Category Archives: BBC bias

Obama was trapped by his own Red Line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria…I note he now says action will only be taken if there are significant casualties resulting from the use of chemical weapons…..so presumably that is designed to give him a bit of leeway in not having to respond to attacks resulting in relatively few casualties.

Obama is now seeking a vote in Congress to get the go ahead for any strike on Syria.

It might seem that Obama is running for cover and sees a vote, as per the UK’s, as a way out with ”honour’….able to blame Congress  should the vote go against intervention….‘I wanted to go to save the Syrian people but…..’

Mardell disagrees….he thinks Obama will probably win a vote but….this is democracy in action he says…a ‘canny, democratic move’.  Whilst Cameron was given a drubbing by the BBC for having lost the vote with many a dire consequence predicted, Obama, should he lose the vote, looks like he will be praised for adopting a consensual approach….if he wins Congress can be blamed if the strikes  go pear shaped and Obama can avoid the full blame.

Mardell is providing us with a some positive spin here for Obama whilst, as I said, Cameron was given a rough ride…..only  yesterday the BBC was suggesting that the ‘special relationship’ was over….but as Obama is following Cameron’s lead perhaps the BBC got that wrong….perhaps all that chatter about Britain’s place in the world being diminished, a dramatic change in foreign policy, damage to Cameron’s authority, profound constitutional change, might be seen as so much BBC wishful thinking and rushed, ill judged comment from our eminent broadcaster.

The BBC had it both ways with the vote in the UK…Cameron loses and it is a disaster for him…but if he had won the BBC could have gone on the attack about Britain trying to be the ‘world’s policeman.’ ….no such qualms about being the ‘world’s charity’, handing out billions in world aid….or indeed the £300 million already spent by the UK to help the refugees from Syria which helps Assad stay in power and may feed those refugees but comes nowhere near to providing a real solution to their problems…an end to the war.

It will be interesting to see the BBC reaction and their analysis of the consequences for Obama should he lose the vote and just how that compares with how Cameron was hung, drawn and quartered by them.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see how they react to Obama winning the vote…and how they perceive US strikes will effect his standing in the world and the likely effectiveness of such strikes.

Thursday the BBC  (on 5Live at least) actually performed its task of reporting the events and considerations leading up to the vote on any attack on Syria with a fair degree of balance…though Seamus Milne and Labour’s Madeleine Moon I thought got off lightly without challenge to their anti-war stance.

Friday it all went pear shaped and normal service was resumed with the knives out for Cameron whilst Ed Miliband was being groomed for higher office.

Certainly a great deal of hyperbole in full flow from the BBC….

Nick Robinson on the Today programme stating:

‘For Parliament to defeat a Prime Minister on matters of peace and war is without modern precedent…the question is what does it mean?

First and foremost that Britain will not take part in any military attack on Syria.

The prime Minister has lost control of his own foreign and defence policy and as a result will cut a diminished figure on the international stage and the US may now question the value and reliability of Britain as an ally.

It is however here at home that David Cameron will feel the most pain.  The ruptures with his own party are back on public display.

Ed Miliband has been given the opportunity to disprove the claim that he is weak and he will walk taller as a result.

The repercussions of this vote could be felt for a very long time to come.’

Has Cameron ‘lost control of his own foreign and defence policy’?  

No…he elected to go for a vote when constitutionally he didn’t have to….his choice.  Apart from that isn’t it the role of Parliament to vote on legislation and government policies rather than to just act as a rubber stamp?

The fact is that control over any move to war was not ‘lost’ to parliament but to the likes of the BBC which has had an enormous influence on how the Iraq war is now seen by the Public and hence by politicians….foreign policy is now, at least partly, dictated by the BBC and how politicians think the BBC will react and report and comment on their decisions.

As for a ‘ defeat without modern precedent’ well that’s just a bit of over ripe rhetoric….the British were only going to provide a modest amount of military help to the US and the importance of this initial action and its potential impact was probably quite minimal with Assad unlikely to take much notice…depending of course on the scale of the US attacks.

Will the ‘repercussions be felt for a very long time to come’?  Doubtful….should Assad continue with mass murders, despite the assertion that there will be no military action in Syria, period, it is likely that a second attempt to get a yes vote on subsequent action might be possible and more successful.

But what is most interesting about Robinson’s piece is his reaction, or lack of, to Miliband who has proved shifty, without principle and opportunistic….so much so that Labour’s Dan Hodges has finally resigned in disgust at Miliband’s lack of character and backbone:

The truth about the Syria vote: Miliband changed his mind

and

Miliband was governed by narrow political interests – not those of Syrian children. I have left the Labour Party

Robinson doesn’t bother us with any analysis of Miliband’s dithering and general lack of honesty, nor for the reasons he changed his mind on supporting Cameron….only 20 minutes later do we get the comment that:  ‘This was a major set back for Cameron….but Ed Miliband’s position changed because he too was facing a pretty big rebellion from his own backbenchers.’

