I read that Chris Patten is performing to cue; The new BBC Trust chairman told the Sunday Telegraph he would fight for it as a 20% budget cut across the corporation takes effect this year. Lord Patten has said his love of the BBC World Service made protecting it a “priority” – particularly the “core” Arabic, Somali and Hindi services. I think the World Service, and in particular the “core” he … Continue reading
Andrew Mitchell, he who thinks we should aspire to be an “overseas aid super power”, is the kind of Conservative that the BBC likes. He got an easy ride on the Sunday morning horror that is the Andrew Marr show. Dripping wet, he is a C.I.N.O. in the proud tradition of Clarke and Patten, and the BBC love him for it. He was on Question Time earlier this week and … Continue reading
Anyone catch Mark Mardell’s latest love note report on Obama here? It’s the fawning sycophancy that most sticks in my throat. George W Bush was far from perfect AND so is Obama but the tone the BBC adopts towards the two men could not be more different. The BBC meme is that Bush was always a miserable failure whereas Obama is a stunning success worthy of four more years. If you … Continue reading
A short while ago I posted the following in the Open Thread: I see the Guardian is going balls deep over the Palin emails. They’ve even got a dedicated Twitter account about it, FFS. And if something is big news to the Guardian you can guarantee it will be big news to the BBC. Right on cue, here’s an exchange of tweets between Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis and the Guardian’s Ian … Continue reading
My beef with Richard Black, repeated in more posts than I care to remember, is simple. He has become an advocate, not a reporter. I am not a scientist, but was once a BBC producer and reporter – who became a very senior executive of a news organisation – and so I do have the competence to judge him in this respect. Today, in this piece claiming that global warming … Continue reading
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Since Britain joined the EU, a deluge of laws have been enacted that have curtailed our freedoms and have ceded power to the faceless, unelected and unaccountable European Commission. The BBC website charts on a daily basis their encroachment into our lives, but there is never a questioning of our slow, agonised, descent into rule by tryranny. Here, there’s a story about a nasty little exercise – triggered by EU … Continue reading
Question Time comes tonight from Norwich. On the panel we have Andrew “Let’s be a proud international aid superpower” Mitchell, ex-local MP who lost his seat in 2010 Charles Clarke, anti-Easter Egg campaigner Jo Swinson, anti-man campaigner Germaine Greer and Peter Hitchens. The LiveBlog will also stay open for the bizarreness of This Week, with Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo and Alastair Campbell. Expect the Blue Nun Bingo to be as aggressively competitive as … Continue reading
Wow, the Archbishop of Canterbury keeps his beard but discards his sandals for Doc Martens and gives Cameron a good kicking. Naturally the BBC has an orgasm. The tone and strength of language used in Dr Williams’ attack on the coalition has taken ministers by surprise.Accusing the government of being committed to “radical, long-term policies for which no-one voted” is an overtly political statement and one Downing Street has quickly … Continue reading
Let’s be clear where the BBC stands. Obama has done a great job, he has healed some of the wounds created by the evil Bush, oh, and he’s saved the US from another great depression. The rest is detail, or so the BBC would have us believe. Naturally, the reverse is true and so the BBC has to spin even harder to sustain the Obama-delusion. Take THIS report from Stephanie … Continue reading
