106 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. As I See It says:
    July 4, 2012 at 9:59 am

    What do you associate with the date 4th July?
    Something to do with the USA?
    No, no, no.
    What would Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burdon on Salford local radio associate with 4th July?

    Clue: Remember these people have a memory and a mythology all their own….

    Something to do with the Stone Roses? Steven Lawrence? Rachel’s anniversay? Nicky’s pets’ birthdays… getting warmer..
    Give up….
    Well, as our intrepid reporters breathlessly explain to we licence payers – it is the anniversary of the Guardian breaking the Milly Dowler phone hacking story!
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/04/milly-dowler-voicemail-hacked-news-of-world
    The story which was played up by the Guardian/BBC/Labour to mean the death knell for a popular British newspaper and the derailing of the multi-million pound Murdoch investment in BSkyB.
    Good man, Guardianista and BBC favourite Steve Hewlett in on hand to take a bow.
    Agenda, what agenda?

       33 likes

    • RCE says:
      July 4, 2012 at 10:06 am

      Would that be the completely false and unsubstantiated Milly Dowler story?

         23 likes

      • geyza says:
        July 4, 2012 at 1:56 pm

        That’s the one, even though the Guardian still stand by the story and refuse to apologise to the Dowlers or anyone else.

           4 likes

    • Marsh says:
      July 4, 2012 at 12:39 pm

      Yes heard it. Quite astonishing.

         6 likes

  2. RCE says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:05 am

    R4 Today, 7:25, some poet that we’re all supposed to have heard of, renowned for his political verse.

    “I wonder what politics those will be?” I said out loud (I didn’t really wonder at all).

    An increasing amount of BBC output is now indistinguishable from satire. This gem came complete with Humphries’ dewy approval of the anti-Iraq war poem at the end.

    BBC delenda est.

       16 likes

    • noggin says:
      July 4, 2012 at 11:04 am

      also later a piece on Parries “Jerusalem”, hints strongly, the (al beeb? 🙂 view, that if only…
      it wasn t so rousing,(do they mean patriotic?)
      its start was mean t to be for feminists after all, .. talk of “propaganda” etc
      (shakes head)

         8 likes

  3. Umbongo says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:28 am

    The 8:00 Radio 4 news was headed by the startling scoop that Bob Diamond is going to appear before a Commons Committee later today – and here’s our Business Correspondent Robert Peston to tell us what he might or might not say.
    This isn’t “news” nor is analysis “news” – this is the BBC keeping the searchlight of publicity on Barclays and the City. The only genuine “news” at 8:00 this morning concerning this affair was the revelation that Labour ministers and/or SPaDs might have pressured the BoE re LIBOR. Since this juicy item might have taken the focus of BBC faux-indignation off Barclays, the City and the present administration – and damaged Labour in the process – it was ignored.

       25 likes

    • RCE says:
      July 4, 2012 at 11:37 am

      If it becomes impossible to ignore just watch the BBC try and turn it into Labour’s favour as ‘necessary and brave under the perilous circumstances.’

      I’m predicting analogies with wartime propaganda ‘for the greater good’, etc. This is a double-win for the Beeb as it simultaneously bigs-up Labour and denigrates what people do for the country during wartime.

         7 likes

      • RCE says:
        July 4, 2012 at 11:39 am

        AND it implies that by criticising it The Tories are being unpatriotic. This is a golden egg story for the Beeb.

           5 likes

      • Dave s says:
        July 4, 2012 at 11:46 am

        They will have a job. If it happened it was clearly a criminal conspiracy and the Old Bailey beckons.

           3 likes

        • Dave s says:
          July 4, 2012 at 11:54 am

          And have they realised that the US lawyers will sue our banks into the ground?

             4 likes

        • RCE says:
          July 4, 2012 at 3:01 pm

          Cash for honours was criminal. That hit a dead end when Lord Levy’s flat ‘mysteriously’ burned down.

          The Beeb response to that?

          ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

             5 likes

      • zemplar says:
        July 4, 2012 at 4:33 pm

        Yes, I like the “denigrates what people do for the country during wartime” double-whammy. Very good, and right up the BBC’s street…

           3 likes

  4. The Highland Rebel says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:42 am

    Did anyone listen to ‘click’ on the WS this morning?

    It’s supposed to be a programme about computers and technology but half the programme was devoted to ‘Israeli aggression’ against the poor ‘Palestinians’ whoever they are.

    Worth a listen on i player.

       19 likes

  5. Fred Bloggs says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:46 am

    bBC new DG, an insider called George Entwhistle. Cannot see any radical changes with a choice like that.

       9 likes

  6. The Highland Rebel says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:49 am

    link to ‘click’

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p00trstp

       1 likes

  7. EB says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:56 am

    I’m listening to these idiots on Woman’s Hour handwringing over whether it’s culturally acceptable for Africans to sell Avon makeup to one another. Seemingly the BBC think the natives can’t be trusted to makeup their faces, let alone their own minds, without micromanagement from patronising Western liberals. And there I was thinking empire was a thing of the past. (Oh, it’s OK, apparently, because Africans had makeup of some sort before empire, so it’s ideologically kosher after all.)

