76 Responses to A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY…

  1. Hoggle says:

    The Left are afraid of Islam and so try to placate Muslims at everyy turn. They grovel, they praise and they try to brainwash the populace. The indoctrination has worked for anyone on the Left but for those of independence of intellect this brainwashing has failed. It won’t be long before Today has Islamic music preceding Thought for the Day!

       51 likes

    • Backwoodsman says:

      I actually disagree with your view that the left are afraid of muslims. I think it is more their dislike of the indigenous white working class, which is their motive.
      As they don’t live in any of the urban inner city ghettos that the muslims have created, places like Leicester, Birmingham, Bradford, Tower Hamlets, they are able to conveniently disregard the reality of mass immigration.

         28 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        You have hit the nail on the head . I happen to know a couple of BBC employees who live in Hampstead and have week end cottages deep in the countryside . They preach the usual BBC/Liberal Left multicultural line but never have to confront the awful reality of what that means for the indigenous population who can’t afford to move away from the immigrants and have live in the midst of alien cultures that destroy their quality of life.
        If this is pointed out to Beeboids they just regard you as another old fart who reads the Telegraph or ,even worse in their view, the Daily Mail, and can be safely ignored whilst they live high on the hog on the backs of those very same people.

           42 likes

      • Hoggle says:

        You’re right about that but it’s a mixture of both; cowardice and a sheltered existence.trust me, when it comes to intimidation lefties are the first to run and cry human rights.

           36 likes

        • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

          Quite simply they are just dhimmis.

          Useful idiots, dhimmified idiots.

          It’s a term some who visit here would rather not define.
          Just saying.

             7 likes

          • Rupert IV says:

            Stop going on about dhimmis you blithering buffoon!

               8 likes

            • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

              Rupert you are Dez and I claim my £5 !

                 0 likes

            • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

              just in case you are unaware of the facts, in an islamic state the non-muslim minority have only 3 choices:
              1 convert to islam
              2 become a dhimmi
              3 death

              I suggest you read up Robert Spencer’s book ” A politically incorrect guide to islam” and wise up about dhimmitude and I WILL continue to annoy twats like you by repeating it as often as I want.

                 4 likes

      • Aerfen says:

        Yes spot on. Many were misfits at school and their ‘leftism’ is in part a reaction to authority (often even Conservative parents) , the working class kids were cooler, harder and were allowed more freedom. The middle class misfits were scared of them and jealous of them at the same time. This visceral dislike has never truly left them.

           10 likes

    • john in cheshire says:

      Socialism and islam are very similar in many respects. And they are primarily based on all negatives, hatred being the major source for their actions. What socialists don’t yet understand, though is that islam will destroy them just as it is trying to destroy Judaism and Christianity, once it feels itself powerful enough to not need the useful socialist idiots. Judaism and Christianity will survive; socialism, or rather socialists will not. The challenge for normal people is how to educate muslims into recognising their religion for what it is and getting them to convert to Christianity. That’s what the Christian churches should be doing and yet it’s precisely what they are avoiding like the plague; certainly here in Europe.

         22 likes

      • Rupert IV says:

        I agree entirely. We should be looking to convert as many followers of the false religions as possible. We should hand out bibles outside mosques and prohibit any madrasa schools or sharia law.

           12 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          I get the impression you are one of these people who think Mohammedanism is just another religion – it isn’t: it’s a political, legal, social, military and even geo-political system with a religion inseparably included in the package. Converting them all to Christianity would be an excellent but unfortunately impractical idea, if only because they have been taught to despise Christianity, execrate Christians five times a day in their prayers and that converting would be an act of treason traditionally punishable by death (although conversion can be feigned under extreme pressure).

             9 likes

        • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

          I’m a little confused here. If you believe it’s possible to stand outside a mosque and hand out The Holy Bible, and you try it, you’ll quickly discover some uncomfortable facts about the religion of peace.
          just in case you are unaware of the facts, in an islamic state the non-muslim minority have only 3 choices:
          1 convert to islam
          2 become a dhimmi
          3 death

          I suggest you read up Robert Spencer’s book ” A politically incorrect guide to islam” and wise up about dhimmitude and I WILL continue to annoy twats like you by repeating it as often as I want.

             3 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      I don’t think it’s fear, I think it’s a shared totalitarian mindset.

