90 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. George R says:

    'Financial Times' column:

    "Time to rescue broadcasting from the BBC"

    By Philip Stephens.

    [Extract]

    "British broadcasting is sliding towards monochromic mediocrity. Counterintuitive as it may sound, the best way to rescue it would be to cut funding for the BBC and share out the proceeds of the licence fee.

    "Neither of these propositions looms large in the government’s vision of the nation’s digital future. Ministers offer only the smallest nod towards reining in the BBC monopoly. But, at this point in the electoral cycle, it is easier to promise a high-speed broadband connection for every voter than to pick a fight with the national broadcaster. David Cameron’s Conservatives are far too timid to say anything radical.

    "Someone, sometime, however, will have to admit that the old model of public service broadcasting is broken. As long as it continues to be held hostage to a BBC monopoly, there is nothing to be done. The key is redistributing the licence fee."

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  2. CeannP says:

    A couple more examples of BBC bias from their 'comedy' output.

    'Have I got news for you' on Friday (repeated just now). Everyone laughs uproriously at picture of Nick Griffen looking odd because his glass eye is looking in a different direction to his other eye. Firstly, is it 'right-on' to be laughing at someone's disability when you are a bunch of craven soppy liberals? Secondly, have they ever taken the piss out of Gordon Cyclops Brown? Or are Labour politicans exempt from their 'mock the afflicted' humour?

    Tonight we also had 'Supersizers' looking at the 1980s with screaming leftie Sue Perkins. The Tories and the affluent generally were mocked while the poor, brave miners were glorified. Perkins had a meal with Lords Tebbit and Archer, whipped out a Labour rosette (no comment on how crap Labour were in the 80s) and then repeatedly commented afterwards about how she would 'have to hide her face in public' for sharing a meal with them (nasty Tories, natch). However this was mere bagatelle compared to the final dinner party where Ken Livinglsime was a guest. After he entered the room, Perkins flapped around like a demented school-girl mouthing the words 'I love him'.

    BBC – just giving up the ghost on impartiality these days.

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  3. Red Lepond says:

    I remember a few years ago when Bernard Ingham (former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher) made what I think must have been his first and only appearance on the (alleged) comedy show Call My Bluff. The captain of the opposing team, Sandy Toskvig (lesbo and, worse still, a Lib Dem supporter) gave him a very hard time; can't remember the details but it was uncomfortable viewing.

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  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    CeannP @ 10:32 PM

    Firstly, is it 'right-on' to be laughing at someone's disability when you are a bunch of craven soppy liberals? Secondly, have they ever taken the piss out of Gordon Cyclops Brown? Or are Labour politicans exempt from their 'mock the afflicted' humour?

    Actually, the last time somebody on the BBC made fun of someone with a glass eye, he had to apologize.

    Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said he is sorry for calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot".

    He said: "In the heat of the moment I made a remark about the Prime Minister's personal appearance for which, upon reflection, I apologise."

    Double standard, as usual.

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  5. Robert S. McNamara says:

    So a lesbian is in love (with a man) who got into bed, so to speak, when he was mayor, with at least one virulent homophobe in the shape of Qaradawi, who, amongst other lefty things, believes homosexuals ought to be punished – for being homosexual – in the Islamic style by being brutally murdered. Super.

    What is it with right-on, multi-culti lefties and their preponderance for not only being stupider than a box of rocks, but actively associating with figures whose ideologies are reportedly diametrically opposed to their own alleged beliefs? Are they deliberately trying to make my head ache? Jesus.

    Still, hiding her face from public. Now that's something I think we can all agree on. She's got a face that'd curdle milk.

    vw: whinge – I shit you not.

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  6. Emperor Zog (All Hail Zog! ) says:

    Ceann P 10:32 p.m.

    Yup, I saw the Supersizers, too. Lots of crap about Britain in the 80's being 'a divided country', which I 'spose was true up to a point;-

    Thus, if you were Conservative, you got to enjoy three election victories by crushing margins (if we lengthen the 80's like the long 30's) and the pleasant sights of socialism being deservedly ground into the dust and this country ceasing to be a global joke.

    On the other hand, if you were a still-deluded socialist, then the decade consisted of you and your ever-tinier band of true believers warming yourselves on the fires of mock outrage as your influence diminished to microscopic size.