       17 likes

    • NotaSheep says:
      July 4, 2012 at 12:15 pm

      I thought that the most revealing part of that interview was Jenny Murray’s seeming lack of understanding that South Africa was no longer split into rich whites and poor blacks but that there was now a wealthy black middle class who might use Avon products sold to them by poor black women.

         12 likes

      • Lloyd Reith says:
        July 4, 2012 at 2:29 pm

        Now theres someone who has made an absolute fortune at our expense by the usual feminist whinging tactics. What is her pension pot again ?

           6 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:
      July 4, 2012 at 3:35 pm

      They must have seen a film in negative, of a Black person putting makeup on. Which looked like a white person blacking up for the Black and White Minstrel Show.

         4 likes

    • zemplar says:
      July 4, 2012 at 4:41 pm

      Presumably, they slap the side of the mud hut and say “Avon calling!”. That’s if they make it through the cordon of machete-wielding, AIDS infected savages…

      Oh no! What have I said?!

         9 likes

  8. Chilli says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:57 am

    Newsnight feature on child sexual abuse last night: so much wrong with the item it’s hard to know where to begin. Firstly the BBC had managed to arrange an outside broadcast report from a house where a couple of white 17 year olds were being arrested for trying to get their leg over some 15 year old slag. This entirely normal activity was portrayed as child sex grooming. No mention of gangs of middleaged pakistani’s raping children until much later in the studio discussion when it was couched in the most tentative PC language then summarily dismissed with the usual irrelevant “95% of sex offenders are white”. What annoyed me most was the ‘headline’ for the piece was something along the lines of ‘child sex grooming is occuring in every town village and hamlet up and down Britain’. An astonishing assertion. So was this based on any verifiable research or report? No it turned out to be a hearsay comment from a police officer in one area ( presumerably the same berk who we saw arresting white teenage boys for trying to have sex with white teenage girls ). Shocking.

       24 likes

    • The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:
      July 4, 2012 at 3:18 pm

      I thought the BBC believed it wasn’t helpful for crimes to be statistically delineated by race? So if 95% of sex crimes against chilfren are by ‘whites’ (doubtful but more or less in line with UK ethnicity) can we go back to saying 75% of street crime is commited by blacks? No? Thought not.

         11 likes

      • dez says:
        July 5, 2012 at 1:22 am

        The Cattle Prod of Destiny,
         
        When Chilli says the issue of; “gangs of middleaged pakistani’s” was; “couched in the most tentative PC language…”
         
        What he really means is:
         
        Emily Maitlis asked Tim Loughton MP (Children’s Minister);
         
        “[After Rochdale] there were big questions about whether was a legitimate issue in this or not. Do you find, are you concerned, that political correctness is hampering whether you can actually get to the bottom of that or not?”
         
        To which Tim Loughton replied;
         
        “I think it has in the past and it’s no good denying it. We’ve had some high profile cases involving British Pakistani men in particular, taking advantage of white teenage girls. I can take you to other parts of the country where we’ve got white, middle aged men exploiting, grooming young girls or young boys as well”.
         
        Nobody said; “95% of sex offenders are white”. That is a product of Chilli’s imagination.
         
        “…can we go back to saying 75% of street crime is committed by blacks? No? Thought not”.
         
        You can say it all you want. However you would be incorrect, but never mind.
         
        You could also say that; “The overwhelming majority of those implicated in uk bank fraud are white”. In which case you would be correct.
         
        But for some reason that particular statistic doesn’t interest you – yet the former one does. Why is that?

           6 likes

        • dez says:
          July 5, 2012 at 5:15 am

          Oops, should read:
           
          “[After Rochdale] there were big questions about whether race was a legitimate issue in this or not.”
           

             0 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:
            July 5, 2012 at 2:13 pm

            And dez buys right into the BBC agenda. I guess he thinks the judge and the convicted groomers were lying.

               2 likes

        • RCE says:
          July 6, 2012 at 7:06 am

          That statistic interests me. Who is contesting that it’s true, Dez?

             0 likes

          • RCE says:
            July 6, 2012 at 7:23 am

            I should add that I already knew it, and it is glaringly obvious. But I don’t see anything controversial about it.

               0 likes

    • dez says:
      July 4, 2012 at 11:42 pm

      Chilli; “…a couple of white 17 year olds were being arrested for trying to get their leg over some 15 year old slag”.
       
      The two 17 year olds were arrested for “child abduction”, and it was made clear that the house they were living in was already well known by the police.
       
