360 Responses to SATURDAY OPEN THREAD

  1. chrisH says:

    I refer to my last post on the old Open Thread.
    1, Can we have some independent verification that the BBC raised more money for Comic Relief that ever…post Savile I doubt that very much?
    2. And no-not Kinnocks Ukrainian sugar beet production type of accountant either please.#
    3. Anybody willing to check how much of Jessie J or One Direction etc, we`ll be now hearing on the BBC this week….d`ya think that the BBC will be rewarding them for their willingness to suck up to Savile last night?
    I rather think they will-and if I`m a bit cynical and sceptical, the BBC have only themselves to thank…why dispute non-abusers like the Coalition and the Army, only to let Saviles fellow-travellers get away with it yet again?
    Just saying….

       41 likes

    • Rufus McDufus says:

      To be fair to the BBC they do Comic Relief pretty well.I don’t agree with many of the charities that get cash or the format of the programme, but it is popular in the UK.

      My first thought was that the economy can’t be doing so badly if people are stumping up this much cash.

         12 likes

      • Sinniberg says:

        I give to neither Children in Need nor Comic Relief. Why?, because it’s a farce run by the mega rich, billions funded BBC.

        I don’t allow myself to get sucked into it and bigger fools the people who do.

        If people only knew how much money was wasted by the BBC and on what they wouldn’t give another penny.

        The problem for now though is that the sheeple are still deluded by “Dear Old Auntie”….

           55 likes

        • Phil Ford says:

          Comic Relief is the brainchild of possibly the biggest ‘common purpose’ lefty troll of them all – yes, none other than Richard Curtis. This magnet for lefty-luvviedom was the guy behind the script for that infamous CAGW propaganda video that got itself banned for suggesting that schoolkids who refuse to sign up to The Church of the Holy Consensus on CAGW should be blown up – in graphic detail.

          Whilst I’m prepared to admit many of the causes of Comic Relief are worthy enough on their own merit, I refuse to give money to a charity founded by a moron quite as politically pernicious as Curtis.

             65 likes

        • Roehamster says:

          ‘We’re sorry, but we give to our own charities’

          Give money to the charity (or charities) of YOUR choice. Check to see if Gift Aiding your money lets them reclaim from HMRC.

          Nobody needs a gun against their head to do this.

             5 likes

      • David Brims says:

        Rufus ” To be fair the BBC does Comic Relief pretty well.”

        Nah, let’s not be fair.

        Giving money to Africa is like giving a bottle of whisky to an alcoholic.

        It’s throwing money down the toilet, it doesn’t work.

           44 likes

        • Ralph says:

          If we reinstated malaria eradication programmes, accepting that it does do environmental damage but that the human lives it saves are worth it, a lot more good would be done than sending a boyband to see how terrible the effects of the parasites are. I wonder how much insecticide could have been bought with their airfares

             12 likes

        • Rufus McDufus says:

          OK, it’s a fair cop. I was trying to put an opposite viewpoint for sheer perverse pleasure and realise the error of my ways! I genuinely detest Comic Relief with every fibre of my body, but acknowledge that others do quite enjoy it. Strangely they seem to be the kind of people I’d deliberately cross the street to avoid.

             5 likes

    • Deborah says:

      I would like anyone wanting to appear on Red Nose Day or Children In Need pay a sum of say £250,000 for anything more than a 2 minute slot and £100,000 for even the slightest role – Tony Blair get your cheque book out. I would also want something decent on BBC 2 for those of us not ‘into’ these fundraisers to watch. (Actually I would just like something decent to watch on either BBC1 or BBC 2 at any time instead of going to ITV 3 in desperation (Sherlock Holmes, Lewis and Midsummer Murders).

         30 likes

      • Phil Ford says:

        “… I would also want something decent on BBC 2 for those of us not ‘into’ these fundraisers to watch.”

        In all fairness, mid-evening, BBC 2 had the good manners to provide a fairly interesting documentary about George Mallory’s ill-fated 1924 attempt on Everest, narrated by a host of well-known names…

        Even better – and amazingly – not one mention of ‘man-made climate change’ in its entire 1.5hr running time. See, BBC? You can do it!

           15 likes

  2. *waves* > this http://t.co/XiClKaKJps , not one mention of *labour* in the story (the word) . obvs an oversight.

       11 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      They do give ample room to Burnham’s self exoneration and mention that he is now shadow health secretary- so even a casual reader who has never heard of him can work out he is Labour by a process of deductive logic.

         6 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Hmmm..figures of Jarman given in April 2010….Burnham got them in March as the nation was about to go to the polls, but said/did nothing but pass them on…so New Labour.
        By my reckining then, Jarman had been telling the f***in LABOUR Government about what was going on in their hospitals…Frank Dobson did the same…but Labour didn`t give a XXXX for that, any more than they did for licensing laws!
        And the BBC seem not to mention the timelines or who exactly was on lookout as mid-Staffs began to slide into its own sewage.
        Radio Haw Haw, as much as Gaga!
        Slime mould all round….time to disinfect the BBC before a ritual disembowellment.
        Saviles revenge!

           44 likes

  3. lojolondon says:

    My wife says that on ‘red nose’ last night, there was profane jokes by R. Atkinson and Lenny Henry, this is at 7:30 in the evening on a ‘children’s’ programme – I see no complaints in the newspapers, did anyone else notice?

       29 likes

    • chrisH says:

      And nothing either on Eric Joyce and his repeated assault on others in the Commons subsidised, 24/7 booze hole that allows him to “drink so irresponsibly”
      Let`s hope the Commons gets its own House in Order before it dares to lecture the rest about Nuneaton High St and its need for minimum price alcohol and IDs for the sherry buyer.
      1. No subsidy at all
      2. Add a fathead tax.
      3. Add a supercilious presumptuous and self-righteous supplement to invest in sensible drinkers like ma and all those army, rugby types who earn their booze…don`t just leech it from SW1.
      4. Tag Joyce and the other lushes and pisspots…or at least send him back to the Army to sleep it off for a while.
      5. Extend this project to W12 and Salford, once seen to be successful(next week!)…let the F888in BBC buy its own booze and stop telling the rest of us how to drink.
      WE didn`t give savile a camp bed and sick bucket for forty years did we you BBC turdies?

         42 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      Sorry, at this time, we watched something funny on the other channel instead, we where in hysterics when Compo caused an explosion in Seymour’s house.

         10 likes

      • Andy S. says:

        We watched a double episode of “Cheers” on ITV4 at this time. Twentyfive years old and still far,far funnier than the so-called “comedy” being transmitted on BBC1 at the same time.

        Before Scez denounce me for being critical of something I didn’t watch, I only have to see that participants like Dawn French, Lenny Henry, Mitchell & Webb, and the rest of the BBC’s current roster of “comic” talent, is enough to tell me that the evening’s output will be as funny as a cancerous tumour.

           43 likes

        • Reed says:

          Cheers is a classic – hasn’t dated at all. Nothing as good as it today.

             7 likes

          • Wild says:

            “Big Bang Theory” is generally pretty good

               12 likes

            • stewart says:

              Big Bang theory underlines just how poor BBC comedy has become.
              If it where a BBC sit-com we would be invited to mock and ridicule the characters.”Look how much better are we” the writers would say” and you the audience to”,as long as you share are contempt.
              But the writers of big bang invite us to empathise with the characters.Even Sheldon’s christian fundamentalist mother.
              It is interesting that despite being clearly ‘left of centre’ Leonard’s atheist
              mothers reductionist attitudes are treated with same gentle humour.
              In both cases we are made to laugh at their attitudes without reducing either of them to monsters
              The BBC could do this once.steptoe and son for instance (again left of centre) despite splitting our sides with laughter at Harold and Albert’s antics we still Had time to feel their disappointment or share their occasional triumphs
              But now we are simply invited to feel superior by seeing pain and humiliation heaped on badly draw charcters some crass brechtian architypes but mostly just funny ‘little’ people

                 14 likes

              • TigerOC says:

                And don’t forget Raj’s little digs at his Indian origins or Howards snipes at his Jewish background.

                One of the funniest was Howard doing Raj. Really great simple comedy. Love it.

                   6 likes

                • Wild says:

                  The BBC were pushing “Family Guy” & “American Dad” a few months backs as exemplars instructing us in correct attitudes. They meant Left Wing politics of course, and the pro-Democrat anti-Republican bias is blatant in both of those cartoons.

                  But what struck me when the BBC was pushing that line is that both of those cartoons ridicule their own Leftist prejudices, something that would never happen on the BBC these days.

                  So all it did was serve to underline what a anti-British Stalinist “crock of shit” (to use an American expression) the BBC is these days in nearly all of its output.

                     17 likes

                  • Wild says:

                    an

                       2 likes

                  • Dez says:

                    “the pro-Democrat anti-Republican bias is blatant in both of those cartoons.”
                     
                    “both of those cartoons ridicule their own Leftist prejudices…”
                     
                    Duh.

                       3 likes

                    • Wild says:

                      For example in an episode of “Family Guy” (to pick an example almost at random) Peter joins the local “Tea Party” and is warned (by Brian) that it is a scam. Sure enough, his billionaire father-in-law is running the entire operation, pretending to be “Joe Workingman”, and the Tea Party ends up creating anarchy, and Peter learns the valuable lesson that Republicans are evil.

                      Even Family Guy however ridicules Brian (the Democrat voting voice of reason) as somebody who would vote for an egg plant if the candidate was a Democrat.

                      In comparison with the BBC Family Guy is a model of broadmindedness.

                         8 likes

            • Rufus McDufus says:

              I’m just getting into Big Bang Theory. The Raj character actually makes me gasp – I’ve been so conditioned by the BBC over the years that such a portrayal is wrong.
              One thing I love about American TV series is that they deprecate both men and women. The whole of UK TV portrays women as wise superheroes and men as complete imbeciles. There’s going to be a lot of f**cked up young men in Britain. And Women once they realise they can’t live up to these perfect ideals.

                 12 likes

          • Big Dick says:

            Frasier , even better , & funnier ,also had no non white characters , dropped into a situation to make it P.C. ! If the , Bbc , had made it , it would be , full of ethnics & unfunny !