         4 likes

  2. Guest Who says:

    Maybe it’s a factor of the daily claims being made that ‘they want to know what we think’?
    Though much does seem more designed around a very select ‘them’ using access to a very powerful pulpit to tell ‘us’ what we should be thinking.

       10 likes

  3. London Calling says:

    The more I am told what the “Islamic viewpoint” is on anything, the more I loathe it. If the bBC intention is to promote social cohesion and mutual understanding, it seems entirely counterproductive.

       44 likes

  4. NotaSheep says:

    Be careful, defacing a Koran is a ‘hate crime’. Beating up a Jew and stapling his face, not so much.

       40 likes

  5. Durotrigan says:

    I expect that its because “Allah told them to” invite her, insofar as if they don’t, some people would start making non-metaphorical threats about heads rolling. Well, I must be off now: “Mustapha Leak!” Who would have thought that a Carry On film could have provided such an astutely observed phrase summing up the idiocy of reflex Muslim religiosity?

       21 likes

    • 1327 says:

      I was watching that Carry On film the other week and the “Mustapha Leak” bit always makes me laugh. I do wonder however just how long it will be before that particular Carry On quietly vanishes from the schedules ?

         24 likes

      • Old Goat says:

        I was watching “The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery” the other day, for the N’th time, and marvelled that it had not been edited or pulled because of Frankie Howerd’s ‘blacking up’ towards the end of it….

        … it’s only a matter of time…

           12 likes

        • Sentimental. says:

          Reference to “the paki shop” has been erased from Fools & horses.

          Wogs and Niggers still in Fawlty towers, as is Mrs. Niggerbaiter still in Monty Python.

          My sincere apologies to anyone taking offence, I did find it hard to use theses obcene words. But the point needed making.

             10 likes

        • 1327 says:

          I quite enjoy “Round the Horne” which is endlessly repeated in sequence on Radio 4 extra and before that on Radio 7. What is interesting is that 3 or 4 of the shows are never repeated yet recordings appear to exist of them all. So you have to wonder what is on them.

             7 likes

      • Durotrigan says:

        I get a dreadful feeling that it won’t be around for much longer. I googled “Mustapha Leak” feeling sure that there must be a clip featuring this on Youtube, but to no avail.

           0 likes

  6. PhilO'TheWisp says:

    It must be that they vote Labour.

       9 likes

  7. PhilO'TheWisp says:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/katherine-rushton/9515879/Threat-to-BSkyB-as-Freesat-partners-with-Netflix.html

    The BBC continue their quest for world domination. And more money of course. No question of their overwhelming media power which of course would have been the case with News International and BSkyB. How does the BBC keep getting away with it.

       9 likes

  8. John Ledbury says:

    Because muslims are just under 3% of our population and their opinions and teachings are therefore very important

       26 likes

    • Nicked emus says:

      According to Pew Research (as quoted by the Daily Mail) the Muslim pop of the UK is about is 4.6% for figures for 2010.

      According to the BBC, Mona Siddiqui appeared four times in the Thought for Today Slot between 29 May and 31 Aug (Mon 20 Aug 2012, Thu 26 Jul 2012 (end of Ramadan), Thu 19 Jul 2012, Thu 14 Jun 2012).

      There were 82 broadcasts. She filled four of them. That is 4.9% of slots.
      So yes, Islam was over-represented, by 0.3%, assuming the Muslim pop still comprises 4.6% of the pop which given the relative growth is probably an underestimate.

         2 likes

      • John Anderson says:

        Mona is NOT typical of the imams that are preaching each week to 1 in 20 or more people in the UK. Typical of the BBC to promote a nice softy image of Islam.

        Also – Mona was not the only Muslim speaker who delivered Thought for the Day in that period.

           12 likes

        • Nicked emus says:

          Since I have never heard an imam preach I can’t say if she is, or is not, typical.
          Who else that fills that slot speaks for Muslims? It isn’t a slot with which I am all that familiar.

             1 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            ‘It isn’t a slot with which I am all that familiar’
            Odd then in the capacity of an ‘I have access to an archive and am prepared to use it’ specialist, such weighing in seems to have taken place before pondering such a shortfall. But kudos for the admission on the basis around which these too often take.
            And as John Anderson has pointed out, getting to within a representative 0.3% of the UK Mona Siddiqui population does seem, in itself, quite unique.
            I’ll look out for that check box on my next census form.
            How rabid the advocate selected is, of course, as open to abuse as any pre-selection process. Probably depends on the show. Getting a firebrand on TFTD may well cause undue distress in the Home Counties, but seems mandatory for the Jeremy Vine Show.
            So a more mellow set of thoughts for such a slot seems not unreasonable.
            Your final statistical projection is noted. Depending on who notes it of course, you may either get bouquets or a brick batted through you virtual window.