      The girl in question was 14 (not 15); had been missing for four days after running away from home; and been identified as vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
       
      The Newsnight report highlighted how some kinds of expatiation involved coercing underage girls into sex acts with teenagers of their own age whilst being filmed. Films that were then passed around amongst other gang members.
       
      Quite revealing that you chose describe her as a “slag”, whilst the two boys were just; “trying to get their leg over”.
       
      Chilli; “What annoyed me most was the ‘headline’ for the piece…”
       
      Which was; “‘There’s not a town, a village or a hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited’; the Children’s Commissioner said last month“.
       
      It might annoy you, but it is what the [deputy] Children’s Commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, said to the HoC Home Affairs Committee. As reported by The Telegraph at the time:
       
      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9327534/Child-abuse-taking-place-in-every-town-village-and-hamlet-in-England.html
       
      Sue Berelowitz recounted what a police officer had told her (who had been leading a very big investigation into sexual exploitation; “in a very lovely, leafy, rural part of the country… and was aware of other investigations”) because it corroborated all the other “hard evidence” she’d obtained:
       
      That right across the country; “in urban, rural and metropolitan areas”, children are being sexually exploited.
       
      http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=10905&st=12:52:00
       
      To dismiss it as a mere ‘hearsay comment’ is spectacularly ignorant and misinformed.
       

         7 likes

      • RCE says:
        July 6, 2012 at 7:27 am

        Dez, I think your account has been hacked by someone who can make a reasoned, clear and cogent argument.

           0 likes

  9. George R says:
    July 4, 2012 at 11:46 am

    BBC-NUJ’s homosexual ‘marriage’ lobbying with Labour:

    “Labour host meeting of faith groups backing gay marriage”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18702646

       1 likes

  10. George R says:
    July 4, 2012 at 11:50 am

    ‘Fox News’:

    “BBC names new director-general”

    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/07/04/bbc-names-new-director-general/

       2 likes

  11. noggin says:
    July 4, 2012 at 12:01 pm

    5 US troops shot this morning, by security suited Afghans
    Today R4 7.25 ish
    talk this morning of “self radicalised” ? members of security forces in Afghanistan …
    yep! thats not taliban/al qaida? what could it be? … HMMM … that radicalises them in that fashion? … any guesses?
    still 😀 … as the conversation waxes… “it may not be possible to have a perfect liberal democracy” ……
    ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! … no sh-t shylock
    “but to leave a stable ???? Afghanistan”

    hmm looks like its going well? seeing as we ve trumpeted to the Taliban, long about the cobbled get out clause… i think thats at least, given them a “slight” clue about a waiting game eh!.
    That has given them the impetus to ramp up their focus
    then, on just the types of attack mentioned above …
    as mark steyn stated long ago “strong horse/weak horse”

       7 likes

  12. El Paulo says:
    July 4, 2012 at 2:20 pm

    Interesting moment on 5Live just before the news at 8am this morning. Nicky Campbell was talking to John Barrowman on LGBT rights around the world and his work with ‘Kalidascope’, which highlights such issues.

    John commented that being gay is punishable by death in five countries. Nicky then asked…

    NC: “Where is it punishable by death?
    JB: …Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen.
    NC: Is there an Islamic problem here?
    JB: No there’s not really an Islamic problem here… (talks about many Islamic countries having laws supportive of LGBTs) …the biggest problem is within the Christian countries… Uganda, Nigeria…
    NC: Well, Nigeria is a very strong Islamic country.
    JB: Uganda and Ukraine … and Russia. It’s not really a religious based issue we’re looking at here, we’re looking to change the attitudes of people…”

    Now, I support ending the maltreatment of LGBTs around the world, but there’s a somewhat confused message going out here, no?! Shame Nicky didn’t follow up on the good start he made by asking the obvious question.

       3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      July 4, 2012 at 3:12 pm

      Death penalty not the biggest problem, eh? Can we quote that next time the BBC starts moaning about some US State executing a convicted criminal?

         5 likes

      • El Paulo says:
        July 5, 2012 at 1:30 pm

        Yep – seems ridiculous really! Capital punishment is so much more civilized, because people are put out of their misery more quickly!

        Surely we aren’t being asked to conclude that these 5 Islamic countries are at least staying true to their beliefs, while Christian countries are guilty of the greater sin of hypocrisy – WHICH IS APPARENTLY WORSE! Coz that’s what it sounds like!

           1 likes

    • The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:
      July 4, 2012 at 3:23 pm

      Little Nicky is playing the usual game. There’s a paciderm in the studio and everyone knows it. So he gives Barrowman the chance to punt the Islamic issue into the long grass.

      I suppose those lads hanged from cranes in Iran were convicted of something other than being gay then?

         8 likes

  13. Richard D says:
    July 4, 2012 at 2:34 pm

    Flat-out, uncritical coverage of this morning’s ‘news’ that the Higgs Boson particle has actually been discovered at last (well some kind of particle seems to have been confirmed as having been found) – not that anyone’s fully certain yet, because ‘loads of further research will have to be done’, we were informed, to ascertain if this really is the particle everyone had been postulating.

