107 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. David Preiser (USA) says:

    So the leader of the local Tucson Tea Party group has been getting death threats all week (it’s not known if Jonny Dymond sent one of them) Yesterday, a known far-Left activist was arrested for making a death threat against him at a public hearing.

    ABC News held a town hall event today in Tucson, Arizona. Local officials, friends and heroes were at the event. News anchor Christiane Amanpour was the host. The segment will air tomorrow. ABC gathered members from the Tucson community to discuss the tragic shooting last Saturday that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and left 6 people dead.

    This included people who were actually shot by the murderer, as well as witnesses.  J. Eric Fuller, a known far-Left activist, was shot in the knee, and attended the gathering.

    Now, I have total compassion for anyone shot like this.  It’s scary and painful and I completely understand the need to find blame.  However, it’s clear by now that mental illness is to blame and not the leader of a Tea Party organization which the murderer totally ignored and was not influenced by in any way.  So I have no sympathy for this:

    While Trent was speaking- And it was planned that he would speak- One member in the audience and reportedly one of the victims of the tragedy started screaming, “Trent Humphries you’re dead!” The police immediately escorted him out. On his way out he screamed, “You’re all whores.”

    I’d claim the BBC is going to censor this news, as it distracts from the Narrative they’re shoving down your throat at all costs, but in fact a sub-editor in their Spanish language division somehow slipped a wire service clipping in under the fence.  Well done, BBC.

    How many license-fee payers will be informed by this, I couldn’t say.  But if the BBC doesn’t allow this over the airwaves in Britain, I’ll be justified in saying the BBC censored more news which will harm the biased rapport with the US they’re trying to create for you.  It’s going to be broadcast on ABC, so they can’t pretend it’s not a story.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      UPDATE:  The guy who made a public death threat against the leader of the Tucson Tea Party group says he believes Sarah Palin and Fox News caused Loughner to commit murder and attempted assassination of a public figure.

      Tucson Shooting Survivor: “It Looks Like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the Rest Got Their First Target”

      So his death threat was directly incited by hate speech from the mainstream media, which the BBC is also pushing.

      BBC:  No sabemos nada.

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    • Andrew says:

      This continues to spiral with the BBC still playing its own very dangerous part in all of this:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12144405

      and

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12194149

      On the face of it innocuous enough.  However as David mentions this is a mental health issue yet the BBC continues to stoke the fire of political rhetoric. Looking at the BBC report, the content looks very badly researched and if you google Judge John Roll 2009 threats, much of it including the BBC report is a cut and paste from the story below and others on the same site:

      http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/08/20110108giffords-roll-backgrounder-on.html

      The BBC make one curious deliberate amendment to this cut and paste background piece.  If you look at most of the stories on google covering these death threats, they’re almost word for word the same.  Except that is on the BBC.  They all mention Talk Radio, but the one change they make is to make it specifically “Right Wing” talk radio.

      It’s a tiny but deliberate change to set it quite clearly in your mind.  Having not properly researched this story they insert deliberate conjecture passed off as fact. Having looked at about 10-15 sites I can find no other site using those words that were given by US Marshall David Gonzales.

      What this does do however, help keep this story on a right wing political assasination angle

      In their stories, the young girl and the others have been reduced to bit parts because they don’t fit the preferred story which is nothing short of a disgrace to their memories.  This is dangerous because the President’s speech urged all to pull back from stoking the rhetoric and an organisation either not willing to do so or carrying on blindly with their point scoring editorial as though it is will have no consequence.  David’s new devlopments in the story show that there are very real consequences as the uninformed continue to escalate this situation.

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  2. Millie Tant says:

    Mozart on Radio 3 now:16:00–17:00 Choral Evensong
    New College, Oxford
    3 days left to listen From the Chapel of New College, Oxford, a liturgical performance of Mozart’s Requiem. 17:00–18:30 Discovering Music
    Mozart’s Linz Symphony
    Tom Service and the BBC Scottish

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    • Natsman says:

      I enjoyed their Mozart season (finished a few days ago) – every note he wrote!

      Shame the same broadcaster is responsible for its biased “news” service.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      >>Mozart’s Linz Symphony Tom Service and the BBC Scottish<<

      How does Mozart sound with bagpipes? πŸ™‚

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  3. Manfred VR says:

