Category Archives: northern ireland

The awkward report

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[Update: I see David has posted on this below. I think I will leave this post here for now, as it brings a different angle]

I suppose they’re out of practice, but the BBC has made a hash of reporting the terrorist attack on British soldiers in Northern Ireland. As Pounce and others have pointed out, and as I noticed too, the headline has shifted from “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Army attack” to “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Northern Ireland attack”. Like others, the first title had me confused as to who attacked whom. The current one completely lacks specificity, and the surrounding text fails to mention the nationality of the “military personnel”.

Even more interesting for me is the disappearance from the front page and from the links to the topic of this highly relevant contributionfrom Deputy First Minister McGuinness, who claimed late last week that “army special forces are a ‘major threat'”. It certainly seems that someone was listening very closely to the DFM’s words. Initially this must have seemed relevant to the BBC, as they published it alongside the main story of the attack. Now they seem to think it irrelevant. Or is it something else?

By the way, discussion of this topic will probably arouse strong feeling. I hope people remember we can see the BBC as meddlesome, ignorant, cringing and politically motivated without adopting too rigid a view of the issues behind the news.

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JUST A FEW MURDERS, NOTHING TO SEE, MOVE ALONG.

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Right then, I break my weekend silence (working on the book) to comment on the BBC coverage of the brutal murder of two British soldiers in the nearby town of Antrim. Four other soldiers have been injured, one critically. Now then, apart from the obvious revulsion any civilised person will feel at this attack by “dissident” Irish Republican terrorists, there are a number of points I wish to raise.

1. The BBC ordinarily rushes to get the reaction of Irish Republicans as we witnessed earlier this week when it came to Special Forces being sent to Northern Ireland. But they seem strangely subdued to do so this morning. No comments thus far from Martin McGuinness, the IRA commander who is now Deputy First Minister. Perhaps the BBC will ask him why he does not express his sympathies to the British Army and his respect for the great work they do? Then again, perhaps not.

2. The entire ethos of the grotesque “peace process” which the BBC retails is that is essential to accommodate terrorists if we are to have peace. So, who will be first to suggest that the murderers of these soldiers be allowed to enter government, or at least talk with government?

3. As I argue in my book, you CANNOT get rid of terrorism by appeasing it. For years I have found myself isolated here in Northern Ireland by the BBC because I see no reason to change my mind on this matter. Yet this morning, as the next of kin deal with the horrific loss of their sons, I cannot help but feel that it is not just Irish republican terrorists who should be reviled but also the media establishment including the rotten BBC which on the one hand treats republican terrorists such as Martin McGuinness with grovelling respect whilst paying faux outrage at the Irish republican murders in Antrim.

On the Andrew Marr show, Clive Anderson was on to wax how terrible this event is but perhaps it is just a localised one-off? Phew, that will come as relief to the families of the bereaved.

Supercilious BBC bastards. Anyway, it’s only dead British soldiers so no need for clinical journalism asking questions such as where these murderers came from, who shelters and succours them, where did they get the weapons to carry out this slaughter at Masserene? Now, back to Binyam Mohamad – shall we give him a knighthood?

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HIBERNIANISATION.

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I know I have commented on this before it but it does irritate me and so I draw your attention to the bizarre agenda pursued by BBC Northern Ireland, the arm of the BBC which thinks it is Irish, not British. The LEAD story this evening concerns the accidental death of a lady in the Irish Republic. Tragic certainly but in what way does this have ANY relevance to Northern Ireland. Meanwhile the Olympic coverage on this station concerns itself with the Irish connection to Usain Bolt. This is not accidental, it is part of a sustained and politically driven agenda on behalf of the BBC to broadcast the news of a foreign country as if it were domestic news. The term I use is hibernianisation – the greening of Northern Ireland by the lousy BBC.

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NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH.

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As you and I both know the BBC plays an active role in advancing certain political left-wing agendas, rather than just objectively reporting the news, and as such it frequently has to studiously avoid stating unplatable truths. So when we read “news” it’s always important to consider what is left out as much as what is put in. Bias is a subtle beast.

Now then, I was reading this glowing propaganda piece on how the late David Ervine “was an example to us all.” So says US Senator George Mitchell, another much-loved BBC figure. But who was this good man David Ervine? He was a convicted loyalist terrorist, intercepted by the police whilst on a bombing mission. Ervine got out of jail years later and moved into politics. His closest political associates were Gusty Spence (convicted murderer) and Billy Hutchinson (convicted murderer) During his tenURE as leader of the Orwellian-entitled Progressive Unionist Party, he was feted by the BBC as the exciting new face of unionist even as the scent of semtex exuded from him. The PUP were and remain the political apology wing for the murderous UVF terror group, to which Ervine had belonged. The UVF continued to murder and maim even as Ervine preened as a neo-politician. You would not get any of this background from this piece put up by the BBC, and you are not intended to. This is all about the State Broadcaster playing the subtle game, ensuring that government policy of appeasing terrorists and indeed eulogising them is sustained. I imagine that the day terror godfather Martin McGuinness dies the BBC will don black ties and play solemn music – more than his victims ever got.