               12 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      Fans of Red Nose (Red Noise?) Day might be interested to know that the script for 2014 has been released already (it’s the same one they’ve used for the past 25 years). Here it is:
      Cut to Lenny Henry:
      “Haa haa haa! In a couple of hours time we’ll have an unfunny 30 second clip from a 25 year old episode of Blackadder. Haa haa haa! But right now, we are going to show some washed up comedians being driven round in a shiny new white Land Rover in Africa. They’ll patronise the locals and be chased by crowds of grinning picaninnies who’ve been promised lollipops if they co-operate…”
      Cut to Rowan Atkinson. Or Griff Rhys-Jones. Or someone else like that:
      “Haa haa haa! Can you really say that, Lenny? Picaninny?”
      “Course I can. You can’t, but I can ‘cos I is black. Haa haa haa!”
      “Haa haa haa!” says Rowan/Griff/Whoever.
      “Haa haa haa!” says Lenny. “And just 2 hours to go now until that clip from Blackadder. But meanwhile, we’ve got Mr Wonderful Sir Bob Geldof and the lovely Dawn French, who needs the publicity. Did I ever tell you that she used to be my wife? And that I was once a comedian? Haa haa haa!”

         46 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        Cripe, who is leaking such vital secret material?

        It’s almost as if you have already seen it before ….25 times….

        I think you need to mention the ‘serious face’ bits too – where Lenny or some female D lister is moved to tears by the plight of the some Bangladeshi children [there being no multinational owned manufacturing industry of note in Africa to criticise] who cannot afford to buy the trainers that they are paid 32p per day to churn out for the yowfths of London / Detriot / Manchester / Paris etc

        Perhaps next year all the ‘comedians’ will, as a surprise extra treat, give 10% of their gross earnings for 2013/14 to the charity in a live and very public ceremony hosted by Wm Bragg Esq from outside his mansion during which Lenny will auction off a spare house belonging to one of them and give the money to the worthy city burgers of Kinshasa, live on air, confident that every penny will ‘go to the kids’.

           29 likes

      • Cosmo says:

        The local BMW/ Merc / Range Rover dealers and a assortment of Lear Jet and Rolex retailers will be stocking up for their annual increase in sales after red dick day, when the cash eventually filters down via swiss bank accounts. The rulers of these tin pot countrys must be laughing all the way to the next arms fair. When will the British do gooders wake up and smell the coffe ( fair trade of course).

           33 likes

        • David Brims says:

          The corrupt African political class is called ‘Wabenzi ‘ because of their love of Mercedes Benz cars.

          en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabenzi

             25 likes

    • Andy T says:

      Yes Atkinson went on about ‘shagging’ i was watching with my 10 year old daughter and was quite shocked

         20 likes

    • Demon says:

      Tracey Edwards doing a newspaper review last night complained about it.

         4 likes

  4. Beeboidal says:

    A pre-Budget article is decorated with a word from Niel Fort from Bolton, who says

    “I’m an unemployed warehouse worker and have been on jobseeker’s allowance [JSA] for over a year.

    “The cap on welfare rise is a joke because I receive only £50 a week… to feed myself, pay gas and electric, which I cannot afford to do.

    “I struggle all the time and yet I am on JSA, which is the benefit for being available for work, fit for work and actively seeking work.”

    So the benefit cap is a joke according to Niel.

    Looking up Niel, I find two Facebook pages. The uncommon spelling of his first name and the Bolton connections make me fairly certain that this is our man. So straight away I can see that while Niel claims not to be able to afford to eat and pay his gas and electricity, he can afford internet access. I see he has a baby. Is there a partner, BBC? Is she contributing to a household income by working or receiving benefits as well?

    First up in Niels interests is poker. First up in other interests is Texas Holdem poker and Five-O poker. Niel likes poker, but I don’t think he’s very good at it because I believe these might be his results. Is this right, BBC? Is your man on the dole, playing online poker and losing, but you bring us his message not being able to eat and heat? If it is,
    I ask you to pass on this helpful message to our unemployed warehouseman from Bolton. After he finishes his next online poker session, could he put “Warehouseman Bolton” into Google and he’ll get results such a this.

    Turner & Wrights Ltd

    Warehouse Operative

    Job description

    General warehouse duties to include – House keeping, stock maintainance, stock control,order picking of products, possible Fork lift truck operational tasks ( F.L.T Licence desireable), customer service.

       84 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      I have noticed that the BBC appear to have a policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ when it comes to sob story verification.

      Phone-in callers to BBC 5 Live in particular, so long as they have an anti-benefits cuts tale to tell tend to find a very softly-softly response from our intepid BBC journalists.

      BBC: Speaking truth to power, happily accepting utter bollocks from the lumpen proletariat.

         59 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Great catch, if this is the same guy. As for the man not being able to afford gas and electric, it’s a pity the BBC can’t be bothered to make a fuss about how the Coalition’s “green energy” policies are doing such tremendous damage to the poorest and most vulnerable. They make a show of feeling sorry for people suffering, but when the cause conflicts with something higher up on the belief system totem pole, journalistic integrity goes out the window.

         67 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Wont be long before Dimblebore gets him planted in the qt audience then.

         44 likes

      • Dav9d says:

        Probably not. His Facebook page shows he also likes UKIP.

           11 likes

        • Richard Pinder says:

          But everyone now says that they are going to vote UKIP.
          Especially those who have never voted before.

             7 likes

    • Rufus McDufus says:

      Wish I could afford to pay poker badly, but then I’m only employed and don’t claim any benefits so I guess I don’t count in this country.

         33 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        That sir is the whole point: you really DO NOT COUNT! Sorry for the caps.

           22 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Hang on! This is a man who was employed, and as so had every right to waste his own money however he saw fit. Just because it says so on a face book page does not necessarily mean that he’s still playing it!

      How is he receiving £50 pw? That’s not even a JSA amount! £56 if he’s under 25 but he’s entitled to that for 6 months if his partner is working.

      If we pay an amount for the times when we need financial support it’s hardly fair to be criticised when that money is claimed, and no it’s nowhere near enough to live on and I don’t think anyone would suggest that it is.

      It is internationally recognised that JSA at the higher £76 pw is insufficient to live off and is the reason why asylum seekers receive more in benefits than the indigenous population. Now there is a story of politicians messing around with finances to make the weekly cash amount less while actually giving a whole heap more.

         7 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        I think that the point is that either a) this person is entirely fictitious and his ‘opinion’ has been drafted by the BBC journalist to meet their narrative requirement. b) The Johnny is real but that he has made up a fictitious sob story and the BBC have not bothered to check any of his tear drenched assertions. c) It’s all true I tell you!

        the BBC have massive form here. They even quote this in From Seesaw to Wagonwheel

        Roger Mosey, in his time as Head of Television News, had a similar experience, in the case of a film about census returns in parts of east London, showing that ethnic communities had become the majority. The film included inter views with council officials, members of the Asian community, and one white resident – who pronounced himself happy with his neighbourhood. Questioned as to whether this voxpop was really representative of the white community, the reporter replied with pride:

        ‘Oh no, we had to work really hard to find him!’

        David – I nominate ‘Oh no, we had to work really hard to find him!’ as a quote for your ‘quotes of shame’ page

           39 likes

      • Dez says:

        A thoroughly creepy little post from “Beeboidal”.
         
        thoughtful,
         
        “How is he receiving £50 pw? That’s not even a JSA amount! £56…”
         
        If he has an estranged partner looking after his child then £5 a week will be deducted from his JSA and transferred to her. Hence he will receive £51 a week.
         
        “…asylum seekers receive more in benefits than the indigenous population.”
         
        I don’t know where you’ve got that idea from. A single person aged 18 or over who is seeking asylum is entitled to just £39.80 a week.

           8 likes

        • ltwf1964 says:

          you’d be a fair decent authority on “creepy”

             17 likes

        • thoughtful says:

          And so you were thoughly taken in and fooled by the spin of the politicians, just so you could regurgitate their lies, but then again perhaps you’re one of the sad lefties who is desperate to believe this stuff is true?

          What you’ve missed out is that Asylum seekers have their gas & electric paid in full, regardless of how much the bill comes to. Twice a year they receive a ‘bonus payment’ which is supposed to cover the cost of seasonal clothing this is over £200.

          If I was receiving just £56 or even the £76 for adults I know which deal I’d prefer to be on, and the heating would never be off !

             8 likes

          • Dez says:

            thoughtful,
             
            I’m not listening to any “spin” I simply looked up the figures. The difference between £40 and £76 a week is nearly £2,000 a year. How much do you pay a year for gas and electric? How much do you think you’d pay if living in a one or two roomed appartment?
             
            Asylum seekers can apply for a clothing grant twice a year. But these are discretionary and only given in certain cases (from what I can find these are up to £50 every six months). JSA claimants can also apply for a clothing allowance. Certain councils provide help for for the cost of school uniforms but these are also available for people on other benefits.
             
            £56 or £76 a week for someone to live on is indeed a pittance. But trying to claim that asylum seekers are somehow “better off” is straight out of the BNP handbook.

               3 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              And these ‘asylum seekers’ don’t work, of course – you know, the black economy and all that?

              And I’ve lost track of Abu Qatada’s status. Is he still seeking asylum? Whether he is or not, he seems to have lived a pretty comfortable lifestyle since he came to the UK and hasn’t worked a single minute of his time here.

              The point you are missing is that if somebody loses their job they don’t get their mortgage/rent/council tax/heating etc etc paid for. Asylum seekers do – Abu Qatada with his countless kids being a case in point.

                 17 likes

              • Dez says:

                johnnythefish,
                 
                “The point you are missing is that if somebody loses their job they don’t get their mortgage/rent/council tax/heating etc etc paid for.”
                 
                Erm, yes they do – “housing benefit”, “council tax benefit, and “job seekers allowance”. The level of support is wilfully inadequate but the idea that asylum seekers are “better off” is complete fiction.
                 

                   3 likes

                • johnnythefish says:

                  Having had a son go through exactly this situation. No. They. Don’t. Abu Qatada wins hands down.

