General BBC-related comment thread!

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 also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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187 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. Stuart says:

    So now we know. On the Peter and Anita show on Five Live I’ve just heard Frank Gardner state clearly that the reason why the BBC don’t use the word “terrorist” is because “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. They seem to miss the fact that killing people who don’t agree with your foul and opressive views just isn’t quite cricket.

    I often suspect from what I’ve heard on this awful show that it stands for pure anarchy and total, unadulterated hatred of all authority (besides Gordon). Did anyone else catch their revolting piece yesterday about those brutal borstal guards who dare to restain those nice, caring and misunderstood teenagers in detention centres?

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  2. DB says:

    Yesterday the BBC’s James Rodgers was telling us all about “the absence of a real Russian winter” and the prospect of Moscow’s “warmest winter ever”. The December average high temperature in Moscow is -4, and the average low is -8. I don’t know when Rodgers recorded his little piece of climate propaganda, but things seem about right to me at the moment. And perhaps Rodgers would like to tell the people of Yakutsk about the absence of a real Russian winter.

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  3. Biodegradable says:

    Hugh Oxford,

    I’d like to hear John Smeaton’s reaction.

    http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/article10999.ece

    In his hand a half-smoked cigarette fizzled out as he stared aghast at the blazing carnage. “I ran up there to leather him. He was swinging at me, shouting Allah this and Allah that.”

    John, 31, felt the white-hot blast from the inferno lick across his face.

    Astonished, he watched as a 6ft man stumbled from the wreckage and began to ATTACK police officers.

    “I just shouted, ‘F***ing come on then’ and dashed towards him,” said John. “I didn’t think — there was no time. I just acted.”

    Have-a-go hero John today reveals for the first time the full story of the Glasgow Airport terror attacks.

    He captured the hearts of the nation with his electrifying account of the failed car bomb on TV news — and coined catchphrases such as: “This is Glasgow — we’ll just set aboot yet.”

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  4. pounce says:

    TPO:
    I can’t vouch for the lads on the ground but I have sent an e-mail to friends out in Afghan asking that question.

    However I do read Janes and last month’s Janes review had a very interesting article on the jackal.
    The Jackal is part of the replacement of the Snatch rover. The Snatch was designed for NI pure and simple. It wasn’t designed for cross country mobility. The beauty of the WIMIK (Weapons Mounted Installation Kit) on which the Jackal was based is that it allows eyes on the ground with the ability to pour firepower onto the enemy very quickly. While the bBC loves promoting the Mastiff and such as the only way what those vehicles don’t do is allow the troops to see the ground with their own eyes. Lastly and most importantly the weight of the Mastiff and such ensures it sticks to proven ground (Ie tracks and roads) which the enemy knows they can mine and hit something. By using the cross country capability of the WIMIK and the Jackal the troops can take to areas the taliban haven’t mined or are even watching. In otherwords we take the war to the bad guys via an offensive policy rather than the defensive policy advocated by the bBC as the only way. (Any bBC clones wish to take me to task on the above , first read up on Liddel Hart)
    In fact so popular is the Jackal that the Brits are not only buying more but are knocking up a six wheeled version. Not only that but the Yanks, Danes and Aussies are buying it as well. As I said all of that I read from Jane’s Nov defence review. Which also includes a spot on how they had to design their own seats in which to protect the troops from mine blasts.
    Things the bBC expert on security and all things military doesn’t wish to impart (don’t shoot I pray to Mecca Gardner) on the plebs.

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  5. GCooper says:

    Stuart writes: “…I’ve just heard Frank Gardner state clearly that the reason why the BBC don’t use the word “terrorist” is because “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”….”

    And one man’s BBC ‘journalist’ is another man’s pedlar of clapped-out relativist clichés.

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  6. DB says:

    The BBC’s new hero is the topic for World Have Your Say. The WHYS blog links to a “celebratory cartoon”, a petition calling for his release, and a game “where you can throw a shoe at the President.”
    http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/on-air-is-the-shoe-throwing-journalist-the-pride-or-shame-of-iraq/

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  7. Chuffer says:

    Funny how our frying doctor attacked Glasgow shouting Allah this and Allah that when it was nothing to do with religion.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    I still don’t know why an NHS doctor would suddenly try and kill his fellow citizens because we were at war in Iraq. Should I be worried about other NHS doctors going on random suicide attacks? As reading the BBC’s report, I don’t see any other sociatal group this man belongs to, other than being an NHS doctor

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7773410.stm

    Funnily enough, I thought it was muslims who tend to go in for this suicide attack business. But there’s no mention of it in the report, in fact the QC seems to think he was motivated by politics, not religion. Um, I’m not sure they’re mutually exclusive things in this context. So I guess NHS doctors are now an active threat to UK citizens if they dont like the politics of the present government. Thanks for the heads up BBC.

