126 Responses to Open Thread

  1. pounce_uk says:

    Thanks Sue,  
     
    Remember that so called Aid convoy which the IDF stopped on route to Gaza the other day. The bBC reported this about it:  
     
    The Israeli navy has intercepted and boarded two boats which were trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.The Canadian and Irish boats with 27 activists from the US and eight other countries on board had set sail from Turkey on Wednesday.  
    They were carrying medical supplies for the coastal enclave.  

    And here is a little video where the captain of those boats says over the air how they are carrying no cargo.   

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  2. Grant says:

    The “Week at Westminster” today with Sue Cameron. She said we are all Eurosceptics now and she found it difficult to find a Eurofanatic. But, the BBC tracked one down and she interviewed Roger Liddle. It was utterly bizarre. The man is totally bonkers. And, to be fair, Sue did ask him some difficult questions, but didn’t follow them up.
    Only on the BBC !

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    • RCE says:

      Yup, that guy was certifiable.

      Although it does my blood pressure no good when Beeboids pretend that their quarter-century of shameless Euro bias was just an innocent, well-intentioned but now-very-apparently-silly mistake that should be just glossed over.

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      • Barry says:

        “…Euro bias was just an innocent, well-intentioned but now-very-apparently-silly mistake”

        Like Communism – a noble idea that went a bit pear shaped (and killed tens of millions).

        In fact yet another European “big idea” of the sort that’s been plaguing us for decades.

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  3. Grant says:

    Kevin Connolly gets mentioned often on this website, usually in the USA context.
    I know little about him so looked forward to his piece about Turkey on “From our own correspondent ”  today.
    It was total utter superficial ignorant crap. Something tells me Connelly has just set foot in the country for the first time and is an instant expert.
    For some bizarre reason he started off by talking about popular ditties in history like “We are going to hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line”  and  ” The Teddy Bears’ Picnic “.
    By some strange convolution he then expressed surprise that there are many popular songs in istanbul, clearly ignorant that along with Brasil, Africa and India , Turkey has one of the most vibrant popular music cultures in the World.
    Next he kept repeating that  “Turkey wants to join the EU “. Clearly he is unaware that almost all opinion polls over at least the last 2 years show the majority of Turks against joining. Why should they risk their economic miracle of the last decade and a well-supervised banking system to join an EU which is currently stagnant and about to go into recession  ?
    What he meant was some of the political leaders want to join the EU.  Why should a Beeboid give a damn about what the people want.
    Expect more drivel from Connolly from the Middle East.  Listen and weep !  

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  4. pounce_uk says:

    I see the bBC has knocked out a hissy fit of an article bemoaning how the pals have failed at the UN in which to get their own little state.
    Viewpoint: I’m Palestinian – but where am I from?

    As usual the bbC plays the victim card for allah’s little helpers and while bitching about how the Jews got the West bank of the river jordon leave out who got the the vast majority of the levant (Palestine) you know that  land on the east of the river jordon , now known as Jordon. Yet in the bBC article they have this to say about the east bank:
    The West Bank is the west bank of the River Jordan… and the east bank?

    The bBC, the propganda arm for Islamic terrorism.

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    • deegee says:

      Facebook doesn’t ask where you are from, only where you are currently living. In his case, Egypt. From 1948 to 1967 he wasn’t living in Palestine, either. He was living in Jordan. For 17 years (apparently) he lived in Hungary as the PLO representative in the World Federation of Democratic Youth basically a Communist front.
      For only his first four years did he live in the British Mandate of Palestine. Claiming Paleastine is like claiming Tibet, Rhodesia, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. Not listed because they no longer exist. 

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  5. George R says:

    Stories which INBBC, for its own political reasons, routinely censors:  
     
    “Dancing at his own wedding ‘paralysed’ Moroccan who claimed £400,000 in benefits… and can’t be kicked out because of human rights.”


    (by Colin Fernandez)  
     
     
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060538/Mohamed-Bouzalim-claimed-400-000-benefits–kicked-human-rights.html#ixzz1dUwDsc7s

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    • david hanson says:

      I see that the twat has a degree in Sharia Law (!). The good old Religion Of Peace rearing it’s head again then – pity they don’t all Peace-Off.

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    • Teddy Bear says:

      There is so much about this story that highlights much of what is wrong with this country, and needs urgently to be addressed and rectified.  Yet the BBC prefers to ignore it.  

      Is it because the perpetrator is a Muslim? Is it because it shows how ridiculous the European Human Rights Convention is? Is it because it shows how the welfare system is so easily scammed? Is it because it shows how easily an illegal immigrant can first get into the country, and then not only remain, but get rich doing nothing?  
       
      Or for any and all those reasons?  
       
      In just the same way the BBC are beginning to backtrack, and see their pro-Euro mindset may not have been for the best, I can believe one day they’ll see how much else about their mindset and resulting propaganda has created the worst scenarios for this country. By the time it happens the damage will probably be irreparable, and I can only wonder if their apologies will wash from bringing them properly to account. 

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    • George R says:

      And this is how INBBC reports the following case: by farming it out to its/our ‘Asian Network’ (which D.G. Thompson reneged about and didn’t close); it increasingly represents an Islamic political viewpoint:

      “Munir Farooqi family face terrorism law property seizure bid”

      By Rahila Bano BBC Asian Network

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15611358

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    • deegee says:

      He can’t be deported but he can be gaoled and sued for the return of whatever is left from the cash. He won’t lose his house but his car, televisions, etc are toast.

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  6. Ron Todd says:

    Just listening to ‘Any Questions’ anybody else think the audiencen is a tad biased.

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    • Grant says:

      Ron,
      I gave up listening to it a few months after I stopped listening to “Question Time”.  My health has improved considerably since then !    

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      • Foxy Brown says:

        This week’s programme reached an all-time low.  Toby Young – Free Schools pioneer and champion of a classical liberal education for all Brits regardless of income or cultural origin – was heckled and booed throughout the proceedings.  The audience was jam-packed with belligerent left-wing agitators from the public sector.  Jonathan Dimbleby, the supposedly impartial chairman, did absolutely nothing to stop some quite appalling and unacceptable behaviour. 