               3 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            ‘Since I have never heard an imam preach’.

            So you actually need the firsthand experience do you? Funny how you’re prepared to believe second-hand propaganda from your beloved BBC though, innit?

               2 likes

          • deegee says:

            May I suggest these sites for some research. Palestinian Media Watch Memri TV Project and of course YouTube.

               0 likes

        • Roland Deschain says:

          Perhaps they could get Khalid Chishti to give us a more rounded view of Islam?

             0 likes

          • Nicked emus says:

            Or Fred Phelps to give us a more rounded view of Christianity?

               1 likes

            • Roland Deschain says:

              Never heard of the guy, so I had to Google him. Seems a pretty unpleasant fellow, but if, as Wikipedia would suggest, his unpleasantness is confined to sloganeering, we seem to be comparing apples with pears.

              In an unpleasantness contest between Christianity and Islam, there’s only ever going to be one winner. Regardless of attempts by the BBC to sanitise it.

                 5 likes

            • RCE says:

              Yup. Bring it on. Let them all be exposed and damned by their own words. Seriously.

                 1 likes

              • Nicked emus says:

                I completely agree — bring ‘am all on I say. The more bonkers the better. Let’s show what a complete nonsense it all is, and by their own words they will all be condemned. That bonkers bloke with the hook and one eye, Fred Phelps, the pope — everyone of them.

                Hard to find an extremist Buddhist I would have imagined, but who knows?

                ‘I have access to an archive and am prepared to use it’
                The search box on the BBC’s website. Technology — it is a wonderful thing.

                   1 likes

      • Glen Slagg says:

        Are 4.6% of Radio 4 listeners muslim?

           7 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          Don’t be daft, the BBC have given them their own radio station so they can live their Pakistani, Bangladeshi etc lives as authentically as possible.

             3 likes

      • London Calling says:

        Wanna play figures NOD? Muslim population 4.6% . Would that be 4.6% of just the adult population or of the total population including children. If the 4.6% includes children then the double or triple fertility rate of migrants from rural Pakistan and North Africa needs to be factored in, since children dont tend listen to Thought for the Day.
        Back of a fag packet suggests of the radio-listening adult population, Muslim opinion is over-represented by at least a factor of three. One week in 82 would be about right, not four.
        If its the proportion of adults who claim a religious affiliation, then WTF knows what it should be.
        Im not a sky-pixie follower so I am not interested in the views of ANY cleric of whatever denomination.

           2 likes

  9. Mice Height says:

    IslamoMarxist thugs attack police with UAF placard on Saturday:
    http://www.tout.com/m/awpfsj?ref=twt5lvfy

       11 likes

  10. Ian Hills says:

    According to wikipedia she’s an expert on classical islamic law, which should get her killed when the caliphate is established.

       7 likes

  11. Hoggle says:

    How to fly a plane through a building might make a good Thought for the Day.

       21 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It’s not the “how to”, but the “why they deserve it” that would fit in with the BBC.

         7 likes

  12. zemplar says:

    Sentimental,

    Don’t apologise to anyone – if they don’t want to be ‘offended’ by words, they can fuck off to The Guardian…

       9 likes

  13. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Of course she’s not a typical Muslim preacher because (i) she speaks English and (ii) she is female.
    http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/press-releases/press-release-quilliam-think-tank-conducts-first-national-poll-of-britains-mosques/
    The Quilliam Foundation’s nationwide survey of British mosques (February 2009) has more worrying findings:
    • a staggering 97 per cent of imams (clerics) in mosques are from overseas, although the majority of Muslims in Britain were born in the UK;
    • forty-four per cent of mosques do not hold the lecture before Friday Prayers in English, making it difficult for young British Muslims to access weekly guidance at mosques; and
    • nearly half of mosques do not have facilities for Britain’s Muslim women, depriving half the community of access to public spaces.
    Quilliam comments: Foreign imams, poorly paid and with limited proficiency in English, are ill-equipped to navigate Britain’s complex, liberal and multi-faith society. They have neither the freedom, being at the mercy of mosque management committees dominated by first generation elders, nor the capacity to promote a British Islam informed by British values. By failing to reach out to young British Muslims, radical Islamists have the upper-hand. Britain’s young Muslims, without a voice in mosques, are looking elsewhere for religious guidance and will continue to be drawn in by young, articulate extremists who offer an alternative narrative, cause and social space.

