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Bombs (sorry, blasts, as you term them) take lives – they do NOT ‘claim’ them (see News Online homepage and Turkish resort blast claims lives).

Sky News’ online version, Deadly explosion on bus, is appropriately unequivocal. Unfortunately, the twerps presenting Sky News just now are also using the emollient ‘claim’ for the apparent murder and grievous injury of real people, all of whose lives mattered as much to them and their families as those of you and your families do to you. Think about it.

Update: As if by magic, the BBC News Online headline now says Turkish resort blast kills four.

Tom Leonard has followed up his article in the Telegraph yesterday (see post below) with an excellent article today, BBC language that Labour loves to hear, where he writes that:

Within hours of the explosions, a memo was sent to senior editors on the main BBC news programmes from Helen Boaden, head of news. While she was aware “we are dancing on the head of a pin”, the BBC was very worried about offending its World Service audience, she said.

BBC output was not to describe the killers of more than 50 in London as “terrorists” although – nonsensically – they could refer to the bombings as “terror attacks”. And while the guidelines generously concede that non-BBC should be allowed to use the “t” word, BBC online was not even content with that and excised it from its report of Tony Blair’s statement to the Commons.

Ah yes, we mustn’t offend the non-tellytaxpaying World Service audience, must we! I wonder which parts of the World Service audience might be offended by calling a terrorist a terrorist? And why should the BBC pander so desperately to the sensibilities of people who might be thus offended anyway? Surely the BBC’s job is to tell it like it is, as understood by the highest standards of British common-sense and decency, whether or not it offends those who are so backward or primitive that they regard the random murder of civilians (in London or anywhere else) as anything less than terrorism.

Whether funded through the telly-tax or the taxpayers money given to the World Service, the BBC is supposed to be the British Broadcasting Corporation – it is high time for the BBC’s voluminous news output to reflect and represent the views, values and standards of those who are forced to pay for it – the great British public – particularly since the BBC’s enormous tax-funded dominance stifles all but the most hardy of alternative news providers, thus perpetuating the BBC’s distorted White City Goldfish Bowl view of the world throughout Britain’s broadcast media (for instance, almost every broadcast journalist in the UK (with a few well-established exceptions*), whoever they work for, has to stay relatively close to the BBC line, unless they want to severely curtail their future career options). For the good of our democracy and our society it is time to break-up the BBC’s enormous monopoly of broadcast and online news in the UK.

All is not lost though – there are still some sensible, decent people speaking out within the BBC – as Tom Leonard continues:

A row has now broken out with a handful of the corporation’s most senior journalists and news executives, fighting what one described yesterday as a “disgusting and appalling” edict. He was particularly angry, he added, because most World Service listeners don’t even pay a penny for the BBC.

and:

The same senior BBC journalist who expressed contempt for the “terrorist” ban was withering about the corporation’s current Africa season. The BBC’s interminable series of programmes highlighting poverty in Africa has been a “disgrace”, he said. “We’ve simply been advancing Gordon Brown’s agenda and in an entirely unsophisticated way.”

Do read it all for the full story. Stephen Pollard has also been asking So whose side is the BBC on? Writing in the Daily Mail, he says:

But terrorism is not a value judgement. It is recognised as a crime against humanity under international law. Professor Norman Geras defines it as “the deliberate targeting of civilians with a view to killing and maiming them and if possible in large numbers”. To describe Thursday’s bombers as terrorists is merely to observe the reality of human rights law.

This is, of course, about far more than labels. The refusal to use the word terrorist goes to the heart of the BBC’s world view, in which such murders are simply a response to the West’s provocation.

It is all our fault, according to the BBC’s ‘experts’. On Friday night, a Newsnight correspondent, Peter Marshall, informed us that “What the war on terror was supposed to prevent, it has brought about.”

Turning to the BBC’s Frank Gardner, Pollard writes:

Speaking on Radio 4 on Monday, Mr Gardner declared that Western policies in Muslim countries, and ‘harassment’ of suspected Islamists in Britain and Europe, was ‘offensive’ to Wahabis. But what Wahabis find offensive is the very existence of the West, which they are committed to destroying.

He then remarked that that it was extraordinary that they planted a bomb in Edgware Road, since this was a Muslim area. Yet not only did they not plant a bomb there (it went off in a moving train), they have as long a track record of murdering Muslims as they do of killing apostates.

Mr Gardner concluded that it was “doubly tough for Britain’s Muslims…it’s more of a blow for them than for everyone else”. Really? The relatives and friends of the victims might disagree with that.

