David Vance intends to tell the BBC a thing or two, to their faces:
‘I believe the License Fee should be scrapped forthwith and ALL subsidy to the BBC ended. The BBC must stand, or fall, on it’s own two financial feet. As far as I am concerned state broadcasting is anachronistic and totalitarian – time to end it.’
A merry thread ensued.
[b]Typical biased BBC attack on the US.[/b]
[i]“The number of people with medical problems linked to the 9/11 attacks on New York has risen to at least 15,000.
The figure, put together for the BBC, counts those receiving treatment for problems related to breathing in dust.”[/i]
And whom does Al beeb allocate the blame on for the population of New York for having to breath in that dust that was generated by the attacks by ‘terrorists’ on the WTCs.
[b]America[/b]
Silly me and there was me thinking that if the R.O.P hadn’t committed such an odious criminal act then this story wouldn’t be even worth spending 5 mins on the 6pm evening news.
Nice site. Around 4 years ago I independently came to the conclusion that the BBC is very biased to certain values and views. Not overtly party political – except for the occasional “when we win the election” lapses.
No – its more a mind set – a kind of group think.
This is a summary:
America is bad
Islam is good
Science is dangerous
Immigration is good
The state should tackle all kinds of problem
Britain is 40% ethnic
Capitalism needs reining in
Iraq has turned to custard
Only white people are racist
Racism is very much worse than any other crime
And so on.
Keep up the good work uncovering this bias!
Six years ago – jargon or empty promises?
Wednesday 19th July 2000.
Creativity and openness at forefront in BBC’s new
Statement of Promises
The BBC today promised licence payers that in the coming year it will produce programming of quality and variety and achieve new levels of openness. The commitments are made in the Corporation’s fifth annual Statement of Promises, published Wednesday 19th July 2000.
And to make them more accessible, the Promises are condensed into just four main commitments:
· The BBC promises to spend more of the licence fee on programmes
· The BBC promises a richer mix of tv and radio programmes for everyone
· The BBC promises more on BBC Online
· The BBC promises to make the BBC more open and accountable
Research has shown that last year’s Promises booklet was strongly appreciated by licence payers, and this year the BBC is mounting a major campaign to bring the Promises to the attention of even more viewers, listeners and online users.
A quite extraordinary puff piece for Castros Cuba on (socialism this) PM this evening. No mention of any of Castros malign authoritarian socialism, just Paradise City as far as the dirty, lying bastards at the BBC are concerned.
I think its time to regard the BBC as a danger and inimical to our Democracy.
Did I mention that they are all dirty, lying Bastards?
SiN
I don’t think it was totally propaganda. There was one dissident interviewed whose very circumspect remarks was an (inadvertent?) illustration of the regime’s minimal tolerance of criticism.
Despite the rather upbeat tone of the piece, it was pretty clear that the regime is an economic basket case relying on the charity of cheap oil from Chavez. Castro has to “export” services through what is essentially indentured labour sent abroad in the form of doctors to pay for imports. Even so, as far as it went, it was a muted cheer for Castro’s 47 years in power and his resolute anti-Americanism.
More (very revealing) distorted thinking from the Corporation. A headline from News Online reads: “British ‘hacker’ fears Guantanamo”
Shouldn’t that be: “British hacker ‘fears Guantanamo’?”
After all, the little swine is established as a hacker and it is his fears that are alleged.
Reith? Reith! Where are you, man?! Wake up, damn it!
it should be cracker not hacker…
Jack Hughes gave a good list of BBC inbuilt bias. Here’s another one I’m noticing.
Every evening recently on the World Service the BBC has been pushing a series they are going to broadcast, starting Apr 20th, on Chernobyl. The “trailer” is a prime example of unconscious bias. No note that we didn’t all die. No note that it was an outmoded Soviet power station with a defective design that has never been used in the West. Just promises of scarey “victims tales” with some horror movie music playing in the background.
I accept that many people in Ukraine were harmed by Chernolbyl, but it’s a bit of a coincidence that the Beeb is pushing this as a horror show just when the UK is considering a new generation of nuclear power statios, which will be nothing like Chernobyl in design.
The man, known only as “S”, was stopped at Manchester and Heathrow airports in March last year as officials believed he was trying to go to Iraq to fight against coalition forces.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4902120.stm
A host of lawyers are keen to allow this UK passport holder to wage jihad & kill British soldiers. They are supported by much of the media.