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  9. DB says:

    The BBC has refused an FOI request about the cost of covering the US elections:
    http://www.the-latest.com/bbc-refuses-to-reveal-cost-of-covering-us-presidential-election-08

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  10. Biodegradable says:

    Funny how our frying doctor attacked Glasgow shouting Allah this and Allah that when it was nothing to do with religion.
    Chuffer | 16.12.08 – 7:43 pm

    I sent the following complaint on Friday, still no response or update:

    Your report on the murder of a Yemeni Jew ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7780230.stm ) states the following: “Security sources said it was not clear if the killer’s motives were political.” How does that square with the following?
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1228728191141
    “The suspect confessed to the killing, saying it as a way to get “close to God,” said deputy head of security for the district, Ahmed Yahia al-Srihi.”

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  11. Atlas shrugged says:

    As per – The Real Hustle – teaching scum how to more capable scum. Who the hell watches it except twats picking up tips?

    It’s a bloody disgrace.
    Dick the Prick | 16.12.08 – 11:26 am | #

    Absolutely right.

    I seriously do believe, that the BBC’s primary reason for showing this program is to give prospective crooks tips.

    Remember this sort of program was not shown in the past precisely because the public would have gone ballistic. That was way back when the British public had an once of common sense left, and the BBC liked to show that it still gave a monkeys arse, what the British public thought.

    A con artist has as many victims as he can get around to finding. Which could in a lifetime of crime, amount to literally thousands of people.

    If there were only one organization in the world that knows for sure quite how vastly victimized by clever lies, a general population can be, and always is. Then that organization must be The BBC itself.

    Therefore we are already victims, and the BBC knows we are. They know we are stupid because we believe what THEY tell us. Therefore we need The BBC to wipe our bottoms for us. The ONLY repeat ONLY way to know how to avoid a con artist is to have been caught once or twice already by one.

    The ONLY way to reduce the amount of active con artists is to give them very long terms in prison, when caught conning people.

    That is if you could find any space in any of our prisons after the entire establishment, The BBC/MSM, most of the police force, Lawyers and judges, politicians, and the entire cabinet have taken up life time residence in them.

    We can but dream.

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  12. will says:

    Tory MP arrest methods questioned

    Page last updated at 19:59 GMT, Tuesday, 16 December 2008

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7786718.stm

    but not yet covered on BBC News Channel (even as a rolling caption), though on Channel4 News at 19:30.

    The online report sticks to Quick justifying his actions. No space for “critics say”

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  13. Sarah Jane says:

    What’s happened to Hugh?

    (I’ve given up on this particular argument btw. Even convicted t-words in the UK are no longer called what they are.

    Describing mass murder as ‘audacious’ is just as much of a judgement as calling a terrorist a terrorist.

    And of course religion has nothing to do with this. Not.)

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  14. Grant says:

    Martin 6:56

    Our boys missed a great chance when Brown was in Afghanistan recently. “Accidental discharge , Guv “.

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  15. marvin says:

    Iraq has been destroyed, according to the BBC

    Iraqi doctor’s road to radicalism

    “The destruction of his home country was the catalyst.”

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  16. Hugh Oxford says:

    Iraq has been destroyed, according to the BBC

    Iraqi doctor’s road to radicalism

    “The destruction of his home country was the catalyst.”

    Interesting copy.

    The subtext being that when you witness the destruction of “your own” country (though quite why Mr Abdullah thought of Iraq as his own country, wot with him being “a Briton” and all), it’s understandable that you want to go and massacre innocent holiday makers.

    So on that basis, if a young indigenous person living in Britain, equally disturbed by the destruction of his own country, say by immigration and multiculturalism decides to go on a murder spree, that’ll receive equally sympathetic treatment from the BBC, will it?

    Dr Githens-Mazer said Abdulla’s move towards violence, and triggers based on his perception of justice failing to be done, was a familiar pattern.

    “Radicalisation comes down to someone believing they have an individual moral obligation to take direct action,” he says. “Bilal Abdulla thinks that there’s no alternative.”

    Well, by that definition, the indigenous peoples of Britain are currently undergoing “radicalisation”.

