A few links …

Guido pictures BBC correspondent and R5 presenter Anita Anand in her Obama hat.

Squander Two asks if “some banks and a couple of car manufacturers being in trouble are stiffer challenges than September the 11th ?

And Dumb Jon reckons that “on the plus side, this does mean the week after the death of Princess Di is no longer the stupidest moment in modern pop culture“.

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58 Responses to A few links …

  1. Libertarian says:

    Go Ahead, Make Their Day!

    Suggest a topic for Question Time.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/your_say/default.stm

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  2. madness says:

    she should be sacked poste haste for her left wing bias but above all because of her snotty, stuck up posh as feck bbc voice- horrible woman

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  3. Paul says:

    You seen this:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7842344.stm

    I am speechless! Furthermore BBC bias is evident even here the BBC says ‘Pictures appearing to show Muslim demonstrators holding up placards saying “God bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to hell” also feature.

    Only those pictures did not appear to show anything, they actually DID show real images of Islamist protestors opposed to freedom. Also why does the BBC not actually try to defend freedom of speech in this case and instead just leaves that to Wilders.

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  4. Mailman says:

    The last comment is interesting, Wilders party has tapped in to the fear of islam?

    Wonder when they will trot this line out to explain the traitor Galloways appeal to muslims or talk about Galloways tapping in to Saddams back pocket?

    Mailman

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  5. Steve T says:

    http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=147

    Sorry to post on more than one thread, but this needs to be the topic of a biases bbc post.

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  6. Martin says:

    The BBC rewrites history.

    Bush had to put up with the mess made by Clinton.

    1. Bin Laden not sorted out by Clinton

    2. Saddam Hussein not sorted out by Clinton

    3. The dot com bubble bursting

    4. 9/11

    5. The Sub prime loan market created by Clinton and his leftie mates.

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  7. Cockney says:

    “some banks and a couple of car manufacturers being in trouble are stiffer challenges than September the 11th ?”

    Personally I think a global credit crunch resulting in mass redundancies and financial misery is a stiffer challenge than 9/11. 9/11 and the wars directly impacted on 10%(?) of the country – the credit crunch will impact on 90%+

    Otherwise the princess di comparison is hilariously appropriate.

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  8. John Bosworth says:

    The really breathtakingly arrogant part of the Newsnight clip cited by SteveT (above) are these words Susan Wattsm uses to introduce it: “President Obama COULDN’T HAVE BEEN CLEARER today”. The fact is he was not as clear as he could have been until the BBC audio editor “tidied him up”.

    Simply giving us the edited quote would have been common practice for the Beeb, but highlighting it, shows real Chutzpah.

    (PS Sorry to use a Hebrew word in the BBC context, but it’ll drive them mad!)

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  9. Martin says:

    What a shock, another report on the rise in knife crime. I wonder what Mark Easton has to say?

    And we have my old ‘friend Peter Hain. Remember him anyone?

    Whilst the vile BBC beat up on Caroline Spelman this toe rag got away with murder. I wonder if Michael Prick will be giving us the details on Newsnight? I suspect not.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7844553.stm

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  10. DB says:

    Further to Anita Anand’s hat, fellow R5L presenter Rhod Sharp was on gushing form with regular guest Cash Peters on this morning’s Up All Night as they reflected on Obama’s inauguration.

    Cash Peters: I would’ve thought this sort of thing is the stuff that really gets you tingling. Nothing else rivals this for you.
    Rhod Sharp: Well, there’s a few things, but no you’re close actually, you are close. It’s something I wouldn’t have missed and I’m very pleased.

    On Michelle Obama…
    Sharp: She is so good looking and so intelligent.

    Obamessiah…
    Peters: You just get the feeling that maybe if they just listened to him – rather than just broadcasting the speech, they listened to what he was saying, and maybe we got out of this rut of all we care about is how many straps Michelle Obama has on her dress and maybe we worry about what he’s trying to say and trying to get us to do we might actually move on to The Next Age.

    Peters sounds like one of the idiots from the Life of Brian, desperate for someone to follow. “How shall we fuck off, oh Lord?”

    More Obamessiah worship, with Rhod joining in…
    Peters: You were aware, I thought, that the air smelled sweeter afterwards and you could breath easier and there was a sense of momentousness about the whole thing, that we really were entering a New Age. And I know you always kinda shut me up and get angry when I say these things.
    Sharp: No no no no. Was that really noticeable in LA as well?
    Peters: Oh yeah!… There was this sense, as people talked to me and I went around, that there was something in our cell structure, a new feeling. You must’ve felt that?
    Sharp: Yes, it was rather like everyone was going around carrying a balloon or something. Something a bit cheerful.
    Peters: Yes. Well it was a reason to be cheerful because you got a sense that something absolutely hideous had just passed and it was all over.