I don’t notice any sympathy with people, without convictions, but considered likely to engage in unlawful acts at foreign football matches, who, like S, are denied the right to travel.
Jack Hughes
Welcome. Will not disagree with most of that. Except for one thing. You think it is not overtly party political. I would like to believe that all the things you list are not Tory thinking at all. As the BBC basicaly believes in everything that the Tory party does not. I think keeping out a Conservative goverment is their main priority above all else.
Apart from the reason you give, it is also straight forward self interest. It is much easier to justify extream waste and incompetence when the whole goverment is doing the same. I think you can count the amount of Conservative party members working at the BBC on the fingers of one hand, and you are more likely to find them, serving tea.
Please dont still be intimidated it is 2006 not 1997, their is nothing anti-social or ilegal yet about not voting Labour. You can still admit to voting Conservative without the police turning up at your doorstep, at 5 in the morning. Maybe not for much longer.
Soc is nec
So do I. Describing Cuba as a ecomomic basket case is a crule understatement. I have visited the Hellhole, it is much much worse than that. Human life, as is becoming here, has no value at all. A prostitute can cost less than the condom. Crime is just everywhere. Nowone but a corrupt criminal would even attempt to run a business there. The goverment or its henchmen would steal the profit within the week.
Any one or any organisation other than a travel agent promoting such a place, is as dangerous to our liberty as Castro was to Cubas.
The BBC takes the piss finding any positives from the place at all. This fact is particualy sad as without Castros socialist insanity, it could have been a paradise.
Cuba does show the amazing resilience adaptability and pride of ordinary people, for at least staying alive in the place.
Cubas fate should act as a warning of “things to come” here, if the people of Britain dont come out of their selfdestructive hypnosis very soon. To understand Cuba any other way you would have to have visited the place with your eyes, ears and mind compleatly closed.
At the beginning of Holy Thursday the majority faith of the British Isles is just another entree on a full religious menu:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/
And of course there’s no DHYS thread asking “How are you planning to celebrate Holy Week/Easter?” unlike the endless “Send us your Hajj experiences” and “How are you planning to celebrate Ramadan?” people were subjected to for days on end.
The beeb finally use the “T” word! Not to describe the targeted killing of women and children mind you, but in respect of the terrorism act 2006, which will restrict all those freedoms the British did’nt have in the first place.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4905304.stm
All those placards expressing freedom of speech by praising the London Tube bombings will now be banned even if they were only gentle protests directed against the Danish cartoons.
Even more delusional are the comment in the related “have your say” section -terror Laws :your views
This makes dark reading indeed but incredibly the Beeb censoriat let this lone comment through possibly during a “T” break
Did anyone notice that if you have the right views (bush/blair=terrorists), you get posted multiple times but if you have the silly view (terrorism is the deliberate killing of innnocent civilians), you’d be stuck by lightening before you get a place. Laughable censorship by the ernest little armchair ‘freedom fighters’ at the BBC
Susan
At least the BBC does list the religions alphabetically, unlike certain western bookshops that keep their Korans on the top shelves with the bibles underneath.
Not that FGM is absent from the “Ethics” section.
Would love to see the “have your say” comments on that subject!
Jon Livesey
re. Chernobyl
Michael Crichton gave an excellent speech about that…well worth reading
“Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century”
Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy, Washington, D.C.
November 6, 2005
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html
What Will said.
Seeing the BBC’s coverage of the whole ‘control orders’ issue has been a Twilight Zone experience. Lots of talking heads discussing how horrible it is that someone can be deprived of the right to travel abroad without a conviction, and not a single interviewer saying ‘hey, isn’t that more or less the law as it stands for suspected football holligans ?’
This is hardly a minor issue. Principled Libertarians could oppose restrictions on both suspected thugs and bombers. Authoritarians could support restricting both, but the Liberal position that these restrictions are justified when applied to potential yobbos, but not bombers is self-evidentally absurd.
There’s a gigantic hole at the centre of the Liberal position, but you wouldn’t realise it if you relied on the BBC for news. So which is it BBC ? Complete incompetence or bias ?
BBC relishing Howard’s discomfort in Aussie investigaion into Oil for Palaces.
We get many paras down before scope of scam is briefly mentioned
AWB was named in a UN report as one of dozens of companies from 66 nations that allegedly paid bribes to the Saddam Hussein regime.
& at final para we are told
AWB, Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter, was the largest single supplier of humanitarian goods under the UN scheme.
