281 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. AsISeeIt says:

    Kirsty Squark led Newsnight’s Iraq reprise last night.

    Interview with Tony Blair, WMD etc ete…

    The Left/BBC really can’t let that go, can they?

       26 likes

  2. Umbongo says:

    Odd isn’t it: there were “technical difficulties” when Liam Halligan – the economic commentator – made a IIRC unique appearance on Today. His consistent message in his columns in the Sunday Telegraph are the counter-Narrative points that the BBC/Labour/LibDem drumbeat of “austerity -v- growth” is a false dichotomy, that growth is the end not the means of economic policy and that QE is a policy mistake of massive proportions. Whatever he might have been prepared to say this morning was silenced. Whatever the cause of the “technical difficulties” a message unwelcome to the economic “establishment” conveniently failed to be delivered.

       67 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Humphys kept trying to make the point that Centrica could make a ‘one off’ exception, and drop prices because of the poor summer and cold winter, without grasping the likelihood that this is only one of many cold, cold winters to come, especially as solar cycle 24 appears to be following closely the pattern of solar cycle 5 – the Dalton Minimum era. Never mind, think of the fun to be had at the Frost Fairs.

      Why the power generation and supply has to be in private hands, God only knows – they think more of the shareholders and directors than the public who are struggling to keep warm.

      I notice that no-one really “pushed” the ‘Green Agenda’ – perhaps things are on the change…

      …I shan’t be holding my breath.

         27 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        ‘Humphys kept trying to make the point that Centrica could make a ‘one off’ exception, and drop prices because of the poor summer and cold winter…’

        He also suggested shareholders could take a hit, instead of an increase to their dividend.

        One can only assume none of his BBC pension scheme is invested in British Gas shares, so f*** everybody else, including pensioners who may be dependent on British Gas dividends for a good slice of their income.

        The BBC are blinded by their hatred of anything to do with private sector profit.

           6 likes

        • lojolondon says:

          They also forgot to mention that the UK opened their utilities to deregulation unlike the rest of Europe. So EDF subsidises French electricity though overcharging here, EON/Powergen subsidises German utility bills, etc. Poor old UK consumer gets shafted all the way.

             3 likes

  3. Umbongo says:

    I didn’t hear the interview with Sam Laidlaw of Centrica on Today but I note that neither Alex Brummer (the populist commentator in the Mail) and Mrs Balls of Labour mentioned the contribution of “climate change” taxes (monetary and otherwise) to the increase in the retail cost of gas: needless to say Humphrys didn’t remind them.

       51 likes

    • colditz says:

      Maybe you can enlighten us on how climate change taxes are responsible for diesel now hitting £1.50 a litre.

      Or is that the collapsing value of the pound due to the sterling work of the Govt is beggaring us? Of course if the BBC had to nerve to mention that, it would be biased. But truthful.

         10 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Come on Colditz if you’re going to criticise at least make sure you have at least read the post before putting fingers to keys!

        When did Centrica (ex British Gas) start selling diesel?

        The truth is that politicians of all shades have loaded our gas & electricity with so many levies that it is becomming like petrol. They then have the brass front to go on TV/Radio & blame the energy companies for fuel poverty when they’re one of the contributors themselves.

        That’s called hypocrisy.

           71 likes

      • Smell the glove says:

        Coldtits, we are not in control of world oil prices, but windmill subsidy, that’s another story!

           52 likes

        • ltwf1964 says:

          cold titz really is the ultimate in drive by idiots

          and we’ve seen some corkers come and go here

             42 likes

          • london calling says:

            Be charitable. Politics Undergraduate, my guess.He’ll learn.

            If not, a glittering career at the beeb awaits.

               38 likes

            • pah says:

              Politics Undergraduate

              Really? At which Poly?

                 25 likes

              • Demon says:

                That should be “Polly” as he repeats the BBC lines parrot-fashion.

                   26 likes

                • Demon says:

                  Not forgetting Kirsty Squwark.

