Here’s a Bradford West approved Open Thread to see you off into the weekend! Enjoy.
OPEN THREAD
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- Zephir April 19, 2024 at 4:06 am on Midweek 17th April 2024And... [img]https://i.postimg.cc/3rn36KFD/cartoon040124.webp[/img]
- Zephir April 19, 2024 at 4:06 am on Midweek 17th April 2024Remind you of the UK ? [img]https://i.postimg.cc/tgKss9Mg/Cartoon-032024.webp[/img]
- Zephir April 19, 2024 at 3:48 am on Midweek 17th April 2024Comment: "The Met have become selective and partial when considering people’s human rights and freedoms. I will happily contribute to...
- Zephir April 19, 2024 at 3:46 am on Midweek 17th April 2024And this is, quite frankly, shocking as the headline states: "Shocking moment police officer threatens to ARREST man for 'breaching...
- Zephir April 19, 2024 at 3:44 am on Midweek 17th April 2024@ Thoughtful, your prediction of main news story sadly wrong. Israel has attacked Iran.
- JohnC April 19, 2024 at 2:10 am on Midweek 17th April 2024Never underestimate the power of group-think, especially among the weak. Just look at Islam. A ridiculous, stone-age religion followed so...
- JohnC April 19, 2024 at 2:06 am on Midweek 17th April 2024It's been my observation that when the Left accuse the BBC of being biased to the Right, they actually mean...
- Zelazek April 19, 2024 at 2:05 am on Midweek 17th April 2024I never liked the look of Peter Murrell. He always reminded me of Dunblane massacre killer Thomas Hamilton. One wonders...
- StewGreen April 19, 2024 at 12:28 am on Midweek 17th April 2024It seems about 85% of the Quote Tweets say the BBC is biased to the left
- pugnazious April 19, 2024 at 12:20 am on Midweek 17th April 2024Streets of London are unsafe for Jews because of the hate marches...even the police admit this now...... 'Shocking moment police...
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It’s Thursday, it’s after dark, the curtains are drawn and tradition dictates that a Dimbleby must gather us around the table in Auntie’s back parlour for another attempt to reanimate a long-departed format.
Talk about a seance…’Shhhhhsh, is there anybody there?’
There came the hushed reply,
‘Just us outreach workers and full time public sector union activists, David’.
Ahhh, perfect, we have some Pilgrims who want to talk to us tonight.
It’s life Jim but not as we know it! And John Redwood was beamed down from a world completely alien to the BBC – Planet 1980s.
woo woo WHOOOOOO woo woo woo woo woo
Silence decends upon the room. Quick, put on a Labour voice before we slip into stasis!
That did the trick, now they’re clapping like performing sealions (whoops, live animals earning their kippers in some kind of circus slavery – how un PC).
Who said the Beeb always likes to book a Tory Panto Dame who will carelessly weild long words in a built up area without fear of the penalties?
‘Stand aside Ladies, your hearts may be aflutter but trouble your silly little leftie heads no more because the Lavender Pimpernel has manifested himself. Starkey, scourge of the darkie, is on deck.’
‘Take that you socialistic hobbledehoy! How dare you suggest the traitorous Long John Gordon never buried all our gold dubloons in his own garden shed. Whatever Dimbleby says – I’ll not let you rewrite BRITISH HISTORY!’
Look out Pimpernel, there’s a full complement of Mohommedans aboard!
‘Take that, and this, and that and especially that, you atavistic throwback…..I’m a gay old sailor.’
‘And as for you Frenchies….ah they seek me here they seek me there….those damned Frenchies….’
Dimbleby: ‘Did you just now maligne the Frenchies? Did you impune our brave allies? Where’s me notes? Where’s me Twitter-feed? Let me get a Frenchperson’s opinion on that. Who cares they don’t pay the licence? Oh for the sake of the tatty old Charter let me get some balance. For the love of Lord Reith and sake of the Trust I must get it about right – it’s in me genes.’
‘Damn your prompts and damn your BBC Charter Dimbleby! Froggies I call them and Froggies they are. I’ll have two for breakfast if I please!’
Voice off: ‘Can’t we put pressure on the Russians and Chinese?’
‘For the love of Allah, where do you get them? Us, post-colonial island off Euroland, put pressure on the Ruskies and the Chinkies? What have you been teaching them lately BBC?’
Spring is on its way, and I think that Starkey has put a bulb into the lexicon that will bloom very soon.
1 “If only you`d liberate you mind from your prompt sheet David, then may you`d have understood what I just said.”
Let this stand as monument to all Beeboids who end up with faces like smacked bottoms for not listening for anything but a soundbite to hang the likes of Starkey…backfired wonderfully!
2. Starkey calls out a thick Trot planted in the audience and faces him down…noted the MPs all scatter at the first sniff of grapeshot, but Starkey stood firm…brandishing his trusty hose of truth and soaking the lukewarm plasticine and playdough of Beeb-liberal mouldery!
“Ah…har me hearties…more bread and more wine for me lads”…to quote the fearless Captain Peter Griffin, who looks more like the alternative to all BBC “analysis” by the day.
Starkey was brilliant on QT – every time he spoke it was like someone lobbing grenades into the assembled sleepwalking morons. Sadly, this is only because he is one of the few broadcasters still completely unafraid to say just what is on his mind. And he says it always so eloquently. When Starkey faced-down the Labour Oaf in the audience (a despicable example of a fat socialist bully if ever there was one) I was physically cheering the good Doctor on!
Absolutely riveting viewing for anyone who cares about real freedom of speech. John Redwood wasn’t bad, either – another relatively fearless speaker.
‘ “If only you`d liberate you mind from your prompt sheet David, then may you`d have understood what I just said.”
No reason.
Just wanted to see it again.
A linky to that spot would be worth scaring up.
A correction.
Just in case Dezcott is on patrol, let me say that the literal quote was this
“If,David, you will occassionally detach your mind from your prompt sheet,and listen to what people are saying…”
Best to be literal, now that I am quoting from the Book of Starkey…which appears to be as the cross used to be to the vampire….
The latest addition to the ‘news stories which must’ve slipped the BBC’s mind’ series:
http://www.thepressnews.co.uk/NewsDetails.asp?id=3630
The BBC get a mention on my first vid of one of my paintings.
‘Im forced to pay for blatant propaganda’
Im at the early stages of a painting entirely about the BBC , of course it was this blog that provided the motivation for it.
Keep up the good work David & Co
Oh yes the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvblZAS0oPM
Hope it works 🙂
Christ…this is BRILLIANT!
I would have wept, had it not come up “not to”.
Have we permission to pass this around….let me know!
At last-a war artist to be truly in awe of!
God bless you Sir/Madame…Sir, I`d guess!
Thanks everyone , of course you can pass it around. Just wish i’d had a better camera it dosnae really do the painting justice.
WOW!!!
Superb!
Amazing. Well done.
Very well done, Anthony.
If it helps, I always remember that the American Revolution was driven by people who wanted to reclaim their rights as Englishmen.
that is great, there’s 1 dislike, maybe Dez or Scott have been over…
A wonderful piece of work Anthony – well done, and may you inspire a movement.
A second look at this got me thinking about the music. From Wikipedia, of all things:
The name of the variation refers to Nimrod, an Old Testament patriarch described as “a mighty hunter before the Lord” – the name Jäger being German for hunter.
In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny (“Dorabella”) that this variation is not really a portrait, but “the story of something that happened”.[6] Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. “And that is what you must do”, Jaeger said and he sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 ‘ Pathétique ‘. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of “Nimrod” were made to suggest that theme. “Can’t you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation”.
If I’ve understood your mood, Anthony, the bit I’ve bolded seems entirely appropriate.
Ironically, this music is often played at funerals and memorials.
Thanks for this David.
My knowledge of classical music is not what I`d like it to be, so this is very helpful…glad that Millie keeps me informed re operas too!
The worse the BBC get, the more we`re in the business of self-help and education…no bad thing at times is it?
cj, Sorry to say, there is no opera on Radio 3 this evening. Radio 3 is broadcasting concerts this weekend on a theme of sport and youth. Next Saturday, though, there’s a real treat in store: Mozart’s Don Giovanni from the Met.
I agree with you about self-help, in that you have to seek things out. To be fair to the Beeboid Corporation, though, they do quite a lot of education. On the website they have Discovering Music, Composers A – Z and Beeboid Music Showcase. If you saw the overture I posted for you last Sunday on the old open thread, that was from the Showcase. I listened to this one during the week, after Google noted Rossini’s birthday on 29 February:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/846be3c9-5f94-46ab-97b9-531335dd3658#p00gr8b7
Thanks for that David, a very good friend of mine encouraged me to paint again , sadly he’s not with us now. Ironicly the political subject matter I paint about makes me seeth with rage , and doing the actual painting calms and soothes me. Its a bit of a rollercoaster. As for the depression , I think we have all been there to a certain extent. Makes the ups that much more wonderful.
