Peaceman….The BBC’s Very Own ‘Little Englander’?

blackadder photo: Blackadder blackadder1.jpg

 

Paxman sounds as if he’s tired of the whole bally lot of ’em…the peace loving lefties who roam the corridors of the BBC spreading peace and joy….through self-indulgent appeasement.

Jeremy Paxman: why we would not fight the Great War now

BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman suggests Britain is too self-obsessed and hedonistic to become involved in a conflict like the First World War

A conflict like the First World War could not happen in today’s “materialistic, self-obsessed, hedonistic” society because of the decline of the traditional notion of “duty” and the influence of social media, Jeremy Paxman has suggested.

The broadcaster and historian said it was now hard to imagine what members of a younger generation would fight for, and for which “noble causes” they would risk their lives.

Arguing the idea of “duty” had now diminished in favour of “personal freedom”, he said exposure to war in an era of 24-hour, high definition news meant people would not put up with such a conflict.

Speaking of the influence of social media, he added: “I suspect that there would have been so many tweets and so many Snapchat-ed photos of trench digging that public opinion would have caused an end to the business. The trench would never be dug.”

Speaking at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature in Dubai this weekend, he also argued there were now fundamental misunderstandings in the way most people viewed the First World War.

Suggesting that some of the war’s best-loved poetry, such as that by Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, was “part of the problem”, he claimed many now unfairly saw the conflict through a prism of “prejudices” about inept generals and wasted lives.

Paxman, who puts across his theories in his latest book Great Britain’s Great War and an accompanying BBC series, said he hoped to change perceptions, but admits he would be a “fool” to expect to do so single-handedly.

“Forget the poems, forget Oh! What a Lovely War, forget Blackadder. Engage with the lives of those who took part in it and think, ‘What would I have done?’,” he said of how best to study the conflict.

“The events now are so built upon by writers and attitudinisers and propaganda that the actual events seem submerged.

“So what I wanted to do was re-engage with the events themselves. How did they seem to people at the time?”

Paxman, the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge, told an audience in Dubai that while he “loved” the poetry of the First World War, he believed it was “part of the problem”.

He added the “difficulty” of modern education is that so much of the First World War is “taught only as poetry and not as history”. “An attitude is imbibed from those poems which I don’t think represents the reality of it for most,” he said.

“I think the reason [poetry] is of interest is that it conforms with our prejudices to see the whole thing as a terrible pointless sacrifice. It was a terrible sacrifice, sure, and the story it was fought for democracy and so on I don’t think stacks up.

“But I think that the idea that the whole thing was a conspiracy to throw away young lives is perpetuated by the poets, and actually there’s much more to it than that.”

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he added: “I always ask myself what would I have done. And I worry whether I would have acquitted myself well enough.”

When asked whether it would be possible for such a conflict to exist today, Paxman argued: “I have no doubt whatsoever that such a war could not be fought today, for a number of reasons.

“We have grown up in an environment in which the greatest premium is put on personal freedom. Great value, we are told living in a western democracy, is that you can do as you please. It’s a much more difficult challenge to manage that sort of society than the generation that grew up during the First World War.

“The second reason is probably that ideas of duty, clearly strongly felt by many people, have diminished as the international significance of the country has diminished.

“Thirdly, there’s exposure: we have become accustomed to seeing wars in colour, in high definition, in real time in our sitting rooms. That sort of exposure changes what people are willing to put up with.

“We live in such a relativistic society now, and materialistic, self-obsessed and hedonistic; it’s hard to imagine circumstances under which people would say that ‘it is worth it, I’m willing to risk my life and well-being for this’.

“What would [the younger] generation fight for? The right to use your iPhone? What are the great noble causes?”

His opinion? “Some things are worth fighting for.”

 

 

 

He’s sort of right and yet not…the nation state is not the cause of war….look at the Muslims toddling off to ‘defend Islam’….or the Lefties who ran off to fight for Communism in Spain….ideology is more dangerous than the nation state….end the nation state and you’ll end up like Somalia, endless little wars run by war lords totally destroying the economy and society…..the BBC telling us the other day that 1 in 3 Somalians has mental health problems…due to endless conflict.