                     6 likes

  5. Mice Height says:

    Great article on the far-left BBC from The Commentator.
    Well worth a share and a ‘like’:
    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2947/is_the_worm_turning_on_the_bbc

       27 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Hardy is only one example. After watching a few QI episodes and other BBC comedy panel shows on YouTube, such as ‘Would I Lie to You’, ‘Mock the Week’, and even ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’, the incestuous, closed shop is pretty obvious. It’s mostly the same people over and over again, and they all seem to appear on each other’s shows.

      Just a random search for a QI episode on YouTube turns up the following panel (and I’m not even including St. Stephen in the list of regulars):

      Dara O’Brien – Host of ‘Mock the Week’ and sometimes host of Buzzcocks
      Phil Jupitus – Buzzcocks team captain
      Jo Brand – regular on a bunch of these, and co-star and co-writer of her own BBC comedy series, ‘Getting On’

      A second random click reveals another set of stalwarts:

      Universal David Mitchell – Team captain on ‘Would I Lie To You’, and host of his own BBC Radio 4 show, ‘The Unbelievable Truth’
      Sandi Toksvig – Host of ‘The News Quiz’
      Rob Brydon – Host of ‘Would I Lie To You’

      Not all of them are overtly political all the time, but just mention Thatcher and they all enjoy a bit of premature grave-dancing

      I’m sure everyone can easily come up with the other handful of regulars that are all over the airwaves.

      What I’m getting that is that the BBC is very lazy in the way they put these shows together, relying on the same people over and over, for everything. Even if they’re generally funny, it’s a poor effort in the end. It all starts to seem like the same show over and over again. Why, other than because they can be funny?

      They all seem to have contracts of some kind, although I assume it’s one of those classic BBC “freelance” deals with their individual production companies. So, how is this a good use of the license fee? Is it cheaper to keep spreading the same ten people over all the shows because the BBC made a deal for a certain amount of services per term? Musicians’ unions in the US do that sort of thing. The union makes a deal with a theater or orchestra, for example, for X-amount of services (rehearsals and performances) provided by the musician(s). Is that what’s going on here? Is it cheaper to keep rolling out the same people over and over again, instead of bringing in a few new people and fresh voices? Or is just simple laziness and coziness, they’re all friends and nobody even notices it’s a closed shop and can be very tiresome?

         39 likes

      • Rich Tee says:

        David Mitchell once wrote an article sneering at online commenters for the Guardian:

        http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/15/online-feedback-public-sector

        It included a link to a blog that makes fun of online comments, Speak Your Branes. I once had the honour of having one of my comments ripped to pieces there, but it hasn’t had a new post on it for over a year now.

           9 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        I wish the BBC were just lazy. I think that the BBC actually uses these shows to further the liberal left cause and to cement in people’s minds that the Tories are a bunch of stupid , rich toffs that no one in their right mind would vote for.
        Just another of the BBC’s tentacles of liberal left propaganda.

           18 likes

        • Reed says:

          “The Tories are a bunch of stupid , rich toffs that no one in their right mind would vote for”

          Repeat over and over for 30 minutes, and you have a replay of any Radio 4 topical ‘comedy’ programme.

             18 likes

      • Mice Height says:

        Never has that laziness and sloppyness been so blatantly laid bare as it was on the day of the Coronation.

           6 likes

    • stewart says:

      Great article in fact the only thing Mr.Bracey-Gibbon said that I didnt agree with is that “Have I Got News For You still washes its face.” it stopped doing that 2 series back and quite abruptly.

         16 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        Agreed, otherwise an excellent article. Hopefully we’ll beging to see more of its ilk in the mainstream press.

           11 likes

  6. Guest Who says:

    http://order-order.com/2013/03/16/hacked-offs-blackmail-letter-to-miliband/

    ‘Imagine if the Soviets had tried to do the same to Radio Free Europe during the Cold War, or the Iranian regime demanded today to regulate the BBC’s Persian Service on the grounds that it is “targeted primarily at an audience in the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

    Any interference in rights of free speech would be greeted poorly.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/stop_the_blocking_now.html

    Whoever is attempting the blocking should stop it now.

    Reaction to comments 1 to 6, and many thereafter, is therefore possibly ironic in the circumstances.
    One supposes the BBC was more ‘redacting’ than ‘blocking’, by way of a unique difference?

       16 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It’s really too bad the BBC isn’t so forthright about speaking truth to power in the US since Nov. 2008.

      Also, somebody should tell Guido that the real brains behind Hacked Off is the former boss of the BBC College of Journalism.

         13 likes

    • pah says:

      LOL!

      That’s the funniest blog I’ve seen on the BBC in years. A discussion on free speech and censorship where half the comments are excised.

      A TragiComedy worthy of the Bard himself.

         14 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘A discussion on free speech and censorship where half the comments are excised.’
        A fair complement to another favourite of mine:
        http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/helen-boaden-director-of-bbc-news-at-the-lse

        I’ve also noticed recently there have been some sharing their complaints here, repetitively (by their own admission), often in combination with what they would like to see change, especially in the area of censorship, for their standards of discourse to be met to stay or return, albeit more to lurk or chip in with yet further complaints or demands.

        These opinions can be of interest, and of course are as potentially valuable as they are free to be made. There is some irony of course to the fact that if others demanded of the site owners what they have and do, they might find themselves excluded if the rules the BBC applies were here equally on BBBC.

        Essentially the BBC reserves the right to decide what the BBC likes or doesn’t, and then ban anything it feels like.

        It would be interesting to discover if those holding a niche blog to task are content that a paid public sector media monopoly has and uses such powers.

        If so, why.

        If not, what has the reaction been to raising any such concerns with the BBC directly.

        If the response is silence or further bluster, there could be some suspicion that contributions claiming to be genuine and concerned with matters of account-holding are in fact more designed to shut down any critical avenues still further.

        Which may be what those who like the activities or notions of Hugh Grant, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband actually seek, but may appeal less to any already noticing the poor precedent of more state or legilsative controls on what speech is allowed, and who gets to regulate them.

           6 likes

  7. Jeff Waters says:

    Losers and Losers – Who Has Lost The Most From Austerity? – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21740450

    The above was the title of the link to the article on the BBC News website’s home page.

    FFS! There hasn’t been any austerity in any true sense of the word! In real terms, we’re spending roughly what Tony Blair did during some of his years in power!

    ‘Austerity’ is one of those words like ‘racism’ that begins to lose its real meaning if you over-use it for political purposes…

    Jeff

       30 likes

  8. Jeff Waters says:

    ‘But if such an increase in financial stress is not caused by the spanking of Cypriot bank creditors, perhaps that should be seen as evidence that the acute financial phase of the euro crisis is over.’ – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21812853

    When Douglas Carswell pulled Peston up on this on Twitter, Peston replied: I said if there’s isn’t a run on other vulnerable banks, “perhaps” that would be evidence…

    My thoughts: #weaselwords #bbcbias

    Jeff

       11 likes

  9. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Climategate 3.0 has begun. The full email archive has been made available to, I guess, a handful of bloggers. Mr. “FOIA”, the lone-wold whistleblower who leaked (yes, BBC, “leaked”, not stolen, unless you have proof, which you don’t) the original batch of emails has apparently given the password to the whole thing to people like Anthony Watts.

    He’s got a series of running updates as he combs through it and comes across ones he finds interesting. Of course Richard Black’s buddy Michael Mann features prominently. No real smoking guns yet, but there’s a clear pattern emerging – again – of a group of people dedicated to playing down or dismissing completely things like the Medieval Warming Period, the Little Ice Age, and even the recent admission that the planet actually hasn’t boiled away in the last 15 years like we were told it would.

    BBC science correspondent Dr. David Gregory (with an actual PhD in physics) used to tell those of us who saw malfeasance in the previously released stuff that we just didn’t know how science was done, and so couldn’t possibly understand what we were reading. So, I’m wondering: is there, for example, a gang of physicists at CERN who work together to suppress data that proves the Higgs Boson doesn’t exist? I don’t mean conflicting schools of thought like in biblical archaeology over the James Ossuary, either. Just the few of these new ones I’ve read so far, on top of all the previously released emails, seem to give the impression of scientists not just sharing data – which is always to be encouraged – but working together to re-arrange their data and push one specific point of view and stop others. It seems weird.

       29 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Dr. David Gregory may well have a PhD in physics but his politics and his 28gate paymasters will determine how he views the AGW theorists and their adherence or otherwise to the scientific method.

      ‘Hide the decline’ – still can’t see the ambiguity in that statement no matter how hard I try and no matter how hard the warmists try to ‘put it into context’.

      Have posted this link before – a damning analysis of the Climategate1 e-mails – but worth including again for any newcomers:

      Click to access climategate-emails.pdf

         14 likes

      • Bob Nelson says:

        Many thanks indeed for the link. I’ve been unable to stop reading this extraordinary exposee for most of the day. Brilliant.

           3 likes

  10. uncle bup says:

    Rather than having a dedicated charity called Comic Relief (and another called Sports Relief) the droids could have written a cheque to Save The Children.

    Then they wouldn’t have had to pay a Chief Executive £130,000 pa basic, and have all the running costs which (guessing) probably blow twenty quid in every hundred that you (the mug) contribute.

    But the BBC doesn’t do ‘saving money’.

    It just does ‘spending money’.

       28 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      Mind you, I shouldn’t carp, having been the winner of our local Sports Relief 6 mile last year ‘n’all.

      😉

         5 likes

      • Ian Hills says:

        As 93% of Save the Children’s income never leaves the country, the BBC might do better just to keep the money for itself, so starving terrorists of guns and ammunition out of the remaining 7%. Such a policy could save children’s lives.

           10 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      And £45k for a ‘Climate Change Officer’. Bit like your local council, really, – or the BBC – in miniature.

         14 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        That’s an awful lot of money to pay someone for regurgitating press releases from Greenpeace, the WWF, and the CRU, and then filling out compliance forms and filing weekly reports on how many boxes have been ticked.

           20 likes

      • Old Goat says:

        Climate Change Officer? One can imagine this character directing the jet stream, and arranging the procession of depressions in an orderly line…
        …and issuing penalty notices to those who object.

           14 likes

      • pah says:

        Many charities are now little more than job creation schemes for leftists and their friends. No serious charity would waste £45k on such a non-job.