So could the reader be left with the impression that AWB was the biggest briber?
Like the US armed Saddam (really Russia/France), Howard’s Australia was the biggest briber (really Russia/France)?
We are used to the inclusion in BBC reports of a semi-tangental para to rope in its bete noire (US). No room in this report to inform us of the (lack of) action taken in nations where reside the biggest scammers (Russia/France).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4901938.stm
BBC Staff to be arrested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4905304.stm
At least the BBC does list the religions alphabetically, unlike certain western bookshops that keep their Korans on the top shelves with the bibles underneath.
You mean Waterstone’s I presume. Far better to go to Amazon – esp Amazon.com – it is hard to find a good selection of Bibles even in SPCK bookshops.
I really cannot imagine many Korans being sold to Muslims from Western bookshops as opposed to local Islamic bookshops and through mosques………..so it is more a display than a vending opportunity
Jon Livesey
“the UK is considering a new generation of nuclear power stations, which will be nothing like Chernobyl in design”.
Not only that but it will be operated by sane rational people, unlike the Russians who do everything to excess usually fuelled by vodka. There is TV programme on cable TV (obviously not BBC) called “Russia Extreme” which gives you the flavour of how the male Russian Psyche is so self destructive.
If Cuba was such a utopian paradise, why were the BBC not allowed to film the last series of ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ there, instead of having to resort to the Dominican Republic ?
Note the failure to give numbers of Britons killed in the Luxor Massacre (6)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4901758.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2555495.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/51840.stm
Note use of the phrase ‘Moslem fanatics,’ in the next link. The good old days, eh?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/32722.stm
The BBC grudgingly put have a (D)HYS on Easter. Just don’t mention that religion! Which one? Oh, just the World’s largest religion. Christianity is now on the BBC’s banned list.
What are your Easter plans?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1563&&edition=1&ttl=20060413102617
What are your Easter plans?
Are planning to join to great Easter getaway?
A record 2.3 million people will be heading off to sunnier destinations over the Easter bank holiday weekend, with Spain the most popular choice.
Those staying in the UK have the promise of some dry and bright weather over the weekend – a distinct improvement on the wintry conditions of late.
Will you be getting out of the UK over Easter? Or will you be staying at home eating chocolate eggs? Do you have any tips for not getting caught up in the annual traffic jams? What does Easter mean for you?
Well, easter may be about holidays, easter eggs and traffic jams to your average dhimmi beeboid, but there is something else about easter that they strangely forgot to mention:
Easter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
Gary Powell
Cuba sounds like the sort of place Red Ken would be happy to visit and glad hand the benevolent dictator who has freed the masses from the evils of capitalism.
Geo-politically Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, share the same fate, they are sidelined, marginalised, and neutered. Their economies stuck variously in the 1950′ or 1960’s. The kind of place the BBC idealises as a workers paradise – if they can get any.
China, until it changed course, endured years of similar suffering, college professors sent back to work on the land wearing dunces hats.
What worries the BBC and the anti-capitalists is that the Chinese are discovering the joys of a market led economy. They’ll be driving cars like the Yanks soon, and that will send the Greens nuts. Overlooking the fact that when it happens, a quarter of the worlds population will be newly affluent, unlike Africa, which will continue to live on handouts from missionary politicians.
Rob Read
“BBC Staff to be arrested.”
That brought a smile to my face. They fly so close to the wind, they who are the first to use the law of racism and discrimination could find themselves hoist by their own petard.
“Note use of the phrase ‘Moslem fanatics,’ in the next link.”
amazing blast from the past there TomL.
my , how times have changed.
that will send the Greens nuts
They will have to demonstrate in Trafalgar Square as a welcome in Tienanmen Square is unlikely unless you are a hypocrite.
Ritter -> it is staggering alright. no mention of Jesus. although i’m atheist myself, i do recognise that the vast majority of license fee payers would describe themselves as “Christian” , and as such, do deserve recognition.
compare with the Hajj Hajj Hajj and more Hajj coverage for example. (remember that only 2% of the Brit population claim to be Muslim)
“Geo-politically Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, share the same fate, they are sidelined, marginalised, and neutered. Their economies stuck variously in the 1950′ or 1960’s. The kind of place the BBC idealises as a workers paradise – if they can get any. ”
Vietnam is now “doing a China” and embracing capitalism, with Western money and know-how being pumped into its economy.
Give it another decade and Ho Chi Minh City will revert to Saigon, as the Vietnamese realise that Communism was a dead end.
