259 Responses to ANOTHER OPEN THREAD

  1. DB says:

    Just been having a scan through the BBC-funded Cardiff School of Journalism study into BBC reporting of immigration, the EU and religion that claimed there’s a pro-Tory/europsceptic bias based on the number of sources interviewed.

    Here’s the study’s criterion for defining a source’s political affiliation (p110):

    “This was recorded when the political affiliation of a source was explicitly stated e.g. Labour Leader Ed Miliband.”

    Political affiliation was recorded when it was “explicitly stated.” Hmm. We’re only too aware on this site of just how selective the BBC can be when declaring party affiliations.

    A quick look at the Today archives threw up the following.

    Richard Corbett, special adviser to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, appeared on the Today programme twice during the period of 24 days studied in 2012 (on 25 Oct 2012 & 14 Nov 2012). Corbett was a Labour MEP from 1996 until he lost his seat in 2009 (the impartial BBC’s then Europe editor Mark Mardell called it the “saddest moment of the night“) and he has been selected to stand once again for Labour in the next EU elections. On neither Today appearance was his party affiliation mentioned, so can one assume that he wasn’t recorded as a Labour representative? If the Cardiff study can exclude someone such as Corbett from its data it really is next to useless.

    The study also claims that there were no union representatives giving opinions on any of the three subjects during the Oct-Nov 2012 period. Well, the second Richard Corbett appearance on the Today programme had him up against Bernadette Segol, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation. So, that’s bullshit too.

    It didn’t take long to uncover those examples, and they are just from the Today programme. Goodness knows what other flaws there are.

    Also worth noting is this:

    We examined weekday coverage over a month-long period between October 15 and November 15 in 2007 and 2012, respectively. On television, we examined BBC News at Ten(BBC One), BBC Breakfast 7-8 am (BBC One), and Newsnight (BBC Two). On radio, we coded the Today programme from 7-8.30 am (Radio 4), Newsbeat at 12.45 pm (Radio 1), and 5 Live Breakfast, Your Call 9-10am(Radio 5 Live).

    Missing data:
    Radio One Newsbeat: 31/10/2007
    BBCNews at Ten: 16/10/2012 and 13/11/2012
    Breakfast: 16/10/2012, 17/10/2012, 13/11/2012, 14/11/2012
    Newsnight: 16/10/2012 and 13/11/2012

    Someone of a sceptical nature may ask why most of the broadcast data from 16 October and 13 November 2012 was “missing”. What happened on those two days?

       61 likes

    • Deborah says:

      thanks DB – I started to think of a quote from Alice in Wonderland that applied to the Cardiff School of Journalism’s ‘excellent’ study for the BBC Trust – and am afraid I have got carried away.

      “Curiouser and curiouser!” I thought

      Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ (No but the BBC Trust can)

      ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (especially if I listen to the Today programme).

      “We’re all mad here.” ― Cheshire Cat
      (Well no actually I think we with some obvious exceptions we are the sane ones.)

      “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ says the White Queen to Alice.” (but if you are a BBC journalist who knows ‘the view to take’ if you want to get on – or do I mean to receive a salary far higher than you would get in newspaper journalism?)

      “Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.” ― The Cheshire Cat
      I think the few who see the BBC bias find their way to this site, some don’t recognize it and Dez and Albaman don’t ever want to.
      But I still think if the Cardiff research saw a left wing bias (sorry I tried reading the research but it was so full of Labour speak I lost the will to live – or at least beyond the first page) then the authors were obviously in Wonderland and I suspect sharing a smoke with the caterpillar.

         58 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The BBC didn’t mention Corbett’s political affiliation? Rule #1 in effect as usual.

         48 likes

    • Arthur Penney says:

      News and current affairs presented by John Humphrys and James Naughtie, including the decision to close the UK consulate in Basra, Gary McKinnon’s extradition and EU membership (16/10/2012)

      for more news see here for October 16th and for November 13th.

      Happy digging

         10 likes

  2. A.D. says:

    It should read two Black males, doesn’t the son of the murdered woman deserve better than this? Why does the BBC continue to do this?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23826825

       42 likes

    • Dave s says:

      A general point here related to this dreadful shooting. “The wrong place at the wrong time’
      It is always said by way of explanation, It is a cop out. Anybody going about their lawful business is in the right place at the right time.
      It is liberal weakness that tries to change this to “wrong time wrong place”
      We need to understand this and then deal with those criminals who fail to repect civil society in the harshest possible way. And I mean harsh.

         62 likes

  3. Guest Who says:

    Another interesting turn of phrase or two, too…
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/crumbs.html
    ‘James Harding, Helen Boaden and Danny Cohen need to respect the decisions of whoever comes in – yet not feel threatened by the new arrival. ‘
    As those clearly expert at scratching at the inner glazed ring of the DG’s Crystal Maze, one is sure they’ll stay atop the greasy pole a while longer yet.

       22 likes

  4. Guest Who says:

    Meanwhile, from those wonderful people who bring us ‘Delivery Quality F.. udge, after the pensions and payouts and pay-offs and PC box-ticks have been delivered first’…
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/breakfast-menu.html
    Maybe Lily Allen doing investigative stuff with guidance from BIJ?
    ‘While we’re on about diversity, the photos below suggest 2 ethnic minority presenters out of 52.’
    This guy can probably stage a fightback:
    http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/verne-troyer.jpg

       10 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Lots of middle-aged white men facing the chop, then.

         22 likes

      • George R says:

        Yes, D.G HALL is leading the charge for discrimination in favour of women at the BBC, with talent consideration overriden in favour of HALL’s BBC social engineering project, at licence-payers’ expense.

           36 likes

        • George R says:

          The phoney, exalted word ‘diverse,’ clinches it for discriminatory HALL and BBC.

             34 likes

    • Rufus McDufus says:

      The same Lily Allen who amusingly may have caused Rebekah Brooks’ trial to be thrown out of court. http://order-order.com/2013/08/21/who-needs-sally-bercow-when-you-have-lily-allen/

         12 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Indeed.
        ‘She has now deleted the offending tweet.’
        As has many a BBC employee when their own views seem to cross red lines their employers feel that the degrees of separation are not as wide as may be healthy.
        And as we all know, when a person deletes a tweet, that’s the end of it.

           27 likes

        • DavidA says:

          Unless, of course, the offending Tweet is of the right-of-centre or WAYTHITHT variety, in which case the guilty tweeter (tweetist???) will be pursued to the ends of the world and hauled before the nearest court for a quick show trial, before a nicely public and suitably grovelling apology and admission of guilt and moral turpitude that wouldn’t be out of place on North Korean telly.

          The Lefties obviously look back mistily-eyed at the grainy footage of Mao’s cultural revolution and think “Yes…that’s the future we want for our kids….well, maybe not OUR kids, but everyone else’s”.

             14 likes

  5. Ian Hills says:

    Nice bit of research on how license fee payers are financing professional liars to cover up for propagandists.

    As the impartial Cardiff School of Journalism study (contributors, Richard Sambrook et al) prettily puts it “The explosion in sources of news and information available on the internet and other digital platforms has led some to question the relevance of impartiality in the 21st century”.

    Like the fight to keep the Balen report a close secret, covering up the muck costs money.

       53 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Shouldn’t that be “The explosion in sources of news and information available on the internet and other digital platforms has led some to question the relevance of a tax-funded broadcaster in the 21st century”?

         57 likes

  6. Wank says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23808788

    Another chance for the BBC to fawn over ‘feminism’ as if it’s all the same thing. This woman for example clearly demonstrates that she’s not interested in equal gender rights, but in female superiority with her “we’re taking over” line. If a man said something like that about, say, child custody rights or divorce settlements the BBC would portray him as a sexist, but because it’s a woman it’s ok. Same as when the BBC has spent ages giving credence to the ridiculous views of Trevor Phillips. Harriet Harman, Julie Bindel, that idiot from the Society for Black Lawyers who thankfully appears to have fallen back into obscurity, and many other bigoted human beings who got away with it because their targets were white males.

       60 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Re. the comedienne with her “we’re taking over” line –

      “Christie told BBC Scotland she had been coming to the Fringe for 10 years and ‘nobody had really come’ to her shows.”

      It was clearly only thanks to her sexist rants that this unfunny bore was allowed to appear yet again.

         44 likes

  7. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    bBBC Radio 4 ‘news’ (6.15p.m.) linked the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘dream’ with the death of Trayvon Martin, the ‘unarmed’ black criminal, including an interview with Trayvon’s mother about the campaign to re-try Zimmerman.

       66 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      BBC journalism: perpetuating a lie, because they feel it’s true. BBC truth: Zimmerman killed an innocent in cold blood because he wanted to kill a black boy.

      Go on, lurking professional journalists, tell me this isn’t what’s going on, and show your work.

         56 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      What were MLK’s famous words ? “I have a dream……when people will be judged by what they do, not by the colour of their skin”.

      MLK would have had Angel Trayvon bang to rights as a wannabe-gangsta sexist racist druggie thug who deliberately attacked a man and said he aimed to kill him.

         59 likes

      • John says:

        Does the name Sherry West mean anything to anyone on here? Probably not although the BBC did cover the initial story back in March.

        Brief summary. White mother claims two black teenagers asked for money and threatened to shoot her baby if she didn’t give them some. The baby was shot in the head. The defense will apparently claim the mother shot her own baby to get a $5k insurance payout.

        Jury selection is now complete so let’s see how this one is covered.

           50 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Let’s not forget that BBC journalist David Willis told two blatant lies in his report about the Zimmerman verdict. He lied when he claimed that Zimmerman tackled Martin, and lied again when he said that there were no witnesses to the struggle between the two.

