OPEN THREAD


OK, middle of the week and time for a new one of these! They fill up so quickly so keep your observations coming…!

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156 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Martin says:

    Whenever there is race hate to peddle Jessie Jackson is never far away from the BBC is he?

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Did you hear Diane Abbott on Newsnight, saying “There was a young Indian boy murdered in Salford last week, let’s hope his family aren’t waiting 18 years for justice too”
      No doubt we all do, but how come she didn’t comment on this recent murder, given that it happened just down the road from her.

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      • Anders Thomasson says:

        She had nothing to say when my grandmother was murdered by two black women either.

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        • hippiepooter says:

          On blacks murdering whites Diane Abbott is as unlikely to ask black people to cooperate with the police as Gerry Adams is when Sin Fein/PIRA members commit a murder.

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  2. Robert Pavos says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16156237

    Worst thing that happened in July 2005? Mohammad Sidique Khan’s brother in law had his X-box confiscated.

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  3. Merlin says:

    Morning folks, Just had to endure the Jeremy Vine show and was shocked beyond belief on one of their (unchalleneged!) guest’s  take on the causes of the Stephen Lawrence murder. The guest’s theme was that ‘indigenous’ population of this country are all racist nasty thugs who hanker for the Empire days, that racism is rife in our culture and that the whole white population of Britain should be held responsible for this vile crime. This went completely unchallenged by Vine UNTIL a speaker called from Dorset and blew out of the water the show’s obvious liberal bias. Interestingly, the articulate (and obviously livid!) lady began by stating that she was ‘disgusted’ by the other guest’s suggestion that we are all somehow responsible for the awful crime and went on (successfully) to highlight the complete liberal bias and racial stirring that the BBC was promoting. Strangely, the show ended very quickly after this voice of reason rightfully shamed the mischieveous BBC on air.  

    All decent folk will be rightfully horrified at the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and my sympathies are with his family BUT for the BBC to air nationally the notion that we are all to blame for this because our culture openly fosters this type of behaviour is offensive and disgusting in the extreme. Their political correctness and anti-British attitude has gone too far this time.. My complaint email has been posted!

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    • Geyza says:

      Did he add that we all know that in nations with a predominently Black culture, you will always find a peaceful, law abiding and respectful population? and did he add that a tiny minority of white men were responsible for the Rwanda genocide?

      I cannot believe that these people take themselves seriously.  “All whites are racist”???  Really? That is a disgusting, bigoted and racist comment by itself.

      Typically, these politically correct fascists never ever recognise their own racism do they?

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    • dave s says:

      I did not hear this show but judging from your synposis I would say that it all fits the liberal narrative.
      That is the denial of individual responsibilty.
      This is one of the key liberal delusions and is one of the most damaging.
      Thus the killers are stripped of their individual responsiblity by blaming the inherent racism of white society, If we are all to blame this lessons the killers’ responsibility.
      It is this type of reasoning that is so destructive of society and it is the preferred liberal way of dealing with everything from murder through rioting to shoplifting.
      Always shift the onus of responsibility from the individual to the larger world.
      Except of course if one is to offend against a liberal tenet and then the attack is direct and personal.

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      • noggin says:

        heres the link, (35mins in)  
        http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b018nnnf/
         
        after half an hour of el beeb narrative the one voice opposing  
        that view, voila! she is immediately dispatched off phone.
        Insidiously vine & co then take on, to diss her point πŸ˜€  … ie straight back to same old same old.

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        • My Site (click to edit) says:

          Well she put that racist piece of filth in his place!

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        • hippiepooter says:

          The lady said the Jeremy Vine Show is normally very balanced.  She wasn’t shut down at all.

          I remember Jeremy Vine on radio 4 I believe during the Tory years and he was screamingly bent, but I dont imagine things against him simply because of that.

          Way to go that lady for venting what so many people would think about that black bigot.

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          • TheGeneral says:

            Yes a black bigot with black racist views treated with courtesy and respect by Vine, had it been a white bigot expressing white racist views his tone would have been somewhat different.

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          • noggin says:

            vine show – balanced ???? ,  well his show isn t, & i m not imagining it.
            when that lady was dispatched, they continued to obfuscate her points, when she had no ability to recourse.
             … theres vine show balance for yer! very very bbc … πŸ˜€

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            • hippiepooter says:

              Noggin, you must have heard voices in your head when you listened to that lady.  Listen again to what she actually said.  She is the one who said Vine is normally very balanced.

              Strewth, how self defeating can you get being biased about bias!

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              • noggin says:

                “you must have heard voices in your head”
                hey lighten up on the compliments πŸ˜€  …
                particulary as i actually posted the link πŸ˜€  after listening to it.
                She did have an opposing view, and after being dispatched, they did continue to obfuscate her points, without her ability to recourse ……… and ?? … your point??

                oh and i dont think the vine show is balanced,(whether that lady does or you for that matter) …. so?? .. your point??

                sorry HP waste of time

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          • cjhartnett says:

            I`m beginning to feel a bit sorry for Vine.
            He`s a woolly type who finds joy in his old balck trench coat and pretending to be the drummer in New Order I`m guessing.
            Yet, here he is…highly paid to try and host the thorny issues that are set for him daily…and he makes Jimmy Young look like Robin Day by comparison.
            He`s a vacuous tease, with no idea really-unless Depeche Mode have a lyric for it!
            To be fair, I prefer his fingerpainting pretensions to the pretentious water colours of the Toady Show-leaking pastel shades forever due to the turtle tears of Monty and Jim.
            Thank God a few old masters are still to be found…but not ever on the BBC these days!

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      • The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:

        Quite.

        Collective guilt leads onto collective punishment …

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    • Louis Robinson says:

      The objective of people like the guest on the Jeremy Vine show is to blurr the legitimate differences between ordinary well-meaning people and vile racists till one is SILENCED. It seems that by implying the murderers (convicted and free) of Stephen Lawrence are cut from the same cloth as you and me and millions of other white Britons we must by default have a racist frame of reference. It is designed to give you second thoughts before picking up a phone and calling a radio show, appearing on a TV show or even writing this.

      Is this a cynical political move or the accidential result of the BBC’s fearful approach to genuine problems in the UK involving immigration and race? I don’t know. I would tend towards the latter. But I resent being accused of being a racist by someone with an obvious agenda.

      By the way, I can only imagine what the call screeners, producers and execs said about the woman from Dorset after the show.

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      • dave s says:

        It is fear. A defining feature of liberalism is fear. Fear of confronting reality and fear of human nature in all it’s unpredictability.
        From this stems the need to avoid confrontation and the obsessive desire to legislate in a better world.
        It is at the root of the liberal delusion.

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      • hippiepooter says:

        Let’s hope Winston Silcott is next in line to suffer from the abolition of double jeopardy.  Somehow, due to the Macpharson Report, that is extremely unlikely, no matter how refutable the evidence they might have is.

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        • Barry says:

          Thank you for reminding me of that delightful individual.

          From 2007:

          “The Students’ Union at the London School of Economics made Silcott their honorary President during the Nineties, putting him in the same honoured category as the late Simon Wiesenthal, who dedicated his life to bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, and Thet Win Aung, the Burmese prisoner of conscience sentenced to 60 years in prison for taking part in student protests.”

          They must have been really proud of themselves.

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    • Barry says:

      Proof, if proof were needed, that blacks can be racist.

      The woman from Dorset was magnificent.

      Of the two, who is the bigger threat to race ralations?