Even if one knew nothing at all about Cuba, the fact that Cubans take the most incredible risks to get out of the place would tell any normal observer that Cuba is comparable to a WWII Stalag or a Gulag.
What more do you need to know to condemn the Cuban government?
We dont seem to get much coverage from the beeb about this all too realistic side of Cuba.
Ritter – On the BBCs coverage of Easter, the theme of one of their religous broadcasts this year is ‘Christianity and the bomb’ (something to do with Northern Ireland…). But I don’t think we’re going to see mass demonstrations of methodists on the streets making death threats.
By the way did anyone catch the item where politicans were being matched up with movie stars (after Prescott said he’d like to be played by Marlon Brando) – apparently the BBC would like their hero and pin-up – Gordon Brown to be played by George Clooney. Personally I’d cast Edward G Robinson.
guess which prison on the island of Cuba is the ONLY one that the International Red Cross is allowed to visit?
Guantanamo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#Government_and_politics
“the License Fee should be scrapped forthwith and ALL subsidy to the BBC ended.
and the BBC need to be told straight! Wish me luck!”
If the BBC hand a hand in it I sure there would be a Law against this sort of thing.
David Vance risks being labelled as a heretic challenging BBC orthodoxy.
Be careful, you could be sentenced by Warpy Kirsk to one months re-education with the BBC News Team.
Prepare to have your fingernails pulled.
will
You are so right about the motive for the BBC running a lot about the John Howard interview in relation to an Oil-for-Food scam and the Auusie Wheat Board. There is damn all interest in the UK in this matter, but trust the BBC to latch on to it. Just using Bash-Howard and proxy for Bash-Bush. They HATE Bush and they will attack anyone who goes along with him.
Apparently it is a disease called BDS. Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The Today prog interview with Sir Jeremy Greenstock about what to do about Iran was turned into implicit criticism about what happened with Iraq. I don’t think they liked it when Greenstock slipped in “It was legal” – and they just don’t understand that military options must always be kept under evaluation, contingency plans must be made. There was contingency planning for a second attack on Iraq all through the 1990s – including the Clinton years.
But the BBC doesn’t like action against threats. It prefers appeasement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/goodfridayliturgy/
Here’s the link for the Good Friday liturgy – it’s called The Cross and the Bomb.
Mark
As Vietnam is held in check by China I can believe it. China financed the North Vietnamese war economy war but when hostilities ceased they sent in the Chinese army to make sure the Vietnamese knew which side their bread was buttered on.
Who knows, the Chinese may soon be buying cheap Vietnamese goods manufactured in Viet sweat shops.
It’s a mild thing, but this is a photo-essay on a chap who drives Rwandan genocide suspects to and from court:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/africa_driving_genocide_suspects/html/1.stm
The article starts with the text “It is 12 years since Rwanda’s 100 days of genocide. The world did little to stop the massacres, but afterwards the United Nations set up an international court in the Tanzanian town of Arusha to try the ringleaders.”
In this paragraph the writer made a conscious decision not to portray the United Nations in a negative light. “The world” was responsible for failing to act, rather than the United Nations.
I would have written this as “The United Nations did nothing to prevent the massacres, or stop them whilst they were taking place. After over 800,000 people were murdered, the United Nations set up an international court etc. In the twelve years since the genocide, the court has convicted and sentenced fifteen people”.
I got that figure from the official website of the tribunal:
http://69.94.11.53/ENGLISH/cases/status.htm
As I understand it the genocide was mostly carried out with machetes, clubs, and blunt weapons. Almost fifty people are listed on that page; they must have killed an average of sixteen thousand people each.
I haven’t read the sentence in each case. SERUSHAGO, Omar (ICTR-98-39) pleaded guilty to:
“COUNT 1 genocide …
COUNT 2 a crime against humanity (murder) …
COUNT 3 a crime against humanity (extermination) …
COUNT 4 a crime against humanity (torture) …”
And he got fifteen years’ imprisonment.
Perhaps I am reading it wrong. Perhaps he is eighty-nine years old, and fifteen years is intended as a life sentence.
Could someone please explain to me why Jack Hughes thinks that the BBC think that “science is dangerous.”
I read B-BBC quite a lot and I can honestly say that I’ve never heard that acusation before.
