Monthly Archives: January 2008

You’re a Justice Minister in one of the most violent countries in the developed world. The prisons are full AND the budgets are tight, so you need to start sending fewer people down. But your stupid voters, brainwashed by the punitive tabloids, won’t like it one little bit. Telling them they’re stupid is bad PR. How can you spin it to avoid “Thugs free to walk streets” headlines ?

You need to find a company who can market it to the stupid voters as “cutting reoffending rates”. But where can such a company be found ?

“There’s a firm at Pacific Quay in Glasgow who’ll do it for free!”

And so there was.

Interesting report carried by the BBC today on the news that Muslim police officers are being prevented from playing a role in fighting terrorism, according to a senior Muslim Officer. Supt Dal Babu was speaking at the first annual conference of the National Association of Muslim Police Officers. (Looking forward to the first conference of the National Association of Born again Christian Police Officers) Tony McNulty, the supernaturally inept Home Office Minister who attended this delightful exercise in victimhood naturally agreed with the views expressed by the Superintendent. Once again, the BBC delights in reporting how unfair our institutions are to followers of the Religion of Peace. But why is effective policing to be determined on a racial or religious head count? Shouldn’t it be a question of ensuring the most able officers be promoted to ensure that the Islamic Jihadists are tracked down before they can repeat what happened on 7/7? Are we really to believe that some sort of institutional bias is holding back all these intrepid Muslim officers? Why is is that this entire article pushes the one view – namely that Muslim police officers are being discriminated against? Isn’t this just more instance of the promotion of victimhood through the obliging BBC prism?

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.

What could be more innocent than the BBC obtaining substantial low-interest loans from the European Unions’ “long-term financial institution”? I mean it’s not as if the fact that the BBC is now in hock to the tune of £141m to the European Investment Bank might in any way cloud its nominal neutrality on the topic of the EU, is it? You can read the gory details over on EU Referendum. I wonder at the mindset that prevails at the highest level in the BBC in that it fails to see how the pursuit of such a loan clearly jeopardises the perception of BBC impartiality on EU issues. The EIB, like it’s Euro-weenie masters, is committed to bringing about ever closer convergence of the Euro-superstate. Borrowing this large sum from it creates the impression that the BBC may itself share a similar agenda, as any follower of its “coverage” (Propaganda is a much more accurate term here, I feel) will know. It is said that he who pays the piper calls the tune. In this case, the BBC’s squeaks of protestations of innocence at this deal seem designed to stop us hearing the relentless pro-EU tune it plays.

The cliched definition of a news story is that “man bites dog!

I laughed at this BBC headline on it’s Breaking News “Man admits plot to behead soldier”. This relates to a vicious plot to kidnap and behead a British soldier. The BBC tells us that this “man” Parviz Khan (an unemployed charity worker, natch. Nice to see he had a caring sharing side) has pleaded guilty to wanting to enact his very own decapitation scene, using an unnamed Muslim British soldier as his victim. Yeah, well we already know just how barbaric the more enthusiastic adherents of the Religion of Peace can be, but what surprises me is why the BBC just cannot come out and state that Parviz himself is a devout Muslim. How about a head-line that states “Muslim admits plot to behead Muslim soldier”? Is this not pertinent to the fact that the Jihad section of the Religion of Peace is as much a threat to those many decent Muslims, some of whom serve in our armed forces, as they are to us infidels? But then again, might that spoil the BBC narrative that all of Islam is pitched against us, when in fact it is obvious that the Jihadi are a threat to every civilised person.

With Al- Beeb, it is always necesary to look out for the missing words in their allegedly fair and balanced reporting. Often these words are missing for a very good reason and I have a small example to share with you today. In this BBC report on the background of the four new “Victims Commissioners” created by the Northern Ireland devolved administration we read about Patricia McBride “whose brother was killed by the SAS.” The BBC chooses not to amplify on how this killing took place but instead leaves the impression that this was just one more death during the long decades of violence. How did he meet his end? Was he perhaps strolling down the street minding his own business when he was suddenly cut down by those bad SAS guys?

Not quite. You see Patricia McBride’s brother, Tony, was an IRA terrorist. He was on an active terror mission in 1982 when he was intercepted by the SAS and killed before he could bring about the murder of others. I would have thought this was more than a mere detail but it is left out of the account for very good reason. To have a neo-Orwellian Victims Commissioner who is there by virtue of the fact that her brother himself belonged to an organisation that created thousands of victims might be a hard sell if openly stated. So better to cloak it and then imply a form of moral relativism between terrorist and terrorised. Since the BBC itself has such trouble in defining a terrorist, this is perhaps understandable, after all moral relativists and moral bankrupts have so much in common.

When it comes to our political class, I think the best maxim to remember is that if you see their lips moving, you know that they are lying. Problem is that their contempt for us is sometimes hard to fully appreciate as is clear in the news that was reported the other day.

You will remember the favourable headlines such as “MP’s choose sub-inflation pay rise” which greeted the decision taken in Parliament following a call by Commons leader Harriet Harman for “discipline”. Our ever so modest MP’s voted themselves a mere 1.9% pay increase even though the..ahem..Independent Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) had recommended a 2.56% salary rise from £60,277 to £61,820. How more responsible could our elected representatives be?