    Oh, and you could make naff pop records and pretend that the world really belonged to you (see Jeremy Vine piece below).

    So yeah, a 'divided country', 'divided' in much the same way that the world's wealth is 'divided' between me and Bill Gates.

    Most thrilling part of the prog to me was Dear Old Cuddly Ken being introduced as 'Thatcher's Arch-Enemy'. Unfortuantely for the makers, those of us who were around in the 80's can remember Mrs T. casually swatting Ken and the GLC aside much as one might squash a greenfly on a rose bush so that description doesn't hold any weight at all, does it ?

    Still, he did get to toast The Miners' Strike at the end, which he probably regards as some sort of victory in his ongoing rewrite of history.

    The tit.

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  7. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Remember when the BBC was all excited about how The Obamessiah mentioned homosexuals in his inauguration speech?

    James Coomarasamy has so far been the only Beeboid honest enough to mention since January that He's actually an opponent of gay marriage.

    Those who get their information from sources besides the BBC will know that the President has already continued yet another Bush Administration policy: kicking out Gay Arabic Lingusts from the military.

    Now it seems that the Obamessiah Administration has moved to dismiss a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. That's in the Huffington Post, so we know that at least Justin Webb, Matt Frei, and Kevin Connolly know about this.

    The BBC's coverage of this disappointing continuation of anti-homosexual policies from previous Neanderthal administrations can be found here.

    It's funny how defenders of the indefensible will leap to scold us for the occasional homophobic slur in a humorous context, yet remain silent on the BBC's, well, silence.

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  8. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Even a publication in a Muslim country found two seconds to copy and paste an AP report about the President's latest dismissal of promises he made to the homosexual community during the election.

    Also amusing are the "Other News" links. All the various news outlets are talking about important issues of the day. The BBC, on the other hand: "George Bush Senior's parachute jump". The Turkish Weekly understands the shallow bias of the BBC.

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  9. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Tonight's episode of BBC World News America has ended, and still no word from Matt Frei about the President's turnaround on the Defense of Marriage Act, which He previously called "abhorrent".

    Instead it was Iran, Iran, Iran, a joint promotion of The Obamessiah's plan to nationalize health care by Matt Frei and his guest, who turned out to be an advocate for nationalized health care. The President must get it done right now, you see, while He still has the political capital to spend. No alternative viewpoint has ever been offered by the BBC, on any BBC broadcast.

    Funnily enough, the health care advocate actually brought up the issue of gays in the military. Of course, he was also in denial of the President's anti-gay policy (see my previous comment), and acted as if He intended to end the ban on gays in the service.

    Then it was something I ignored from the Farsical Man, a bit of China love, Iran again, and still nothing about the President's anti-gay policy.

    The stuff Frei Boy does here is targeted for the US audience, and he can't even be honest here. What's even worse is that I know at least some of this, if not all, is also shown on News 24, so he gets to misinform all of us at the same time.

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  10. hatethebias says:

    I think that Evan Davies is beginning to develop a nice quiet line in independence from the nulabour bias on the BBC. I have just heard him quietly and courteously fillet David Miliband on the lack of bipartisanship, narrow remit and unwarrated secrecy of the Iraq enquiry. Milipede spluttered and wriggled but could not escape the implication that this is going to be a whitewash in the best tradition of Liebour. The closing "thank you" from Milipede must have been forced out through gritted teeth!

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  11. chuffer says:

    Woeful headline of the month:

    "Waitress free in official's death." Huh?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8102206.stm

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  12. Not a sheep says:

    Hatethebias:Eddie Mair also did his best yesterday with Bob Ainsworth. I don't think Labour will be happy with Mr Mair.

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  13. Grant says:

    Listening to the extreme left-wing "News Quiz" on Saturday, a question about Gaddafi's visit to Italy. Cue the panel to make lots of "jokes" about democratically elected Berlusconi who, to my knowledge has killed no-one.
    Not a single joke about murderous dictator Gaddafi.
    Don't the BBC just love dictators ?

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  14. Cockney says:

    Spotted the anti-licence fee column in the FT – very interesting from a paper with influence and without obvious ulterior motives for attacking the Beeb. Hopefully it'll spiral..