In this article, a former BBC Governor says that the whole purpose of the BBC is to distort competition. Using our compulsorily-demanded money.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1752204,00.html
I wonder which way the BBC’s “Alternative History” £25 million set of plays will be slanted ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/13/nbbc13.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/13/ixhome.html
‘morning Mr GCooper…oops, sorry, it’s afternoon already.
I agree absolutely about where the quotation marks in the story you cite properly belong. More generally I am against quotation marks being used for any other purpose than indicating that someone else has said these words…. so-called sneer quotes or distancing quotes…are just lazy.
Gary Powell is wrong to underestimate the number of Tories on Planet Beeb. One day we should do a tally on this blog of all the ex-BBC staffers who are now (or who have ever been) Tory MPs, campaign office staffers etc. Newest face: Michael Gove MP for Surrey Heath…..a former Today programme reporter. Good to do it for the other parties too. Could be illuminating.
MisterMinit “Could someone please explain to me why Jack Hughes thinks that the BBC think that “science is dangerous.” I read B-BBC quite a lot and I can honestly say that I’ve never heard that acusation before.
The BBC is blatantly anti-nuclear energy, anti-GM food and anti-biotechnology.
Also, some of Britain’s leading scientists have recently accused the BBC of ‘anti-science quackery” over it’s promotion of Alternative Medicine, which no doubt the the Beeb sees as being “foreign and exotic”.
dumbcisco – well the only example being worked on by a playwright is
a play based on the Tesco heiress Dame Shirley Porter, Westminister council’s former Tory leader, who was embroiled in the “homes for votes” scandal of the 1980s
I also note the BBC’s quote
the BBC said 30 writers would to be given a free hand to create “an alternative history of an entire generation”
That’s what Seymour Hersh claims to be doing since “the start of this 9/11 business”.
Ashley Pomeroy
Have no fear the UN is here,
12 years of useless sanctions against Iraq, un checked genocide in Rwanda, UN peacekeepers running amok, and now we will be expected to put our faith in their ability to monitor Iranian nuclear intentions.
Sleep easy.
How are the playwrights selected ?
The BBC has been rebroadcasting some of the Royal Court plays bfrom the 1960s, Angry Young Man etc.
Mostly a load of boring tosh. Osborne, Wesker, Pinter and all that. But the BBC luvvies lap them up. Because that is their “alternative” view of the times.
Also, some of Britain’s leading scientists have recently accused the BBC of ‘anti-science quackery”
Could it be that the BBC is based on a PC theology which requires unquestioning obedience to edicts handed down by the pope of Communications. Unlike church congregations however the donation is not voluntary. If you fail to pay for the BBC hierarchy you will be excommunicated with a criminal record.
I dislike the BBC News colours of red and black, that alone stinks of power and authority, notice how those who wear red and black are usually bossy boots?
Switch on and get indoctrinated should be their motto, listening to the Jeremy Vine show this a.m. (Jeremy is absent – someone from BBC2 took his place) and the subject is the hosepipe ban. Innocuous? Not when the BBC get a spin on it, the PC message is, ” Is it British to snitch?” The female being interviewed said clearly that Thames Water made her livid because it is the worse water leak offender and quoted figures. Our smooth talking BBC person simply said “Let’s get back to snitching” The man is a Bishop at least.
“Could someone please explain to me why Jack Hughes thinks that the BBC think that “science is dangerous.””
I remember the Panorama special a couple of years ago about nanotechnology. Firmly in the Prince Charles frame of mind about the threats of ‘grey-glue’, the programme was interspersed with images of speeded up images of insects eating a rotting carcass with spooky music. Embarrassingly bad and I’ve not given them much credence since.
Radio4’s science programmes seem to be obsessed with the environment.
“…the BBC said 30 writers would to be given a free hand to create “an alternative history of an entire generation”
I was hoping for a debunking of that most over-rated decade of the 1960s, which Beeboids seem to revere as a Golden Age.
Somehow I don’t think so – the writers’ list would include:
1) a smug nouveau-riche leftie who has a luxury pad in Dorset to bragg about
2) a stomach-churning MP with a villa in the Algarve (gimme some respect !)
3) a motormouthed comic full of verbal diarrhoea who has mercifully slowed down a bit by now. (AKA Benjamin Ehrenberg)
(D)HYS
“What are your Easter plans?”
Most recommended….
“Enjoy it while you can, before it’s deemed offensive to some minority somewhere and banned.
Leonard Day, Cardiff, United Kingdom”
Recommended by 29 people
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=1563&edition=1&ttl=20060413141440&#paginator