Canon CHRIS CHIVERS ‘I’d previously worked in South Africa, in Cape Town, which is of course emerging from an apartheid history which was deeply divided and deeply divisive, and I think I can honestly say that I’ve never worked in such a segregated community, or lived in one as this’…..in Blackburn, UK.   When Paul Sabapathy, CBE, Her Majesty’s lord lieutenant of the West Midlands, said that British Pakistanis must … Continue reading →

So, we have a Labour Leader who won’t condemn the IRA and a Labour Shadow Chancellor who has fantasised about assassinating Margaret Thatcher. What a crew. Anyway, time to start the week with a new Open Thread. The floor is yours, comrades.

    If you believed the BBC you’d think the UK was the cause of most of the world’s problems, Yemen a case in point…however the truth might in fact be a lot different than the impression given by the BBC…from 2014 but it seems all too relevant today:   From the Economist… A new index ranks national decency It ranks countries based on how much they do for others … Continue reading →

  Something a bit more light-hearted…A Channel 7 newsreader with an unfortunate look-a-like:     And I’m sure this was useful to know on 9/11:

    Liked this [via Bishop Hill]….the Media Bubble popped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=Oxxx03_JHlM     Haven’t had time to watch this video with the same fellow, Hans Rosling, starring, but it looks interesting:     Just seen the first bit…lol…if you rely on the news to inform you will actually become more ignorant than chimps who get the right answer more often by ‘guessing’! Paul Mason or chimp?  Paul Mason or chimp?  … Continue reading →

  Labour Party member David Goodhart has taken a look at the impact and meaning underlying Corbyn’s leadership win. Just the other day I heard a Labour MP state that Corbyn won because he essentially had the backing of London intellectuals and Goodhart seems to take a similar perspective and that Corbyn’s win does not reflect a leftward trend in the country…a trend that the BBC keeps insisting is happening … Continue reading →

      Gabriel Gatehouse ‏@ggatehouse Sep 11   Would you care to be more specific? What did you feel was misleading? And what was amateurish?   When Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski criticised the BBC’s reporting of the war in Yemen Newsnight invited him onto the programme, not it seems to actually tackle his concerns but to insult and publicly try to humiliate him.  To do this they employed the less than … Continue reading →

“The very straightforward thing to do in the face of unacceptable governmental pressure and interference would be to say ‘fuck off, do your worst, we’ll fight that’.” It may not have crossed Lord Bragg’s mind that Tony Hall might fall on his sword after his failure to fend off the government’s plans for the BBC but others do have issues with him…… Michelle Stanistreet: ‘BBC staff and the public have … Continue reading →

    Labour’s Lord Bragg, Melvyn to you and me, has BBC Chair, Rona Fairhead, in his sights.  He states that “There are a couple of people on the board perfectly capable of taking over and she is a busted flush.  Grandees [no less] in arts and broadcasting have told me so.” The reason Farihead is a ‘busted flush’ in Bragg’s opinion?  Fairhead failed to challenge the government in July … Continue reading →

  Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski has criticised a Newsnight report on the war in Yemen, or rather it reports on the role Saudi Arabia plays in that war and the supply of arms to Saudi Arabia by the UK……never mind that the airstrikes by the Saudi led coalition are backed by the UN…the BBC implication is that Saudi is deliberately bombing civilians and that the UK is complicit in this … Continue reading →