Thanks to A.D who posted this in the comments: Toxteth mosque ‘suspect’ suitcase: Danish man cautioned. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-23142432 Police confirm man cautioned after bomb alert at Liverpool mosque is Somalian NOT Danish . http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-cautioned-following-bomb-security-4803983   Reading the Liverpool Echo version it looks possibly like a Muslim was posing as a non-Muslim with the intent of implicating the ‘right’ in a hate crime: Officers had taken away CCTV footage which showed the … Continue reading →

  It doesn’t take long for things to start to unravel.   The BBC’s impartiality review, conducted by Cardiff University, has some major flaws. Even without reading it you can already pick holes in it. Its terms of reference were obviously far too narrow..ironic for a review that was concerned with ‘breadth of opinion’.   Two major topics of concern are missing…climate change and Israel. Strangely Israel was also missing … Continue reading →

    The BBC Trust has just published its ‘Breadth of Opinion’ review into impartiality.   Not had time to look at it but you can see it here. A taster from the press release: As part of the study, the BBC’s coverage of immigration, religion and the EU was analysed through content analysis by Cardiff University.  While the findings of this were largely positive and indicated that the breadth … Continue reading →

Over at Telegraph blogs Sean Thomas recalls how the BBC nicked one his ideas, and how this ties in with the ludicrous pay-offs, the unadvertised job appointments, and the overall sense of impunity within the Corporation: …I was tempted to write a blog post on the Telegraph mentioning all this, explaining why the BBC is, for all its wonders, actually an outrageous, malign, monopolistic force in British broadcasting, like a … Continue reading →

Roger Harrabin tweeting from Glastonbury last week: Escape #Glastonbury drizzle. Join me in @greenpeaceuk tent for 25 years of reporting the #environment for #bbcnews — roger harrabin (@RHarrabin) June 28, 2013

    The Independent has run a story on the close links between the Left and Islamist extremists…but just how far up the political Left’s chain of command does the UAF/Islamist influence reach?  Just how entangled is the Labour Party with Unite Against Fascism? And does the BBC show any interest in the close ties between the Labour Party leader and the UAF? The BBC has no excuse not to … Continue reading →

Egypt is proving to be a worked example of this: though it is highly likely things will spiral out of control, post Mubarak – as in all the colour revolutons – the dire warnings of the US right that this will lead to Islamism are a “meme” that has not taken off. Paul Mason said that…and this: Dictatorships rely not just on the suppression of news but on the suppression … Continue reading →

      Sound familiar?  Not a description of a musical version of the EDL but the rap group ‘Public Enemy’: ‘In the late 1980s Public Enemy were the biggest rap group on the planet. Their mission: to raise the consciousness of a generation. With a rebellious attitude to match their militant image they sold millions of records preaching pro-black politics to fans of all races, all done through a … Continue reading →

    The BBC flooded the airwaves and its web pages with ‘warnings from history’ about the rise of the Far Right in Europe.  It seems to have gone a bit quiet as Marine Le Pen’s Front National gains credible support in the polls in France…..much of it coming from ‘the Left’.   Before the French by-elections the BBC was willing to talk about the ‘fringe’ parties…what it dismissed as … Continue reading →

Reading about the demonstrations in Egypt reminded me of BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen’s attempts to sell the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate organisation prior to the overthrow of Mubarak. Here was his original take in January 2011: This was the first update: And what you’ll see now: Journalism is sometimes called the first rough draft of history. More like the first attempt at spin, with later updates where … Continue reading →