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(too lazy to pick up the phone to Kenneth Clarke, that is), BBC Views Online’s weekly Magazine Monitor: Ten Things column lapped up and repeated the story that:

5. The croquet set John Prescott so memorably used at Dorneywood was presented to the grace-and-favour house by previous resident Kenneth Clarke.

Except of course he didn’t, as anyone who saw Kenneth Clarke being interviewed on Sky News in the middle of last week knows. And here was me thinking that Beeboids while away their hours at ‘work’ watching Sky News…

Alice Miles, writing in Saturday’s Times, confirms The truth about that croquet set:

THEY probably thought it was just a bit of spin: John Prescott’s special adviser, Joan Hammell, tried to roll those embarrassing croquet balls back out of sight last weekend by claiming that Conservative ministers used Dorneywood far more than Labour ones ever had, and, “in fact, the croquet set was given to the house by Kenneth Clarke when he was the resident there”.

Blame it on the Tories. What sounds like just a piece of political trivia is in fact an extremely good example of an outdated instinct that Labour desperately needs to kick and can’t: pointing the finger for everything, be it chaos at the Home Office, deficits in the health service, or even croquet, at “18 years of Tory rule”.

This mantra, honed in Opposition when a lot of problems probably were the product of 18 years of Tory rule, simply doesn’t wash any more, as Tony Blair is discovering at Prime Minister’s Questions week after week. The formula is dated, predictable and increasingly ridiculous after nine years in power. Only Labour seems not to have noticed that.

Oh and incidentally, Mr Clarke didn’t buy the croquet set.

So there we have it. I expect the Beeboids at BBC Views Online will get round to publishing a correction to this piece of blatant Labour spin that they so eagerly fell for.

Also on Saturday, fellow blogger Iain Dale exhorted Check your facts BBC News Online!, noting typical BBC attention to detail, as well as unattributed lifting of chunks of an exclusive David Cameron interview from ConservativeHome.com, tsk, tsk.

BBC Views Online presents In pictures: Remembering Khomeini:

On the 17th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomenei, Iranian photographer Mohsen Shandiz (centre) presents his memories of the return of the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution to Iran in 1979.

Coming soon to BBC Views Online’s In Pctures series: Remembering Hitler, Remembering Stalin, Remembering Pol Pot, Remembering Saddam, ad nauseam.

For an alternative selection of Khomeini pictures, many snapshots, plus a smattering of, shall we say, alternative images, simply browse through Google Images selection of ‘Khomeini’ results.

For a fuller picture of the result of the Islamic revolution in Iran, do take a look at the likes of: Iran Focus: Human Rights, Iran Focus: Women, Mission for Establishment of Human Rights in Iran, and so on. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the Iranian Revolution, including links back to some of the BBC’s better Iranian coverage, as well as some interesting thoughts on the machinations of various Iranian factions, the CIA, President Carter etc.

that took place in this troubled world on Friday night/ Saturday morning concerned crimes and alleged crimes by US soldiers in Iraq, according to Ceefax.

For those unfamiliar with Ceefax, the BBC’s teletext system displays about twenty-five pages of news stories each day, starting with the news summary on page 101.

Pages 125 has four sub pages on the alleged massacre at Ishaqi. When you get to the fourth page, if you are still awake, you discover the source of this video – a “hardline Sunni group.” These four pages make no reference to the news on page 107 that says US troops have been cleared of the same massacre. After suffering that annoying news on page 107, the ideal BBC reader can at least cheer himself up on page 108. It bears “new allegations” from a US deserter. Another massacre? No, someone in the army told him that in the event that he killed anyone he ought to put an assault rifle next to their body to cover it up. Page 117 tells us that one of the Abu Ghraib accused is not going to jail but will have to do hard labour at an army camp instead. I think they should have the Abu Ghraib man on Desert Island Discs, then at least we’d be able to finally learn what his favourite music is when they trailed the show on the Radio Four news bulletins.

Not everyone is impressed by the BBC’s use of a video from a “hardline Sunni group.” Regular commenter Dumbcisco sends the following roundup of what some US blogs are saying:

“Guns caused gunshot wounds”
“Number of editorial layers unknown, but probably a lot” : Point Five

[Point Five also had a link to a post from All Things Beautiful called “Get Me Another Marine Murder Story In Iraq And Get It Now!”]

Michelle Malkin (- a blog read by the President’s new Press Secretary, I believe)

“The BBC shills for a hardline Sunni group” : The Political Pitbull.

