348 Responses to WEEKEND OPEN THREAD….

  1. scribblingscribe says:

    Story 2 the BBC have missed …

    The BBC’s favourite victim from the 1980s, Arthur Scragill, has bought a flat at the Barbican rented for him by the NUM. He did this under the discounts from Maggie’s right-to-buy policy. I kid ye not. It has more than doubled in value since 2014 thus making him a handsome profit of over 1 million.

    Meanwhile the dullards at the NUM are still paying Scargill £3,500 for upkeep to his home in Yorkshire, where they believe he still lives. Recently they had paid £3,500 for security cameras for him and, now take a deep breath and remove all sharp objects from nearby, the NUM admits it had been paying Scargill’s rent at the Barbican of £36K per annum.

    Come on BBC, it is hilarious. When will the BBC call unscrupulous property developers like Scargill to account?

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/scargill-makes-1m-on-cut-price-council-flat-82qv555fb

       21 likes

    • NWStu says:

      The venerated St Arthur. Is he still stealing oxygen then?
      He’s been around for a long time, just like syphilis.

         6 likes

      • G.W.F. says:

        Time for a song or two if you can take it. I give you

        ‘One Arthur Scargill, there’s only one Arthur Scargill
        One Arthur Scaaaaargil, there’s only one Arthur Scargill…’

           5 likes

        • Up2snuff says:

          Looks like George W. Bush in the background there, in a rush trying to get his fingers in his ears . . . .

             1 likes

  2. scribblingscribe says:

    Story 3 the BBC have missed …

    Innocent troops, who were accused of war crimes by the UK’s enemies in the Iraq war, including the BBC, have been prevented from giving evidence to the tax payer funded Iraq Historic Investigations Team (IHAT). Remember, the accusations have turned out to be lies.

    The inquiry has so far hoovered £30 million quid out of your and my pockets and has given those making the allegations all the time in the world to offer up their spiteful deceit.

    The lawyers from Leigh Day, who are creating these claims, earn millions, paid for by you and me, while the troops pay their own costs if they earn more than £12K a year.

    If you don’t find that sickening, read what an inquiry into the ‘al-Sweady’ allegations had to say: the claims were “deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility.”

    As the BBC, via a despicable Panorama program and numerous Newsnight features, helped advance the deceitful charges against the troops in the first place, surely the BBC should now tell the public about the consequences of its nasty actions.

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/troops-gagged-over-war-crime-witch-hunt-9zknhwmht

       23 likes

  3. Dover Sentry says:

    BBC Online News:

    “”Jeremy Corbyn re-elected: What next for Labour?””

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37449631

    The Blatantly Biased Corbycorporation has side-stepped the real issue.

    Labour are now riding into the sunset, over the electoral horizon and into the Desert of Oblivion. I hope the BBC follow them….

    Things, can only get better….

       18 likes

    • NWStu says:

      Corbyn is overseeing the demise of a functioning HoC in his charge to neo-communism with a misfiring official opposition. This is bad for all who value democracy, never mind the 16,1411,241 who don’t.

      I’d like to know if he used Dr Chartham’s method to get his bigger mandate too.

         5 likes

    • 60022Mallard says:

      You might have thought an ideal topic for an HYS!

         5 likes

    • Steve Jones says:

      Dover Sentry,
      Brilliantly put. Message ends.

         3 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      DS “Labour are now riding into the sunset, over the electoral horizon and into the Desert of Oblivion. I hope the BBC follow them….”

      Dover, I think it would be a mistake to think that.

      About Labour, I mean. There are millions of people who vote according to their tradition, always as they have before or on a tribal basis, mindlessly, without considering policies or capabilities. Then there is also the MP who is actually liked and wanted by their constituents. Labour could win the next GElection. It is the Tories to lose.

      In addition, it strikes me this morning that BBC may be trying deliberately now to be strongly ‘anti-Corbyn’ to obtain a EU-Ref, GE 2015, effect of an ‘opposite reaction’ to what people are told.