Given the disproportionate amount of coverage that the miniscule SWP has been given by the BBC recently, I wonder if we’ll be hearing about this incident, carried out by the SWP’s (more) violent, terrorist wing, UAF.
I see some of you enjoyed the video that I posted of the excellent Paul Weston, being interviewed in a manner which we would never see on the BBC, so I’ll post again for anyone who may have missed it and wish to see it.
In other news, UAF appoint democracy-hating Islamofascist as Ken Livingstone’s deputy.
It’s worth taking a moment to click onto ‘this incident’. The contorted, sub-human face of the UAF Orc, says all that you ever need to know about far-left totalitarianism – Unite Against Freedom: We Run In Packs. Can Cameron really be so craven as to put his name to this goon squad?
Yes.
Very interesting that the BBC have decided to go on the attack today over the Channel 4 programme.
Of course the BBC have ‘form’ for attacking Channel 4 as we all know (for the excellent Undercover Mosque) and ending up reporting them to the Police (the BBC just told lies) and the West Midlands Police having to say sorry.
Expect Newsnight to go on this as well. I haven’t checked out the Guardian but I’m betting they’ve got the same line as the BBC.
Dame Nikki Campo, pulls out all the stops protecting islam this morning.
5live Bfast, & BBC, has a long segment on AQ Al Qaeda???
terrorism??? … yep! not a muslim /islam in sight, hmmm! getting to be yet another habit, of missing out the facts 😀 for them.
The Dame has a muslim on about that “crock” of a programme on Ch4 last night about Bradford, and erm 😀 … integration??.
This dude is asked, if a muslim woman could marry a non muslim
man,(re integration/community), thus follows the biggest pile of obfuscation/excuses, to which the Dame doesn t question, and helps the guy change the subject.?
AND! ,,, to follow a pantomime phone in, is your community integrated?
not an issue for sikh, hindu, jian buddhist, jewish, jehovahs etc etc …
west indian, chinese no … no hardly a problem 😀
now is there any other “community” mmmm … any guesses?.
I think it will be a drone of politically correct B/S … ignoring the bearded/burkha d elephant in the room … scrabbling around to find obscure examples, to ahem! …”make a point”…
surprise surprise … much obfuscation about the ahem! “asian”? community, an english taxi driver the only one in an ahem! “asian” firm? lots of fluff/blab about “respect”.
An early caller mentions the islamic “problem”, with integration, compared to other communities, & corrects that guy, about “asians” drivers … do you mean muslim?, why do the bbc & broadcasters often say “asian” when they really mean islam/muslims!
Goodness how did he get through the inquisition 😉
To which (of course 😀 )..the taxi guy is immediately erm “offended”??? … and so is asked straight away , why?.why is that? 😀
Needless to say, the el beeb microphone fairy immediately steps in, & another caller, like others before him disappears into the ether.
whats the chances of that happening eh!
Now I understand the reason behind that planted question about racial segregation on Question Time last night. Agenda? What agenda?
-Not something for the undemocratic, statist BBC-EU to dwell on:
Herman Van Rompuy’s delusions of grandeur underscore the folly of the European project
By Nile Gardiner.
BBC not interested in Democracy this time? Or did they get their way this time, so it’s cool?
NIGERIA.
Islam Not BBC(INBBC)’s totally obfuscating ‘report ‘on BIAFRA leader.
“Ex-Biafra leader Chukwuemeka Ojukwu: Funeral in Nigeria”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17230673
There is no context: INBBC does NOT even mention:-
* Islamic jihad mass murders of Christians;
* military action by Egypotians in Nigeria for Islamic jihadists against Christian Biafrans;
* the West’s complicity.
The truth of the following analysis on BIAFRA is censored out by INBBC.
Remember Biafra
[Extract]:
“During the Biafra War of 1967-1969, which was triggered by a massacre by Muslims of Christians, the entire Western world stood by and allowed the Muslims of the North to slaughter the Christian, mainly Ibo, south. These Muslims were aided by outside Muslims, including Egyptian pilots who strafed and bombed Ibo villages, killing tens of thousands — without any opposition, anti-aircraft fire, anything.
“The war was brought on by the Jihad against the Christian Ibo and other Christian peoples of southern Nigeria by the Hausa and Fulani Muslims of the north (Islam itself was spread most recently in the 1804 Jihad declared by Othman Dan Fodio), and by the desperate attempt of the Ibo (Igbo) people to free themselves from Muslim aggression. Tens of thousands of civilians were murdered — by the Egyptian pilots who repeatedly bombed and strafed them.
Great Britain, France, the United States, all of Europe, did nothing to help the Christians.”
(By Hugh Fitzgerald.)
And today in Nigeria (which INBBC doesn’t report, yet):
Nigeria: Blown tire foiled jihadist plot to crash church sanctuary with car, then detonate suicide bomb
Second time I heard this but I noted the date this time.
Robert Peston: “BSkyB is the UK’s biggest broadcaster” (29 Feb 2012).
The frightening thing is he believes it, assuming the BBC is above such categorisation and has something akin to divine status.
No one is forced to pay for Sky, unlike the scum at the BBC. They like to forget that one.
The BBC isn’t a broadcaster its a ‘way of life’ its ‘auntie beeb’ its ‘cricket on the lawn’ its ‘clouds made of candy floss’ its ‘tea with the vicar’ its ‘Sunny day’s in the Country’, its let’s all dance round the maypole of niceness’ its ‘your friend’ (albeit the one that keeps tapping friend) , all that could be summarised in one word and that word is ‘Sociialist’, That is not a broadcaster that is an Ideaology . So the man is quite right. BskyB is the biggest broadcaster.
Socialism is not nice. It is John Prescott. It is hatred, stupidity, and greed.
This is a good concept wild.
On reflection Prescott is probably the walking embodiment of socialism…though in their ways, Kinnock and Barossa are rivals.
Will now put a poster of Prescott up to remind myself of all that is wrong with this country…that he was a Deputy PM in my lifetime is probably going to be my greatest shame when I have to tell the grandkids how bad things actually were years back.
The mans trajectory to Desert Island Discs is a case study in self defecation in everybody elses bed…
“…Socialism is not nice. It is John Prescott. It is hatred, stupidity, and greed…”
…And bullys. That’s an important one. Socialist excel at bullying. Whether it’s via entirely illegal wars, the tyranny of political correctness or 3500 new pieces of legislation under NuLabour those socialists love to put themselves about a bit, picking on the defencelss, preying on the weak.
well said Martn; the BBC are scum, they truly are! We are coerced into funding their existence; one might think that they would be greatful and thus promote British values and hard working taxpayers But what do we get in our ‘news’ and ‘current’ affairs? Occupy movement scum, phone hacking zzzzzzzzzz stories, multiculturalism socialist shite and let’s love ethnic diversity etc etc. Basically we are funding a socialist scum propaganda macine that hates us and holds us in utter contempt by forcing us to pay for all. It’s a disgrace in this day and age with subscription and choice being forced to pay for a left wing scum organisation that is as much to blame as anything or anyone for destroying the British identity. I F88CKING HATE THE BBC, THE GUARDIAN, THE INDEPENDENT, LIBERTY GROUP, OCCUPY MOVEMENT AL ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS, POLLY TOYNBEE, LIEBOUR ……. the list is getting ever bigger 🙁
The BBC, its not a broadcaster, its a cancer.
Robert Peston: “BSkyB is the UK’s biggest broadcaster” (29 Feb 2012).
Where’s that (linky would be great)?
I just ask ‘cos I’m in one of those fun exchanges I sometimes share here with a chap who keeps sending me the criteria against which he’s judging things I raise.
By way of an advance sneeky peek, here’s one bit from my latest draft reply that seems relevant:
The BBC must not knowingly and materially mislead its audiences. We should notdistort known facts, present invented material as fact or otherwise undermine ouraudiences’ trust in our content.
I believe Donald Rumsfeld tried to address ‘known knowns’. I merely observe that some things are hard to delve into to a degree that may satisfy all. And can often end up obscured, intentionally. However trust is earned, and often lost, on even less well defined criteria. More quickly too, when compromised in quick succession.
BBC doesn’t regard itself as a “British Broadcaster”. It believes it is a “World Broadcaster”.
Owen Jones on the Daily Politics spouting his made up statistics yet again.
Even Brillo didn’t ask him where he gets this crap from.
‘spouting his made up statistics’
One can’t expect all to be caught, but surely one thing one might hope is that, for the market rates, paid surely to go beyond simply feeding lines, the BBC ‘talent’ is there on behalf of the audience to put such BS in context, if not actually show it up if in error.
So the World At One is spending nearly all todays lunchtime show on emoting re Syria.
Seems very padded out and vapid…so I detect a sense that the EU stories about Britain sitting on the naughty step in Europe today didn`t come to pass?…or are the BBC busy weaving the narrative to imply that we`re soft on Europe…and here`s a Tory who says so…that kind of thing.
Wonder if Jenny Tonge or Cheris Blair would like to head up that flotilla for peace that the Syrians seem to be needing?…and wouls suicide vests double as lifejackets should we manage to get the Costa Allegra ready for them and their fellow travellers/gargoyles?