“Who needs Al Jazeera when you have the BBC ?” : Democracy Project

“BBC airs propaganda obtained from Sunni insurgents” :
Security Watchtower

“What the heck is wrong with the BBC – this story was reported 6 weeks ago and was debunked then……For the BBC to fall for this now only shows how far some people will go to promote an agenda against America and the war” : Rightwing Nuthouse

Total incredulity about the credulity of the BBC in this story : Riehl World View

“BBC reports : Guns cause gunshot wounds ” : Blue Star Chronicles

“The BBC says they “uncovered” the video evidence….this is a strong word to use when it was GIVEN TO THEM BY SUNNI INSURGENTS …” :Outside the Beltway

“….The press is unbelievable. I wish they would just come right out and say – AMERICA IS EVIL. WE OPPOSE EVERYTHING IT DOES. LONG LIVE ISLAMIC FASCISM” : Ninth State

“UPDATE ….looks like the BBC should not only be ashamed of themselves, they should issue an apology to the US armed forces….They were carrying water for the enemies of the iraqi people …” : A Blog for All

“Anxious to pile on more accusations against US troops, the BBC has an article out today …The most curious thing is …a line buried 15 paragraphs into the 16 paragraph story : “The pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to US forces”….. Texas Rainmaker

Oh – and here’s the BBC story described in an editorial as a My Lai and splashed across the Middle East : Arab News

and here is a decidely odd new story from the BBC saying that Iraqis are not focussed on Haditha or Ishaqi anyway. Is the BBC backing away from all its screaming blue murder ? : Iraqis not focused on massacre claims

dumbcisco

The BBC story linked to last is indeed decidedly odd. It says

There are a number of possible reasons for this. One is that many Iraqis already believe that civilians are targeted on a daily basis by coalition forces – whether accidentally or deliberately.

Another is that people have become used to images of alleged massacres and attacks – sometimes these are even made available on DVDs in markets or used by militant groups to recruit new fighters.

But perhaps the main reason is that people actually have more pressing concerns.

More than a thousand people are being killed every month in the country. The sectarian divide in places like Baghdad is growing daily.

Who are these thousand people killed by, exactly? You can guess from the mention of the sectarian divide in the next sentence. But the BBC isn’t going to tell you. That would involve directly comparing the scale and nature of alleged American massacres (subject to investigations and punishment if proved) to the much greater number of bombings of mosques, of bombs set to go off as children were being given sweets by Americans, and all the other massacres carried out by the various factions of anti-coalition “militants” that, far from being a cause of shame to them, are celebrated and praised.

Yet that very comparison must be one of the reasons why Iraqi reaction has been so muted.

Remember the BBC Rule 1: “Active Israelis, Passive Palestinians”? Rule 2 is Active Coalition, Passive Insurgents.

Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you.

This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

“the_camp_commandant” writes:

This BBC news article (link) appears to have swallowed completely the line the government is pushing about “giving more rights to cohabitees”.

There has been a suggestion from liberal lawyers that cohabiting couples should have the same “rights” on separation as divorcing couples. The BBC article buys completely the canard that this proposed interference in people’s lives is somehow in pursuit of giving them rights. It completely fails to state the obvious intellectual challenge to this proposal, which is that imposing the same terms on cohabiting couples by default actually *removes* rights from them.

Oh yes it does. At present, cohabitees have the right to live together without a lifelong financial commitment to each other, if that’s what they want. If they decide they do want to make such a commitment, they can always go and get married. At present they have complete freedom of choice.

If this mooted law ever happened, it would mean the *removal* from people of the right to live together in an informal way and a reduction of freedom. what would happen is that by default, and after some wholly arbitrary period of time, they would be forcibly connected financially. They have thus lost the freedom to live the way they do now, and would instead be forced to live in a way the Government decrees.

Nowhere in his article does the writer confront this. Instead, he cravenly accepts all the guff he has been spoonfed. ‘What legal protection do cohabitees currently have?’ worries Mr. Silverman. But wait: ‘On separation,’ he goes on, ‘a claim to a share of property can be exercised only by using complicated trust law. By contrast, married couples can go to court to “divide the spoils”‘. Well spotted, Jon! I think you just answered your own question there! That’s right – the legal protection they have is that at any time they like, they can choose to become one of those married couples. Then there’s no nasty trust law, see?

So if the BBC put two and two together it would work out that the answer here is for cohabiting couples who want a finacial piece of each other to get married. Meanwhile, those who don’t, don’t.

Oh but wait. That last suggestion – well, that’s how things are now. And that sounds a bit, well, pro-marriage, doesn’t it? And we can’t have any of that mucky talk on the BBC.