        BBC standards: we lie when it suits us because it feels right. Fake, but accurate.

           80 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Same thing on 5 Live this morning (7.55am). “The 17 year old was shot by vigilante George Zimmerman in a Florida street in 2012 “, said the presenter in the introduction to a clip from a recorded interview with Trayvon’s mother. He went on to say Zimmerman was cleared on grounds of self defence, but would any passing journalist like to justify the use of ‘vigilante’ here?

         54 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘Lie’ is a strong word, but when supported by clear evidence of what was or is, and how then ‘reported’, the dubious excuse of ineptitude can really not apply.
      There appears to be a campaign of propagating untruths, for ideological reasons, for the purposes of deception.
      That… really is beyond the pale for employees of a national broadcast news monopoly clinging on to its self-description of impartiality and trust like a drowning man slipping into a suit or armour.
      As before, I stand amazed at what the BBC allows to compromise its tattered reputation still further.
      Zimmerman/Martin registered here, mainly because of the UK liberal media obsession, but once the verdict was handed down it was done.
      Trying to raise it again, and in such blatant ways, based around inaccuracy, will surely only hurt them more, and for what gain?

         22 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        Fortunately I don’t think that the BBC does think that its reputation is tattered. So it goes on manipulating the news to an ever greater extent. I think that the public is slowly getting wise to this blatant manipulation and beginning to lose trust in the BBC. Each BBC scandal helps in this regard of course.
        Additionally, as there become more and more ways in which news is reported and disseminated the BBC is losing its control of the news agenda. Provided that no future Labour government finds a way of giving the BBC control of new media we should see the loss of control accelerating.
        So I do feel that within the next 10 years we will see the BBC becoming much less powerful and the whole culture and politics that the liberal left , with the BBC in the vanguard, has imposed on us being increasingly questioned.

           30 likes

  8. Wank says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/23812276

    Another attempt by the BBC to deliberately mislead the public into thinking that not wanting to promote homosexuality as ‘homophobia.’ Russia’s gay laws are liberal and legitimate. I fully support and endorse equal legal rights and marriage for gay and lesbian couples on the grounds that they are human beings who deserve to be treated no differently from the rest of us – laws such as the ones Russia appealed make it clear that gays should not only be treated differently from heterosexuals, but placed on a pedestal above them. You can’t have it both ways, we’re either an equal society or a society where certain sections are treated better than others by the state.

       30 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      There is very little in that ‘report’ that doesn’t damn the BBC and most individuals involved in its creation, from the author of the piece to the patronising peroxide sink and Mr. Fry featured in videos.
      Which may explain the utter panning they are getting in the comments form those more interested in sport and coherence than PC social engineering, misrepresentation and minority advocacy.

         11 likes

      • Banquosghost says:

        In his younger days Fry was involved in some fabulous comedy but has become over the years just another lefty mouthpiece.

        I imagine that whenever a quote is needed regarding some leftist cause they invite him in, ask him to speak from the BBC manifesto for a few minutes then spend the rest of the meeting playing the biscuit game.

           9 likes

        • Andy S. says:

          Fry is more of a bore than a leftie mouthpiece. It’s a pity he didn’t keep his word about closing his Twitter account when someone tweeted a message to him that his posts were facile and boring. He really threw his toys out of his pram at that comment.

             5 likes

  9. Invicta 1066 says:

    Let me give credit to the BBC for an hour of enlightenment today Saturday from 12pm to one pm. First ”How you pay for the City” an expose of banks and banking and their virtual immunity from any retribution. Factual and interesting, with a warning about government’s lies lies and statistics coming our way next year.
    What followed was pure comedy near genius as far as I’m concerned. Rory Bremners One Question Quiz. The topic, where has all the money gone? This referred to the £200trillion debt governments and banks have amassed on our behalf.
    The programme, with Gordon Brown (”why are you pointing the figure at me? and Yes I sold off the reserves but at least I didn’t sell the First team) and Angela Merkel was amusing and informative. Near the end two experts came on and gave the best and clearest explanation of QE national debt and the answer to the Question. Answer, the money has gone nowhere. You need to listen to it to get the gist.
    The expert contributors on both programmes gave a better and more succinct résumé of economics in a few minutes than Flanders et al do with their interminable and biased waffle taking hours.
    Another factual programme reinterpreting statistics in a way politicians and bureaucrats hate returns on Friday at 4.30pm, the excellent Tim Harford with ”More or Less’

    ‘How you pay for the city is scheduled on R4 Wed 28th, which I expect is the repeat.
    If only the BBC insisted on the same standard for all its programmes.

       13 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Enlightenment with good standard, perhaps, but consider the agenda.

         9 likes

  10. DB says:

    BBC World Service journalist:

       51 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      World class.

      World-class expression of bias, that is.

      ‘Impartial’ my arse.

         50 likes

      • John Standley says:

        Indeed – had a BBC journo expressed similar support for Mr Zimmerman………………Oh! sorry…

           31 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Twitter: the gift that keeps on giving. Nice catch as always, DB. Another one for the list, and added to the ITOT page.

         40 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘Views here mostly mine.. or other people’s..’
      Best not hold any BBC and ‘pundits’ don’t share then, love. It can go pear-shaped very quickly if they choose.

         12 likes

  11. johnnythefish says:

    Climate Change Calamity Comedy Moments – latest.

    http://www.thegwpf.org/climate-leaks-misleading-ipcc-major-report/

    BBC News tells us….

    ‘According to the latest scoop, the scientists are set to say they are more convinced than ever that global warming is caused by humans. They will say they are 95% certain that our use of fossil fuels is the main reason behind the global rise in temperatures since the 1950s.

    The panel will also outline why global temperatures have been rising more slowly since 1998, a controversial slowdown that scientists have been struggling to explain.

    According to the leak, they will put it down to natural meteorological variations and other factors that could include greater absorption of heat into the deep oceans – and the possibility that the climate is less sensitive to carbon dioxide than had previously been believed.’

    That wouldn’t be ‘The Science Formerly Known As Settled’, by any chance?

    And there’s more!

    “We’ve already given it to governments for their thoughts, and we’ve had 1,800 comments on that 15-page document,” he said

    So, let’s get this straight. The ‘Summary for Policymakers’, the 15-page synopsis for governments of a ‘scientific’ report running to thousands of pages, has to be approved by those governments?

    ‘The IPCC is not, in fact, about science. If it were a scientific body, scientists would summarize those 14 chapters and that would be the end of the matter.

    Instead, governments from around the world will send people to Stockholm to ensure that “the science” is expressed in a manner that’s acceptable to them. Scientists don’t have the last word at the IPCC – their political masters do.’

    http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/06/13/the-ipcc-politicizing-science-since-1988/

    And the BBC chappie tells us this:

    ‘The process of compiling this report – with several hundred scientists, 195 governments and over 100 non-governmental organisations involved….

    and later……

    ….’science is moving much faster than that, and the process itself is too arduous for the hundreds of scientists involved. (Note how the ‘settled’ science is moving!)

    But then here’s a different view – and there are not ‘several hundred scientists’ involved at all:

    ‘With the report due in less than a month, this is a good time to recall the high-level endorsement of previous IPCC efforts. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, for example, has attempted to boost the IPCC’s credibility by asserting that around 4000 scientists endorse the reports’ statements. The fact of the matter is that any one section is likely to be the work of no more than 10 authors. The IPCC generates its reports via a process that generally sees one or two contributing authors write the original section texts, which are then massaged by a similarly small number of Lead Authors. Alternatively, those Lead Authors might use the contributions as guides and references while doing the writing themselves. Sitting above the Lead Authors are the Coordinating Lead Authors, typically two or three, who oversee the entire chapter for which they are responsible.’

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-95-certainty-is-that-ipcc-cant-be.html

    And that’s without mention of the environmentalists who have hijacked the process:

    http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/06/13/the-ipcc-politicizing-science-since-1988/

    ‘Writing such a summary is a difficult task. It involves boiling down 14 chapters of dense textual information, graphs, and charts into a few dozen pages.

    My book-length exposé of the IPCC, The Delinquent Teenager, reveals that there are sound reasons to question the judgment of some of the scientists who helped write that underlying text. Rather than being rigorously neutral, dispassionate professionals, certain IPCC personnel have close links to activist organizations. Others have been described by their own colleagues as “not competent” and “clearly not qualified.”

    Good job we don’t all rely on the BBC for our ‘climate change’ reporting, innit?

    Let’s see how they pitch their report on IPCC AR5 when it’s released. At a rough guess, I’d say it will be ‘business as usual’.

       41 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Only the BBC could tell off the climate for its “controversial slowdown”. Presumably the climate is white and male too, and gets its wife to clean behind the fridge.

         42 likes

    • therealguyfaux says:

      Here is an hypothesis re: “Global whatchamadiddy” that I have never heard discussed:

      To what extent has intense fire suppression in the past century contributed to there having been an artificially-lower temperature reading from which they base their “historical” climate, from which we are now supposed to be warming?

      Here’s another thought– what effect has the lack of ice harvest from frozen lakes and streams had on water temperatures throughout the Northern Temperate Zone. I won’t go into it as it is a lengthy argument, but I believe it has had an effect.

      My point being that the halcyon age from which they derive their historical climate data was a human artefact as much as the current one is.
      It may be that we cooled the planet in a way it ought not to have been, we got used to it, and when “Mother Gaia” rebounded to what the climate could have been along, we mistook it for a dangerous warming we were creating which could potentially escape our ability to control.
      Hey, it’s no less reasonable than any bollocks they’ve been spouting, and five’ll get you ten you will never hear anyone invested in the global warming scam operations discussing it.
      Maybe, instead of the science having been settled, it has been “Mother Gaia” settling herself down.
      Any thoughts?