        Sadly the Charities Commission was neutered under Labour – pre ’97 it would have stamped on misuse of funds like this.

           18 likes

    • Lynette says:

      Comic relief gave £ 1.7 million to a “wonderful” charity called War on Want that REALLY ( note the sarcasm) helps humanity. Just google it and find out about how it manipulates the poor and others into activities that are against everyone’s interests.

         0 likes

  11. +james says:

    Remember this fella Abdel-Bari Atwan from so many BBC current affairs programmes. Well here he is on BBC Arabic TV. Admittedly this is from a few years back but the BBC still feels it OK to quote this fella.

       13 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Arab practising Taquia / lying , saying one thing to the white Christian kuffir and saying something else behind his back.

      http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/116862

         14 likes

    • +james says:

      Oh and here he is on the Beeb after they just got Bin Laden. Notice a change?

         12 likes

      • David Brims says:

        Taqiya / lying in islam

        wikiislam.net/wiki/Lying_and_Deception_in_Islam

           13 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Don’t know if he still is, but the guy used to be a virtual fixture on Gavin Esler’s News24 ‘Dateline London.’

         13 likes

      • +james says:

        You mean this Gavin Esler?

           13 likes

        • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

          Just about sums it up then, harking back. To his days talking to ira terrorists, bombs/ guns versus ballot box. What a wanker FFS!

             14 likes

        • David Brims says:

          WTF. What a useful idiot and a complete arse to boot.

          Esler, a strange surname that, wonder where it comes from.

             15 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          “Guess what. Here is an educated Israeli man, talking in perfect English, to a British audience, and to audiences around the world, and talking in a way in which everybody can understand, and showing us, in many ways, in perhaps a different end of the telescope.”

          Yeah, me neither. Keep sweeping the genocidal death cult under the rug, Gavin. You can humanize, but you can’t hide it forever. Your Jewish DNA is hereby mitigated, eh? Then he has the chutzpah to whine about stereotypes. Tell that to your colleagues who keep wringing their hands over the Jewish Lobby, schmuck.

             18 likes

          • David Brims says:

            Is Gavin Esler jewish ? if so, his gushing / sucking up to islam is a bit like a jew voting for Hitler.

               13 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              I just can’t stand his acting as if it’s everyone else’s fault that people think Palestinians want to eliminate Israel and the Jews entirely and teach their children to hate. As if the whole thing is some charade ginned up by the Zionist Lobby.

                 15 likes

              • c says:

                Maybe you could enlighten us on what you do like over there in Americaland?

                Or are you another David Vance sock?

                You clearly have a lot of time on your hands to spend on the BBC. More than any of us who live and work here!

                I suspect you are as American as my Lenova laptop.

                   2 likes

                • Wild says:

                  Give it a rest Nicked Emus/Colditz – when you grow up you will be lucky if you have a tenth of the politeness, intelligence, and good sense of David Preiser.

                     17 likes

                • David Preiser (USA) says:

                  What makes you say that, colditz? How ironic that you change your moniker in order to accuse someone of commenting under a different moniker. Have you no shame at all?

                  Would you care to place a little wager on my national origins?

                     16 likes

            • Cosmo says:

              In the death camps they were called “capos”.

                 3 likes

            • Deborah says:

              Yes – Glaswegian Jewish

                 2 likes

        • stewart says:

          @55seconds “I got into journalism to overturn stereotypes not to re-enforce them”
          Mate you are a stereotype

             13 likes

    • Reed says:

      Here he is again… (1m 10secs)…

      “…and Allah willing, it will attack Israel aswell. If the Iranian missiles strike Israel – by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight if the Irainian missile strike Israel”.

      Nice chap.

         13 likes

      • +james says:

        I think it was more subversive when he talked about the Royal family, football, the World Cup or whatever.

           1 likes

  12. Dave666 says:

    So F1 returns to BBc the first race weekend of the year. Is it live. No!

       1 likes

  13. Eric says:

    If I must pay the TV tax, I’d like to have the option of giving a % to charity. This way there would be less money for the BBC to waste

       7 likes

  14. thoughtful says:

    Has anyone got any light to shine as to why we haven’t seen anything on the bBC about this rather concerning development in the Syrian civil war?

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/three-russian-warships-headed-for-syrian-port/

    You can bet that aside from the soldiers, they’re not bring tea & buns for the Syrian government! Given that the French government and leftie Dave are talking about arming the rebels we have to wonder why our news media is choosing to keep us in the dark about this.

       14 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      They are there for various reasons: evacuation of many Russians who are in Syria, to warn away western intervention, perhaps be ready to save chemical or biological weapons from rebels and give them some leverage in any peacemaking deals.
      According to the alarmist intelligence blog, Debka (take it or leave it alert) file on 14th Mar:

      “….the Syrian high command had just issued an ultimatum, on the orders of Bashar Assad, demanding that the Lebanese government put an immediate stop to the passage of armed Sunni fighters from Lebanon into Syria, else the Syrian Air Force would strike the Lebanese intruders’ convoys and also their home bases. Damascus claimed they were coming to fight the government alongside the al Qaeda-linked Jabrat al-Nusra.

      Their incursion threatened to engender a major spillover of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon.
      The danger of hostilities inching close to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Moscow maintains a naval base, decided the Russian Navy to instruct three warships carrying 700 marines to Tartus to change course and put in at Beirut instead.”

      The same source claims (today) that Hague and Hollande are going to ignore Obama and the rest of Europe by shipping arms to the FSA immediately.

      http://www.debka.com/article/22829/France-Britain-flout-US-objections-on-arms-to-Syrian-rebels-

      http://tinyurl.com/bw83368

         10 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Yes I think I got all that but what are the motives for the bBC keeping all quiet about it?

         6 likes

  15. Mavis Ramsbottom says:

    can you imagine the BBC doing a series The Real Housewives of Southall or Big Rich Bradford

       4 likes

  16. stuart says:

    notice how 5 live and that fat liberal blob stephen nolan has gone out of there way in the last few days to smear the catholic church over sexual abuse by priests,maybe if fat boy nolan and the bbc done the same job on muslim peadophiles and there own paedophiles working at the bbc then they could not be accused of bias,i hate the bbc and 5 live,and as a english catholic i am sick and tired of there pro muslim bias and anti catholic hatred.

       25 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Stephen Nolan cleaning out a cow shed ( I don’t know why, but he is ) and then throwing up !! Comedy gold.

      He looks a bit like Jabba the Hut from Star Wars.

         9 likes

      • Mice Height says:

        A standard reaction of any lazy, taxpayer-funded seat-warmer when forced to do real work.

           10 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Hear, hear!
      Listened to a bit of “Sunday” with that house-trained Caffolick Ed Stirton.
      The new Pope then?..old, not famous, banging on about the poor-hardly Obama is it?
      Let`s hope Ed and wrecking crew eschew THEIR posh hotels, THEIR nice cars, and get out and meet a few poor people(not merely film them whilst wearing a peg on the nose off camera, as per!).
      Could catch on-might even save ourselves a few quid by way of expenses eh Ed?
      But I jest of course…still, he`s not wearing Dorothys red prada shoes…now what can THAT possibly mean there Ed, Robert and all those other religious quislings employed by Radio 4?

         5 likes

  17. Eric says:

    Perhaps my imagination is getting the better of me and I see BBC bias where there is none.
    Match Of The Day has just started and I am going to count howmany times a players nationality is mentioned.
    Some weeks I watch and wonder to myself, as a football fan, what the nationalities of the players are. So going to count them tonight and will post my findings.
    My suspicion is they are deliberately not mentioning it. I will post again with my findings.

       4 likes

    • Eric says:

      Just to clarify, I am counting the number of times the match commentators mention the nationalities of the players.

         3 likes

      • Eric says:

        The results are in.
        Match of The Day broadcast the highlights of six matches. Teams brimming with foreign talent yet 6 match commentators mentioned the nationalities of only one player (Rio Ferdinand who plays for England)
        Meanwhile, back in the studio Gary Lineaker informs me that Lambert who plays for Southampton is an Englishman.
        My guess is that the BBC directive is don’t mention their nationality as it is of no significance.
        Next time you watch match of the day check it out yourself.

        Bias takes many forms and is often subtle.

           11 likes

        • Demon says:

          What they often do is say things like “****** is a Japan international” as if saying “****** is Japanese” is racist. The only point in mentioning that they are an intenational is if they are referring to the winning of international caps, or if they are playing for a country that is not their own, e.g. “the Brazilian Deco” who was a “Portugal international”. Same for Eduardo, a Brazilian who played for Croatia, or Klose and Poborski; a couple of Poles who play for Germany.

             4 likes

        • Colditz says:

          Eric

          Get out more. You are clearly deranged.

             6 likes

  18. Mavis Ramsbottom says:

    i’m waiting for the BBC to promote a muslim version of SCD/DWTS with straight male professional dancers (with beards) and female celebrities/female professional dancers (with beards) in non-revealing outfits

       9 likes

    • Mavis Ramsbottom says:

      failing that, in the future Cherie Blair will appear on SCD or in the jungle (on the other side) in a bikini showing her lips

         4 likes

      • Cosmo says:

        I hope you mean the one’s on her face.

           8 likes

      • pah says:

        Yuck!

        Do you realise how much therapy I will now need in order to get that image out of my mind.

        I should sue! 😉

           12 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          She modeled for a painter au naturel once, when younger – the result was in the papers at one point, but I won’t look for a link.

             1 likes

  19. thoughtful says:

    Last month the bBC announced its replacement for Merlin which will be ‘Atlantis’ some kind of Greek myths brought to life no doubt with a PC twist.
    The stage carried an interview with Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning at the BBC Here’s what he had to say:

    Stephenson said the shows form part of his aim to build a “BBC drama department that has an enormous international reputation”.

    “That means making us more British than ever – it is about applying the Danny Boyle vision to our work – a bold, adventurous, authorial approach that exports because of its Britishness not despite it.