A major problem when trying to raise an army to fight for ‘Something worth fighting for’ would be mass immigration and multi-culturalism……all those communities who don’t really consider themselves British/Western/liberal/democratic and so are unlikely to take the Queen’s shilling….never mind having to watch your back…as interning them would upset the BBC.

As for social media….well the Media has been a problem for a long time….starting with the Crimea funnily enough…certainly since Vietnam…and yet we’ve just had a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan…so Johnny with his iPhone isn’t going to end wars.

Wonder what the reaction will be to Paxman….after all aren’t his comments about poetry, Blackadder and all that the same as Gove’s?

And ultimately that lack of obligation to do one’s ‘duty’ is the result of the Left’s long march through the Institutions and society ……The BBC being the platform of choice for disseminating the new ideology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Storyville: 2013-2014: The Little Nation that Fought Back

http://scripturesolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Palestine-Post.jpg

 

 

Storyville: 2013-2014:  The Little Nation that Fought Back

Oscar-nominated film compiled from the film diary of an Israeli family which over six decades documented the Muslim attempts to erase their country from the map, and them along with it.  David Shalit started filming following the birth of the new nation in 1948.  Surrounded by hostile Muslim countries he filmed as they invaded and the new Israelis begin to resist the attacks.

Over 60 years his family continued to film the violent attempts to annihilate Israel as it struggled to create the only real democracy in the Middle East and turn it into an oasis of technology, invention , science and  political and social inclusion shaped and forged from the empty, barren desert left behind after 1400 years of Muslim colonisation and occupation.

Despite the constant attacks by Muslims, the ever-present rockets fired from over the border by Palestinians at Israeli civilians, the terror threats and sniper fire that forced Israel to build a wall in self defence and the misleading and malign reporting by organisations such as the BBC which aim to cast the Israelis in the role of Nazis and attempt to de-legitimise the new land of Israel,  it succeeds against the odds despite one attack after another and hostile media coverage.

Shalit’s family collaborate with Palestinian director Ibn Kelb to produce this powerful and moving documentary of over 60 years of resistance in the face of terrorism and war imposed upon them.

 

See here for BBC Watch’s critique of this fascinating BBC film that recognises the bravery, ingenuity and stubborn refusal to be erased from history of the Israeli nation.

 

Trojan Horse

 

The BBC finally get around to reporting this:

 

‘Islamic takeover plot’ in Birmingham schools investigated

 

Although the authorities have been aware of the alleged plot since November, the details have only become public now thanks to the letter which has been widely leaked.

We still don’t know whether it’s genuine or a fake, but that’s one of the questions the city council is attempting to answer with its investigation.

It’s clearly a sensitive subject and there will be great concerns about the effect on what the authorities euphemistically call “community cohesion”.

Finding anyone who is directly involved and prepared to go on the record has also proved difficult.

No-one wants to be called an “Islamaphobe” or a racist, nor do they wish to be labelled a right wing conspiracy theorist.

 

So the truth about such matters and open debate is suppressed because people don’t want to be labeled ‘islamophobes, racist or right wing conspiracy theorists’?…..guess Mehdi Hasan et al’s work is done then, they have succeeded in closing down criticism of Islam or Muslim actions based upon promoting that ideology…..all aided by the BBC…ironically one of those ‘authorities’ who  suppress such criticism in the name of that euphemism ‘community cohesion’.

 

What’s going on in the Crimea should be a warning as to the dangers of having highly active political/ideological groups within separate communities and the ease with which they can change the facts on the ground.

What would the government do if fundamentalists urged a vote in a Muslim majority city to run it on Islamic principles and the community voted for that? What could the government do?

Couldn’t happen?  Look at the Crimea and their vote to separate.  If I was a Muslim ‘radical’ I would be looking at that and the West’s impotence and start thinking how easy it would be to annex a city using ‘democracy’ and politician’s fear of taking the necessary action….there’s no ‘Russia’ to back such a move but there is the Guardian and the BBC who would denounce any police action or ultimate military intervention…..ala Israel.