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    • TheGeneral says:

      The problem is the Court of Appeal will not uphold this conviction based upon the revisiting of evidence held for 18 years by a police force under imense pressure to bring the probable offenders to face trial. No doubt these thugs are better locked away, but what is going to happen when they are released in the not too distant future?
      Its all going to kick off !

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      • hippiepooter says:

        They wont be.  The blood evidence just sealed the deal in the evidence already available.

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        • TheGeneral says:

          The blood evidence is not safe. The article has been held by the police for 18yrs. the technology to detect molecular levels let alone splatters of blood has been available for 50 yrs. or more. Unless they appoint politically motivated judges to hear the Appeal they must be let off.

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          • hippiepooter says:

            My understanding is that when Stephen Lawrence was fleeing after the attack he didn’t pass anyone till he finally collapsed and died.  That means there is only one reason why Mssrs Dobson and David Norris could have had his blood on their clothing.

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            • RCE says:

              Could’ve got transferred during the lax storage procedures, unfortunately.  The fact that evidence would never be handled that way anymore is a tacit admission that the process could have resulted in contamination.

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  4. noggin says:

    On S, Lawrence, 5live also monstrously over the top, i note this morning
    your call dominated by a black police assn spokesman, one from the london met black police, i suppose the black lawyers assn, or reps from the institute of black solicitors will pop up at sometime, or the lawrence family “teams” of solicitors will have a rep,(its a good job A Hanson isn t  around to mention somebody might be coloured, today i swear they d throw the key away   πŸ˜‰
    that is how ridiculous it is on bbc, is it the equivalent of an el beeb lynchmob?).
    and i suppose on that  note its bound to herald the entrance of Jessis Jackson?
    surely … what times R “brownhatter” Bacon on?

    El beebites almost pant wetting & spitting out racist at every opportunity, totally absurd connotations, “it is our rosa parks??!??!? moment!” says 
    our ludicrous black police rep? excitedly (is this the same rep made to look a damn fool by j barnes the other week … if not, sure sounds like him). this morning.

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    • noggin says:

      spoke too soon … Jackson he s already on, holding (el beeb) court
      “aaahm talking about immigrant bashing”? …… ooohhh brother!

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    • Geyza says:

      The entire mainstream media have gone hysterical on this race issue and the Laurence murder.

      All the media have ensured is that the three other “suspects” cannot possibly receive a fair trial anywhere in the UK.  Congratulations media, your hysteria has guaranteed that IF these suspects really did commit the murder, then they will get away with it.  ANy QC worth his salt will have a trial stopped because of the barrage of compromising publicity which prevents a fair trial from taking place.

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      • noggin says:

        Yes and the bbc are a main part of why this is such big story, hysterical out of proportion reporting.  
         
        look … there are many many stabbings, many orchestrated by hate, many bad injuries, too many murders, still in that same area!  
        Where are all these victims profiles? …  eh!  
        Are they all to be able to create a legal “moneypit” with “teams”  
        of solicitors on hand?.  
        It is an orchestrated ,(political?), media circus

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  5. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Promised to share as my complaint evolved on this:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16355281

    Any input/suggestions before I send my latest reply (anticpating a few breaks as BBC formatting blows the character limit)?:

    ——

    Our short headlines which appear on an index have to be between 31 and 33 characters long
    Really? Why? Where is this specified? And no matter what the need for accuracy or communication value, the headlines have to be within 2 characters? Talk about box-ticking. Pure process over content. No wonder if headlines end up obeying mandates other than simple accuracy. 

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

       
      – hence the headline ‘Thatcher told abandon Liverpool’.  Once you click on the story you get a longer headline –  “ Toxteth riots: Howe proposed ‘managed decline’ for city“.  
      So it doesn’t matter any more if it makes sense, or accurately reflects the story? Just so long as it ‘fits’? (including, evidently, a certian tribal narrative). I will view all BBC index, and main story headlines in future with renewed interest, especially those littered, as now seems the trend, with ‘quotes’ for no good reason than, possibly, simply to make up the required character number:
      Gun victims’ family ‘devastated’– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16409097  
      ‘Outstanding’ sales at John Lewis– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16408452
      Does this sub get their pay docked?:
      Easton: Legacy of Lawrence http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16393926This one probably gets a bonus (and not just for getting the count right):Tax break plan ‘a flop’ – Labour http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16402105I have checked and no other changes were made to either headline from the time of publication to date so there was no ‘new version’. Beyond the cute semantics of what appears where and when on a BBC ‘story’, and justified above (poorly in my view, in being different), it is with some experience I have found the BBC archives are hard to check upon if from the outside, and an unusual level of preciousness often persists when pressed, up to and including invoking FoI exceptions, even when trying to confirm accuracy (or, more seriously, lack of).

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      • My Site (click to edit) says:

         
        Hence I merely wonder why others had the same impression:
        179. THEWALRUS999 
        30TH DECEMBER 2011 – 21:05

        IT’S A QUIET DAY FOR NEWS WHEN THE HEADLINE IS SOMETHING THATCHER DIDN’T DO.

        SURELY, ALL OPTIONS SHOULD BE RAISED, CONSIDERED (HOWEVER BRIEFLY) REJECTED OR ACCEPTED, ESPECIALLY WHEN £MILLIONS ARE AT STAKE.

        AFTER THE RIOTS, HESTLETINE VISITED THE AREA AND THEN BEGAN THE MULTI-MILLION POUND INVESTMENT THAT CONTINUES IN LIVERPOOL TODAY.

        BUT DONT LET THE FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF A GOOD STORY.

         


        With many folk agreeing, if the number of likes is to be taken as a guide. 
        Why would this poster, and those in support, be of the view that the headline refers to something Thatcher didn’t do, if it only referred to the version you maintain, which only mentions Mr. Howe?
        Also this comment:
        380. sandy winder 
        31ST DECEMBER 2011 – 6:57

        The BBC headline ‘Thatcher told abandon Liverpool’ shows how out of control the BBC has become. This kind of biased, cheap tabloid headline may be fine for rags like the Guardian but the BBC is supposed to be neutral, even though everybody knows it is not.

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        • My Site (click to edit) says:

           When the story broke there was  extensive reaction to it which was incorporated into 2 longer versions of the story which featured clips of both Michael Heseltine and Geoffrey Howe. This is the new information to which I refer.
          Interesting you refer to the story ‘breaking’. Note this, also lauded, comment:
          242. magical_male 
          30TH DECEMBER 2011 – 22:42

          This story (on Radio 4 and the BBC website) baffles me. It’s just not news! The proposed policy, including the very phrase ‘managed decline’, for Liverpool, was widely publicised at the time. I remember clearly being shocked by it. I have no idea why the BBC is proclaiming it as a discovery from the archives now. .

          When it comes to comments threads, we tend to keep these open for a short period of time as activity around news stories tends to be intense and then drop off sharply. There were 387 comments which I believe offered a good spread of opinion. Inevitably the exact length of time a thread remains open depends on the story (some are ongoing and developing, others more finite)Again, a well considered comment suggests other motives:
          255. Ron C 
          30TH DECEMBER 2011 – 22:56

          Thought the Beeb would be wanting swift reaction on this one.This was just a vague opinion of one MP, not policy, Heseltine proved that.The port was long in decline and neglected by successive government before Howe came along.The change in Liverpools fortunes has been difficult, the turnaround miraculous. Now how about a debate on aid going abroad when our elderly in care desperately need it.