       12 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      Nick Emus needs to reply to what Quilliam found. His BS about Mona maybe being typical is exposed.

      The whole BBC approach is to sanitise Islam, do suppress bad stories, to push the line that Muslims in the UK are mostly moderate, that terrorism or support for terrorism is a small-minority view. Other studies have shown that in the UK and elsewhere in Europe there is widespread Muslim support for terrorism – largely in step with views in Muslim countries. If most imams were “liberal” like Mona these vile views would be more strongly condemned.

      Mona representative of Islam ? BS.

         7 likes

      • Nicked emus says:

        His BS about Mona maybe being typical is exposed.
        Where did I say she was? I never claimed she was typical. In fact I specifically said I didn’t know if she was or not.

        A much harder task would be finding somebody who is interested in your puerile views about religion.
        That wasn’t very hard. You replied for starters, plus the two people who liked your answer.
        A much harder task would be to find examples of where, in a decade, this blog has had any impact.

        What this post is is a great example of the inherent observer bias that this site exhibits on a daily, in fact multiple times a day, basis.

        Why is she on so much asks David Vance? Answer: she isn’t. She is on about once a month, which give or take gives the Muslim representation on TFTD par with Muslim representation in the general population.

        I could ask why is David Vance on the BBC so often? Seems to me he is on the whole time. In reality he is probably he is on no more than the once-a-month appearance of Ms. Siddiqui, pocketing his £150 appearance fee plus taxi fare for his troubles.

        And therein lies the fundamental flaw with this site. It purports to collect objective data, but it simply collects subjective impressions and mixes them with a collection of unsubstantiated assertoric statements and conjecture.

        @Demon — thank you for the enquiry. Haven’t gone yet — I go quite soon, and alas it is for work, not for a holiday.

           2 likes

        • John Anderson says:

          but Mona is NOT the only Muslim speaker on TFTD.

          So at 3% of the population they are over-represented.

          But more serious is the fact that Mona is NOT representative of Islamic leaders and preachers in the UK.

             3 likes

          • Nicked emus says:

            but Mona is NOT the only Muslim speaker on TFTD.

            You are correct. I went back and checked and Abdal Hakim Murad (or Tim Winter as he used to be known — brother of Henry Winter — who knew?) also speaks. However in that period he didn’t make an appearance.

            fact that Mona is NOT representative of Islamic leaders and preachers in the UK.
            No one said she was. The claim was that she appears too much. As it turns out, the evidence does not support that claim.
            Whether she is representative I don’t know. Is Akhandadhi Das, representative of he Vaishnav Hindu teachers? No idea.

               1 likes

            • John Anderson says:

              You think Mona may be representative ?

              C’mon, get real.

              In Norway the whole population rose up to denounce the Oslo murderer. Huge gatherings, demonstrations.

              In Britain the Muslim community did NOT rise up to denounce either 9/11 or 7/7. We know that a large proportion happily support terrorism, suicide bombings etc. That mass of Muslims is not represented on TFTD.

              It would be more balanced and real if the BBC used some of the extremist Muslim speakers, not just softie Mona.

              Give Adnem Choudhury the occasional slot, perhaps. Or George Galloway or other Respect speakers. Let’s hear what a big chunk of Islam is really about, quit with the airbrushing.

              Perhaps my strongest oposition to Mona et al is that they speak for an ideoploy rather than just a religion, a political philosophy, a cult/culture that is inimical to our way of life, that is not trying to integrate, and that seeks to impose its values here.

              Personally – I’d bar the lot of them unless they were truly liberal and trying to reform Islam. Not the weaselly apologists like Mona trying to BS us.

                 6 likes

        • Wild says:

          “A much harder task would be finding somebody who is interested in your puerile views about religion.”

          ‘That wasn’t very hard. You replied for starters’

          Yes, I am glad you spotted my enthusiasm for your fascinating and original insights about religious belief.

             2 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          ‘A much harder task would be to find examples of where, in a decade, this blog has had any impact’.

          Still got your undivided attention, hasn’t it, and still too stern a test for your limited intellect and experience of life. What’s very noticeable is the lack of impact you’ve had over that time.

          P.S. Are you sure you’re not Evan Davis?