    Just a thought or observation;
    As a regular follower of this blog, I do feel obliged to watch a lot more BBC than I would like, particularly news and current affairs.
    I first became interested in this subject in the lead up to Margaret Thatcher’s first election win; When, I thought at the time that the coverage was fairly neutral.
    After her landslide victory, I began to notice more hostility to the Government from the BBC in particular. In those days, Robin Day was the resident Rotweiller and he could be pretty merciless with a badly briefed Minister, which I thought was good, as he was holding the executive to account.
    The first real bias at the BBC that I noticed was their coverage of the Falklands war. The British were referred to as ‘British Troops’ not ‘Our troops’ and there seemed to be rather sympathetic coverage of the Argentine side of the conflict.
    Time moved on, and the BBC were now describing the destruction of our Manufacturing Base in pitiless detail.
    A lot of people at the time were saying, yes, old inefficient industries must go, but they need to be replaced by productive industries that make real profit. The voice of the BBC was completely absent in this debate, as by now, they were desperately trying to undermine the Thatcher Government, any way they could, and were certainly not going to suggest things like using North Sea revenue to fund a much needed investment in infrastructure or modern hi-tech industry which would benefit the Tory position in the long run.
    With John Major, 20/20 hindsight proves that he was a disaster. He kept careful control of the budget, did things that were right for the country, and generally proved to be a decent, if boring PM, leaving a Golden Legacy for his successor.
    So it continued until May 1997, when the second coming happened in the shape of Tony Blair. I was quite looking forward to seeing Labour ministers being put through the mangle like their Tory counterparts had been, and was shocked at how interviewers who previously had behaved like Rotweillers were now face licking lap dogs to Labour Ministers. There was hardly a dissenting voice to be heard from the BBC, until one brave reporter put his head above the parapet and talked about ‘dodgy dossiers’.
    The death and destruction that resulted from Downing Street as a result, was so disproportionate that the dodgy dossier story had to be true.
    Heads rolled at the BBC, a Government scientist ‘died’ and the total takeover of the BBC by Labour was complete.
    The worrying thing is, that eight months into a change of regime, Tory and Liberal ministers are being put through the mangle. Any positive news about Labour, however slim or true, is being pimped by the BBC from the rooftops.
    Which brings me back to the first comment I made. At much detriment to my blood pressure, I listen to left wing bias being pumped into me, and I HAVE to pay for the privelige; When a Conservative led administration is standing idly by and watching these Marxists deliberately undermining them.
    WHEN will this stop!

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    • Martin says:

      And of course even the BBC have ‘admitted’ they were biased against the Tories back in the 1980’s

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    • Span Ows says:

      Manfred, brilliant comment reflecting my own ‘voyage’ of incredulity. When one sees the number of beeboids that “became” New labour it isn’t surprising, the BBC political research unit (as DV will tell you or read Robin Aitken’s book). It makes you realsie how (a) New Labour were untouched and (b) there was a constant stream of available sleaze stories to bash the Conservatives. I however eschew most of the BBC now (easy as I live abroad) but QT etc had me raging (literally) so I am now healthier than before! I used the message boards and the website but even there have often complained about the shoddy (you know which side this favours) editing.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Great summary Manfred of the last 30 years of BBC bias.  I remember during the 1979 election (when I was a 15 year old Labour Party supporter) a great programme BBC Radio 4 had ‘The Hustings’.  It went out for an hour from about 23:30.  We got to hear uninterrupted about 15-20 minutes of speeches from major party figures.  The presenter was a scrupulously impartial facilitor for the recordings.  It was democracy in action.  A chance for the listener to hear the politicians of the day, from both contenders (and sometimes a Liberal) setting out their party’s stalls, declaring their vision for the nation.  As far as I’m aware, since, I believe, the 1987 election the BBC hasn’t given the nation this great opportunity to make up their own minds about what our politicians have to say.  It all has to come through ‘the filter’ so the only way a Tory Government can now get (half) elected is by putting forward a Labour message approved by the BBC Thought Police.

      A similar thing has happened to the Party Conferences.

      The only thing I can see revitalising British democracy before the subversives completely neuter it is a realignment by the likes of Melanie Phillips.  We are simply sleep walking to disaster the way things are now.

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    • Techno Mystic says:

      I remember noticing that they opposed the government, but I thought this was a sign of a healthy media.  But when the government changed they didn’t change sides!

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    • Grant says:

      Manfred,
      Excellent, just excellent !

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  4. Katabasis says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12186245

    Herein is a true lesson in BBC style propaganda. Note that, through gritted teeth, warmer periods are acknowledged as eras of plenty in the past. However, the destruction of civilisations in the past is linked with “climate variability”. Not one mention of cold, or cooling. This is shocking propaganda and it is what we are forced to pay for via the TV tax.

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    • Natsman says:

      Cooling periods inevitably result in desertification, drought, famine, pestilence, strife and war.  As we are about to enter such a cooling period (even though they deny it and pretend it’s getting warmer), it will be interesting to see what happens.  It’s  likely to be quite a rapid cooling change, too, over the next twenty to thirty years.

      They’ve totally lost the public on this one, and shot themselves in both feet.  We no longer believe in their alarmist forecasts of doom for the reasons they state, because we are collectively witnessing the opposite taking place.  This is why the warmists are going to such lengths to “re-educate” scientists, meteorologists and teachers.  Too late, I think, “they” are no longer credible.  It’s getting cooler, and it will continue to get cooler (no doubt because of “global warming”).

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  5. Charlie says:

    I agree it annoys me to death. I started listening to Geoff Randall Live, much more incisive. 