I could go on. For example, when someone lives with a family member who dies, what rights do they have to stay in the property? Answer: none at all if they can’t pay the inheritance tax without selling it – a problem that has been solved for same-sex couples and is about to be forcibly solved (even though no problem may exist) for unmarried couples. Yet somehow, it isn’t on the BBC radar at all as an issue for, say, maiden aunts sharing a house, or for children looking after elderly parents in their own home.

There is also a story arc embedded in this about the instability of the Left’s attitudes to, well, everything really, but the family in particular. It was the left that pushed for the abolition of the family unit as the basic building block of society; it was the Left which thought it was somehow liberating for people not to have to get married before they had children. Now the Left seems to have decided that anybody who does will be forcibly treated as though they had got married. Now if you’re the BBC, what to do, what to do? Should it agree with this (it’s more “rights” after all, so it’s right-on), or should it object to it because it’s pushing marriage?

There follows a similar take on another BBC story about proposed changes to the legal position of cohabiting couples. The author, “SteveNewton” has made some excellent points – but I am just going to take this opportunity of saying to him (and some other correspondents) that he needs to lower his expectations of the speed with which amateur websites operate.

The BBC has recently had great fun discussing all aspects of proposed new legislation which will allow unmarried couples to claim the assets of people they are living with, even if they have exchanged no contractual obligations such as with a marriage.

link

Well, some aspects anyway, assuming they happen to align with the BBC’s own agenda. They report this story from their own selected gender specific point of view, giving direct links to people who think it’s a good idea and having Barbara Simpson (‘a deputy district judge in the family division and leading family law expert’) rubber stamp the proposed new law as “…long overdue.”

Further, unnamed lawyers the BBC tells us, have suggested, ‘…the entitlements should apply after couples have lived together for two years…’ You see the BBC is quite happy to refine the specifics of the new law itself even if the Law Commission who originated these proposals is not.

Of course the BBC being publicly funded has an obligation beyond mere independant broadcasting standards to be fair, impartial and complete in it’s coverage of any social legislation and so we do get to hear the ‘other side’ of the story. Right at the end, in the last 3 paragraphs of the story we get a little input from Melanie Philips, a Daily Mail columnist to whom the BBC, we assume, has had to outsource their journalism when it lurches dangerously away from the loony-left.

What else could we possibly require to balance out the previous 22 paragraphs of unidentified lawyers, deputy district judges an unfortunate lady called Rose Green who was left in a “vulnerable position” because her partner died without updating his will to her satisfaction and numerous links and quotes showing how this law will address a, “…terrible unfairness…”

Of course, before Ms Philips is quoted directly we have a BBC filtered summation of her position, just so as we know what her agenda is, the BBC say: “…Melanie Philips told the BBC changing the law would undermine marriage.”

That you see is the only reason we are offered as to why anyone might consider this legislation in anyway controversial. Those crazy people who value the sanctity of marriage; you never know they might even be religiously motivated!

These few paragraphs, however, are about as close as the BBC comes to discussing any other aspects of this legislation that might in anyway contradict or pollute the BBC’s favoured interpretation.

Of course this purity of source doesn’t stop them drawing parallels with other legislation which are not the subject of this legislation but which they think might be in support of it

In fact they make a point of paralleling this new legislation with Civil Partnerships; the image at the very top of this article shows two grooms on top of a cake with the staggeringly crazy piece of associated text: “The Civil Partnership offers similar protections to gay couples.”

How a piece of law which was designed to involve a formal contract between same sex couples is similar to a proposed piece of law which will enforce a ‘contract’ between heterosexual couples even if they refuse to enter into such a contract, isn’t of course explained futher.

This piece of proposed new law represents everything that Civil Partnerships are not. It is an assault on our very rights to freely associate! Unlike Civil Partnerships or their heterosexual equivalent (called Marriage) this new piece of proposed legislation would mean simply residing in the same building as someone for a period of time (determined by unidentified BBC legal sources as 2 years), constitutes an agreement to support them, share your property and income even as far as being forced to supply maintenance payments after separation, all without entering into any formal contract; indeed regardless of the fact that the couples involved may have actively avoided a contract of dependency between them.

Does the impartial BBC consider any of this an injustice or even a point worthy of consideration as injustice? Not a chance, in fact in all of the BBC’s feministic fury to promote this law they have overlooked the greatest and most tragic consequence of the break-up of couples who cohabit without a formal contract. That is the fact that by default a father and his child have no automatic right of contact if the couple are not married and the mother has chosen not to have his name appear on the birth certificate.

This new law which has obviously been thought out to address a disparity between married and non contractually bound heterosexual couples only looks at the mostly female, financial benefits, disregarding what might reasonably considered the most vital area of cohabitational injustice, child custody!