There was a telling aside from Sancha Berg on R4’s Today this morning. Reporting on poor numeracy skills in the UK, she slipped in this little beauty:
“…while (the survey) showed that literacy skills in the adult population had improved – REMEMBER THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT PUMPED LOADS OF MONEY AND EFFORT INTO IMPROVING BASIC SKILLS – literacy skills did improve…”
The rehabilitation of Labour continues.
If the left had spent more time on teaching kids how to add up rather than how to wear a condom for man love, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Might I repeat this, posted earlier, by way of complement (notice they are ‘evolving’ the story, too)?:
Just left SKY’s report on Maths in the UK.
Seems that, for the last 8 years it has been stuffed and on a death slide.
http://news.sky.com/home/video/uk-news/video/16180777
(love the ‘A*… to C grade’ way of phrasing, mind)
This, one presumes, despite the best efforts of the noble public sector teaching profession and the bazillions they have had lobbed at them.
Now I am not that great myself, but as a trend that seems to be heading in a very odd direction. More and more munny… fewer and fewer positive results. One is sure Ms. Flanders or Mr. Mason can explain how that is a good deal, especially if more money is thrown, given the causal link. Throw enough and every Pilgrim and their personal BBC PR manager will be unable to righ their expense claims by 2013.
Maybe the cherry vultures, if not a wee bit bunker bound at current foot-in-mouth levels around and about the hive, can direct one to the detailed analysis of this aspect across the BBC estate?
One presumes this is one pervasive charity’s (a new one… can never have enough) bit of research that may not be quite as top of the hour as usual?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17224600
Nope, that 8 year figure (taking us back to…?) doesn’t seem in there. This is… ‘high level maths skills in England were declining’. Clever. It’s Tory cuts,, Cuts, CUTSSSS!! Only, it isn’t.
Here is what appears less germane, and not needed to include in the BBC ‘report’…
http://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/news/9/index.htmlindex.html
‘The figure has increased by nearly two million over the last eight years (from 47% to 49%)’ – Line 2.
Ain’t control of the edit a neat power that can’t be held to account… uniquely… by some?
Any mention of how immigration – and particularly the failure of many newly-arrived parents to teach their children English pre-school – may influence the results?
I draw your attention to the sub-headline ‘British disease’…
The function of the Labour Party is to feed the maw of the Trade Unions. Since when have the NUT been interested in education? It is the sort of thing they are in principle against.
The public sector dross just think that these services exist to employ them.
So where are these “improved literary skills”? Maybe they’re hiding in the depths of the oceans, with all the missing heat from “global warming” which is going to suddenly burst forth and catch us all by surprise, along with a sudden grammatically correct verbosity from hitherto lurking literary geniuses (or genii, whatever – sorry, wo’evah…).
The decline in educational standards and core numeracy skills is yet another result of the left wing policies of inclusion for all, a leaning towards liberal arts and humanities and a complete dumbing down so as to make the league table stats look good. My wife works in the local primary school as a learning assistant and she says that they no longer teach times tables upto 12 (we used to do the 13 times tables) they no longer do long division (a vital arithmatic and pre-algebraic skill even though we now have calculators) and quite frankly their level of maths is appalling. Poor maths and science skills folks are a classic symptoms of a socialist society; literacy improves under a left culture whereas science seems to decline. Compare this with more right leaning countries (China for example) where discipline and respect for achievement as opposed to this victim mentality that Liebour fosterd, science, maths and technology are prioritised over left wing excrement such as drama, arts and crafts, citizenship and basket weaving.
Um…China…right-leaning? I don’t think the ruling Communist Party of China would approve of you saying that
Yeah, I know, but you know what I mean; China, although ruled by a ‘Communist’ party still adopt many right-wing tendencies especially with regards educational discipline which is, in my opinion, why the Chinese have some of the best academic scores in the world. I don’t approve of their human rights atrocities but, the evidence and statistics suggest, that their maths education is of a much higher standard than ours.
I doubt you’d find a socialist in China. Not even one of the pretrendy leftie UK type.
Poor maths and science skills folks are a classic symptoms of a socialist society; literacy improves under a left culture whereas science seems to decline. Sorry Merlin, that is nonsense. The Soviet Union and satellites were renowned for practical maths and science. They may not have produced the Nobel Prize winning discoveries that America did but in terms of producing practical engineers and technicians none were better.
Literacy, the ability to read and write improved under Socialism. It was the ‘soft’, theoretical, questioning of society’s basis subjects represented by Media Arts, drama and citizenship that you so despise that were suppressed.
My father in law always has an interesting take on education in which he concludes that secondary school teachers need a medal.
If we hear that such large numbers of children leave junior school with poor reading and mathematical skills, what miracle is it that the teachers pull off in secondary schools in which we get record passes year on year.
It’s called “giving them the answers”.
lol! 🙂
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/02/tony-blair-phone-hacking-police?CMP=twt_gu
The BBC are all over this right? It’s in their house rag so it must be?
You` d have thought so Dan.
Yet I can`t yet see it…let`s all keep a look out for this shy retiring little story in need of coaxing.
Seems awful quiet at Leveson today doesn`t it?…but what about Ryan Giggs case not going anywhere…will that keep you distracted until we can find Camerons horse?
Just caught Carol Vorderman on BBC news dumping all over the luvvie lefties about maths. She rightly had a go at how she’s fed up hearing presenters spouting on about how useless they are at maths. She also rightly pointed out the majority of TV and radio luvvies come from the arts.
She was also spot on about the fact schools changed the way they have been teaching maths and now parents can’t often follow what their own kids are taught and she was spot on about the dumbing down of sciences at university.
After 13 years of “education education education” all we’ve got is a pile of crap.
I wonder if the BBC might do a bit of diversity and employ a few people with a real brain?
Looking at radio 5, they need to.
Oh dear, She’ll be off the Christmas card and special invitation list, then..
I think it is a given, nothing eclusive to the BBC, that journalists come from the humanities. Scientists and engineers tend to be poor at writing and speaking. it simply isn’t considered to be necessary.
For that reason why my former alma mata, the University of Wollongong started encouraging double Arts or Creative Arts with Science/Engineering degrees.
That’s something I’ve found with scientists and engineers I’ve known. They are often uncomfortable or poor at expressing themselves in words. It always amused me how in the middle of a conversation they would break off and start drawing diagrams in order to express what they wanted to communicate.
I wonder if, when and where the BBC will report this desecration of war graves in Libya (probably Benghazi) by, oh dear, Moslems apparently. This is what you get for helping the beneficiaries of the Arab “spring”. At least no British soldiers were killed (I believe) in helping free these scum from their cherished dictator Ghadaffi.
We’ll never hear about it, although this must twist the BBC in knots. Here they have a great opportunity to stick it to Cameron and and his car park puddle coalition but they’ll pass it up because hiding this narrative is more beneficial to them.
The Arab Spring quickly deteriorated into an Islamist Winter didn’t it, although the BBC are still trying to spin their usual tripe, that Islam is a religion of peace.
Just caught that halfwit Peter Allen talking to another thick beeboid about how wonderful the electric car is.
They really don’t have a clue do they?
Or a spare battery…
So wonderful that production on the Chevy Volga…sorry…Volt (and the European version, Opel) has been halted because the batteries keep catching fire. 1500 people laid off until they can figure out why.
And they barely sold three quarters of what Government Motors said they would, even with the government subsidy and Obamessiah Administration-connected GE buying some as well.
So wonderful that an Obamessiah Adminstration-funded battery manufacturer just went bust. Another $118 million down the Green toilet.
And their one client – a Norewgian company – went bust as well.
No wonder the Beeboids feel they need to rekindle the electric car Agenda.
disregarding the fact that the majority of these cars are charged by burning fossil fuels, at 40000 dollars to replace the battery pack on a Tesla they’re not anywhere near good yet:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2012/02/26/how-to-turn-a-tesla-battery-pack-into-a-40000-brick
Oooh look a scandal involving the ‘saintly’ WWF =-O
Now who would have thought that behind the mother Theresa exterior there lurks money grubbing arrogant bullies with an eye to the main chance. Obviously the BBC are all over the report, giving it the full VIP treatment, guests lining up to condemn the WWF.
WWF in embezzlement scandal – by Richard… Friday, March 02, 2012
<img src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rYJnIjv6oL0/T1DD7whYN-I/AAAAAAAAVe0/0THJoII7jwY/s1600/WWF+copy.JPG” border=”0″/>
Despite its interest in such matters, and its concerns about third-world corruption, strangely absent from the pages of The Guardian is the recent news of what appears to be a major embezzlement scandal involving the WWF in Tanzania (pic – the air conditioned offices in Dar es Salaam).
Approximately $1.3 million in cash seems to have gone missing from a project called “Strengthening Capacity of Environmental Civil Society Organisations”. Overall, it was worth about $4.5 million, part-funded by Norway. Further funding has been suspended for this and for the $2.5-million REDD+ readiness project, aimed at “enhancing Tanzania’s capacity to deliver data on forest carbon stocks”, has also been put on hold.