        BBC delenda est.

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  7. George R says:

    INBBC & Islamic AL JAZEERA’s European expansion.

    INBBC merely gives plug for its Islamic chums as they expand their European operation. They are already based in London with many ex-Beeboids spreading the Islamic broadcaster’s anti-Israel message from:

    Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel
    3 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7SL, United Kingdom

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=&z=17&ll=51.493762,-0.120887&spn=0.002785,0.007296&t=h&om=1

    INBBC’s uncritical plug for its Islamic broadcaster chums and ex-Beeboids is below.

    I wonder how INBBC would react if ‘FOX NEWS’ set up in Europe/UK?

    “Al Jazeera launches Balkans television channel”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15701549

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  8. voiceforchildren says:

    Some of the stuff that Bloggers in Jersey have to publish because the State Media don’t/won’t http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2011/11/unhappy-anniversary-3.html

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  9. Craig says:

    ‘Dateline’ with Gavin Esler came today from Abu Dhabi. A ‘festival of thinkers’ was the specific reason Gav gave for why the programme was there, even though they do a couple of programmes from the U.A.E. each year. Strangely, this is the only time ‘Dateline’ leaves London. They never go to Russia, or Israel, or Canada, or Japan, or Australia, or Poland – just to the Arab World. Though the other guests on these Gulf-based shows might change, they always invite Kate Dourian from Platts and Francis Matthew from Gulf News. There’s never an Israeli guest, of course – even though Israel always gets mentioned (and never favourably).

    Kate Dourian repeatedly criticised the U.S. and misrepresented Mitt Romney over military action against Iran (saying that he said Obama should go to war against Iran) and Gavin Esler passed on her misrepresentation to another guest. Esler said (in the guise of a question) that the U.S. was responsible for Iran’s present strength in the region and Matthew also attacked the U.S., especially over Iraq, and said that diplomacy with Iran is the answer, not military action. The locals were nice, liberal types, though how representative they are (of U.A.E. opinion, rather than of BBC wishful thinking) is a moot point. 

    A different sort of ‘Dateline’ yet, somehow, the same as ever.

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    • Glen Slagg says:

      Strange that they chose Abu Dhabi……why not somewhere a bit more representitive of the Religion of Peace, such as Riyadh?

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  10. Billy-no-mates says:

    I think this is worth sharing. Front Row Friday evening and Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina gets an airing on the Radio 4 Culture program. As far as I can tell Binyavanga is billed as being best known so far for criticising the sterotypical Western views of post colonial African writing So far so very “right on”. Then he is asked about the state of writing in Kenya and he specifically criticises the Aids educational programme funded by Britain. Its a lovely insight into how the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all part of the the government sponsered arts funding gravy trains. I’m sure I can detect a note of panic in the interviewer and certainly no white person would get away with saying any of it. Its 23 mins in it takes a little while and then he’s off..  enjoy!!
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b016x4tp
    I like the cut of this guy’s jib and I will be buying his books.

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    • Grant says:

      Billy,
      I heard a bit of it and liked it.
      If Beeboids knew anything about Africa or Africans, they would be surprised how many Africans do not subscribe to the knee-jerk, simplistic, Left-Wing view of that troubled Continent.
      And, of course, the BBC would do anything to keep them off air.
      Do not expect Wainaina to be invited back in a hurry !

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Thanks for the link, Billy. Great insights there.  Great sense of humor as well.  He won’t be getting his own BBC series any time soon, though.

      It certainly offended Kirsty Lang that Wainaina wasn’t a fan of his fellow artists being hijacked for the AIDS and condom industry.  I’m glad I waited until I got home from lunch to listen to it or I’d have been sitting at the bar giggling like a lunatic in public at Wainaina’s brilliant screed.

      I was amused by the silly interviewer asking him, just after he’d given an eloquent explanation of how writing quality prose in English was his goal in order to draw others into his world, if he’d considered writing in other languages.

      My favorite line outside the AIDS routine:


      “The good old days of cocaine and white mischief.”

      Sounds like nostalgia from BBC employees.

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  11. Craig says:

    The BBC is so predictable. Going onto the BBC News website and seeing an article called Mild-mannered president’s hour, a very favourable profile of Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano, I clicked onto it, began reading and thought, ‘This is the BBC. This guy can’t have been a right-of-centre politician or they wouldn’t be singing his praises so loudly’.

    Going down the page (and then going to Dez’s Wikipedia), it turns out he was a Karl Marx-impersonating member of the old Communist Party. The BBC neglects to mention that he was also a member of the Communist Party’s successor, the Democrats of the Left, and was allied to our own dear Labour Party. Yes, so much for the BBC to love about the sainted President Napolitano.  

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  12. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Dimbleby’s looney-left roadshow (wireless edition) sounded as if it was being broadcast from the TUC annual conference this week.

    Now I know Jeremy Hunt’s official stance on the BBC, I don’t have a problem with the ‘Conservative’ Party being ridiculed, (I think they deserve it and it’ll help see them obliterated at the next election, thus a real conservative Party replacing it), but when real right-wingers, such as Toby Young, are subjected to this type of ‘pantomine crowd’ type of behaviour, it gets extremely annoying.

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    • Martin says:

      Must admit I have to agree, I hope the Tories get wiped from the planet at the next election, they certainly won’t be getting my vote.

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    • RCE says:

      I’m not a regular listener to this, and with good reason.  I only heard about 10 minutes (when some dopey cow asked about the “pig-headedness” of the democratically elected government’s stance on public sector pensions) and it was an absolute disgrace; the heckling was unbelievable and Dimbleby didn’t say a word – he even repeated what one of the idiots shouted to encourage them further!

      There are no words to describe how utterly degenerate the BBC has become.

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      • RCE says:

        And I’m with you all the way on the Tories!

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      • Foxy Brown says:

        @ My Site and RCE,

        I am seriously thinking about contacting Ofcom.