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  17. marvin says:

    Of course before 2003, Iraq was a fully functioning pluralist democracy before Bushs’ neo-con war with the Muslims, with no genocide or anything like that, and 100% votes for the ruling party. Beat that! No wonder this NHS doctor wanted to kill people!

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  18. Andy says:

    marvin | 16.12.08 – 9:08 pm | #

    Oh yes, hell will freeze over the day the BBC ever enthusiastically report on any Iraq successes:

    Some of the things that have happened while the Beeb have been busy talking shite:

    – Al Qaeda losing support of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, due to murdering popular sheiks, kidnapping women for forced marriages and outlawing any form of joy including (perhaps worst of all, given Iraqi habits) smoking.

    – The number of US troops in Iraq is expected to drop to 140,000 by mid-year in withdrawals meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops.

    – Remember the Kurds? When last sighted, they were living in peace building a robust economy with elections, universities and municipal services.

    After Israel, the most livable, decent place in the greater Middle East is Iraqi Kurdistan. Wouldn’t want that news getting out would we?

    The more the successes pile up in Iraq, the more they disappear from BBC headlines… According to them the clock stopped in 2003.

    To be fair, the quit-Iraq-and-save-the-terrorists BBC have covered a few relatively recent stories, such as a US soldier using a Koran for target practice:,

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7407187.stm

    Unforgivably, the US Army handled the situation well, disciplining the soldier and sending him home.

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  19. pounce says:

    Ok I’m a little confused with how the bBC refers to people born in the UK as Iraqi, but people in Gitmo born abroad but with a postcard from the Uk are British.
    Sorry still can’t get my head around that one.

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  20. moonbat nibbler says:

    Bishop Hill has more on the dubious going on between the BBC and Roger Harrabin:

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/12/16/more-harrabin.html

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  21. Chuffer says:

    Rob MacElwee, doing the weather on News24 at 9.58 tonight (Tuesday) was captioned as

    ‘Annette Doyle, Manager, Spar.’

    Is there really no-one with any technical ability working at the BBC?

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  22. Atlas shrugged says:

    Would it not be just great if some of you people started understanding how propaganda actually works. In stead of displaying constantly to the BBC and MI5 chaps that monitor this site on a second by second basis, that their propaganda is working just fine?

    Our establishment knows we are going to have ‘racial problems,’ and not just because it has already made plenty of plans to deal with ‘both sides’ when the violent racism has been planned to arrive.

    The above, caused by over immigration, over generous and deliberately inconsistent and obviously unfairly distributed welfare benefits. BBC propaganda constantly reminding us of such, and therefore winding the likes of you lot right up. The effective banning of the BNP, a legal political party in a so called free country from the BBC and other broadcast media. A government constantly shitting on just about everyone from a great height. Deliberately started murderous wars in The Middle East, etc etc etc. Because it was OUR ESTABLISHMENT that planned and conspired to cause all of the above, over a very long period.

    We are not now, and never have been at war with any one other then our own government. This is not only true now in the UK. It is has always been the case for every single ordinary person in the entire world since civilization first began.

    Forget the above, and you have forgotten everything worth knowing about politics in general. If however you never knew it, then clearly IMO, you have never had a free mind to think with in the first place, so are about to lose, absolutely nothing worth having.

    A REAL conservative should never forget not only the incompetence and criminal tendencies of government. A REAL conservative should never forget the incompetence, criminal tendencies, if not damned right potential EVIL, of Multi-national and national corporations like for example The BBC, conspiring with dictatorial governments to rob blind and/or murder many millions, mainly just because they can, and can also get away with it.

    The REAL reason why our entire democratic process is generally allowed to be held in such disrepute these days, and so obviously seen to be so, is clear.

    They have already effectively removed all of the powers that parliament ever had. It is now only a rubber stamping device for EU and UN dictates. Soon it will not even be that. Therefore the people are being conditioned not to miss it, when our own establishment finally take our democracy permanently and completely away.

    You can be absolutely sure that not only does the BBC and Brown know the above to be a fact, so does Cameron. They just ant telling us lot until it is really far too late to say or do anything about anything at all.

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  23. MysoniscalledHarry says:

    What a good idea to interview the family of one of the Glasgow bombers – Does the BBC not run moral judgements anything anymore

    Their Dhimmitude is appalling…..

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  24. Martin says:

    Stuart: Well on the bright side Frank Gardner got popped by “freedom fighters”

    Shame they didn’t finish lame boy off though.