                     19 likes

                • Mark says:

                  Talking of parrots, he doesn’t need 4,000 volts putting through him to go VOOM – and he’s probably pining for something – though maybe not fjords.

                     5 likes

                • David Preiser (USA) says:

                  Colditz is still pretending the BBC didn’t censor the bit about energy policies causing harm from Mervyn King’s statement. Of course he doesn’t believe it’s a problem.

                     6 likes

      • Beeboidal says:

        Were you as troubled by the the government’s work in January 2009 when the £ hit $1.40 and £1 = €1.02?

           36 likes

      • #88 says:

        The collapsing value of the £ was something that the BBC notably failed to report during Brown’s time in office.

        World markets voted with their feet in judgement of Brown’s policies and the depth of the sh1t that Britain was, uniquely, in, compared with every other leading nation.

        Britain suffered an almost 30% devaluation in its currency and in early 2008 was trading at close to parity with the Euro. As I said not a peep from the BBC and today no recognition from them that the £, although under pressure has some considerable way to go if is to fall as low as it did under Brown / Balls.

        More wilful blindness from the world’s most trusted broadcaster

           74 likes

        • Rufus McDufus says:

          I seem to remember they only mentioned the positive aspects of a weak pound then, notably more competitive exports. Haven’t heard that argument this time round for some reason, despite the fact it is a big advantage.

             36 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          No, the BBC did report on it, but “it all started in America”. Not Mr. Brown’s fault at all, you see.

             13 likes

          • Jeff Waters says:

            As it happens, I was debating the economic crisis the other day on Twitter with Alaistair Campbell:

            Charming man…

            Michael Crick: “Oxford Student” paper reports second-hand claim that Bullingdon Club initiation last year involved burning a £50 note in front of a tramp

            Campbell: when Dave George and Boris did it it was two fifties but we’ve been downgraded #Bullingdon

            Me: How can you joke about the downgrade when your government sewed the seeds the lead to it?

            Campbell: bullshit. Other countries have pulled thru witj strategy closer to the one GB and AD suggested. Ps led not lead

            Me: How is it bs? Did Labour’s profligacy not lead to a situation where we were in debt up to our eyeballs?

            Campbell: no we had ten years of growth and then a US inspired crash with the wrong reaction from new UK govt.

            Me: You’re rewriting history, with respect. The bailouts only account for a small proportion of our debt. Also, why didn’t Gordon Brown do anything to prevent the crash? Many people saw it coming. And was the ‘growth’ you refer to not actually just to borrowing-funded spending, rather than real growth?

            I’m still awaiting a reply…

               11 likes

            • spiv says:

              yeah not surprising, he is a shifty b*gger that campbell, gets so much BBC coverage for a discredited former gov adviser, a known liar and bully, very much at home in the labour party

                 6 likes

              • Roland the Barbarian says:

                Yes, he either drove a man to take his own life or sanctioned his murder. That should be enough to gaol him never mind keep him out of the public eye – something he craves.

                But no, the BBC not only sanction him but keep inviting him back. Astonishing.

                   5 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              Amusing how Campbell wanted to show his superiority and play the man instead of the ball by correcting you on lead vs led, but didn’t notice the sewed instead of sowed. He still had enough characters left to do it, so no excuse. By ignoring the second typo, he appears lazy and arrogant instead.

                 1 likes

        • Dan Ash says:

          The main weakness of this site is the constant use of opinion dressed up as fact.
          You state “The collapsing value of the £ was something that the BBC notably failed to report during Brown’s time in office” ….
          A quick 10 minute trawl on the BBC website found plenty of stories, a selection of links below.
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7789354.stm
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7784831.stm
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7782234.stm
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7781361.stm

          Sterling takes a pounding
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7727399.stm

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7596695.stm

          Pound falls to all-time low
          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7338792.stm

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7189060.stm

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7182951.stm

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7694095.stm

             6 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            ‘The main weakness of this site is the constant use of opinion dressed up as fact.’