        BBC delenda est.

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      • freddo41 says:

        I. too, was dismayed to hear the word ‘pig-headedness’ in a question. This was obviously the producer and Dimbleby’s decision to allow it and it received the whole-hearted cheer they obviously hoped for. Very bad manners, if that doesn’t sound too old fashioned, to allow this free shot at goal when there was a government minister on the panel.

        As for the wildly partisan audience, to hope that there might have been a post-show inquest into how that had been allowed to happen is obviously to assume that the BBC would have found the imbalance in any way troubling.

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  13. ian says:

    I wonder how many people are no longer bothering to pay their license fees? It must be a lot because Capita now go to vicious extremes to try and get money out of us. Bet a lot of Ulster folk aren’t paying, what with IRA/Sinn Fein bias over the years, fanning the sectarian flames. And Jews maybe, sick of so-called anti-Zionist propaganda…..

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    • Teddy Bear says:

      I’ve received this information from one of my posters from Scotland:

      As for the licence fee, my solicitor told me to stop paying and donate the equivalent fee to charity.
      He told the bbc that the corporation was an affront to my Christian beliefs.
      My solicitor had gathered an enormous pile of evidence proving the Corporations breaking of their own charter and told them that demanding money to fund this was a criminal offence under Scots law.


      He told them to address any correspondence directly to him instead of me and that any demands and threats, veiled or otherwise, sent to me would be considered as extortion with malicious intent.


      So far there has been silence from the beeb as they know they haven’t a legal leg to stand on

      I always recommend this site to those who want to know their rights in relation to TVL, and be empowered in what they can and can’t do.

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  14. Grant says:

    Another feather in the cap for Scots Law    😀

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  15. john smith says:

    Just watch the film Made in Dagenham, didn’t realise it was a BBC venture.

    I am all for equal pay but the film really just amounted to Left wing feminist propoganda. It was misandrist; men really are stupid. It was anti-grammar school; poor people aren’t wanted in academia. Even the union rep who spoke up at the TUC conference was a Celt.  The bosses wife with a 1st Hons degree was hobble by her husband; if she was so bright surely she was aware of the choice she made when getting married? It was anti-American too.  I could go on but won’t………

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    • Reed says:

      New Brit-films seem to be more class conscious than ever. They’re either over the top portrayals of the downtrodden areas in Britain, full of quaint stereotypes of t’workin’ class, or they’re the other end of the spectrum, all manor houses, ballrooms and ladies-in-waiting.  
       
      We used to make decent films in the past : the old Ealing Comedies like The Lavender Hill Mob. Now if I see a film advertised as ‘The Best British Film of the Year’ – I know it’s definately one to miss.  
       
      …and don’t start me on Richard Curtis films…yuck!

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  16. George R says:

    Christopher Booker’s piece for ‘Sunday Telegraph’ is in two parts:

    1.) E.U. as undemocratic construct;

    2.) comments on BBC ‘Panorama’ re- wind power and massive waste.

    “The EU’s architects never meant it to be a democracy”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8886498/The-EUs-architects-never-meant-it-to-be-a-democracy.html

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      So for once the BBC manages to place the tiniest blame on Labour bowing to Warmism for the skyrocketing cost of energy.  But if they really get it, as Booker claims, why isn’t the BBC hassling Cameron about getting Britain out of such draconian strictures? It’s amazing how the ideology of Warmism and its desire to force everyone into “renewables” whether it’s viable or not trumps the BBC’s desire to attack the Tories on an action which most affects the poorest and most vulnerable.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      ROBERT BROWN; Thank you George R, Chris Booker is a must read for me every week, pertinent and incisive in the main, almost the only voice warning of the scandal of children taken into care for frivolous and idealogical reasons by leftist harridans in the ‘social services’ and backed by the police ‘service’. And of course his constant sniping at Huhne and his wind farms and the corrupt EU. Oh for more like him.
      ,

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  17. Jeff Waters says:

    Labour dragged into border fiasco over dropped passport checks – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8886486/Labour-dragged-into-border-fiasco-over-dropped-passport-checks.html

    Funnily enough, I can’t find this story on the BBC news website…

    Jeff

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    • George R says:

      As a crucial example of Tory failure (i.e. BBC-NUJ-Labour ‘multicultural’ success) – BORDERS:  
       
      Peter HITCHENS-  
       
      This Government, like all before it, will only be happy when we have… The UK No Border Agency

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I can vouch for this laziness with passport checks at Dover under the Labour Government. I once took the ferry to Calais without having my passport checked at all, and upon returning, when the passport control monkey at the receiving end noticed my passport hadn’t been stamped on the way out, just shrugged his shoulders and let me through anyway.

      Of course, one could also say that this is a form of positive racial profiling, and that the authorities’ efforts are best spent focusing on real potential problems.  That couldn’t be what was really going on under Theresa May’s scheme, could it?

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  18. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC reporting from Syria and half the story.
    Has anybody else how the bBC sanitizes its reports coming out of Syria. Take for example the story about how the Saudi, Qatari embassies and consulates belonging to France and Turkey were attacked after the Arab league kicked Syria out , have you heard about them? Here is the bBC coverage of the story, I won’t tell you where to find it, as the bBC doesn’t deem the story worthy to report about with its own headline. (Unlike any Israeli embassy story) and instead squirrel it away in the midst of another story.
    “In Damascus, hundreds of Syrian government supporters threw rocks at the Saudi embassy, and some managed to get in, smashing windows and sacking the building, , the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.”
    And here is how a non state funded news agency (Reuters) reported the same story:
    Crowds attack diplomatic missions in Syria-residents
    AMMAN Nov 12 (Reuters) – Crowds armed with sticks and knives attacked the Saudi embassy in Damascus and the French and Turkish consulates in the city of Latakia on Saturday after the Arab League suspended Syria, residents said. They said hundreds of men shouting slogans in support of President Bashar al-Assad beat a guard and broke into the Saudi embassy in Abu Rummaneh, three blocks away from Assad’s offices in one of the most heavily policed areas of the capital.”We sacrifice our blood and our soul for you, Bashar,” the crowd shouted, according to neighbourhood residents. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in August, when King Abdullah demanded an end to the crackdown. Similar attacks took place in Latakia, 330 kms (210 miles)north of Damascus on the Mediterranean coast, where the French and Turkish consulates were the targets of angry crowds, they said.A senior diplomat in Damascus confirmed the attacks, which took place hours after the Arab League suspended Syria for failing to carry out a promise to halt its armed crackdown on the eight-month-old pro-democracy demonstrations and open a dialogue with its opponents.
    “They did a fair bit of damage to the Saudi embassy. We do not have the full picture from Latakia, but the attacks there appear to have been really bad,” the diplomat said.
    I suppose if the story had been about how an abandoned mosque in the West bank had graffiti daubed on it, then the bBC would have pushed this story onto the front page.