         1 likes

  4. TheBrutalTruth says:

    Errrr not sure what’s going on at broadcasting house this morning, maybe they had a late one and a few too many glasses of prosecco, paid for by us of course… They seem to have missed this story: Mother-of-three, 26, ‘abducted and raped by a gang of six migrants from Iraq, Syria and Bahrain after her drink was spiked’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806185/Woman-26-abducted-raped-gang-six-migrants-Iraq-Syria-Bahrain-spiked-night-out.html

    On a more serious note I am extremely alarmed by this sentence: “Police arrested and bailed six men – aged between 20-30 – from Iraq, Syria and Bahrain over the September 4 attack in Sunderland.” Now I beleive bail is usually denied when the following two points occur:

    1. The crime is of sufficient severity that it would be in the public interest to hold the suspects on remand rather than free them into the community awaiting their trial
    2. The suspects present a flight risk, in many cases those that do not have a fixed abode but more importantly those that are foreign as naturally they present a much larger flight risk

    What on earth is going on with our authorities? We have foreign men GANG RAPING a woman who are free on bail awaiting trial… How many times do we need to see foreign criminals absconding. On the flip side had Tommy Robinson (a British national with friends and family in the UK) and five of his pals committed this crime I am almost certain he would have been placed on remand despite being far less, if 0% chance of being a flight risk. The stupidity is astonishing. I will watch this case as I will be very surprised if all 6 men turn up for their day in court.

       35 likes

    • NWStu says:

      It may be that they’re priming us to simply get used to it by using the Merkel-Lofven approach.

         5 likes

  5. thirdoption says:

    methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F8f86b2b2-8260-11e6-9256-b5a66e6f4cfa.jpg?crop=2667,1500,0,0&resize=685

    Ever wonder how the government spends your hard earned tax money?

    “A year ago they were in Damascus, too scared of bombs and gunfire to go to school some days.
    This week two teenage Syrian refugees have started as pupils at Brighton College, one of Britain’s leading public schools.
    Sulaiman Wihba, 18, and Elias Badin, 19, are the first Syrian refugees to be offered scholarships by a British public school, although it is understood other schools have approached the government offering a similar arrangement.
    The boys, who have been granted five years’ asylum in the UK, both hope to go on to study medicine at either Oxford or Cambridge but say their dream is eventually to return to their home country to help rebuild it.”

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/from-war-torn-syria-to-a-levels-at-top-school-fhgc5rfjl

    So they get to jump the queue, go to the best schools, free pass into Oxbridge, a million pound medical education, all paid for by the tax-payer……..only for them to return to their own country.

    How enriching.

       38 likes

    • BRISSLES says:

      If there were a couple of spaces going begging at this public school, then why couldn’t Brighton offer the vacancies to two British youngsters, AND THEN Elias and Sulaiman could have stepped into their shoes ? But then, the best and largest accommodation (generally in London) with all mod-cons, close to amenities and given rent free (housing benefit) always goes to those that don’t belong here. So why am I not surprised.

         25 likes

      • Thoughtful says:

        Because Brighton is a hot bed of very wealthy liberal lefties who haven’t got the first clue about real life.

           14 likes

  6. StewGreen says:

    Trump is headed for a win, says professor who has predicted 30 years of presidential outcomes correctly Washington Post
    … That is the one Majid Nawaz was talking about on LBC

       10 likes

  7. Thoughtful says:

    It would appear that Saudi Arabia is becoming so concerned about the progress of the Russian backed Syrian government in Aleppo, that it has ordered its compromised governments to convene a UN security council meeting to discuss its concerns:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/25/britain-france-us-seek-urgent-security-council-meeting-on-syria/

    Britain, France and the United States have requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the escalating campaign in Syria’s second city of Aleppo, diplomats said Saturday.

    I cannot understand why the UK would be so bothered about Assad winning this war. He had kept a tight lid on Islamic Wahabist extremism. He has allowed a plethora of religions to flourish in the country, and prevented the murderous Wahabis from murdering everyone in their path. The Saudi Allies have wrecked all this and allowed the Saudi financed terror groups to kill every infidel and ‘heretic’ they desire.

    I look at Syria, and every particle screams that we are backing the wrong side. No surprises as to why we’re doing it though.

       29 likes

    • Beltane says:

      We did exactly the same with Saddam and Ghadafi, Thoughtful, but keep that to yourself and we might get away with it. Hope for future lies with the fact that the Religion of Peace is practiced by some of the worlds most progressive, balanced and forward-looking people.