             1 likes

          • Nicked emus says:

            What’s very noticeable is the lack of impact you’ve had over that time.

            I don’t know — prompted quite a few ad hominems, someone called for my plane to crash and me to be killed in it, I have had an implicit threat of violence and been called a c*** and a w*****. I would say that was an impact.

            But back on topic.

            This post is prime facie evidence for why this blog lacks impact. This post says more about the views of the author than it does the BBC. Even a few moments work (typing in TFTD in the BBC search engine) would have shown that Siddiqui isn’t on very much — about one appearance a month. But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?

            If you want to be taken seriously, do some work (as was shown below by someone actually getting the figures for TFTD).

            If you want to be repository for angry right-wing people who have a thing about Muslims, then carry on as you are, but don’t expect much to change for another decade.

            Your call.

               4 likes

            • Guest Who says:

              ‘Impact’ in a unique, ‘breakthrough’ sense then?
              Here’s me thinking it was more applicable to achieving something.
              Like getting the BBC to recognise and, on occasion, correct professional compromises.
              But back on… what is it that you do again?
              http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/jlo0168l.jpg

                 1 likes

            • Wild says:

              “prime facie evidence for why this blog lacks impact.”

              Even by your standards that is a pretty vacuous statement. Your posts say more about you than they do about the BBC.

              You are on the Left and think the BBC is great. In fact you think that everybody should be forced to pay for it. Super.

                 2 likes

            • johnnythefish says:

              An impact on what, exactly?

              The BBC won’t change, and I don’t really expect them to, as they believe themselves to be untouchable. In fact I reckon they are getting more blatant and arrogant in their institutionalised leftism and overt support for Labour – scores of examples on here, your absence from the more extreme of which is always noted. It will need someone with the balls of Thatcher to sort them out, and I can’t see a politician of that calibre anywhere on even the most distant horizon, regrettably.

              But it’s noticeable how the right-wing press feature more and more commentary about BBC bias so that’s a start, especially as they sell millions more newspapers daily than those on the Left.

              Sorry you’ve been the butt of such graphic insults. I can understand why some react like that – you do tend to cherry-pick and leave alone the posts that feature the most indefensible examples of BBC bias, but I would take that a sign of you silently admitting ‘you have a point’.

                 2 likes

              • Nicked emus says:

                There are many threads on which I can’t comment as I haven’t seen the program. I am not a big watcher of TV. I do read the website.

                Then there are threads which are simply about one oerson’s interpretation. Well if someone believes something to be the case and I don’t then there isn’t a huge amount to be said — it is just a question of beliefs.

                Then I don’t tend to bother too much with US posts. I get my US news and views from a number of extremely good sources (mainly the WSJ).

                So that limits it to posts which are verifiable — such as this one.

                Plus I do have a job to do. I admit I do pop into the site to see what people have written.

                I have said before, I think the idea of a site that holds the BBC to account is a very good idea. But this site isn’t it. It lacks discipline, it lacks rigour, and it is far, far too easy to dismiss.

                This site is one populated by angry right wing men who have a big problem with Muslims. It has its own very clear agenda. You make it very easy for anyone to ignore you.

                   1 likes

                • Wild says:

                  Your argument amounts to the claim that to be “right-wing” justifies being ignored, but you are too dumb to understand your own logic.

                     5 likes

                • Guest Who says:

                  ‘You make it very easy for anyone to ignore you.’
                  And yet, as I sup my morning brew, you and your fellow flockers again seem to be overnight amongst those well represented on threads ‘ignoring’ away.
                  Suggesting that it may be harder than you claim.
                  ‘it is just a question of beliefs.’
                  Or in too many BBC or fellow traveller cases, delusions. With such as yourself, simply entertainment.
                  With BBC ‘nu-views’, uniquely-funded inaccuracy, misinformation and re-education of concern.

                     2 likes

                • wallygreeninker says:

                  Personally I think there is a good case for banning the time-wasting saboteur from the site and deleting his posts. His generalised attacks on everyone who posts here mean we are simply providing a platform for an opponent to propagandise whenever he spots an opening. I also get the impression he has slightly creepy connections with the Muslim world.