    So that would be the same far left Danny Boyle that refused an honour last year?

    http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/production/2013/02/bbc-announces-new-saturday-night-drama-atlantis-and-third-run-of-call-the-midwife/

    In July 2009 Stephenson wrote a blog article in The Guardian newspaper in response to criticisms of the BBC’s drama output in which he stated:

    “ “If I didn’t think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn’t, wouldn’t your lives, and more importantly, your TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, postcodes, my class only stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”

       11 likes

  20. ron todd says:

    Andrew Marr show with Vine. 20 minutes of Hugh Grant putting the left wing views on controlling newspapers Ed Balls on economic policy then another lovie on how nice it would be to give more money to Africans. Think I will skip the remaining 20 minutes

       27 likes

    • +james says:

      Comic Relief – “Poor people from rich country donate to rich people from poor country”

         37 likes

    • London Calling says:

      Give more money to Africa? Perhaps the luvvie should emulate Madonna and adopt an African baby. There are about 100 million to choose from. Or perhaps they could adopt them all. Crippled by corruption and tribalism, the last thing Africa needs is more Western money. But then luvvies just read lines written for them by other people, for which they get huge cheques. What would they know about anything?

         13 likes

  21. AsISeeIt says:

    I note the new BBC corporate slogan – ‘Where next?’

    I wonder what is the subtext here?

    Is this a frank admission of confusion from BBC management?

    Or is the BBC reflecting Licence Payer exasperation with their national broadcaster?

       12 likes

  22. AsISeeIt says:

    Nicky Campbell does penance for his past sins this morning. To think, all those years when he walked in darkness. That was when he was the patriarchal figure – the male presenter of Wheel of Fortune and the woman (the other half of humanity) on his show was no more that an assistant – a dolly dealer, a bit of eye candy.

    Gosh Nicky must shudder when he recalls those days.

    But atonement is possible. The BBC is ever forgiving. Just ask Richard Bacon. Our Nicky has confessed. His penance : 3000 PC phone-ins on 5 Live and 500 skewed debates on The Big Question.

    Ah but these modern lingerie fabrics don’t light up half so well as the old Playtex of the 1960s – so it’s a tough act to burn your bra live on air every day.

    But invite a Nigerian gayman onto BBC TV and nod vigorously as he attacks the religious traditionalists and… oh joy…. Nicky can happily clear his past PC sins.

    Meanwhile I wonder, why should I watch this wooly-minded twaddle?

       20 likes

  23. George R says:

    “Have you heard the one about BBC Radio 4 and the Left-wing bias?”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9934902/Have-you-heard-the-one-about-BBC-Radio-4-and-the-Left-wing-bias.html

       10 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Nice. The Telegraph has been ‘doing a Craig’ on some BBC comedy programmes. The BBC goes for the obvious get out:

      A BBC spokesman said: “At any point, the serving Government is likely to be the primary target for satirists.

      Yeah, right. Have a read of this from Biased BBC’s Andy
      in October 2003.

         11 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      The BBC – such dimwits. Why should comedians have any kind of bias? Mind, they could try recalling Jim Davidson to bring a bit of balance to the proceedings, couldn’t they? Couldn’t they, Dez?

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/9933563/Norman-Collier.html

      Norman Collier – no politics, just a funny man. ‘Norman Collier, who has died aged 87, belonged to the tradition of northern comics on which television feasted in the 1970s and 1980s before dumping them in favour of “alternative” comedians’.

      And the rest, as they say, is history.

         8 likes

      • Dez says:

        “…they could try recalling Jim Davidson to bring a bit of balance to the proceedings, couldn’t they? Couldn’t they, Dez?”
         
        The best example of a ‘right wing’ comedian you could come up with is Jim Davidson?
         
        If only he could be that funny!
         

           3 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          No, the only example I could think of. All my favourite comedians going back in time were apolitical – and funny, unlike the plague of self-regarding leftist fascists the BBC forces on us for the privelege of our TV tax. And I don’t rate him, though he was once funny in a 1970s kind of way.

          And your best example of a funny left wing comedian?

             4 likes

  24. Colditz says:

    Refreshing to see good Christian and British values of looking after the less fortunate being given such support in the hallowed forums of BBBC. Well done about thinking about others and your support for Red Nose Day.

       6 likes

    • Bob Nelson says:

      Incorrect generalisation, Colditz. I, and I am sure, many, many others who visit this site prefer to care for the least fortunate more directly. We do not need the Red Nose Day vehicle.

         25 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        Indeed. me too. What colditz fails to realises that all the slebs use Red Nose Day to advance themselves AND NOTHING ELSE: especially the ones that get o go abroad and be photographed next to some poor soul who lives their whole life on what shit-list slebs spend in a day. If you added up all the people involved they could break the donation record without doing anything except dipping in their own fucking pockets.

           25 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Do tell us what YOU mean by Christian values Coldie boy?
      1. More gay clergy and forced marriages in churches.
      2. More condoms for all, more abortion on demand and the prospect of euthanasia.
      3. Women Bishops.
      Keep watching your BBC Brown Nose agenda…but STFU about Christian values unless you can name a few.
      Feel free to consult that Gideons Bible-what`s left of it after you`ve been using the pages for making joints or what have you!
      Here`s a scripture pal….get somebody to read it to you.
      (Jn 7.24)
      Plonker!

         19 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        I think Colditz would like abortion on demand, with the foetus being drowned in a large jar of alcohol, and then Jeremy Hardy could come around and smash the Jar with a shovel.

           8 likes

    • David Brims says:

      Coldtits

      It’s the self righteousness, holier than thou, pious, smug, hypocrisy of Z grade celebrities like Jimmy Carr who don’t pay tax and then start lecturing us to send money to African dictators.

      And Christianity is not a social work department, it’s about saving souls.

         24 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        Oh dear, I think someone here must have complained about the BBC sacred cow tramping through their living room. Mustn’t say moo to that goose! Red Nose Day = National Tresure. How do I know? A friend of the BBC going under the name of a WW2 German prison camp says so.

           20 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Every time I see celebrities preening over how they’ve passed up a paycheck in exchange for free publicity, travel, accomodation, and that bonus little gold star on their public appeal, just to show how much they care about this stuff, I always think of this:

           11 likes

        • London Calling says:

          The bBC claim they can’t find any “right wing comedians”. Kinison is funny because he is so politically incorrect, which is what humour used to be about, anti-establishment, not about “being right wing” As usual BBC goes looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing, blinkered by their own prejudices.

             14 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            He’s been dead for years. But it’s not they couldn’t find any if they tried.

               3 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              Not so sure, David, just look what happened to Jim Davidson in the end. I read about him being howled down in a local theatre a few years ago by a group of lefties and had to curtail his act. It’s the new fascism, aided and abetted by the likes of the BBC. Not sure any right-leaning comedian would try his luck in the current climate.

                 10 likes

    • Dave s says:

      “Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have the glory of men”
      Matthew Chapter 6 v. 2
      A good enough Christian value for many of us.

         13 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      So, Colditz, are you happy with us continuing to borrow money from China to fund our annual £200,000,000,000 benefits largesse? Are you happy to burden today’s youngsters and future generations with that debt just so’s you can come on here and make jibes at people who, unlike yourself, understand the implications of living beyond our means?

      Don’t worry, I know the answer – all about ‘social justice’ innit?

         11 likes

  25. jimbola says:

    I’m rather annoyed that the BBC have the result of the F1 displayed on their news homepage homepage.

    Cnuts.

       3 likes

  26. George R says:

    LIBYA.

    Islam Not BBC (INBBC) decides NOT to report this:

    ‘Express’-

    “Christians ‘tortured by militia.’

    “Dozens of Coptic Christians were tortured inside a detention centre run by a powerful militia in eastern Libya, two of the recently released detainees have claimed said amid a wave of assaults targeting Christians in Benghazi and the latest instance of alleged abuse by Libyan security forces.”

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/384640/Christians-tortured-by-militia

    Also:

    ‘Jihadwatch’:-

    “#MyJihad in Libya: Muslim mob attacks Benghazi church for the second time in revenge attack after Christians protest persecution”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/03/myjihad-in-libya-muslim-mob-attacks-church-for-the-second-time-in-revenge-attack-after-christians-pr.html

    What do the INBBC Cairo bureau, and INBBC Arabic TV service do all day?

       12 likes

  27. George R says:

    A reprise, for INBBC:-

    “Brits are too polite and scared of offending ‘vocal and aggressive Muslims’, claims former Obama adviser”

    By Steve Robson.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294326/British-polite-scared-offending-vocal-aggressive-Muslims-claims-Obama-adviser.html

       13 likes

  28. George R says:

    A reprise, for INBBC:-

    “Brits are too polite and scared of offending ‘vocal and aggressive Muslims’, claims former Obama adviser”

    By Steve Robson.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294326/British-polite-scared-offending-vocal-aggressive-Muslims-claims-Obama-adviser.html

       1 likes

  29. George R says:

    A reprise, for INBBC:-

    “Brits are too polite and scared of offending ‘vocal and aggressive Muslims’, claims former Obama adviser”

    By Steve Robson.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294326/British-polite-scared-offending-vocal-aggressive-Muslims-claims-Obama-adviser.html

       2 likes

  30. #88 says:

    Shami Chakrabarti, ‘founder’ of liberty, BBC favourite and ‘national treasure’ seems conspicuous by her failure to be invited onto the Beeb in the last few days.

    Could it be that this BBC staff-pass holder and opponent of everything to the right of Labour, actually OPPOSES, the attack on our fundamental freedoms and liberty that the Labour / Lib Dem press state control regulations will opportunistically and disgracefully bring?

    Meanwhile while the BBC for once turn the back on Chakrabarti – her contribution is not useful to the position that they have taken (nor is any genuine debate or analysis), they bring on the victims in the shape of the McCanns and by proxy every other victim who will tug at the heart strings of an uninformed public – Victims who are being used by rich celebrities, caught with their pants down and in turn, by a shadowy group who would control was we see and hear and what is investigated.

    BBC bias exists not only in what they serve up…but in what they fail to broadcast.

       38 likes

    • MD says:

      I’ve looked on the Liberty website and googled for any comment from them on tomorrow’s vote. They have nothing to say!

      In Decemeber Shami Chakrabarti said she agreed with Cameron that there should be no statutory regulation. After that I can’t find any comment.