    Can I get an Amen?

    Peters: There were moments of hilarity like Aretha Franklin’s hat that everyone’s taking about. Ellen de Generes on her show this morning wore exactly the same hat and got a huge laugh from it. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen.

    Hang on, I thought we’d given up caring about what people wear. We’ll never achieve what He wants of us and move on to The Next Age if you’re not going to do this properly, Cash.

    Peters: And of course Fox News! You’ve got to admire Fox News, even in a time of great historical significance there they are pounding away at the Obamas… I got the feeling that Barack Obama was actually talking to those people… If they think positive and all clubbed together and do stuff maybe things might go right, you never know. All these guys • somehow Fox seem very very churlish yesterday, and today. They just don’t seem right.

    As opposed to the unqualified support given to the last president by everyone on the left.

    Peters contrasted Fox’s alleged churlishness with “the positive side” shown by Ashton Kutcher and his fellow celebrities pledging to help Obama. If you haven’t seen the video it is one of the most vomit-inducing displays of celebrity self-love ever. (A typically fine piss-take by Iowahawk can be found here.) Cash Peters loved it. He played a clip and then said:
    Maybe, maybe. If celebrities do it then of course everyone else just goes and does it so there’s a possibility if they can just keep people’s concentration for over a minute they might even take notice of this stuff, I dunno. It’s sort of trickling down, everyone seems to feel positive and happy.

    Yes, if only the stupid gawping masses can pay attention for long enough they will be blessed with trickledown feelgood from the superior celebrity elite.

    Rhod Sharp ended the programme with this line on the inauguration ceremony:
    What a way to spend a morning. I’d do it all again in a blink of an eye.

    Up All Night – where the Obama honeymoon will last forever.

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  11. Gus Haynes says:

    Squander 2 is completely wrong; the situation today is far worse than that post-9/11. Yes the human cost is not comparable, but the world economy is getting pretty close to the brink of meltdown (especially in the UK and the US it seems). To dismiss the problem as ‘some banks’ and ‘a a couple of car manufacturers’ is ignorant of the facts.

    Rather than all blaming Bush/Clinton/Brown, we should all be trying to think how we can get out of this mess. Who caused it is irrelevant compared to how we fix the broken system.

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  12. Peter Wilson says:

    Blatant bias by the BBC, no detail of how it was written on HoC paper:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7845103.stm

    Full story here:

    http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/01/touching-hem-of-messiah.html

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  13. Pete says:

    Can we look forward to Annand telling us of her tears when President Obama leaves the White House for the last time?

    She needn’t worry if she does such a thing. The BBC will deny bias, then admit it if pushed and the presenter will not suffer any consequences.

    Tha’s what happened to the reporter who told us she cried when Mr Arafat was talen away to die with the permission of the Israelis.

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  14. Ben Hur says:

    Classic from the BBC:

    Rwanda: ‘The Israel of Africa’

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7839922.stm

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  15. Jason says:

    The lefties at the Beeb must be quivering in excitement at the news that the Obama administration has already taken it’s first racial swipe at “white males”….

    It’s the dream of the left coming true at last.

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  16. Cassandra says:

    Gus Haynes,

    You say “who caused it is irrelevant” sorry but I strongly disagree with you here, the causes must be addressed now, those who caused the problems both knowingly and unknowingly must be exposed, there must be a full and honest inquiry into those who kept quiet and profited and those who had a platform to issue warnings but didnt.
    The new media knew about the problems and the coming crash upto two years ago, the MSM/bankers/polititians/experts apparently didnt see it coming untill it engulfed us, no somthing is rotten here Gus. If the new media saw it coming so easily and so early there must be real and deep problems at the heart of our national leadership and institutions
    We as a nation will not be able to understand or fix the disaster facing us and the sacrifices now necessary to fix it untill the whole sordid and smelly details are dragged into the open air, only then do we have a chance of getting thru it as a nation united, there must be culpability and there must be accountability, heads must roll and lessons learned by our infantile national leaders!

    We will never learn unless we know what we did wrong and we need to know now NOT in a few years but NOW.