Interestingly, it seems that Peter Marshall is unimpressed with Pollard’s analysis – as demonstrated in his thoughtful response, recounted by Stephen Pollard today:

When I pointed out that I did not distort a word of what he said, he responded thus: “You fat fuck. You fucker” and terminated the conversation.

I wonder what the BBC’s PC Thought Police would make of such ‘fattist’ language? Aren’t those who are undertall entitled to the same respect that the BBC extends to the sensitivities of those who think that suicide bomb terrorists are mere ‘militants’, ‘extremists’ or ‘insurgents’?

* e.g. Andrew Neil, Adam Boulton, Nick Robinson – but they are very much the exception among the vast army of broadcast journalists reporting for the UK.

as noted by commenters here. The story reports that:

The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as “terrorists”, it was disclosed yesterday.

Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC’s website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as “bombers”.

The BBC’s guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the “careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments”.

Consequently, “the word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding” and its use should be “avoided”, the guidelines say.

Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of “institutionalised political correctness” in its coverage of British Muslims.

A BBC spokesman said last night: “The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC.”

Though many of us here welcomed the BBC’s, albeit hypocritical, use of the word ‘terrorist’ (where, according to the BBC, London bus bombers are ‘terrorists’, while Palestinian bus bombers are mere ‘militants’) to describe murdering scumbags who are, clearly, terrorists, if the BBC have actually gone to the lengths of re-editing material, after the fact, to remove the word ‘terrorist’ then their hypocrisy knows no bounds – the rewriting of history, BBC Ministry of Truth style.

If the BBC is truly honest, next time (and sadly I expect there will be a next time) there is a terrorist atrocity in the UK, let them refer openly, as is their wont, to the cowardly murderers as ‘militants’, ‘insurgents’ and ‘bombers’ – then let’s see how long the BBC’s politically-correct fifth-column naifs last when their adoring telly-taxpaying public sees the stark reality of the BBC’s detachment from the common-sense and decency of the hard-working compulsory telly-taxpayers that it supposedly serves.

Sickening.

Update: Examples of rewrites at BBC News Online, courtesy of Harry, and an update explaining how the leftie-PC view was reimposed at the BBC.

mother of Anthony Fatayi-Williams, missing since last week’s terrorist attacks, gave a powerful and moving speech in London, broadcast in full on Sky News, also reproduced in full on their website.

Afterwards, Sky News’ Ashish Joshi reported that Mrs. Fatayi-Williams “reserved most of her venom, most of her anger, for the terrorists”, yet on the BBC’s lamentable One O’Clock News bulletin, their short excerpt of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams was used mostly to imply criticism of the delays in identifying victims of the atrocities. Whilst such criticism may well be merited, the main thrust of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams eloquent speech, as omitted from the One O’Clock News, was that:

“We know of New York, of Madrid and of London – there has been widespread slaughter of innocent people,” she said.

“There have been streams of tears and rivers of innocent blood. That is not the cause of God or Allah. God only gives life.”

BBC News Online’s coverage of Mrs. Fatayi-Williams was better than the One O’Clock News version, although curiously, whilst Mrs. Fatayi-Williams said “It is time to stop this vicious cycle of killing” towards the end of her speech, this line is reported at the top of News Online’s version of events (and is also included in the much abridged broadcast soundbite – see video clip, linked from the same News Online page). It’s just as well that we have Sky’s coverage to give us the full picture – both on TV and on the web.

Meanwhile, on the BBC’s subsequent local news programme, their cub reporters managed to have a good dig, with the help of a Muslim spokesman and a new Labour ministerial non-entity, at Lord Stevens (formerly Sir John Stevens), the recently retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, following his News of the World analysis, Young, clever… and British, in which, among other things, Lord Stevens says:

THE terrorists at the centre of the London bombing this week will almost certainly be British born and bred, brought up here and totally aware of British life and values.

Yes, I’ve heard pundits suggesting it could have been Algerian terrorists, or Moroccans, or various other nationalities. But that’s dangerous wishful thinking, a damaging illusion.

It is true that such international terrorists may have provided expertise, know-how or even possibly foot soldiers for this week’s onslaught. But essentially, sadly, this will almost certainly have been a home-grown operation.

I’m afraid there’s a sufficient number of people in this country willing to be Islamic terrorists that they don’t have to be drafted in from abroad.

We have already convicted two British shoe bombers, Richard Reid and Saajid Badat, there were the two British suicide bombers Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif who killed themselves in Israel, plus upcoming terrorism trials involving British nationals that I cannot discuss now for legal reasons.