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  15. elenora123 says:

    The skin defends us from harmful substances entering our body, and it eliminates numerous toxins introduced through ingestion or even via the skin itself. This takes task off our Liver and Kidneys to filter out by-products from our body’s metabolism. The skin also breathes and plays a chief role in our immune system. So it is always advisable to have high quality skin products for better results and healthy skin.
    Elenora
    get that job uk

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  16. Martin says:

    Can we have a thread about the DIGITAL BRITAIN report please? This is going to be the most relevant story to us lot today.

    The BBC appear to be up in arms over the possibility of then having to share the TV tax.

    You'd think the BBC would be more than willing to help out fellow organisations wouldn't you? After all the BBC is always going on about the eveil west helping out third world Countries. So what about a bit of BBC Ccharity begins at home?

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  17. Newmark says:

    BBC News staff are notoriously innumerate.

    In the 11.00 a.m. news summary on Radio 4 they announced that the RPI has INCREASED from -1.1 to -1.2.

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  18. Jack Hughes says:

    Crazy headline time:

    Flu risk 'still low' after death

    Yes we all have a low risk of 'flu after death.

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  19. Richard Dale says:

    This should really worry the BBC, being considered a shill for th regime by Iranian dissidents. I doubt it would though, they would not listen to the opinion of those outside their own little bubble.

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  20. Anonymous says:

    Newmark …
    BBC News staff are notoriously…

    11:08 AM, June 16, 2009

    They are not exactly 'on the ball' all round. When you only have £3.5B to play with it's hard to eke things out on quality.

    I have been pointing out to Newsnight for over a week that their home page still carries the following:

    This is Talk About Newsnight – a collection of blogs from the team behind Newsnight. During the MEP and council polls, in line with political parties and other UK broadcasters, the BBC will not be reporting the election campaign or offering discussion about the campaign.

    And, unless they are aware of any ongoing MEP and council polls I am not, it's kinda redundant now.

    They either don't care or, more likely, don't read their own blog pages.

    Ironically, top of the list at the moment is about 'communications directors'.

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  21. Grant says:

    Newmark 11.08
    Even more stupid, the BBC are referring to "positive inflation" !
    Beeboids really are thick as two short planks.

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  22. Anonymous says:

    Another great opportunity for BBC lefty stealth propaganda in the new series starting tonight on BBC 1 at 9.pm the title "Occupation" a drama spanning the five years of the Iraq Occupation.Then perhaps we can look forward to the follow up series Operation Freedom some hope.

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  23. Anonymous says:

    The link for Operation Freedom

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  24. nrg says:

    From todays BBC web news:
    1. The official inquiry into MPs' expenses has begun work at Westminster – as Tory Ian Taylor became the latest MP to say he was quitting at the next election.

    Note – No mention that Shahid Malik, the communities minister, is to be investigated over allegations he has been telling porkies and sticking his nose in the trough.

    2. Brown warns union of Tory threat

    Note – no inverted commas around Tory threat.

    3. BBC licence fee 'could be shared'
    The BBC could be made to share its income with commercial rivals under government plans to be announced later.

    Note – BBC believes licence fee to be its income

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  25. Martin says:

    I notice the government have announced Martha Lane Fox as their new Digital Quango. I noticed this on Wikipedia (obviously don't know how accurate but as she's a leftie believable)

    "…She is a trustee & patron of Reprieve, a legal action charity, which recently made the news because of its involvement in the release of UK resident Binyam Mohammed from Guantanomo Bay and continues to fight for justice on his behalf…"

    So politically neutral then? I think not.

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  26. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I just heard an excellent bit of what must surely have been satire just now. James Naughtie was talking to Peter Bazalgetter and Sir Christopher Bland about the idea of spreading the license fee around.

    "If we give license fee cash to other people, it should only be if they are also held accountable under the intense scrutiny of the Trust," says one. "Oh, no. We can't afford another public service broadcaster. The BBC is the best in the world, and If we take money away, we'll ruin it," says the other.

    I'm paraphrasing slightly, of course. But the following is a direct quote:

    "Isn't that true that if you start to chip away at the BBC, it doesn't just affect the BBC and the quality of work it might do in particular areas, but everyone knows that its effect on the broadcasting environment in this country is immense. And if it is diminished, then everybody suffers to some degree. You would accept that, wouldn't you?" says the BBC employee.

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  27. TPO says:

    Good to see the BBC giving such prominence to Sarkozy being booed.