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    • deegee says:

      I think pounce_uk exagerates a little here. The BBC are genuinely clueless about Syria, indeed most of the Middle East.

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    • ian says:

      I don’t think the beeb is any more worried about Syrian Orthodox Christians than the Arch-dhimmi of Canterbury, despite the fact that they’re in the firing line.

      Assad got them to support him (or else, I guess). Now they’re even more hated by Syrian islamists.

      Does al-Beeb know that the only middle-eastern country where Christians are safe is Israel? Of course – and I’m sure it wants that country cleansed of both Christians and Jews.

      Just like the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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  19. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC and its cock sucking leftwing liberal mantra.

    Ok just had a butchers to see what the bBC have to say about the fight of the year.
    Manny Pacquiao V  Juan Márquez

    And what do the bbC have to say about the fight nothing.

    f-ing typical.

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  20. Jonathan S says:

    2012…expect a BBC documentary of the Greenham Common lezzers

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  21. Reed says:

    Remember all those verbal gaffes made by right-wing US politicians that the BBC and most other media outlets love to remind us of continually?            
           
    Obama- Billionaires should pay same tax rate as ̶j̶e̶w̶s̶ janitors:          
            


     
               
    It’s an obvious and fairly innocent slip of the tongue (or perhaps it’s rather Freudian if you want to be uncharitable), but imagine if one of the Republican candidates had done the same. I can guarantee you we’d all be hearing about it….over….and  over….

    …of course he could have been about to say ‘junior’…something. The point is that if it were said by someone that the media is happy to portray as ‘an idiot on the evil side‘ rather than by someone they prefer to assume is ‘an intellectual on the good side‘ – no benefit of the doubt would be given.

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    • deegee says:

      OTOH the good humour in which Perry responded to his gaffe (alternatively the style in which he read the one-liners scripted for him) has won some fans. Cain has not handled the allegations against him with nearly the same grace.

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    • Craig says:

      Andrew Marr did something out of the ordinary today. He interrupted his paper review to play a video clip of Rick Perry’s gaffe. I can’t remember him ever having done that before. He and his guests then had a good laugh about it.

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      • RCE says:

        Who was the bint that said the fact that there was no GOP front-runner at this stage was disastrous (or similar)?  What with all those primaries, caucuses and… erm… oh yeah, democratic processes to be overcome…

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  22. hippiepooter says:

    I’ve just seen Stephen Evans on ‘Reporters’ on the BBC’s World Service TV doing a Correspondent piece on the downturn in Germany’s middle class fortunes.

    Three times he used Ed Miliband’s propanda phrase ‘the squeezed middle’ or variants thereof.

    He could be accused of (not so) subliminally attempting to give resonance to Ed Miliband’s propaganda.  In my view any reporter who cares about objectivity would studiously avoid echoing a phrase associated either with HMG or HMLO.

    I always like to Google such suspicious characters, and sure enough Mr Evans has ‘form’.  He’s an BBC US Correspondent, which is a damning phrase in itself when alleging bias.  I came across something about him on some obscure blog called ‘beebbiascraig’:-

    http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/09/santa-fondles-gun-and-stephen-evans.html

    That guy has a future in covering BBC bias!  🙂

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    • Craig says:

      Whatever happened to him? I’m sure I read somewhere that they found his clothes on a beach in Morecambe, though there are widespread rumours that he’s now living in a hippy commune somewhere in North Korea. He certainly used to bang on about Paddy O’Connell though.
      😉  

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      • Grant says:

        Nonsense, Craig. He went out one night illegally fishing for shrimps and sank into the quicksand.  RIP.  But his blog is still preserved on the internet. We shall never see his like again.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The BBC uses Labour terminology all the time.

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  23. Jeff Waters says:

    A feminist perspective brought to you by the apolitical BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15692592

    Jeff

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  24. Craig says:

    ‘Sunday’ with Ed Stourton has been wasting a lot of time on the #Occupiers over the past few weeks – devoting much of last week’s programme to their anti-capitalist concerns, for instance. There has been no criticism of the #Occupiers whatsoever, only voices of support.  
     
    Today, to mark Remembrance Sunday, the programme briefly interviewed General Lord Dannatt but, amazingly, a significant amount (about a quarter) of this interview was given over to the Occupy ‘protests’, after Ed drew a parallel between the general’s views on the army’s moral dimension and the moral demands of the happy campers at St. Paul’s.  
     
    As if that wasn’t enough, this was followed by an audio diary from Giles Fraser – his “reflections” following his resignation from St. Paul’s. He’s been on pilgrimage to Bethlehem:   
     
    “And, yes, I do think that if Jesus was born, if we had to recreate that again, he would be born somewhere like a tent on a protest march rather than in some pristine holy space, as in a church. I guess I value what the Occupy protest has brought to St. Paul’s.”  
     
    ‘Sunday’ has been nothing more than a cheerleader for the St. Paul’s ‘protests’ for weeks. Where’s the impartiality?

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    • Craig says:

      Cracked record time! Last week I wrote,

      “It wouldn’t be ‘Sunday’ with Ed Stourton if there wasn’t at least one mention of the child abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church”.

