Category Archives: policing

THE THIN BLUE SHADOW…

By | |
20 Comments

Did you see that the BBC are gleefully providing the Police Trade Union with a platform to attack Theresa May?  It seems she is “destroying” a police service admired throughout the world.  I wonder if this is the same police service (sic) that the BBC never misses the opportunity to put the boot into? From the shooting of Jean Paul de Menezes, through the summer riots, to that institutionalised racism imagined by Macpherson – the BBC has been a constant force in undermining the police force we once had, turning into a pale shadow of what it once was. However given the chance to provide the Coalition with more bad publicity, the BBC temporarily suspends it own onslaught on British policing and plays along with the Police Federation.

Hannan Calls BBC Bias On Elected Police Chiefs

By | | ,
12 Comments

The excellent Dan Hannan MEP raises the issue of BBC bias in the issue of directly elected police chiefs on his Telegraph blog today:

There was a snotty, sneering, superior piece about elected sheriffs on Radio 4’s PM programme this evening. Inevitably, it included an interview with Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. Sheriff Joe admires the Republicans, thinks there is too much illegal immigration, is beastly to scoundrels and enjoys vast support. This, in Beebworld, makes him a one-man argument against democratic policing. Indeed, until now, BBC audiences might have been forgiven for believing that Mr Arpaio was the only sheriff in the United States.


Today’s feature branched out very slightly, and interviewed one other sheriff candidate, a chap from rural Alabama who seemed to have been chosen because a) his accent would make British listeners think of Mississippi Burning and b) his name was Jimmy Ray Swindle.

You get the idea. Allow people to choose who directs their local police force and you are likely to get racists, half-wits or crooks – often with hilarious redneck names. Just in case we missed the message, the correspondent spelt it out with his closing words: “While popular elections may increase direct accountability, it [sic] doesn’t necessarily lead to better policing”.

The tone of the BBC article and their hostility to elected police chiefs is understandable. The BBC and ACPO will defend each other because circling the wagons is the only way to prevent accountability being forced on them.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Campaign journalism

By | | , , ,
42 Comments

When the BBC claim impartiality, it follows that they claim to be a timeless, apolitical entity reflective of truth. I couldn’t help thinking about that when I looked at the BBC website this morning and saw the lead stories on the World and UK webpages. On the former, France and Italy were being taken to task for falling off the Bono Africa charity bandwagon. On the latter, a young woman accused of child indecency was being paraded before the public eye.

It seems to me this is activist journalism and trial by media. I don’t know why a person simply accused of a crime is pictured, named, aged and specified in this way by our national broadcaster. I do not think it would have happened in the past. As for Bono’s media bonanza, the BBC loves to talk about aid but it is less keen to scrutinize trade, especially of agricultural produce. Protectionism is rife in Europe, and not absent in the US. “Naming and shaming” “guilty” aid reneging countries is in my view just a circus of smug sentiment. How about scrutinising the manifest inefficiencies and incapabilities of our bureaucratic EU in spreading and growing wealth?

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

ADVANCING THE GAY AGENDA.

By | | , ,
Comments Off on ADVANCING THE GAY AGENDA.

The BBC always loves to help the militant gay agenda and perhaps this is why it gives due prominence to the headline “Anti Gay police complaints rise.” Who says so? The Gay Police Assoication.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they? If you read through the item it’s a blatant piece of homophobia propaganda, based on the fact that the Gay Police Association received 350 calls this past year, compared to 260 the previous year. And this is a headline? The story goes to conjure up a figure of an “estimated” 17,000 homophobic incidents concerning homosexual police officers but remarkably enough, this is based on the fact that these haven’t been reported “for fear of intimidation”! Hearsay, in other words. It’s funny how the BBC pays so much attention to what I view to be little more than grievance groups like the Gay Police Association, the Black Police Association and the Muslim Police Association, giving them the oxygen of publicity that they so crave. It also implies division and rancour amongst the Police, which cannot be helpful to the morale (let alone the moral) of those who enforce the rule of law and order.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.