    Sarkozy jeered at Bongo's funeral.
    A crowd booed the French leader as he visited the presidential palace to lay a wreath at Mr Bongo's coffin. .

    http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8102338.stm

    Remind me again how much coverage the vermin at the BBC gave when that laughable excuse of a Prime Minister was booed by D-Day veterans.

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  28. TPO says:

    The BBC, ever Britain's version of Pravda, now undertaking commissions from equally reprehensible news outlets.
    Here they are doing Kim Jong Il's dirty work for him.

    Reporters 'admit' N Korea entry.
    Two US journalists who were jailed last week in North Korea have admitted entering the country illegally, according to state news agency KCNA.
    Laura Ling and Euna Lee "admitted and accepted" their sentences, KCNA said.
    The two women were given jail terms of 12 years' hard labour, after being found guilty of crossing into North Korea from the Chinese border in March.
    KCNA also said they had admitted getting footage for a "smear campaign" about North Korea's human rights
    .

    http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8103006.stm

    Just how much lower can the BBC sink.
    I'm reminded of a comment on vermin Maguire's blog, Your idea of the moral high ground is the nearest passing floater.
    Sums up the BBC.

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  29. TPO says:

    No bias here then.

    Labour's lone councillors .
    She won her seat on Essex County Council in the local elections earlier this month – but unfortunately none of her 12 Labour colleagues did, leaving her as the sole party representative on the 75-strong authority which it ran as recently as the mid-90s……………"There will be no opportunities to raise motions to council, and have those supported and debated, and I will have to develop different strategies to ensure the Labour voice is heard on Essex County Council."…………….In the past, someone could look at every single issue for which the county council was responsible; big issues like adult social care, waste services, children's agenda.

    "Someone has to hold the administration to account, and I will be doing my best to do that."
    .

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8101276.stm

    Of course the BBC are now going to do a piece on sole Conservative councillors holding profligate socialist councils to task. Aren't they???

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  30. Anonymous says:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nile_gardiner/blog/2009/06/15/the_iranian_election_barack_obamas_cowardly_silence

    How refreashing! Wish Al Been would have the balls to be as blunt and honest as this geezer.

    Mailman

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  31. David Preiser (USA) says:

    TPO @ 4:22 PM,

    I'm pretty sure these women did sneak into NK for a story. I've seen Laura Ling lots of times on various programs on Al Gore's "Current TV". Aside from the usual environmental religious broadcasting, there are a lot of "documentary" shows done by young people who travel all over the place believing themselves to be the purveyors of Human Rights and fighting poverty and all that happy stuff. This is just kind of thing Ling and her cohorts do.

    I don't know anything about her colleague (probably her translator and photographer), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they entered NK illegally to film a bit of horror show. I'm sure they had good intentions, as no other intrepid journalist from any mainstream source has dared to do anything other than interview the occasional poor bastard who escaped into China and is willing to talk to someone.

    It may sound cruel to say, but they knew what they were doing, knew the risks involved. If they were that stupid and naive to think they could just waltz in and do what they like because one of them looked Korean (not Ling), then they deserve a little scare. I'm not saying they should rot in an NK labor camp for it, but they wanted the glamorous lifestyle of adventure journalists.

    I bet they do have footage which makes NK look bad. It wouldn't surprise me if some US legal rep told them to clean, because the NK authorities know perfectly well that they're not CIA or anything, and some form of payment will be worked out.

    President Dialogue With Everyone can't afford to screw this up now. Since this involves young women in bien pensant media and not boring old middle-aged Christian aid workers, it'll be much harder for the President to let them rot in a cell for years. He'll have to do something, which will probably involve quietly telling the Navy to back off for a bit, and work out whatever bribe the Chinese and South Korea want to throw more cash and food at L'il Kim. It may take a little while, though, before the President figures out what to do.

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  32. GCooper says:

    I see on Guido's blog that the loathsome Shahid Malik is being investigated again – this time by the Standards Commissioner.

    Would someone at the BBC please explain why I currently have a TV Licence renewal demand for £142.50, yet have to go to a freely provided blog written by a sole individual to read this story?

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  33. Martin says:

    The BBC DOES provide some quality output, but much of what it produces is utter shite. The feminisation of the broadcast media (the obsession with celebrities, makeover programmes, food and soaps to name but a few)has destroyed the BBC and ITV.

    The BBC gets nearly 4 billion a year (if you add in their overseas sales it may even be more) that's around 7 billion dollars or nearly 50% of what NASA gets every year.

