TAKING THE BISCUIT…

The extremist mindset of the boys and girls of the BBC is laid bare in an exchange of letters between a few highly-paid BBC “stars” who do not want to strike next week and those who do. Those “stars” – led by the likes of James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman (paid, of course, massive salaries out of your money) – say that the NUJ strike, aimed at blacking out Dave Cameron’s speech at his party conference, should not go ahead because it will demonstrate political bias. Putting aside for a second the risibility of the idea that the BBC is not biased, the reponse from Ian Pollock, the BBC NUJ branch chairman, illustrates graphically the cloud cuckoo-land nature of the BBC worldview. He says:

“Frankly, I do not take kindly to non-members trying to unpick democratically taken decisions (NB, only a tiny fraction of the 17,000 workforce voted for the strike)…There is a simple fact…the other political conferences would have been targeted too but fell outside our scope because of the long-winded niceties of calling strikes. Not one NUJ member…has suggested targeting the Tories because we don’t like them(!)…They simply happen to be the first in line….If you have better tactical suggestions for conducting strikes…I will be glad to hear them. But I have to tell you that taking Shaun the Sheep cartoons off air will not cut the mustard.”

Many years ago, I was a BBC NUJ father of the chapel. Even by the standards of demented BBC militancy and arrogance, this takes the biscuit.

Bookmark the permalink.

28 Responses to TAKING THE BISCUIT…

  1. George R says:

    Yes, apparently BBC-NUJ ‘presenters’ want it both ways: they propagandise their political bias daily under the BBC label, but when they think that their political bias will become too easily identified with political strike action, they hide behind that last refuge of a BBC-NUJ scoundrel: ‘impartiality’.

       0 likes

  2. Andrew Mars says:

    To be fair, the BBC/NUJ freaks are in reality such extremists that they’d happily arrange their strikes to interfere with any political party, except the SWP or Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

       0 likes

  3. Martin says:

    And of course targeting the second strike for the Tories spending review is also just a coincidence?

       0 likes

  4. dave s says:

    The left is always tactically incompetent. Paxman and the others know this. The strike will be a disaster so bring it on. It might even provide us all with a real laugh as we head into the dull days of winter.

       0 likes

  5. Martin says:

    Someone needs to tell the BBC that their boyfriends in Nu Liebour LOST the election.

    Tihs article on health reforms is totally one sided being critical from start to finish and giving andrew Lansley one small paragraph righht at the end.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11445182

    We get BBC luvvies on News 24 bigging up mascara metrosexual Andy Burnham. Didn’t he lose the election?

    What a pompous prat, YOU LOST BURNHAM.

       1 likes

    • DCP says:

      I like this at the end of the article:

      “Are you a GP? Do you share the conerns that the BMA has over changes to the NHS in England? Send us your comments using the form below:”

      in other words, if you agree with the nasty tories, we don’t want to hear from you.

         1 likes

  6. George R says:

    A different BBC-NUJ strike threat:

    “BBC Midlands Today staff threaten strike over alleged bullying”

    Read More http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2010/10/01/bbc-midlands-today-staff-threaten-strike-over-alleged-bullying-65233-27375923/#ixzz116LbkeOX

       1 likes

    • Only Winding says:

      Stress and bullying is code for being asked to be flexible and to work hard for your share of the licence-payers’ cash.

         1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It is also understood that star presenters such as Nick Owen and Suzanne Virdee have been told to cut down on on-air banter in a new approach to newsreading.

      I wish they’d tell Emily Maitlis to cut down on the banter.

         1 likes

      • John Horne Tooke says:

        And Peter “no one else can get a word in edgewise” Allen. To me this bloke epitomises the BBC, he must be heard and sod the views of the person he is talking at.

           1 likes

  7. hippiepooter says:

    I dont see at all how the ‘extremist’ mindset of BBC employees is laid bare by this correspondence, only abject humbug.  Huw Edwards is another signatory of this letter.  As with his co-signees he is as screamingly bent as they come when it comes to bias.  The only reason they dont want their coverage of the Tory Conference blacked out is because they dont want to miss the opportunity of using their finely crafted techniques to cause the Tory Party damage.

    This is a ‘lose-lose’ scenario for the Beeb Gramscians.  They lose the chance to do the Tory Party damage and their biased is evident by singling out the Tory Conference to be blacked out.

    Hey comrades!, how about a happy compromise?  Only broadcast the speeches made but without any commentary or interviews?  In fact, why not just cover all party conferences like they used to be covered, letting the parties set out their stalls which is the whole purpose of a conference and leaving the public to make their own minds up about what is said.  What the BBC now pass off as ‘conference coverage’ isn’t.  Constantly cutting away from the conference for BBC interlocutors to shape our thinking on the conference that they’re not really broadcasting is just a ridiculous sham.

       1 likes

  8. Umbongo says:

    I’m with dave s on this one.  Let’em strike – there’ll be far less bias in no coverage than the coverage we can expect from the Labour government in exile at White City.

    Also, as hippiepooter writes, why not have coverage of the party conferences in the same way that [I think;  I rarely watch pigs getting up on their hind legs to imitate humans] parliamentary proceedings are shown on the Parliamentary Channel: just a camera aimed at the platform and the reality of stultifying party politics without the journalists from Pravda telling us what it all means..

       1 likes

    • Tony_E says:

      ‘just a camera aimed at the platform and the reality of stultifying party politics without the journalists from Pravda telling us what it all means..’

      But that isn’t what will happen. The BBC will broadcast copious amounts of cometary about what has been said – it just won’t carry the words. That means that they will edit what they show from whichever source they get it, and they can twist it at the first instace, never having had to have shown the speeches or having given the actual words airtime.

