The BBC have launched an extraordinary hatchet job on Boris Johnson. using some pretty ancient history (the Guppy phone call  made the news in 1995)….no coincidence that the newspapers have in the last few days been full of stories that the successful and popular Boris looks like going for the leadership of the Tory Party…..the BBC’s Eddie Mair making the highly personal and opinionated comment that Boris is a ‘nasty piece of … Continue reading →

  ‘Flandering  V [flarn-der-in’]’:    Floundering whilst flimflamming on Labour’s behalf.   Fun day yesterday listening to the BBC old guard forming a ragged thin red line around Labour’s battered and discredited leadership just as Labour’s very own Old Guard are doing the BBC’s job and holding Labour to account. Yesterday as mentioned in an earlier post the Mirror’s Brian Reade launched an attack on Labour’s record on the economy and now, today, … Continue reading →

I thought this was a rather good point sent my way by Rodney Atkinson; I am must say I have always been incensed by the presumed right of the comic and BBC classes to insult everyone else and deny the insulted the right of equal – or indeed any – reply. I note that the new PRESS Royal Charter allows this, by making prominent or front page apologies (depending on the … Continue reading →

Hi folks. This is the official Friday thread. We have this new sticky thread thing which keeps the Open Thread top of the page but I’m not sure it works that well? Thoughts on a postcard?

  We know that it was the ‘rightwing Press’ that was opposed to press regulation by politicians…we know because we are bombarded with such messages from the likes of Alistair Campbell and ‘Hacked Off’  voicing off on the BBC…..the BBC doesn’t attempt to discourage that view. As far as I know only the Independent has come out in favour of the new regulations to date. The Guardian seems to be … Continue reading →

  Labour have escaped the scale of vilification they deserve for destroying the economy.  The Public know full well who was to blame and yet many still have that nostaligia for Labour that as time goes on Miliband and Co hope to tap into when memories have faded.  Miliband and Balls are treated with respect and their pronouncements given the status of prophecy from on high….Flanders in particular, faithfully parroting their … Continue reading →

‘They have helped to build a media culture in which feeding frenzies have become the norm, making life intolerable for innocents caught in the glare of  their spotlights.’   　 That was a quote from The Guardian 2003 attacking its fellow newspapermen…or rather those on the ‘Right’. It is of course very apt 10 years on in the wake of Leveson and the introduction of the Press regulatory Royal Charter…or the ‘Crooks … Continue reading →

Read this and slowly digest…it’s from the Guardian in 2003.……it’s about ‘The Press’ and the dark arts they apply to the News as they spin it to weave a web to catch unwary readers. Relevant to the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War and in the wake of Leveson. Read it though and something else springs to mind..… ‘masters of spin……using all the arts.…distortion by headline, bias in their selection … Continue reading →

Well, it may have been budget day for you running jackals of the capitalist oppressors of the workers BUT back in the Narnia of the BBC, we were treated to an programme called “Lenin in Letchworth” … In 1907 Lenin attended a congress of exiled communists in London that helped plan the overthrow of the Russian tsar a decade later. It was during this momentous event that the Soviet Union’s … Continue reading →