Russia controls the gas pipeline  to Europe and the BBC controls the flow of information, anything it doesn’t like the BBC turns off that flow.

[Just been listening to 5Live presenter…apparently this isn’t Russia ‘ramping up its authority’ over the Ukraine]
Would the local Muslim community vote along those lines?  Maybe, maybe not….this is what the BBC tells us about ‘Operation Trojan Horse’…..

It says that Salafi parents should be enlisted to help, because they are regarded as a more orthodox branch of Islam and would be more likely to be willing to help.  
The BBC itself tells us that Muslims are identifying more and more with their religion and parents want their children to go to Islamic schools……how many would be tempted to press for a Muslim only area where they are in the majority if given the opportunity?

Which is why it is so important for organisations like the BBC to openly debate the implications and consequences of mass immigration and the importation of ideologies that are opposed to liberal, democratic principles and the social and cultural aspects of such a society.

Of course some would say it’s not a problem having areas of Britain run along Islamic principles…some ‘liberals’ have already suggested London be turned ‘Islamic’…but many more would object….it would be nice to have a say without being labeled ‘islamophobic, racist or right wing conspiracists’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

License To Print Money Revoked?

 

The BBC is quick to jump on this proposal:

TV licence fee non-payment ‘could be decriminalised’

 

Amazing how fast the BBC can report a story they have an interest in….they’ve already rounded up a load of viewers and listeners on 5Live (at death O’clock this morning) for their comments….guess what…most support the license…the BBC providing a wonderful service at a reasonable price.

 

 

 

 

 

STEPHEN LAWRENCE

Murder is wrong and the tragedy that afflicted the Lawrence family when their son Stephen was brutally killed cannot be underestimated. BUT it strikes me that the leftist media in general, and the BBC in particular, has elevated this to a level that is disproportionate to many other equally vile murders, such as that which happened t0 15 year old Kriss Donald. It does however enable them to advance their “institutional racism” meme and throw in the “institutional corruption” angle for extra points.  I wonder how you view their coverage of this latest twist to the Lawrence saga?

Three’s A Crowd

 

 

Perhaps I’ve missed something but does anyone really care about BBC 3?

Looking at its schedule its hard to see all that innovative and thought provoking programming we’re told it produces….what I see is 95% repeats…..or sensationalist tabloid type tat that it denounces the Daily Mail for…’Snog, Marry Avoid’ or ‘Secrets of South America….Generation Sex’ or the fascinating ‘Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes’.

The ‘youf’ are gutted:

“I’m completely gutted, I think you’re completely ignoring our views,” said BBC Three fan Alice. “We’re not going to sit by and take it – we’re going to make a stand and try to save the channel.”

Russell Tovey in BBC Three's Being Human

 

 

 

There’s a bit of infighting going on at the BBC just now……BBC 3 is to be re-shaped for the digital age, taking a pay cut along the way……

The BBC has announced sweeping changes to youth channel BBC Three, which will disappear from the EPG in autumn 2015.

…….so far, listening to the interviews, it seems that it is mostly other BBC staff who are upset.

 

The BBC tells us that…..

The problem for the BBC is that Three is viewed by 16 million people a week and they tend to be people the rest of the corporation struggles to reach – the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse.

Comedy producer Ash Atalla said the BBC had at a stroke made itself “whiter, older and more middle class”.

 

Not quite sure how they have come to the conclusion that it’s only ‘the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse’ who don’t watch the BBC…quite a sweeping statement…but why limit it to those categories?  Just how many others, the whiter, older, middle class, actually watch massive amounts of BBC1 or BBC 2, never mind 3 and 4?  Looking at the schedules it doesn’t look particularly inspiring viewing for anybody.

Possibly the problem with the BBC is that it has had too much money and has been able to indulge itself and spend without regard to quality, spreading itself too thin….

“They have ended up working in this culture which is buried in the last century, which is ‘we are the BBC, we do what we like, we don’t have to be too accountable’.

 

Not a great deal of money is being saved here….BBC 3’s budget is £85, it will be £25 m in future, but £30 million of the cut budget will be used to fund BBC 1 drama.