         6 likes

  12. Llareggub says:

    The Martin Luther King day has been transformed by the BBC into the Trayvon Martin day.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23827252

       40 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Talking of Martin Luther King Jnr….

      The faltering forward march of the BBC sponsored civil rights campaign for wimmins sports moves on apace

      Over to wimmins hocky

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/hockey/23824569

      A familiar score…

      (Are the BBC a jinx?)

      “England’s women suffered defeat by Germany in a penalty shootout”

      And some oddly familiar speechifying –

      ‘I have absolutely no doubt that this squad has got a gold medal in it (sniff sniff snuffle snuffle) I know that…. we have got a lot more to give…. and we are gonna get there…. it might not be my lifetime…. it might be in the future….but I believe we’ll get there!’

      Pass the sick bucket.

         21 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        Not sure what your point is here: they had won on penalties in the semi-final against the favourites Holland. To take the final to penalties (4 – 4) against the 2nd favourites is something.

        If only the footy (men and women) could get that far!

           8 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          My point is :
          1. To spoof the BBC’s on-going campaign to promote wimmins sports.
          2. To spoof the ‘jinx’ meme which the BBC attempted to apply to the PM
          3. To share the beyond-spoof interview with the wimmins hocky team member channelling M Luther King’s ‘I may not get there with you’ speech.

             21 likes

          • Span Ows says:

            You calling me a spoof? 😉

            Sorry AISI, all went totally over my head, maybe your last line threw me.

               5 likes

            • AsISeeIt says:

              No problem at all, sir. Sometimes my mind works faster than my keyboard. Do watch the hockey-miss interview if you can. The tearful ‘I may not get there with you…’ is the funniest thing I’ve seen on the BBC for some time. There could be many a potential PhD paper exploring the odd interelation of Leftist broadcaster with wannabe interviewees.

                 11 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Actually, the march’s organizers themselves have done that. MLKIII said in his speech that it was open season on black people. The BBC is merely reporting it, and every single BBC journalist has had their beliefs about how racist the US is, and how Zimmerman was a racist who wanted to kill a black child, confirmed today.

         24 likes

  13. Flawedlogic says:

    I have been listening to R4 all afternoon whilst driving, after 5 hours listening to the various shows it is clear that R4 broadcasts some thought provoking documentaries, unfortunately I had to listen to 4 hours of mediocre left-wing rubbish comprising comedy, debate and news in order to listen to the two short documentaries.

    It is a huge pity that amongst the utter dross that that makes up the majority of the BBC radio output some absolute gems are missed as I imagine many people just cannot stomach having left-wing propaganda force-fed to them.

       49 likes

    • Wild says:

      Although I find Michael Wood an intellectual lightweight ( I read a book by David Starkey and a book by Michael Wood one after the other and the lack of intellectual focus [padded out with a few Guardian reader pieties] of the latter is obvious) but when he gets on the topic of England, and Anglo-Saxon England in particular, his passion for sources, and his television journalism skills of telling a story [although he has a monotonous voice which unfortunately he tries to make more interesting with ham acting] by showing us objects, and locating his narrative within a landscape, is admirable. His recent Alfred series although only three episodes (I hope there will be more) was informative, illuminating, and at times moving.

      The recent David Starkey series on the link between monarchy and music was also excellent. Restoration Home I find interesting, although I have missed most of the episodes.

      At its best Who Do You Think You Are? can be engaging, although occasionally spoiled by chunks of Leftist narrative. The Leftist narrative comes ever more to the fore in QI, but it is still enjoyable. The science output is generally very poor (the tedious Marcus De Sautoy has zero talent as an educator and the chippy Irishman Dara O’Briain is no James Burke) but even that informs every now and then, although it could be much better. The wildlife programmes are probably very good, although I rarely watch them.

      It is “Drama” and Current Affairs” where the BBC is so atrocious. I wonder what proportion of the budget they get? They should close them down. The Office was the last drama that was any good – and that was bleak and hopeless and not very entertaining. Sherlock and Dr Who is all style and no substance – simply feeding off past glories. I watched a journalist go to South America to track the drugs trade, and although she was irritating it was informative in a way in which BBC Current Affairs almost never is these days. But that was a rare exception. The BBC drama department is creatively as dead as a doornail, and its Current Affairs journalists are lazy and stupid.

      It speaks volumes about the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Left that dramas like EastEnders and Current Affairs programmes like Newsnight are so third rate.

      The more money the BBC spend on their staff and buildings the worse it gets. Nobody with any intelligence or talent goes anywhere near the place – and with good reason.

         44 likes

      • Rufus McDufus says:

        Agree with virtually everything you say except Marcus de Sautoy. Thought the recent series on units of measurement was excellent.

           4 likes

        • MartinW says:

          I had high hopes for that series, and settled in to watch the first. However, the loud, highly intrusive and almost continuous ‘background’ music became intolerable after a few minutes, and I switched off. I tried the second programme, but again reached for the off switch very quickly.

             3 likes

          • Wild says:

            I am being harsh with Marcus de Sautoy (who is doing his best and is clearly a believer in the importance of science) but given that he is a professional educator I find him very superficial.

            Teaching is not his talent. He should slow down, engage with the viewer, and explore the way in which concepts develop in science in much more detail, or not bother. I am not saying it is easy.

               12 likes

  14. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC Radio 5 Live: Chris Warburton, Olly Mann & Helen Zultzman.

    Olly Mann : ‘This story is on the front page of the Guardian – which is why we are reviewing it first….’

    BBC: Same Old, Same Old.

       56 likes

  15. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    The bBBC TV 10 o’clock ‘news’ has just stated that George Zimmerman claimed to have shot Trayvon Martin in self-defence. But Zimmerman didn’t make that claim.
    It will be interesting to see what defence the bBBC’s leftie racists claim when I file my complaint.

       44 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      There is so much wrong with the BBC coverage of this. It makes you wonder if they realise that the interweb works.

         38 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        They’d rather it didn’t work, true.
        But try as they might, they cant stuff the genie back in the lamp.
        Thankfully.

           12 likes

    • John says:

      They will probably completely ignore it, rather as they did with mine on their deification of St Trayvon.

         27 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It’s a factual matter.
      If their response is anything involving ‘belief’ it will be interesting how they proceed if not admitting culpability and making a correction.
      That may take a year mind.
      Ignoring it is not an option until they expedite (ban) you for raising issues they can’t address without looking stupid in public.

         9 likes

  16. George R says:

    Syria, Islamic Jihadists, and The West.

    Will INBBC’s Sunni- al Nusra- al Qaeda supporting faction be pleased with this?:-

    “U.S. forces move closer to aiding al-Qaeda in Syria”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/08/us-forces-move-closer-to-aiding-al-qaeda-in-syria.html

    The West’s political class (inc MSM, and INBBC, of course), is more concerned with getting involved in the Islamic jihad military quagmire in Syria, that stopping these Islamic jihadists from using Britain and Europe as their base for the two-way jihad military traffic.

       16 likes

  17. George R says:

    “We all pay for BBC political prisoners”

    By Gerald Warner.

    [Excerpt]:-

    “Why should non-payment of a licence fee be a criminal offence, unlike defaulting on an electricity or gas bill? Why should members of the public have a criminal record imposed upon them by a clapped-out broadcaster, itself mired in criminality, as the Savile scandal revealed? This totalitarian privilege feeds the BBC’s narcissistic perception of itself as an arm of the state. At least 70 people have 
been imprisoned in recent years for 
non-payment of licence fees: they are the political prisoners of the BBC. The Corporation makes great propagandist play, on every possible occasion, of promoting ‘women’s rights’. Yet two-thirds of those prosecuted as licence defaulters are women; in the classic profile they are single mothers.”

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/gerald-warner-we-all-pay-for-bbc-political-prisoners-1-3061918

       43 likes

    • Rich Tee says:

      Looks like this policy has a disproportionate effect on women to me. I’ll ring somebody at BBC News, they’ll be sure to be interested in a story like this.

      Oh wait…

         35 likes

  18. AsISeeIt says:

    Many a true word said in jest

    Comedian Paul Sinha, guest on BBC’s 7 Day Saturday:

    ‘I’m a fully-paid-up Twitter Leftie, I get beaten up on Twitter if I don’t agree with every word said by Owen Jones’

       32 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Now I see what is meant by ‘Views here mostly mine.. or other people’s..’

         14 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      I may become a fan of Paul Sinha

      On the BBC’s coverage of NHS over 40s health checks:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23773257

      Paul Sinha:

      ‘I saw a BBC report describe Dr Clare Gerada chair of the Royal College of GPs as “the country’s leading GP” – no – she is the country’s most opportunistic GP’

      And just to show Mr Sinha was correct about BBC terminology here’s the BBC on-line report.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23765083

      ‘Health checks offered to millions of people over 40 are a waste of time, says the UK’s leading GP.’

      Of course the point the BBC was keen to make was a poke at the Government’s management of the NHS.

      ‘Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, says the government is promoting its NHS Health Check programme “against good evidence”.’

      Exaggerate the seniority and importance of your source and as if by magic your anti-Government story assumes greater importance.

      The role of satire used to be to chip away at the cant and hypocrisy in the powerful – small wonder so very few right of centre comedians can break into the over mighty BBC’s magic circle.