            #2wrongs territory, but I’m intrigued as to how an objective ‘news’ organisation not only doing so, but cheerfully admitting to interpreting events and enhancing narratives, is uniquely considered by them, and many apologists, as a strength.
            Now true, some here do need to take caution with their phrasing with an entire department of the BBC it seems devoted to semantic research… If oddly externally vs. keeping their own output on track.
            Spending 10 minutes on every potentially fiskable comment about the BBC does suggest significant research, if sadly limited to online archive.
            Of course, as all will recall, the BBC was relentless in its critique of the Brown administration and fiscal prudence across the broadcast estate while he was in power.
            But yes, unavoidable financial facts do appear to have been covered ten times at least, making ‘failed to report’ ill-advised.
            Thank you for the correction.
            Now, in turn, when you say ‘constant use of…’, care to provide a factual estimate of what % of BBC coverage restricts itself to simply reporting without added view, reader vox pop, email, guest expert commentary or editor analysis?

               6 likes

          • stewart says:

            Heaven forfend that the hoi-polloi should have an opinion on how the BBC reports the news
            They should know their place and carry on paying

               2 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      There really is no point in responding to trolls and friends/employees of (or, more to the point here, free-lance journalists looking for a hand-out from) the BBC who consistently fail to construct a reasonable or reasoned response to comments. Their sole aim is to disrupt this site and the comment threads with any old junk which comes to what passes for their minds. Ignore them.

         49 likes

      • Stinky Britches says:

        I’m always encouraged by trolling. Auntie’s defenders sound ever more shrill and have been firmly on the back foot for quite some time now

           32 likes

  4. AsISeeIt says:

    Oh, the irony….

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21498878

    ‘Jack Maseko was recently mugged by three men in South Africa – they wanted nothing but his mobile phone and the dreadlocks he had spent three years patiently cultivating.’

       14 likes

  5. AsISeeIt says:

    BBC Drama “extremely upsetting” and “thoroughly nasty”.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21585824

    Silent Witness ‘broke BBC rules’

       15 likes

    • Deborah says:

      Why is it that apologies such as these when the BBC ‘got it wrong’ are brief and if aired are at very strange times of day – or viewers have to go searching the BBC website to find out if the complaints were upheld.

         26 likes

      • Deborah says:

        Oh and I forgot to point out that on the BBC1 10 pm news last night Huw Edwards reported that the Eastleigh by-election was on Friday. Anyone can make a mistake but at the end of the news he just said that the by-election was on Thursday – without either reference to or apology for his earlier mistake. The BBC, even less willing to admit mistakes than ever.

           28 likes

        • AsISeeIt says:

          ‘Huw Edwards reported that the Eastleigh by-election was on Friday.’

          That’s a small error. The Sneary Welshman is just a day out.

          Kirsty Wark on her Review Show Oscars special told us that Les Mis was was inspired by events of the Seventeenth Century – the rat-faced Scot was a full two hundred years off target.

             28 likes

          • colditz says:

            They made a mistake on a live broadcast. Hanging’s too good for them.

            I assume ASISEEIT is like the Pope and infallible.

            Also why the abuse…seems like you’ve an issue with Celts…

               8 likes

            • AsISeeIt says:

              Two points (and I’m a fool to myself Colditz, you old trolly) :
              1. Market rate talent. Ms Wark had her lines scripted, presumably?
              2. Seems to me as though the BBC have an issue with we English.
              PS what’s with the reference to the Bishop of Rome? Non sequitur or what? Is he a licence payer?

                 15 likes

              • Andy S. says:

                Nah! Cold tits just pinched a quote about Scottie boy I made on the previous Open Thread.

                Just shows our leftie trolls aren’t possessed of much original thought.

                   13 likes

            • Mark says:

              If a person on the Right makes the slightest gaffe, then the BBC and the MSM turn it into a lead story. By contrast, if a person on the Left does the same (e.g. the 57 states of the US according to His Obamaness) , we get near-silence from the MSM.

                 34 likes

        • JaneTracy says:

          He got which day it was from reading an email from Stephanie Flanders!