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  6. fred bloggs says:

    The following story only shows up on the regional website.  Missing under Education.

    http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/01/14/school-site-to-have-a-future-even-if-two-year-old-24m-huyton-secondary-christ-the-king-is-axed-100252-27989230/

    The story is about a new Balls(up) school that has to be paid for over the next 25 years under PFI but is being closed within 2 years of opening.   It epiomises the waste and Hubris of Labour;  the kind of thing the bBC does not want to promote to the voting public.  Oldham is not far away from Huyton, the should have read this as seen what their Labour coucillors are screwing things up.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Thanks to Gordon Brown, those PFI expenditures are off the books, increasing the actual national debt but without appearing on official budgets. Just another of Brown’s sleight-of-hand tricks to prop up his ideologically-driven borrowing (“a fairer Britain”, yeah?) and spending while bankrupting the country. The BBC didn’t bother to mention that.  Of course, they never do.

      Thus, £157 million pounds will have been spent on a nearly empty building which will remain mostly useless for the next 25 years (unless the council is allowed to sell it off at some point, in which case it will of course be a net loss no matter what), all at the expense of the taxpayers.  But it’s not Labour’s fault, right, BBC?

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  7. Craig says:

    One of the guests on the paper review on this morning’s Broadcasting House was Professor Chris Rapley, former director of the British Antarctic Survey (and “an expert in climate change” who helped Al Gore with his “Live Earth” concert).

    Prof. Rapley has a slight dig at Christopher Booker over the Australian floods, which Paddy O’Connell picked up and amplified, saying “You’re one of those who warns about climate change, so is it your fault!”.

    Prof. Rapley warmed to his theme (so to speak) and, again, wasn’t countered but encouraged by Paddy O’Connell, who this time said, “But also is the argument now shifted to ‘Even if you don’t accept that there’s a human accelerator you should still protect against it? So that’s the sort of…I’ve heard the argument put like that.” (What sort of argument is that??) The professor agreed with this argument.

    Paddy then invited Prof. Rapley to talk about BP and the exploitation of the Arctic, so he talked of how “the Arctic is warming and the sea-ice is retreating” and how “we’re all complicit” with the use of hydrocarbons instead of renewables. (He chose not to elaborate on the story about how useless wind-farms were last year, due to a lack of wind).

    None of the other guests countered his points either. Typical BBC discussion.

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  8. Stuart says:

    Right now the BBC news website seems to be obsessed with Miliband or Labour. We have:

    > Labour leader Ed Miliband says he is “appalled” by the idea of trade unions planning strikes on Royal Wedding day.

    > Nick Robinson’s blog: Miliband makes his views clear on Labour’s record

    > Lord Owen ‘could vote for Labour’ under Miliband

    Then there’s several negative articles about left wing think tanks criticising the government policies. NHS or ‘Work pressures harming families’.

    Finally we have one story with Tory in it (note not conservative):

    > Tories avioided nastiness in Oldham says Eric Pickles

    I’m really bored with reading left wing propaganda on the BBC news website. BBC your impartiality is a big joke.

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    • George R says:

      E. Miliband has already shown that in his principled personal life that he is opposed to marriage, and registering the birth of first child, until he opportunistically feels that he is under public pressure.

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      • john says:

        Perhaps Red Ed will not find the time for such mundane forfmalities as he will be far too busy councelling a few thousand ex-BBC employee’s at a hitherto unknown Islington Wine Bar :
        JOB CENTRE PLUS.

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    • Stuart says:

      I have to say that the David Owen article reminds me of just before the general election where the BBC ran a full web news article on Neil Tennant ‘Dr Who’ supporting Gordon Brown with his vote and essentially rubbishing the Conservative party saying they were stupid, or words to that affect.
      The news website impartiality is a complete sham. It is disgraceful.

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      • Charlie says:

        Neil Tennant did the same on Womens Hour a while ago. just could not understand people voting for the Consevatives. Unbelievable.

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      • Martin says:

        Do you mean Neil or David?

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        • Demon1001 says:

          Both are Labour Party supporters but David is ashamed of having a member of an Orange Order in his ancestry.  These Leftwingers are all alike really, rarely an original thought or one that you couldn’t predict under any given circumstances.

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        • Stuart says:

          Yeah sorry I mean David. And I notice I should of said ‘words to that effect’ and not ‘affect’. Typed in a hurry….

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        • Charlie says:

          Should be David.

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    • Techno Mystic says:

      BBC publishes an article opposing boundary changes.  The author is a Labour Party member and has stood in elections.  See comments under this blog post:

      http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2011/01/equalisation-of-constituency-sizes-will-create-unnatural-seats-like-devonwall-says-report.html

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      • Demon1001 says:

        The cheeky blighters called the consefvative proposal to make constituency sizes fairer “gerrymandering”.  This is purely Orwellian, use a word to mean its opposite.  They did that with the German “Democratic” Republic, they use the word “Freedom” to mean state controlled and lots more.  The BBC are only too happy to misuse words in this manner.

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  9. Craig says:

    The Politics Show‘s Max Cotton did a report today about opposition to the government’s NHS reforms, especially the involvement of the private sector. It featured a “senior consultant who thinks this is the endgame for the NHS”. The caption below her when she appeared read “Dr Jacky Davis, Radiologist and BMA Council member”. She denounced the private sector (with their shocking interest in profits).