      The week before that I wrote, 

      “First up, though, was yet another long segment on the child abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. Almost every episode seems to contain at least some reference to the scandal, and many episodes this year alone have dwelt on it at length. Every twist and turn in the story seems to be reported. It’s a major, ongoing story, of course, but ‘Sunday’ is obsessive about it. It’s a wonder Catholics aren’t complaining in droves about this.”

      This week’s edition of the programme devoted fully 40% of its airtime to stories relating to this issue – a report early on, plus the whole closing section. There were some significant developments in the story this week, so there was more justification for covering them, but this still sounds like overkill – and a lack of significant developments in previous weeks has never stopped ‘Sunday’ from bringing the issue into edition after edition. Needless to say, there was no positive news story about the Catholic Church on this morning’s ‘Sunday’.

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      • Craig says:

        ‘Sunday’ also had a section about an investigation by an all-party group of Christian MPs into whether Christians face increasing discrimination in the U.K. Ed Stourton was sniffy: “So it’s a group of Christians talking to another group of Christians. There’s bound to be a question mark over whether it’s going to produce anything objective?” [That last sentence could be applied to a lot of the BBC’s output!]

        There was a brief clip from Gary Streeter, the Tory MP leading the investigation, who told BBC reporter Gavin Drake that he expected his group’s report would probably ending up paint a “reassurring” picture that said there isn’t really a problem, despite “slightly” increased discrimination in the last couple of decades. [Nice bit of pre-judging from the MP]. 

        Drake said that some witnesses who have already given evidence strongly support the contention that there is much more anti-Christian discrimation, while others don’t. Now, if this were a fair report you’d expect two clips to follow – one from each side of the argument. Being Radio 4’s ‘Sunday’, all we got was someone from the ‘there isn’t a problem’ side of the argument, saying that many of the the stories had been exaggerated:

        “There are a few Christian organisations who are as vituperative as the tabloid press and they ramp up, in extremist language, the nature of a problem and the nature of a case.”

        What possible reason can ‘Sunday’ have for only using that clip, which just happens to say precisely what (I suspect) many BBC people believe about this issue?

        If this were a BBC piece about an enquiry by Muslim MPs into “Islamophobia”, would they have only featured the ‘nothing to see here’ side of the argument? Would they have even featured the ‘nothing to see here’ side of the argument at all? 

           0 likes

        • RCE says:

          Has the BBC ever run anything remotely critical of Islam?

          Maybe Dez can help us out by giving an example?

             0 likes

        • Reed says:

          “So it’s a group of Christians talking to another group of Christians. There’s bound to be a question mark over whether it’s going to produce anything objective?”

          A quick substitution in that first sentence :

          “So it’s a group of Labourites talking to another group of Labourites. There’s bound to be a question mark over whether it’s going to produce anything objective?”

          Sums up most of the BBC’s news and political output.

             0 likes

      • james1070 says:

        Has Sunday with Ed Stourton ever run a piece on the Muslim paedophile gangs? The Koran says it is ok because you are allowed to get it on with “those whom your right hands possess”.

           0 likes

      • Millie Tant says:

        It’s an extraordinary obsession, isn’t it? I suspect some of this is the well know Beeboid love of sensation and scandal and some of it is a combination of innate bias and a couple of agendas, e.g. the pro-homosexual one that hates the Catholic Church and another Beeboid one that hates Christians of any hue.

        Of course, with all of these minorities (can’t be too careful, eh?),  it is always useful for a Beeboid to find a minority Church that one can safely hate and that can into the bargain take the heat off any other that might be causing bother. I wonder…

        Psst: It wasn’t Catholics who were threatening to kick up a fuss around Remembrance.

           0 likes

        • Grant says:

          I am surprised at the BBC being against paedophilia when so much of their output is aimed at sexualising children.

             0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It’s starting to look like there’s more sexual assault per capita in the Occupy movement than in the Catholic Church.  Will “Other Projects” Stourton find time for that, I wonder?

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      This Giles Fraser seems to be deranged.  Is he a proper Christian at all?  Where is the spirituality or desire to do good for others amongst the Occupiers?  Wake me up when they start washing the feet of the homeless.  If I were a member of the Church he belongs to, I would be ashamed and outraged.

         0 likes

  25. Martin says:

    I’ve noticed that the BBC (and Sky) have been giving more airtime this year to the white poppy tossers. Some old fart has been doing a tour of the media claiming that the red poppy is an afront as politicians wear it.

    Of course at no point was this tool confronted with the thought that people generally think politicians are scum but the red poppy is a chance for FAMILIES to remember the personal sacrifice they have made and to educate the next generation in what their grandfathers and great grand fathers did for their nation and for them.

    Not once did any left wing suit wearing skinny beeboid twat (including Dame Nikki) point that out.

       0 likes

    • Grant says:

      As I posted elsewhere, I think it is a disgrace that the politicians are invited to place wreathes at the Cenotaph as part of the ceremony. They have no more right than any member of the public. 

         0 likes

  26. deegee says:

    This department of the BBC didn’t receive the memo about Israel.
    Horizons – Water Filtration

       0 likes

  27. Deborah says:

    What colour was Alesha’s poppy on the 12th November’s strictly programme?  It wasn’t exactly red and it wasn’t exactly white – and it didn’t look as though it came from the British Legion.  Unless anyone can tell me otherwise.

    Link is to Russell’s American Smooth which will also lift the spirits if you have been watching too much general BBC.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrbnhblfqsg  2min 41

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      It’s the same colour as her skirt. You can see the skirt at 2 00 – 2 07 and the skirt and the flower together at 2 52 and 3 02 if you are very quick. It was obviously made out of the same fabric as the skirt and has a vague resemblance to a Legion poppy. It wouldn’t do to spoil one’s outfit with the wrong colour of accessory, dahling. The rest of the judges and the dancers are wearing red poppies, albeit sequinned.