                     2 likes

                • Guest Who says:

                  Wally, appreciating your frustration, such a banning would I suspect be tricky to manage and ultimately counter-productive on a variety of levels.
                  Yes, the main aim is contrarian argument for argument’s sake, and the hypocrisy of the ad hom bleating one moment while dishing it out the next is grating, but it is a two-way path.
                  And frankly, he has made the odd fair point on occasion, but stuffed any value up by an inability to resist in complement the tribal generalities he professes to so despise every time he comes back to get so affronted.
                  It’s just a minor irritation to bear in the free speaking, democratic process.
                  Ban him and he returns in another guise as a martyr. Whatever world he may or may not inhabit.
                  Leave him to expound, as he so often does, in all the ways you describe, and his own words do more to damn the BBC by association than any counters probably can.
                  Though it is fun to tease when they stray into barking territory, which I confess to finding hard to resist.

                     2 likes

  14. Invicta 1066 says:

    It was some years ago now, before the West got involved with Afghanistan and invaded the place. A small group of aid workers were captured by Afghans and accused of having bibles. The response from Moanalot on TFTD was to say it was their own fault and they had whatever punishment was dished out coming to them, for violating the culture of another religion and country.
    They were eventually released unharmed and claimed they were framed.

       9 likes

  15. wallygreeninker says:

    It’s that Timothy Winter aka Abdal Murad Hakim who gets my goat: any guy from the UK who would voluntarily divide most of his twenties between al Azahr University and Jeddah shouldn’t be on the radio telling us how to live: he should be touring the country with the circus as a side-show freak.
    I noticed that his ‘thought’ would always start along the lines of ‘in every town in Britain today Muslims will be celebrating…..’, ‘almost everywhere you go in this country you will find a Muslim presence…’, as though the very first thought he wants you to have that day is that Islam and Muslims are ubiquitous in the UK.
    What’s Emus up to? – the sukuk market must be flatlining if he’s trying to sell it to Israelis.

       5 likes

  16. George R says:

    M.Siddiqui:

    ‘Platitude of the Day ‘-

    http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php?entry=entry120903-085425

       2 likes

  17. Craig says:

    Does the BBC monitor such things? If it does it has never revealed its figures for TFTD, about which quite a lot of people on this blog have wondered (on and off) over the past few years.

    The BBC website used to have a dedicated archive for past editions of TFTD since February 2001 which listed every appearance by individual speakers. They stopped updating the archive in April last year and removed the page altogether earlier this year. That means that tracking who’s speaking on TFTD either becomes a slog from each page of the ‘Today’ programme’s archive (with its occasional gaps) or, much easier, a run through the archive at ‘Platitude of the Day’ (which George linked to above).

    I did a tally after Martin (late of this parish) once wondered if a FOI request could be put in to get the BBC to give figures for TFTD presenters. Updating it to include all recent editions of TFTD thus provides a complete record from February 2001 to today (3/9/12).

    The following list shows the number of talks given by TFTD speakers over the last eleven and a half years, in descending order (with their religious affiliation):