The only mention the BBC makes of children in this report is of course financial when the say: “Cohabitees can currently claim maintenance for a child but not for themselves.”

Barbara Simpson sums up the importance the BBC places on the rights of fathers and their children when she is described in the article as stating that:‘the new rights would recognise there is little difference between living with a partner for years and looking after children – and doing the same as husband and wife.’

Well. ‘little’ unless you are a man in which case you will still be denied responsibility for your own children and have enforced responsibility for any adult women you live with. Too ‘little’ a difference to make a fuss about as far as BBC journalism is concerned of course.

Joe Joseph of the Times reviews the latest edition of the BBC’s series of speculative mini-dramas set in the future, “If… the Oil Runs Out.” Ten years may have gone by, Western civilisation may be grinding to a halt, but the BBC hasn’t changed.

Interviews with oil analysts were interwoven with a mini-drama spun around an abrasive, career-minded American geologist who thinks she has located oil in a wildlife haven in Alaska. She is married to a sensitive Englishman who thinks that what’s important in life is starting a family, and being sensitive; by, for instance, letting his cleaning lady bathe her children in his house when she can’t afford to pay her soaring heating bills. The wife’s mid-Western parents are selfish, consumerist, thoughtless gas-guzzlers who drive an SUV the size of Shropshire: maybe the scriptwriter just asked Ken Livingstone to give them balanced guidance on the essence of the average American.

OK, guess what happens next. Did you guess that enough oil is found to keep everyone happy, and scientists find new ways of burning fossil fuels that aren’t polluting? Then you are a moron. What happens is that society breaks down, and we start behaving like barbarians, and have fights in petrol queues. The geologist doesn’t find oil. She becomes pregnant, after a draining spell of fertility treatment, and realises she must save the planet for her new baby. In short, the drama’s plot was not the area where the budget for this programme was lavished.

Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you.

Did you see all those BBC headlines about desertions from the army?

More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted the armed forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the BBC has discovered.

“Since” is such a useful word. It implies causation without actually stating it. The BBC are very fond of sincing.

When USS Neverdock had finished chewing up, grinding down and spitting out the remains of that desertions story there wasn’t enough left over to give dessert to a gnat. The key question was, you guessed it, how many deserted per year before the Iraq war, before the Twin Towers fell? Is the number up or down since then?

You guess. Because the BBC will leave you guessing.

I should have known. Back in March the US media ran a raft of stories about the numbers of desertions in the American army, sincing like mad. This is basically a rerun, a British cover version. Same headlines, same interviews with the deserters’ lawyers. Same profusion of anecdotal evidence and shortage of numerical. And the same subtle, deniable efforts to give an impression that, here as there, is the opposite of the truth.

UPDATE: The BBC story linked to is mutating by the hour. It says it was last updated five minutes ago, at 18.18 British Summer of Time. (Yes, BBC, we do have trained operatives observing your every move.) Wonder of wonders, the “Last Updated” field actually appears to tell the truth! The story now has lots of pretty MOD numbers that I don’t remember seeing before. The contrast between the (non) story the newly installed numbers tell and the crisis line taken by the original interviewees and featured quotes give the whole story an entertainingly chimerical air.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Drinking From Home has a screenshot of the original version. A middle version of the story had, I seem to recall, some figures near the end quoted by Don Touhig regarding the fairly constant proportion of soldiers who bunk off. These figures have now disappeared again.

The little discussion of the difference between going AWOL and desertion is also new. The original referred dramatically to numbers who had “evaded capture.” Made it sound like the French Resistance. In fact the typical unauthorised absence is not intended to be permanent, may well be unplanned – and in the case of commenter “pounce” was actually unintentional.

It’s all go at the BBC.

I was just decanting the milk-sodden leavings at the bottom of my offspring’s breakfast bowl onto Thursday’s Times prior to putting them in the bin when I noticed this:

Bush to get Mashed

By Adam Sherwin

THE BBC has persuaded the creator of the 1970s television series M*A*S*H to turn his fire on the Bush Administration.

“The BBC has persuaded … to turn his fire on the Bush Administration” It can only have been my shock at this unprecendented act on the part of our national broadcaster that caused me to emit a most unladylike snort.

President Hillary Clinton is in the White House, and George Bush is on trial for crimes against the American people …

By this time a second snort, that some misunderstood as laughter, had caused an errant Shreddie to entangle itself in my nasal membranes. In fact my distress was solely a result of my deep sympathy for members of the “reality based community,” as I believe they term themselves. Poor lambs. These recurring fantasies are a great comfort to them.