    Apart from providing work for many drug dealers in Islington and some rent boys in Hampstead Heath just what does the BBC piss this money away on?

    Top Gear (one of the BBC's biggest overseas sellers) is being told to cut back. Well that makes sense doesn't it? meanwhile the 100K + beeboids that read the news and losers like Ross continue to coin it in.

    Now we're all going to have to pay even more on our phone rental to fund other people's broadband. Why?

    Can I get people to pay for my Sky TV then please?

    Anyone hear the BBC on Radio 5 this morning? The endless phone calls from pro BBC types spouting on about how terrible Sky is and how they'd pay double for the BBC. Needless to say the BBC didn't bother to contact me back from my text saying the BBC are a bunch of useless lefty arseholes and a waste of money. I wonder why?

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  34. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Martin,

    Sound of hitting nail on head. That's why their hand-wringing over "public service broadcasting" is so ridiculous.

    They just started airing Jonathan Ross on Friday nights on BBC America. That's how brilliant their public service is.

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  35. Anonymous says:

    From the FT article on sharing out the TV Licence fee: "David Cameron's Conservatives are far too timid to say anything radical."

    Would someone care to explain to the journalist, a Mr. Philip Stephens, what would happen if the Tories proposed anything of the kind, in advance of a general election?

    Thus far, the Conservatives have only called for a freeze on the current TV Licence fee. That in itself has been enough to end the Corporation's brief flirtation with media-friendly Cameron, and to revert to its usual anti-Tory bias by omission or overt hostility.

    Mrs Thatcher did not reveal her full plans to deal with trade union dictatorship until after her government was elected. The Tories would be sensible to do the same in the case of the BBC.

    The truly radical solution would be to abolish the TV tax altogether. That would finish off the BBC's threatening monopoly for good.

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  36. It's all too much says:

    TPO, I was incensed by that piece about "lone councillors"

    "When Julie Young says she will have to learn to do politics "in a different way", you might think it is because she has become council leader, or suddenly found herself in charge of a multi-million pound budget.

    In fact, it is quite the opposite.

    She won her seat on Essex County Council in the local elections earlier this month – but unfortunately none of her 12 Labour colleagues did, leaving her as the sole party representative on the 75-strong authority which it ran as recently as the mid-90s."

    "BUT UNFORTUNATELY NONE OF HER 12 LABOUR COLLEAGUES DID" ?

    In what way was it a misfortune? This is a clear value judgment and clearly not an impartial view.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8101276.stm

    Shamelss partisan and biased.

    Topped only by the article yesterday on 80's music – "the only thing that kept us going was our hatred of Thatcher…"

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  37. Emperor Zog (All Hail Zog !) says:

    TPO, 4.38 P.M.

    They were using that one down in here in the South East on the day of the local election. Main story wasn't that us lucky Kentings are down to 2 Labour representatives on the council or similar news from elsewhere.

    Nope, the names up in lights were the 2 Labour survivors in Hastings where 'the trend was being bucked' since the party hadn't been completely wiped out there.

    The world of the Beeboid hive-mind in all its glory.

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  38. Charles says:

    The people need to speak VERY LOUDLY about the statutory funding of yet another bunch of media parasites.

    How difficult will it now be to overthrow the licence fee when we'll be told that ALL news broadcasting in the country depends on it?

    As for the ludicrous £6 broadband tax, that's the usual ZaNu Labour policy process in action – THEY make the vote-catching promises, OUR money is used to pay for them.

    The Tories need to be climbing all over this.

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  39. Bert Rodinsky says:

    I'm fed up to the back teeth with the coverage of dodgy goings on in the iranian elections. The BBC didn't give much, if any coverage to the dodgy postal votes at our last general election or the every suspicious behavior and loss of paperwork at the last by-election.

    Why are the iranian elections seen as relevant to us. Both candidates are nutters who will continue trying to build the bomb.

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  40. John Bosworth says:

    They must be furious! All over the BBC and Brown's government people are saying to each other between clenched teeth: Why didn't we think of this first?

    http://www.drudgereport.com/flashaot.htm

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  41. Martin says:

    What concerned me was the fact that people were ringing into the BBC today (many of them Labour stooges) and stating that they were happy with one source (the BBC) for news.