         10 likes

      • Rob in Cheshire says:

        Everything bad in the world seems eventually to come back to Saudi Arabia doesn’t it?

        I can’t imagine why they get such a free pass from our politicians. Then again, I can’t imagine how politicians on £70,000 a year so often seem to have a property portfolio worth millions. I suppose good things happen to good people.

           14 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      Just a small point, Thoughtful. I hold no brief for Assad but is he not under existing International Law, the legitimate President of Syria and endorsed by, however dubious, a public election?

      How would Cameron and Obama have liked it if a variety of other countries had encouraged terrorism and widespread rebellion in their countries in a bid to unseat them? What would their verbal response have been?

      “I’ve been elected. This is illegal!”

         2 likes

  8. NWStu says:

    The World at one today. An interview with a Roland Singer-Kingsmith. Organiser for Momentum, Ex of Brighton College and Oxford university.
    He was asked by the interviewer if Momentum was a cover for Hard Left, Trotskyist, Marxist types.
    His answer was, “absolutely not, I hadn’t even heard of Trotsky until last year…”

    This man is a liar or extremely stupid or both. This is what normal people will have to deal with in future, so sad.

       26 likes

    • Up2snuff says:

      I also heard that, NWStu, and thought ‘there’s a lad in desperate need of a Grammar School education’.

      🙂

         2 likes

  9. TheBrutalTruth says:

    Some classic bias by omission on the Beeb’s front page this afternoon:

    Charge over ‘chicken shop row’ death in Poplar

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37466437

    “A man has been charged with murdering a 31-year-old after an alleged disagreement at a fried chicken shop.”

    So the fact no names have been included we can be pretty certain this man wasn’t white british.

       19 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      The absence of the accused man’s name is as obvious as the absence of the Washington shooting story now that the Hispanic turned out to be a Turk.

      There is no islamic crime which the BBC will not conspire to suppress or downplay. They are so stupid and complacent that they think we don’t notice. I have some news for them: we do!

         29 likes

      • Dover Sentry says:

        The accused’s name is in the public domain at the first court appearance.
        Tomorrow is a likely first hearing at the Magistrates court. We should find out then.

           10 likes

  10. TheBrutalTruth says:

    For goodness sake… they’re off again… let’s see how this one gets downplayed

    Gun attack in Malmo leaves ‘multiple casualties’ as police seal off neighbourhood in south of Swedish city

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gun-attack-malmo-leaves-multiple-8912762

       19 likes

    • Steve Jones says:

      Looks like our £4Bn a year national treasure either hasn’t heard about that one yet or hasn’t decided its editorial position. A delay usually means one of their favourites is incriminated and they are awaiting medical records indicating mental health issues.

         19 likes

    • peterthegreat says:

      Poor old Swedes, until recently so meek and mild and civilised, now in the grip of merry mayhem. Yes, they brought it upon themselves, insane immigration policies, but still sad.

         7 likes

  11. Thoughtful says:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/25/bbc-john-simpson-government-cutbacks

    Yet again BBC prominent presenters show their true Labour supporting colours:

    BBC’s John Simpson accuses governments of ‘savagery’ in cuts

    “I just feel that it’s absolutely disgraceful, keeping the BBC as short of cash as the government has since 2010.”

    He said he believed most governments in his 50 years working at the BBC have a “disgraceful political obsession that somehow or other the BBC has to be cut down to size”.

    After a short holiday to recover, Simpson is to start filming the Panorama special. He plans to go to Iraq, Russia and China, “maybe the US, and I’m quite keen to go somewhere really nasty like the Congo”

    Not that short of cash then ?

       17 likes

  12. TheBrutalTruth says:

    So it appears there has now been an explosion in Malmo in addition to the drive by shooting:

    “Terror alert in Malmo as explosion rocks city after gun attack leaves ‘multiple casualties’ in southern neighbourhood”

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terror-alert-malmo-explosion-rocks-8913266

    In case any of our BBC companions are reading this evening I am happy to do their work for them. Please copy and paste and find an accompanying picture of a native Swede looking menacing. Here’s your headline guys:

    Malmo, Sweden: Car opens fire on crowd whilst gas leak occurs nearby

    Do let me know if you would like me to help with the main article. I’m thinking short, sweet and vague. 4 Sentences? No no too much, let’s keep it at 3.