         0 likes

  28. cjhartnett says:

    Ended up on Jeremy Vines website.
    Shows all his old programmes over the year.
    Anyone could do a lot worse than looking there to see what the Beeb has spoonfed him as being “newsworthy”.
    I kid you not-absolutely every issue obsessing the Guardian reader over the year has been “discussed” over suitable student music and soft chats and emotings.
    Reckon that this show…useless, sly and biased to the Libleft chattering classes…is probably the pastel rainbow shroud of choice for the BBC. Covers up the scowl from Lord Reiths death mask as they turn it into Maos.
    Jeremy Knotweed a better monicker for this wet sniveller of the Left.

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      Jeremy Knotweed! Oh, excellent. I can’t stand the Knotweed or his ghastly programme.

         0 likes

  29. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Twitter is, with Beeboids, the gift that keeps on giving, so I have no desire to see them cease the constant frantic hole-digging through the remnants of Helen Boaden’s market rate cred it represents.

    But I must say this little post (from a narcissistic meedjah type) caught my eye, if only for the acceptance by the author of a simply fact of life that exists in corporations…

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/confessions-of-a-tweeter.html?_r=2

    “…someone in H.R. had stumbled on my tweets and was stunned. (Apparently, the ability to craft crude anatomical jokes isn’t what corporate America looks for in new employees.) My tweets were a clear violation of the company’s social-media policy. I had a choice: to delete the account or face termination. “

    … well, all bar unique ones, evidently.

       0 likes

  30. Jeff Waters says:

    Is it just me, or has the BBC decided to back the EU-appointed new prime minister of Italy, Mario Monti?

    They were gushing with praise a minute ago on the news channel!

    Jeff

       0 likes

    • ian says:

      Yes. They must really love him because as competition commissar he banned the Major government’s brownfield reclamation grants – said they were giving an unfair advantage to British manufacturing industry.

      Beeb hates the British working class even more than it hates the Tories.

      Monti didn’t ban the East German brownfield reclamation grants, of course. But then the EU is just Greater Germany anyway.

         0 likes

      • Reed says:

        He must be a source of conflict within the hive-mind at BBC HQ, as he’s also an adviser to Goldman Sachs, a leading foe of their beloved Occupy movement.

           0 likes

  31. joseph sanderson says:

    With the uproar surrounding the UK border fiasco allowing people in without proper passport checks, I was stunned after listening to Labour MP’s, Mrs Balls and the sixth form idiot Milliband demanding Mrs May resignation to then find out that Labour are fully responsible for the mess.

    It then stunned me even more that as evidence mounted up that Labour not the Conservatives were responsible for this mess, the BBC then decided to drop the story!.

    Why does this keep happening in the UK media?.

    As always when it comes to Labour the truth shows that they are a party of Liars, indeed they are a party of opportunistic parasites who are incapable of thinking further than the next days headlines. 

    What should also be highlighted is that the only reason that they have had a week of free political propaganda is due to the  useful idiots in the media (who once more forgot to investigate this story properly), a media which takes at face value anything that Labour claims.

    This is in my opinion a huge problem with the British Media, repeatedly we are presented via Labours media mouthpiece (the BBC) a distortion of what has really happenend, and are then presented weeks later with the real story which shows that Labour have lied (normally the exposure comes from blogs such as Guido Fawkes, never the BBC), this seems to be the normal methodology which normally ends with the BBC dropping the story once it is clear to the publi that Labour and its spin doctors have managed to once more plant a story with the BBC, a story which the BBC normally allows to run for a week to maximise the political fallout for the Conservatives.

    A pox on Labour and the BBC

       0 likes

    • Martin says:

      Reason for this is that the BBC get in first then other news networks feel that if they come out with the truth they will be seen as ‘siding’ with the Tory Government.

      Also, within most media outlets the majority of staff are leftists regardless of the official political leaning of the network or paper they work for.

      The media just attracts leftists.

         0 likes

  32. Deborah says:

    5.50 – switched on Radio 4 whilst cooking supper to hear Profile – with at least 10 minutes adoration of Tom Watson – as soon as I could wash the flour off my hands, I switched off.

    But it is OK.  Feedback later had I think Alison Hastings (she from the BBC Trust) telling me that Bias doesn’t mean that you have to cover everything 50:50 – so no Profile adoration of James Murdoch then?

       0 likes

  33. Buggy says:

    Anybody sat through the Antiques Roadshow tonight ? Alternative history at its BBC best, all nicely packaged into convenient button-pushing packages for the growing “grief vampire” constituency of this benighted country.

    🙁

       0 likes

  34. George R says:

     
    BBC-NUJ-Labour’s political censorship on BORDER CONTROLS. 
     
    ‘Telegraph’ has, but BBC-NUJ-Labour doesn’t:: 

     
    “Labour dragged into border fiasco over dropped passport checks.  
     
     
    Millions of people are feared to have been allowed into Britain without full passport checks in a major new borders scandal. ”  
     
     
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8886486/Labour-dragged-into-border-fiasco-over-dropped-passport-checks.html

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      George, this comment on that article sums up the situation well :
       
      Homo Spiens :  
      Its like the idiot who did the modifications to this old house.  It will take years to discover all the dangerous and unworkable changes he made and I just hope I manage it before anything lethal / really expensive goes wrong.  The coalition has the added problem that the political appointments of the previous government are still in place.  


      I guess the coalition’s failure was to not go through every single department of government, root and branch, to find any possible mines that might detonate in the future. A huge task I’m sure, hampered no doubt by all manner of disruptive Labour placemen throughout, but the coalition haven’t done themselves or us any favours in underestimating the malevolence of that demented collective previously in charge called The Labour Party.

         0 likes

  35. Barry says:

    Not related directly to the BBC, but I was listening to David Mellor’s program on Classic FM whilst driving back from Scotland on Saturday.  
     
    He was praising Poland’s dedication to multiculturalism because it included elements of German and Czech culture. Neighbouring countries – what a strain that must be!  
     
    Monumentally stupid comment.

       0 likes

    • joseph sanderson says:

      As a frequent visitor to Poland, I would refute any claims that Poland is dedicated to multiculturailism, you can walk the streets of Warsaw, Cracow, Lubin etc and you will not see any people who are obviously black, muslim etc.

