174 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. As I See It says:

    The Deserving Rich

    It is current official British Labour Party policy to criticise high pay.

    Labour spokespeople will employ the phrase ‘We would re-introduce the banker’s bonus tax and use the money to create apprenticeships for young people.’

    Tune into BBC news and current affairs and given even the most cursory of listening you will hear a similar refrain from no end of commentators – both guests and what we correctly term Beeboids (you can’t call the likes of N Campbell BBC employees because, I suspect, such high earners tax arrangements dictate that they are set up as companies).

    But despite the BBC’s apparent attack on the capitalist system it does seem to recognise a class of deserving rich. 

    BBC Radio 5 is an awkward mix of sport and left-wing opinion and so it loves to debate football – not the offside rule or the merits of 4-4-2, mind you, but racism and homophobia in the game and the effects of too much money.

    Terry Christian is an inevitable invitee for Radio 5. A professional Mancunian pseud and would-be leftie.

    ‘Terry, if you hadn’t been ‘discovered’ on TV all those years ago – which led to your Sony Award winning radio shows (prior to The Word etc) – what would you be doing?


    ‘Probably something half useful like a teacher or at that time, given my radical tendencies , some mad left wing politician!’

    Ok we know where he is coming from.

    In fact there you have the typical Beeboid attitude in a nutshell and it goes something like this….

    “I’m a leftie at heart, I hate the capitalist system, I abhore the Tories – but I have to earn a good living. I can justify my own wealth because I have a talent and I can further salve my compromised conscience by using my gifts to spread a socialist message across the airwaves”.

    On the Dame Nicky Campbell show this morning Christain squares the circle. He is able to moan about capitalists and too much money in the game of football but at the same time justify how much Wayne Rooney earns. This is a crucial distinction for Beeboids.

    Watch out for the confirmation of these ideas. We are at present in what the entertainment industry terms the awards season. Just watch the Beeboids applaud their royalty: the luvvies. The Oscars are gathering point of the ultimate pinnacle, the Versailles Palace, but there are lower tiers of this Ancient Regime and the Beeboids see themselves are part of it.

    See if they criticise the awards ceremonies where already well paid celebs seem to need to receive a bonus on top.

    Listen and note whether the Beeboids criticise them.

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    • Martin says:

      Radio 5 wheel out the same deadbeats every time, be it “our Terry” or the only non racists Englishman on the planet “Billy Bragg”.

      Same old same old, just lefty bollocks, of course Christian was defending Rooney, he had to or people would be pointing thier fingers at the likes of Dame Nikki who earn 250K+ a year.

      Be interesting to know how many beeboids get paid via a company and not PAYE.

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    • cjhartnett says:

      But Terry was sacked by Radio Manchester not so long ago, and took the BBC to court?
      How come that they`ve let him back into the buildings again…that Campbell masochism strategy of the codependent abused wife I expect?
      Hope Tery only charged them for the tram fare…worth a FoI enquiry I`d bet.
      Terry, Billy, Owen…the futures so bright for the linen suits with boys like these coming by to discuss “Room at the Top” with their Oxbridge mentors.
      Don`t fall for that old “seminar line” eh lads?

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It’s all down to the Marxist Labor theory of value. The work of the nomenklatura is of higher value than evil Capitalists or bankers. Once you see it from the Marxist perspective, it all becomes clear.

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  2. noggin says:

    Col Bob (re-Bosnia) turns up on 5Lives V. Drearybyshire show today  
    plugging his new show returning to Bosnia.  
    a Dutch soldier is on says they themselves didn t trust the UN,(surprise, surprise) at all, at least two times, he is asked to TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH … about the muslims and their indescriminate massacres of locals, not just the serbs  
    no link yet … it is around 40 mins in.
    The Myth of Peaceful Islam in Bosnia and the Hidden Islamic Jihad

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  3. George R says:

    “The BBC and its misanthropic mates.
    A gushing documentary about the Earth Liberation Front was blind to the group’s many, massive problems.”


    http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/12126/

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  4. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Anyone know what the background is of this editor (‘This is where I share thoughts on world events and point you in the direction of interesting comments I’ve heard or read’), who seems to have a fairly preconceived view before going on to ‘analyse’ as only the BBC can…:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight/2012/02/israel-iran_attack_imminent.html

    His Googled bio is.. predictable.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/my-life-in-media-robin-lustig-6149628.html

    At 15, I was not avidly reading the politics section of The Observer, TBH.

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  5. George R says:

    INBBC cleans up Islamic underpants jihadist.

    INBBC does all it can to to relegate the centrality of Islamic jihad in this conviction.

    Compare and contrast:

    1.) ‘Jihadwatch’

    “Underwear jihadist gets life of prison dawah”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/underwear-jihadist-gets-life-of-prison-dawah.html

    INBBC:

    “Underwear bomber Abdulmutallab sentenced to life”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17065130

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  6. hippiepooter says:

    Tory Cllrs have featured on the BBC for far less.  I somehow doubt this will even get a blip on the BBC, and if it does they’ll be highlighting her being ‘disowned’ by Labour, not her previous form:-

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102403/Will-IRA-bomb-Tory-conference-Fury-crime-fighting-Labour-councillor-likes-offensive-comments-Facebook-hate-group.html

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    • Demon1001 says:

      Do we need to wonder if a Conservative councillor had liked someone’s request to blow up, say, Labour Party HQ how the BBC would treat the story?

      Would it have been top item on the BBC News pages for more than two consecutive days?  Would it have merited a mention in the evening news bulletins with at least four local Labour councillors calling for his resignation?  Do you think the BBC would have found some tenuous link from this councillor to David Cameron and then proceed to smear it for all its worth?  Do you think it would have been mentioned every hour on BBC News 24 for at least a whole day?