    What Max wasn’t letting on is that Dr Davis is something of a BBC regular, which is how I recognised her.  She is much more than just a doctor. She’s also a left-wing campaigner and founder of the Keep Our NHS Public pressure group. Wouldn’t it have been more honest of Max Cotton to mention that?

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    • hippiepooter says:

      And not a dicky bird of protest from HMG on this patent collusion with left wing propaganda.

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    • thespecialone says:

      I notice that the video clip on YouTube is on a channel with the letters SWP in it. Says it all about the good doctor really doesn’t it?  Funny how the BBC don’t mention a bit about her Marxist leanings isn’t it?

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    • NotaSheep says:

      But Harry Cole was introduced on 5Live as ‘the right wing commentator’; has a left-wing commentator ever been introduced in a similar way?

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      • Grant says:

        Nota,
        Never in my experience, anymore than a historian has been introduced as “left wing”.
        I have never heard  ” left-wing historian, Simon Schama “, “left-wing historian, Tristram Hunt “,  “left-wing historian, Michael Wood ”  etc.
        David Starkey and Andrew Roberts are, of course, “right-wing historians”.
        Gives away the bias, really.

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  10. Craig says:

    George R’s predicted likely Islamist takeover of Tunisia may be about the get the BBC’s blessing if this morning’s Broadcasting House (Radio 4) is anything to go by.    
       
    The programme put in a call to the daughter of one of the exiled opposition leaders and, almost inevitably, it was an Islamist politician: “Yusra Khreeji is the daughter of Rached Ghannouchi, the chairman of the Tunisian moderate Islamist En Nahda movement”.    
       
    When the likes of Paddy O’Connell call an Islamist movement “moderate”, we know from experience that this probably needs taking with a large pinch of salt.  Does a “moderate” man really believe that Zionists are plotting to take over the world? Sheikh Ghannouchi does:    
       
    The Zionist project wants to inherit our Ummah and inherit the West itself. It wants to lead the world. After (the natural shift of) the center of civilization from London to Washington, it wants to move it to Orshalim (Jerusalem) and destroy all other civilizational and religious projects we have today.    
    http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/ghanush.htm
        
      
     
    Paddy O’Connell asked Ms Khreeji nothing about her father’s ideology.  


    (Re-posted from Sue’s last thread)

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    • RGH says:

      Rached Ghannouchi has let it be known that he will ‘shortly’ be returning from his London ‘exile’ to Tunisia.

      A bit of background to Ghannouchi.

      Date: 13 August 2005
      To Honourable Tony Blair, Prime minister,
      U. K. Fax: 00 44 20 7925 0918
      Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
      Subject: PLEASE PUT AN END TO FATWAS IN U.K. – ACTION AGAINST
      THE FUNDAMENTALIST CLERIC SHEIKH RACHED GHANNOUCHI- REQUESTED.
      Greetings.
      Our organization: International Committee to Protect Freethinkers would like to draw your immediate attention to the case of the famous Tunisian writer Lafif Lakhdar whose life stands endangered due to the Fatwa issued by the London-based Islamic Al-Nahdah group led by the cleric Sheik Rached Ghannouchi.
      As you are well aware the objective of Fatwas, being the religious edicts pronounced by clerics, has been the incitement to either oppress or kill any reasoning, deviant or freedom-loving individuals who advocates reform or changes in the existing laws and the “Closed System” of Islam. During the past two decades several thousands of Muslim freethinking writers, journalists, democrats, secular intellectuals and Human/Women’s Rights activists were eliminated by fanatics who were inspired and incited by such Fatwas, for example, the great Ali Dashti, Farag Foda, Nobel Laureate Naquib Mahfoudh and forced over five thousand to go in exile from the Islamic countries.’

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      • George R says:

        “If There Is Disorder In Tunisia, Can Rashid Al-Gannushi Be Far Behind?”(And note, early in this piece, how INBBC plays its role.)http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/31925

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        • Grant says:

          Tunisia is a difficult one for the BBC as the outcome is uncertain.
          Beeboids would hope for a fundamentalist muslim dictatorship which would increase the likelihood of the destruction of Israel.
          The worst outcome for Beeboids  would be a secular democracy in Tunisia which may spread to other Arab nations.

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          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            What really gets them is that the free market is ultimately behind all this, not some newfound desire for democracy.

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    • Grant says:

      Tunisia is a difficult one for the BBC to handle, because there is no way at this stage of predicting the outcome.
      From the BBC’s and the Left’s point of view generally, the best outcome is a fundamentalist muslim dictatorship, a good thing in itself for Beeboids but with the added bounus that it makes the destruction of Israel more likey.
      The worst outcome is a secular democracy which may spead to other  Arab countries and make the destruction more likely. 
      I have little contact with the BBC these days, so don’t know how they are playing it.

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  11. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Hey, Beeboids: How does it feel to share beliefs with someone who has just been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility?

    One of the victims from the Tucson shootings has been arrested and involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office.

    Eric Fuller was arrested Saturday after authorities said he shouted “You’re dead” to Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.