      I would very much doubt that German culture has been embeded into Polish life in any big way, instead I would say that Germans & Russians are still treated with caution by many Poles due to the long history of state sponsored murder these two countries carried out in Poland.

         0 likes

  36. Reed says:

    Here’s a BBC News report about the offense cause by a town council flying the Union Jack. Yes, that’s right, flying the flag of GB IN GB is deemed offensive to some.          
             
    One ‘diverse’ local resident asks : “How would they feel if I was to put a Caribbean flag up outside all year round?”          
             
    Well, we’d all ask…Why? This isn’t the Caribbean. The local weather will confirm this. And doesn’t the use of the word ‘they’ rather suggest a self-excluding mentality. Victimhood is so empowering. (I was going to say victimhood is the new black, but thought it inappropriate)          
             
    Another ‘enabler’ says : “They’re only salabratin’ certain aspects of…um…y’know…Britishness…and with us bein’ in a diverse… ‘um…y’know…sense and era…century of diversity in Britain…that that’s not being recognised”. (no doubt another state school victim fully immersed in petty PC local government do-goodery)          
             
    So what are we supposed to do? Fly the flags of the nations of every immigrant and descendant of immigrants in the area? Are we to do a survey to find the relevant information to satisfy each and every ̶g̶r̶u̶d̶g̶e̶ heritage? Perhaps the most important part of that ‘Britishness’ mentioned is the act of actually LIVING in Britain and becoming part of it’s fabric, rather than resisting and joining the ranks of the ‘Little Immigrants’ – my alternate version of the ubiquitous ‘Little Englander’ put down.          
             


    Hat-tip :http://vladtepesblog.com/

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      David (USA), how would this go down on your side of the pond?!! =-O

         0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Reed, that depends on where in the US we’re talking about.  It’s illegal (thanks to various legislation, both federal and state-level) for a landlord or homeowners’ association to ban residents from flying the US flag.  But some people keep trying anyway.  It never ends well for them.  Schools try it sometimes as well, and always lose.

        Sadly, I can think of a couple places in New York City where I’d get a hassle if I wore a shirt or button with the US flag, but would get the thumbs up if I wore a Che t-shirt or Palestinian flag.  In my heavily Dominican neighborhood, DR flags are de rigeur on car rear-view mirrors all year round.  After 9/11 some of them put up US flags, but a few white Leftoids expressed their disgust for such jingoism – which they never do when it’s national pride by brown-skinned people. Sounds familiar, no?

           0 likes

        • Reed says:

          Yes indeed, David. Leftoids – the same the (western)world over.

          Self-loathers, grudge-pimps and shame-merchants.

             0 likes

  37. Cassandra King says:

    Remember the BBC attempts to pimp the ocean acidification fraud? The dozens of reports by breathless beeboids that CO2 is destroying the oceans by some mysterious method, all peddled with no balance, no contrary opinion, no criticisms. Based on no evidence the BBC furiously pimped a baseless theory handed to it like many others from the ecofascist watermellons. Funnily enough the BBC has stopped pimping these lies and has airbrushed its involvement from the record. The BBC, the most dishonest propaganda instrument since WW2.

    The ocean acidity hoax

    There all sorts of holes in the acidification scare but Jo Nova wanted to hit the thing well and truly on the head. So she got a distinguished chemist to spell out some of the problems with the scare in great detail. The technically-minded will want to read the whole paper but for others I reproduce her summary of it below

    First a comment of my own on the ironies involved, however: If the earth really WERE warming that would reduce the acidity “problem”, because warmer water would outgas CO2. It is only the present situation where CO2 levels are increasing WITHOUT any temperature rise that could theoretically cause a problem. So whichever way you jump, the Warmist argument loses: Either the earth is not warming or there is no acidity problem — JR

    The ocean acidification threat is a big can of worms. I asked Professor Brice Bosnich to help create a quick reference page on the chemistry and was pleased he could find the time to help. Here’s everything you wanted to know about the basics…

    He explains what pH means, and points out that:

    Ocean pH varies by 0.3 naturally.

    Claims of acidification since 1750 are based on dubious models and few observations.

    There are reasons to assume that marine life will not be overly affected by an increase in ocean acidity due to atmospheric carbon dioxide:

    Ocean life evolved and survived far higher levels of CO2 for millions of years in the past.

    Marine organisms actively create carbonate shells (using energy) which means crustacea, corals and molluscs aren’t automatically prey to pH changes in the same way that say a limestone rock would be.

    The world’s oceans may have warmed a mere 0.17C since 1955, hardly a significant threat to marine life.

    We also find out that acidic water is added to the ocean from rainfall and floods (and he explains why raindrops will always be acidic).

    SOURCE

       0 likes

    • james1070 says:

      LOL, remember a few years back when the BBC said there would be no more trees left because of acid rain.

         0 likes

  38. Roland Deschain says:

    I see “a think tank” has decided that Westminster is too white.

    No political affiliation is shown for the Institute for Government, so we can all guess what that means.  And sure enough, a little look at Wikipedia tells us that it was founded “at the instigation of” former Labour minister Lord Sainsbury and has as director Lord Adonis who is, quelle surprise, a former Labour minister.

    But no-one here is surprised, are they?

       0 likes

    • Reed says:

      No, Roland – no surprise at all..and so it goes on…and on…and on…  
       
      Don’t these people have anything more useful to do with their time?  


      Perhaps they should spend some time considering the quality of representation in this country, rather than just it’s bloody diversity!!! It might just be this modern and over-arching obsession with diversity and identity politics that is the cause of the piss-poor quality we see today in so many of our so-called leaders and representatives.

         0 likes

      • Grant says:

        How does the “ethic” composition of Parliament compare with the general population  ?
        Also there are sociological factors. For example, the Chinese are very reluctant to enter politics. What are we supposed to do, force them ?