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  17. Mailman says:

    Cassandra,

    I totally agree with you.

    At work I want the people who have bankrupted my work place held accountable. By accountable I dont mean wheeling in a new CEO while the old stays on for another 6 months, earning a couple hundred grand every month! I mean hanging bastards and then sueing them for every penny they have!

    The complete lack of financial risk management is gobsmacking…yet the people who have bankrupted my work place are safe in their ivory towers. They wont be affected by my orgasnisations bankruptcy. No, its the small people at the bottom that have to pay the price of their incompetence.

    Mailman

    ps. Gee, the above sounds a bit like Im a socialist!:) Let me reassure you, I am most definately not a socialst peice of crap! I just want those most responsible for our problems to face the music (instead of it being the workers who have to deal with their poor management decisions).

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  18. Gus Haynes says:

    I think I posted this in the wrong window….

    Perhaps I worded it badly, or you misunderstood. It is important who caused this mess (economic, in case any one wondered) of course, but a lot of people, here on this site, as in the country as a whole, seem to be far more bothered about identifying blame than they are about fixing it. Anyone can point a finger, anyone can see where something went wrong. It takes a lot more to work out how to fix it. Yes, in the long run we will need to look back and hold any leaders/businessmen/whoever to account, and yes this is so that we learn from our mistakes.

    My point is that wherever I look, all I hear is ‘its Gordons fault’ or ‘its clinton’s fault’. That does not matter right now; we should be focusing on how we sort out debt, how we avoid nationalising the whole effing country, and how we put things on track. If the people who go on and on about blame devoted that time to helping come up with solutions, we might get somewhere.

    Look at the Tories, they do have some ideas, some are good. But they waste all their time complaining that its Gordon’s fault. It may well be, but 1 – that doesn’t solve the crisis, and 2 – pointing the finger at gordon won’t get the tories elected. Devoting their energy to fixing it will get them elected.

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  19. Cassandra says:

    Mailman I fully support your anger about this fiasco!
    Foe far too long there has been a ‘lessons learned’ and ‘lets move on’ and no ‘harm no foul’ culture from the top of our national institutions, nobody resigns and nobody suffers for the wrong they do, this has to stop now, the evasion of our national leaders from personal responsibilty is grotesque and it is flowing down from the top to ever lower levels of society, as more people are able to evade the consequences of their actions the more society breaks down!
    From the crooked lying MP who lies and fiddles his expenses to the hospital manager who presides over the mass murder of helpless patients in her charge, these people would face death in China but here they face a hefty payoff and a state pension for life, they are protected by a corrupt state and the corruption spreads like a cancer, this cancer has spread so far now that treatment will most likely be so utterly painfull that a meaningfull recovery is impossible!

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  20. Cassandra says:

    Gus,

    We are not going to able to fix the disaster untill we know fully who f****d up and why, the scale of the disaster facing us is life or death!
    From across the whole spectrum of political and social and national institutions, the failure has been incredible and momentous, I urge you to reconsider your position, the political elite from right to left have lots to hide and need time to hide it, the more time that passes the more time those who are culpable are able to distance themselves from blame.
    The people at the top of society need to know that they will answer for their actions, untill then any solution will never work.

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  21. Martin says:

    Mailman: I’ve been saying this for ages that the fraud squad should have been sent into the city and seized all computers and records. The private bank accounts of all these city slickers should have been seized and all their personal assets like houses, Porches and so on.

    It’s criminal that not one of these bastards have been charged with anything.

    Perhaps the links to Labour run too deep?

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  22. Cockney says:

    Who is to blame?

    Joe Public who took ridiculous loans that he/she could never pay back?

    The banks who advanced the loans without sufficient analysis of repayment capacity?

    The structured finance specialists who packaged stuff together to fool computer analysis systems into forms too complex to be possibly monitored and unpicked?

    The ratings agencies who rated these things AA under fear of losing business?

    The institutions who bought these things on the say so of the ratings agencies without understanding them, and the risk managers who didn’t look hard enough?

    The governments for not regulating appropriately?

    Let’s face it – all of the above. Fuck it, let’s hang everyone.