    Just how thick are some people? Not only that you know that beeboids would have a smile on thier faces when this shite is spouted.

    What annoys me is how the BBC dodges having a proper debate on this.

    Note how the BBC refuses to explain how other broadcasters work around the world, that subscription could easily replace the TV tax and that SKY has managed to build a very effective revenue model, so why can't it work for other broadcasters?

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  42. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The latest article from the White House PR division of the BBC is a propaganda piece for nationalized health care, pure and simple.

    It's all White House and advocacy talking points – look at the language – and any concerns mentioned are dismissed as paranoia and special interest sour grapes.

    This follows on the BBC's continuing series of Obamessiah propaganda pieces on health care, including this one (which is grossly misleading as I said on the previous open thread), and especially this one:

    Obama warns doctors over reforms

    US President Barack Obama has told a meeting of doctors that spiralling healthcare costs could bankrupt the American economy.

    The US could "go the way of General Motors" unless the health system was reformed, Mr Obama said at the American Medical Association's annual meeting.

    Doctors, along with other groups, are divided over Mr Obama's proposals.

    Health reform was one of Mr Obama's key election promises. Nearly 50 million people are without medical insurance.

    Mr Obama is proposing a 10-year reform programme, estimated to cost about $1 trillion, that would make healthcare available to all Americans.

    The bit about His plan making healthcare available to all of us is, of course, false. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it will do nothing of the sort. In fact, it will barely cover half of those not already insured. For a $1 trillion of debt at the worst possible time in our economy. Yet, the BBC trumpets this is as "reform".

    But the BBC isn't interested in analysis or discussion or alternate viewpoints. They honestly believe it's their job to report announcements from the White House on this issue, full stop. The sheer number of these BBC pieces adds up to something way beyond mere international reporting: advocacy.

    Regarding the President's bullying….sorry…warning of doctors, here's what the BBC doesn't want you to know:

    They booed him.

    While James Naughtie and other Beeboids are shedding crocodile tears about diminishing "public service broadcasting", your license fee is now being spent on propaganda pieces on behalf of the leader of a foreign country.

    Of course, the fact that all this just might help the BBC's current pimping for the NHS probably has nothing to do with it. Yeah.

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  43. Anonymous says:

    Scrap the licence…before they try to tax the internet!

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  44. George R says:

    BBC report:

    "Terror orders could be scrapped"

    [Extract]:

    "The government says some terror suspects could come off control orders because of a ruling on secret evidence." ('Politics' page.)

    Perhaps the BBC could point out that this would only leave people like GEERT WILDERS and MICHAEL SAVAGE, people whom the Labour government regards as the real threat to the British people, on its political ban list.

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  45. Tim says:

    IRANIAN ELECTIONS:
    The people are TOLD who to vote for at their local mosque! End of Story.

    VIOLENT DEATHS OF WESTERN NURSES IN YEMEN:
    BBC are in damage limitation mode. Not mentioning the mutalation of bodies (as on all other news outlets) The gang responsible may well turn out to be run by an ex Gitmo detainee!!!!!

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  46. John Bosworth says:

    David Preiser (USA)

    What baffles me in the US debate on a national health service is the dirty little English secret: most people who can, simply opt out and "go private", thus paying twice for their health care: once for the promise of it and once for the reality.

    I remember my doctor back in Britain saying, "Of course if you want the procedure done without going on a waiting list, come and see me privately at my other clinic on Friday. By the way, are you with BUPA?"

    IN the UNited States, the anti-public health care lobby is missing a trick by not talking about the UK two-tier health service – one for the poor and one of the rich.

    How many Beeboids "go private" I wonder, while extolling the virtues of the NHS?

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  47. David Preiser (USA) says:

    John Bosworth,

    For all practically purposes, we already have a two-tiered system. Those against nationalized health care have two main concerns:

    1. Government is always the worst management of anything, and is guaranteed to get the absolute least value for money. This is paramount right now with The Obamessiah already massively increasing the debt he inherited from Bush. The plan on offer from our corrupt Congress doesn't even cover all of those who don't have insurance, and those who will get government coverage won't get the same standard of care as those with insurance. In other words, it's all a massive waste of money, at the worst possible time.