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  25. archduke says:

    newsnight on now.. about how the glasgow bombers became “radicalised”

    yeah, those quakers are very radical alright.

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  26. archduke says:

    an “abullah” and “ahmed” were involved in the tiger tiger bombing attempt.

    yeah… must be quakers. or jehovah witnesses.

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  27. archduke says:

    oh wait – we get “belfast islamic centre” now…

    of course the belfast islamic centre is allowed to say “we didnt have a clue about it..”

    you dont fucking say…?

    BELFAST… for fucks sake… pull the other leg…

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  28. Bryan says:

    I don’t suppose that Iraqi journalist would have thrown his shoes at Sadaam –gutless bastard.

    frankos | 16.12.08 – 9:25 am

    Man ain’t got no sole.

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  29. archduke says:

    when i first heard of the shoe story – thats the first thing that came to mind.

    gutless fucker… and instead the MSM hold him up as some sort of hero.

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  30. Hugh Oxford says:

    What exactly is the purpose of this article?

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  31. Martin says:

    If Saddam had been alive journalists would have been lowered into the mincing machine feet first if they were unlucky or head first if they were lucky.

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  32. Anon says:

    Kafka:
    “Something that’s been bugging me lately is the re-writing of the geography of the UK — very insidious. Two examples I’ve heard recently (1) “Croydon, in South London” always beleived to be a town in its own right …”

    It has been the London Borough of Croydon since 1965.

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  33. Atlas shrugged says:

    Forgive me for sometimes maybe over stating my case. It is simply the way I get some peoples attention.

    If I gave the impression that it makes absolutely no difference who gets elected to the outcome or our common condition, may I make this correction?

    I have no doubt that a Conservative government would be better for me then a Labour one, even under our current circumstances. I also understand that there are many that genuinely believe that a Labour government would be better for them personally, under any circumstances.

    I am a small business man, after all and a life time Conservative Party member, believe it or not.

    However I know how the system works. Which has never worked well for the ordinary people, and is about to not work at all well for them for at least the next 8-12 years. After which time, if we are still around, the world will be a very different place indeed.

    As a conservative I hoped that we could all evolve up to the same place one day, without lying and murdering our way to a one world government in a NEO-FASCIST hurry. It seems that this was not how the establishment planned it to happen. As the bastards have now shown that they really cant be trusted with anything as important as human spiritual or material life and certainly not its fleeting liberty. Anymore now then they ever could in the past.

    The establishment have gone too far this time, and their aunties dirty nickers are showing BIG TIME.

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  34. deegee says:

    UN adopts Middle East resolution

    The resolution is the first on the Middle East issue adopted by the 15-member council in almost five years.

    Well no. There have been twenty-one UNSC resolutions described as on ‘the situation in the Middle East’ since 2003. They have revolved around Lebanon (Israel, Syria, UNDOF, UNIFIL and the assassination of Hariri).

    This is the first UNSC resolution on the Israel-Palestinian talks in that period.

    Sloppy writing – poor research – or a mindset that Israel/Palestinians are the only game in town? The Israel and Palestinian territories country profile reinforces this obsession but that is the subject of another comment. The division of the former British mandate of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in the years after the end of World War II have been at the heart of Middle Eastern conflicts for the past half century. including Iraq?

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  35. Jon says:

    moonbat nibbler | 16.12.08 – 10:03 pm

    Thanks for the link – I think I’ll email the BBC and ask them to give me the names of all the scientists who endorse their consensus. And I’ll send them a few thousand who don’t
    http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/GWPP/Qualifications_Of_Signers.html

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  36. Dick the Prick says:

    Nice one Atlas. Yeah, playing with margins really but the Conservatives are the only option. I reckon we should push for Scottish devolution in the back rooms – pay the dudes off. That way, we should never be blighted by Labour again, but in time, the shoddy Libs – ah, what ya gonna do?

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  37. Dick the Prick says:

    Just the price ya pay eh?