         23 likes

  19. Jeff says:

    It’s the weekend of the Notting Hill Carnival and I’m expecting glowing reports on the BBC London news. We’ll see numerous colourful floats, happy people dancing and shirt-sleeved smiling policemen. Invariably it all “kicks off” about 10pm on Monday and the Beeb and their cohorts will be back home in the leafier suburbs having thoroughly enjoyed their multicultural excursion. You will have to resort to You Tube to view the carnage. Our national broadcaster won’t show the yobs throwing bottles and on occasion petrol bombs at the police and unless someone actually dies the BBC will completely ignore the mayhem.
    If you’re thinking of taking your kids…

       38 likes

    • graphene fedora says:

      Yes, 10pm Monday night at the Carny: the ‘free expression’ hour, & look, here comes the BBC ‘White Privilege Guilt Float’. Isn’t it out a bit late? Haven’t they heard that it gets a bit…well, you know, heavy. There’s Jo Brand, Jeremy Hardy, Brigstocke & Mark Steel gyrating like puppets with half their strings cut to those beguiling Afro rhythms, that underground rap. Aren’t they well out of their comfort zone? Tame white metroleftoid audiences lapping up their hackneyed old routines…Jesus! Look at those boys bottling them? Where have all the beeboids’ Taliban outriders gone? Where’s Benjy Zephaniah? Why’s Jo still chanting ‘Only whites are racist! Only whites are..’ Isn’t that sending out the wrong signal? Asking for it? Isn’t it just really, really dumb?…Oooh, look at the pretty blue strobe lights on the ambulances…Poor old Jo, did Mr Magoo have a wife?

         30 likes

  20. Llareggub says:

    The BBC, Cameron and Hague all together supporting the so called rebels in Syria. It is hard to say whether Cameron takes his orders from the BBC or whether the state broadcaster takes its orders from Whitehall

       19 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      That fierce independence, representing the truth and the public interest really going to get hammered home at the plurality review, I bet.
      I’m surprised the guys & gals from BBC WHYS have not organised their own International Brigade by now.
      Orwellian indeed.

         11 likes

  21. George R says:

    “BBC man suspended over £100million digital fiasco has second job with technology firm”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401587/BBC-man-suspended-100million-digital-fiasco-second-job-technology-firm.html

       12 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      One imagines Lord Patten, the guy at the top of the market rate cabal apoparently aware of and cool with the deal, considers him somewhat of a lightweight slacker in comparison.
      It’s not like his many roles have seen him oversee any disasters on his watch.
      Oh, hang on…

         11 likes

  22. John says:

    While looking for something completely different (The interesting mis-reporting of UKIP candidate Richard Wilkins by Rowena Mason, formerly Telegraph now Guardian) I cam across the following list:-

    BBC Dodgy Employees

    BBC Jimmy Savile – TV & Radio Personality – Accused of horrific sex crimes and abuse against young girls over decades involving a monstrous cover up by BBC and possibly involvement of other BBC staff. By 2013 hundreds of allegations of child sex abuse and rape became public, leading the police to believe that Savile may have been one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
    BBC Andrew Brennand – Radio Producer – Ordered to sign the sex offenders list and given a three year community order after being caught and admitting sexual offences in 2010.
    BBC Jonathan King – Frontman & Writer – Convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail for sexual offences against children. The BBC even apologised to convicted paedophile King after writing him out of pop history
    BBC Dan Penteado – TV Presenter on Rogue Traders with co presenter Matt Allwright – Penteado was convicted and jailed for 12 weeks for Benefit Fraud of £24,000 and Dishonesty in a hypocritical twist to the programmes self righteous criticism and lies about other people.
    BBC DJ Spoony or Johnathan Joesph – Radio Presenter – Arrested and Cautioned after admitting common assault on a woman.
    BBC Richard Bacon – Childrens TV Presenter – The Blue Peter presenter admitted taking cocaine and drug use and was sacked but is now working for the BBC and paid with licence fee cash.
    BBC David Dickinson – Antiques Frontman – Convicted and Jailed for fraud.
    BBC Stephen Fry – TV Presenter – Convicted and sentenced for credit card fraud.
    BBC John Alford – Londons Burning Actor – Convicted and Sentenced for supplying drugs.
    BBC Lubna Qazi or DJ Kanwal – Asian Network Presenter – Resigned from the BBC after Fraudulently claiming £18,000 in benefits and Tax payers money.
    BBC Leslie Grantham – Eastenders Actor – Convicted and Served 10 Years for Murder.
    BBC Martyn Smith – Match Of The Day Producer – Pleaded guilty in relation to posesing indecent child photographs. Though nearly 125,000 illicit images of youngsters some of rape on children as young 3 months old. Smith chat logs were aslo found to contain instructions on ‘knock around’ and rape a ‘screaming’ five-year-old boy.
    BBC Peter Rowell – Presenter – Convicted and Jailed for six years in connection with sexually abusing young girls.
    BBC Ashley Blake – Presenter – Convicted and jailed for two years following a disturbance and assault in 2009. Blake also had previous convictions for driving whilst disqualified, handling stolen goods and theft.
    BBC DJ Grooverider or Raymond Bingham – Radio Presenter – Convicted and Jailed for four years in Dubai drug related.
    BBC Jonny Dymond – Journalist – Arrested pleaded guilty and fined for possession of drugs but not sacked by the BBC.
    BBC Benjamin Wilkins – Convicted and Jailed for eight months after secretly recording sexual encounters with hidden cameras.
    BBC Ashley Walters – Radio Presenter & Actor – Convicted and sentenced to 18 months for possessing an illegal firearm but still working for the BBC.
    BBC Chris Denning – DJ for Radion 1 was freed by a court in Prague in Novenber 2001 after completing a prison sentence for abusing boys as young as 11. Denning escaped extradition to Britain to face child sex charges.
    BBC Stuart Hall – Broadcaster Stuart Hall has appeared in court charged with one count of rape on a woman and 14 counts of indecent assault on young girls.

    Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bbc-documentary-future-welfare-state-2105855#ixzz2cyHe473Q
    Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

    As Ray Davies put it:-

    “Some that you recognise
    Some that you’ve hardly even heard of”

       34 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      That’s ‘outside’ physical and sexual abuse plus doesn’t mention the swathes of women who have said they were abused WITHIN the BBC, also the swathes of financial misdeeds like the recent fiddling of high pay-offs.

         20 likes

    • Andy S. says:

      Isn’t Rowena Mason also a Labour Councillor?

         1 likes

      • Rufus McDufus says:

        Do you mean Rowenna Davis?

           0 likes

        • Andy S. says:

          I think you may be right, Rufus. The one I’m thinking of is a regular on Sky News paper review. Names are similar.

             1 likes

          • Rufus McDufus says:

            I got confused too so I googled her! They all seem to have names like Rowena, Allegra, Astra Zeneca etc.

               6 likes

  23. John Anderson says:

    When will the BBC admit that Obama’s policies in the Middle East have been worse than useless – they have actually made the problems worse. This article suggests it kicked off with Obama following the Muslim Brotherhood lines set by Turkey’s President Erdogan – an MB autocrat :

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/the-sources-of-obamas-tragic-syria-policy.php

    We are now reduced to the spectacle of Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice (Yes – the Benghazi Liar) resorting to Twitter to attack President Assad – “What is he hiding?”. Wow, real hard stuff. There have been some comic responses – like “Its an anti-Islam video”, “He’s got the President’s balls in his hand”. “Samantha Powers” – who was missing from the UN vote last week, “on a pre-arranged trip” which turned out to be hols in Ireland.

    There are now threats of gunboat diplomacy, the US fleet loosing off some Cruise missiles. But the core problem is that both sides in Syria are now as bad as each other – Obama failed to support the true liberals and democrats two years ago, and this let Al Quada and its affiliates into the power vacuum.

    But in the BBC’s eyes, Obama bears no blame for this brutal and murderous mess.

       21 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘the US fleet loosing off some Cruise missiles’
      Clinton did that once; worked out well then too.
      Not sure where they landed but it was not warmongering warfare, but the other kind, the kind Novel Peace Prizes are made of.

         12 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      The BBC FaceBook feeds are alive with the latest ‘news’.
      This being Hague & Obama are really, really, really going to do something at sometime…. at least with the caveat on headlines ‘IF Syrian government complicity’ is proven.
      And the UK and US governments are being rightly mocked, along with their MSM mouthpieces, for such half-a*sed spouting being cranked out for so long.
      Comments on BBC FB pages make CiF seem rational, so there’s zero point chipping in, but there was one weepy bint wailing about ‘the children’.
      If the West goes in, I rather suspect there’ll be a few more on the collateral tally that such as this pea-brain will suddenly forget about, or suddenly use to bash other ideological foes.

         10 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        There is some worrying escalation of diplomatic idiocy: William Hague (who i used to admire) has been all over practically blaming Assad and government for the chemical attack…with ZERO proof: him and Obama (and their minions) seem to have completely lost the plot: Assad DOESN’T NEED to use these weapons, (a) he’s winning (b) why would he want the Western powers to directly intervene (this apart from indirectly supplying our future terrorists)

           24 likes

    • Stewart says:

      “both sides in Syria are now as bad as each other”
      How true- the problem is I don’t know what to believe and the BBCs blatant bias in other areas of the ME make it impossible to take anything they say abut Syria on face value.
      I was sent this link, previously I would have dismissed out of hand as being to horrendous to be true ,but know I’m not so sure.

      syria360.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/urgent-facts-about-the-chemical-weapons-attack-in-damascus

      Others here, more informed than me. might have an opinion.