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  23. Gus Haynes says:

    Cassandra:

    I don’t think any one individual or group of individuals can be called to account. Even if they could, proving it is another matter. The real problem with the economy seems to be the system – it has grown too wild, too unchecked, and too many have got too greedy. People of all political afffiliations are to blame. Finding a scapegoat or two will not solve the problems in our economy. Successive governments have pushed up towards a solely service based economy, and now that sector is facing ruin, it might bring the whole lot down with it. Brown and co created an artifical housing boom (like Bush and co did in the US) and yes they deserve to be held to account for that, but even if we locked these guys up, how would that fix an economy where borrowing is out of control, unemployment is exploding, and the banks won’t lend to each other. We need to fix these problems first. That requires tough, and probably unpopular, decisions. I don’t care if Brown or Cameron make them, but one of them has got to get his head out of the sand and stop hoping and praying that we can blindly spend our way of it all.

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  24. Gordon says:

    So what do we do Gus! Continue to throw good money after bad or apply Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction?

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  25. Martin says:

    Cockney: The problem is with the banks not so much because of the bad loans they gave out but the fact that the loans were sliced and diced in the UK and packaged off and no banks seem to know how much of this bad debt they own.

    That is a failure of the banks, regulation and McFatty One eye.

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  26. Gus Haynes says:

    Ok my opinion as to how we start to solve the economic crisis… we start by cutting the size of government, and government spending. We stop encouraging a culture of spend spend spend, and people are encouraged/educated more about living within their means. The government make long terms structural changes to the economy; we create more manufacturing jobs, less focus on services only. We limit the number of foreign workers/immigrants so that the unemployment rate goes down, and we invest in nuclear power even more than we are now, so that in the future we are not reliant on oil and gas. As for the banks, I would rather not bail them out, so if the government gives them one last handout they must draw a line, saying enough is enough. Better regulation is key (not necessarily more, but better of the existing regulation). These will help, and act as a starting point.

    Anyone else should point out any other ways we can get out of economic stagantion.

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  27. Cassandra says:

    Gus,

    Good starting point!

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  28. Jeremy Bowen's Assistant says:

    Just to be churlish, has anyone else noticed that this line from Dawn Butler, MP’s blessing from The Obamessiah could actually be interpreted as a slam against black women in Parliament?

    She said: “Meeting Obama was an inspirational moment. And I am so humbled that I can quote what he said about me ‘that having met me he understands why I am only one of two black women in parliament. We should all be proud of Dawn.’

    A more cynical person might say yes, with people like her in Parliament, it’s no surprise there aren’t any more black women there.

    If she did write this poorly worded treacle, she’s not even bright enough to capitalize “Parliament”.

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  29. Martin says:

    Gus Haynes: We’ve long since given up being a manufacturing nation. We’re a service industry nation now. We don’t make ships, but we sell the holiday insurance people take out when they travel on one.

    We assemble Japanese cars so they can get around import controls. France still has a large state based car industry.

    The politicians and media look down on jobs like engineering and big up ‘chavs’ Z list celebs and fellow media types. When was the last time an engineer was a guest on Question Time?

    We can’t limit immigration without leaving the EU and getting out of the European joke should be our first priority.

    Our Social Security system needs reforming. Far too many people seem to think the dole is a lifestyle choice. I had to laugh when a Policeman on a radio interview talking about ‘chavs’ said that one woman talked about going down to the Post Office to ‘collect her wages’. She didn’t work which confused him. It turned out she ‘thought’ her benefit cheque was in fact wages for her to sit around on her oversized (probably) arse and breed.

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  30. Martin says:

    John Snow just got a right kicking off an Israeli Spokesman on C4 News. Brilliant.

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  31. Grant says:

    Anita Anand is just a , rather revolting, nasty, pre-programmed teenage girl Beeboid, but what on earth has happened to Andrew Neil ?
    He seems to have been captured by the enemy.
    Is he running short of money ?

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  32. Grant says:

    QT tonight:-

    Flint – left ( but, rather tasty )

    Laws – left

    Meyer – left

    Fox -right

    Anon – ?

    Dimblebore – Left

    BBC bias ?

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  33. Martin says:

    Grant: Please!!!!! Flint tasty? Do you like your ‘wimmin’ rough?

    She’s got a face like a smacked backside and the personality of a dead Cow.

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  34. Grant says:

    Martin 8:24

    I really think you have a problem confusing politics and sexual attraction !

    I think we have been here before, but , really, I think it is the only thing which shuts them up.

    But, I draw the line at Harriet Harman, even I have standards .

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  35. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Martin | 22.01.09 – 7:08 pm |

    Our Social Security system needs reforming. Far too many people seem to think the dole is a lifestyle choice. I had to laugh when a Policeman on a radio interview talking about ‘chavs’ said that one woman talked about going down to the Post Office to ‘collect her wages’. She didn’t work which confused him. It turned out she ‘thought’ her benefit cheque was in fact wages for her to sit around on her oversized (probably) arse and breed.