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    • Craig says:

      Will the BBC report this? Sky News already have (briefly) and so has the Daily Mail.

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      • D B says:

        Will the BBC report this?

        Well, they’re definitley aware of it.

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        • D B says:

          I definitely meant to spell that “definitely”.

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        • NotaSheep says:

          But no mention on the BBC that i can see

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          • Craig says:

            Even the Guardian and the Independent are now reporting it. All that money and yet the BBC can’t (or won’t) report a significant development in a major story.
            You can guess that, if they ever do get round to reporting it, they’ll be the very last to do so. (They’re already a day behind Sky). Useless.

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            • Demon1001 says:

              They are still working on an angle to fit their meme.  It has to be Palin’s fault, so they are trying hard to find a way, no matter how ridiculous, of implicating her.

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        • D B says:

          To be fair to all those BBC American  journos I tweeted it is Martin Luther King Day so they’ve probably taken the day off (it would look bad for them otherwise). Unfortunately I don’t know the twitter accounts of the ethnic interns who will be staffing the BBC’s US offices today. 

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  12. London Calling says:

    This morning we are subjected to the Daily Harrabin, BBC ecofacist cheerleader on a report from The Tyndall Centre  for Climate Change Research demanding we stop exploring for shale gas until we understand its “environmental impact”. Not that we need more sources of energyof course.  Its instructive to see face to face who these people are –

    http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/people/staff-list-with-pictures

    Would you trust your future to these children? Harrabin presumably does, as does the execrable Chris Huhne. Well I don’t.

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    • David vance says:

      Huhne is beyond words, a swivel eyed adulterous loon.

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    • John Horne Tooke says:

      No wonder they want to keep the sham going – I wonder how much the tax payer is coughing up for these people.

      If the “science is settled” what are these people doing?

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  13. Bupendra Bhakta says:

    Someone on here was wondering why people dislike Dame Nikki.  To each their own of course, but I find him a helium-weight which is fine when he’s hosting a gameshow but strikes the wrong note when he’s reporting on heavy-weight subjects.

    What particularly irritates though is his inability to hide his bias.

    On an article on the trafficking of a ten year old girl for sex The Dame mentioned the recent case involving the Pakistanis Derbyshire rape gang and described it is ‘highly contentious’.  The Dame then went on to ask of his guest, ‘Do you think it was right to shine a light on this?’.

    This is a typical droid tactic; frame your own bias as a question and pretend you’re playing devil’s advocate.  I mean why mention this case in the first place?

    Of course I suppose it could be argued that the Dame was indeed playing devil’s advocate, but unfortunately he is something of a form horse in these stakes.

    Perhaps The Dame can come on here and defend herself.

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  14. Bupendra Bhakta says:

    …and while I’m on; not bias but just another symptom of the BBC playing to the lowest common denominator.  Anyone else irritated by the inability of the droids to speak The Queen’s English?  I don’t want to go back to stemp for stamp and benk for bank, but even on news reports now we get ‘wanna’, ‘kinda’, ‘lorra’, ‘gonna’ and ‘tharris’.

    Al Beeb – gerring dahn wiv ver kids inni.

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    • Will says:

      I even heard a BBC reporter using “somethink” the other day (must be angling for a job with the Lord sugar)

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      • John Horne Tooke says:

        Its because they are just like you and I.  
         
        “In ‘Plain Folks’ propaganda technique, common people are attracted on the basis of their common values. The current vernacular of the target audience is used. Scholastic speech seems artificial. So errors are made on purpose to give the feeling of spontaneity. ‘Homey’ words, as they are called, are used, so that audience can connect to the propagandist”

        This may not be exactly how the BBC do it, instead they bring in right on left wingers to spead their activism. The educated activist is usually described by the BBC as a comedian.

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  15. RGH says:

    The BBC didn’t choose to report this (after all ‘sectarianism’ is, in the BBC view, not a term which is applicable to Egypt):

    Cairo: January 14, 2011. (PCP) Copts gathering Thursday morning in the streets of the Zabbaleen suburb of Cairo to peacefully protest the fatal attacks upon Coptic Christians in recent days were surrounded by Egyptian police who fired live bullets and gas bombs into the crowd leaving many people injured.

    According to eyewitnesses, the state police were joined by Muslims from nearby homes who hurled stones at the protesting Copts.

    But they have chosen to report this, with a barely disguised glee, as evidenced by Jon ‘its a mystery how the moslem gunman expected to find Christians on a train’ Leyne:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12204999

    The ‘Revolutionsromantiker’ of the BBC (as long as its a Moslem convulsion) exemplified by the closing comment which breathlessly states seeing a direct parallel to the Tunisian self immolation:

    But the BBC’s Jon Leyne says the incident will be ringing alarm bells in the the Egyptian government.

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  16. Guest Who says:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100072130/daddy-what-do-taxes-pay-for/

    Maybe governments should rebrand taxes as ‘licence fees’.

    That way they can charge what the like, when they like for as long as they like (no more 5 yearly checks and balances at the voting booth to worry about).