But that was it.  Miliband has got away with murder…or allowing Assad to continue to murder unchecked and a good portion of the blame can be layed at the door of the BBC for their campaign against the Iraq War and the pressure that puts on MPs to vote in a certain way….and Miliband is unchallenged in his new found role as honourable ‘peacemaker’ when in reality his position is one of convenient, opportunistic indecision and sloping shoulders.

John Humphrys added to the overwrought commentary and undue tone of great import:

‘It has been described as the greatest foreign policy defeat since Suez in 1956….the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, was the architect of that defeat.’

Personally I don’t think it was of such huge importance…nothing at all on the scale of Suez.  And didn’t Tony Blair get shunted out of office by his defeat over Israel and Lebanon?

The expected attack by the US and UK, and maybe France, would have been a minimal strike designed to make Assad think twice about usng chemical weapons…and that’s all.  For the UK to decide not to participate is hardly earth shattering.

Humphrys goes on to tell us that this has changed Britain’s role in the world…a very significant thing for Parliament to have done he claims.

Well….it’s a one off vote about a single issue….and even that vote could be reversed at a later date.

When challenged on his assertion…pointing out Libya for instance…Humphrys claims ‘that was then, this is now’.

Fundamentally, he tells us, British foreign policy has changed….we have  a new role in the world…of sitting back and doing nothing?

Well, yes….and this is now and tomorrow is another day and another decision which could be completely different.

Will we also have a new foreign policy then or merely something that adapts and changes with each new circumstance that arises as any sensible nation would adopt?

Humphrys goes onto say that Cameron’s ‘authority’ is diminished….again when challenged and told it was temporary Humphrys insisted that it was permanent.

Guess he has an agenda.

Nick Robinson is similarly excited:

‘This is not a one off…Parliament has used its power to rein in a Prime Minister and effect a  profound constitutional change…the genie cannot be put back in the bottle.’

As far as I can see this is a very minor political and military affair…one that should blow over in the normal course of events unless continually whipped up by Miliband with support from the likes of Robinson and Humphrys, unwitting or not.

The BBC (and the rest of course) has been giving this story a far greater significance than it merits….and has led them to draw all sorts  of conclusions that seem all too conveniently in line with their own politics….claiming this is highly damaging for Cameron whilst Miliband has risen Phoenix like from the ashes of his  more usual political roastings.

The reality is Cameron stood by his principles and allowed Parliament to take a vote on whether to go to war (of a very small kind) whilst Miliband dithered and changed his mind and took the line of least resistence rather than stand up and be counted even if he knew he would face defeat.

That is not a picture we get from the BBC at all.

 Listening to 5Live today I heard a report about an attack on a school by a Syrian aircraft using some sort of incendiary bomb.  Now I’m fairly hardened to images of war and the resultant carnage that results but I have to admit when I heard one man making his plea to the UN (10:14:30) it kind of stopped me dead in my tracks. 

Dear UN

What kind of peace are you calling for?

Don’t you see this….

Don’t you see this…

What do you need to see?

We are human beings.

We want to live.

You have to listen to it to get the full emotional impact, coming suddenly out of the radio in the middle of the day is very effecting….here is the BBC video report of the same thing with graphic images of the injuries….the ‘walking dead’.

Parliament, that body of fine upstanding men and women has voted….to look the other way.

Paddy Ashdown responded to that vote:

“In 50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed/ashamed. Britain’s answer to the Syrian horrors? none of our business!”

 He’s not wrong is he?

If the vote in Parliament had been one to merely delay military action brought about by the use of chemical weapons that may have been excusable….to ensure the culprit was correctly identified.

However that wasn’t what the vote ended up saying.

The vote has apparently put any possibility of military action off the table, for ever….regardless of any future events that may occur, however terrible, however many people get killed, whatever the means used to kill them.

Assad can murder as many people as he likes, in whatever manner he likes and the worst that will happen to him is a diplomatic flurry of indignation and condemnation.

He must be shaking in his blood filled boots.

But Ed Miliband is happy with that, in fact he’s trying to make as much political hay as he can out of events.

 He piously grandstands demanding ‘compelling evidence’ of chemical attacks…..and yet already over 100,000 Syrians have been killed and more die daily from ‘conventional weapons’…such as napalm bombs…..just how many have to die before he feels so ‘compelled’ to help them out, how many more millions have to be displaced, how many towns and cities destroyed?

What is Miliband’s ‘red line’?  I forgot…of course….he doesn’t have one….he’s already decided…there will be no military action at all.