    Tom Butler 166 Christianity
    Anne Atkins 150 Christianity
    Jonathan Sacks 146 Judaism
    Richard Harries 143 Christianity
    Roy Jenkins 136 Christianity
    Rob Marshall 130 Christianity
    Angela Tilby 129 Christianity
    Indarjit Singh 128 Sikhism
    Alan Billings 126 Christianity
    Giles Fraser 122 Christianity
    Mona Siddiqui 121 Islam
    Rhidian Brook 120 Christianity
    Clifford Longley 118 Christianity
    James Jones 112 Christianity
    David Winter 107 Christianity
    John Bell 107 Christianity
    Lionel Blue 104 Judaism
    Akhandadhi Das 99 Hinduism
    Catherine Pepinster 83 Christianity
    Joel Edwards 83 Christianity
    Colin Morris 80 Christianity
    Elaine Storkey 78 Christianity
    Brian Draper 77 Christianity
    Abdal Hakim Murad 67 Islam
    Rosemary Lain-Priestley 51 Christianity
    Vishvapani 51 Buddhism
    Dom Antony Sutch 47 Christianity
    Oliver McTernan 46 Christianity
    David Wilkinson 40 Christianity
    Lucy Winkett 40 Christianity
    Jim Thompson 34 Christianity
    Martin Palmer 31 Christianity
    Lesley Griffiths 30 Christianity
    Jeevan Singh Deol 29 Sikhism
    Michael Banner 27 Christianity
    Johnston McMaster 25 Christianity
    Huw Spanner 21 Christianity
    Christina Rees 19 Christianity
    Harvey Thomas 19 Christianity
    Lavinia Byrne 19 Christianity
    Graham Jones 17 Christianity
    Cristina Odone 14 Christianity
    Satish Kumar 14 Jainism
    Russell Stannard 12 Christianity
    Gabrielle Cox 11 Christianity
    Laura Janner-Klausner 9 Judaism
    Rowan Williams 9 Christianity
    Eric James 8 Christianity
    Jonathan Bartley 8 Christianity
    Cormac Murphy-O’Connor 7 Christianity
    Shagufta Yaqub 7 Islam
    Gavin Oldham 5 Christianity
    Jonathan Gledhill 5 Christianity
    Vincent Nichols 5 Christianity
    Annabel Shilson-Thomas 3 Christianity
    Antonia Swinson 3 Christianity
    Jo Ind 3 Christianity
    Madeleine Bunting 3 Christianity
    Mark Christian 3 Christianity
    Hamza Yusuf 2 Islam
    Penny Faust 2 Judaism
    Raj Sharma 2 Hinduism
    Alan Woodrow 1 Christianity
    Anna Magnusson 1 Christianity
    Benedict XVI 1 Christianity
    Bishop Angaelos 1 Christianity
    Brian Protheroe 1 Christianity
    Courtney Cowart 1 Christianity
    David Hope 1 Christianity
    David Wilkes 1 Christianity
    David Wells 1 Christianity
    Duncan Green 1 Christianity
    Farhan Nizami 1 Islam
    George Carey 1 Christianity
    Gilleasbuig Macmillan 1 Christianity
    Ian Sherwood 1 Christianity
    Jerome Murphy O’Connor 1 Christianity
    Jimmy Morrison 1 Christianity
    John Barton 1 Christianity
    John Sentamu 1 Christianity
    Julia Neuberger 1 Judaism
    Keith Patrick O’Brien 1 Christianity
    Kevin Franz 1 Christianity
    Khaled Fahmy 1 Islam
    Maurice Michaels 1 Judaism
    Mary Steel 1 Christianity
    Michael Sanders 1 Christianity
    Michael Symmons Roberts 1 Christianity
    Nicholas Papadopulos 1 Christianity
    Richard Thomas 1 Christianity
    Robin Eames 1 Christianity
    Yunus Dudhwala 1 Islam

    There have been 92 individual speakers on TFTP. The number of speakers representing each religion breaks down as follows:

    Christianity 73
    Islam 7
    Judaism 6
    Hinduism 2
    Sikhism 2
    Buddhism 1
    Jainism 1

    There have been 3443 TFTDs over that period.

    This is the total number of talks given by representatives of each religion (and their percentage of the total):

    Christianity 2657 (77.17%)
    Judaism 263 (7.64%)
    Islam 200 (5.81%)
    Sikhism 157 (4.56%)
    Hinduism 101 (2.93%)
    Buddhism 51 (1.48%)
    Jainism 14 (0.41%)

    The above figures, of course, say nothing about the standpoint of the speakers. Regular listeners of TFTD will be able to draw their own conclusions from the list of presenters above.

    Hope this is of interest.

       8 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Excellent research!

         4 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Nice work, Craig. Thanks.

      Judaism gets more time than Mohammedanism in the number of appearances, so that will kill any claims of pro-Muslim bias here. Never mind that Islam gets more time than the actual population percentage, because the Jews get more. To Scott and Dez and the rest of them, this could be proof that the BBC is controlled by the Jewish Lobby, this site discredited entirely, etc.

         4 likes

  18. The Marxist Defence of Omelette-Making says:

    The BBC has been reporting on the death of the founder of the Unification Church (i.e. “The Moonies”) over the past few days. It has taken, as we would expect, potshots at the Moonies’ supposed use of brainwashing, not to mention the church’s involvement in – horror of horrors – the manufacture of spare parts for the South Korean military. Can we expect a similar in-depth scrutiny of “brainwashing” and questionable practices by a certain other worldwide religion that uses the actual moon as its emblem? Of course not, after all the Moonies don’t issues fatwas and death threats or spit the dummy out of the pram every time their beliefs are questioned. The threat of mass marriage is not quite the same as that of than mass carnage.

       8 likes

  19. KingBilly says:

    Here’s MY thought for the Day. Why does David Vance, failed Northern Irish politican, get SUCH a regular gig on the BBC? Answers on a TUV election flyer to the usual address……

       2 likes

  20. Keep functioning ,great job!

       0 likes