HOPELESS IN KABUL

Anyone catch wee Douglas Alexander being interviewed on Today this morning @ 7.12am? It seems that the ideal way to assist our soldiers is to send in 1000 UK civilians including “a number of economists” – and that’s what Dougie announced. This nonsense was taken by Sarah Montague without comment. What next- a legion of aromatherapists? Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Group Fisk

Richard Black asks ‘Why are virtually all climate “sceptics” men?‘ I don’t have time to give this the fisking it deserves but I’ll get the ball rolling by noting that the question occurred to him while reading the Guardian on a plane to Copenhagen. [Hat tips to Rachel Miller (funny name for a climate sceptic) and Roland Deschain in the comments.] Update. Also, feel free to add your own Richard … Continue reading

A Great Deal of Murdering

What are things coming to? ‘CoJo’ aka BBC College of Journalism. Where? Who has to attend?Not ‘JoGo’ and ‘PaRo’, the hosts of BBC radio London, obviously. We’re all used to the Guardian’s overwhelming disdain for Israel. Michael White, their political editor knows a thing or two, and he doesn’t care who hears him say it. If you trained as an actress and played Carol Sands in Crossroads as well as … Continue reading

Today Again

I’m not the biggest fan of the Cameron-led Conservative Party, but even I was forced to wonder where the Today programme gets balls big enough to follow yesterday’s double-team attack on Tory spokesman Phil Hammond with another one-sided assault on Tory policy this morning. Daniel “Danny” Dorling, a socialist professor of human geography, was given the prime-time slot following Thought For The Day to promote the idea of expanding public … Continue reading

JUST SPREADING THE WORD…

As if things weren’t bad enough…. “The public will be able to gain online access to masterclasses delivered by some of the BBC‘s best-known journalists, including John Simpson and John Humphrys, under plans to be announced later today. BBC executives plan to let licence-fee payers use the corporation’s internal training website, which includes thousands of hours of material, as part of a range of partnership agreements. Rival news organisations and … Continue reading

COMPARE AND CONTRAST…

Interesting to reflect on the news the BBC reports that Gordon Brown is to provide extra equipment for our Armed Forces in Afghanistan to the tune of £150m (over 10 years, natch). This £150m is not new money, however, and must be found from the existing MOD budget. Last week, the BBC reported Brown committing an extra £300m to a Climate Change Fund for chirpy third world kleptocracies and since … Continue reading

LESSONS FROM THE CELTIC TIGER

I initially missed the 7.32am item on Today this morning but it concerns the demise of the Celtic Tiger and the response of the Irish Government. In fairness to the Irish Government they have tried to grasp the nettle of the ballooning costs of the State sector, unlike our delusional Brown and Darling. Naturally the BBC are very alarmed at the prospect of a shrunken State sector and so, as … Continue reading

IPCC CHIEF WHITEWASH

James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph, and Richard North Of EU Referendum, are this morning hot on the trail of Dr Rajandra Pachauri, the head of the UN IPCC, and also of a so-called research organisation linked to the Tata steel company, which stands to benefit massively from CO2 trading. It’s a long, complex tale, but well worth persevering with because it shows the corruptness at the heart of the … Continue reading

The misreport

Jobs could go to fund Afghan warThe defence secretary is due to detail cuts, which could see thousands of jobs go, to pay for new equipment in Afghanistan I give you no more than the headline and the introduction (but the report is bad enough). It sounds from this as though the Government is pulling out all the stops for Afghanistan, doesn’t it? It sounds as if they have the … Continue reading

BISHOP VENNER

Poor old Bishop Venner – he has come running to the BBC to say that he is sorry if anyone has taken offence at his suggestion that the Taliban could be admired. Using the normal political formulation for something that looks like an apology but actually isn’t, he digs the hole deeper by adding… ” It was one small phrase in quite a long interview, and a phrase that simply … Continue reading