             1 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘Why is it that apologies such as these when the BBC ‘got it wrong’ are brief’
        They do lob ’em out on occasion, though it’s interesting what makes it even to the public apology stage.
        A mea culpa on fictional sex & violence can distract from all manner of other interesting, factual, actually important stuff. Like inaccuracy, bias, stealth edits, censorship, redacting, etc.
        It’s like their complaints pages.
        Invariably their ‘is this what’s concerned you?’ is no more than some doofus asking if they can pay their licence fee in sovereigns, when that seems unlikely to have been the major issue of the month that hit their inbox.
        But like a Today voxpop, what goes in goes through a very secret, very careful filter before coming out as ‘speaking for the nation’.
        Here’s the latest:

        Click to access dec.pdf

        The Silent Witness distraction is of course first, followed by wadges of Editorial Guidelines to deter the keenest reporter form investing more time. Might be worth a fisk later, though the BBC arbitrating on just how right the BBC gets it can be a frustrating thing.

           8 likes

    • noggin says:

      that the drama … OR the bbc in general 😀

         12 likes

  6. AsISeeIt says:

    “an Islamic archipelago”

    Oh look… here we again… whenever such odd phraseology pops up we know the BBC must be tip toeing around, trying not offend the Koran.

    “elements of Islamic law (Sharia) as well as English common law.”

    See that nice sideways poke at ‘English common law – oh the colonial swines, messing up the nice native Sharia by spreading their common law around the globe willy nilly!

    Gosh, but some Muslims must have done something really barbaric?

    Yep thought so….

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21595814

    ‘A 15-year-old rape victim has been sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex, court officials said.’

    Special plaudits to Olivia Lang I feel. You BBC sisters must be so proud.

       41 likes

    • noggin says:

      hmm common law?
      i mean stonings, beatings, amputations, lashings,
      murder, rape, and paedophillia, genital mutilation and complete subdegation ….
      i mean … there so alike ?*!?* …. (shakes head)

         35 likes

    • Demon says:

      Punish the victim. Seems to be the norm in Common Law.

         7 likes

      • pah says:

        Really?

        Can you please give an example of this in English Common Law?

           6 likes

        • Demon says:

          I was attempting irony. Obviously badly.

          Although, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about this originally, one could include the legal attitude to victims of burglary who deal too strongly with burglars.

             8 likes

          • colditz says:

            Until 1836 English common law included hang drawing and quartering, amputations, hanging, burning, cutting off various bits of the face, pressing (putting large stones upon you) branding , whipping and the pillory for starters.

            I suspect most contributors here would be in favour of bringing all these back.

               4 likes

            • Maturecheese says:

              And just how often were these punishments carried out in the 19th century?

                 11 likes

              • Maturecheese says:

                I think the point I am trying to make is this, Islamic Sharia law behaves in a way we used to 100’s of years ago and so obviously they are backward and haven’t moved on from centuries ago.

                Incidentally isn’t it still legal to shoot a Welshman with a longbow in York on a Sunday? You don’t see us doing it though do you.

                   17 likes

                • Joshaw says:

                  “Incidentally isn’t it still legal to shoot a Welshman with a longbow in York on a Sunday?”

                  I think it’s a Scotsman. Needs testing – can we lure Gordon Brown to York?

                     18 likes

                  • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

                    Phew, Dysgwr breathes a sigh of relief!
                    Takes York off his list of places to visit.
                    I understood the practice of being able to shoot the Welshmen, only applied to those caught inside city walls after dark.
                    So that’s all right then!
                    And it was only because their bowmen were superior to all others.

                       8 likes

                  • Mice Height says:

                    And Neil Kinnock just incase Maturecheese is correct.

                       7 likes

                    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

                      Bless him, the one who celebrated at that rally before his expected GE victory lol. Everybody say .. Oooooh yeahhhhhh….
                      The welsh windbag is however raking in OUR money from the Eu along with the rest of his family.