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          • My Site (click to edit) says:

             
            With respect, what ‘tends’ to happen is a bit vague, especially given the wild variations on comment threads. There was one for Newsnight’s Ethical Man that almost made it to a year before I mocked it on the thread for approaching the anniversary. While too many Nick Robinson threads have opened after 9am and closed before 5pm that same day – denying most working licence fee payers any realistic opportunity to comment –  for this attempt at dissembling to be credible. 
            Also, and again with the greatest respect, the number of comments is irrelevant (though you may like to offer an explanation for the closing of these:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16112447 (25),  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14296684 (12), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15593270 (54), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15571083 (36) ) along with what you choose to ‘believe’. 
            Editors or managers such as Helen Boaden are not gaining many fans or much credibility for the BBC in such matters by confusing what BBC employees think or wish was the case, with what actually is. The topic was still live and hot. The spread of opinion, I would suggest, was erring on the BBC playing tribal politics, spinning an inaccurate narrative, and getting called on it. And it was getting more vocal. That is what sealed when the thread became ‘finite’.If you have any examples where you believe we have acted improperly on a story I would be keen to hear about them so I can investigate and, I hope,  provide you with the thinking behind what we did, just as I have for the story above.Appreciate the offer, as I do have a few more, and even a few complaints outstanding that have passed into serious historical territory without resolution, but first the thinking that you offer on the story above remains to be clarified further, as it seems still pretty muddled and based on inaccuracy, or at least claims not borne out by reality or fact.
            I look forward to your reply. Along with the outstanding answer to this in case the wheels start spinning too much to make further exchange productive: the mechanism to escalate my complaint by not being answered.

             

            ——

             

             

            FWIW, I have on my browser a few BBC favourites categories, including ‘closed for comments’, ‘stealth edits’, ‘complaints’, etc, plus the same heading on email for page captures.

             

            It makes assisting such concerned officers in doing their jobs so much easier when one can offer chapter and verse in evidence to help jog their memories or show where ‘mistakes’ or poor recollections have occured.

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            • Span Ows says:

              “– hence the headline ‘Thatcher told abandon Liverpool’.  Once you click on the story you get a longer headline –  “ Toxteth riots: Howe proposed ‘managed decline’ for city“. 

              when they first posted it the main headline on the actaul article page also read Thatcher told abandon Liverpool’, later that day I regretted not having taken a screen shot of it.

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              • My Site (click to edit) says:

                So, with sadly no ‘smoking screenshot’ to prove it, the lady with whom I am exchanging emails on this… is ly… er.. in error when she says ‘I have checked and no other changes were made to either headline from the time of publication to date so there was no ‘new version’?

                There is also the small matter of several posters on the thread seeing the same thing

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                • My Site (click to edit) says:

                  It rather comes to something when the BBC’s customers are reduced to taking screenshots when dealing with the claimed ‘facts’ of the nation’s most trusted broadcaster, as they will bare-faced claim anything if challenged, and refuse access to records if truly on the spot.

                  What an odd way to behave as any media outfit, much less one uniquely funded by the public purse.

                  Be a shame if a Newsniffer cropped up πŸ™‚

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                  • john in cheshire says:

                    Thank God for Margaret. However, in some ways I wish she had failed. Why? Because I was living in that bastion of civilisation, South Africa, at the time. I was reading the Economist and I concluded that the socialist beast had been defeated. I then decided to return. If only she had not succeeded in turning back the socialist tide for a few years, I might have gone to somewhere more civilisie; like Australia or New Zealand. As it is, I am now doomed to live out my life amongst socialist degnerates.

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                  • Span Ows says:

                    I have had issue with their online writers for years (at least 7), the headlines, the editing, the omissions and the ‘hiding’ info at the bottom of articles. I am not sure how much is outsourced but over the years there must be enough info to sink any of them. 

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              • Teddy Bear says:

                You’re not going crazy  πŸ˜‰
                Here’s a screenshot from a Google Cache
                This is Google’s cache of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16362307. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 4 Jan 2012 10:13:44 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime.

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        • john in cheshire says:

          I hope the civil insurrection occurs in my lifetime, and while I am still able to move around, because I will seek out and exact retribution to as many bbc employees as I can find.

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  6. Geyza says:

    I stopped bothering to complain to the BBC when I had a long and fruitless series of exchanges asking them why they reported on the “Solomon Brother’s Building” in New York collapsing on the evening (our time) of September 11th 2001, a full 20 minutes before it’s actual collapse. Asking what the reporter on the scene actually thought as the building standing in the back-ground of her shot actually fell, within seconds of the link from London being dropped as she was reporting on the collapse (which hadn’t when she was reporting about it yet).

    They fobbed me off continuously whilst changing their own tune and contradicting themselves about their records and procedures and even claiming that they did not keep the footage, then having to admit that they had.

    If they are so willing to lie over such a massive cock-up as that, then they will lie about anything!

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      This one did, admittedly, take a bit of time, but there were a lot of aspects to her reply and explanations, which I felt it only fair to reseerch further and address on a point by point basis.  
       
      But I do still think many complaints are still worth making… and pursuing.  
       
      Otherwise, how are they to appreciate where they are failing, and seen to fail. No incentive to change if not held to account.  
       
      Plus, no matter how labyrinthine the process, and dismissive it all gets as one ascends the greasy responsbibility pole (with Ms. Boaden and ‘The Trust’ atop it, so yes, pretty dire), like all boxtickocracies files get held and preserved.   
       
      So once this shambolic corporation is eventually held to account, and it will be, the evidence will be there for all to see.  
       
      Notice that so far in these exchanges the only intention is to nitpick on detail (even if failing there too), whilst blithely oblivious to the main fact that the BBC took a story, and headlined it, at least in places, in a way that had no bearing on reality, if all between 31 and 33 characters.  
       
      Once you get into the mindset, it can prove seductive:  
       
      Goebells advises – ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (inclusive of ‘quotes’)

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  7. sue says:

    Should All Journalistic Research be Published?
    Today Programme. Wed 4th Jan.

    Evan Davis to David Willetts:
    “Can I just spring on you, unprepared, The BMJ has been running a fairly excoriating attack, the dissemination of pharmaceutical research, there are so many unpublished results. What we tend to see, the published results, tend to be rather skewed, particularly towards good news.

    Earlier, with BMJ spokeswoman:
     “The absence of positive evidence can be highly significant when applied to clinical tests of new drugs. Here’s the crucial thing. Not all the results are published.

    “The long-existing problem of only publishing selective results of trials which show……..(what they want them to.)
    “By only disseminating good news they can give a false view of the overall picture. It’s not just covering up of results. If there are five tests and one of them shows the desired result, you only publish that one, giving a very skewed picture……
    “Why have you chosen to go so big on this issue today?”

    To David Willetts again:
    “I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to reflect on this issue. it’s rather a long-standing one. Do you have a view on it?”

    ********

    Dear Evan Davis,

    Can I just spring on you, unprepared, the BBC has been running a fairly excoriating attack……… well, several actually, on Israel, on Racism (White) on ‘Islamophobia’ etc etc…. the dissemination of journalistic research……… there are so many unpublished results. What we tend to see, the published results, tend to be rather skewed, particularly towards “good” (in the eyes of the BBC) news. The absence of positive evidence can be highly significant when applied to ANYTHING under the sun.

    Here’s the crucial thing. Not all the results are published!
    The long-existing problem of only publishing selective results……By only disseminating *good* news they can give a false view of the overall picture.