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  38. George R says:

    1.) The Labour government, 2.) the police and 3.) the BBC: not understanding and not opposing the Islamic jihadists-

    1.)
    e.g. D.Miliband

    ‘Useful Idiot Watch’

    D.Miliband:

    “Islam is an enemy towards no one and a friend towards all. Islam is a creed of peace…”

    http://sheikyermami.com/2008/11/23/uk-useful-idiot-watch-meet-david-milliband-foreign-secretary/

    e.g. G.Brown: gives Islamic Pakistan government £5m of British taxpayers’ money in ‘fight against terrorism’ (i.e. Islamic jihad) and Pakistan govt. refuses to assist UK in joint security measures:

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023942.php

    2.) Met employs Tunisian Islamic suspect to advise London police on Islamic ‘terrorism’!:

    “Lunacy at the Yard” (Melanie Phillips)

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3088576/lunacy-at-the-yard.thtml

    3.) The BBC get Muslims, NOT anti- Islam or ex-Muslims to explain the ‘true’ motives of Islamic jihadists to us mere licence-paying kafirs, as on BBC2 ‘Newsnight’ tonight, in usual misleading litany on jihad bomb plots in London and Glasgow.
    So we kafirs are paying the BBC (as in ‘Newsnight’ tonight) to feed us continual propaganda from representatives from the tiny Muslim Quilliam Foundation to tell us how WE should think about Islamic jihad, etc. The BBC is dhimmi through and through. It takes its propaganda about Islam from Muslims because it is too intellectually weak to develop its own anti-Islam ideology by reading the Koran and talking to ex-Muslims and anti-Islam thinkers and activists.Instead, the BBC defers to various strands of Islam, and force feeds it to us.

    “Platitude City”

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/18214

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  39. Zevilyn says:

    I think many people watch the Real Hustle to stare adoringly at the gorgeous Jess. Hubba hubba!

    I know I do.

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  40. betyangelo says:

    “If Saddam had been alive journalists would have been lowered into the mincing machine feet first if they were unlucky or head first if they were lucky.”

    Martin, that’s the irony, isn’t it? Then, they go out and protest against America – never realizing THEY ARE DOING IT!! They got it!!!

    I ask too much to hope they got it when the Evil Bushy observed the shoe a size 10; that’s too much to ask.

    Over here, we cheer, appalled yet happy and gratified, and hope nobody of the Iraqi police breaks his other arm. This is wrong – they have to get that part, too. And we, those who are not Bush haters, observe the smile of irony on the face of our president, his lack of fear, his restraint of the Secret Service, and the way the Americans watched, amazed – appalled yet gratified….

    an inexplicable feeling.

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  41. BBC - NEW LABOUR says:

    Here’s a GREAT NEW VIDEO from You Tube mocking the BBCs subservience to their beloved Government, and intrepid leader.

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  42. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Hugh Oxford | 16.12.08 – 10:57 pm |

    What exactly is the purpose of this article?

    Merely part of the normalization of cavemen. They’re just like you and I: the burka and the hijab are not oppressive, Mohammedan women are empowered and as sexy as anyone behind the veil. If you were under the impression that cavemen oppressed their women and treated them like chattel, you’re obviously wrong because they buy sexy knickers which are part of their own modern culture.

    The BBC is only out to educate, encourage social cohesion, and make sure you don’t have any impure thoughts.

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  43. TPO says:

    I can’t vouch for the lads on the ground but I have sent an e-mail to friends out in Afghan asking that question
    pounce | 16.12.08 – 7:22 pm |

    Thanks for that. I look forward to the reply.

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  44. George R says:

    BBC report on SLAVERY in Darfur misses out the ‘I’ word:

    “‘Thousands made slaves’ in Darfur”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7786612.stm

    For unexpurgated accounts:

    “Fitzgerald: Black Africa and the Arab Muslim slave trade”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/009139.php

    “Spencer: Slavery, Christianity, and Islam”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019808.php

    “Over one million European Christians kidnapped and enslaved by Muslims”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/022872.php

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  45. frankos says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/7783866.stm

    Wonder what BEEB would say if the public tried to negotiate their licence fee?

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  46. mike says:

    Have a look at Guido’s latest wheeze:
    http://www.order-order.com/

    Very funny and probably quite effective!

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  47. will says:

    BBC headline Unemployment continues its rise

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7787280.stm

    Nice & steady? Nothing to worry about then.

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  48. NotaSheep says:

    Nick Robinson’s latest Labour love-fest re Peter Mandelson’s part-privatisation of the Post Office is a classic piece of BBC bias “I’ve just interviewed Lord Mandelson and reminded him of his previous words on privatising Royal Mail.

    His answer should still the doubts of those who fear that part privatisation is merely a first step to fully privatising it.

    He told me: “We have no desire to privatise, no intention to privatise it and no plan to change our intention either.”

    So, he’s saying yes to part privatisation but no to full privatisation. ”

    Read the comments of Nick Robinson’s blog for a flavour of how he and the BBC are increasingly perceived.

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