                         9 likes

            • Roland Deschain says:

              I suspect most contributors here would be in favour of bringing all these back.

              At the risk of speaking for “most contributors”, I suspect the majority who post here would prefer that other cultures would also stop doing the things that England stopped doing way back in 1836, and not try to import them here.

              And that the BBC called them on it if they do.

                 30 likes

            • wallygreeninker says:

              Peel, a conservative, began the process of cleaning up the system by reducing the number of capital crimes in the 1820’s.

                 14 likes

            • Mat says:

              I hate replying to trolls[well the thick ones !] but clodbatz has a point some parts of old law and religions was very unpleasant !but also they are gone long ago I won’t be killed today for apostasy or being a non believer or gay or different in anyway maybe even just for being a woman with a voice or a girl looking for education by any of the old laws /churches ! only one religion does that today and tomorrow !
              And there is something sick in those that defend it !

                 18 likes

            • leftieshatefreedom says:

              They’re still here in Muslim countries and ghettos. You just turn a lefty blind eye to the fact to help advance the ‘religion of peace.’

                 1 likes

          • pah says:

            Ah the old irony defence! ;p

            As far as home invasion is concerned then the law has always been, until Bliared, the permissable use of, up to and not excluding deadly, force to eject the invader. However a number of high profile cases where the invader had left the property before being killed have muddied the waters somewhat.

            ITIARIST this is statutary law tho’ not common law.

               3 likes

            • Demon says:

              I’m not a lawyer, but it was something that came into my head as I was explaining that I didn’t actually believe what I put myself. Only Coalpits is that stupid.

                 3 likes

    • George R says:

      Would Ms Lang/ INBBC ever think of describing the British Isles as a ‘Christian Archipelago’?

         11 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        Having been accused of having EDL connections (presumably on the basis of a link to an article on Tower Hamlets, because it was so comprehensive, but with the warning that its author had EDL connections), followed by a CAIR / MCB- type smearing description of me as an ‘Islamophobic demoniser of Muslims’, by a fellow commenter, I think I’ll leave this sort of thing to you other critics of the RoP for a while.

           16 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      I see in the BBC article it says:

      The government said it did not agree with the punishment and that it would look into changing the law.

      So we are to believe that really it is a progressive government that seek to change the barbarity of Islamic law.

      Except that in the AFP article on this story the comment from the government spokesman was this:
      President Mohamed Waheed’s spokesman Masood Imad told AFP that the teenager should be treated as a victim rather than a perpetrator of a crime, but clarified that she should nevertheless “feel the shame” for her offence.
      “She is not going to be lashed to cause her pain… rather, it is for her to feel the shame for having engaged in activity forbidden by the religion,” Imad said in a phone interview.

      So not quiet ‘did not agree’ with the punishment imposed.

      The fact that she may well have engaged in sex with another man, after being continually sexually abused by her stepfather, would be understood in our society as having valid psychological causes. Not so in Islam, for them it’s all cut and dried.

      And the trolls here can’t understand why we here detest the BBC for trying to present Islamists as a compatible mindset capable of integration within our society.

         18 likes

      • Out of town says:

        I think that bias should be the object of a complaint, I have done a few now and it makes them at least address the point if not improve their output.

           3 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Oh, the Maldives…by “islamic archipelago” I thought you were referring to one of the sharia law zones dotted around Britain. Same attitude to women, see.

         8 likes

  7. Span Ows says:

    Saved from the dank cellar at end of other Open thread (my great timing as ever):

    Excellent piece from the Commentator:

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2804/gaza_rocket_hits_israel_obviously_israel_s_fault

    “Of course, the BBC report here doesn’t overtly state it. But it leads the horse to the water…

    …Did you see what happened there? Blink and you may have missed it. In fact, many of the millions of people who consume BBC reports such as this do indeed miss such things. Instead, their worldview is shaped by this passive propaganda.

       20 likes

  8. AsISeeIt says:

    Question:
    When are rocket launchers in the hands of terrorists thought to be a dangerous?