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MISSING WORDS.

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It’s not what the BBC says in its reports, it often what it leaves out. For example, in this report on the Northern Ireland portal it factually reports certain changes regarding the constitution of a Victim’s Commission. Fair enough. It then blithely states concerning the members of this quango that amongst them is “Patricia MacBride, whose brother was killed by the SAS and whose father died 17 months after being shot by loyalists.” It fails to explain that Patricia MacBrides’ brother was killed by the SAS because he was an IRA terrorist stopped before he could carry out a bombing and that her father was murdered by loyalist terrorists. The BBC is indirectly equating the actions of the SAS to those of the IRA, and it is also besmirching the reputation of law abiding loyalists by failing to make it clear that it was loyalist terror gangs that murdered Patricia McBrides father. This is the shameful equivocation at which the BBC excels. Just one sentence with missing words.

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HIBERNIANISATION.

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It’s my view that the BBC plays an active role in the “greening” of Northern Ireland and I have commented here before on stories that run on the Northern Ireland portal which have NOTHING to do with Northern Ireland. This evening the LEAD story on BBC NI concerns a house fire in the Republic of Ireland. On what basis has such an event ANY relevance to Northern Ireland? None. But the BBC is determined to use the Northern Ireland site on a 32 county basis and that, my friends, is a clear political bias.

UPDATE: The BBC has now moved on from the above story and is instead running a story about an industrial dispute – in the Repubic of Ireland. Hibernianisation.

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THE BIG PICTURE.

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Ok, this is the third and last one of these posts (I promise!) but I draw to your attention to the BBC’s Northern Ireland site today and a posting entitled “Northern Ireland’s Big Picture.” And what, you may ask, does this reveal? Why it’s a smiling image of the President of the Republic of Ireland Mary McAleese on what is one of her numerous cross-border sallies. As part of advancing the territorial claim to Northern Ireland, McAleese will turn up at the opening of a letter if it generates favourable publicity. She has of course no constitutional position in Northern Ireland as we already have a Head of State in the shape of Her Majesty the Queen but the BBC appears to believe that tree-planting visits to primary schools by the roving McAleese is part of some “Big Picture.” I’ll say it is – it’s all part of their big picture to soften up the people of Northern Ireland into believing they are not quite British.

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A Good Year for the Roses?

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Yes, I know I have talked about this before but it irritates me the way in which BBC Northern Ireland continually files stories about the Republic of Ireland under home news. It’s not. Take this tripe about the great news that unmarried mothers are being allowed to take part in the annual Rose of Tralee competition for the first time held in County Kerry. All very wonderful I am sure for these putative child bearing roses and cause for liberal celebration, but damn all to do with Northern Ireland. I wish that the all-Irelanders in the local BBC would take a hike with their incessant propagandising. To think that OUR British license taxation is being used to fund republican fantasies dressed up as news and spewed out through the State broadcaster. The problem in Northern Ireland is that seem unclear which State they work for.

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A QUESTION OF IDENTITY.

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Living as I do in Northern Ireland, it has been my long held contention that the BBC operates here as if it were part of a foreign broadcasting corporation. Of course Biased BBC readers living elsewhere in the UK may feel similarly! But I draw your attention to this story, given all due prominence on the BBC Northern Ireland news page today. As you will see, it has absolutely nothing to do with Northern Ireland, and concerns itself exclusively with the financial shenanigans of those in the government of the Irish Republic. It is, by NO definition, a Northern Ireland story. But yet there is it on the Northern Ireland news page. The BBC operates a harmonisation policy when it comes to matters concerning the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. These are treated as if they are all local stories, so facilitating the UK and Irish government agenda of gradualised de facto, if not de jure, unification. The truth of the matter is that this news report concerns a foreign government and it is NOT a UK story. But the dark green-tinged glasses through which the BBC views news sees it all very differently.

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TERRORIST GODFATHER KNOWS THE WAY TO SESAME STREET

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One of the areas of BBC activity that causes me most concern is its active role in sanitising terrorism. Take this charming photocall of IRA terrorist godfather Martin McGuinness sitting between Potto and Hilda. Who are Potto and Hilda? Well, they aren’t members of Sinn Fein (Then again..) but they the stars of the new BBC children’s programme, Sesame Tree, This local version of Sesame Street was launched in Belfast yesterday. The new series swaps the original New York street setting for the titular tree, and aims to showcase ..ugh…”diversity and promote respect and understanding”through the characters’ adventures with local schoolchildren. The programme is linked to the revised Northern Ireland statutory curriculum, and will encourage children to explore and appreciate the world around them.

Chuckle Brother McGuinness recently explained how he had wished to kill every British soldier in Londonderry back in 1972, and remains vague as to how many the IRA unit under his command actually DID kill. The way in which the BBC uses something as innocuous as a Sesame Street spin-off to help improve the image of a self-confessed IRA terrorist McGuinness is an absolute disgrace and it is a role that the local BBC here in Northern Ireland have turned into an art form. Our license-fee is funding aPR make-over for monsters such as McGuinnness.

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