I warned in these pages some months ago that there were up to 200 home-grown terrorists willing and able to slaughter innocents for their perverted view of Islam…and I got some stick for being so outspoken.

But today, after 7/7, I’ve absolutely no reason to change my mind.

I said in public what had previously only been discussed behind closed doors in Whitehall because I believe the public are entitled to the truth, that knowing it will help energise communities to fight back against this horror.

Given his recent experience, Lord Stevens is probably in a position to know what he’s talking about, whether or not that suits the BBC, their ‘new’ Labour minister or their Muslim spokesman. His analysis may prove to be wrong, but until we know for sure who was responsible for last week’s atrocities, it’s a bit rich of the BBC and their pet contributors to glibly dismiss his opinions without even balancing the piece with a counter view or a contribution from Lord Stevens himself. Rich, but not surprising.

Update, 4.27pm: Sky News are reporting that detectives believe four bombers died in last week’s atrocities, and that they are believed to have been born in Britain. Looks like Stevens opinions count for more than those of the BBC and its fellow-travellers.

The BBC website gave full coverage to a vigil for the victims of the London bombs, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain.

According to the BBC, “it was Dr Assami Tamimi, of the Muslim Association of Britain, who drew the biggest response from the crowd.”

The piece quotes Dr Tamimi as saying “Muslims also need to kill the ideology behind this, that justifies the killing of innocents – this is Machiavellian and is anti-Islamic”

Fine words with which we can all agree. Just one teensy quiblette.

The Rottweiler Puppy has been doing some digging, and reports that the BBC appear to have made a mistake with the speaker’s name, which is shown on the MAB website as Azzam Tamimi.

Anyone can make a mistake.

Unfortunately, as the Puppy points out, Azzam Tamimi turns out to have said – on the BBC – a few other things about the killing of innocents.

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI
Not a single person of those who bomb themselves, bomb themselves because they are desperate or poor. It doesn’t happen because of this. They do it because they want to sacrifice themselves for a cause after all avenues have been closed before them. If the Palestinians today are given F16s and Apache helicopters …

TIM SEBASTIAN –
No – please come back to my question. Please come back to my question. Why if it is so glorious and honourable to do this, why don’t you do it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI –
I would do it …

TIM SEBASTIAN –
When?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI –
If I have the opportunity I would do it …

TIM SEBASTIAN –
When are you going to do it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI –
When? If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?

And there’s more – from 9/11 to wifebeating.

In an interview with the Spanish daily La Vanguardia titled ‘I Admire the Taliban, They Are Courageous’ in late 2001, Al-Tamimi claimed that the September 11 attacks brought joy to the Arab world. He begins by assuring the interviewer that “everyone” in the Arab world cheered upon seeing the Twin Towers fall. “Excuse me,” says the interviewer, “did you understand my question?” Al-Tamimi: “In the Arab and Muslim countries, everyone jumped for joy. That’s what you asked me, isn’t it?”

For a few short hours, as Harry’s Place reports, the BBC were prepared to call those who attacked civilians in London on Thursday ‘terrorists’. A day later they had become ‘bombers’.

Stephen Pollard points out that Newsnight seem to have been convinced by George Galloway.

Respect –
“We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq …”

Newsnight’s Peter Marshall –
“What the war [on terror] was supposed to prevent, it has brought about.”

when too much of the real stuff has been tragically split in our capital, Marc, at USS Neverdock, makes a legitimate point on behalf of all those people who might have lowered their guard as a result of the undermining of the notion of a War on Terror by some BBC journalism. ‘The Power of Nightmares’ assured us there was no real organised Islamic movement bent on our destruction, yet the massive organisation behind the London bombings – the syncronisation, the planning – suggest quite the opposite. It suggests the BBC’s flagship programme of the last year, its main publicised recent claim to excellence, was in fact highly flawed. And as forewarned is forearmed, the BBC has in this regard, and others less well-known, certainly been unconducive to the public good.

‘“The BBC had the courage to put the series out and this shows they were right”‘, said the maker of the film… as it showed at Cannes. Though we salute freedom of speech – metaphorically – we tend to reserve our actual salutes for those who show they are right.

Scott at the Ablution notes Lisa Mitchell’s glowing assessment on the BBC website of the “Eco-village” which is a “model for us all”.

Er … would that by any chance be this eco-village ?