As the news of the scandal emerged, WWF’s Tanzania country director, Stephen Mariki, resigned and, so far, the eight people linked to the fraud have had their employment terminated.
This is not the first time the REDD+ project has attracted unfavourable publicity, with reports last November, with complaints of evictions and that paddy rice farm huts had been torched and coconut trees felled in the Rufiji Delta mangrove forest reserve, where WWF has been operating.
WWF are seeking to reduce dependence on rice farming in the mangrove forest reserve and are encouraging Rufiji Delta communities and earn their living by other means, with the support of REDD payments.
The programme has been criticised by Betsy Beymer-Farris and Thomas Bassett, respectively assistant professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Furman University in South Carolina and professor, and the Department of Geography at the University of Illinois.
The pair have said that stopping the local tribes from cultivating in the delta is counterproductive, and censures WWF researchers and government authorities for trying to stop them from surviving by using resources in the delta despite their existence for centuries.
In the currently scandal, an external auditing firm, Ernest & Young, has been brought in to carry out a detailed audit and investigation of the projects, and WWF has undertaken to pay back to the government of Norway any funds that have disappeared.
The Ernest & Young report was supposed to have been released by mid-February, but no details have so far been announced even though it is said that Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) is eagerly awaiting the outcome.
Britain, through WWF UK, are the main sponsors of WWF Tanzania whose patron is Prince Charles. DFID works with WWF UK “to provide flexible and strategic funding for development work across the world”. It is in close contact with the Royal Norwegian Embassy on the issue.
The total income of WWF UK in 2011 was £55.7m (2009/10: £54.3m) and total expenditure was £56.6m (2009/10: £48.2m), of which membership and donations from individuals amounted to £28.7m (2009/10: £24.9m). The members may have to dig a little deeper this year.
These puffed up prats sure do love their overblown titles dont they? The longer the better, aint I jus sooo impotent 😀 get a load of this title, I have thoughtfully provided a translation below it.
“Strengthening Capacity of Environmental Civil Society Organisations”.
Translation: We are a puffed up eogtistical self regarding bunch of crooked thieving bullies trying to knock some sense into the peasant natives.
“…trying to knock some sense into the peasant natives…”
It’s not even that simple: the WWF are just another superannuated bunch of bottom-feeding rent-seekers out to ransack the public purse (wherever, whenever).
They’ll happily exploit every tired climate panic, enjoy a peverse fascination for Malthusian population control and generally see themselves as as a self-appointed extention of government – as Cop-17 (Durban) demonstrated, and as we will no doubt be reminded of when the Rio Earth Summit rolls around in late June of this year.
Expect to see their self-righteous advocates once again attempting to transfer massive amounts of wealth from developed countries to allegedly give to less developed nations to, well, you know…protect the planet, innit?
After this little caper it’s anyone guess where the money might end up.
Its about wealth redistribution, from those least able to afford it and stright into the pockets of the fraudsters heading the scam.
Tsk. I’ve always hated wrestling …
So the BBC 6PM news manages to tell us about Cameron’s horse riding habits, but can’t be bothered to tell us about Eric joyce or the perv beeboid jailed today.
They’re still managing it this morning too. I am sure they’ll find a way on Sunday too.
There’d be a certain irony in a sleepyhead cherry vulture rushing to porve you both wrong:)
‘I once knew a girl who once rode with a man who rode with an ex-Editor on a horse once owned by…’
Veeeeery slow news weekend.
“…a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales…”
Apparently the EU “re-elected” the Belgian empty suit Von Rompoy to another term as “EU Council President”.
I sat “re-elected”…but only one of the BBCs sites says this…the other says he was “re-appointed”…
OK…he`s re-elected from a list of one, but when it doesn`t matter here or there if he`s voted for or not, it`s not even newsworthy or relevant if we use words like “elect” or “appoint”; then that says all you need to know how craven and supine the BBc is in its reprting…and how loftily contemptuous and dismissive the EU is of the plebiscite.
AS if we didn`t know…
Hah, Nigel Farage’s “limp dishcloth” rides again.
The BBC cannot tell the difference between elected and appointed, that or they dont want us to know the truth.
elected from a candidates list of one; how frightfully democratic.
Should Christians kill Mark Thompson? – http://www.spectator.co.uk/nickcohen/7680573/should-christians-kill-mark-thompson.thtml
I have pointed out before the predilection of the BBC to slip questions about the BBC into the General Knowledge section on Mastermind. No surprise of course because the BBC plays a major cultural, social and informing part of British life.
(News International, important enough to feature in every BBC news bulletin for the past 12 months, never seems to trouble the Mastermind question setters though.)
This week we had a doozy.
Magnus Magnusson: What is the surname of the BBC Economics Editor, Stephanie, whose father was one half of a music hall double act with Donald Swann?
Contestant: Pass.
Ah well.
Take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Next week questions on Alex from The One Show, Simon Mayo, and Cash In The Attic.
Amazing how Magnus Magnusson managed to ask a question a good four plus years after his death, ousting John Humphrys from the hosting job he’s done since 2003…
Erm ?? what don’t you have irony and wit in your beeble infested life ?? scotty!
Con-testant: Pass.
And the winner of this year’s Low Hanging Fruit Awards is…
I wondered which idiot would be the first to come out with the “low hanging fruit” cliche. Well done for winning that one.
Not sure you’re helping your colleagues’ future ‘high ground & flounce off in high dudgeon’ question-avoiding techniques with that one.
Oh come on, Scott. Would it make you feel better if I told you I still check the whole thread first to see if you’ve made a point of any actual substance?
RCE….flogging a dead horse!
There you go, insulting people again who haven’t so much as said Boo! to you. Have you a bee in your bonnet about that phrase?
Which idiot was it who accused me of using it?
Scott
Amazing how Magnus Magnusson managed to ask a question a good four plus years after his death, ousting John Humphrys from the hosting job he’s done since 2003…
———————————————————————
Cha don’t say.
In othe Breaking News – Queen Victoria has died.
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Scotty girl IS a low hanging fruit
And while I’m on – anyone notice on Question Time last night how quicjkly Dimbleby moved the debate on when one of the audience raised a question about people who avoid tax by setting themselves up as limited companies.
Anything you’re not telling us, David? Eh. Eh.
Yes, comrade Livingslime is a particular favoured person at the BBC and he is running for election, the public dont to know about his tax evading do they? No, it would only confuse the issues at hand like tax evading rich people who Ken promises to persecute.
Listened to a bit of Clare Baldings “History of Sport” on Radio 4….and Tommy Atkins gets a pat on his flat cap for beating the officers(toffs) in the sports contests through both world wars-if the toffs ever won a game of tiddlywinks, the Beeb wouldn`t be telling us.
And through to Melvyn Bragg…he`s telling us all about…you guess…Osborne, Braine Loach, Corrie…and the citadels of the BBC stormed by flat vowels and matching caps of course.
I`ll not ask Lord Bragg about his “class and privileges these days for being Mr Joan Bakewell, nor ask Baldings pedigree…but didn`t the BBC shut up about class when Blair and Mandelson said we were past all that now?
The BBC is still run by cap patters, but they hide the private schools and offshore tax arrangements…but they do mockney pretty well nowadays.
Wonder if they`ll include Malcolm Bradbury in their influences-or would that destroy Laurie Taylors pretensions?…
“cap patters” – classic
Melvyn Bragg leaves us with the promise that next weeks show wiil go all the way from Thatchers RP scraping to the offs….all the way over to Eton College and Cameron…anyone of us care to do the timeline and topics…go on…I`ll give you Britpop and Blairs “new dawn is it not?”.
The show finished…and Stephen Fry would be running the rule over oiks like Alkan Davies…and Paxman was patronising some gaily painted lady in a sari…ah bless!
Thatcher to Cameron…Paxman to Fry…one is the toffs, the other is the revolutionary cadre that will sup with the toffs, but sneer off camera if you`ll watch and pay them do so!
Eton Rifles…but at least Thatch gave the oiks a council house ot two, and all the BBC have given us is film of Fry being all frail on us!
i’d like to know how many of the BBC luvvies hold shares in companies on the stock market, i bet Melvyn has loads
looks like it’s gay night on BBC4 tonight
Isn’t it always?
That Marcus Brigstock is on BBC now and is so inexorably, so completely and so totally… shite that I am tempted to go back to voting conservative, even with that limp liberal Cameron in charge, just to spite him!!!
Disco night on BBC4.
When Donna, Rodgers/Edwards and the Gibbs were boogieing around the glitter ball, I bet that none of them forsaw themselves as championing gay rights and womens empowerment.
Yet that is how the BBC bill the era now….as was once said about Orwell…he couldn`t blow his nose without wailing about the state of the handkerchief industry.
Only the po-gfaced and so-correct Beeb could make “Oops upside your head ” into the Gettysburg address on roller skates…pathetic, but oh so beeb!