…in Abrogate, a one-off radio comedy written by Larry Gelbart. Radio 4 is rushing the “merciless” satire to air in tomorrow night’s Friday Play slot. Radio Times acclaimed the play, saying that “every line is a barbed swipe, a dazzling barb that hits home”.

Every single line! So there! With a write-up as jut-jawed as that we can safely assume that it was awful and the Radio Times knew it was awful.

Gelbart was the developer and chief writer on the M*A*S*H television series which ran from 1972 for 11 years.

Gelbart has grown angrier with age. Abrogate is set during an imaginary congressional hearing which is “sifting through the debris of the post-Bush regime to discover what, if anything, went right”.

UPDATE: Richy in comments says, “You’ve got to hand it to the BBC. The originality required for this kind of drama and the sheer fortitude necessary for battle against pre-existing stereotypes really does enforce upon you the value of public broadcasting.”

From the open comments thread above, this enlightening list from Ritter. His links work; for obscure Blogger/Haloscan/too-idle-to-type-them-out reasons, mine don’t. So if your life is incomplete wihout the BBC’s guidance on Lifestyle Detox, Parenting or Muslim Devotional Sounds, click on the link. As will be obvious, Ritter was replying to an earlier comment from Archduke.

Archduke – following on from your earlier post re BBC ‘actionnetwork’ – pick a subject, any subject, and the BBC can and does throw huge quantities of money at it. Some examples of the out-of-control BBC:

BBC Collective

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/

588,000 pages

http://www.google.com/search? hl=…G=Google+Search

BBC h2g2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/

2,330,000 pages

http://www.google.com/search?q=s…en&lr=&filter=0

BBC Teens

http://www.bbc.co.uk/teens/

14,900 pages

http://www.google.com/search? hl=…G=Google+Search

What the hell has this got to do with the BBC’s charter?

BBC Celebdaq

http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/in…daq/ index.shtml

This however is where the BBC are pouring bucketloads of cash: Local content:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/whereilive/

Thinking of starting a small website about Jersey, your local area? Why bother, the BBC has it covered:

BBC Where I Live – Jersey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/

Local Radio, TV, the RAC and AA all provide Travel news, but oh no, the BBC has to do it as well – more bucketloads of cash poured here:

BBC Travel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/

400+ pages enough for you?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Climate Change

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/ hottopic…matechaos.shtml

The BBC loves spending cash on it’s pet subjects, f*ck the licence fee payer and the charter:

BBC Africa

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcafrica/i…ica/ index.shtml

That’s 42,000 pages on BBC Africa!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

Don’t forget ‘Africa Lives on the BBC’:

BBC Africa Lives on the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/africalives…ves/ index.shtml

700+ pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Islam – One Life

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onel…ion/ islam.shtml

BBC Islam – Religion & Ethics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/re…lam/ index.shtml

BBC Islam – World Service

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservic…ons/ islam.shtml

BBC In-depth – Islam Around the World

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/s…tml/ default.stm

BBC Islam – Devotional Sounds

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwor…v_sounds_islam/

BBC Asian Network

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/

BBC Create

http://www.bbc.co.uk/create/

BBC Holidays

http://www.bbc.co.uk/holiday/tv_…parture_lounge/

BBC First Aid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/firs…rst_aid_action/

BBC Lifestyle Detox

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifestyle/detox/

BBC Lifestyle A-Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifestyle/a…tyle/ atoz.shtml

BBC NHS (Sorry ‘Health’)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/

That’s 36,900 pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=….uk%2Fhealth% 2F

or you can go here:

NHS Direct

http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/

BBC Inside Out

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/

that’s another 10,000+ pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Keyskills

http://www.bbc.co.uk/keyskills/

BBC Mobile

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/web/…web/ index.shtml

BBC Parenting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/

Loadsamoney! – Fancy some of it? There are currently 91 jobs available at the BBC

Jobs at the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/

Archduke then came up with his own list of BBC local sites. He comments, “got a website idea for your local area? dont bother – the bbc will probably steal your idea anyway and you’ll have to close down.” And Ritter responds with “more in the fun game of picking a subject, any subject and discovering that the BBC can and has thrown lots of cash at it….”, followed by another list of bijoux BBC projects.

Certain items – notably H2G2 and Inside Out – were defended by other commenters. But it’s still a very big list of very small relevance to what the BBC was set up to do. The BBC has (and enforces) the right in law to demand funding via a licence fee from any British person wishing to own a television, irrespective of whether they make any use of BBC services. Was this very considerable power, unique in any modern democracy, really given them so they could run an exam revision site?