       13 likes

    • Thoughtful says:

      There do seem to be an awful lot of ‘gas leaks’in Sweden.

         11 likes

      • Beltane says:

        Only fair to point out that the massive explosion in the centre of Budapest, which was initially defined as due to ‘gas’ has now been more accurately described as ‘a home-made bomb’.
        Bloody Norwegians, why can’t they have their nervous breakdowns in their own country?

           9 likes

        • peterthegreat says:

          I don’t know Beltane, but the Hungarian bomb might be different. Political-social dynamics in Hungary very different, H has low immigration rate, and that’s how both government and people want to keep it. (Hence feud with EU.) No post-colonial guilt, little diversity, and, ah bliss, no beeb – lucky Hungary.
          But interesting that even there, the police/authorities’ first reaction is to mislead with red-herring about gas leak.
          Let’s see how story develops.

             6 likes

  13. Leha says:

    Rogue skittles

       7 likes

  14. king oliver says:

    Just seen on the BBC news a report describing the murder of a writer murdered outside a courtroom in Jordan where he was on trial for either having or publishing a blasphemous cartoon. The reporter said that what he did caused great offence and someone was sufficiently angry enough to kill him. This was around 9.30pm,surely they didn’t think they were talking to children at this time! Whatever, it sounds like they were trying to downplay the enormity and brutality of what had happened.

       11 likes

    • NWStu says:

      Murdered for ‘insulting Islam’. The mere fact that he was on trial for that heinous crime doesn’t seem to cause any issue for the BBC.
      My sympathies go out to his family at least.

         10 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      The BBC seems to have variable reactions to violent responses, and it may be possible to trace where their sympathies usually lie.

      Maybe Mishal Husein may have a view (her own, of course)? Or Tim Wilcox?

         7 likes

  15. Thoughtful says:

    Rumours of certain PLP members set to announce their resignation from Labour and the formation of a new political party tomorrow.

    but then it is a rumour!

       5 likes

    • Yasser Dasmibehbi says:

      The term ‘gutless wonders’ comes to mind.
      BUT I could well be wrong about this.

      Perhaps tomorrow we will see some courageous MPs create a new party!
      Or perhaps defect en mass to the Lib Dems.
      Or if they really use their brains they could defect to Ukip.

      I don’t exactly have high hopes. I expect we will see dawn of the Zombies as they all shuffle in mindlessly behind Corbyn.

      But hey! Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I love you! etc. Let’s see what the day brings forth across the political landscape.

         6 likes

    • G.W.F. says:

      Maybe they can elect Shirley Williams as their leader. Snort. She’s a big hot with Bumblydimtrot on Question Time

         0 likes

  16. taffman says:

    What ever Craig Oliver writes, the British public saw through Cameron and the rest of his cronies’ one sided propaganda to keep the United Kingdom in the ‘Undemocratic United States of Europe’.
    After two world wars and the sacrifice of all those of our ancestors for the freedom of our nation , they were prepared to sell us ‘down the swanee’.
    Cameron resigned and will have to live with this disgrace.
    The ‘appeaser’ better be warned and get a move on and invoke Article 50 of The Lisbon Treaty immediately. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37465452
    We are now a nation of ‘lions led by lambs’. There are no statesmen anymore

       15 likes

  17. StewGreen says:

    Patrick A caller on R5 Nolan show at 23:35 was allowed to say much more than normal callers say : saying “all them politicians live in a Westminster bubble, including that Jo Cox” and he was saying something about politicians saying something is racist, when it isn’t etc….. Why didn’t Nolan cut him off ?
    ..It was obvious that the guy had an African/black voice.

    ..Finally he spoilt it by saying he is a Corbyn supporter.

       12 likes

  18. Guest Who says:

    https://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.sg/2016/09/james-harding-gives-truly-balanced.html?

    Terrific use of ‘you couldn’t make it up’, when they do. They really do.