    I think we should regard this as a kind of cultural problem……

    It’s not just covering up of results. If there are five incidents and one of them shows the desired result, you only publish that one, giving a very skewed picture……
    I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to reflect on this issue. it’s rather a long-standing one.
    Do you have a view on it?” πŸ˜‰
    Regards,
    Sue, B-BBC.

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    • cjhartnett says:

      Thanks Sue!
      I heard this too.
      Couple of points
      1) Davis said that they had been onto the Russell Group for their views on this news…they didn`t like it (surprise, surprise!).
      Had they already had someone on the show-or are we to take this “on Trust”? For I don`t believe a word the BBC say!
      2) Davis wondered if the Government would(you`ve guessed it!”legislate for including the negative data findings in with the positive ones (that they are apt to do apparently).
      Willetts reply was good… that including bad news with the good “would be the mirror image of what Today does all the time!”
      Hardly TwoBrains, but at least he put a little salt on the BBC slug!

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    • john in cheshire says:

      I shall dance in the street on the day that mr davis dies. That goes for mr humphrys and mr naughty and several other prominent bbc teat-suckers.

         0 likes

      • john in cheshire says:

        Actually, if anyone wants to get together on the demise of our pet hates, then let’s have a party.

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      • Roland Deschain says:

        I would dance in the street on the demise of the BBC, at least in its current form.  But on the death of BBC employees? No.

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      • hippiepooter says:

        J-i-C, whatever you’re on, its not good for you.

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  8. cjhartnett says:

    I didn`t make it to the end of the appalling “Thinking Allowed” Radio4 programme this afternoon-but I want blood!
    I am sick of this brothel creeping mince through the corridors of influence by Laurie Taylor and Sons-and I want it gone!
    For Gawds sake…Mubarak?…Gadhaffi?…Michael Martin?…this flophouse Gramsci needs reallocating to Widnes College of Class Consciousness-but in his own time and me not being expected to pay for his elbow pads.
    An utter disgrace of a show…manges to puff up Occupy Wall St, shaft Israel, scoot over socialism as a factor in the nations mental illness(Russias psychiatric wards…who`s to say then?)-and imply the 9/11 terrorists were architecture critics who only differed in degree from the right wing-like Prince Charles presumably!
    Much of the programme was given over to a disproportionate response to Mumbai. 7/7 in our cities as our Aussie and Uni refugees would see it.
    Well if cities are a warzone now with terrorists and insurgents, then I am placing my flag here up on cyberworld hill and want fellow insurgents to rally round and help me bring down this lazy,flaccid soft target of perpetual privilege that is this vacuous flaccid Marxist sludge.
    I want a mole on my fence-and Laurie Taylors scalp on the post…toupee or not!
    This ,I would argue, is the soft underbelly of radio4…and if we can turn Taylor back to his EMA darlings at Tent City University; then I`ll be going next for bloody Libby Purvis.
    How do I do a Michael Martin on this fat woolsacker and his bumptious vehicle…his sneer at KD Lang and equivocation over RD Laing sealed his fate!
    Calling any other takers for this mission to explain?…the Beeboid Spring Culling starts today!

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  9. cjhartnett says:

    And should you think that this programme is NOT the very citadel of right-on thinking?…
    Laurie Taylor cited the time dear Polly Toynbee disguised herself as a cleaner to show us all that uniforms bring anonymity…without this she would have been recognised by her chums as she did this marvellous research into the uniform debate that rages across the nation.
    He mentions this en passant-and after what he let get said about Israel in the Gaza strip, he probably thinks he`s clean away with his cherry bombs down the nations loo.
    I want sto see the back of a Laurie!…

       0 likes

  10. My Site (click to edit) says:

    For about 3 weeks the entire Newsnight crew have been away on school hols.

    While they were away, a single blog thread has stayed open and, pretty much, unmodded.

    Well now they are all back, ‘asking questions’, ‘analysing’, ‘learning lessons’, etc and, doubtless, inviting on all manner of ‘expert’ guests to tell us how to think, as if this was not possible until their return.

    The blog has also gained new threads to celebrate this happy event.

    With great surprise (not) these are also now seeing referalls and House Rules applied left, left and left of centre. 

    I suspect early closings will soon follow (I will await the feedback of my new best buddette at Compaints on what logic these adopt).

       0 likes

  11. My Site (click to edit) says:

    The most trusted source of the most trusted media… according to some πŸ™‚

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8991860/Twitter-never-contacted-me-says-fake-Wendi-Deng.html

       0 likes

  12. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Why is the BBC News Channel censoring the problem of anti-Semitic rhetoric coming from the leader of Hungary and newspapers run by his friends? Matthew Price phoned in a piece about the political anger against Orban, and at one point they show a clip of his supporters at the opera house in Budapest. Why is the opera house a focal point, BBC?

    No mention that there’s an outcry about an anti-Semite being appointed by the government to run that opera house. Great artists like Andras Schiff and Adam Fischer have complained. They happen to be Jews, though, so the BBC doesn’t care. Recently, conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi boycotted the place in protest.

    The BBC just keeps on censoring news of anti-Semitism in Europe.

       0 likes

  13. My Site (click to edit) says:

    The murders of Stephen Lawrence and Richard Everitt,compare and contrast.  
     
    I wonder if we’ll see £50 million thrown at this case, or that of poor Charlene Downes . . . . 

       0 likes

  14. Jeff Waters says:

    Republican Rick Santorum: ‘NHS devastated Britain’ – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9671217.stm

    What a patronising tone!  It’s almost like the BBC are trying to give the impression that Santorum, like Bush Jr, is an ignorant right-wing nutjob…

    Jeff

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Oh, dear, a foolish United Statesian criticizes the BBC’s sacred cow. Get out the knives.

         0 likes

      • ian says:

        ~Yes Dave a sacred cow alright, but only for the oiks. These publicly-funded journos all have private health insurance. Hypocrites. 

           0 likes

    • Geyza says:

      He is an ignorant corporatist nutjob!

         0 likes

  15. Louis Robinson says:

    There are just two brief passing references to the hero of the day Rick Santorum in Mark Mardell’s latest piece about the Iowa caucus.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16416887

    I don’t understand Mardell. Is he willfully blind?

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Not in this case. It’s just he’s known all along that it will be Romney in the end, and the rest of this is just a sideshow we have to go through. He is, though, willfully blind about there being a record turnout in Iowa for the Republican Caucus, and what that might mean in November.

         0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      Did Mardell even know that Santorum was running in Iowa ?

      ANYONE who was following things over there knew that

      1   Santorum had put in a lot of groundwork in Iowa

      2   Santorum was the natural not-Romney candidate now that Bachmann then Perry then Cain then Gingrich surged and then ebbed

      3   Santorum was looking very good in the polling over vthe previous few days.

      Counting overheads and expenses,  it prtobably costs £1 million to keep Mardell on the road.  What an utter waste,  what a bloody joke.

      He truly is a mine of non-information and dis-information.

         0 likes

  16. Martin says:

    Newsnight has finally jumped the shark.

       0 likes

    • Louis Robinson says:

      I love Santorum’s comment to Peter Marshall: “Oh no. Give me  a break”. You can imagine Marshall has been punding away at this all day. He wants – needs – demands a sound bite. Adult politics? Jumping the shark, Martin? Not even a bigger boat can save them.

         0 likes

      • hippiepooter says:

        Peter Marshall is as bent a piece of vermin as you can get on the BBC.  He has no profesional integrity whatsoever.  The fact the BBC employees someone so brazenly bent as him shows how institutionally biased it is.

           0 likes

  17. Jeff Waters says:

    Did anyone see Justin Rowlatt’s piece on Newsnight about the rainforest?