           0 likes

        • Grant says:

          PS  In any case , are the Chinese “white” or “black”  ?  Has anyone bothere to ask them what they think ?
          Why , in the twisted little minds of Lefties, do all questions of race boil down to skin colour ?
          Is it because their whole world view is in white or black ?   “Two legs bad, four legs good “. 
          So far as I am concerned, Lefties are a bunch of childish, ignorant tossers.

             0 likes

          • Grant says:

            PPS  “ethic” should read “ethnic “.    Or maybe I got it right first time  !

               0 likes

        • Barry says:

          But we all know it’s not about Chinese people, even though we hardly see them on TV, in Parliament, or anywhere except when they’re going about their business.

             0 likes

  39. George R says:

    Ignoring what BBC-NUJ routinely does, and in a tone of self-righteousness:

    “Patten says BBC has to be careful in conducting investigations because of political bias constraints”

    http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/11/14/patten-says-bbc-has-be-careful-conducting-investigations-because-political-bias

       0 likes

    • George R says:

      BBC-NUJ empire (and Patten) to Press: ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.  
       
      PATTEN, who represents the interests of the BBC-NUJ empire (and himself), but not we licencepayers, is uncritically reported here by BBC-NUJ empire about their ‘symbiosis with press’.  
       
       
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15712992

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Whew! That was close.  For a minute there I was worried the BBC was going to start investigating phone hacking by the Mirror and other Left-wing papers.

      Please.  Why is this any different than the BBC investigating any other story?

         0 likes

  40. Reed says:

    Wee Dougie Alexander on Jeff Randell show on Sky News just now talking about Labour’s new policy on Europe of opposing any moves that will hand over new powers to the EU.   
     
    First immigration, now Europe. Are there any limits to the Labour Party’s cynical opportunism and hypocrisy???  
     
    Jeff Randall having none of it, suggesting it’s the result of Labour resorting to focus groups to try to capture the public’s mood.  
     
    I await a BBC report that questions their sudden about turns.  
    Headline!!!!! – LABOUR SPLITS OVER EUROPE. (yeah…really likely)

       0 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      It’s not just Labour, though.  Both the main parties say in opposition that no more powers should go to Europe, then turn round and do just that when in power.

         0 likes

  41. NotaSheep says:

    What is the Caribbean flag? I thought each island nation had its own flag.

       0 likes

  42. Bupendra Bhakta says:

    RCE 

    There are no words to describe how utterly degenerate the BBC has become.

    ————————————————–

    Oh I can think of at least one.  How’s about

    CORRUPT

       0 likes

  43. Jeff Waters says:

    A surprisingly politically incorrect tweet from Robert Peston (although he claims there’s nothing wrong with the term ‘Queer St’!):  
     
    Why investors apparently love lending to UK government – & how Debt Management Office kept us out of Queer Street http://bbc.in/tMAf9O  
     
    Jeff

       0 likes

  44. cjhartnett says:

    The Sunday show on radio 4 clearly shows that the BBC have given up on religion…unless it`s Islam.
    Not that they agree or even understand it-just that it is scary and so it must be indulged and complied with.
    In that spirit, it is worthwhile listening to the BBC any time they “do” death…Last Word or Jeremy Vines awful gloop about the deaths of young soldiers in Afghanistan…as if Simon Bates “Our Tune” was sincerity to be matched…and , in hindsight ;it WAS a peak of sincerity compared to Vines ooze.
    Vine indulges himself on the dead lads drumkit after getting the soundbites from his mum. Vine would have liked to have been Stephen Morris from New Order, and we get to hear his tribute.
    In Last Word, the intellectual colossus of Liberal Atheism…Tony Grayling…gets a few minutes to pat the coffin of dear Joe Frazier…ooh, what a slumming party amongst the beaks at Oxfords High Table, when this clever cultured chap( by the lights of dimwatt Dawkins etc) gets to hold forth on that rather rough sweaty chap who was black back in the trendy seventies!
    Uttler patronage and they might as well use the corpses as surfboards for all the dignity that the likes of Grayling and Vine bring to any wake they`d muscle in on.
    Still when you don`t believe in God…you believe in legacies and mausoleum mantras like Philip Goulds. That Mandelson and Campbell get minutes wallowing in Goulds genius( focus groups yah?)-and a few minutes puffing up the real politicos like the NuLabliar Project…seems to be par for the course.
    They also mourned some FARC wit who was shot dead in Columbia…guessing he provided the drugs in Che Guevara pamphlets, so would be missed by them all at the Beeb!
    Not even the puff peddlars that they used to give meaning to his life didn`t seem to have any reason to “celebrate his legacy”…he didn`t seem  to actaully DO anything…but hey…a leftie in LatinoLand?…what`s not to like and put up on the wailing wall at the BBC?
    So Alistair Campbell doesn`t “do” God…but God seems to “do” the likes of him and Gould- whether his chum Grayling concurs or not!

       0 likes

  45. George R says:

    INBBC’s political censorship:

    no report on Labour Muslim peer Baroness UDDIN.

     I wonder why.  
     
    In contrast, the ‘Daily Mail’ provides this information:  
     
    “Shamed” [LABOUR Muslim] “peer allowed back into House of Lords despite failing to repay a penny of her £125,000 false expenses.


    “Baroness Uddin owns three properties with her husband but says she is ‘too poor’ to repay money.

    ” Peer had ‘never been seen’ at main home in Maidstone

    Fears she will use tax-free £300-per-day House of Lords allowance to slowly pay back £125k”  
     
    (By  Kirsty Walker).
     
     
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061006/Shamed-peer-allowed-House-Lords-despite-failing-repay-penny-125-000-false-expenses.html#ixzz1dgRKu93W

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      I keep reading (in such as the Graun), that the BBC is ‘necessary’ as a counter to the political bias of certian other media outlets.

      This is purely factual, and in the public interest.

      As the notion of a counter to the BBC bias is simply two wrongs averaging out to a lie, the only solution is that the BBC is removed form the equation.

      It is now purely a £4Bpa propaganda machine, crushing free speech and democracy via lies and selective quotes and pure editting by omission.

         0 likes