Note the Mails website has some Twitterati account of “people being upset wth what Starkey said about the French”…as sent to the BBC.
Would love to know how Vanessa/Emily Allen has managed to get this story…and if the braodsheets and(of course) the BBC/Channel4 try to make something of it.
The Mail have the video of what was said-which explains itself, but that never stopped the bandwagon rolling if independent thinking can be steamrollered by the PC World, and its bottom scrapers like Allen.
Was Dacre awake when this got through?
The Huffington Post columnist makes something of it too, so …funnily enough…I find myself doing what I know Craig can do.
Let`s see if this barium meal of the media stays in the body or is an emetic.
wrong direction…
Just heard John Humphreys making a total fool of himself on the Today Programme, demonstrating complete ignorance of economics, the Laffer curve, tax theory and practice, etc, etc.
The man is obviously senile as well as biased and should be pensioned off immediately – the only trouble would be that his replacement would be even worse!
The BBC – “Bias is in our genes”.
“Bias in our genes”, “Senility in our blood (unless it’s female)”, “Greens in our pensions”, “Common Purpose in our cells”, “Ideology in our Islets of Langerhans” and “Boys in our bottoms”. The BBC, the world’s national socialist bodyparts. God bless us all, Tiny Tim
OT-ish, but as one who does appreciate the light relief of newspaper ‘reviews’ I do wonder how what is shared during them seems subject to the same exemptions as a BBC twitter account.
SKY at the weekends likes to wheel out pretty, luvvie airheads, either ‘actresses’ I have never heard of, or Royal reporters who I could care less about.
Hence it is odd to get their views on ocean acidification.
OK, she was quoting from… The Independent… but in less than 100 years all carbonate shouded lifeforms will have dissolved in a bubbling soup at litmus red… for death!!!!!. Apparently.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/danger-beneath-the-surface-coral-and-shellfish-under-threat-as-seas-turn-acidic-7499737.html
From assembled market rate talents… not a peep. It’s fact, Jack.
Thing is, is that true?
And, if not, why are broadcasters allowed to trot it out?
Well, after watching Anthony Rogers’s video (earlier on this thread), I made the mistake of clicking on Mark Easton’s latest blog-post. He’s agonising over Britishness again, and his point of view is as far away from the spirit of Anthony’s video as can possibly be.
I’d summarise Easton’s post like this:
How can we define ourselves? Not through our nation’s long-held values, of course, because that would be to insult our friends in foreign countries. Nor through our time-honoured traditions either, because – as Eric Hobsbawn, Anthony Giddens and Jonathan Church (all on the Left) say – they aren’t time-honoured traditions but merely the invention of power-grabbing conservatives. Maybe our shared love for the uniquely-British BBC and the NHS are things we can more safely say make us truly British. There’s some truth in that (I, Mark Easton, am saying) because we share nostalgic feeling towards them and towards other (non-controversial-to-the-BBC) aspects of Britain’s heritage. But, as tradition and custom are constantly evolving and re-forming, we can’t really say that about British identity either – which is always changing too, every moment. Trying to define it is like trying to paint the wind.
As ever, Mark Easton’s point of view comes from a very different place on the political spectrum to mine. And he doesn’t even attempt to hide it.
Trying to define exactly where the concept of impartiality is to be found in his ‘reporting’ is like trying to paint the wind.
Whenever I have the misfortune to meet some pontificating ponce like Easton, & politics or national identity crops up, I get straight to the point. As a patriotic Briton, I don’t like being invaded. That’s why I deeply resent, body & soul, the enforced proliferation of enemy encampments like Tower Hamlets. Secondly, if he’s still listening, I tell him I despise traitors, as personified by the BBC. It’s generally a brief encounter.
Easton is proud of this:
The BBC and NHS shape Britishness because they are powerful voices
Which is the problem. When they can just tell you that loving the BBC is what makes you British, it’s pretty much all over bar the shouting.
Look, we have to keep up this scaremongering at all costs, as each doom-laden premonition is ridiculed, disproved and laughed out of court, we are duty bound to provide another one to take its place.
We have to keep the pressure on, now that the main tenet of carbon being the all-devouring monster has fizzled out, otherwise the public will just forget about climate change and carry on as if nothing is happening (which it isn’t, but they don’t know that).
You wait till we tell ’em how the salt in the sea is poisoning all the seaweed, and fish, an seals, and polar bears, and, and, everything!! Then they’ll sit up and take notice, maybe…
There are times when the BBC is proud to advocate democracy. For instance when they are cheerleading for the so-called Arab Spring.
Sad to say when it comes to European matters the Beeb are more than happy to endorse the circumventing of democracy – so long as it is done in a cause that BBC endorse as an idealogical greater good.
No I’m not referring to our President (By Imposition) Herman Von Rompuy.
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Leicestershire-s-Enge-bring-Eurovision-glory/story-15384887-detail/story.html
‘For years, viewers and listeners were allowed to choose the act or song which would represent the UK (at the Eurovision Song Contest), but the BBC dropped the public vote last year with Blue’s entry.
Katie Taylor, the BBC’s head of entertainment and events, said: “Engelbert’s experience leaves us in no doubt he will be able to deliver a stand-out performance in front of 120 million viewers worldwide.”‘
It is happening in Baku, Azerbaijan this year.
Islam watchers: note the inclusion of the crescent moon into the prominently placed logo on this BBC site….
And as for the gay community, well naturally the Beeb have got that angle covered…..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14913247
http://www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision/
“At the time, Azerbaijan had applied for membership to the Council of Europe, a political and human rights organization. To gain entry, the government undertook a series of suggested reforms, including erasing anti-gay laws. Currently, there are no laws prohibiting homosexuality in Azerbaijan.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of constraints, says Anar.
The primary obstacle to coming out, he says, is that “we will be laughed at….”
suggests that the BBC’s gays will cause the Azerbaijanis no end of mirth…..are you free?
Of course, the BBC’s gay (asylum granted) talks about murder and mayhem …that’s the asylum game, BBC. Works a treat for the footloose and fancyfree to avoid messy things like visas and visible means of support.
“Oh no, I am sure it is not about religion,” says Zaur, laughing at the suggestion. “It’s about fear of shame, not fear of God.” The tall, broad-shouldered 26-year-old with hairy arms speaks to me as we down spicy donner kebabs just bought from a street vendor on Fountain Square, a tremendous public area in the heart of the city. On hot summer nights, when the afternoon humidity finally breaks and the famously cool wind can be felt coming off the nearby Caspian Sea, Baku’s residents turn out by the thousands to stroll the streets here, and shop at stores open as late as 10 p.m.
It’s not surprising that such a great “people watching” arena has cruisy areas, particularly some of the well shaded and poorly lit patches of parks that branch off the labyrinthine walkways. Other cruisy areas include the square in front of the majestic ballet, and a bathhouse far outside the city center.
Neither Zaur nor Anar, however, are fond of the cruisy areas. They are not dangerous, and physical violence would be unusual, both agree. (A gay American living in Baku confirms this, saying, “It’s one of the safest places I’ve ever lived. It’s a lot safer than New York City!”)
About that BBC article about oppression of homosexuals in Azerbaijan:
Spot the Missing Religion, which makes up 93% of the population.
Come on, Beeboids, are you really that pathetic?
David, the situation with Azerbaijan is interesting. It is a target of Iran and often accused of harbouring ‘Zionists’ by Teheran, most recently with the assassinations of the nuclear technicians. It is very secular (no headscarfs etc.) and has been strongly influenced by 150 years of Russian influence…before and after 1917.
In fact Iran faces a seperatist pressure over the Azeris in northern Iran.
The gay interviewed by the BBC last September is lying big time. No doubt to maintain his asylum cover.
Gays are treated with contempt….considered John Inman type figures… not persecution…as objects of ridicule not targets of state oppression. Indubitably there will be domestic tensions…the son who doesn’t fit the mould will be ‘pressured’ by family and friends as the inheritance of Islam that survives, survives as a shame culture…what will the neighbours think.
If anything, the religion is, mercifully, receding as a social force and with increasing oil and gas wealth, we could, with luck, be seeing one of the first ‘defanged’ former Islamic societies.
Israel does have relations with Azerbaijan….much to the annoyance of the Mullahs.
http://president.az/articles/350?locale=en
And finally,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/israel-signs-deal-to-provide-azerbaijan-with-16-billion-in-military-equipment/2012/02/26/gIQAjtmQbR_story.html
That’s as may be, RGH, but the fact remains that the BBC deliberately censored Islam out of an article about a society which oppresses homosexuals.
They did, indeed.
Had Azerbijan been a christian country by history, that surely would have found mention.
Examples abound.
I checked last Wednesdays Guardian and the post for ” BBC Troubadour for Islamic gig” seems not to have been advertised…not even in the Leicester Mercury!
This surely breaches all equality and human rights legislation from the EU doesn`t it?…where was the shortlist of candidates…were there the correct quotas of gays, transfats…and who comprised the panel for this plum posting in Baku?
It`s MY BBC…but Birty Boys e-mail seems to have gone missing!