    Was it just me, or was the narrative ‘Environmental warrier good, evil capitalist bad’? 

    The possibility that chopping down trees might benefit mankind in some small way wasn’t addressed…

    Jeff

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      No, I switched it off because I can’t stand that man’s posturing, posing and swaggering for the camera. Does he think is is on the stage at the Old Vic? I saw a clip of him the other day and thought he looked and sounded like Robert Peston’s twin. Same look at me arrogant demeanour and over-dramatised self-important vocal delivery.

         0 likes

  18. Jeff Waters says:

    Tweet by This Week panelist and Labour MP Diane Abbott:

    @bimadew White people love playing “divide & rule” We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism

    I wonder if the BBC will be covering this.

    It was only tweeted 12 hours ago, and has only been retweeted at least 100 times, so they might have missed it…

    Jeff

       0 likes

    • Alfie Pacino says:

      She’s generalising about Whites?
      At best that’s more racism from camp Abbott… It won’t see light of day on the BBC

         0 likes

    • Reed says:

      *facepalm*  
       
      That quote should read – ‘Labour politicians, through the malevolent use of identity politics, love playing divide & rule. We should blow the whistle on their game!’  
       
      Of course, her singling out of ‘white people’ for scorn is divisive in itself. It’s this lack of self-awareness that is the cause of so much of the hypocrisy on regular display from these lefties.

         0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Might be worth going to the lady’s thread to see one of the BBC’s favourite race pundits in full flow…

      HackneyAbbott Diane Abbott MP @ @bimadew White people love playing “divide & rule” We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism
      #dontwashdirtylineninpublic is probably a popular, and pervasive hashtag around this lady, her politcial colleagues and followers, and the publicly-funded propaganda machine that supports them, as there’s a lot of it about.

      From the Breakfast sofa to Newsnight she is a shoo-in as a ‘guest’, as she is ratings gold and a aganda complement all rolled into one.

      The BBC is about as complicit in in fomenting racial unrest by its selective ediotorial and production as any medium could get.

         0 likes

    • David Gregory says:

      From the running orders it looks like it will be covered on 5 Live after 9.

         0 likes

      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        ‘Covered’ can cover so many things these days, too.

        She is a BBC go-to gob on almost any box-tick topic, with a speciality in victimhood industry hustling.

        How she, and her interesting contribution as a major political figure and role model, gets treated by the national broadcaster in light of her inflammatory comments, will be telling.

        But after last night’s Newsnight, where the reporters went out of their way to find folk who were in turn looking for them.. to tell a ‘story’, it is hard to think the national broadcaster has much by way of cooling this down in mind, at least by applying impartiality equally.

        Here’s an intertesting piece from another medium, which I doubt will be referred to when the ‘want it all ways’ BBC editorial have a knife crime special to ‘ask questions’ around.

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8993234/Met-Police-officer-Its-an-insult-to-call-me-racist.html

        The BBC is dropping sensible pragmatism on societal realities at best, or worse complicit in setting up too many aggressive lines, and offering too many of the wrong kind of folk voices to bellow from behind them in such a delicate situation.

           0 likes

      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        Dr. Gregory, I have to ask… what on earth has happened to the BBC and its adherence to even the spirit (letter has long been blown away) of any sensible, professional editorial guidelines?

        Across the board, it seems all the staff who have been away for weeks overt the school hols have returned determined to get back with a bang, and not in a good way.

        Without all the ‘insights’, analysis, special heat-over-light guest invitees, etc, it was actually not a bad period of calm, with stories on the whole simply reported. Though a few rather fun work expereince howlers to keep things feisty too.

        But the grown-ups have simply lost the plot as well.

        Can’t wait until middle and top management hit The Editors or twitter to suggest that this has all been handled ‘about right’.

        If they let any interactivity loose, the mods are going to drawing some OT in 2012 at this rate.

           0 likes

      • hippiepooter says:

        Thanks for that, Rachel Burden is a safe pair of hands, should be a good call-in.

           0 likes

  19. Cassandra King says:

    As for the Stephen Lawrence murder?

    We could hope that if we were murdered then we would all get tens of millions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of police time spent looking for our killer/s.

    Our families could rely on the MSM for constant attention over years to find and punish our killers, that our names would not be forgotten. That the courts would move heaven and earth to bring our killers to justice. That our politicians would spend millions on an inquiry if the police messed up.

    There are hundreds of murder victims over the years since the killing of Lawrence and they lay in their graves completely forgotten, no investigation for lack of funds, the killers walking free because the police claim a lack of money and time.

    Dianne Abbot can utter racist filth and get away with it, the BBC will not be reporting it, dont even see it as racism. White gangland victims of crime are forgotten almost as soon as they are buried, no tens of millions spent on them, no millions of pounds compensation for their families. And all based on the colour of your skin.

    How many victims of murder get the same kind of attention as Lawrence? And its not as if he was an angel, the evidence suggests he was a right little thug no better than the gang that killed him and yet simply because of the colour of his skin he is treated as though he was an angel. The MSM have never reported what he was up to, what kind of person he was, what was really going on when the killing happened. In effect the MSM has hidden evidence away from us to make this killing special and a black and white case of good against evil.

       0 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      Cass, the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry was hampered by at the very least gross police incompetence and in all probability a corrupt relationship between the father of one of the accused and the police officer in charge of the investigation.

      That’s why it has so prominently, and rightly, been in the news these past 19 years.

         0 likes

      • Barry says:

        “That’s why it has so prominently, and rightly, been in the news these past 19 years.”

        So why didn’t the murder in 1997 of Michael Menson get the same attention? It did – at first – the man was burnt with petrol and died 16 days later. The police got it wrong, claiming that he had committed suicide. Parallels were drawn with the Stephen Lawrence case.

        Then what happened? Interest died down to practically nothing when it emerged that Mario Pereira, Harry Charalambous Constantinou and Ozgay Cevat were responsible. Nothing of interest there then.

        How many people remember Michael Menson today?

           0 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        How can it be gross incompetence when they had made arrests after only 15 days. It was the CPS that rightly said there was not enough evidence.

        (even the macPherson report managed to find NO EVIDENCE of a racist attack) 

           0 likes

  20. My Site (click to edit) says:

    By way of a bit of ‘balance’ had to laugh at the SKY paper review crew today, with a couple chosen for heat over light. 

    James Whale slams the Republican condenders, which counter Jenni Trent Hughes was actually cool with. Then he disses Obama, and Ms. Hughes is not happy.

    ‘Those guys have no substance!’, she wails… ‘but lay off Obama,’ (and this is the great bit by way of ‘substance’ in support)… ‘he’s lovely’.

    With powerful logic like that, is that the siren call of the BBC Green Room for Ms. Hughes I hear?

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      It wouldn’t be the first time that pushy self-promoting rent-a-gob saw the inside of a Beeboid green room.

         0 likes

  21. Barry says:

    So far, the treatment by the mainstream media of the two convictions has been generally execrable. Journalists who should know better have not had the courage to demonstrate any critical faculties whatsoever. I find the self righteousness of certain members of the black community and the self loathing of some whites (or should I say, loathing of working class whites) particularly hard to take.  
     
    Today, The Independent is trying to warm up old grievances by identifying four unsolved murders which could, in their opinion, be reopened. No whites of course. No doubt the BBC will pick this up. And so it goes on….  
     
