Why is the article about accepting a role for Sharia in UK law given more prominence (with picture) on the BBC World News page than on the BBC UK page (where there is no picture, and it appears in the “other top stories” section. Oh, and the main story is something or other about a badger cull)?
Update: Great link here from George R for those who wish to explore further. Looks like one to bookmark.
The BBC is leading the way in blunting the Conservatives’ revival with this special coverage of… well, what exactly about Ray Lewis? Headlined “Mayor’s aide in sex claims enquiry” it’s never clear what the sex claims are in fact. The article is filled with something else on the financial side apparently pursued by the oh-so-upright Church of England back in the 90’s. It’s basically a mess of conflation. The usual suspects, the rat pack of journos, can be heard on the BBC’s televised clip from Deputy Mayor Ray’s press conference- Jon Snow et al getting very snooty indeed. Boris is getting a going-over and the BBC is desperate to be in the vanguard.
I didn’t notice this level of zeal, or even any interest at all, in the case against Lee Jasper.
. I was reading the latest instance of Nanny Statism, faithfully reported by the State Broadcaster. This wheeze involves paying smokers in the poorest areas of Dundee £150 worth of groceries from the NHS if they are able to give up cigarettes. Let’s leave aside the obvious stupidity of this which I am sure the more ingenuous Dundee smokers will quickly exploit. The BBC plainly states “There are 36,000 smokers in Dundee, about half of whom live in poverty. “ Wrong. There are not. The BBC is referring to the Government and NGO definition of relative poverty – a left wing invention in recent years to enable them to shakedown more of our taxes for their favoured client groups. In repeatedly making this claim the State Broadcaster advances a leftist agenda proving once again that it cannot be trusted to give us just facts rather than spewing out propaganda.
Even the left-wing Independent reports that 25 years after after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic does not exist. In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations was profoundly flawed Kevin de Cock (His real name, honest!), the head of the WHO’s department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa.
Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including gay men, drug users, and prostitutes and their clients. The contrast with the propaganda pumped out by the likes of the BBC over the years could not be greater. Remember this? Oddly enough, the BBC does not seem to have picked up on this sensational news. I wonder why? No more red ribbons?
It’s like re-living the early 1990’s again with the BBC in its default position of leading the charge against the sleazy Conservative Party. The lead story today is actually located in the 1990’s with the shock horror! news that Conservative Party chairman Caroline Spelman has admitted using her MP’s parliamentary allowance for payments to her children’s former nanny. Spelman told BBC’s Newsnight that the money, paid in 1997 and 1998, was for secretarial work the nanny did. Following on from the revelations concerning Conservative MEP Giles Chicester, it’s like the good old days are back. A story that is TEN YEARS OLD is the single most important issue for the BBC this morning. Now I have no sympathy at all for our rapacious political caste and the fact that they abuse their expenses does not surprise me in the least but this is OLD news. I am sure the beleaguered Mr Brown will be thanking the BBC for doing all it can to shift the news agenda away from his serial woes. Naturally Labour MP’s are squeaky clean when it comes to their own use of parliamentary expenses. Mr Speaker Michael Martin is a good example of Labour financial propriety I suppose.
I don’t know whether the BBC will devote a report to the fact that May has been among the least violent of the Iraq war- it could be confirmed as the producing the lowest US casualty figures depending on events today and tomorrow. I don’t know if they’ll register that the six month figure for that is the lowest for any period since the fighting began in 2003 source. Iraq could be arriving at peace.
What I do know is that the BBC will report this against the backdrop of bad news, pre-announced bad news– covered in some depth. Somehow the BBC’s attitude for statistics tends only to work in selected directions.
It’s been quite interesting reading the lead stories in most of the Sunday press today concerning the alarming prospects for PM Gordon Brown and then comparing these with the BBC. With gloom and doom everywhere as tales emerge of plots and intrigues, Gordon Brown can at least gain small comfort in the re-assuring BBC headline that there is “No appetite to oust Brown as PM.” From Jabba the Hut (Prescott) to Postman Pat (Johnson), the BBC has helpfully provided a forum for those selected to calm Brown’s nerves. It looks to me that the BBC wants to see Brown survive, but only if he moves to the left.
As people have been pointing out in the comments (thank you very much), The Feral Beast has revealed that emails which led to the exposure of ex-London mayor Red Ken Livingstone’s racial right hand man Lee Jasper had already been handed to the BBC’s Tim Donovan and rejected as “of no news value”. One year after Donovan’s rejection, this “non-news value” was turned into scoop-of-the-year by an old friend of this blog’s, Andrew Gilligan*. Jasper resigned, Red Ken lost the mayoral election- and the BBC were left counselling their public “And what is your concern about Boris?”
I wonder why the BBC didn’t consider Red Ken’s corrupt crony a newsworthy story. Maybe, in the light of recent stories about BBC junketing, they just thought it was business as usual in NuLabour’s Britain? As DB rightly points out in our comments, Donovan certainly considered it a story later on, but I did notice that in Donovan’s account the potential criminality of Lee Jasper and misuse of hundreds of thousands was well in the background of the story.
*This blog-member is happy to acknowledge Gilligan’s success, having rather worried about putting the boot in when Gilligan was floored by Hutton.
I hope this short commercial break will not affect your enjoyment of B-BBC but I wanted to take a few moments of your time to tell you about my new book called “Unionism Decayed” and to explain why I think it has a direct relevance to this site. For over ten years, I have watched the role the State Broadcaster has played in the relentless and merciless perversion of democracy in Northern Ireland. I have seen the bias, the spin and the neo-Stalinist questioning of the character of those people like myself who oppose putting murderers into government! I watched the BBC’s chief political correspondent jump ship and become part of the very administration that he was supposed to impartially report upon. I watched BBC behaviour during a crunch referendum that was bias incarnate. Worst of all, I have seen how the BBC can help crush the spirit of freedom by acting as a compelling echo chamber for an immoral appeasing government. It’s all detailed in my book along with my own political journey over this period. If you are interested in reading about this, please email me here and I will provide you with pricing details. My final observation is that you can be sure that the views I express are verboten on Al Beeb – the terrorists friend – so perhaps that is the finest recommendation I can have?
The BBC has been flagging up the the fines handed out to ITV for abusing premium rate phone call-ins. Meanwhile, this afternoon, the BBC lets slip that IT has been forced to apologise for keeping £106,000 from premium-rate phone- ins that should have gone to charity. Nice.