Miliband states that we should learn the lessons of Iraq and that political and diplomatic pressure will persuade Assad to come to terms.

So what is the lesson of Iraq?   The lesson of Iraq is that after 12 years of UN sanctions and huge diplomatic efforts Saddam was still in power and totally unwilling to negotiate and happily murdering and gassing his own people.

Still it’s good that Miliband and his family can be reassured that his own kids will be safe…and how ironic that he wears a poppy, the man who won’t stand up for those who suffer and die:

Shame about the Syrian kids that he has abandoned to their fate:

Miliband says that what  is important is that the war is brought to an end.

His plan?  To talk softly to Assad but not to wave a big stick just in case he gets angry.

Why would Assad negotiate?  He’s winning and getting arms shipped in from Russia and Iran.

What would make him come to the negotiating table?

A military strike that so reduced his own military capability that he couldn’t beat the Rebels…not only that but make it likely that the Rebels may win.

Because Assad would then have to think….what next if the Rebels win?  Does he end up swinging from a lamp post or at the very least in the dock for war crimes.  Either way he loses.

The only thing that will do that and force him to end his attacks is a massive strike against his airforce and main weaponry.

Miliband has ensured that Assad remains in power and that the war goes on, killing countless more people, until that victory is assured.

Shame the BBC have yet to seriously challenge Miliband on his stance.

They know he is on dodgy ground , they asked Cameron if Miliband had behaved ‘dishonourably’, and yet I have heard no building of any momentum on that line of questioning yet.

‘Unarmed civilians being killed….I don’t think we can touch this…UN’s jurisdiction, we can’t intervene…return to base’

If you’ve seen the film ‘Blackhawk Down’ you might think no lessons have been learnt since then…or indeed from Bosnia and the Srebrenica Massacre when Dutch troops had to stand by and watch 8000 Bosnians being murdered….in a UN protected ‘safe area’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGHRWRsJ8dw

Sure none of you will have time to fill this one up…too busy applying for the newly vacant position of HR Director, BBC….or you could win the lottery this weekend….either way, you’d be in the money.

£320,000 per year for a Human Resources director.

No wonder the BBC is 75% repeats.

For what was Ms Adams paid so much money, what outstanding values did she bring to the BBC?

Ms Adams was accused of a “dereliction of duty” for her role in authorising the pay-offs, and Conservative MP Stewart Jackson said the practice would be called “corporate fraud and cronyism” in any other organisation.

And….

Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ’s general secretary, met Lord Hall on Tuesday and outlined serious allegations that BBC human resources staff targeted staff union activists during a bitter dispute about changes to the employee pension scheme in 2010.

The Telegraph has seen a witness statement which claims that BBC HR officials “monitored” the emails of a member of staff who was an NUJ representative during the industrial dispute over the pension changes.

The statement by Byron Myers, a former BBC head of human resources, which forms part of a legal case brought by the union against the corporation over the new pension scheme, also alleges that HR staff used “underhand tactics” to collect information on NUJ activists and “bring cases of disciplinary action for intimidation and bullying as a means of control”.

Glenn Greenwald is already sharpening his pencils at the Guardian for an exposé.

Via BBC Watch and Archbishop Cranmer:

It seems the BBC has been giving a platform to an organisation, greenbelt, that hosts an anti-Israel manifesto, its main motivation seems to be centred around Israel/Palestine.

It has a strange notion of what exactly Christianity teaches:

Our history is firmly rooted within a Christian tradition which is world-affirming, politically and culturally engaged…….. inclusive and accepting of all, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, background or belief.

Hmmm…OK…I guess God loves a sinner.….’Archbishop urges Christians to ‘repent’ over ‘wicked’ attitude to homosexuality’

As you can see Israel is a major pre-occupation with greenbelt:

This is what Greenbelt attempts to do: to make links with people in situations around the world struggling for justice and peace and to bring them to Greenbelt and give them a stage. We view this as part of our mission.

In addition, in terms of our programming on and highlighting issues around Israel/Palestine, Greenbelt also aligns itself with resolutions of international law, drawn up by the United Nations, that deem:

• The continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal
• The separation wall being built since 2002 as illegal
• The continued building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal

Read BBC Watch and Cranmer….and you can see just how ‘non-inclusive’ and anti-Israeli this group is.

Any surprise that the BBC is giving such a significant boost  to greenbelt’s credentials and therefore to its, unmentioned by the BBC, main political narrative?….and it is essentially a political organisation with tamboreens. 

And just out of interest that bastion of BBC righton-edness, Richard Curtis, is friends with Jim Wallis, guest on the show, and another prolific anti-Israel campaigner.