    I heard one reporter asking one of the two questions I would like answered – namely – “…and what, in paractical terms, will this mean for the world now ?” – the only answer to which seemed to be that even more research needs to be done (i.e. no-one has a clue). The second question I would have liked someone to ask was “….and what will be different tomorrow after the results of this research have been announced ?” Presumably some researchers have been doing beneficial research fror months, if not years, given the high degree of ‘certainty’ prior to today, of the existence of this particle – or have scientists in this field really been sitting on their thumbs waiting for this possible ‘discovery’ before doing anything further. But of that work – if any exists – not a peep was heard.

    Basically, then, nothing much is different to what it was yesterday, or last week, or last month…. except potentially the announcement will release a flood of research grant requests. Potentially with some end value – who knows ?

    But, boy, did this ‘possible discovery’ get some attention today.

       4 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:
      July 4, 2012 at 3:52 pm

      On the Jeremy Vine show the BBC’s main interest in this science story was trying to find sceptics. The consensus is that it is ok to talk to science sceptics on the BBC unless they are sceptical scientists with qualifications relevant to the atmospheric physics of carbon dioxide warming of the Earths atmosphere at the surface.

         6 likes

      • Phil Ford says:
        July 4, 2012 at 4:22 pm

        Having bullied both Bellamy and Ball out of the door and having forced a reluctant Attenborough finally to ‘admit’ he (kinda, sorta) subscribes to CAGW the BBC don’t really have any dissent scientific voices left ‘on the books’ at The Corporation. The Purge has been very successful, indeed, in the finest Orwellian tradition. There is only One Truth.

           10 likes

    • zemplar says:
      July 4, 2012 at 4:47 pm

      “The second question I would have liked someone to ask was “….and what will be different tomorrow after the results of this research have been announced ?”

      I would have paid good money to hear that asked.

         1 likes

  14. Richard Pinder says:
    July 4, 2012 at 4:51 pm

    I would not be surprised if the BBC was to suddenly censor the BBC Parliament transmission between 10.30am and 11.30am tomorrow after receiving the newsletter I was waiting for this morning.

       1 likes

  15. George R says:
    July 4, 2012 at 5:27 pm

    Reporting threats from Islamic Republic of IRAN.

    1.) ‘Daily Mail’ has this analysis:-

    “As Iran resists sanctions and approaches the ‘zone of immunity’, a hot autumn looms in the Gulf.”

    By Michael Burleigh

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2168174/As-Iran-resists-sanctions-approaches-zone-immunity-hot-autumn-looms-Gulf.html#ixzz1zfhp6lkU

    2.) INBBC is very cryptic, and lacking in analysis:

    “Iran’s missile launch exercise”

    (23 sec video)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18685121

       1 likes

  16. Restoring Britain says:
    July 4, 2012 at 7:22 pm

    BBC acting as the Guardian’s broadcast arm.

    The BBC Report:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18701419

    The Guardian report:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18701419

    Two totally independently written reports? Like hell they are.

    As Cifwatch suggests – we’ll probably hear nothing of these incidents. My take is that this is probably because the coppers involved weren’t wearing a Star of David:

    http://cifwatch.com/2012/07/04/what-harriet-sherwood-wont-report-palestinians-beaten-by-pa-police/

       2 likes

    • Restoring Britain says:
      July 4, 2012 at 7:48 pm

      I’ll partly take that back – they have reported on the violence in the PA although apparently they’ve only been “accused of violence”

      In the end, the meeting was called off without explanation but Palestinian security forces were accused of beating demonstrators to disperse the protests. At least three people reportedly needed hospital treatment

      So despite the photo under the quoted paragraph above, there’s still some ambiguity as to whether or not it really happened. No ambiguity about the incident in Hebron though, alongside the fact there’s no context to explain why someone would be conveniently standing by with a video camera as though they were waiting for something specific to happen.

      So when an Israeli hits someone and there’s evidence – it certainly happened yet when it’s a Palestinian caught on camera there’s still some doubt.

         3 likes

    • Pounce_uk says:
      July 4, 2012 at 8:51 pm

      I came this story while checking the news and for all the human rights issues the bBC tries to present there are a number of issues that they don’t ask:
      1) Watching the film you get the impression that actually the camera man is waiting for something to happen. Something set up perhaps.
      2) Watch how the Policeman grabs the child, that is no random event, that policeman knew who he looking for.
      3) The child instantly starts to cry, no shock, which would have happened if he was grabbed while out minding his own business.
      4) Notice all the stones on the ground
      5)The policeman who kicks him, comes from elsewhere, I get the impression he was recently the target of a brick. By the way the boy was targeted, by him perhaps?
      6) The child instead of getting arrested, gets a kick up the backside and is released. Are the protesters now saying that, the child should have been arrested?
      7) Meanwhile in Syria children are getting shot.