    The dole actually is her wages: for voting Labour.

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  36. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Never mind Labour/ Tory ruckass. Drove through South London again this morning, on the street, african women pushing prams, everywhere. Somali round-faced with headscarf and pram. West african with prams. Everywhere, prams, pram, prams. How can they afford all these children? I mean, how can YOU afford them? Its scary watching Britain change.

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  37. Mark says:

    AndrewSouthLondon: I know. British women and the occasional Somali = Britain. Somali women and the occasional Brit = Somalia.

    Probably racist but I’m getting to the point where I don’t care.

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  38. Mailman says:

    Martin/Cassandra,

    The real problem for finding those most responsible for our banking mess is that those most responsible for our banking mess are still in place!

    The boards wont investigate their failings because the boards of all these banks are the ones at fault for taking on so much risk without any consideration for the REAL risks they were exposing their institutions to.

    Look at RBS, they brought a toxic debt time bomb in ABN Amro…but tell me, how the FUCK do you buy a company that has nearly £30 billion pounds worth of toxic exposure? Why the fuck was this not highlighted as a serious risk and if it was who the fuck was the dumb cunt who accepted the risk of all that toxic debt?

    Dave, fine me for my swearing…but mate, these so called fuckers have risked the stability of my family and Ill be fucked if Im just going to sit here going tut tut waiting for my job to be made redundant!

    Yeah, now I feel better 🙂

    Mailman

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  39. Iain says:

    AndrewSouthLondon/Mark:

    Look at it another way. 95% black people = diversity. 95% white people = racism.

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  40. Grant says:

    Mailman 9:06

    In the case of RBS, it was Fred Goodwin. Don’t be angry, get even !

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  41. Jon says:

    I have sent this complaint to the BBC – lets see what angle they put on the reply.

    “Can you tell me as a licence fee payer how it is acceptable for a Radio 5 presenter who attended the presidential inauguration at licence payers expense, to be seen wearing a woolly hat with the name “Obama” on it? See link below.
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EQc_hLHXONE/SXXh6KYHBRI/AAAAAAAADoI/8nzx4Sq7dXw/s1600-h/anand.jpg

    May I draw your attention to this paragraph of the BBC guidelines:

    “our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs, may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.”

    How can this presenter continue to read the news on Radio 5 live when it is now obvious where her allegiances lie?

    “Presenters, reporters and correspondents are the public face and voice of the BBC, they can have a significant impact on the perceptions of our impartiality.”

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  42. Martin says:

    Jon: I haven’t received a reply to my last complaint yet and I sent that it weeks ago.

    All we’re doing is keeping the shredder busy at the BBC.

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  43. The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:

    Jason | 22.01.09 – 3:57 pm |
    Hmmm. And aren’t the comments that go with the linked video just lovely?

    ‘The Jews using the Blacks against the Whites…’ For a second I thought you had posted a link to ‘The Blues Brothers.’

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  44. Millie Tant says:

    I can’t stand Anita Anand with that horrible piercing voice so I don’t watch that programme. What has happened to Andrew Neil? Captured by the enemy – the B’oid Farm, you mean? He has been a B’oid and a luvvy for a long time.

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  45. Grant says:

    Millie 9:34

    Andrew Neil has had a strange journey in life. I have no evidence, but I know that some people can be bought !

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  46. Original Robin says:

    One way out of the present crisis is to stop the reverse luddism in the establishment and get them business minded . Then make them work for us, the taxpayers who pay their wages rather than the world community who laughs at our giving away our money.
    Any tricks the foreigners do we should do. It`s rough and tough in the world and we`ve no time for pretend gentlemen in the corridoors of pwer down at Whitehall.

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  47. Original Robin says:

    Aprpos of what I said above,
    for those senior civil servants that dont show any remorse for their maladministration and want to continue to run the country down, after torture, hang them.

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  48. GCooper says:

    Surely, the point is that some of the people responsible for the mess we are in are still in power and still busily heaping misery on agony.

    That they and their quack remedies for the mess they have caused are also supported by the BBC makes the situation intolerable.

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  49. Millie Tant says:

    I think Andrew Neil is a rich man – believe he has a house anyway in an expensive part of central London. Must have made a lot from journalism over the years. Not bad for a lad from a council house, eh?

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