Category Archives: Today programme

An item on Today about the popularity of Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra gushed about the uplifting effect of such projects. I agree, but I couldn’t help thinking of the Palestinian string orchestra that was disbanded by the Palestinian Authority for performing to holocaust survivors. A mention would have been nice.

However, today’s Today was not its usual self. Chris Grayling was given a jolly good stab at both radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki’s hate-broadcast and the email smeargate.
I was wondering if the BBC have sensed a change in the air, and fearing the the end is nigh for Nulab, like rats, they’ve decided now’s time to desert the sinking ship?

Listening to the BBC “Today” this morning was quite the experience. It was a full-on left-wing fest with many of their shibboleths on full display disguised as “news”

It kicked off just after 7am with an item on the EU’s current attempts to broker “a deal” with the Eastern European nations on reducing carbon emissions. BBC “Analyst” and climate change cheer-leader Roger Harrabin was almost breathless in his excitement that Sarkzoy and the gang can pull together some worthless tokenism by the end of this week in order that the EU can continue to “lead” the way on this issue. At no point was there any discussion as to whether the EU acting unilaterally was the right thing to do – it is now an article of faith beyond debate in Beeb world.

And moving directly on from that, the BBC were pleased to welcome on-air a spokesman for the vandals from “Plane Stupid” – the group that has disrupted flights at Stansted airport this morning by cutting through the fence and blocking the runway. I believe that giving publicity to this kind of Student Grant vandalism is inappropriate and I do not care to hear what these idiots think, or demand. The BBC should be ashamed of itself for playing the PR game with these loons.

Moving on, we had the obligatory “Get me out of here, its a quagmire” item on Afghanistan. The pretentiously entitled and left-wing “International Council on Security and Development” have done “research” that shows the Taliban is bigger and stronger than ever before. And the BBC are keen to advance this spurious nonsense as part of their own anti-war agenda.

Next, there was the now also mandatory “Gordon Brown – Saviour of the Universe” item. This time, Prudence has invited Sarkozy and Barroso to Downing Street for talks on the economic crisis (which Brown helped engineer) but German Chancellor Angela Merkel has chosen not to attend and so this item was a bewildered BBC pondering why on earth the German’s don’t want to follow Gordon over the economic cliff.

There were two further items that my morning digestion did not facilitate. The first was the latest episode of government dumbing down our children’s education by teaching them about “emotional well-being and social skills” instead of traditional subjects. The second was that on “The Elders” (LOL) in the form of Jimmy Carter – America’s worst ever President – being “disappointed” in the leadership of Robert Mugabe.

All in all – listening to Today is the worst possible way to start the week – so I thought I would share my pain with you!

Some days the BBC excels itself by exhibiting bias beyond the call of even left-wing duty. This morning of BBC Radio 4 Today between 7.30 and 8.00am was such a case. My god but they went to town on their favourite memes with no pretence whatsoever of balance.

First up with we had Hazel Blears (I know..) who chirped that we were winning the theological battle with militant Islam. How? Well she is supporting Muslim community centres to help stop young Islamics turning Jihadist. As she points out, when people are young they are angry, frustrated about world poverty and UK foreign policy, and so naturally….. they want to slaughter us by the dozen. Happily Hazel is here to rescue us and she may even attend some of the seminars with young angry Muslims. I’m just hoping they don’t get mad with her.

Next, we had a discussion on the soaring costs of the London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre which will cost more than three times as much as originally estimated. They key theme the BBC were pushing here was that unless we want the London Olympics to be known as the “Accountants Olympics” we should not restrain the cost. Finance without limits, it’s the BBC’s daily prayer

Finally, we had an all out attack on the United States for having the temerity to find Bin Laden’s driver guilty of supporting terrorism. Lord Goldsmith was wheeled on to declare that the US lad lost the “high moral ground” of 9/11 and had it replaced with the Orange jump suits of Gitmo. Pathetic simpering stuff from the ridiculous Goldsmith.

Throughout this 30 minute whinge-fest, there was no attempt to offer alternative views. This was an extended sermon from the BBC and it was riddled with bias.

What better way to start the week than by tuning in to the “Today” programme on BBC Radio 4? (Well, I can think of plenty actually but let’s just go with this for a few minutes) Between 6.30am and 7am I steeled myself and listened to the “news” from the State Broadcaster.

For openers we had an item on how the Conservatives were “exploiting” the financial woes that afflict poor Labour. Interesting choice of word that, “exploiting”. “Highlighting” might have been another less judgemental word that could have used I suppose? This item went on to discuss Gordon Brown’s disastrous personal ratings in opinion polls over the weekend but caveated these with the insistence that these polls may not be accurate. (The BBC, of course, regularly uses other opinion polls which are treated as Holy Writ when it suits them but hey, let’s not upset Labour too much)

Next up we had someone from the Howard League for Penal Reform (aka the abolition of prisons) on to whine about the amount of self-harm prisoners carried out on themselves. This. she pointed out, was not really connected to overcrowding in prison (A favoured BBC theme mind you) but to the fact that they were in jail in the first place. At no point was it suggested to this advocate for the abolition of justice that had they not committed crime these alleged self-harmersy would NOT have been in prison in the first place. Also is it not better they harm themselves than their victims? This was a public platform afforded to the Howard League of extreme leftists without ANY counter balance, disgraceful.

Then we had the topic of the meeting of those Southern African States concerning Zimbabwe. The line taken here was that whilst the “Crisis? What Crisis?” line had been put out by this august body of wise elders perhaps secretly they had been discussing a plan to establish a government of national unity? Sure. The BBC seems very reluctant to say anything bad about the catastrophic failure of Mbeke to stand up against Mugabe.

Then we moved on to, yip, climate change. Seems that it is getting warmer in Northern UK climes and this is causing all kinds of shifts of the animal population. Just one more little bit of green advocacy afforded to those geo-climate experts at…erm….The National Trust.

The triumph of the Maoists in Nepal received the BBC seal of approval, though the BBC reporter did seem a little surprised to see that the Maoist leader had images of Stalin and Mao on his wall. Nostalgia?

There were a few other items but after 30 minutes of this, I tuned out!