      The BBC, the reason why anti-Semitism is rife in the UK

         3 likes

      • Restoring Britain says:
        July 5, 2012 at 7:51 am

        If you can find the two minute version on youtube the footage starts with the policman who is holding the child, holding his arms up to someone off camera, possibly the other police officer in a way someone would if they had been trying to do something (like find someone) and come up blank.

        Also in several reports the policeman is reported as saying “why are you causing trouble” to the boy.

        The reported series of events from the camerman’s perspective also doesn’t quite make sense.

        I’m no forensic expert but listen to the noise of the kick. The boot sounds like its going into something slightly tougher than a boys stomach as suggested by the cameraman. Added to that the albeit poor camera angles before the kick and immediately after suggest that the boy and the poilice officer were more in a position where his backside might get kicked.

        Also the camerman reports being attracted by the “yelling”. From the time we see footage, there’s no yelling so clearly either this footage is missing something or our witness is gilding the lilly.

           1 likes

  17. chrisH says:
    July 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm

    When Richard Dimbleby walked into Belsen and reported what he saw, he was doing what a good reporter would do.
    One generation on-and his sons are self employed weasel hacks that sleep around, have dodgy accounts and they put up wind turbines…and , no doubt: get far more money that their dad ever did.
    Probably as good a morality tale about the decline and fall of the BBC as any kind of serious reporter of news, as I can think of.

       8 likes

  18. Leha II says:
    July 4, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    a happy 4th to our friends across the sea.
    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8C7i9kdEf8&w=560&h=315%5D

       1 likes

  19. Jeff Waters says:
    July 4, 2012 at 8:34 pm

    I bet Bill Gates wishes that the BBC gave Microsoft’s new products free infomercials like this:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18712490

    Jeff

       1 likes

    • David Gregory says:
      July 5, 2012 at 8:32 am

      I guess if the BBC failed to cover Microsoft’s last big product you’d have a point;
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18501672
      But we did, so I guess you don’t.

         3 likes

      • uncle bup says:
        July 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm

        David, mate, how’s the BBC pension scheme coming along?

        You still having to contribute more and work longer *like everyone else*?
        😉

           1 likes

        • David Gregory says:
          July 6, 2012 at 12:46 am

          We are indeed. Although there’s some intersting stuff going on in the High Court at the moment.

             0 likes

          • uncle bup says:
            July 6, 2012 at 10:49 am

            Is it still a final salary pension scheme funded entirely by the license-payer, unlike everyone else’s?

               0 likes

      • Jeff Waters says:
        July 6, 2012 at 6:18 am

        Couple of points:

        A. You didn’t invite anyone from Microsoft onto the programme to pitch the product. But I guess Bill Gates doesn’t present one of your programmes, so he can’t reasonably expect the same special treatment as Lord Sugar. 😉

        B. Is it really appropriate for the BBC to cover a product in which it has a commercial stake?

        Jeff

           0 likes

  20. Jeff Waters says:
    July 4, 2012 at 8:38 pm

    Challenges for the new director general – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18702338

    Nothing there about dealing with bias, so it must not be an issue…

    Jeff

       2 likes

  21. Jeff Waters says:
    July 4, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    ‘Jubilee controller George Entwistle appointed BBC director general’ – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9375329/Jubilee-controller-George-Entwistle-appointed-BBC-director-general.html

    If this were April 1st, I’d assume this had to be a hoax article…

    Jeff

       2 likes

  22. Pounce_uk says:
    July 4, 2012 at 9:03 pm

    How the bBC goes out of its way in which to defend Allah.

    So while the bBC is currently reporting how a whiteman pulled off a veil of a Muslim, not asian, but muslim woman.

    How there may be no story about how 100s of afhgan girls have been poisoned

    Or even how a policeman in Israel gives a little runt a kick up the backside.

    They remain silent on the story about how a young couple in Eygpt were stopped in the street by self appointed Islamic Morality police and after been informed that they shouldn’t be together they decided to stab the bloke who died in hospital a week later.
    http://www.timesofisrael.com/deadly-attack-on-couple-fuels-fears-of-islamic-morality-police-in-egypt/?

    Instead the bBC feels the bigger story is to report on how so called israeli spying devices have been found in Lebanon.

    Yup according to the bBC Muslims can only be victims.

    The bBC, the traitors in our midst.

       9 likes

  23. Jeff Waters says:
    July 4, 2012 at 10:46 pm

    Tweet by housing minister Grant Shapps:

    Grant Shapps MP ‏@grantshapps

    Odd that @bbcnews carried Dromey’s original complaint, but don’t seem to have covered this response by UKSA > http://tinyurl.com/c7erzgw

       2 likes

  24. Reed says:
    July 4, 2012 at 11:14 pm

    Robinson on BBC 10 o’clock news, after covering the political arguments at PMQs and Ed Miliband’s call for a judicial inquiry, goes on to note that the Prime Minister prefers one chaired by politicians…and then asks, with a deeply skeptical tone “How many, after seeing this, would agree with him?”

