue?

Berlin thinks it is making religious history as Muslims, Jews and Christians join hands to build a place where they can all worship. The House of One, as it is being called, will be a synagogue, a church and a mosque under one roof.

Liked this:

Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin. “From my Jewish point of view the city where Jewish suffering was planned is now the city where a centre is being built by the three monotheistic religions which shaped European culture,” he told the BBC.

Yep….Let’s compare the critical, adverse reaction to Islamic terrorism and cultural supremacy to the Nazis imposing the Holocaust upon the Jews….and as for shaping European culture…if Islam had been the dominant force over the centuries we would have been an economic, scientific, artistic and cultural backwater as just about every Muslim land is now….not my verdict but that of a Muslim (and Mehdi Hasan himself admitted as much in his infamous video…how many Nobel Prizes are in Muslim hands, how many books get translated, how many Universities are in the top 200?):

Compare Churchill’s remarks with those of a modern Gulf businessman from Dubai, whom the travel writer Jonathan Raban quizzed about Arab oil wealth.
The Dubaian rejected any delusion that this constitutes genuine prosperity: ‘Rich is education . . . expertise . . . technology. Rich is knowing. We  have money, yes, but we are not rich. We are like the child who inherits money from the father he never knew.
‘He has not been brought up to spend it.
‘He has it in his hands; he doesn’t know how to use it . . . is a country rich that cannot make a brick, or a motor car, or a book?’

Good of the BBC to serve us up this pap so uncritically, their intentions being blatantly obvious….let’s all play nicely, and look how wonderful Islam has been, and how terribly Muslims are being treated now.

Did enjoy the photo of the Architect though…and I have to say what an inspiring design of building, clearly the result of much thought and years of study…sponsored by Lego no doubt:

Here’s a joke…

A rabbi, a vicar and an imam walked into a pub…….

I’ll let you provide your own punch line…though not to the throat.

The BBC this morning reported some of ‘what the papers say’.…and gave us this gem:

Kinnock said part of the reason the rightwing press was going for Miliband was because it knew he was bold and a threat to Tory victory hopes.

The BBC didn’t bother to provide some contrasting balance to that and reveal that half Miliband’s party think he is a dead duck, that the grass roots think he is a dead duck….and the right wing Guardian thinks he is a dead duck…the BBC preferred to cherry pick one rather deluded statement from Kinnock rather than the general thrust of the anti-Miliband narrative that abounds left and right:

From Guido:

Yesterday I saw that Diane Coyle had thrown her hat into the ring and applied for Patten’s old job.

This morning on R4 I heard that the application process had been extended due to the lack of quality of the applicants…they didn’t mention Coyle had applied funnily enough.

Not sure a person who has helped preside over the failing BBC Trust should then be appointed to lead it.

From the Times (£):

BBC Trust post struggles to woo top applicants

The deadline for candidates to apply to be the next chairman of the BBC Trust has been extended by a week amid concern about the calibre of those seeking the role.

It is understood that few applicants deemed to be of sufficiently high quality had applied to Saxton Bampfylde, the firm of headhunters hired to lead the search for a replacement for Lord Patten, before Friday’s deadline.

The only figure publicly to declare her interest is Diane Coyle, who has been acting chairwoman since Patten stepped down because of poor health last month.