       4 likes

  19. taffman says:

    Al Beeb ‘news dig’ this morning on the Royal Tour of Canada, how Canada takes more Syrian refuges than the UK.
    I think the biased reporters need to go back to ‘Uni’ and study geography instead of the drama, acting or propaganda courses that they did.
    Canada is a vast country with plenty of space, the uk is much smaller and has problems already with its infrastructure.

       10 likes

  20. Dover Sentry says:

    SKY Online News:

    “”Aldi to invest £300m in UK stores following record sales””

    http://news.sky.com/story/aldi-to-invest-163300m-in-uk-stores-following-record-sales-10593793

    BBC Online News:

    “”Aldi posts record sales but profits drop””

    “”http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37470173″”

    Note how the BBC ‘omits’ the good Brexit news in their headline about the £300m investment. And omits Aldi’s 15% increase in market share.

    An impartial observer might be tempted to think that the BBC is still fighting the Referendum that it lost. Get over it BBC!

       10 likes

  21. magicoat says:

    Many on this site and else where keep calling for an independent, stand alone, subscription only, BBC. That call certainly has my vote…but this is not going to happen any time soon.. if ever.
    Whilst the BBC is it’s own policeman, judge, jury, and executioner none stand a snowballs in hell chance of bringing the mighty BBC to book.
    As an alternative your thoughts on an official government regulatory body being set up TOTALLY INDEPENDENT OF THE BBC with teeth which it is prepared to use with huge fines possible if the BBC Royal charter is breached.
    Or would this also not going to happen any time soon.. if ever.

       2 likes

    • taffman says:

      magicoat
      If the BBC gets fined, who coughs up ?
      The Licence Fee payers , because the money will come from that ‘pot’ .
      Get rid of the Service once and for all.

         5 likes

      • magicoat says:

        Are you suggesting that if the BBC runs short of cash because of fines resulting from breaches of its charter then it runs cap in hand to the government of the day requesting an increase in the license fee?

           3 likes

        • taffman says:

          What I am suggesting is we get rid of it, full stop!
          If it is as good as it often tells us it is, let it fund itself .

             2 likes

  22. peterthegreat says:

    More news not on the beebistan: “Security alert as Malmo rocked by explosion after four injured in shooting’

    POLICE are on high alert after an explosion rocked Malmo, Sweden, another ‘bomb’ was found outside a primary school and a gun attack left several people injured.”

    Beebistan completely ignores the meltdown taking place in parts of Scandinavia.
    On any given day it’s eye opening to compare the news on beebistan with, say, the Express, which has no qualms cataloguing the daily mayhem caused by religionists of peace, while most of the msm turn a blind eye.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/714291/Malmo-gun-attack-shooting-Sweden-several-injured

       9 likes

  23. Dover Sentry says:

    BBC Online News:

    “”Riace: The Italian village abandoned by locals, adopted by migrants””

    “”The multiculturalism, the variety of skills and personal stories which people have brought to Riace have revolutionised what was becoming a ghost town””

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-37289713

    Why does the BBC keep pushing these one-off fluffy and cuddly news items that have no bearing on the rest of Europe and their negative experiences of mass invasion?

    Why no mention of Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany and others??

    The item and especially it’s photos remind me of those Nazi propaganda films of how wonderful life is in a Concentration camp. Inmates were filmed at a false location eating wholesome meals and surrounded by cut flowers.

       12 likes

  24. Thoughtful says:

    This morning on the Today program the BBC decides yet again to discuss its right wing anti Corbyn bias! To that end they invite a woman who runs some Fascist website to tell them how terrible they and the rest of the media are for being so biased against Corbyn.

    I do not believe that under any circumstances they have ever discussed their left wing bias against even centre right politicians, nor have they discussed the anti Trump bias.

    While I do believe that the BBC are biased to the liberal ‘soft’ left, they certainly do not appear to like Corbyn – or most of them don’t, and they just cannot help displaying this in their output. When they do this with right of centre issues no one seems to care and the Tories are as lacking a spine as they ever were, but when they do this to the Fascist left, they get called out by the activists, and the BBC caves in.

    There’s still the reliance on the tried & tested excuse that groups from both sides claim they are biased therefore they must have got it about right – this is a specious argument. The fact that one side gets a hearing and the other side does not it proof enough for me that the BBC is still as biased as it ever was !

       5 likes