    So Mr. Robinson, with very little subtlety, appears to be backing Miliband’s preferred option, with scorn for Cameron’s.

    One could easily present the reverse point of view. Considering the painfully slow, drawn out, and hugely expensive Leveson inquiry that will probably not report it’s conclusions for a long time, “How many, after seeing this, would agree with Mr. Miliband?”

       2 likes

    • John Anderson says:
      July 4, 2012 at 11:23 pm

      Isn’t Cameron;s case that there needs to be very early legislation on splitting retail banking from investment banking – implemeting the Vickers Report ? A judicial enquiry would take far too long for any results to be fed into the legislative deliberations.

      Seems a fairly straightforward argument to me. But seldom reported by the BBC, who seem to prefer the Labour approach of banker-bashing.

         3 likes

      • Reed says:
        July 4, 2012 at 11:44 pm

        That was certainly Cameron’s case – that there needs to be some fairly quick recommendations so that any legislation can be enacted soon rather than later, to get a degree of confidence back into the banking sector during difficult financial times. Having a prolonged judicial inquiry would kick the issue into the long grass. It’s easy to see why this might be preferable to Labour, who probably hope that the intense media interest would have passed by the time it reached it’s end.

        I do have to admit, though, that the sight of MPs assuming a position in which they become the arbiters of financial responsibility and morality might be hard to swallow, considering the part some of them played in the nation’s debt crisis and the expenses scandal.

           2 likes

  25. Reed says:
    July 5, 2012 at 6:31 am

    Tommy Robinson managed to stand up quite well in an interview with a beeboid on BBC Radio Bristol,who pulls all the same old cheap stunts.

    Some lowlights – near the end where the interviewer brings up a claim that David Cameron wanted an investigation into the EDL. When Robinson tells him they did their investigation and found no links with Breivik, the interviewer mumbles “well, I don’t know whether that investigation..mumble…anyway” (no success – move on quickly). If he didn’t know the results of this supposed investigation, and clearly he had no clue, why did he mention it other than to throw anything he could at his guest in the hope that something would stick. He also insists that nobody should ever judge a book by it’s cover, after doing just that by suggesting that all the people who attend EDL protests resemble football hooligans. He also doesn’t seem to understand the concept of ‘Islamism’. Another typically ill-informed, aggressively demonising, biased interview, but Tommy Robinson is increasingly able to hold his own in a calm fashion. I’m still not sure quite what to make of the EDL, but this kind of combative, point scoring, dismissive interview does little to inform or educate – as one of our fellow commenters often says – ‘more heat than light’. Unfortunately, this seems to be very much the fashion in BBC news circles.

       4 likes

  26. As I See It says:
    July 5, 2012 at 8:22 am

    BBC Radio 5 is showing great concern that soldiers of the British army might be made redundant today.
    I wonder how the BBC would propose that soldiers are employed?
    The BBC expresses strong objections to the use of our military in British foreign policy.
    The BBC objects to the use of soldiers in what it would term as strike breaking.
    The BBC objects to the use of the military in internal civil disorder.
    The BBC satirises military ceremonial such as the Royal Jubilee.
    As far as I can make out the BBC would be more comfortable if the British forces were handed over to the UN or were waiting around in barracks for climate change extreme weather events which the Met Office tell us are getting more frequent. Basically they should do nothing for the British tax payer but we must pay for them. The BBC model of public service.

       1 likes

    • noggin says:
      July 5, 2012 at 11:58 am

      any soldiers, would make an excellent no nonsense uk – border force, on illegal immigration, doing their perfect job, also are more than able to stand as/in for the passport control shortfall, on possible suspect holders. in airports like h/row.
      an answer like that is too easy, for al bbc, or in fact this government who show no improvement
      on this issue. they must have the usual vested interests somewhere

         3 likes

  27. George R says:
    July 5, 2012 at 8:23 am

    INBBC report:

    “Indian Mujahideen group banned in UK”

    -But tell us, INBBC, is ‘Indian Mujahideen’ an ISLAMIC organisation?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18717807

       1 likes

  28. Guest Who says:
    July 5, 2012 at 8:46 am

    As it is proving hard to account for who in (or out) of power the BBC is asking questions of currently, this struck me as ironic..
    BBC Newsnight ‏@BBCNewsnight
    Paul Mason blog: Barclays – a day of unanswered questions #newsnight http://bbc.in/LTb8Vi
    Because, currently, the page linked to is ‘not found’.
    Not another accidental deletion, surely?
    It’s getting to be a habit.

       1 likes

  29. bow says:
    July 5, 2012 at 3:33 pm

    Another little drop of garbage from the BBC web site about Gaza.