To who do I appeal?…Trevor Phillips or Graham Norton(will he OK over there?…and is that why Englebert is being used as bodyguard?…oh. I`m of a tizz!)
As I See It quotes a reference to the public being able to select the UK’s entry to Eurovision. However, there was one notorious year that the Beeboid Corporation overturned the public choice and put in a black singer to represent the UK. As far as I recall, it did abysmally.
Mr (?) Millie
Goodness only knows why – but I did a little research. I reckon you have in mind 2008 when the Beeb set a precedent for circumvented the existing first-past-the-post voting system of ‘Making Your Mind Up’ for a new format called ‘Eurovision – Your Decision’.
Laugably this consisted of the voters’ favourite going up against Terry Wogan’s ‘wild card’.
(I hear the Liberal Democrats may be looking into such a system and proposing its use for the election of the second chamber).
Sure enough Wogan’s (for Wogan’s read the BBC’s) choice was Andy Abraham – former bin man and bus driver from Palmers Green who was indeed (in the words of Felix Dexter’s character Douglas the posh lawyer) ‘a chap of darker hue’.
So come the big contest he finished joint last on points with Germany and Poland. Strictly speaking under Eurovision tie-breaker rules he was absolutely last having less 12 point scores than Germany and less 10 point scores than the Poles.
In his radio show on 27 May, Wogan remarked on a conversation with Abraham, who had said that he was not expecting a high vote for the usual ‘block voting’ reasons, and ‘another reason’ which Wogan was not prepared to discuss on air, presumed to be related to Abraham’s race.
What with block voting and anti-black voting he was doomed indeed.
And with that story in mind Englebert might want to lay off the fake tan.
Ah, that’s it. I’d forgotten most of the details, including the Wogan wild card and who the singer was but I remembered there had been discussion at the time about the Beeboid Corporation meddling with the public choice. You only have to listen to the song and it’s clear he was doomed.
It’s so bad that I only managed to endure the first minute of it!
Before letting this go it’s worth considering the titles of some of Englebert’s back catalogue (oddly appropriate to our relationship with the EU):
There Goes My Everything
Two different Worlds
(Please) Release Me
Uniquely (in my experience) Today brought on two interviewees – John Redwood and the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ Paul Johnson – who aren’t foaming at the mouth “tax then kill the rich” lefties to discuss the effectiveness of the 50% top income tax rate. The discussion was interesting because it highlighted Humphrys’s – and by implication, the BBC’s – mindset on this topic.
Both Redwood and Johnson provided more or less cast-iron evidence that, certainly in the 70s and 80s, a lowering in the top rate of tax (from 90%, through 60% to 40%) had increased the overall tax take and increased the proportion of that paid by the richest 1%. Despite this being repeated by both interviewees a number of times, Humphrys 1. alternately dismissed and ignored the arguments and the evidence 2. refused to take on board that lowering the headline rate of tax might increase (and has, in the past, increased) the total take, and 3. still insisted it was “obvious” that “something must be done” to increase taxes paid by the rich (and thus abolishing the 50% rate was a Bad Idea)
With lefties (and their mouthpiece, the BBC) a point of principle is that the economy and the tax regime are zero-sum games. In the Narrative, lowering the top tax rate for the richest 1% will, perforce, increase the tax burden for the rest of us. Humphrys is, of course, a deliberately ignorant loon who, worse, revels in his ignorance (cf his evident pride in his non-understanding of anything connected with science or arithmetic). His (and the BBC’s) lunacy will destroy all of us.
In further deliberate blindness by Humphrys he claimed when dealing with the contracting out of police services (8:23 interview with police super) that private sector employees were concerned only with the return to shareholders whereas “sworn officers” were imbued with a pseudo-religious zeal to work only for the people.
I cannot imagine that the majority of private sector workers ever have a passing thought for the shareholders and working for the BBC Humphrys should be well aware that public sector organisations are run primarily for the benefit of th employees not the “customer”.
Yes, John Humphrys appeared to find it very difficult to get his head round an easy-to-understand (right-wing) line of reasoning. John Redwood’s first, clearly-expressed point seemed to go straight over his head with a mighty woosh!:
JR: Well, I think we need to tax the rich more. The government has decided that it wants to increase public spending in money terms every year this parliament but it also needs to borrow less and so it needs a huge increase in tax revenue over the parliament, and I think all the historical evidence shows that the way you get more money out of the rich is to have a rate they’re prepared to pay. They need to stay and pay and I think there’s already evidence that the 50p rate is reducing the amount of tax we get from this group. Just for reference and, as we’ve heard, it’s almost 30% of [all] income tax coming from them at the moment. When we had an 83% rate on them it was only 11% of the income tax that they contributed…
JH (interrupting): Right, so you were being satirical when you said…
JR…because they went abroad or they…
JH: So, you were being satiri…sorry for interrupting..you were being satirical when you said ‘tax the rich more’?
JR: No, not being satirical at all. I’m saying the way to tax the rich more, which is what we need to do..I do want to tax the rich more..
JH (interrupting): But how?
JR: As I’ve just explained, we need more revenue. The way to do it is to have the 40p rate not the 50p rate.
As you say, Umbongo, John Humphrys couldn’t think on his feet fast enough to sensibly counter John Redwood’s case so he started playing the ignorance card again and then just kept plugging away with his usual (left-wing) line in sound-bite point-making. He really seems to find it hard to think outside his comfort zone but very easy just to fall back on left-wing assumptions.
Will’s point is yet more evidence of this.
JH’s questions:
“That’s the point, isn’t it, a different set of values would apply to people working for shareholders than those sworn officers working for the nation?”
(interrupting): “But they can’t, can they, I mean if they are working for a private company they will inevitably..they may be perfectly decent, honourable people, obviously, but they will have different values because their concern is to serve the shareholder. Your concern is..you have no concern for shareholders, you are sworn officers?”
(interrupting): “But why can’t we just have more officers rather than bring in private companies to do it? If you’re going to spend the money on private companies to do these jobs, why not spend the money on more officers?”
Questions straight out of JH’s comfort zone.
Craig
It’s actually worse. Humphrys is not unintelligent and not ill-educated (he went to a grammar school after all 😉 ). Notwithstanding his intelligence and education, he deliberately “misunderstood” Redwood’s points. He deliberately chose to disbelieve that Redwood was sincere when he said that he (Redwood) would like to get more tax from the rich.
In this, as on every other issue important to the BBC, he deliberately opts to follow the Narrative despite evidence to the contrary. His journalism is not just biased (which, for BBC journalists is a given), it is deliberately incompetent. Rather than explore or reveal facts which might contradict the Narrative he deliberately avoids, ignores or dismisses them.
I wonder if the fact that Redwood said this exact same thing on Question Time is connected to his appearance here?
If so, that, along with the segregation deal, makes two issues brought up by – allegedly – innocent audience members which have since been featured more prominently.
He just didn’t understand John Redwood’s very clear and succinctly expressed point (essentially, the lower the rate, the higher the take). He really didn’t get it and thought John Redwood was being satirical. It was astonishing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Even for a puffed-up self-regarding windbag, it should have been a very easy proposition to grasp.
The Laffer curve has been an established principle for years now – you get diminishing returns from raising tax rates, try to fond the “optimum eg 40% is better than 50% to increase the aggregate tax take.
Sorry – the Laffer curve ahs been an established pronciple for many years – except among dumb idiots like Humphrys and rabid lefties (same difference ?_
So it ‘s not the BBC, but The Guardian, so close enough…
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sKgLJyk9L5j_e3RtcOrYA_w/view.m?id=15&gid=commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/02/rush-limbaugh-sandra-fluke-slander&cat=most-read
In a section named ‘Comment is Free’ we have a journalist advocating the closing down of America’s most popular talk show host on the grounds that he made some comments that said journo doesn’t like.
James Delingpole’s moniker of ‘Komment Macht Frei’ is incredibly apposite.
PS – if you are feeling particularly masochistic read Simon Heffer’s piece. Utter garbage.
PS – if you are feeling particularly masochistic read Simon Heffer’s piece. Utter garbage.
PS – if you are feeling particularly masochistic read Simon Heffer’s piece. Utter garbage.
Yes by attacking the Guardian you are in danger of uncovering BBC bias before it’s even happened, which is disturbing
Beeb now running it. Unbelievable.
AFGHANISTAN: INBBC censors out ISLAM as motivation of jihadist murderers.
In this long article by INBBC’s Bilal SAWARY in Kabul, he does not make ONE mention of the role of Islamic jihad by the murdering Muslim infiltrators of NATO forces.
“Nato’s crisis of trust in Afghanistan”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17219153
The report omits another very good reason that the guy shouldn’t have got security clearance…
Last July, Newsnight used an organisation called Searchlight to try and smear the EDL after the Anders Breivik murders.
Searchlight/Hope Not Hate is a Communist propaganda/smear organisation, run by extremists with a long list of criminal convictions.