    And if queried about such crushing abuses of democratic process, they can wheel out a £4B PR dept. to ‘tell’ us all that they are ‘much-loved’ and ‘unique’.

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    • RGH says:

      Another BBC omission. Just not news for the nation’s broadcaster?

      MENA, Saturday 15 Jan 2011Cairo’s Criminal Court postponed Saturday the trial of Gamal Hussein Ahmed, the 49-year-old accused of throwing a fire bomb at a Jewish synagogue in Cairo.

      The trial was rescheduled for Tuesday, 18 January.  
      Ahmed was arrested in February 2010, accused of throwing the fire bomb from the terrace of an opposing hotel in Downtown Cairo. 
      The synagogue is used by Jews living in Egypt, though in number they do not exceed tens, and is visited by Israeli tourists.

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  17. Maturecheese says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12202489

    Yet again the BBC report a story but not all of the facts. They have neatly avoided having to point out who the abusers are and instead paint a picture that these gangs of creatures are spead throughout all society.  Whilst I admit that all cultures in this country, including the indigenous, have abusers within them, the organised abuse of young vunerable girls seems to be missing victims from one particular section of society.  I wonder why this is?

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  18. Llew says:

    When to remember the previous Government and when to forget them….part 743….

    Today on BBC1 Breakfast show, they headline and subsequently detail the news that the Government are to allow Fathers to take up unused maternity leave as “originally proposed by Labour”. It must be something the BBC approve of because they made sure we knew it was put forward by Labour and not dreamt up just by the coalition.

    Compare that to fuel duty increase of 0.76p on Jan 1st. Not once in the days before or on the day did I hear the BBC mention that the increase was Labour’s Alistair Darling’s postponed duty increase. Instead they just wanted us to think it was the coalition’s increase to be linked with the vat increase.

    If your’re going to attribute things to previous Governments, do it for the good and the bad news and all Governments! After all, during 1997 to May 2010 you had absolutely no problem in attributing the bad news to the previous Government and Mrs T.

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  19. Craig says:

    Since it began it’s latest run in May 2010, Radio 4’s What The Papers Say has featured the following journalists as presenters. I doubt anyone will be surprised at who has received the most invites from the BBC or which newspaper is the most heavily represented:

    4 appearances
    Kevin Maguire (Daily Mirror)

    3 appearances
    John Kampfner (ex-editor New Statesman)

    2 appearances
    Gary Younge (Guardian)
    Anne McElvoy (Evening Standard)
    Sarah Sands (Independent)
    Andrew Pierce (Daily Mail)
    David Aaronovitch (Times)
    Dennis Sewell (Spectator)
    George Parker (Financial Times)
    Iain Martin (Wall Street Journal)

    1 appearance
    Michael White (Guardian)
    Zoe Williams (Guardian)
    John Harris (Guardian)
    Sam Leith (Guardian)
    Nick Watt (Guardian)
    Andrew Grice (Independent)
    Steve Richards (Independent)
    Rachel Johnson (Sunday Times)
    James Forsyth (Spectator)
    Jan Moir (Daily Mail)
    Hugo Rifkind (Times)
    Mehdi Hasan (New Statesman)

    Where are the regular Telegraph writers? Where are the Sun writers? The Express?

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    • D B says:

      Kevin “The Ego” Maguire really doesn’t like other Mirror people doing telly or radio, does he? 

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    • Guest Who says:

      Don’t they have one of those ‘compliance meter’ thingies that ensure 12th Century Britain has its appropriate demographic balance, which can surely also be applied to the ABC representation of paper reviewers suggested as being obscenely flouted here?

      Or is packing guest slots with idealogical travellers simply … unique?

      Helen, oh, Helen… the mutants have escaped and are getting an airing again.

      The BBC – the Resident Evil of genetic impartiality.

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    • NotaSheep says:

      I make that:
      Left – 19 appearances
      Centre – 6 appearances
      Right – 10 appearances
      Not as bad as I had feared, but not fair!

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      • Demon1001 says:

        I actually make it as:

        Left 23
        Centre 4
        Right 8 (If you included the Evening Standard which flops around like the Express)

        Which is even worse.

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    • Grant says:

      Andrew Pierce only because he is “gay” .

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  20. D B says:

    Excellent article by Jonah Goldberg on the media reaction to Tuscon. Last week Justin Webb wondered if “America’s vicious atmosphere” was “the result of having no broadcasting impartiality rules”. Goldberg points out that “a lot of ‘extremist’ discourse is really just inconvenient truth-telling by political opponents the liberal establishment would rather not hear from.” Read it all.

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  21. George R says:

    INBBC and its ‘Islamless analysis’ of North Africa:


    Islam Not BBC (INBBC)’s myopic view of North Africa:

    ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ irrelevant to INBBC  group ‘analysis’.

    Is that by INBBC decree?:

    “Tunisia: Will there be a domino effect?”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12204971

    ‘Jihadwatch’:

    Al-Qaeda urges jihad against Tunisian government

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  22. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Gavin Hewitt is worried about the sustainability of the euro and the Brussels-defined concept of “Europe”.