      If you think the answer to any of the above is no then you are called Dezzie or Scotty.

      I would be surprised if this one appears anywhere on the BBC sites except, possibly, by a later stealth edit.

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  7. George R says:

    Would BBC-NUJ give this prominence to a journalist (who died of asthma) if he/she worked for ‘Fox News’ or ‘Daily Mail’?

    “Anthony Shadid, New York Times reporter, dies in Syria.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17071591

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  8. George R says:

    Double political annoyance for BBC-NUJ about ‘The Sun’ today: 
     
    1.)


    While BBC-NUJ/ ‘Guardian’ would prefer ‘The Sun’ to be closed down- 

     
    “Rupert Murdoch ‘to launch Sun on Sunday soon'” 
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17070555
     
     
      
    2.) 

    ” Angry landlord finds Abu Qatada is his tenant.


      110,000-name Sun petition is taken to No10. ”  
     
    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4135493/Angry-landlord-finds-Abu-Qatada-is-tenant.html

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    • John Anderson says:

      I too had seen the story about Murdoch intending to start “Sun on Sunday”.    Assuming it all goes ahead,  the BBC/Guardian axis will have achieved only the withdrawal of the News Corporation bid for full control of Sky.

      And it is only a matter of time before that bid is renewed.

      In the meanwhile – how soft can Adam Boulton at Sky get – in his grinning interview with Trevor Kavanagh he was half suggesting that the Sun itself should be closed down.   I hope Murdoch gets to see that clip.

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  9. As I See It says:

    What is about Owen Jones, author of
    Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class that the BBC like so much that they feel oblidged put him on the air so often?

    From his blog….

    ‘I’m a lefty currently based in Hackney; and I grew up in Sheffield, Falkirk, and above all Stockport. I’m a former flunky for unions and Labour MPs, and author of ‘Chavs’…..

    ‘My ramblings have been published in the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, The Sunday Mirror, Le Mond Diplomatique, Frankfurter Allgemeine, the Morning Star, the New Humanist, Liberal Conspiracy, Labour List, Left Future, and Open Democracy.

     

    I’ve also been inflicted on the public through BBC Newsnight, BBC, Breakfast News, ITV Day Break, Sky News, BBC News, (BBC) The Big Questions, Channel 4′s 10 O’Clock and various radio stations (including BBC 5 Live).

     

    Even the Guardian was somewhat guarded in its praise for the book what he wrote….'(he) treat(s) “the working class” as a single political bloc. Because of this tendency, it can feel as though he romanticises an ideal of working-class life which doesn’t always hold true. There is a tinge of the noble savage here and there, particularly in the over-careful way he presents and interprets quotes by his working-class interviewees’.

     

    Notice how this avowed lefty is so proud of his many BBC outings?

     

    He certainly seems to believe they are getting it about right.

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    • DJ says:

      On the plus side, I think the BBC have shot themselves in the foot here. The whole point of being a near-monopoly is that you can issue absurd claims to represent the public even as you fill your staffing roster with liberal clones.  
       
      The last thing you want to do is try and compete in an area where there’s objective proof of success or failure to win over the public. Meanwhile, our uniquely-funded broadcaster is hyping this guy as the Orwell de nos jours, but won’t tell us how many copies of ‘Chavs’ were actually sold, let alone how many outside the M25.   
       
      Hey, if this guy really is the voice of the yoof, he’ll have the sales figures to back it up? Right?

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  10. john says:

    BBC bias – obviously   BBC contempt – apparently

    The afternoon play on R4 @ 14.15 – 15.00 – OCCUPIED  17022012

    I wont bother with a critique of this masterpiece.
    Following on the back of one of the few programmes with an audience, this play demonstrated to me that the BBC no longer care what we think about their output.
    Sure, a few boxes were ticked just in case a Dozy Tory MP gets a complaint from a constituent.

    If you have the time, just sample a few minutes of it on that i-player thing. Beginning, middle or end – it doesn’t matter – you’ll soon hear what I mean.

    Un-fucking believable !

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    • Millie Tant says:

      From the Beeboid Blurb:
      This drama about UK activism tells the story of what happened when radio producers got a little too close to the action.
      With recordings of the protests mixed with drama recordings, actual participants mixed with actors, Occupied creates a world of sound that is both authentic and original.
      The play is made in collaboration with artist and activist John Jordan; as well containing sound from within the Fortnum and Mason sit-in it also documents the actual moments when a crowd of activists decide to make camp outside St Paul’s cathedral.
      What emerges is not only a play about three people trying to make a play – it’s about how and why people protest in the UK.

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  11. noggin says:

    Col Bob (re-Bosnia) turns up on 5Lives V. Drearybyshire show today    
    plugging his new show returning to Bosnia.    
    a Dutch soldier is on says they themselves didn t trust the UN,(surprise, surprise) at all, at least two times, interesting segment.

    el beeb bob is asked to TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH … about the muslims and their indescriminate massacres of locals, not just the serbs    
    it is around 40 mins in.

    ps.
     
    The Myth of Peaceful Islam in Bosnia and the Hidden Islamic Jihad


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01bycgs/ heres the link.

    (el beebs Col Bob) Stewart !, tell the whole truth Col?, how muslims used  trebinitza as a springboard for raiding/massacring serbs, before retreating back into the UN zone …  oooeerr!

    here we go again etc why do you keep avoiding fact and truth
    there were over 3000 armed muslims in trebinitza slaughtering the local serbs before the supposed “massacre” even took place
    … well … about bloody time … mind you as usual, he isn t even pressed on it, and drones on about equivalence and his visit.

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