. Gavin Esler has the scoop! There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble. It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America. Fortunately Mr Esler has found it down the back of his sofa. He dropped it there in the 1980s while having a little cry after the Sandinistas … Continue reading →

First, an apology for absence. Some work took rather longer than I had anticipated and I had to drop the blogging for the week. Here are some emails and posts that caught my eye. A commenter writes simply “terrible article” and sends a link to this. It’s called “Israeli poll deepens Palestinian gloom.” I didn’t think much of it, either. Throughout the Palestinians are presented as seekers after peace cruelly … Continue reading →

. They don’t stop, do they? ‘In the latest in our series about the role of the state in encouraging couples to have more children’… Thus runs the intro to the Beeb’s latest in a blatantly calculated series about birth rates. ‘Now then, none of that Mark Steyn hysteria about the emptiness of modern western wombs’, says Auntie firmly- just as firmly as she ignores the actual news which instances … Continue reading →

… Take a look at this fascinating exchange between the American Expat and Paul Reynolds of the BBC. I think Scott nails him with the logic of saying that either you report a claim of 100,000 civilian deaths (or more) in Iraq, and examine the methodology critically for the reader’s sake, or you don’t report it at all. Reynolds’ response? ‘It was simply a figure. I reported it. . What’s … Continue reading →

Rottweiler Puppy sees the significance of the current trial of Islamists in London, and the BBC’s evasion of that significance. I suppose the point is not ‘this is Islam’, but that ‘this is what Islam is producing for us‘- and the BBC is concealing the fact; not trusting the British people to make any kind of distinction whatsoever, the BBC simply takes the dilemma away. As Devils Kitchen points out, … Continue reading →

Quite surprised indeed that the BBC chose to longlist one of the few massively anti-Iraq war [Iraqi] blogs out there (compiled by some fanatic into a book) for their Samuel Johnson award: maybe some of you will have heard or visited Riverbend’s blog. For those who haven’t, imagine the unremitting gloom of an Eastender’s character transposed to Baghdad and cleaned up grammatically and you’ll have a fair idea. My guess … Continue reading →

This is not a post about the BBC’s lacking courage. They do, but the metaphor is a bit more literal than that. I’m referring to an interesting article concerning the booming state of the Israeli economy which is paradoxically dominated by the BBC’s focus on poverty. The trouble is, like so many BBC reports, it lacks the spine provided by recognition of fundamentals. So we get a jelly-like rambling commentary … Continue reading →

… that make a BBC worldview. Take the coverage of today’s March for Free Expression, a response to the recent world-wide outbreak of cartoonophobia. “Blog site The free speech movement was born from a blog site on the internet and rallied hundreds from across the political spectrum to join Saturday’s rally.” You’d think the story might contain a link to said blog. Ah yes, there’s a link at the side … Continue reading →

One could create a blog dedicated to the BBC’s disfigurement of the English language, but it wouldn’t make one happy. However, I have to comment on language + on this occasion. First up there’s this absurd article in praise of Israel’s campaigning Labour leader. Can someone, anyone, find a shred of light between the writer’s gabbing mouth and the Labour candidate’s posterior? Thought not. Well, a quote mark or two … Continue reading →

Guess what! The latest Have Your Say features Francis Fukuyama! “Has Iraq fatally damaged US foreign policy?” Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.