Possibly the ‘cut’ is a negotiating tactic for the next round of charter renewal talks……

The BBC’s director of television, Danny Cohen, even refused to rule out the possibility of closing another channel, saying: “We don’t know for certain what will happen for BBC Four in the future”.

“We can’t keep offering the same with less money,” he continued.

“If future funding for the BBC comes under threat, the likelihood is we would have to take more services along the same route.”

 

 

Strange though that the pruning of BBC 3 is being cast as the end of comedy and innovative programming…..wasn’t that the job of BBC 2 before the BBC got too big?…..

 

Happy Birthday BBC TWO

Jane Root, Controller of BBC TWO, says: “The most enjoyable thing about the channel is that it brings surprise, sophistication and innovation to a range of things.

“It has always been famous for creating both popular comedy and thought-provoking programmes.

 “That sense of variety has been there all the way though the channel’s history.”

 

A vast array of comedy, culture and highminded programming flooded out of BBC 2….The Young Ones, Ab Fab, Not the Nine O’clock News, The Ascent of Man, Life on Earth, The Office, Yes Minister…… never mind Monty Python…..etc etc…..

 

Here’s a list of just the comedy on BBC 2

 

And BBC One?

How about Mrs Brown’s Boys?……

Its opening in the UK won 16.4% of the ratings in its Monday night slot and was received well by viewers.[30] Despite the critical reviews, 2.9 million viewers had tuned in by the third episode.[31][32][33] The 2011 Christmas Special achieved 6.61 million viewers, winning in its 10 pm time-slot.[34][35] Consolidated figures revealed that the 2012 Christmas specials were the most watched programmes on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day respectively: “Mammy Christmas” had 11.68 million viewers (41.3%) and “The Virgin Mammy” was watched by 10.72 million (38.7%).[36] The episode “Buckin’ Mammy” was the most watched programme in the UK on Christmas Day 2013, with 9.4 million viewers.[37]

 

Must have been a few ‘ethnic’ people, or young ones, or ‘not middle class’ people watching that….or Top Gear.

 

Perhaps the BBC should go back to doing a few things well rather than trying to serve every niche market or exotic cultural sector of the community with their own personalised channels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newsnight Fails Again….Cooking The Books

 

The BBC made a huge fuss over its claim that the government was hiding a report that undermined a previous one upon which the government was basing its immigration policies.

Newsnight generated a massive amount of headlines that were damaging for the government and suggested that the government’s policies were wrong….the BBC got what it wanted regardless of the fact that their story was completely baseless.

 

The Newsnight story was hocum…..telling us that:

Downing Street has withheld publication of a cross-governmental report that suggests one potential impact of immigration is smaller than claimed.

This was considered potentially incendiary, BBC Newsnight has learned.

 

The BBC makes this claim about the figures in the new report:

The BBC understands the report suggests the number of UK workers unemployed due to non-EU immigration is well below the figure previously cited by ministers.

 

Problem with that?  There is no figure state in the new report….so the BBC made that up.

 

Newsnight continues to polish the turd that is their ‘scoop’…..

The report has now been published and here is Cook’s second stab at it:

Analysis

Chris Cook Newsnight policy editor 

[The new report which]  Newsnight revealed was being suppressed by Downing Street, showing a weaker link between immigration and unemployment than the government had claimed.

  •  The new report, now published, says that there is “relatively little evidence that migration has caused significant displacement of UK natives… when the economy is strong.”
  • While it does find “evidence of some labour market displacement, particularly by non-EU migrants in recent years when the economy was in recession“, it adds this is a short-term effect – one that is “likely to dissipate”.

 

 

Spot the difference with what the 2012 report said.….

 

  • We find no association between working age migrants and native employment:    (i) in buoyant economic times; (ii) for EU migrants; (iii) for the period         1975-1994.
  • By contrast, we find a negative association between working-age migrants and native employment:(i) in depressed economic times; (ii) for non-EU migrants;  (iii) for the period 1995-2010.
  • We found a tentative negative association between working-age migrants and native  employment when the economy is below full capacity, for non-EU migrants and for the period 1995-2010.
  • A ballpark estimate is that an extra 100 non-EU working-age migrants are initially associated with 23 fewer native people employed.
  • We estimate that EU migration had little or no impact on the native employment rate, even when testing the relationship over the periods 1975 to 1994 and 1995 to 2010 separately.