    Hopefully, some commonsense and sense of proportion will creep in over the next few weeks when the hysteria has died down. I know that many black people are well aware of the shortcomings within their own communities but they never get any airtime. A little more black self awareness and a little less white rank hypocrisy would be a good start.  

       0 likes

  22. Martin says:

    As others have noted fatty Abbot the racist is at it again, and the BBC have come ot her defence. On Radio 5 Rachel Burden attacked a Tory MP and defencded Abbott for her comments. But it backfired as Radio 5 took a lot of heat from Burdens defence of fatty.

    What Radio 5 didn’t do is bring up Abbott’s racist past, remember when Brillo skewered her on This Week over her ‘black mothers would do anything for their kids’ moment?

    She was made to look the racist she is.



    Don’t expect the BBC/Guardian to demand she resigns though and the BBC will really play this story down.

       0 likes

  23. Cassandra King says:

    BBC today show and their love of the political thought for the day spot.

    Slavery contributed to the killing of Stephen Lawrence did it? The Rev Jones claims it did. Slavery didnt exist in Africa for thousands of years in the form of tribal warfare designed to harvest slaves. Arab slave traders didnt set up a trade route into Africa that began long before whites came to Africa, didnt benefit from the trade in millions of black slaves. This is the new historical revisionism in action, the modern fixation with selective memory that somehow forgets to mention the real roots of slavery. That the trade in white slaves in Britain began with the Celts and continued through to the Vikings and beyond.

    The Arabs who began the trade, the blacks who supplied the slave traders, the British who stopped it with the royal navy, all forgotten as though these facts didnt exist. All forgotten because a victim class need a reason for their perpetual victim status. Who cares that the slave trade routes north into Arabia continued into the 20th century and not a white in sight? Who cares that it was only when the trade into Arabia dried up did the slave traders look for other markets to the West and Arab and black slave traders made up the majority of slavers in Africa and it was only stopped when the British stopped it as best they could, we were the pioneers in halting the trade where we could.

    Here is the new post normal historical revisionsim in action, the victim class need a bad guy and we are it whether we deserve it or not. We are to blame for what our ancestors did generations ago in a diffferent world? Do you feel guilty for what people did hundreds of years ago? While at the time hundreds of thousands of poor white people were transported to the new world for a short hard life of slavery and they are forgotten. The perpetual victim class need us to remember that we are the bad guys for something we had no control over, didnt participate in, never benefited from and that other races who made up the majority of slavers are simply allowed to walk away from found not guilty without trial.

    We are being constantly told that we are to blame for something we never did, we are responsible for what Arabs began and blacks perpetuated into the 20th century, we are expected to bow and scrape and beg forgiveness for something that was inflicted on us thousands of years before whites ever set foot on African soil? I am not to blame for a trade that blacks Arabs began, I ma not to blame for a trade that my ancestors moved heaven and earth to stop in the face of opposition from Blacks and Arabs who made so much money from the trade.

    Whatever the BBC claims, white people played nothing more than a short term temporary part until white people stopped the trade. We are being persecuted and demonized for the crimes of others.

       0 likes

  24. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Lee Jasper, Trevor Phillips, Diane Abbott, Simon Woolley: 
    All the while these people are plying their trade, then racial divides will continue to exist.

    I didn’t catch the name of the black-supremacist bigot who was on Jeremy Vine’s show yesterday, but he personifies the Nu Labour policy that Andrew Neather let slip.
    By branding every white Briton as ‘waycist’, they hope to instill a sense of guilt, thus stopping the people from speaking out about what’s happening to their country, and making their ‘social objectives’ (words which were subsequently redacted from the paper that Migrationwatch managed to obtain through FOI requests) acheivable.
    Well, they played their hand too quickly. Even my most politically naive friends have been commenting on the discrepancies between the Emma West case and the Somalian gang-attack case, not to mention the hysteria we’ve seen over the last few days surrounding the Lawrence murder, compared with that of far more brutal killings.

    I just listened to the callers on yesterday’s VD show that HP pointed us to, and all I can think to myself is ‘why the hell can’t we have black politicians in this country with that attitude’. Proud of the country and grateful for the opportunities it’s given them. Opportunities that they’ve exploited to benefit themselves immensely. These people are the polar opposite of those that I named above, who make a living out of wallowing in self-pity.

       0 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      …considering the Twitter Abbott row now you have been shown to be exactly right!

         0 likes

  25. Martin says:

    Radio 5 phone in on Abbott, Burden STILL trying to defend Abbott and what she said. 

    Clearly the BBC are trying to spin for her.

       0 likes

    • noggin says:

      R5 live this morning, on that phone in (half hour in), on 3 occasions already we have nabeel, ali, & moh pushing the muslim narrative????
      HELLO! … remind me what RACE is islam again? impossible for
      muslims to suffer racism?, thats why they invent a crock/false construct like “islamophobia”.

         0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      ‘Twitter as a private conversation’… bless.

      Helen, love, time for another ‘training’, as some of your staff still don’t seem to have grasped how social media works.

      Or, maybe, they think it’s only public when they don’t lile what is being tweeted and/or the author?

         0 likes

  26. dave s says:

    Is Newsnight a comedy show or what?
    Poor old Paxman had it all last night. The confused canon from St Pauls who seemed to think the New Testament is a Socialist Worker tract looks nailed on for a bishopric at least after his bumbling performance. Just the type of cleric the C of E specialises in . Paxman seemed in despair.
    The discussion on the lack of black police seemed to end rather abruptly when the black guy on the panel opined that black police often come down harder than white in stop and search. Way off message there .
    Not the sort of thing we want to hear on the TV.
    I look forward to more hilarity this year

       0 likes

    • Martin says:

      Yes I posted elsewhere that Newsnight jumped the shark, it really was pitiful last night.

      Has that dopey cow from the Guardian taken over yet?

         0 likes

  27. Natsman says:

    BBC excelling themselves this morning – “Crossing Continents” wittering on about Brazilian rain forests, climate change, Greenpeace and Durban, oh, and carbon credits, followed by a programme (on now) about blacks, black power, and, well, anything black.  I’ve lost count of the number of times the word “black” has been used.



       0 likes

  28. The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:

    Just watched ‘Wanted Down Under’ which is now in its sixth series apparently.  As I was watching it suddenly occurred to me that the it was rather odd that the ‘National Broadcaster’ should be encouraging people to emigrate to Australia.

    Isn’t that the job of Australia House rather than Broadcasting House?

    I also wonder if the show followed the usual BBC meme of maintaining a ‘correct’ racial mix to truely represent society?  Or is it ‘White Flight’ that they are encouraging?

       0 likes

  29. noggin says:

    AND ….. surprise surprise! …. 
    the Salford student who was shot …
    well theyve flown over the parents, from India to go to parliament, orchestrated apparently by one K (vaseline) Vaz, who appears never to miss the opportunity,(in light of S.Lawrence) to push a racism agenda.
    Theyre going to parliament first then, an accompanied visit
    to the university.

    intake of breath , why am i not surprised, (could a lot of parliament visits from Gunchester be in the offing?), i think not?, but why not? could that not be construed as discriminatory?

       0 likes

    • noggin says:

      almost heralded on 5live news it was πŸ˜€   

      yes … the odious Vaz strikes again … wonder if he ll rush to put himself out, for all the other families in the Gunchester area, (or anywhere else in england), over a  loved ones demise eh!
      it smacks of his usual “trail of slime-ery” joined with political agenda opportunism.  
      i thought maybe he had been laid low, suffering from an overdose of self-importance, as last time i saw him, he was slithering about, trying to get 100s of of balti chefs a free passport here, as a “requirement” πŸ˜€  
      or abusing his position ruling on a film he hadn t even seen πŸ˜€ alas not a chance
       
       …. yuck!  horrible creature

         0 likes

    • cjhartnett says:

      What`s Vaseline got to do with it?
      Surely they should have been met at Salfords Media City with our `azel Blears and her ever-open chequebook?
      A complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Slime Staining Committee perhaps?

