Question Time LiveBlog 3rd February 2011

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Tonight Question Time comes from Workington which has been a Labour stronghold since its creation in 1918 except for a short lived Tory by-election win in 1976. It is represented in the House of Commons by Labour career trade unionist Tony Cunningham. On the panel tonight we have Damian Green MP, Andy Burnham MP, Melanie Phillips, the utterly insane Clare Short and someone called Noreena Hertz who is engaged to Danny Cohen, the Channel Controller of BBC … Continue reading →

Progressives Call For The Lynching Of Clarence Thomas

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“Send him back to the fields!” “String him up!” “Torture” And the usual assortment of hate speech from the Left. The Tea Party is a racist movement, funded by the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch, etc. The BBC correspondents who cover the US share ideological beliefs with these people. The remarks about the Tea Party movement and Fox News are the exact same things the BBC reports to you as … Continue reading →

No Gasping Matter

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I was listening to Today this morning when someone said:“Watch this – Louis Theroux is coming on BBC 1 to plug his Ultra Zionist programme, you’ve just missed the trail, and after it Bill Turnbull said “These people are unbelievable, they make you gasp!” So I switched off the radio and watched. I sat through inane chatter, sport, stale news about Egypt, just waiting for Louis. He looked a bit … Continue reading →

STRIDENT MELTING

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I have just listened on Radio 4 to the latest programme in the eco-crazy strand Costing the Earth. I don’t, unfortunately, have a transcript, but from beginning to end, this was a scare-fest about the dangers of melting ice. It was taken as read by Tom Heap, the presenter, that the science has been proved, that there is major catastrophic warming. He stuffed it full with researchers who are being … Continue reading →

PULL THE OTHER ONE, ROGER

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I do need to scotch one particularly bizarre bit of blogbabble, though. Some bloggers depict me as a puppet for the BBC’s pension fund trustees trying to boost their investments in green technology. This is definitely going in my book – it is the most entertaining and baroque allegation I’ve ever faced. The truth is that BBC bosses issue very few diktats and most programme editors are stubbornly independent. I … Continue reading →

OPEN THREAD

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The previous open thread has agreed to stand down in favour of a new open thread, ushering in a fresh era of open threadness. For those of you not up to speed on recent BBC output, here’s a brief summary of the main points: Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

WATCH THE BIRDIE, ROGER!

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It’s becoming increasingly clear, thanks to a series of posts from Autonomous Mind, The Register and Katabasis, that the Met Office is not only seriously incompetent but also full of viperous spin doctor “spokesmen”, whose sole aim is to dissemble and obfuscate. The facts are emerging piece by piece through persistent FoI requests. Thanks to these latest FoI revelations, it now seems that our £100m-plus-a- year Met Office weather service … Continue reading →

A Smirk Too Far

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I’m sure B-BBC regulars trawl roughly the same blogs, and I often recognise familiar monikers on comments pages.Grant wonders about the BBC’s lack of interest in Tunisia now that their uprising is old hat. I’d say it was a bit premature to hold it up as some sort of role model for the rest of the Arab World, though. Elder of Ziyoners will know what I mean.Hat Tip to Hippiepooter … Continue reading →

ROGER THE DODGER

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Autonomous Mind fisks a letter in today’s Daily Mail from Roger Harrabin. The same blog also reports on an FOI request revealing Met Office spin about seasonal forecasts. (Coming soon from the BBC, a new documentary – “Meet Autonomous Mind, The Kitten-Eating Child Rapist”) Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Wikileaks In The Telegraph? Meh.

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Julian Assange has taken his latest batch of documents to the Telegraph: WikiLeaks documents that disclose how British ministers secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the Lockerbie bomber demonstrate that Tony Blair’s Government was “playing false” over the issue, Alex Salmond has said. The BBC response so far: Apart from a brief mention during one of the paper reviews on Today this morning I haven’t seen … Continue reading →