The report in 2012 states that there is a definite short term negative impact of immigration on employment…but, in theory, long term, the economy may adjust to improve things….but that is just, as yet, a theory.

The only difference is that the 2012 report states an actual number, tentatively, and the new one doesn’t.

And yet the BBC manages to claim that the non-existent figure is somehow less that the previous 2012 one.

 

The BBC has some explaining to do.

Making false claims about the contents of a report in order to bolster their own pro-immigration narrative.

Making false claims that the government actively hid the report because of its ‘incendiary’ contents….even today when the report’s innocuousness is apparent Cook is still claiming the government ‘suppressed’ it.

As you can see the contents are not at all incendiary and make the very same claims the 2012 report makes.

 

So the BBC has exaggerated, lied and slandered its way to an ‘exclusive’ scoop.

Tony Hall should start asking questions before people start asking questions of him.

 

And remember in 2012  the BBC said this about the MAC report:

‘The Mac report is arguably the most persuasive because it draws on in-depth analysis and research – and it just makes sense.

 

And here the BBC is fact checking itself yesterday and backstabbing Newsnight:

So the new report, when it comes out, may not disagree that dramatically with the original one from MAC.

Anthony Reuben Head of statistics, BBC News

 

 

‘But truth speaks with one voice’

 

 

 

 

It’s perhaps a shame that so many BBC journalists just take the BBC’s shilling, keep their head down and hope to survive in a well paid, pretty secure job until they can rest easy on an ample pension…..and all the time conforming to the consensus, going native in the land of the Guardianistas…..

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre,  has called it  ‘a closed thought-system, operating a kind of Orwellian newspeak … perverting political discourse, and disenfranchising countless millions, who don’t subscribe to the BBC’s world view.’
And Georgina Born wrote [of a BBC advert for itself]: The implication is clear and the message emotional and powerful; the BBC’s global services – and BBC World – speak truth, and it’s a truth that all can understand, whatever their colour, age or ethnicity. The BBC avows for itself a global role of truth-speaking. The ad is electrifying; I am utterly slain. But perhaps the message is too powerful, too propagandistic. Should the BBC use such Orwellian language? Should it dare to propose for itself such a universal role?

 

 

Da Da That’s Putin, Lover Of The Russian Queens

 

The BBC seem quite relaxed about Putin’s little invasion….can’t remember them asking this about any of Israel’s little incursions:

Ukraine crisis: Does Russia have a case?

 

The BBC makes a lot of the status of ‘ethnic Russians’ inside the Ukraine….wouldn’t they be Ukrainian then?

The BBC always reassures us that Muslims are even more British than the British..as of course are all immigrants to this country who can’t wait to wrap themselves in the Union Flag.

How is that different for these ‘Russians’ then?  Do the same rules not apply?

Or can we expect the BBC to also justify it if Pakistan decides to fly in a couple of battalions and to cordon off Leeds Bradford airport if the EDL starts marching up there and they have to protect ‘Pakistani citizens’?

 

 

The Russian propaganda machine is pumping out material suggesting that the uprising in the Ukraine is a right wing coup….strangely this is also something that the BBC has been propagating as well despite many Ukrainians denying this.

 

 

 

Ukraine: Far-right armed with bats patrol Kiev

 

Undoubtedly the Far Right are in the mix….along with numerous other groups….but why does the BBC choose just to highlight the Far Right and do Putin’s job for him….the excuse he used to ‘protect’ those ‘ethnic Russians’?

 

 

How soon the BBC forgets:

Putin’s youth movement provides a sinister backdrop to Russia’s protests

Huge investment in Nashi by the Kremlin looks like money well spent as thousands of state-backed vigilantes stifle dissent

 

Russian youths ‘hound UK envoy’

 

 

Russia has a new sense of national pride.

Anyone who questions or challenges the value of that may get a visit from Nashi.