      It’s a perfect win win for the NUJ.

         1 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      In my pubescent political anorak days (nay – pre-pubescent even!) this is how politics were covered.  When the days proceedings were over you’d have a highlights programme in the even and guests to discuss them.  That’s when the BBC facilitated democratic debate, before Labour Party Member John Birt became DG and gave it ‘a mission to explain’ and a remit to ‘set an agenda’ so our critical faculties would turn to mush and we’d all be ‘converts’ to cultural marxism.

      Child:  What did you do in the Culture Wars daddy?

      Conservative Party:  I was a conscientious objector

         1 likes

      • Umbongo says:

        Concerning genuinely objective relays of political events: when I worked in the US I used to watch – rarely – the transmissions from Congress.  Dull?  They were horrendous.  It was no wonder that the transmissions from the Commons (which started in the late 80s I believe) were popular in the US.  But, at that time, we were seeing – had we known it – the very last gasp of our parliament providing a semblance of democracy and, moreover, intelligent and educated debate: that all ended in 1997.

        Of course, all the interesting stuff in the US was either done in smoky rooms behind the scenes (yes children, most people smoked then; unbelievable isn’t it!) or in committees where anybody with anything to feel bad about either took the fifth or gave such convoluted responses (usually via a lawyer) that no-one knew what was happening.

           1 likes

  9. George R says:

    Oh dear, BBC-NUJ backed the wrong Labour pantomime horse:

    “Ed Miliband speaks out against BBC strike”

    http://www.politics.co.uk/news/culture-media-and-sport/ed-miliband-speaks-out-against-bbc-strike-$21384424.htm

       1 likes

    • George R says:

      Whatever will Red Ed do next?

       Sign his name as father, on his child’s birth certificate?

         1 likes

    • Only Winding says:

      Took his time…didn’t he?

         1 likes

      • Grant says:

        Gosh, Ed Miliband is so exciting.
        Am I alone in thinking that the Miliband brothers seem to have had personality-bypass operations ?

           1 likes

      • Grant says:

        Only winding,
        It is typical of the selfish irresponsibility and stupidity of lefties.
        Anywhere in the world a birth certificate is the first proof of identity. Thick Ed has no idea what problems not signing it could cause for the child in the future.
        Unless , of course, he is unsure whether he is the father or not and even then it was irresponsible.
        Millions and millions of of people in the don’t have birth certificates at all and I know from personal experience the problems that can cause.

           1 likes

  10. fred bloggs says:

    Brillo asked Bradshaw about condemming the strikes.  He said the unions were not biassed and that they did it for maximum effect.  Surely then the unions should have picked the day that the Labour leader was announced.  QED they did not so even the supposed unbiassed bBC unions are biassed.

       1 likes

  11. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Anybody think the current loss of picture on the News Channel is a little shot across the bow?  The picture has been out for quite a while now, and the Beeboids in the studio just now mentioned it, apologizing for the technical difficulty.  They even said, “we don’t know what’s causing it”.

    The very next sentence was “Members of the BBC trade union will be going on strike next week….”, and they’re talking to a BBC reporter who is being very careful to say that it’s really just “a matter of luck” that it’s being scheduled during the Tory Conference.  “It’s just a matter of maximizing the publicity.”

    I imagine that’s true.

    The people who don’t want the strike to happen are the ones who will be on air doing the Conference coverage.  There are just too many coincidences here.

       1 likes

  12. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Next week’s BBC strike has been cancelled, but the later strikes are still on tentatively.  Female Beeboid on the News Channel asks the NUJ rep (Jeremy Dear?) if the one during the spending review might be “politically motivated”.

    Answer:  No, of course not, as the spending review affects all the parties.

    As if.

       1 likes

    • Grant says:

      Now that the strike has been cancelled, it will give the BBC a chance to prove they are not anti-Tory by giving the same fawning, bottom-licking coverage they gave Labour. Can’t wait !

         1 likes

  13. George R says:

    Will there be a strike over this?:-

    “Put more homosexuals on TV, says BBC”

    [Extract, from ‘Christian Institute’]:

    “Homosexuals and bisexuals should be portrayed more frequently and more authentically on the BBC, according to a controversial new report commissioned by the broadcaster.
    “However, the report also revealed that almost one in five viewers is either ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘very uncomfortable’ with homosexual scenes.
    It follows officials statistics released by the Government last week which showed that just one per cent of the population were homosexuals, and just 0.5 per cent of the population were bisexuals.”

    http://www.christian.org.uk/news/put-more-homosexuals-on-tv-says-bbc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+christianinstitute+%28The+Christian+Institute%29

       0 likes

    • Dan Clucas says:

      Way over represented for the 1 in 66 they actually are. White hetero english males are the ones who are under represented.

         0 likes

  14. cjhartnett says:

    BBC journos eh?
    Heard ole “Tinseltits”-Evan Davis-make a right “tinsel” of himself on the Saturday smugfest that is the Toady show.
    8.10 this morning he manged to repeatedly conflate his spliff rolling (should he of course want to do so!) with the repeal of ludicrous “elf n safety” restrictions that Evan says are …er…”good fun”.
    The Beeb are at their best when sneering at the Daily Mail stories whilst having a Chablis and joint in Heaven or the like…if Davis thinks Lord Young is a daredevil for wanting to see the back of these trumped-up townhall toadies, then we can see that ,basically the Beeb, Harman and Milibands are all one and the same seamless threat to Britain that we all know them to be.
    Someone give Davis his Rizlas and a magnet and get him to check the fraudulence or otherwise of the Afghan elections please!No expenses though eh?

       0 likes