         10 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        If there is a positive, and there are few, beyond belief the measure of even proof must now be set pretty high by the constant abuses of credulity and trust in no small measure propagated by the MSM.
        And that is a good thing, if it means greater risk and time for the truth to be discovered.
        Sadly, the Hollywood ideal of a whistleblower bearing a damning VHS to the broadcast studios to run that hour is now a lost ideal.
        It is but the start, as such as the BBC have run too many Pallywood epics, false flags etc too soon, with semantic sources ‘quote’, caveats as excuse, too often.
        Now, if the BBC says it’s true, my usual default is to presume the exact opposite until proven otherwise.
        How a most trusted entity gets such a reputation, and gets away with force funding to propagate it, is a mystery.

           9 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        And the most obvious: WHY would Assad do it? He has everything to lose and NOTHING to gain. Why target citizens? Why push Obama’s red-line? etc…

           15 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          These are good questions, but sadly we are now seeing the need to ask or answer when not convenient, by the politico media estate, now in the realms of even FoI exclusion.
          As little in the asylum that is the ME is rational, I will concede the possibility that Assad may just be barking enough to, for some odd reason, see merit in tweaking the lion’s tail (or eagle’s feathers), but what would be refreshing is the concession that Western-media savvy extremists have also a fair grasp of what is needed to provoke already empathetic entities into pure propaganda to serve their aims and ambitions.

             5 likes

          • Banquosghost says:

            Alternatively an officer made the call to use chemical weapons without Assad’s knowledge. Who knows what goes through the minds of soldiers on a front line. Having said that I agree with others, there have been plenty of occasions where the ‘rebels’ have cried wolf, it is difficult to know who to believe.

               1 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          Just in, as I doubt it could be avoided:
          http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23833912#%22
          Seems there are chess players out there too.
          The report itself is still littered with claims, and odd connections.
          I cannot see any reason to change my view the BBC is complicit in a very dubious game here, and if it plays out badly will bear some responsibility.
          I dread to think what the BBC twitter and FaceBook zoos are already cooking up with this news.
          The sun’s just appeared. Garden calls.

             11 likes

        • John Anderson says:

          Span Ows

          I don’t have any who did it. But Assad could have had his reasons – terrorise a troublesome neighborhood of the capital Damascus, kill some of his enemies, remind Syrians generally how bad things could yet get, ….. and stick a finger up to the UN and the US, Russia and Iran, Assad’s backers, would not mind the last one.

          Or it could be a group within the military, wanting to really get tough. Assad’s brother is in charge of the Division that includes artillery on high ground that could have lobbed sarin shells across into the Damascus suburb.

          But as I say – it could also be a false-flag diversion.

          And the last people to have any clue, or to allow real discussion, is the BBC.

             9 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Assad sees a US President who doesn’t want to do anything. Hell, if he follows BBC News, he’ll have heard Mardell say over and over again that the President doesn’t want the US to get involved in another Iraq or Afghanistan, and that He’s thinking deeply and deliberately about His options. Anyone who believes Mardell would figure they had a free hand and all the time in the world to do whatever they like.

          Assad’s been targeting citizens the whole time, and the most the US has done is send a few dozen rockets to Al Qaeda, and who knows how may of those actually made their way to Syria instead of Lebanon or Mali or Sudan. It’s a low-risk endeavor for him.

          The only question I have about chemical weapons is, why use them at all? Is it really more efficient than what he’s been doing?

             6 likes

          • Span Ows says:

            I meant ‘civilians’ David, though I did write citizens. Even many of the rebels are ‘citizens’ so you’re right!

            If you see my comment above (at 11:51) I make the same point, he has absolutely no need to use these weapons.

               4 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            ‘Is it really more efficient than what he’s been doing?’
            Maybe better answered by some of our more militarily-experienced posters.
            I can’t see the value other than area clearance, and if the casualties claimed are any guide, a very poorly targeted system beyond the PR disaster proof would reap. What was the military value of the area in question?
            The example of Saddam cannot be lost on even the most barking of despots, so beyond letting any Western ground troops know what exists (if it does – MSF still seems uncertain on what it is) as some form of deterrent the play seems bizarre at best.

               2 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              Yes, but going after Sadaam was ILLEGAL, wasn’t it? And after all, “we” gave him those chemical weapons, so it’s “our” fault if he used them. Even though he slaughtered far more of his own people than Assad has, it was ILLEGAL to go after him, wasn’t it?

              Surely Assad feels protected by international law now that we’ve all learned about that, and the expectation of all those human shields coming in to defy US aggression. Although he must be wondering why he’s not been given the same benefit of the doubt about those chemical weapons seeing as how he’s probably got Sadaam’s hand-me-downs, the same ones “we” gave to him.

              Where’s your anti-war crowd now, BBC?

                 7 likes

        • Andy S. says:

          False flag operations are as old as warfare itself. Hitler and Heydrich faked a Polish raid on a Danzig radio station as the excuse to invade Poland in 1939. They even dressed condemned prisoners in Polish uniforms, shot them and placed the bodies in various locations around the radio station, created a soundtrack of explosions and machine gun fire played “live” over the air while the radio announcer screamed the studio was under attack – all produced as “proof” the attack happened.

          Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident? this was supposed to be a North Vietnamese attack on a U.S. warship in South Vietnamese waters that kick started America’s escalation of the Viet Nam war. All fabricated to meet the ends of the US government.

          This time the Jihadists have the added advantage of a credulous Western Media and gullible, naive politicians like William Hague. The French want to interfere in Syria because Hollande owes his slight election victory to Muslim votes and it’s payback time.

             13 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            Interesting false flag history some seem to have either never heard of or chosen to forget.
            Some of course may have remembered and learned only too well.
            ‘Hollande owes his slight election victory to Muslim votes and it’s payback time.”
            Given it’s a Syrian civil war, does Pres. Hollande’s debt only cover certain specific vote blocs?

               7 likes

            • Andy S. says:

              I always thought Assad was a secular Muslim, tolerant of other religions. Most of the Muslims in Europe, especially France, seem to want a European Caliphate.

                 8 likes

  24. imaynotalwaysloveyou says:

    Once a week on iPlayer I trawl through any programmes that might be worth watching. I only look at the ‘Factual’ section normally as there’s at least one BBC4 documentary that isn’t too dumbed down or whingeing on about climate change.

    I’ve long given up on BBC comedy on the radio (Toksvig, Brigstocke, Hardy etc) but I thought I’d check out what’s happening with Beeb TV comedy. So I watched the first few minutes of three random programmes – Big School, Family Tree, Pramface. Some of these may well be independent productions that the beeb just broadcast, but not one of them made me laugh, not even a little. I dunno, has there been a redefinition of comedy and I wasn’t told?

    It’s like they are trying to be witty, or poignant or are a succession of ‘awkward moments’ – what the hell happened to the odd gag or one-liner?

       19 likes

    • Lobster says:

      If you haven’t already seen it, have a look at the clip of Kenny Everett on a previous Open Thread. Now that WAS funny!

         6 likes

    • GCooper says:

      If you think that is bad, try BBC R4’s recent ‘comedy’ offerings. It is as if a group of kids fresh from university had been given tapes of old BBC comedy programmes, then been told to copy them.

      Sadly, they hand picked people without a sense of humour. Imagine a German version of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. Lots of shouting. No jokes.

         17 likes

  25. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ: politically using Luther King.

    It uses Luther King political propaganda at every opportunity, such as in this casual, uncritical link between Luther King and Travyon Martin-

    “Martin Luther King rally draws thousands to Washington”

    (video clip).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23827538

       13 likes

    • George R says:

      It’s Trayvon Martin, and Martin Luther King jnr.

         7 likes

      • therealguyfaux says:

        Hey, you’re lucky they don’t go the whole shot and give him his full propers all the time, such as calling him “The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior.”

        By the way, he was commonly known, before he became prominent, as “Martin King.” His father, a preacher well-known in Atlanta, was “MLK” (a name he changed to, as he was born “Michael King”). To what extent the Media’s need to make his religious credentials stronger, by using the Reformation leader’s name, was the reason for using his full name and appending the Junior so as to avoid all possible confusion with his father, is something you would need to ask those who covered him in the mid-50’s in the bus boycott days.
        And to this day, there are those who refer to the civil rights leader as “Marxist” Luther King– his connections to the Old American Left, through a man named Stanley Levison, have never been fully explored by the media, though it was enough of, you should pardon the expression, a “red flag” for then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy to warrant investigation into the organising and mobilising for the March On Washington in 1963. It will not do to bring up any old bollocks about J. Edgar Hoover threatening to expose Kennedy indiscretions (Bob AND Jack) forcing AG Kennedy to do so.

           12 likes

  26. chrisH says:

    Well done Eminem!
    Like Jaggers lads at Glasto, the pop elite are banning the BBC from filming them in concert.
    About time, this bunch of freeloaders and wannabe “cool cats” started to buy their own tickets like the rest of us would , if we thought them worth watching.
    Still-I see that one of their fave weekend rebel yellers…The Clash(without their public school educated frontman!) are about to have an exhibition of their “work” in London soon.
    That`ll be the Today Show, Front Row and Friday Reviews after Newsnight then…Kirsty in her tartan and white as she confuses them with the Bay City Rollers.
    Well…as the St Joseph of Strummer once barked…
    “Huh, you think it`s funny”
    “Turning rebellion into money”.
    The irony now lost on Jones, Simenon and Topper(if he`s allowed to be part of the gang”…it`s always been a career imperative for Beeboids like Kirsty and tribute acts like Bragg!
    Ahoy pop pickers!
    See that the Top of the Pops repeats are getting a bit repetitive…no Savile…no DLT…and “Dreadlock Holiday” is still racist…can I take the BBC to court for playing this, and not “Kung Fu Fighting” instead?