    2. If the Government is in charge, they'll be like the worst HMOs and begin making medical decisions based on cost and not on quality. If history is any guide (Canada, lousy, cheapskate insurance companies and HMOs), doctors will start losing money and won't be able to sustain their practices, and there will be less availability of quality care for patients. Bean-counters will decide that the Government will save more money if they let people die quickly rather than prolonging life. The bulk of Medicare costs come in the last six months of a person's life, so that's easy math.

    If they reformed Medicare and Medicaid first, and showed that they could run it efficiently, different story. Instead, the same people who scream about letting the nasty bankers who ruined the economy continue to run the banks are telling us to let the same people who can't run the pre-existing government health care program run one that will be larger by several orders of magnitude. Illogical.

    Remember, this isn't about providing health care to all citizens in The Obamessianic Age; it's about doubling the already insane debt to provide more or less the same quality of care that those without insurance already receive, but only to about half of those without insurance.

    The two sides are not arguing about the same issue, as usual. But you only get one side from the BBC.

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  48. Anonymous says:

    Iran's Disputed Election
    38 photos of the people of Iran fighting for their freedom
    Scroll down the page The Boston Globe

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  49. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Daily Mail noted today there is currently a backlog of 450,000 failed asylum claimants awaiting removal, whilst they and their mates in the legal profession exploit every excuse for appeal, no matter of how little merit, to fills their pockets.

    Labour Government: people who couldn't run a bath, let alone a country. Edinburgh barristers pasing yet more laws no-one seems able to enforce. And they alone can "save the NHS"? Crap!

    Yet each day the BBC repeats another warning from Brown on what a future Tory government might do. Like what – piss away everything we have, like they have done? BBC must know they are in the Bunker, acting out the final Utube "Downfall"?

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  50. Anonymous says:

    If I was Cameron I would see getting completely rid of the BBC as one of my top priorities. Actually I would see it as priority #1 on my first day in office. Doing anything less would would see as medium term political suicide.

    However I doubt that Cameron has any intention of doing so, and not because it would be unpopular with the electorate before an election. Because it would not be unpopular, it would be reasonably popular, if not very much so. At times like these, saving £140 odd pounds a year is just one less nail in the coffin.

    The reason why Cameron will not do any more then slightly reform the funding of The BBC is that the ESTABLISHMENT would have its ability to 'encourage' radical social change diminished. While at the same time its ability to periodically bankrupt the country and its tax payers, by helping to get socialist party's elected and kept in power, drastically reduced. This will not do, will not do at all.

    If the establishment can no longer periodically steel vast amounts of the surplus wealth of the ordinary people, ie our savings, pensions, and assets. The establishment will no longer be able to keep us in our place, which is under THEIR COMPLETE AND UTTER CONTROL.

    We have a problem, and not just that one, which is very possibly the oldest problem so called civilized people have ever known.

    The free market only exists for US down here, not for THEM, very much up there. They consider REAL competition, as being something only some conservative voters, and other fools believe in.

    They wish to keep it this way, and are very much succeeding in doing so.

    Please understand the ESTABLISHMENT is not what many believe it is. The Queen and her family are simply pathologically simple minded figureheads, for the REAL super super rich ruling class elites.

    These people are not FREE anything.

    They are effectively MARXISTS. Who have now got so incredibly wealthy from their Cold War scamming and complete control over the vast natural resources of the USSR and China, for the last 60 years or so.

    Marxism and Fascism are indeed both highly elitist forms of CORPORATISM, and both invented and promoted by the owners of the worlds multi-national, banks, corporations, and conglomerates.

    Which are to individual Freedom and prosperity, what The Black Death and World Wars are to general life expectancy.

    If one does not understand that the establishment are actually MARXISTS and/or FASCISTS. Then what the BBC does and says can not ever make proper sense.

    HOWEVER

    If like myself you KNOW for 100% certain that they are, because you have properly researched the issue over a very long time. Then the words and actions of The BBC make PERFECT SENSE 100% of the time.

    You also know for 100% certain, why we are where we are now. You also know, where we are most certainly going to, an ever increasing rate.

    The reason for this is simple.

    The fascists who run the world have done a deal with The communists that run the world. This so that they can inflict on us against our collective will and individual interests, a truly horrendously totalitarian, and murderously insane combination of both.

    Thus we will have no place, left or right, to run, as indeed we never really did have in the first place.

    Although if you lot feel better in yourselves running around like headless chickens. Then fine by me, just don't say you were not warned.

    Atlas shrugged

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