      I suspect that the principles of having a free press take second place to staying close to the lefty brethren. It’s good to see that the organisation that purports to defend our freedoms has such strong convictions!

         24 likes

    • Colditz says:

      The sermon the mount remains my bedrock.

      It will be very embarassing for some if not all of the lost souls who post their venom and hate on this site. But forgiveness and redemption are always available.

      Matthew 5.3-12

      “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
      “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
      “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
      “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
      “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
      “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
      “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
      “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
      “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

      The vast majority of people partaking in RND whether Christian or not, whatever age and colour, exemplified these virtues.

      The BBC is hardly perfect, but rarely treads far away from these core values. Nor does the real Britain it reflects and not the peculiar world depicted herein

      I suspect Vance/alan/Pressier (who are an unholy trinity but the same man) chokes on these words. More his loss. Don’t let it be yours.

         4 likes

      • David Brims says:

        Coldtits

        You couldn’t find a prayer in a Bible.

           8 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        I prefer the version in the Life of Brian,
        Blessed are the cheesemakers etc

           10 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        colditz, this is getting embarrassing for you. Can’t you read?

           12 likes

      • +james says:

        “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

        Jesus must have been psychic, that sums up the BBC perfectly!

           7 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        ‘The BBC is hardly perfect, but rarely treads far away from these core values’.

        So blessed are the pompous and deluded, too, I guess….

           7 likes

      • Dave s says:

        Colditz is Vance and maybe David and Alan.
        He is all of us and omniscient.

           3 likes

      • Reed says:

        “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for SELF-righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

        There fixed that BBC ‘core value’ for you.

           11 likes

    • #88 says:

      Meanwhile while the BBC are still looking for Shami, their 5 Live news bulletin leads with another helpful contribution that will allow the listener to judge why the nasty Tories are wrong on Leveson. Top story…’Author JK Rowling criticises Cameron…accusing him of hanging people out to dry…turning his back on the victims’ and on the BBC website says she is turning to Miliband and Clegg.

      Perhaps if they had led their bulletin by saying, ‘Socialist, Labour supporter and multi-million pound donor to the Labour Party, JK Rowling has criticised David Cameron…’ listeners might have been given a more rounded picture of where her political sentiments lie and why her intervention (no doubt she was speed dialled for a comment) should be taken with a dollop of salt.

         25 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        If only Clegg, Miliband and Cameron were working to a common purpose, like Rowling, Grant and co.

           3 likes

  31. AsISeeIt says:

    Hacked Off star performer Hugh Grant is a true liberal – white hookers… black hookers… they’re all the same to our Leveson-luvvie Hugh

       23 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Hugh Grant for PM!

      ….of Zimbabwe. They like their press controls there.

         13 likes

  32. David Brims says:

    88 ” Shami Chakrabartti ”

    Reminds me of a joke.

    Question, What do you call a Human Rights Lawyer ?

    Answer, Karl Marx with a Law Degree !

       17 likes

  33. thoughtful says:

    David Bellamy says the bBC ended his career because he told the truth about Global Warming.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294560/The-great-green-1-The-hard-proof-finally-shows-global-warming-forecasts-costing-billions-WRONG-along.html

       18 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Being a regular reader of this type of article in the Mail, in the past, ALL the favoured comments have been against the AGW myth, almost without exception. Today, the opposite appears to be true, with thousands of green “approvals” for comments, which ordinarily, would be laughed out of court. There’s definitely a stitch-up of some description in operation. How misleading – is it the Mail itself which is responsible, or has someone found a way to fiddle the figures?

      The whole comment system in this article is so OBVIOUSLY adjusted, I’m surprised they still have the nerve to continue to allow comments at all, until this abuse has been investigated and stopped.

      Indeed, the more I look at that article, the more I’m convinced that there IS some sort of conspiracy to divert the public disbelief in AGW – the comment section of this article is clear evidence of this – I hope someone is taking a screen-dump or two, just in case. There have NEVER been that many recommends for comments such as those displayed in this article, for similar articles.

         18 likes

      • MD says:

        People are much more driven to comment when there is a direct challenge to their beliefs. The DM article is a very direct challenge and so they’ve all felt compelled to comment.

        I was also surprised at the number of pro AGW comments, but I took some comfort from the fact that anti AGW comments looked to comprise around 20% of the total. My guess is that probably reflects the general population.

           6 likes

      • Deborah says:

        I too have noticed in past of DM articles where the number of ‘like’ comments are not in line with their readership. I read somewhere that sometimes a particular pressure group is tipped off ahead of an article being published and that they can quickly skew the numbers showing as like/dislike. I have on rare occasions written comments that I have thought innocent but which fail to get past their censor, usually about Nick Clegg and assume either their censor is a LibDem or there is political pressure put on the DM.

           10 likes

        • stewart says:

          Apparently some pressure groups (green groups especially) run ‘comment factories’ offices with multiple computers with multiple identities that volunteers plug away at all day disliking comments to get them removed (as on bt yahoo) or liking comments to get them up the list. The telegraph is ,so I’ve read,one of their favourite targets.

             16 likes

        • Reed says:

          There are plenty of coordinated groups putting up links to news stories and blog posts, with the intention of sending out mindless minions to sway things in their favour…

          —————————
          In a calculated nod to millennials and the increasing gamification of our culture, the tool curates hundreds of daily online news articles about global warming, and then allows users to earn points if they leave comments in online discussion boards that spread truthful science and refute anti-science myths. It’s like Pac-Man for do-gooders.

          “Social networks are the key in helping us move the needle in the right direction…the key is to seed the conversation with reality,” said Gore, the Founder and Chairman of the Climate Reality Project. “Wherever there is an example of denial in the media, we will give everyone that participates the precise scientific answer to the denial in the story.”
          —————————
          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/reality-drop-climate-change-al-gore_n_2783914.html

          Pretty cynical. Hey – it’s like a game, kids.

             5 likes

          • london calling says:

            Ghastly.
            Try researching anything about the Middle East on Wikipedia, its stuffed with Pally propaganda, down to details of all the so called atrocities against innocent women and children carried out by the Israeli Defence Force, or so say Palestinian propagandists. Like we would take their word for the time of day. It’s the new growth industry, hedge-fund billionaire funded propagandists in social media “to change the world” (on the cheap) by typing lies. Bob at the Grantham-funded LSE take note. We are smarter than you.

               3 likes

      • Dellers ran an article on this some time ago. I think (if recollection serves correctly) that he pointed to old man Moonbat at the Guardian having an article up in which he suggested that the annointed ones could subscribe to a service in which anti agw articles could be highlighted to them and they could go and correct the understanding of the great unwashed who disagreed. All put very nicely of course.

        And we’re back to Alinsky – appear bigger than you are.

           7 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      Although I think it is obviously important to look at Global temperature trends, I do think it is more important to understand the cause. We find that deducing a theory after looking at the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus, (Unified Theory of Climate), and then using this for calibrating carbon dioxide warming, we find that this is not the cause of warming on the Earth.

      The mention of David Archibald in the Daily Mail article is the key to understanding the cause of Climate Change because he has used observational evidence to link the length of the solar cycle to historic records of temperature trends, this has lead to other scientists finding that their observations about what causes the length of the solar cycle, also regulates the speed of plasma within the Sun, and therefore we can predict that we are now entering a cooling phase.

      So hopefully people reading this article will Google David Archibald for the answer to Climate Change.

         6 likes

  34. AsISeeIt says:

    The BBC has now completely ditched the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’.

    If the BBC is going to endorse art then the artist has to have an agenda.

    Want to know why?

    ‘Contemporary postcolonial African writers such as Leopold Senghor and Chinua Achebe have criticised the slogan (art for art’s sake) as being a limited and Eurocentric view on art and creation. In “Black African Aesthetics”, Senghor argues that “art is functional” and that “in black Africa, ‘art for art’s sake’ does not exist.” Achebe is more scathing in his collection of essays and criticism entitled Morning Yet on Creation Day, where he asserts that “art for art’s sake is just another piece of deodorised dog shit” (sic)’

    Are the BBC only prepared to endorse art with an agenda?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/21670318

    Overseas writers win studio turn
    By Claire Barrett Ariel Online Editor

    ‘Angella Emurwon ripped up her first novel, penned at the age of 12 in a school exercise book.’

    ‘I thought it was a silly story that was like every other story I’d read so I destroyed it,’ explains the Ugandan writer.’

    ‘Sunflowers centres on two children from contrasting backgrounds – Yakobo, who has never been away from home before taking an ill-advised trip to Kampala, and street urchin Tonnie, a girl who masquerades as a boy. ‘

    And,

    ‘Janet Veronica Morrison, a Jamaican who won top honours in the ‘English as a first language group’ for her play The Fisherman, also values the BBC expertise, considering this contact ‘the real prize’.

    ‘Helen [Perry, director] is a smart and savvy young woman,’ says the writer whose play centres on a teenage girl who goes missing from a sleepy Jamaican fishing village and her family’s quest to find her.’

    ‘The judges describe it as ‘a real thriller’, but for Morrisson it’s a reflection of the growing sex trade in the Caribbean over the last decade and what she perceives as a disinclination by the authorities to address the problem. ‘

    ‘You get the feeling that it’s not regarded as a priority issue; I don’t feel there is the political will to deal with it – the economic conundrum we find ourselves in is the focus,’

    Sunflowers Behind a Dirty Fence, World Service, March 30

    The Fishermen, World Service, April 13 and 14

    BBC agenda, what agenda?

       10 likes

  35. AsISeeIt says:

    Five must-read books (according to the BBC)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/21683919

    Three female authors, a Muslim man and William Boyd (much as you would expect)

    The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
    ‘Changez grows up in Pakistan….’
    [Need I say more?]

    Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
    ‘She wrote social comedies about parish ladies and curates, flower arranging and tea parties. Don’t expect strong plots but delicate descriptions of post-war life with surprisingly biting humour.’
    [In other words: deconstructing traditional British society as something outmoded and faintly ridiculous]

    Any Human Heart by William Boyd
    [This is a right stoncker of liberal porno]
    ‘Born in 1906…. his life is both ordinary and extraordinary. Any Human Heart is the character’s autobiography, from his early childhood in Montevideo – son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary – through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford.’