       12 likes

  27. chrisH says:

    I`ve got a load of Rusty Lee outfits and Brian Paddick rainbow sashes and masks going spare here…what`s the vibe there at Notting Hill?
    Otherwise ,it`ll have to be sent to Marseilles or Duisburg yet again.
    “Islamic Benediction!”

       21 likes

    • John Standley says:

      Notting Hill Carnival – the embarrassing spectacle of pasty-faced Brits trying to dance like Brazilians.

         4 likes

  28. AsISeeIt says:

    “wrong place at the wrong time”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23831163

    ‘A second man has been arrested over the shooting of a mother who was fatally wounded while out celebrating her 24th birthday in north London’

    ‘Scotland Yard believes the women were not the intended victims..’

    Just me or does anyone out there feel the tone of this report is that the BBC and police are complicit in a form of acceptance that gunfire on the streets of our capital has become inevitable. In the BBC world it is only newsworthy when an innocent gets caught in the crossfire.

    Blimey, careless motorists seem to get more stick for road accidents than London’s trigger happy gunmen.

    Perhaps if these cases didn’t come under the BBC code “Operation Trident” remit the attitude might be rather different?

       33 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Until this ‘incident’ I hadn’t realised that the Met Police had ‘relaunched’ Operation Trident in February 2012. Previously Trident focused primarily on gun crime and homicide within the black community. The launch last year saw Trident re-focus its efforts through a new command on ‘Gang Crime’.
      http://content.met.police.uk/Site/gangcrime
      Same difference?

         18 likes

    • Crap detector says:

      Clearly the winner of today’s Fuckwit award goes to the perpetually blind AsiseeIt.

      Had this blind simpleton bothered to check he would have found that gun crime is going down in London. But as this doesn’t fit his racist agenda then we have the usual innuendo.

      Arise Sir Fuckwit.

      And go to Specsavers.

      http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/fewer-armed-police-callouts-as-london-gun-crime-falls-8638853.html

         7 likes

      • Joshaw says:

        “Had this blind simpleton bothered to check he would have found that gun crime is going down in London.”

        Depends on the timescale used. Who pushed it up in the first place?

           21 likes

      • Rufus McDufus says:

        Oh good. More proof the Toricutz the BBC keep warning us about aren’t having a negative effect on crime levels.

           19 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        I’m sure the bereaved relatives will be ever so relieved to hear your London gun crime statistics Mr ‘Crap detector’. What a ray of sunlight in their hour of darkness.

        I detect a little personal aggression in your language – have we met?

        Goodness I do feel weary when I see that waycist card played over and over again.

        But the use of an advertising slogan is simply naf.

           28 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        Trolls ought not to be fed guys.

           9 likes

  29. GCooper says:

    Both the BBC and the police have long been compliant n hushing-up the amount of gun crime in South London. A few years ago a new broom in the Met had witness appeal boards removed from the streets because he thought the proliferation of them (especially after weekends when the yoof had been out spraying the neighbourhood) would ‘alarm the public’.

    Similarly, I was aware of several occasions where shootings took place which were either not reported by the BBC, or buried on page 94. This was so frequent that it can only have been the result of a deliberate policy.

       37 likes

  30. George R says:

    Not for BBC-Democrat to report?:-

    “77% of terror plots are motivated by Islamic jihad doctrine”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/08/77-of-terror-plots-are-motivated-by-islamic-jihad-doctrine.html

       19 likes

  31. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The keen insight and professional opinion of Mark Mardell on Thursday, Aug. 22:

    Our own Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is forthright that this is a critical moment and Iran will be watching careful to see if Mr Obama sticks to his threat of military action.

    But my strong feeling is that Mr Obama will not rush to action.

    Reality, two days later:

    Syria: Cameron and Obama move west closer to intervention

    It was confirmed yesterday that the US navy is deploying an extra missile warship to the eastern Mediterranean ahead of a summit to debate the massacre.

    Boy, that Call Me Dave must be even more of silver-tongued devil than George Bush in order to get a Nobel Peace Prize laureate to do this. So, who’s whose poodle here?

    Still, never mind, Mark. Once the French and British start bombing, with the US then doing the lion’s share of the work, you can repeat your Libya Narrative: the President is leading from behind, it’s great that it’s a coalition of equal partners and not an unapologetically aggressive America storming ahead, and once Assad is strung up by a mob you can call it a foreign policy success for Him.

    Alternatively, this could all be just a case of what Justin Webb (Mardell’s predecessor) enthusiastically referred to as “sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies”.

    PS: All sneering aside, this bit from the Guardian piece reads a bit like minutes from a People’s Front of Judea meeting:

    David Cameron and Barack Obama moved the west closer to military intervention in Syria on Saturday as they agreed that last week’s alleged chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime had taken the crisis into a new phase that merited a “serious response”.

    And now they’re going to hold a summit, as in, “Right, this calls for immediate discussion!” Dither and carry a big stick? Teddy Roosevelt must be spinning in his grave.

       11 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘ “sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies”.
      One out of the ‘Ah, yes, but crazy like a fox’ book of desperate analysis?
      So far Obama’s plays have ranged from lazy to insane. Including the desperate, blatant cover-up attempts at highest level already in the public domain.
      Still, if he drags the BBC down with him in the US, they may need to up their game here if the commercial money fountain there dries up.

         6 likes

  32. George R says:

    Greenies lead by Lucas and Harrabin take boats out into Irish Sea to blame fracking?:-

    “Blackpool experiences tremors after Irish sea earthquakes hit 3.3 on the Richter scale”

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/earthquakes-blackpool-experiences-tremors-after-2220739?

       13 likes

    • John Standley says:

      Shhh!! Don’t tell them about the Morecambe Bay offshore gas fields in this area.

         2 likes

  33. Guest Who says:

    One for the ‘Ok, so what was all the money used for before?’ files:
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/kindling.html
    ‘This “bonfire of the boards” should speed up decision-making and release some of the resources currently wasted on bureaucracy for programmes.’
    Love that ‘should’. As far as I can gather, almost all the people there before have been retained, maybe juggled around a bit, and had a bunch more added to the roster at their level to jostle empires.
    So this sounds more like hiring a Head of Deckchair Rearrangement Coordinator Recruiting.
    But one thing is certain, and that is covered by this: ‘but nonetheless guarantee their careers’.
    Wild punt, but guessing there’ll be even less money for programmes as even more is wasted. Now, what’s the Trust’s avowed main aim?

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Oh, and the answer to everything will indeed be ‘more money’.
      Slim hope the actually external NAO or plurality reviews may start to see how this wor… doesn’t work?

         4 likes

  34. Thoughtful says:

    I’m finding this difficult to believe that anyone in a senior position would do this, but Evan Davies has !

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401771/Help-lovely-man-job–hes-Latvia-BBC-Today-presenter-Evan-Davis-Twitter-plea-124-000-followers.html

       13 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      And we all know what Evan Davis means by ‘lovely guy’.

         15 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Be interested in how he, and the BBC, field him and them not ‘helping’ those perhaps less ‘lovely’ by their doubtless unique assessments.
      Ah… all is explained:
      ‘A BBC spokesman said: ‘As Evan is tweeting from a person account we would not comment on this.’
      A ‘person’ account doubtless allowed by the BBC if you stick a picture of you in front of the office logo, plus this:
      ‘This is the bloke on the Radio 4 Today programme, Dragons’ Den and the Bottom Line. Author of Made in Britain. These are only my views – the BBC has no views.’

         13 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The BBC isn’t a campaigning organization: it’s just an organization which does a lot of campaigning.

         12 likes

  35. Mark says:

    Any one hear Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks saying that Multiculturalism isn’t working as he leaves his position?

    Nope, probably not.

    The BBC picked up each and every comment he made and analysed them to death but didn’t hang around with that particular “Elephant in the room.”

       38 likes

    • Thoughtful says:

      I’m just reading David Goodharts book ‘The British Dream’ Successes & Failures of Post-war Immigration.

      He discusses the failures of multiculturalism.
      Multiculturalism takes away our sense of familiarity undermines feelings of security which lead to mistrust even of those in the same ethnic groups & sharing the same culture.
      He talks of tribal groups, the competition for scarce resources and the human evolution from that which is still with us today.

      Moreover these diverse multicultural societies have a tremendous downside for the lefties, they spell then end of the welfare state. monocultural societies such as Sweden have strong welfare states because the risks the people face are similar, and they all realise that they might be in need of welfare. In America people are not the same and the risks of one person are not the risks of another, and so there is a refusal to fund a welfare state. This is where the UK is headed.

      In 1991 58% of people believed more should be spent on the welfare state, in 2012 74% believed welfare should be reduced, an astonishing decline.

      It’s referred to as ‘the fairness code’ Do I get a fair return for what I put in? The answer is no £67.50 per week for 6 months and then nothing if you have saving or partner works while immigrants get benefits ad infinitum whilst contributing nothing.

      Robert Putnam (a committed Liberal) found, to his embarrassment that residents in ‘diverse’ areas had a tendency to ‘hunker down’, “The effects of diversity is worse than had been imagined”.

      Patrick Sturgis report ‘does diversity erode social cohesion?’, agreed with Putnam, and so does Natalia Letki ‘Social capital in British Neighbourhoods’.