    He frets that the only answer to keeping it going is further ceding of domestic economic control of nation states to Brussels, and that the great unwashed masses might think they have a right to vote on it.

    Hewitt writes from the perspective that this Europe conglomeration is ultimately a good thing (quoting Paul Krugman as a concerned supporter) and sees only voters as the obstacle to success.  Of course, he was fretting about the obstacle to a pan-European government last year as well. Nothing new here, and Hewitt continues to speak from the same perspective.

    He clearly doesn’t understand what’s going on in Ireland or Spain or Greece or Portugal or Hungary, and presents only one solution: eurobonds.  Even he admits that this is a step further down the path of countries ceding sovereignty to Brussels.  It’s funny how he opens his piece by claiming that Europeans view British concern over democracy to be “quaint”, when he clearly sees voters’ objections to losing it as obstacles to overcome rather than a voice to be heeded.

    Worse, Hewitt exhibits the Euro-mandarins’ ultimate contempt for the masses:


    But what if the elites get it wrong? Some believe that the rise of populist parties across Europe is a direct result of leaders and officials ignoring the public mood towards immigration.

    That’s right: the only reason the peasants are concerned about national sovereignty is their innate racism.  Nothing to do with being forced to prop up failed Socialist states and tie their own national fates to the anchor of failed ones.  National sovereignty is merely a parochial fixation, a non-issue, really, in his eyes, thus reflecting the Euro-mandarins’ position.

    It’s also amusing to see Hewitt so worried that German voters might want to have a say in bailing out one mess after another.  Like the BBC did regarding votes against Lisbon in Ireland, if Germans vote against this, he’ll probably just say that’s only because they don’t understand it.

    While acknowledging the fact that having all these different independent governments is the real obstacle to a stable single currency, Hewitt purposely omits mentioning another figure of note who warned against exactly this:  Mrs. Thatcher.  I say he purposely left her out because there’s no way he doesn’t know what she had to say about it.  Best not provide any support to the idea that the most-hated female politician in history ever got anything right, eh, Gavin?

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  23. D B says:

    NYTimes: “[Loughner’s] anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush”.

    That would make him more in tune with the BBC than Fox News, then.

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  24. David Preiser (USA) says:

    One of the primary causes of the collapse of the Tunisian dictatorship – i.e., why the economy was so crap causing the unemployment and inflation which created the environment for the initial protests – was the massively mismanaged debt.  I don’t need to explain to anyone here why bankrupting a country leads to this kind of situation.

    The BBC’s reporting on the desires of ordinary Tunisians to have a functioning democracy has mentioned in passing that some of the anger is directed at the former leader and his family because they were living opulent lifestyles while screwing over the general population.  In general, though, the BBC geniuses have ignored the larger issue of gross mismanagement of the economy by framing Tunisia’s problems as merely being part of the global downturn (it all started in America, etc.).  Just like they do with the UK’s situation, as well as that of each successively failing country in the EU, the global context is the key, and little time is given to the notion that the problems have been made much worse by the mismanagement of the individual domestic governments (I’m speaking here about the reporting on the situations of a given country, analysis and big-picture discussions, and not the rare moment when a Beeboid actually dares suggest to a Labour figure during an interview that Labour’s management might have actually left the country in a bad state).  Contrary to the line espoused by every Labour figure appearing on the BBC, national governments really do have at least as much of an effect on domestic economic affairs as global ones.  Local management either places a country in a position to weather the storm or it doesn’t.  No government can claim pure victimhood, no matter how much they try.

    The reason I mention this is that there’s another “Arab” country showing signs of fallout after Tunisia:  Egypt. Credit Default Swaps (remember those?) have skyrocketed recently.  And guess what?  Egypt is also a dictatorship which has mismanaged its economy for ages.  If Egypt’s government has to default on its debt, who’s going to bail them out?  It’s going to be chaos there as well in a very short time.  Yet none of the BBC genius analysts have noticed.  Egypt is next, and no mistake.  Food prices continue to rise and rise (the cause of which is a different issue: greenie nonsense cutting into production of staples like corn).

    What’s very interesting is what all of this represents: the free market correcting itself actually does make people more free.  Who could have imagined?  It’s not merely about dictatorship versus democracy, althought that’s obviously a very big reason for what’s going on in Tunisia.  Greece and France aren’t dictatorships, yet their citizens shut the country down with violent protests as well.  Nothing to do with an elite family running things while the people struggled. The various protest mavens in the UK are looking for every opportunity to cause damage there as well, and I include the big unions in that.  Again, it’s ultimately about economic management and how a government engages – or doesn’t – with the free market.  If a new democratic government screws things up in Tunisia, there will be protests again.

    It’s an opinion you will not hear on the BBC.

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  25. Grant says:

    Can’t remember where I heard or read this today, so it may not be the BBC, but someone was claiming that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was due to Global Warming.
    Probably not the BBC, come to think of it.

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  26. Millie Tant says:

    Look what my TV listings guide says about who is presenting tonight’s Newsnight.

    22:30 Newsnight
    Analysis of the day’s events, presented by Matt Frei.
    (Subs)

    Can this be true  – Frei Boy?