    “These weapons systems are clearly intended to kill and we should be in no doubt that the recovery of these items has saved lives.”

    “This community welcomes the fact this weapon is now off the streets”

    “Some people are stuck in the past and don’t want to come out of it.”

    Is this a new BBC editorial line on the Israel Palestinian conflict?

    Don’t be silly, this can’t be a BBC report about Gaza – it is of course about Ulster

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21598200

       29 likes

  9. thoughtful says:

    The nasty tory cuts made me do it !

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21594109

       7 likes

    • Llew says:

      Shouldn’t that be ‘independent councillor’ in the headline like it’s always ‘Tory councillor’, ‘Tory MP’, ‘Tory Minister’, ‘Tory Peer’, or ‘Tory party member’?

         27 likes

    • Invicta 1066 says:

      Whilst I would never advocate ‘putting children down,’ there is a case for those who as a result of first cousin marriages produce children who are severely disabled both mentally and physically either being stopped from having any more or made to pay the full economic cost of looking after them.
      The incidence of such abnormalities is particularly high amongst Muslims of Pakistani origin. One case in Bradford, reveals that a couple have had five severely disabled daughter’ but are still trying for a son! Of course they blame the NHS.
      This a subject much like Muslim organised grooming gangs, that surfaces for a brief spell and then vanishes. It should be on the News constantly, to hammer home the message.
      Muslims and the cost-cutting NHS might like to follow the practice of one group who seek to the number of such unfortunate children. They use genetic testing, not to terminate pregnancies but to avoid marriage of relatives carrying the same damaged gene.
      Tay-Sachs is an inherited disorder, leading to loss of function and early death and this particular group; Ashkenazi Jews (oops!) are doing their best to reduce the pain of this mutated gene.
      Reference ‘In The Blood’ by Steve Jones
      pp 75

         12 likes

  10. George R says:

    Education.

    BBC-NUJ misses out key point in its biased report.

    1.) ‘Telegraph’:-

    “Head teacher suspended after ‘knife-wielding pupil’ put in isolation room to cool down.
    “A primary school head teacher and five other staff have been suspended after a pupil who allegedly threatened classmates with a knife stolen from the school kitchen was shut in a lockable room.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9895709/Head-teacher-suspended-after-knife-wielding-pupil-put-in-isolation-room-to-cool-down.html

    2.) BBC-NUJ:

    “Revoe Primary School suspends six staff members”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-21584219

       28 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      Ah, but don’t worry because the bBBC reassures us that ‘The council confirmed the allegations were not of a sexual nature’, although that’s obviously the first thing that would come to mind for a bBBC reporter.

         26 likes

      • colditz says:

        It was the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind. Doh!

           2 likes

        • stewart says:

          “It was the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind”
          If you believe that you must move in unpleasant circles.

             24 likes

        • Teddy Bear says:

          The first thing that comes to mind of anybody that has some intelligence and reading BOTH ARTICLES is why the BBC avoided mentioning the actions of this 9 year old that led to his being confined.

          after a pupil who allegedly threatened classmates with a knife stolen from the Revoe Primary School kitchen was shut in a lockable room.

          A teacher blocked the boy’s path through the school and he started to kick out at her. The staff member then put the boy in a restraining hold approved for use by police officers.
          Finally he was placed in a small room with a glass window to try and calm him down. One teacher stood outside for forty minutes before the boy calmed down sufficiently.
          Head teacher Cath Woodall, 51, who was not on duty at the time,is among those being questioned by police after the nine-year-old boy made threats against teachers and pupils.

          It’s clear there’s an overreaction here.

          I’m more worried about a council that needs to employ
          Charlotte Clarke, the council’s head of universal services and school effectiveness
          🙄

          There’s definitely something fishy about the way the BBC is reporting this, and time will tell just why they’re omitting certain relevant information.

          As for you colditz – Homer Simpson is a character that is funny precisely because he’s not very bright. So I can understand you picking his exclamation, but you really lack anywhere close to his creativity.