The protesters appeared to come from a temporary “eco-camp”, set up on the outskirts of the city, before dashing into Stirling.
Around 200 hooligans dressed in hooded tops with scarves obscuring their faces hurled missiles at police.
The hooligans moved from Stirling’s high street to residential areas, smashing windows and wrenching satellite dishes from walls.
TV pictures showed the rioters running amok through streets wielding weapons at police vans.

A witness, Mark Wallace, said: “It seems to have been a major battle.
“It was co-ordinated. The protesters moved people to certain areas and they all decided to fight at once to try and stretch the police resources.”
At one point Stirling train station was closed but it is was back to normal after about 90 minutes.

UPDATE – Ms Mitchell now has a second article, on how the locals feel about what the first article called the “practical implications for the rest of us”.

She explained: “My six-year-old son is scared that when I get to work I will be attacked.

“People are staying away from the shop. There’s a lot of police here now but they weren’t here yesterday.”

The supermarket is used by the campers and she said “some are nice enough”.

“But you can’t tell which are the peaceful ones and which are violent,” she added.

I have been having a busy few days and have got behind with the email. See you* next week.

*Actually that is quite unlikely.

He followed up on his previous assessment of Iran’s election candidates, this time focussing on the winner, Ahmadnejad. It’s almost as though he were trying to bolster his argument that we should have been hoping for a Rafsanjani win.

But I was struck by his characterisation of America’s view of Iran:

‘Abroad, the Americans were the least surprised by the result. They assume anyway that Iran is a country seething with hatred for the US and determined to dominate the region by threat and undercover terrorism.’

Well, certainly they often take that view of Iran’s ruling class, but it seems to me a very ingrate sort of comment given that the US offers succour to all manner of dissidents from Iran. Since they’re not as infamous as Iraqi counterparts such as the tarred Chalabi, perhaps we can still find sympathy for them and interest in the views of those for whom the US has provided refuge.The point here is that the US rather assumes that under the dead weight of the Mullahs there are many people lying powerless who have no animus against the US and see them instead as a flickering lantern of hope.

Simpson goes on to say ‘Iranian politics are as complex and sophisticated as any I have observed around the world.’

Now, I could accept ‘complex’, and can understand a columnist’s desire for snappy duplicates to make his sentences sing, but ‘sophisticated’?

When was the last time the US’s politics was described by the BBC as ‘sophisticated’? (a challenge for fans of Justin Webb, I feel. Funnily enough, in this by now quite well known article, he says that the US is complex- in its heart-, and… unsophisticated (-in many respects).

Examples of Iranian political sophistication, here.

I suppose I mention the US because some might say that, as both the US and Iran have the death penalty, that makes Iran as worthy of the ‘sophisticated’ epithet as the US. Even granting that point, which I wouldn’t, still only leaves us with ‘as worthy as’– a slight problem for the Justin Webb fraternity (or the John Simpson one– ed– and by the way this doesn’t mean all Beeboids should think alike, but that the use of totemic language should be minimised and strictly weighted by factual evidence– also ed). Indeed, if I opposed the death penalty and considered all governments who allowed for its maintainance to be cause for branding a country unsophisticated (which I don’t), it still leaves the ticklish problem of how one squares Simpson’s view with the reality that as a proportion of their population, the Iranians (officially) execute far more people (in public, too) than does the US.

And, of course, it’s what they execute them for which is often horriffic…

Finally, Simpson says that ‘The best the British, French and Germans can do is persuade Iran to be more cautious and tactful in following its nuclear ambitions. Ayatollah Khamenei may see the sense of that.’ , which goes to reinforce the point that Simpson does not regard the Iranian desire for nuclear weapons as an extremist position.

He has foregrounded this comment by saying that ‘Iran believes it lives in a difficult neighbourhood, with Israel, China, Russia, India and Pakistan’– which seems on the face of it a fair enough point. But which of these exactly threatens Iran in a nuclear fashion? Who has an interest in nuking or invading Iran? Answer, none- and again he ignores the Israeli issue, which, if Rafsanjani is a moderate, makes you almost tremblingly curious as to what Ahmadnejad has in his locker (my own suspicion is they wanted a dog with a louder bark, who has a reputation for biting).

But, a country’s elite which flays its people, imprisons political opponents, executes many publicly, organises ‘interesting’ elections outside all scrutiny, and on top of all this sees its salvation in the ultimate psycho’s wet dream, the nuclear option, is to be regarded as too sophisticated to bother except with diplomatic pillow talk?

That’s why the BBC remains a gift to the moonbat left, singing an incoherent lullaby of appeasement.