Quite a lot as it happens. You see along with the 1.9% increase in salary, they also voted themselves another £12 million in a year to further gild their already gold-plated pension scheme and also insisted that expense claims WITHOUT receipts be accepted.
Funny old world, isn’t it? The pigs plunge their snouts in the trough and yet it is presented to us as modesty incarnate!

Hat-tip to Disinterring Bad News.

Interesting to read that exiled Palestinian terrorist leader George Habash has died. The BBC reports the death of this “radical” – an odd choice of word for a thug with the depraved pedigree Habash carries. In fairness the BBC does make clear that this anti-Semitic thug always advocated violence against Israel, a tradition which Arafat – who the BBC canonised – enthusiastically followed. But here is the stinger; given his murderous track record that is so bad that even the BBC cannot sanitise it – Al Beeb then points out that Mahmoud Abbas – that much vaunted “partner for peace” in the current Middle East political process – has declared three days of national mourning for Habash. Wiping tears from his eyes no doubt, Abbas also described him as a a “historic” leader. I’m sure the next of kin of those many Israelis who lost their lives at the hands of Habash and his terrorist gang may have another word for him

Anyone with even a scintilla of intelligence who has endured the BBC report on the Middle East will wonder if it is Hamas that directs editorial policy! Listening to the likes of Jeremy Al-Bowen, for instance, whinge about the plight of those poor oppressed Palestinians even as they kill each other in their desperation to kill innocent Israelis, is to listen to the voice of bias unfettered. I’m just surprised he doesn’t wear a kaffiyeh! And which of us will forget Barbara Plett’s award winning performance as she wept copious tears even as she bravely reported the death of the repulsive thug Arafat?

So anyway, today comes the news that the BBC continues to seek to suppress the results of the internal study it did on alleged Middle Eastern bias. Three Court of Appeal judges rejected a challenge by Steven Sugar, a commercial solicitor from Putney, south-west London, to overturn a High Court ruling which rejected his claim that the contents of the report should be made public under the Freedom of Information Act. Mr Sugar may now decide to take his case to the House of Lords. He argues that the 20,000-page report by Malcolm Balen should be published as part of the debate about a perceived anti-Israeli bias at the BBC. But the BBC argues that, under the Freedom of Information Act, it is exempt from disclosing information held for the purposes of “journalism, art or literature”. The broadcaster contends the report was always intended as an internal review to help shape future policy on its Middle East coverage and was never intended for publication. (Why, did someone think it was too generous to the Israeli point of view?)

But why so coy? Where is the transparency? What is it that the BBC seeks to withhold from our view? As the people who pay for the BBC, I believe we have a perfect right to see the report that the BBC seeks to hide away. It is my view that ANY objective report into BBC coverage of Middle Eastern affairs will have revealed a systematic failure to apply the necessary professional impartiality of a news reporting organisation which is precisely why the BBC will continue to use public money to fight the gallant efforts of Steven Sugar.

The sophistication that lies (and lies) behind the BBC bias is exemplified in this story which highlights the alleged failure of maternity units in England to deliver first class quality care. If you read the story, it appears that Maternity services are being starved of much needed cash and those plucky trusts in the North of England are magically outperforming those in the South.

A rising birthrate is mentioned in dispatches as a reason for the NHS needing much more taxpayers money.

So far, so good. Just one problem. The British birthrate has been falling, and has been doing so for years now. On that basis, we should need fewer maternity units, less public sector investment. The indigenous British birth rate of 1.8 has been below the necessary replacement level of 2.1. But ever since Labour decided that our national borders were un-necessary, the tsunami of immigrantion, has helped boost the birth rate. And a lot of those immigrants make the south of England their prime destination. Wonder if that might put a little pressure on southern trusts to provide all that immigrants require?

The Muslim birth rate has also rocketed and is estimated at circa 3.5. But the BBC sees no reason to explain the precise demographics behind the rising figure since it is concerned to promote the need for more expenditure on the stalinist NHS. I suggest that the BBC oozes sympathy for the NHS because like the NHS it also seeks endless public funding.

A warm hello to all Biased BBC readers!

My name is David Vance and I am the editor of the right of liberal website A Tangled Web. I am also a regular contributor to the BBC, especially here in Northern Ireland. I’m the token conservative-minded person and have railed against BBC bias for many years now. I am delighted to be able to weigh-in here since I passionately believe that the BBC must be held to account and that balance must be provided. Jeff Randall is absolutely right when he says that the BBC believes itself to be fair and balanced. In a way, it is. It is balanced perfectly between left and extreme left. It is poised perfectly between a mild dislike of our British identity and a complete hatred of it.

Having an on-line site that catalogues BBC bias is a great idea. Everyday, every hour, the BBC pumps out propaganda disguised as news. It postures as a neutral body when in fact it is just one very powerful arm of the leftist consensus which seeks to undermine everything that has made Britain great. Not only is it malignant in that regard but it’s international agenda also promotes the multiculti-mush typified by the UN and its bankrupt values. The bias in nuanced and it is institutionalised.

I hope my offerings here will help to further nail BBC bias and look forward to talking to you shortly.