       1 likes

  30. As I See It says:
    July 5, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    There is rarely a BBC London news bulletin that doesn’t contain a puff peice for the Olympics.
    Today the news from where you are brings us the story of a lady who says ‘the london Olympics saved my life!’
    Steady BBC, you may just be over doing it.

       2 likes

  31. Lunchtime Loather says:
    July 5, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    6 Music news at 16:30 today included this revelation:
    Instead the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls asked his opposition counterpart George Osborne to apologise…
    George Osborne? In opposition? Did I miss an election recently?

       4 likes

  32. Reed says:
    July 5, 2012 at 8:18 pm

    The wish is father of the thought.

       1 likes

  33. Reed says:
    July 5, 2012 at 10:12 pm

    It’s joke of the week time…

    Ed Balls to George Osborne : “He has impugned my intergity”

    It’s a classic!

    http://tinyurl.com/ydzt28b

       0 likes

  34. jonsuk says:
    July 5, 2012 at 10:14 pm

    i bet the BBC can’t wait to get Jeff Stryker as a guest on The One Show

       1 likes

  35. Teddy Bear says:
    July 5, 2012 at 11:21 pm

    Consider the following:
    The Palestinians have rejected any peace agreement with Israel ever since its inception, whereby they would define their borders, cease terrorism and militancy, and live in peace for the benefit of both nations.

    Instead of negotiating a satisfactory conclusion to a deal in 2000, when Barak offered Arafat 97% of original ‘allocated’ Arab land, the Palestinians opted to launch an intifada.

    Prior to this intifada, Palestinians ranked as having the highest standard of living of any neighbouring Arab country, due largely to their ability to work in Israel.

    The cost to Israel for the continued violence and belligerence engaged in by the Palestinians is immense- both in monetary and resulting tensions and insecurity. Since Palestinian leaders have chosen this course rather than try to live in peace, should they be rewarded or punished for their choice?

    Now read the following BBC article based on an Oxfam UK report which complains that Israeli settler activity and control is costing Palestinians an estimated £1 billion per year in what they could earn but for this. See if you see any attempt at genuine balance or explanation to show the real forces at work here, or is it doing its best to vilify Israel – as usual?

    Israeli settlements ‘jeopardising’ Palestinian prosperity

       3 likes

  36. Biodegradable says:
    July 5, 2012 at 11:53 pm

    HardTalk giving voice to the lying terrorists in Gaza, again and again:

    Hamas backs Arafat poisoning claim

    SEE ALSO

    The West ‘misunderstands’ Hamas

    Look at the city in background, “the world’s largest open prison” with its modern buildings and plenty of cars on the road!

       3 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:
      July 6, 2012 at 12:58 am

      Great Links Bio 🙂

      And how many Fatah members did Hamas murder? They must be really concerned about how Arafat died. I doubt without that they would have been allowed to retain power.

         2 likes

    • deegee says:
      July 6, 2012 at 9:02 am

      While they are checking for Polonium they should add HIV and Zahwa Arafat’s parentage to the list. I’ll bet Suha will be less than pleased.

         1 likes

      • Biodegradable says:
        July 6, 2012 at 9:39 am

        My first reaction was that probably the Polonium had been planted on Arafat’s belongings after his death. Now see here:
        http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/07/numbers-in-arafat-polonium-report-dont.html

        http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=276447

        The high levels of the radioactive poison polonium reportedly found on the belongings of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat indicate that the toxin was planted on them long after Arafat’s death, a senior counter-terrorism analyst told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

        Dr. Ely Karmon, of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, is a specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism.

        Responding to an Al Jazeera report published Wednesday, which said that specialists at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, discovered abnormally high levels of polonium on Arafat’s belongings, Karmon said that the half life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.

        According to the Al-Jazeera report, polonium has a half-life of 138 days, “meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months.”

        And yet, eight years after Arafat’s death, the Swiss scientists reported finding polonium levels of 54mBq and 180mBq on his belonging, considered to be high levels.

        “If it had been used to for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later,” Karmon said.

        “Because of the half life of the substance, the conclusion is that the polonium is much more fresh,” he added.

        ….After Arafat’s death, “why did neither Suha nor the PA agree to release the French hospital’s medical file?” he added.

           0 likes

        • deegee says:
          July 6, 2012 at 10:00 am

          What, if anything, is the BBC reaction? The BBC report is recycled Reuters.

             1 likes

          • Biodegradable says:
            July 6, 2012 at 10:17 am

            More from that JPost article:

            Karmon added that the Al Jazeera report raised additional unanswered questions. Referring to the fact that Arafat’s widow, Suha, provided the researchers with Arafat’s belongings, Karmon asked: “If Suha Arafat safeguarded these contaminated materials, why, after seven years, was she not poisoned too? She touched these things and Arafat in hospital.”