    ‘Adulthood sees him becoming a writer in Paris and London; he takes in the Bloomsbury set, the General Strike and the Spanish Civil War. There is a spell as a spy betrayed in the war and as an art dealer in 1960s New York, even as an unwitting member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, to finally finding a kind of peace in France, thanks to a sketch by Picasso.’
    [Phew, is that James Naughtie I see grabbing the book and rushing off for a moment or two of privacy?]

    Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
    [I have no complaints about this choice]

    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
    ‘definitely worth a read as a book of the ‘moment’.’
    [I will have to take the BBC’s word for that ‘book of the moment’ claim. Now is that Jim Naughtie I spy with a rather sheepish look on his face?]

       11 likes

  36. thoughtful says:

    Ed Balls today describes Osbourne as following the ‘economics of the lunatic farm’ This is repeated on bBC news. Considering that this is the party which forced the oppression of political correctness upon us Balls should not be using a phase so disparaging to the mentally ill and the bBC should not be repeating it! Can you imagine the fuore if this had been said by a Tory?

    Balls is on the Marr show (yet again) and to repeat someone elses comment, can you imagine a time when the bBC invites an arsonist to lecture the fire brigade on fire safety?

       27 likes

  37. Jeff Waters says:

    Secret dossier reveals how Hacked Off campaigners used ‘cynical ploy’ to exploit misery of murdered Milly Dowler’s family to force new press law

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294552/Exposed-Secret-dossier-reveals-cynical-ploy-Hacked-Off-campaigners-target-Tory-rebels-exploit-misery-murdered-Milly-Dowlers-family-force-new-press-law.html#ixzz2No7qYWsU

    The BBC seem to be awfully quiet on this…

    Jeff

       18 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The brains behind Hacked Off are Beeboids: the Director of Communications, David Hass (who left the BBC to become press secretary for George Osborne. I know, me too.), and his former boss on Today, Kevin Marsh. Marsh moved from strength to strength at the BBC, and was head of its College of Journalism in the end, before leaving to found Hacked Off.

      Does anyone think this is all innocent and there’s no, shall we say, communication between these two and their friends at the BBC?

      To be fair, they’ve apparently threatened both political parties about behaving correctly over Levenson. Isn’t that charming? I hope this isn’t what they teach at the CoJ these days.

         16 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        So the BBC, and the College of Journalism believe that Journalism would be better of if it was regulated by the State.

        O well, Habeas Corpus in the bin and secret justice, and now if Labour get in we can no longer boast to the rest of the world that we have a free press, and all because the socialists think that the press would be better of if it was under the political correct repression of a bunch of neo-communist purpose goons, in the name of the state.

        Well it is true that socialist regimes are unable to resist impimenting a state regulated press, but only because they do not like being criticised, not because a few journalists happen to break the law.

        Come back the age of the unlicensed and illegal secret pamphleteers. With the internet blogs as well of course.

        It will not work, because socialist regimes eventually collapse, because state corruption increases and increases as the state no longer fears the press.

        Until eventually everyone turns against the state because everyone is informed by reading illegal blogs and pamphlets.

        All hail Levinson, down with Liberty.

           16 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        You only need to see what Labour/BBC did in applying Political Correctness and ‘hate crimes’ to realise who is behind this (the well-co-ordinated Left) and what their motives are (more of the same, but increasingly more draconian). The threat of huge fines for not towing a certain ‘moral’ line e.g. non-criticism of Islam, once third party/pressure group complaints – a Leveson recommendation – get a head of steam and are increasingly upheld, will see our freedom of speech curtailed as never before, all in furtherance of the Left’s agenda.

        And they think they’re being so subtle.

           12 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Kevin Marsh, former head of Today and then boss of the BBC College of Journalism, and co-founder of Hacked Off, on journalists and “truth”:

             5 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            ‘In April 2006, Marsh left Today to become Editor at the BBC College of Journalism, a new venture that was set up….’ (Wikipedia)

            Now what date in 2006 was that 28gate meeting – before or after his departure (not that it matters)?

            As for this poor bloke who wrote to his MP about it (‘one of the few ex-scientists in the House of Commons’) – well, let’s just say Kafka would have had a field day with the response:

            http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/12/7/huppert-on-28gate.html

               5 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Did one ‘Thought for the day’ really end with the line: ‘That’s not just Polly Toynbee’s message – it’s God’s.’!

      David Starkey, on Broadcasting House, Sunday 17th Mar, really laid into the Catholic Church calling it an intrinsically corrupt institution that sought to be above the law, leading to a rather weird suggestion that Thomas a Becket should be made the patron saint of child molesters and a contentious (to say the least) statement that the Reformation was all about the sexual behaviour of the clergy: Starkey seems to think the Reformation is still work in progress.
      The decent enough Irish journalist who spoke up for the catholic church was completely upstaged – Paddy O’Donnel knew what he was doing allowing a Conservative whom Laura Penny had accused of racism, ( some lefties said he should never be seen on the Beeb again) on his programme.

         3 likes

  38. 1327 says:

    I’m intrigued by the Beeb coverage of the Cypriot bank EU theft issue. So far to my amazement it doesn’t seem to bad although some coverage of the possible problems this may/will cause are missing. However I have yet to see any input from “stoopid” Flanders or Uncle Paul (its all kicking off) Mason possibly because the issue is being handled by the Beebs weekend shift. To be honest its all a little outside of Uncle Paul’s world view but Steph will no doubt be waiting for the official view from Brussels before opening her mouth.

    Mind you Sky coverage is dire on this issue and I get the feeling that the entire MSM (except the DM amazingly) have been caught by surprise not by the theft but the British public’s reaction to it.

       11 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      While most individual free comment on twitter is to be relied upon as much as a BBC editor’s compelled, funded analysis, as all this was unfolding I was grateful for a lot of very worthwhile commentary via my feed less constrained by tribal or fiscal loyalties.
      Certainly it has become a matter of further concern that a government has been encouraged by the EU to consider raiding the easier pickings of the accounts of those foolish enough to listen to any advising thrift and saving.
      Especially on a day that the national broadcaster was again offering free rein to a Shadow Chancellor advocating yet more borrowing from a mystery money tree, and a chap whose secretive group appears set, with BBC assistance, to soon further close down legitimate avenues of 4th estate check & balance.
      The historical precedents are not encouraging.
      “Then they came for my current account, and there was no one left but the BBC to speak, and they thought it was just about right’.
      When the most powerful medium in the land not only meddles in policy but is totally interest-conflicted and unaccountable in seeking to do so, free speech and/or democratic process are hard to sustain legitimately.

         14 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Actually, I’d say this is exactly the kind of thing that fits in with both Flanders’ and Mason’s worldviews. Mason must be wetting himself over the vandalism by the heroic oppressed, and “Two Eds” must be pleased about the methodology of this “bailout”. They probably can’t wait to “broadcast” about it. I also think I can detect her fingerprints on the Q&A page, because there’s one bit which suggests that the Greek bailout worked. If she didn’t have a direct impact on it, then clearly her expertise has influenced the way others at the BBC discuss the issue. Narrative? What narrative?

      Whatever one thinks of off-shore holdings and the criminality of whatever Russian oligarchs, et al, who are keeping their money in Cyprus, it’s a really, really bad idea for the authoritarian EU mandarins feel like it’s okay to just start taking money out of private hands if they feel like it. Everyone will have money removed from their pockets, not just the money-launderers. Even Gavin Hewitt can see that. I get the feeling that everyone’s kind of looking at the floor for the moment, hoping it will go away.

         12 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘exactly the kind of thing that fits in with both Flanders’ and Mason’s worldviews’
        Well, I guess you may be right, if based on the BBC’s statistical semantics of ‘balance’, where a claim of torpid calm can be mixed with ‘it’s all kicking off!!!!’ to average out at basic normality.
        Becuase it has before intrigued me when I have Ms. Flanders is on the one hand telling me all is well and part of the master plan, while at the same time the Anger & Protests Editor is scampering amongst rioters who one presumes do not think things are going well at all, handing out iPhones from his stash.

           8 likes

      • 1327 says:

        I’m not so sure David. Uncle Paul could understand bankers in top hats stealing from the poor (and young people in skinny jeans) but might not be able to bend his mind around state sponsored theft. Of course we will have to see what young Cypriots in skinny jeans think and if it is worth a trip out there for him and his young niece 🙂

        Flanders on the other hand will already be moist at the thought of attending more EU press conferences this week.

           6 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          I was just thinking from Mason’s perspective of the glorious working class destroying ATMs and how this was – according to Peston, anyway – punishing the evil bankers.

             4 likes

    • Big Dick says:

      LBC have been discussing the Cypriot banking tax off & on for the last 24 hrs !

         0 likes

  39. Dave666 says:

    I’ve just finished watching the BBc coverage of F!. Is it just me or does it seem the money spent on this has been slashed since last year. Perry is just as annoying as she was on the gadget show and bike racing. It might as well be renamed the Lewis Hamilton show because at times you could have thought he was the only driver on the track.

       8 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      It was the same on tonight’s 10 o’clock bBBC news. They introduced the item by saying
      “At today’s Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said he was pleased with his fifth place.”

         11 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Can’t imagine why they would do that.

         2 likes

    • Big Dick says:

      A couple of years ago in the sports update on News 24 , the report on a F1 race stated , that “Hamilton had sliced his way through the field from about 12th to about 4th ,before suddenly crashing out” all delivered in a screaming excited manner , then an almost afterthought ,mention , ” Oh yeah the race was eventually won by Jenson Button ” delivered in a downbeat manner

         6 likes

  40. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Uh-oh, another reason for the BBC to hate the US:

    American public increasingly sympathetic towards Israel

    The extent to which Americans sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians has reached its all-time high, according to a new Gallup poll. The survey found that the sympathies of 64 percent of Americans reside with Israelis, compared to only 12 percent for the Palestinians.

    The 64 percent figure matched the previous record high from 1991, during the first Gulf War. At that time, though, only 7 percent of Americans sympathized more with the Palestinians.

    Naturally, Republicans (78 percent) were much more likely to sympathize with Israel than Democrats (55 percent), according to the poll. Palestinians receive the highest sympathy from Democrats, liberals, and postgraduates. But even among these groups, support tops off at 24 percent.