         0 likes

  30. cjhartnett says:

    Graet posts above!
    I`m finding that, by everybody taking turns to turn the compost: not all of us need watch any more of the BBCs incontinent dribblings.
    Poor thing is leaking now at all its orifices…we`ll need to cut them some new ones.
    Newsnight, Thinkin Allowed, Desert Island Discs…all I need is a few more and there`s got to be a Class Action to bring my license down to £140 on condition that I seek out a reeducation camp of my own choosing, and not the f***in` BBCs!
    Gave Clagg and Monty 10 seconds today…why look fo signs of blood in the stool and then complain about the Beebs competing tumours cancelling each other out?

       0 likes

  31. D B says:

    Belated HNY to all.

    I see the BBC has extended into the New Year its season of special broadcasts celebrating the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of that great spiritual leader Giles Fraser.

    19/12/11 Start The Week with guest Giles Fraser.
    23/12/11 Thought For The Day with Giles Fraser.
    24/12/11 Saturday Review with guest Giles Fraser.
    25/12/11 Constantine – the man who invented Christmas presented by Giles Fraser
    1/1/12 Sunday with guest Giles Fraser.
    5/1/12 Newsnight with guest Giles Fraser.

    I’ve managed to avoid nearly all BBC output for the past three weeks but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Dr Fraser had popped up in Dr Who and/or Sherlock too.

    Yesterday he tweeted:

    @giles_fraser Giles Fraser On Newsnight tonight. Why did I say Yes.? Hated it last time I was worked over by Paxman

    One doesn’t need a doctorate to figure that one out – it’s because he loves it, the meeja whore. And the BBC loves him for his lefty views.

       0 likes

  32. D B says:

    BBC America’s Kate Dailey said Obama’s daughter is her hero. In contrast, she thinks Santorum “pimps his disabled daughter”.

       0 likes

    • D B says:

      Looks like the BBC’s hacks have already dusted off their copies of the “How to attack Palin” playbook for use against Santorum.

         0 likes

  33. fred bloggs says:

    As if we did not know!  I dislike the AofC as Williams being Blairs placeman should have refused to take the post.  The bBC will also quote him as he is literally singing from the same hymn sheet.  If further proof was need; order-order has shown that a man call Tim Liversey was his senior advisor has now become Red ED’s chief of staff.

       0 likes

  34. cjhartnett says:

    If the BBC continue to emply Dianne Abbott…is this not a case of the BBC using our money to promote terrorist or racist causes?
    Therefore-in the interests of creating social cohesion and harmony-the BBC ought to send her packing…or else we`ll all be guilty of fostering racial hatred.
    And that wouldn`t do, would it?

       0 likes

  35. noggin says:

    Iraq bombings leave scores dead bbc

    couldn t find the culprits, in this report er bombing buddhists maybe? murderous  mormons perhaps?

    Sunni Attacks targeting Shiites kill 72 in Iraq,” by Sameer N. Yacoub

    Associated Press, Jan4

    ahh thats more like it just the facts

    “We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people.”

    B Obama

       0 likes

  36. magiclantern1 says:

    Excellent, exquisitely eviscerating post by Lord Tebbit on the failure of the revolting Today Programme to ask Clegg about the Euro…

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100127605/the-today-programme-forgets-to-ask-nick-clegg-about-the-euro-how-odd/

    How the fucking BBC gets away with it is simply beyond me.

       0 likes

  37. ltwf1964 says:

    appropriated fomo http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2012/01/jihad-how-it-is-or-how-it-isnt.html

    I hope Daphne won’t mind-

    The BBC, going well beyond its original remit (it has money to squander, of course, thanks to the mandatory licence fee it is permitted to expropriate from every household in Britain with a television set, and so is able to pursue various agendas to its heart’s content), has something on its labyrinthine website called “Bitesize”.  This is aimed at British teenagers who are revising for the secondary school examinations known as the GCSE.  In the section entitled “Religious Studies” there is a sub-section entitled “War and Peace”.    That has a further sub-section entitled “Islam: attitudes towards fighting and warfare,” which asserts:
    “Islam is a religion of peace in which fighting and war are seen only as a last resorts…. There are different levels of Jihad:Jihad means ‘to struggle in the way of Allah’.Greater Jihad is the way in which every Muslim makes a personal effort to follow the teachings of Allah (God) and to fight evil.Lesser Jihad is when Muslims fight to protect their religion.….The idea of Jihad is often misunderstood by non-Muslims who then see Islam as not being a pacifist religion.Muslims may fight in self-defence but are forbidden to begin a fight. The aim of fighting is to create a situation where Muslims are free to worship Allah and live in peace.One aim of Holy War may be to create a democracy where people are free to live their lives without beliefs and politics being imposed on them. There must be no hatred or vengeance in the fighting. As soon as peace is offered, fighting must stop. Once peace has been restored the differences between people must be resolved….”

       0 likes

  38. Martin says:

    I notice that slime ball Keith Vaz was with the family from India who visited where their son was killed. Can someone please ask why the Home Secretary didn’t do that?

    You’d think the BBC might ask as well, although they seem happy to have slug Vaz on screen as often as possible.

       0 likes

  39. Martin says:

    Had to laugh at the BBC’s coverage of Cameron at the business meeting, he was attacked by a woman who runs Spirit Solar some greenie company. He moan was he’d cut subsidies to her industry.

    The BBC of course were very sympathetic and not a negative word was said about her company.

    My view is if her company relies on state subsidies to make a profit then go to effing hell. Sky didn’t rely on state handouts to get itself going.

    I’m fed up of companies who were brought up on Nu Liebore’s 13 years of spoon feeding them freebies paid for by the tax payer.

       0 likes

  40. Ron Todd says:

    I see that Jaqui Smith is to be on Mastermind tomorrow. (Fri)
    That will be the first time that John Humphries asks her a hard question.

       0 likes

    • noggin says:

      if he does, she ll just do a “basic instinct” to throw him off
      … yeeeuuw! ……..
      mind you he ll give her as much time as she needs, or maybe even not ask her anything, just let her talk,(why break the habit of a lifetime πŸ˜€  )

         0 likes

      • grangebank says:

        Can she phone a freind ? Margaret Moran (ex Labour Luton ) can advise on allowances like porno channels .

           0 likes

  41. Betty Swollocks says:

    Martin, That woman from the ‘Green’ Company looked as though she had a wind turbine stuck up her arse. 

       0 likes

  42. George R says:

    “And after the break, the news: BBC plans to run adverts on World Service to raise funds”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082835/BBC-plans-run-adverts-World-Service-raise-funds.html#ixzz1icfKWflW

    Beeboids enjoy the best of all worlds:

    1.) an expanding global broadcasting empire, (including INBBC Arabic Service to provide Islamic Middle East and beyond with Islam-compliant programmes, paid for by British people) as it takes over World Service;

    2.) a public monopoly;

    3.) an enforced tax on British citizens;

    4.) use of commercial advertising;

    5.) freedom to propagandise for  all ‘left wing’/ Islamic causes.

    In the name of one of the Beeboids’ favourite word – FAIRNESS: close down the BBC-NUJ empire NOW.