      The fact that multiculturalism is crashing so spectacularly seems to be off limits to discussion and reporting for the BBC

         29 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        At risk of over-generalising, people tend to vote with their ideals if their wallets are well stocked.
        Once the wallets start to feel threadbare, their votes refocus on restoring them.
        Which may explain why, no matter what, the narrative of the always very, very well paid BBC officer classes has never varied.

           8 likes

        • thoughtful says:

          That of course is the logical following question / assumption, but it’s wrong!

          Even people on low incomes – less than £10K pa felt benefits should be reduced.

          In America there are certain benefits which go to certain racial groups, and the states with the strongest multicultural identity were the ones where state taxes for redistribution were the lowest.

          People simply won’t pay for others in different cultural groups. And it has nothing to do with race either. The same outcomes where seen when Australia allowed New Zealanders in to work there, public disapproval led to a law disqualifying NZ workers from benefits until they had contributed for two years.

             8 likes

  36. GCooper says:

    Thoughtful writes: “Multiculturalism takes away our sense of familiarity undermines feelings of security which lead to mistrust even of those in the same ethnic groups & sharing the same culture.”

    Don’t for a moment think the smart Leftists don’t know this. Multiculturalism or, more particularly, mass immigration, is a tool used in the Gramscian scheme to destabilise, and eventually bring about the collapse, of bourgeois society.

       35 likes

    • Dave s says:

      Liberal lefties are not smart. Incredibly stupid more like. Their hold on power is weakening now. Give it a couple of years and that includes whoever wins the next non election.
      Reality can only be denied for so long.

         8 likes

  37. chrisH says:

    Was that story about the SNP having a serial domestic abuser of wives and daughters etc as its candidate chewed over by the BBC at any stage?
    Or was it just a mirage…I thought I heard it on a news bulletin on Friday or something, but it seems to have flown away?
    Weren`t Jim,Kirsty etc up there in Edinburgh?…does NOBODY think of those poor wains and biddies?
    Unless it was an opera about Bongo Bongo Plebs, then the BBC clearly feel that it`s a private matter-and Fatty Salmond is not to be crossed!
    The BBC-where Savile and Hall don`t go, the BBC will still defend the SNP…or indeed the Labour Unite scandals, for that matter.
    Anybody got Jennis Murrays or Jane Garveys mobiles…surely THEY`D be interested at the macho creepiness of the SNP up there?…wouldn`t they?….

       18 likes

  38. chrisH says:

    Anybody bothering their arse to care what the BBC are saying about the Girl Guides having their oath to “God and to Country” banned in favour of “self-esteem and the community”?
    I only ask because the Church may boot the Guides out of their premises and make them pay the proper cost of their meetings elsewhere.
    Sounds only fair eh?
    Well not to the National Secular Society-whose spokesman says that this would be…er…”unchristian”
    Isn`t that exactly what the NSS demand?…and isn`t their mole up in Harrogate a bit old to be a Girl Guide at 28?
    Creepy!

       25 likes

    • Alan Larocka says:

      Salmond was a member of the Marxist ‘1969 Group’ – it would then follow that his utopian vision for Scotland would resemble post-war Hungary………………..a vision he is well on his way to achieving.

         6 likes

  39. George R says:

    INBBC, Broadcasting House* London:-

    propaganda outlet for the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD (MB),

    *as is U.K taxpayer-funded INBBC Arabic TV service there.

    INBBC serves as propagandist for e.g. MONA Al-QAAZZAZ, who is the spokesperson for the MB in UK.

    She has plenty of uncritical airtime from INBBC.

    At present she is assisting a MB leader. GOMAA AMIN, who is in London, but is wanted for questioning by authorities in Cairo. The MB has set up its HQ in London now.

    These are the sort of people which INBBC and British government of Cameron-Clegg-May-Warsi are protecting, while banning American freedom fighters Geller and Spencer.

    ‘Jihadwatch’:-

    “UK sheltering Muslim Brotherhood leader, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller still banned”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/08/uk-sheltering-muslim-brotherhood-leader-robert-spencer-and-pamela-geller-still-banned.html

       17 likes

  40. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC News Channel delivers a predictably comfy – if rather less stodgy than Radio 4 – diet of left-liberal elite views.

    The movie reviews segment for example:

    Gavin Esler: ‘I loved District 9’

    Mark Kermode: ‘So did I’

    So no breadth of opinion there then.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/editorial_standards/impartiality/breadth_opinion.html

       10 likes

    • George R says:

      Yes, and Kermode is becoming more entrenched at ‘The Observer’ to keep up the ‘Guardian’-BBC political chumminess.

         16 likes

  41. Mark says:

    The rise of the BNP and EDL in this country correlated almost exactly with New Labour. From a country that has never known this kind of unpleasant popular organised extremism you wonder why.

    Because from my personal experience white working class communities were tolerant if not always welcoming to immigrants and many huffed and thought immigration was tolerable within limitation. But of course Labour (particularly from 1997 onwards) when it was no longer a largely working class focused party and became a more cunning liberal-Left-elitist group were willing to sacrifice its old core support and used mass immigration as a weapon to break down older established working class communities.

    They knew, full well, that new immigrants were less likely to vote for the Conservatives. If anything, new immigrants, would vote Labour or not vote at all. That was fine for Labour they knew that it was going to be difficult one for anyone to argue this case particularly with a compliant BBC

    Those who did make it to the BBC to discuss their concerns be they members of the public, writer’s or the rare politician who had the guts to get in front of the camera was vilified and/or patronisingly told their opinions/judgements was merely “anecdotal”. The implication was that they should run along and take their nasty thoughts with them. No “Immigration was good” regardless whether a governing administration was using it to gerrymander votes to influence who will win the next election(s) Why didn’t the BBC question this truly appalling and possibly criminal political move? Why was it never investigated?

    Well we know why…

    But the up shot? Those in working class communities felt ignored by the very organisations (BBC and Labour) that should really have been looking out for them or at least addressing their concerns.

    So where do you turn? If a BNP leaflet came through your door (or you logged on to their website) you found they expressed the same concerns that you have and as no one else was/is addressing them. What do you do?

    Labour and the BBC help create extremism in this country. Its no good them pointing the finger at these nasty groups and saying how awful they are.

    The BBC and new Labour pretty much created them.

       29 likes

    • Phil Ford says:

      “…They knew, full well, that new immigrants were less likely to vote for the Conservatives. If anything, new immigrants, would vote Labour or not vote at all. That was fine for Labour they knew that it was going to be difficult one for anyone to argue this case particularly with a compliant BBC.”

      I think everyone now knows that it was a deliberate policy of New Labour to hide behind ‘multiculturalism’ as an excuse to create an army of New Labour voters through irresponsible immigration laws and a focused upsizing of the public sector (jobs for votes).

      The BBC knows all of this, yet still, to its eternal shame, not only refuses to acknowledge a truth that everyone but itself and New Labour seem able to recognise, but also continues to push lies and propaganda exonerating New Labour from any malfeasance, from any suggestion that The Party was engaged in a deliberate, premeditated act of political sabotage on the British nation – a crime committed in plain sight over thirteen dreadful years, the consequences of which this country might never recover from and which, disastrously, this present ConDem Coalition seem hell-bent on promulgating.

         23 likes

      • Joe Chapman says:

        Don’t forget that Labour’s immigration policy cause a lot of Conservative voters to emigrate, so its a double win for Labour.

           15 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      What pray is unpleasant or extreme about the EDL?
      The media may well have demonised both the BNP and the EDL, but you dont HAVE to swallow the media bullshit.
      The bbc will give headline attention in its news bulletins, to some minor damage to a mosque or islamic centre. “Minor”…….. Not my words, but theirs.
      How on earth you can justify headlining it, and then to quote damage as minor, is beyond me.
      However, since the perpetrators, 3 of them, seen on cctv, are clearly not identifiable they leave you to make your mind up who it could possibly be.
      I guess whoever it was forgot to take their spraycan of paint, so they could paint edl on the wall this time?

         3 likes

    • pah says:

      I’m afraid there are some factual errors in your post.

      Firstly the working class in the UK have never been particularly tolerant. The ‘no dog, no blacks, no Irish’ signs were not in middle class hotels but working class B&Bs. The British working class is conformist and, although what it conforms to has changed, it has never be tolerant of those who do not conform. Try reading a book in a pub and see how long it is before the ‘you fink you’re better than me’ brigade show up.

      As to the BNP, well they fell out of the odious, and somewhat laughable, National Front. Those that weren’t too keen on ‘darkies’ went to the BNP and those who hated Jews went to the SWP. All three organisations are simply hate groups.

      You are however right that the BNP put up many arguments that chime in with what a lot of people feel. And it is not just the ‘Stopped Clock’ factor either – they are right in many things.

      That to me is where the betrayal by the BBC and the general left of the British working class is so appalling. They are making the Hate Mongs popular.

         0 likes

  42. AsISeeIt says:

    Anti-British Broadcasting Company

    England have won the Ashes Series and BBC 5 Live this morning is chock-full of Australian voices.

    Fair enough it’s only sport.

    But I’m turning off before something really serious such as the Middle East comes up and the BBC puts on the Syrian and Egyptian voices telling us Licence Payers what to think.

    Talk about ‘bad light stopped play’ – get involved in these peoples’ squabbles and someone could really get hurt.

       9 likes

  43. Rufus McDufus says:

    NSA bugged the UN Headquarters. Strange that the BBC aren’t leading on this one seeing as it’s a St Edward of Snowden leak.
    http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/usa-security-nsa-idINL6N0GQ0HZ20130825

       9 likes

  44. John Anderson says:

    Associated Press is a very liberal news agency – avoids the word “terrorist” etc. Large numbers of AP releases are copied and pasted by BBC churnalists every month.