            In 2006, ex-Russian spy turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko died after being poisoned with polonium, according to a British investigation. British authorities analyzed a restaurant, a cab and a hotel used by Litvinenko to trace the poison.

            “Did Al Jazeera check the home of Suha Arafat in Paris and Malta where she kept the items for traces of polonium, as the British did in their investigation?” Karmon asked.

            Karmon also cited an article published Wednesday by the French daily Le Figaro which, he said, reported that the symptoms found in Arafat’s French medical file do not fit a polonium poisoning.

            After Arafat’s death, “why did neither Suha nor the PA agree to release the French hospital’s medical file?” he asked.

               0 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      July 6, 2012 at 7:10 am

      I beg to differ.
      To avoid getting dismissed as party political he has come up with the usual suck-up in introduction.
      I’m no Conservative fan either, but sorry, to say there is no obvious or evident Labour bias now is silly.
      Nick Robinson’s posts of late have been little more than Labour PR pieces, either trashing Coalition policies or defending Labour;s record (or ignoring what doesn’t suit).
      And it has been mirrored throughout the rest of the corporate output.
      Too much, too often, too one way to be seen as credibly impartial.

         0 likes

  38. Guest Who says:
    July 6, 2012 at 7:22 am

    In other news…
    It’s raining so hard I can’t get a a SKY satellite signal for SKY (ironically), though BBC is loud and clear (even more so).
    First time I have watched Breakfast News in a while, and been able to discover how truly dire it now is, in content and delivery.
    Actually makes the SKY bunch seem halfway credible.
    One story struck me on the ‘turn news into issues’ trend amongst our broadcasters.
    In the space of a few minutes they took a story about out-of-control spending by parents on school proms… then topped it off with a ‘send us your most outrageous stories and pictures’ invitation.
    Is there the slimmest chance that this recession-busting profligacy by the chav classes may be in no small measure driven by the desire to get in the media based on such invitations?
    And they are too thick to realise that, having been suckered into such a 24/7 news maw slot to fill a few more brain dead moments, they will be held up for criticism by the very people seducing them in.
    It also appears you cannot be an ‘entrepreneur’ unless you are female, blonde, of a certain age, still think you have a chance with the milkman, and are flogging a product or service other bored housewives watching BBC Breakfast will rush out and buy.
    I can usually tolerate the SKY offering as some news does creep in. This… was risible. [click].

       0 likes

  39. Guest Who says:
    July 6, 2012 at 8:15 am

    You know, how, thanks to the cuts, and the need to keep the licence fee to maintain the pension payment shortfalls, they say they can only afford endless repeats? I wonder if this ‘un will crop up again…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9379932/Converts-extremist-views-were-aired-in-stepbrothers-BBC-documentary.html

       0 likes

    • DJ says:
      July 6, 2012 at 9:43 am

      It’s the curse of Al-Beebia.

      Seriously, how many are we up to now? We’ve had the Mad Bomber on ‘Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic’, Comic Relief caught funneling money to Jihadists, now this.

      How come no one’s asking Barclays-style questions about the culture at the BBC. AT least Bob Diamond never tried to blow up the No 72.

         0 likes

  40. As I See It says:
    July 6, 2012 at 8:27 am

    ‘…will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?’

    Have you noticed how often Auntie’s dark thoughts turn to euthanasia?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/jun/26/bbc-john-simpson-euthanasia-pensioners

       0 likes

  41. Guest Who says:
    July 6, 2012 at 8:27 am

    It’s amazing how pervasive the ways the BBC and its shock troops get their message out. I was just reading this…
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100169278/the-idea-that-todays-young-adults-are-poorer-than-their-parents-is-undiluted-hogwash/
    ..and what do I find?:
    ‘“This generation can expect to grow up poorer than their parents.” So said Paul Mason in the Guardian this week, as part of that paper’s middle-class pity-fest’
    Mr. O’Neill, and commenters, make a credible case for why this is not, as such, accurate, rather begging the question as to what information and education we are compelled to pay for, by compulsion.
    ‘It is hard to work out what is fuelling these harebrained claims that our parents had cushy lives in comparison with the downtrodden and skint twenty- and thirty-somethings of today’
    Well, whatever it is, the claimants seem to have a £4Bpa pulpit to promote such notions, which rather inevitably will have poor consequences down the line.
    Not feeling too well served by the BBc and such as its Anger and Protests Editor, frankly.

       0 likes

  42. DJ says:
    July 6, 2012 at 9:49 am

    Self-Awareness FAIL on the Today program, when they were interviewing a representative from the pharmaceutical industry and decided to challenge them on – of all things – lack of transparency in releasing their research results.

    A-huh.

    Even if you think Balen is too much of a stretch, what about the UEA? Didn’t these guys write smirkey e-mails to each other about how they would get round disclosure laws? How exactly does the BBC explain why private businesses should release everything but publicly-funded scientists refusing to release their data to scrutiny is perfectly reasonable.

       0 likes