    Those whacky Republicans, eh? The only racist party in the world that actually likes Jews.

       16 likes

    • George R says:

      But INBBC’s Arafat weeper, Ms PLETT does some hip-hop propaganda for ‘Arab Spring’/Islamic Winter in New York:-

      video clip-

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21719786

      Meanwhile, in New York:-

      “#MyJihad in New York: Muslim gets ten years of prison dawah for plotting to blow up synagogues”

      http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/03/myjihad-in-new-york-muslim-gets-ten-years-of-prison-dawah-for-plotting-to-blow-up-synagogues.html

         8 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Did Plett ask how many of them voted for Morsi? The Tunisian rapper, at least, sure as hell wasn’t protesting against the newly-installed Arab Spring leader. It’s a bit late to televise that revolution, isn’t it? Neither did I get the impression that the Mali dude was protesting against the Islamic takeover.

        And where are all the female hip-hop artists, dear?

           7 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      I like Jews, but not Jewish socialist. Like all socialists, they hate anyone better than themselves, but EVERYONE who is NOT a socialist is BETTER than a socialist.

      That is why socialist like Colditz are haters, not just haters of everyone with more money than themselves.

         10 likes

    • Adi says:

      What the Americans need is a massive overdose of BBC to correct their flawed thinking. Who wouldn’t want to sympathize with low IQ murderous Hamas, MB and Al-Q who are taking over the region.

      The Al-Beeb is shocked, Shocked.

         10 likes

  41. Aerfen says:

    Sunday, Radio Four The world this Weekend introduced by Shaun Ley

    The BBC propaganda machine has been at it again playing down the dangers of lareg numbers of Bulgarians coming to Britain (they convenitently didnt even mention that Romanians as well as Moldovans will be joining them too).

    Of to Sofia (at our expense) they went, apparently easily finding English speakers in the streets, all those who they broadcast quick to claim Bulgarians weren’t all poor and wanting benefits – utterly missing the point that we DON’T WANT THEM COMING TO TAKE JOBS EITHER!

    They also found a Government lackey who made the bizarre claim that only about 10, 000 would be likely to come to Britain, because most would go to Italy, France and Germany. Like hell they will!

    Then onto the utterly fallacious argument that because, apparently , not all that many have gone to Ireland since they opened their borders to them in January 2012, it follows that nor will many come here! Stupid woman or just deliberately misleading?

    I would say the OPPOSITE, not many went because they were thinking: “One more year and we can go to the UK! :-)”

       22 likes

    • Adi says:

      Just wait until Egypt collapses financially (you can safely hold your breath – it won’t be too long).

         9 likes

  42. Aerfen says:

    And ANOTHER program trying to persuade us to eat insects:

    The BBC and Guardian are really pushing this hard now!
    Tomorrow BBC 4

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01599yk

    Next thing it will be insects for school dinners. Celebrity chefs brought in to convince the kids.

       7 likes

    • Adi says:

      I can’t hardly wait to eat my cockroach pie because “biofuels” have spiked the food prices.

         4 likes

    • deegee says:

      Is eating insects halal or harm? This question will decide how much effort the BBC puts into the idea. Somehow I don’t think we will find ants and slugs on the menus of BBC cafeterias in the near future, whatever the answer.

         3 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        Eating locusts is halal but any other insects are haram (old Mo is on record as eating the former). There is some wiggle room with grasshoppers, cicadas and the like.

           4 likes

  43. George R says:

    Yes, BBC-NUJ, with Labour Party have some joint responsibility for the mass immigration into the UK, playing down the enormous social, economic and cultural costs to British people.

    Even when e.g. the costs to UK education of this continuing mass immigration are obvious to all, BBC-NUJ tries to blame UK Government for ‘underfunding’ or ‘cuts’ to education spending.

       22 likes

  44. George R says:

    Cyprus’ banking crisis, E.U and BBC-NUJ.

    Robert PESTON writes an article on Cyprus banks, but he changes his tune completely after talking to an E.U official.

    Check Peston’s change of tune, about two-thirds in, at: “Update 14:20” –

    “Why Cyprus’s rescue matters to us”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21812853

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘A well-placed official rings to tell me why investors should not be panicking that the punishment of Cypriot depositors is a precedent’
      Phew. Just… this whole ‘it is ‘cos we say it is’ lark may work within the BBC, and maybe even between the BBC and ‘well-placed officials’, but then that’s the kind of ‘reporting’ rigour backed up ethical integrity and tribal objectivity that led to Savile/McAlpine.
      So colour me still conerned.
      Top rated comment so far suggests others are less convinced that the BBC’s man on the spot may have a proper grasp of actual reality vs. dictated narratives & bubble-head presumption from ivory towers:
      8. MarkG
      16TH MARCH 2013 – 13:05
      “The levy serves as a caution to lenders to banks that they should take care where they place their funds and avoid banks which overstretch themselves – as Cypriot banks did.”
      Are you seriously suggesting that small depositors in Cyprus with 10-20.000 euros should have evaluated Cypriot banks, dismiss them as “overstreching” and have their money in a German bank (which actually they couldn’t do)?

         16 likes

      • George R says:

        “Radical Cyprus deposit tax risks dangerous precedent for euro zone.”

        http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/article9857053.ece

           3 likes

        • pounce says:

          I have just read Robert Preston’s excuse of an article where he actually defends (Yes defends) the decision to milk savers in Cyprus of their savings. and his main defence:
          “Regulators and politicians are convinced that a vast amount of cash in Cypriot banks belongs to Russian money launderers.”

          Talk about using an atom bomb to crack a nut.

          The bBC, where the EU can do no wrong

             27 likes

        • uncle bup says:

          This had been mooted ahead of the event (and to general approval) but the tax only to be levied on large deposits.

          Amazing, no, how those who are great proponents of tax as a tool to create a better society chill a little on the idea when it’s them that are being taxed rather than someone else.

          Noticed the same in this country, funnily enough.

             3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The levy serves as a caution to lenders to banks ….

      Oh, no it doesn’t. Only jail sentences really serve that purpose. This serves as a warning to ordinary folks that the EU can reach into the pockets of innocent people whenever they like in order to maintain the status quo. And I’m pretty sure most ordinary people aren’t too pleased with the status quo.

      Peston’s stuck in “big picture” mode, made worse by the frisson of bashing bankers. He loves a good faux-Robin Hood gag.

      But what I’m wondering is who called him up to force that “Don’t panic!” update. Saying that the Germans chose this particular path this one time is hardly a comfort. Peston even acknowledges how silly it is to pretend it’s a unique circumstance, which is probably why he didn’t bring it up on his own. Is he simply issuing a disclaimer because someone told him he had to? And he’d better pass this along to Gavin Hewitt, who already reported that the Germans vetoed the alternative deal, and that this was not a good sign. Better get a move on, Robert.

         13 likes

  45. #88 says:

    I’ve complained before about the ‘Free hit’ that Beeboids frequently give to lefties, giving them free rein to have a go at the government.

    This is a tactic regularly employed by Gameshow and Evan Davies and perfected as an art form by Rasher Bacon. Christ knows what Robin Day and the greats of the BBC would have thought.

    Anyway, the prize for ‘Free hit of the week’ goes to Nick Owen of BBC Midlands today for asking former Labour Home Secretary and expenses cheat, Jacqui Smith, how she thought that the coalition were doing on immigration.

       26 likes

  46. thoughtful says:

    Did anyone else listen to File on 4 Mali – Europes Terror Threat?

    It was a disturbing report on Muslim terrorism Jihad radicalisation and extremism. Of course this was nearly all in France and was blamed on the countries refusal to adopt mulicultural policies and the waycist attitude of employers.
    Poor old Jenny Cuffe really didn’t want to hear what she was being told and sounded genuinely shocked at the attitudes and beliefs being expressed. Of course she then had to run back home to find a non militant Muslim just to show that they’re different here and all the wrapping in cotton wool the left has done has made an amazing difference.

    Just the stuff most of us have been telling them for years !

       19 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I noticed the online text summary of this the other day. The message I got was that this was just one of those situations where naughty people prey on the poorest and most vulnerable. I noted at the time how blame was curiously placed differently than with Rochdale. Looks like there was an added dimension to that in the full production.

         16 likes

  47. thoughtful says:

    The polling report has a report on the economy, it doesn’t make pleasant reading for the Tories, but the way it’s reported is a model for unbiased reporting. It’s worth a read before the comming week to get an idea of whether our friends are being a bit partial.

    http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

    The economic trackers are as bad as usual for the government – people think the government are managing the economy badly by 65% to 25%, 67% think George Osborne is doing a bad job as Chancellor, only 11% of people expect their economic situation to get better in the next twelve months. Asked if the government’s economic strategy is working only 7% think it is, 36% think it isn’t but will in the fullness of time, 45% think it is unlikely to ever work. Take note of these figures – they are the background to this week’s budget and we’ll see next week if it has a positive or negative effect (in recent years budgets have had negative effects far more often than positive ones).

       1 likes

  48. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ acts as PR outfit for Mr Grant to censor the press.

    We’ve had a pretty well one-sided political lobbying effort from BBC-NUJ all today in pushing Grant campaign to legislate against the press, but not against TV/radio interests of BBC.

    The BBC-NUJ (showing how far its principles have sunk) does not put the case for freedom of the press, but politically backs Grant, as self-appointed spokesperson for ‘victims’.

    An alternative, non-broadcast, non-BBC NUJ view:-

    Mick Hume:
    “Stitching up press freedom behind closed doors.
    Labour and Hacked Off are now prepared to hold the political system to ransom and rewrite the UK constitution in order to tame the press.”

    http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13446/

       18 likes

  49. George R says:

    SYRIA:
    Britain’s ‘political class’ (including INBBC) step up propaganda to arm Sunni jihadists.

    From Hague through to the ‘Guardian’ and BBC-NUJ, there’s an increasing campaign to ensure continuing extreme violence in Syria and the eventual imposition by jihadists of Sharia law.

    Apparently, Britain’s witless ‘political class’ think that such an outcome is in the interests of non-Islamic British people!

       16 likes