The representative from Searchlight (a vile Anglophobic creature named Nick Lowles) wasn’t even introduced as ‘left-wing’, let alone extreme-left (think how the BBC use the term ‘far-right’ to describe any white working-class male). Lowles was interviewed waving his hand in the general direction of a blurry computer display in the back ground, telling us what Breivik and EDL members had said on social networking sites and forums, without being challenged once by the interviewer.
I wrote to the BBC asking why they didn’t make Searchlight’s extreme left-wing agenda known to the viewer and how they could possibly know that posts made on internet forums were made by who Lowles claimed they were? (anyone can pretend to be anyone on the internet) Had they managed to obtain Breivik’s I.P. address? If so, how?
After five months I had a reply telling me that they were certain that everything Lowles had told them was correct, but were unable to tell me how. They also made the claim that Searchlight is a well known publication/organisation, which is ludicrous, as it’s only known by those on the lunatic-left fringe, and those who monitor the lunatic-left fringe.
I wrote back asking what lengths they went to to ensure that a pathalogical liar such as Nick Lowles was giving them accurate information, and this is the reply I have recieved (7 months after initial complaint):
We forwarded your fresh concerns to the Deputy Editor of Newsnight, Neil Breakwell, who has responded with:
“We apply the same high standard of journalistic practice to all of our stories and there was no difference in this case” and in this respect they have nothing further to add.
Not trustworthy, not truthful, not accountable, and when my licence fee comes up for renewal later this month, not funded by me!
Yes, for INBBC, Britain’s enemy is not Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab, or Islamic jihad; no, for INBBC, its enemy is the English Defence League, which is opposed to all the above!
BBC-NUJ is simply carrying out the official political policy of the National Union of Journalists which is to support UAF and oppose EDL; and, of course we licencepayers fund all this ceaseless, blatant political propaganda.
‘I had a reply telling me that they were certain that everything Lowles had told them was correct, but were unable to tell me how.’
I know they can get lengthy, but I, for one, would appreciate this being shared as delivered.
It helps when in ‘discussion’ wiuth fellow travellers to the likes of Mr. Breakwell, who seems a black belt in the blach art of ‘we are right becuase we are right’ school of delusion that cuts ice any more.
The more this cookie cuitter BS is exposed, the weaker they get in serving it up with each posting.
ps: This, by the way, is the sweetheart who fired a snarky ‘piss-off’ from the pub in response to a complaint of mine to impress his mates, without actually checking the BBC log, and about whose conduct, and the original complaint I am still awaiting a full response since January.
He apologised (really he was in deep doo-doo if he hadn’t) when his error was pointed out, but the remainder is still outstanding.
I actually trace back sharing my exchanges with BBC complaints here to his ‘I can do what I like as I am bulletproof’ reaction, and for that his BBC colleagues may, or may not, be grateful.
Just read this quote from Bill Gates: ‘Your most unhappy customers are your best source of learning’.
I wondered if, him being a bit a of a Beeb pin-up, this might resonate, especially with those perky types in complaints.
The I recalled that, as with broadcasting only, they are here to educate and inform, not learn or listen.
Ah, but you see, My Site, they get complaints from both sides. So this will merely re-affirm their confidence.
Hooray! Mark Easton is trying to define Britishness for us!
He says we associate Britishness with virtues and then – in a piece of trademark BBC national self-castigation – asks how great we are compared to “(flicks through atlas index), New Zealand, Norway, and the Netherlands”?
Now never mind that his flicking through the atlas gave him countries that began with N -and he mysteriously left out North Korea and Nigeria.
His random look through the atlas has accidentally-on-purpose give some of the most tolerant places on the planet – one of them said to be “more english than the English” – having inherited our values for obvious reasons. Time for a more random, slightly less carefully-chosen flick, Mark!
I didn’t bother with the rest of the article – whats the point? I myself feel we’re too full of self-doubt and inertia these days, and hate success too much to achieve anything. If we look to the past and stop self-castigating we could easily achieve again.
Mr. Easton is as much a joke on his ‘beat’ as Mr. Black is on his.
And as predictable.
He reminds me of those gadget mags you get, with every daft product pitch headlined ‘Could this be…?’, only his schtick is trotting out daft ‘What is…’ nonsense like this to rally the faithful and scare a few Colonels into firing up their email accounts, just to try and justify his retainer.
In view of this:
“BBC to name new wing at Broadcasting House after Wirral DJ John Peel”
http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/wirral-news/local-wirral-news/west-wirral-news/2012/03/03/bbc-to-name-new-wing-at-broadcasting-house-after-wirral-dj-john-peel-100252-30448221/
Will INBBC name the East (Mecca-facing) wing of Broadcasting House, housing the Arabic TV Service, the ‘Rageh OMAAR’ wing, in recognition of the political esteem in which INBBC holds its key Muslim propagandist for Islam, who is now based at that other pro-Islam broadcaster, Al Jazeera?
“BBC blunder as bosses forget to build prayer room for new Arabic TV channel”
(2008)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511159/bbc-blunder-bosses-forget-build-prayer-room-new-arabic-tv-channel.html#ixzz1o3W5Edwp
Emergency alarms go off on Football Focus as I watch.
An awful lot of cock-ups going on at the BBC these days…not just phone lines going dead, but real basic errors.
Still-they`re always quick to describe everybody elses faults, so it`s only fair to get them to get their own house in order before sneering at the rest of us.
Returning to the days of the amateur Corinthian voluntary community radioand tv..but at vast expense and no need to rattle a bucket…just open a vein!
They’ve certainly cocked up the ‘Today’ website. They keep losing days from their archive. (Yesterday’s seems to have been lost already!) They also keep getting the few audio links they’ve left on mixed up – as on today’s, where the link to one of the two features on the Leveson Inquiry has been wrongly set up. Those few audio clips they’ve left up mean that the ‘Today’ archive will now be useless. What a shambles the ‘Today’ website has become recently!
I was hoping to hear an interview with Tessa Jowell about what police told her and her Labour Paty colleagues about phone hacking while Labour was in power and why Labour did nothing about it when they had the chance. That interview isn’t available to listen to again on the website.
Listening on the i-Player (full programme for seven days), Evan Davis introduced the interview very discreetly, only mentioning Tessa Jowell’s name and failing to mention that the claim made at the Leveson Inquiry was that several Labour figures – including then Labour home secretary John Reid and David Blunkett – were told and failed to act. He posed none of the questions I posed above but merely asked Ms. Jowell for her side of the story, which she gave at length, without any serious probing. At the end he told her that her “position is clear” and thanked her.
Hey, at least they can say they’ve covered this angle of the story now!
Interesting, and irritating, Any Questions. Rather like Toby Young’s bruising encounter with Brighton lefties last year, a state school provided the venue and an audience liberally sprinkled with vocal, unionized nutjobs.
Their idol on the panel was the lunatic Monbiot who ploughed any hard left furrow made available to him and Judging by the show of hands in support for McCluskey’s desire to turn the Olympics into an SWP orgy of protest and disruption, one could assume at least a quarter of the audience was of that persuasion.
Warsi OK against Moonbat, Margaret Hodge and Anthony Seldon. A feisty affair, but Seldon’s clanger at the end took the biscuit.
Tried to listen. Impossible. It’s awful.
I kept away from it last night, truly toxic.
Yet when I heard it was from some Suffolk town, I thought we might get a few trenchermen to blow the likes of Monbiot and Hodge out of the Evian.
These bookends of smarmy privileged entitlement telling Warsi(who for all her faults actually WENT to a State school in Bradford) about her role in destroying the kids education-and causing riots-was just too much for me!
But I heard the unspeakably biased charade today in part, then turned it off…surely to God, the following Any Answers would restore some faith…it used to let a few good `uns on who weren`t bussed in by the SWP or Norwich Labour Party/UNITE.
But THAT was even worse…and we need to extend our enquiry on who gets into these Dimbleby soirees-and start looking at who exactly is choosing these twitterati who are not only in the audiences, but can carry on their rants next day as well.
Who is “personning ” these phones….and who chooses whether its Marx or Marxist-Leninism gets to be the plat du jour for the rest of us.
Truly awful…and on the day the BBC choose a technocrat(Humperdinck) to sing for us in Europe and so avoid yet another referendum, it`s pretty revealing.
I think the EU are getting the BBC to make us get used to having no say in anything…practice for 2015!
F*** the F***`in BERL-BeeB
Margaret Hodge was incensed by the fact that a free school was being set up in Suffolk when she claimed that the money should be spent in a high-birthrate area like her constituency, Barking where she said, 500 children will have no school place available. She spoke indignantly about how this government just announces things and doesn’t listen to the people.
I thought there were some interesting questions surrounding her protest about spending money in English areas like Suffolk as opposed to areas like her constituency but they were never explored. And as for her complaining about government not listening, hah! what did the Labour government do for all those years against the wishes and interests of the people?
I take it no one enquired why there are no school places in her constituency? Something to do with her and her Party flooding it with 3rd world labour voters I do believe!
No mention of The Guardian’s tax evasion after any of Moonbat’s rants I take it?