    Ooh…a must-see.                             /sarcasm

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Is Matty trying to increase his gravitas?  LOL.  He and Paxman can have a sneering contest.

         0 likes

  27. D B says:

    BBC finally reports Fuller’s “you’re dead” outburst, way down at the bottom of this article. Apparently he “became distraught”, a somewhat passive phrase that I doubt the BBC journalist would’ve used if this had been a right-winger threatening a leftie.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The BBC helpfully immediately also reported his apology.  I’m still waiting for the BBC to apologize for their bigoted and provably false reporting.  The New York Times just did, sort of.

         0 likes

      • D B says:

        From that NYT’s ‘apology’ (my emphasis):


        Jerry Ceppos, dean of the journalism school at the University of Nevada, Reno, said journalists’ impulse to quickly impose a frame on a story is “genetic.”

        It’s in their genes! Just like the BBC’s imparitality!

           0 likes

      • Demon1001 says:

        “The Times itself were standing behind the information. In any event, Ms. McElroy had said O.K. without seeing that change, so Mr. Goodman pushed the button. ”

        That is a direct quote from the article talking about going with the story.  It just shows how easy it is to make warlike references without intending it, out of context it could be interpreted as though the shabby newspaper was starting a nuclear war.

           0 likes

    • D B says:

      And of course the fact that Fuller is a left-wing activist isn’t mentioned. Who thinks the BBC hack who wrote this article would’ve ignored similar details if the arrested man had been a right-winger?

         0 likes

      • Craig says:

        A “distraught” “military veteran” who quickly apologises! And that’s it, buried away, two days late! Watertight oversight in action.
           
        And, typically, the BBC hack can’t even get the story right, saying the death threat (a phrase not used) took place at “a televised “town hall” meeting held on Saturday by Tucson Tea Party leader Trent Humphries.” Wrong. It was a town hall event organised by ABC News, hosted by Christiane Amanpour. Mr Humphries was just one of several Tucson residents who took part.

        So clearly playing it down, removing all traces of the man’s Democratic Party activism (and not mentioning his intemperate interview with Democracy Now, where he wanted Sarah Palin tried for treason) and getting the facts wrong. Classic BBC reporting.

           0 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          I hope everyone noticed that the BBC took the entire weekend to check their facts and make sure they were reporting accurately about the Fuller and his motiviation before deigning to inform the public.  As opposed to their knee-jerk placing of blame immediately after the shooting.  I wonder what the difference could be……

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    • Guest Who says:

      ‘BBC finally reports Fuller’s “you’re dead” outburst, way down at the bottom’

      Careful, the detail weasel will probably be tallying pram ejecta on his clipboard and demanding a retraction based on insufficient specification on just how prominent a ‘bottom’ can be… rather missing the irony of not having a peep to utter about weeks of rampant BBC genetic mutation, representing rather more serious factual transgressions seemingly not covered by his unique access to every nook and cranny of the BBC website.

         0 likes

  28. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC notes its is 20 years today that Operation Desert storm (the liberation of Kuwait) kicked off.  
    1991 Gulf war ‘a measure of last resort’  
     So does the bBC report on how Saddams forces were kicked out of Kuwait or does it bitch about how people called them traitors for reporting what a victim Saddam was. Listen to the audio report of desert storm and wonder, just how people between the ages of  13-30 will walk away from listening to that somewhat one directional news report thinking that we were in the wrong for liberating Kuwait.

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  29. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Good grief.  Matt Frei has set up a celebration….sorry….discussion about how we can compare The Obamessiah’s wonderful “healing” speech in Tucson to the best of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Everyone is pretending that’s not what this is about – it’s just about whether or not we’re in a “soundbite culture” these days or if great speeches are still important.  But that’s what it is.  “The King’s Speech” is a figleaf, but I realize this connection is something favored by media types steeped in the tradition of storytelling as taught in media studies courses at places like Bournemouth and the BBC’s own Journalism College.

    Note to Matt Frei:  there is a difference between great speeches and great speechifying.

       0 likes

  30. john says:

    The BBC’s Justin Webb.

    Despite his revelation about his parentage, am I the only one who will still consider him a bastard the next time I hear him caterwauling on the BBC ?

       0 likes

    • Demon1001 says:

      Woods was from the days when BBC News reporters tended to do just that; report the news.  Webb and his ilk have stopped doing that, they just lie for propaganda purposes.

      I think it’s an insult to the likes of Woods’s memory to be the father of such a disreputable type.

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  31. Will says:

    It seems that the BBC’s usual socialist support for the poor evaporates when it conflicts with their victorian paternalism. So on the Today programme (8:10) Jim was hostile to the drinks trade man & fawning over the academic prohibitionist when discussing the government’s proposals for minimum alcohol pricing. Naughtie finished by asking the drinks man what would be the price effect on “a reasonable bottle of wine”. Unfortunately the drinks man tried to answer rather than asking Naughtie what he considered “a reasonable price”. It could have been an informative reply from Naughtie. (In case you are worried the answer was little effect on a bottle at £4.50 – £5)

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