Missing in action: Brussels publishes list of the first pan-European crimes

– has anyone seen or heard anything of this important story on the BBC? Anthony Browne, reports: BRUSSELS unveiled detailed proposals yesterday that would for the first time create a body of pan-European criminal law and force member states to punish citizens who transgress it. … The ruling means that for the first time in legal history, a British government and Parliament will no longer have the sovereign right to … Continue reading

Joined-up narratives: A comparison

Imagine if the BBC created a page entitled The Struggle Against Aids. Imagine if then they included copious stories about linkages between Aids and homosexuality. Imagine if then they took an opportunity to frame a story about rising Aids cases alongside one about indecent and criminal homosexual behaviour, and alongside someone influential’s unmediated and copiously quoted opinion that Aids was linked to homosexual bad behavour. Well, that’s just imagination, isn’t … Continue reading

BBC Views Online’s front page just now links to Women resist ‘honour’ marriages

, a story about violence and threats of violence against the family of five female cousins, now aged 14 to 22, who were ordered nine years ago by ‘village elders’ to be married to the boys of another family in settlement of a dispute. Whilst BBC Views Online goes into some detail about the tragic circumstances of these unfortunate girls (sadly not uncommon in their part of the world) and … Continue reading

Whilst watching BBC News 24 at 1.20am

, presenter Deborah Mackenzie introduced a report on Her Majesty’s trip to Malta with: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth… What a damn cheek! Almost everyone in the UK refers to Her Majesty as ‘The Queen’, but no, not the other worldly BBC News 24, even though it’s the BBC’s domestic 24 hour rolling news channel, targetted at and paid for by the BBC’s UK telly-taxpayers (as distinct from BBC World, or for … Continue reading

Roundup:

Adloyada has an important post on what she has said in comments to the BBC’s Israel/Palestine impartiality review. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow. One of the BBC pages she cites is this page of statistics about the Intifada. As Adloyada observes, the BBC breaks down the statistics of Israelis killed by Palestinians into civilian and military but all the Palestinians killed by Israelis are placed in one large group. … Continue reading

Scott Burgess reports on the £60,000 Tracey Emin sculpture

that BBC licence-payers have just coughed up for, and the BBC’s attempts, reported in the Sunday Times, to justify the expenditure: The BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it “invented” a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture. Emin’s Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, … Continue reading

Yesterday evening’s horrific events in Bradford

reminded me of the murder in Birmingham last year of the last police officer to die on duty in the UK. Alone among news organisations, the BBC’s pathetic choice of lead story that night was the appointment of Mark Thompson as the BBC’s Director General. Tossers. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

It’s compare and contrast time again.

Yesterday’s edition of The Times reports that London bomb victim lied about rape history. Garri Holness, who lost part of a leg in the July 7th Islamist terror attacks in London, formerly known as Gary Linton, is revealed as a convicted rapist, guilty, along with six others, of a brutally violent gang sex attack on two sixteen year old schoolgirls in 1985.     Downing Street: What about the victims … Continue reading

Under the rather bland headline Ex-police authority head charged

, BBC News Online reports that: Former Humberside Police Authority chairman Colin Inglis has been charged with 14 counts of indecent assault in relation to allegations of child abuse. News Online goes on to say: Following the launch of the North Yorkshire Police investigation last September Mr Inglis was suspended from the police authority and the Labour Party. He was replaced as leader of Hull City Council in May this … Continue reading