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  43. Martin says:

    Economic ‘genius’ Paul Mason on Newsnight. “The UK threw the toys out of the pram over Europe last month”

    Really? So Cameron standing up for what’s right is toy throwing Mason?

    The BBC with it’s anti Tory bias again.

       0 likes

    • George R says:

      Comrade Mason  sounds like Nick Clegg.

         0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Economic ‘genius’ Paul Mason on Newsnight. “The UK threw the toys out of the pram over Europe last month”  

      Is that on record. It’s a BBC editor quote I’d like to run by new friend at complaints when she trots out her ‘we are impartial’ mantra.

      That sound like pure opinion based on bias to me.

         0 likes

  44. John Horne Tooke says:

    Not long to go

    Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm

    Or have we got a few more years left?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13002706

    Black does not get it. He belived these people in 2007 and now they know it is not going to happen, they “re-model” it and produce some other scurious date and he belives it.

    In any other walk of life – no one would ever ask the opinion of serial failures. Is Black going to revisit this in 2015 and tell us of another “re-modelling”? Black is an idiot and should be sacked.

    Note All this modelling is based on only 30 years worth of data. In geological time 30 years is nothing, not even a blink of the eye.

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  45. George R says:

    INBBC not interested in reporting threat from Somali Islamic jihad pirates.

    ‘Mail’ has this though:

    “Two ways to address the menace of Somali pirates”

    By Michael Burleigh

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2082576/Two-ways-address-menace-Somali-pirates.html#ixzz1idT8glyo

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  46. Jeremy Clarke says:

    Memo to Evan Davis and the Today team.  
     
    When interviewing senior politicians, please try and let them speak, at least for a minute or two. Please avoid interrupting every ten seconds and afford them the courtesy of answering your question, eh?  
     
    You see, when two men talk over each other, one cannot hear what either is saying and the discussion becomes unlistenable.  
     
    Davis’s interview with Cameron was a bloody train-wreck and pretty well sums up everything I dislike about Today.  
     
    The BBC can produce sensible news programmes – The World Today and Business Report on the World Service are oases of calm compared to Today.

       0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      The interview was indeed appalling.  Cameron hardly had the chance to complete a single sentence.   Davies kept saying “I think”….”What I don’t understand” ….  me me me !

      Cameron was far too soft with him.  If BBC senior management were worth a jot,  they would be hauling Davies over the coals for his rudeness – rudeness to the audience,  not just the Prime Minister.

         0 likes

      • Millie Tant says:

        One thing I hate about Today is the lack of common courtesy of people like Evan Davis.  When introducing an interview with the PM or a Minister, he doesn’t say Good morning, Prime Minister, or Minister, or Secretary of State etc but instead what they get is Good morning to you. Once I heard a polite Conservative, none other than the mild mannered vicar-like David Willetts being greeted with Hello there, while he politely greeted Davis with his name: Good morning, Evan.
        Hello there is how you would hail someone in the street when you don’t know their name! It seems to be a deliberate policy of discourtesy on the Today programme not to address them by any kind of name or handle. I think it would be normal and come naturally to most people in broadcasting to use a name or title.

           0 likes

    • cjhartnett says:

      Truly appalling and trivially bent “interview” wasn`t it?
      Craigs stop-watch ratios would have been handy.
      That Evan didn`t understand was due to his Vicky Pollard impressions and not actually letting Cameron say anything.
      Desperate attention seeking-and will get him a warm baguette somewhere nice afterwards from one of the Linen suits upstairs-hideously white of course!
      He made some smarmy comment about Cameron “now being an expert on nursing”…doesn`t Eton teach their lads to josh the lesser preps like Davis` then? Bunch of fives…now!
      His last bit was particularly awful…that Beeboids have time enough not to prepare questions, but to imagine who would play Cameron in a film sums up the obvious-we pay them too much to sit around drawing willies on Coalition people, when they really ought to know how to ask a question and then respond…like Robin Day or Hell) even Jimmy Young!
      Graham Norton will be playing Evan Davis, Jeannette Krankie will be Kirsty Wark and Polly Toynbee will be Vanessa Redgrave-whose part as Dale farms Earth Mother should really scoop the Oscars.

         0 likes

    • hippiepooter says:

      Evan Davis’ interruptions begin about 10 mins in.

      By my reckoning he was worse in his previous interview.

      All in all though, 20 minutes of valuable time that could have been put to productive use for the British public if we’d had an objective interviewer interested in edifying them.

      Here, Tebbo tonks the Today dog that didn’t bark.

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  47. DJ says:

    Triple whammy on the Today program @ 7:35. First up, a tax geek to talk about the glories of a Generalised Anti-Avoidance Measure. This would overturn a basic principle of English Law by allowing bureaycrats to demand whatever tax they want, free of the need to cite any legal justification whatsoever. This sounds controversial, but not at the BBC, where there was apparently no one who thought ‘hey, maybe we should hear from the other side’.

    Next up, we had the BBC’s new friend Giles Fraser and Thought for the Day. He talked about something called ‘assisted dying’, the God thing, and why America sucks, but mostly why America sucks. Apparently, the God thing leads to Culture War and Americans are hicks for actually debating this stuff instead of allowing themselves to be talked down to by unemployed lefties.

    Finally, we had a discussion of class sizes, since Sutton Council wants to increase class sizes due to a ‘population boom’. A-huh!

    Apparently, this sudden increase in population, and the subsequent pressure on a public service like education, was just one of those things, not worth talking about, can’t do nuffink about it, guv, and so was never referred to again.

       0 likes

  48. My Site (click to edit) says:

    This was highlighted by another poster, but I have sent in the following comaplaint to the BBC having listened to last night’s Newsnight (the Abbott effort already underway):

    I am intrigued by the words of the BBC Economics Editor

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019ch5b/Newsnight_05_01_2012/?t=4m35

    We’ll let the extra context (missing from Mr. Katwala’s outfit ‘s introduction) of a ‘right wing’ government pass for now, but I would like an explanation of ‘a country that threw its toys out of the pram’.

    That is a view, certainly but not one held by all, and an odd one for an impartial British broadcaster to use about the actions of a British Government and PM in handling its interests internationally.

    Please explain the thinking and ability to so express using the airwaves to 60M fellow Britons, some of whom may not agree with such analysis. Without context, ‘time was short’, ‘no space’ weasels, etc. For once.

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Interestingly, I just had this back by return, which is new (or, at least, never had before):

      ** THIS IS AN AUTOMATED EMAIL ACKNOWLEDGING RECEIPT OF A COMPLAINT YOU SUBMITTED TO THE BBC VIA http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints . IF YOU DID NOT SUBMIT A COMPLAINT AND HAVE RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR, PLEASE CONTACT US ASAP TO LET US KNOW BY COMPLETING THE WEBFORM AT http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints **

       

      Dear xx

       

      This is an automated email confirming we have received your complaint, a copy of which is attached below for your records. It will be read and logged shortly.

       

      ———-

      YOUR COMPLAINT:

       

      Complaint Summary: as above

       

      ———-

       

      Please do not reply to this message. We aim to respond within 10 working days, depending on how long it takes to investigate your complaint.

       

      All feedback we receive is appreciated as it helps to inform decisions in the future. For information about the BBC complaints process please visit the how we handle your complaint page:

       

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml

       

      Thank you again for contacting us.

       

      BBC Complaints

       

      NB: Please do not reply to this email. It comes from an automated account which is not monitored

         0 likes