Jim lives in Washington DC, with his wife Joy Carroll, one of the first women ordained in the Church of England, and who was advisor, inspiration and role model for Richard Curtis for his comedy series “The Vicar of Dibley”.

 Small world.

Isn’t it great that the BBC is in essence a private club for the likes of Curtis who can take license payers money and use it make programmes that are blatant propaganda for one of his many pet causes…whether poverty, anti-Tory or pro-climate change lobbying.  

Remember Leveson and all that when so much was made of the dominance of one media giant…..no, not the BBC.

Seems that all that foot stamping and those pious demands for media plurality was just so much hot air.

Apparently Cameron has taken them at their word and gone forth and spread the word, literally, amongst the highest and the lowest in the land.

Cameron has been talking to regional journalists and broadcasters and the Big Boys don’t like it.

Downing Street hogs the remote control: The PM’s use of tame media is annoying the big guns at Sky, ITN and the BBC

Of course as the BBC is by far the most dominant of the news providers with the lion’s share of the audience for news it is the BBC that should be losing out…its stranglehold on the national narrative perhaps being loosened…no bad thing if true.

Cameron talking to local concerns is a good ploy, back to the soapbox almost…but he still needs the national media, so the BBC still has a significant role to play no doubt.

Jim Al-Khalili has shamelessly, shamefully, set aside his scientific principles and those of his newfound career in Journalism to bring us half an hour of climate change propaganda….not science at all…just pure, outright hard sell and ‘facts’ that would not look out of place on Press TV.

 In The Life Scientific he interviews (and I say that advisedly as it is more a scripted ‘one-two’) Joanna Haigh who pushes the IPCC’s case and ‘explains how she deals with Deniers.’

Haigh is somewhat of a fanatic and one who refuses to countenance any doubts about her science…..she says she objects to calling people who have reservations about the causes of cliamte change ‘sceptics’…she prefers to label them ‘deniers’ because they apparently deny climate change is happening.

  As far as I can see most ‘Deniers‘ in fact say climate change does occur….it always changes…the question they ask is ‘What causes that change?’.

Haigh tells us that the IPCC’s science is reviewed rigorously…the IPCC is not a consensus body of green lobbyists…and consensus is very hard to achieve.

She also tells us that the computer climate models are in fact very accurate and reliable…..input a few equations into a computer and there you go…..the climate predicted for the next one hundred years…’Amazing!’…it gives us faith in the future, allegedly.  Simple really, how could anyone have ever doubted her and her kind.

She tells us that long range forecasts are more accurate than short term….I suppose that’s why the Met. Office stopped publishing its long term ones as they were continuously embarrassed by them.

Of course that is somewhat hard to prove…..a forecast for 100 years from now is more about that ‘faith’ she was spouting earlier than reality.

And of course it is difficult for the Public to know what to believe because of all those ‘Deniers’ blogging away distorting the science.

As for the 15 year or so standstill…well you know there are always going to be errors and a range of predictions….and the climate always varies but….the trend is upwards, ever upwards…no really.

All the signs are that we must do something radical.

Now that the last BBC review into its climate change coverage has been and gone it seems normal service has resumed….not a sceptic, sorry, denier, in sight or sound of a BBC studio as far as I can see.

The BBC know full well Alastair Crooke’s ‘pedigree’ and who holds the leash for this particular lapdog.

Just a couple of months ago BBC Watch commented on the BBC’s use of Crooke:

If readers are now beginning to suspect that the BBC simply saved itself a phone call to the Syrian Ministry of Propaganda by inviting Alastair Crooke to this programme, they might not be far wrong.

It looks though that the BBC just don’t care that Crooke is somewhat compromised as a commentator on events in the Middle East as he pops up again today on  World at One (13:14:30) where we were told merely that he ‘fostered contact between Islamic political groups and the West’

The BBC knowingly led him onto the point they wanted to make….Israel, and Saudi Arabia are ‘providing the intelligence’ about these gas attacks…..and we are to infer…the  intelligence is therefore highly dubious….because of its source.

Hmmm…well the ‘fact’ of  the gas attack was not provided by the Israelis to the world…..and the UN are  presently at work on the ground trying to establish what did happen, and by whom.

Crooke went on to tell us it definitely wasn’t the Syrian regime that used chemical weapons…because the Russians said so…oh, and Iran said, 100%, that it wasn’t Assad.

I’ll leave the last word to BBC Watch:

Providing Alastair Crooke with the opportunity to spout the spin of a terrorist organization and a murderous dictatorship to millions of listeners unchallenged is obviously bad enough. But when that is done without due disclosure of the political connections of the man and his very dubious organization, then the BBC is displaying wanton disregard for its own obligation to impartiality and once again putting its own political colours – and agenda – in full view.