Indeed. There was no discussion at all. It was near the end of the programme, though. Monbiot did come across as rather ranting and angry.
Thinking about “Any Questions”, the words I never hear on this program are: “On the other hand.” My greatest complaint about the BBC these days is that my view is never represented in a serious manner, only ever caricatured before being smugly dismissed. Enough.
The Any Questions panel is up to the usual standard this week.
Auntie is running this story that seems to have a fair amount of traction in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17241803
I don’t know much about Limbaugh and I might have question the wisdom of throwing the slut description into his commentary, but typically the BBC using it as a great angle to throw in Obama standing up and deigning to touch the everyday folk.
As ever though, there seems to be more to this story:
http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/sandra-flukes-appearance-is-no-fluke/
There appear to be emerging stories that there is a hint of political theatre to this story in that the emergence of Fluke’s row appears to benefit the Whitehouse. There is also evidence that Fluke may well have deliberately chosen her university in order to get into a fight over this very subject.
It would help explain why the BBC are running this otherwise non story. At the heart of it is Obama. Obama calls someone on the phone – so what? I’ll bet the guy makes any number of phone calls a day and what do we hear of them? Nothing. On the face of it’s no news. There’s a level of story that you it doesn’t surprise you that it doesn’t make it on to the BBC . Consider our recent debate on Mia Love. Mia’s story didn’t show up on the BBC and I would say this is on par with that.
Yet this one makes it on to the BBC – probably because it has angle for their chosen one.
Sistertoldjah has a nice take on this:
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2012/03/02/where-is-my-phone-call-president-barack-obama/
The bit that did make me smile in the revealing piece was that she has been awarded a BS in Feminist Gender & Sexuality Studies. A BS sounds like the perfect award for such a subject
The Left is massively up in arms over Limbaugh’s insult. This is a necessary reaction because The Obamessiah has had to backpedal a bit on forcing Catholics to pay for insurance covering birth control. This was a political misstep, another in a series, and the Leftoid media has been hoping to get back at the evil Right for drawing blood over it. So now they have their chance, and Limbaugh’s statement is being elevated to the highest possible level so that they can make it equal to the offense the President made to all Catholics.
Friends and associates of all the Beeboids working in the US are all over this story, and so the BBC dutifully follows.
Isn’t everybody up in arms about it? I would also have expected a sacking from whatever post he holds.
Is that a euphemism for lesbianism?
I can’t put my finger on it but there is something fishy about this whole story. The next few days should tell me if I’m right.
Louis, in one of the links the beans are spilled to a certain extent: the last paragraph of the sistertoldjah post has a number of links and they begin to tell a story: as DP writes above, the whole thing appears a smoke screen to offset Obama’s latest booboo.
INBBC does not question NATO ‘apologies’ on Islam:
(video clip)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17216174
But ‘Jihadwatch’ rightly does:
Senior Afghan cleric threatens “storm of fury” if there is no public trial over Qur’an burnings, and troops are not punished under Afghan law
[Excerpt]:
“Once again: validating irrational rage, and validating in principle the demands for punishment is only fueling the fire, and further endangering American and other NATO troops. The cleric said it himself: anything seen as a half measure will only serve to enrage, and will become an additional excuse for violence.”
Got to love them and the BBC haven`t you?
Suspect that this “Koran burning” will be cited to justify absolutely anything that the Taliban get up to for as long as they choose.
Thanks very much Obama…to reduce the once feared-army of the USA to a cringing EU type of punchbag social worker.
My reply:
After five months I have received a reply to my complaint about your use of Searchlight on this episode of Newsnight.
Searchlight is not a well known organisation outside of far-left circles, or any organisation that has been on the receiving end of it’s smear campaigns, so to claim that viewers would be aware of it’s agenda is absurd, as is suggesting that they are anything but an extremist hard-left communist organisation.
A simple Google search will reveal Gerry Gable’s Communist and criminal history, as well as that of the Searchlight organisation in general.
You say that you were satisfied with Searchlight’s claims regarding content on social networking sites, and also the photos that Lowles claimed were EDL gunmen. What fact-checks did you carry out to satisfy you that these were genuine? It’s important that you’re aware that I have solid evidence that they were not.
Yours sincerely,
‘You say that you were satisfied with Searchlight’s claims’
Excellent. This is one of the greater conceits they use, and it’s utterly daft. Who cares how satisfied they are with themselves? The very use of that term in this context is but yet another hole digger.
And the tone is perfect. Calm but no-nonsense. Polite but taking no prisoners. Or attempted dismissal.
Please do share what answers you get, if any, to that final para. They seem, very, very, unhappy when the holding to account is on the other foot, and the facts are not solely in their possession to change or suppress. I am now at ECU level with two currently, and the responses will be interesting.
As cj suggests, while they seem to have opted for attrition as the weapon of choice in making complaints go away, they seem not to have accounted for others having the will, patience and, ultimately, numbers to make that a foolish choice in the exchange.
Newsnight is a very weak point now. What was once a flagship, respected progarmme has been youthed up, dumbed down, and there are a lot of new kids in there who the… spotlight… can focus on to demand answers of as to why. I frequent their blog thread and many regulars now openly mock them for their choices in topic, choices of guest, silly theatrics and IT whizz-bangs, hopelessly compromised editors and dinosaur anchors. And top of gripe is the so-called guest ‘analysis’, with the left’s luvvies given full rein with never a hint as to which Labour commissar they are married to ever creeping into their facilitated propaganda features.
We’re one live show vajazzle featuring Paul Mason and John Prescott in a menage a trois with Laurie Penny away from the whole edifice collapsing under the weight of its own hypocrisy and pretension.
Oh, and that ‘if you reply you accept this aaaallll just our little secret’ disclaimer they pop in after the end signature…watch out for that, and tell them to stick it.
Thanks … I shall watch out for that, and reject it! http://lunchtimeloather.blogspot.com/
My Site!
Is there an award for faithful long service slogging in the field?
if so, let`s set up the ceremony and present it.
God knows how you stay so persistent and dogged when you`re up against the Beebs endemic cliches and weasel words…there must be another Anjem Choudhry, and woould love to see the BBCs definition of “impartial”.
Still…your endless dripping of water onto the stony face of the BBC will wear the buggers down…stay encouraged my friend,and we`ll stitch them up for a bodybag yet one day!
I wonder if Mark Mardell will deign to comment on how the Community-Organizer-in-Chief is personally getting involved in the Rush Limbaugh/contraception story. He actually called the girl Limbaugh insulted to thank her for speaking out, and express his “disappointment” in Limbaugh’s remark.
He continues to call out citizens by name and criticize them on the national stage. This behavior ought to be beneath the President of the US.
My first thought.
The President of the USA is stooping to this kind of petty playground overt siding with selected folk?
At this level?
Hasn’t he a most powerful country in the world to run or something?
Didn’t he pull this once before with that Prof. and a copper?
I’d say his cred just dived even further outside of the bubble.
Interesting bit of reverse psychology from the world’s greatest community orgainser in the SKY paper review this morning.
Seems he’s chirped up that IF the Israelis hold off until after his re-elected, he promises to have a really good finger wagging to I’madinnerjacket & Co once he and Michelle have got back from hols high-fiving Sean Penn, etc..
Uh-huh. On the other hand, the logic seems to be … whack Iran’s nukes now and one might not get Obama back.
Hardly a message to assist some itching to let rip, I’d hazard.
I think he’d be better advised hugging poor wee things who have got in the news for others being meaqn to them.
No comment. Speaks for itself.
Sad, so sad.
Libya conflict: Tripoli war cemetery left unscathed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15706005
28th February
Destruction of the War Graves Benghasi
28th February
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/debate/article-2109181/The-London-Mayoral-election-risk-stolen.html
I wish I could say I ws shocked by this, but I’m not even slightly surprised, as we all know what the left feels about democracy and exactly why Tony Blair tried to make as many people as possible become postal voters.
I wonder when (or if) the BBC decides to cover this story (and they have a massive obligation to so do) and what their take on it will be. Come on BBC! There is a massive story here that should be top of all your news pages and programmes for at least the next week. As Delia Smith would say “Lesh be avin you, hic”.
As someone in the comments section put it – given how they jumped all over the florida vote in the Bush victory, they should have a real nose for this one. Or of course maybe not.
This has been one part of a long running saga in Tower Hamlets that Andrew Gilligan has been covering endlessly in his Telegraph blog. What the Mail on Sunday article doesn’t seem to spell out (althought I might have missed it) is why Rahman is an independent mayor. His whole history of controversies is here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100112318/lutfur-rahman-all-his-controversies-in-one-place/
Oh I’m sure the Beeb will be all over this story, after all it falls within the remit of BBC London – where Rizla Teeth is the ‘new face of the capital’.
Go to it BBC! What’s the problem? Cultural sensitivity? Or that Red Ken is the beneficiary of this vote fraud?
The £3.2Bn pound funded BBC still hasent been able to update its paper review panel to include The Sun on Sunday. Is this deliberate bias I wonder.