    I bet they won’t churn this one – a scathing attack on Obama’s failures in foreign affairs. When even AP are taking Obama to task, things are pretty bad.

    http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/220997161.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

    Note that this is drawn from a very leftie US newspaper. Even the leftie media in the US are starting to recognise Obama’s multiple failures – previously I rather doubt whether the Star Tribune of Minneapolis would have carried such a critical piece from AP.

    There has already been a lot of talk about Obama now becoming a lame-duck President. Oddly, I have not yet heard the phrase “lame duck” anywhere on the BBC. The sun is still trying to shine out of his fundament.

       12 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Oh dear. The Obama administration’s secret seizure of the phone records of AP reporters might be coming back to haunt it.

         10 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      This sort of backs up something I’ve been saying for years: the President actually has very little interest in foreign policy. Never has, never will. His real and only priorities are domestic transformation, to destroy existing institutions and create some sort of neo-Marxist utopia, where an elite, Harvard/Yale/technocratic oligarchy runs the show (for example, the people who helped write the 20,202 pages of ObamaCare are now the top lobbyists helping health/pharma giants work to make the most possibly money off it – remember when Candidate Obamessiah promised to end the lobbying culture?), aided by a supportive media and entertainment industry who fancy themselves as part of the nomenklatura because they get invited to meet and party with the President. He’s done rather well on that score.

      The President has spent far more energy on domestic fundraising and campaigning even into His second term than on anything to do with foreign policy. Other than tilting at various legacy windmills (something all second-term Presidents seem to enjoy), getting His Organizing For America well-funded and well-placed to influence politics for years to come is His top priority. Pushing for amnesty for millions of illegals, allowing Fast & Furious in the hopes of disarming the populace while the police and government agencies become ever more militarized, public (and naive) sympathy for the Occupy movement, letting the IRS silence His critics during an election year, all proof of His efforts to create a permanent Left-wing majority in Washington. That’s His legacy, not this foreign policy bother.

      All this nonsense overseas is tiresome to Him, an annoyance. Sure, He seems to have the same half-baked fantasy view of your average college student that all would be well if the US just stayed out of it, and His interest in foreign affairs ends there. If it was that important, His newly appointed Ambassador to the UN wouldn’t have skipped the emergency UN meeting about Assad using chemical weapons last week. If it was that important, He wouldn’t have caved in to China and Russia so easily. If it was that important, He’d have done a lot more to help the Arab Spring work to the advantage of sanity, rather than speechifying. Contrary to Mark Mardell’s professional political junkie opinion, giving moving speeches is not the same thing as leadership or accomplishing anything.

      The Obamessiah cares an awful lot about what the world thinks of Him, and has been happily diminishing US power and influence. That’s what people like me always said He’d do, and we were called racists and neocons and all manner of things by His worshipers. This AP genius is only just now waking up to it, although even she has some sympathy for Mark Mardell’s “Trapped In A World He Never Made” excuse. Having said that, the absence of the name “Hillary Clinton” from the article is rather revealing on another level.

         9 likes

  45. Arthur Penney says:

    ‘becoming’?

       5 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      I was being kind. He really looks like a spiteful, arrogant but feeble prat, already a lame duck !

         10 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        I always thought that they started calling a President a lame duck after the mid-term elections. It seems, though, as if the Community Organizer-in-Chief has already lost much more political capital than the media expected. One would have thought He’d be doing much better considering the “renewed mandate” and “fresh moral weight” for His demands Mardell said He had after His re-election.

           8 likes

  46. AsISeeIt says:

    A few disparate observations from yesterday have helped me to a significant realisation.

    My observations were the following: A clip from a movie endorsed by that BBC favourite Mark Kermode; The BBC News 24 Newspaper Review; and on b-BBC open thread the casual sloganeering flinging by a troll of the epithet “Racist”.

    Now I associate the concept of “Racism” (specifically in terms of black/white communities) with the former South African apartheid system and with the practices of segregation in the American South prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

    But it seems I’m wrong – and here’s how the BBC has taught me this….

    The movie clip came from The Kings of Summer. It is a coming of age story in which three boys run away from home to live in the woods.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/posts/The-Kings-Of-Summer

    There is a scene (at 4.18 in this review clip) where the boys tackle the problem of how to convince their parents that they have been kidnapped. One of the three has produced some faked ransom notes. The dialog is the following:
    “What are we gonna tell our parents?”
    (Reading note) “My name is Jamal Colorado, I have kidnapped your son… Anthony Texas… DeShaun Utah…?”
    “Yeah I decided on the format of Denzel Washington…. a black first name followed by a state…”
    “Good effort – although it’s savagely racist”

    From this I learn that racism is to mock some aspect of black society or culture.

    The BBC paper review featured the front page of the Guardian – natch. There was a reference to a news story – Syria I expect. The page was dominated however by a ‘picture of a woman enjoying herself at the Notting Hill Carnival’. That was the BBC presenter I quoted there. (Meanwhile in less reported local news a black woman has been shot dead by black gunmen on the streets of London this week)

    From this I learn it is most important – indeed obligatory – to celebrate black culture and society.

    I posted on the b-BBC open thread yesterday my dismay that the Police and BBC reporting seemed to play down the recent killing and treat the exchange of gunfire across our capital as somehow inevitable. I made the suggestion that were this a white community problem then the focus on the perpetrators would have been rather sharper.

    A troll pops up and accuses me of racism.

    From this I learn that negative aspects of black culture are to be quietly brushed under the BBC news carpet – and that it is racist to point out this careful management of bad news.

    So to summarise my new found realisation: The word racist/racism has changed meaning: It is now racist to criticise or mock black society; it is now racist to fail to celebrate black society; it is racist to not collaborate in the hiding of negative aspects of black society.

       30 likes

    • Rufus McDufus says:

      It’s more complicated. It’s also racist to criticise white society – but the racists are the targets of the criticism. It’s also racist to celebrate white culture.

         8 likes

      • therealguyfaux says:

        Whenever you are called a racist by some troll on a website, or in any situation where taking the piss out of someone will not lead to any sort of large row (and even where it does, if you’re willing to face it and someone won’t be physically assaulted, even you), simply throw this mantra back at them– it will become a meme that will only grow if enough people hear it and repeat it:

        “I’m sorry, but your race card has been declined; you have exceeded your credibility limit.”

           26 likes

        • Llareggub says:

          I have been informed that you are a crypto racist if you complain that race laws are tilted in favour of protected ethnic groups.

             14 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Pay no attention to the trolls who cry racist every time they don’t like the truth.
      Keep shouting that loud message, exactly AsYouSeeIt matey!
      Cries of racist have outrun their usefulness.

         14 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Just like the words “nigga” and “queer” were rightly reclaimed by those who were fed up with them being terms of abuse-I confidently predict that we`ll all soon be proud to be called “racist or “homo/Islamophobic”…or “deniers of climate change” etc.
        It`s just a phase,albeit one where the voices of the lefty liberal elite seem to have both the megaphone AND the conversation stone-as well as access to the fuse boxes to silence any untoward or not progressive viewpoints.
        Call me Chelsea otherwise…

           13 likes

    • Phil Ford says:

      Back in the days before I knew this place and was still somewhat naive in my understanding of how the BBC actually works I used to enjoy Mark Kermode on the airwaves. Nowadays, only too aware of how much of an unreconstructed Marxist the man actually is (often by his own admission on air), I really can’t listen to him for very long without getting extremely irritated.

      His politics seem to permeate all of his reviews – even when he’s reviewing something as absurd as an effects-laden triple-A sci-fi blockbuster; the man is a true BBC product, after all. It goes without saying that any director that he considers ‘one of us’ (i.e. professional Leftie, ‘right-on’ progressive anti-capitalist views, social conscience filmmaker, etc – so we’re talking most of Hollywood, basically) almost always gets a tick of approval, whilst Kermode’s unvarnished adoration for the likes of Danny Boyle and Ken Loach often teeters close to becoming entirely uncritical.

      Red through-and-through and sadly every bit as belligerent and sneery of any political outlook that doesn’t chime with own rigid doctrines, Kermode’s opinions might satisfy the Kommissars at the Corporation, but increasingly they leave me feeling short-changed and irritated.

      It’s a pitiful state of affairs when one considers Kermode with all his political baggage is just about the best the p*sspoor Corporation has to offer film buffs. Well, perhaps 50% of them, anyway.

         9 likes

  47. John says:

    Sorry if this has been covered before and also for the absence of links but I am amazed at the contrast between the current calls for military action against the Syrian regime due to the use of chemical weapons (by which side?) and the wholesale criticism of the Bush led action against Iraq also due to chemical weapons.

    Are we supposed to assume that the thousands of Kurds were killed in some other way – they must have been because EVERYBODY knows that Saddam never had any chemical weapons. Maybe he should have had a word with Assad because EVERYBODY knows he definitely has them.

    I think the answer is simple. If Bush says there are chemical weapons it must be a lie, if Obama says there are it must be the truth.

       13 likes

  48. Llareggub says:

    A message to those who think that Cameron and his BBC are justified in supporting the Syrian rebels.

       4 likes

  49. George R says:

    Kenya and marriage.

    BBC-NUJ:-

    “Kenyan trio in ‘wife-sharing’ deal”

    Is prominence BBC-NUJ gives to this Kenya story a reflection of BBC-NUJ disdain for orthodox heterosexual marriage, and an indication of its empathy for e.g. Islamic polygamy in U.K?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23840824

       4 likes