             10 likes

          • Teddy Bear says:

            Yup!
            Labour council and Labour Councillor dealing with it. That explains the BBC not wishing to make them appear as foolish as the job title above.

               1 likes

  11. #88 says:

    This is an advert that has just started it’s run on Sky. As it intended it tugged somewhat with me. But despite an obvious health warning, I think it’s worth sharing, not least for the fact it presents (idealistically) something that is disappearing or being driven from what is or was good about Britain.
    The left, with the help of and amplified through their activists in the BBC, have skilfully imposed their value loaded judgement on wealth, achievement and aspiration. There is something unclean about striving; the things that we have ‘earned’ at whatever level we have worked, are fair game for redistribution. Property is theft.

    Milband has a brass neck to talk about ‘One Nation’, they are just words to him, but he can be confident that no one in New Broadcasting House will be bothered to challenge him. And the BBC have absolutely no affinity with the aspirers, with the people represented in that ad. From the extreme comfort of our licence fee from where they can acquire without striving, they can continue to wring their hands, carp and complain, focus on their ‘so called downtrodden and the ‘cuts’, ‘cuts’ cuts’.

    Yes it’s a measure of a civilised society that it can sustain those in GENUINE need. We can’t do it though without those who aspire to success (and pay their taxes). Perhaps the BBC should get out more and focus on the positive for a change…Silly! That’s not part of their class war mission.

       17 likes

    • Wild says:

      Socialism/BBC is theft

      Property/Income is freedom.

      Socialists/Beeboids purchase their freedom with your money.

      The BBC prime directive is to educate you to accept your serfdom.

      They are a cancer on a free society – but a cure exists.

         34 likes

      • colditz says:

        So the BBC is no longer an organisation but a theory… Oh dear.

           3 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          It’s riddled with leftist ideology as countless unchallenged examples on here – going back years – have proven.

             2 likes

      • Invicta 1066 says:

        I think there is a link with Cameron and his trip to India and apology for Cononial rule here.
        As he drank a cup of tea he said that ”Proper tea is theft’.
        On his next trip to China he will beg forgiveness for the British stealing a few tea plants and cultivating them in India.

           10 likes

  12. pah says:

    Those loveable social engineers at the BBC are currently running with this.

    Could the timing be anything to do with an upcoming budget by any chance? Is the Mash Beer Tax campaign starting to worry the puritans at the BBC?

    Incidently, the idea that there may be more people in the country than the official stats state and could be a factor is conveniently ignored.

       21 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      They ran with that on Today this morning, suggesting that it indicated 50%* of people were drinking too much. I heard nothing challenging this plainly preposterous statistic.

      *I can’t remember the actual figure so I made one up, in solidarity with the original report.

      In fairness, this is currently top of the Editor’s Picks:
      thebigf

      Anyone who drinks and enjoys it sees the guideline figures as a joke. Oooo, one bottle of good real ale puts me above the recommended daily limit for a woman – wow, living dangerously. I like wine too, and I don’t drink it by the thimble either. In fact, last night I had some Port too. Nobody tells medics what they really drink because they don’t want the lecture, who does???

         25 likes

      • chrisH says:

        About time we did a scale of our own here at Wessix Uni.
        Binge drinker…three glasses of wine/week
        Alcoholic…drinks a glass of been 5 times a week.
        Beebhack…drinks secretly, but carried polo mints around, enjoys sifting your recycling boxes for evidence you`re a dipso or Quaffer…
        comes from the EJPH, GLS, HSE(not elf no safety…another one!)
        In that case, let`s say-yet again-that the science is settled.
        The BBC will say ANYTHING to mither and browbeat the plebs…Chris Evans is the future at this rate!

           14 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ”a study suggests’
      Is usually a clear sign it’s a BBC #prasnews & should be consigned accordingly.
      As they are being shredded in the comments, it will be interesting to see if they keep it open past 5pm, when some actual working adults get home and have a surf over a sherry.

         12 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      The ‘missing’ alcohol.

      A) No information on how this has been calculated.

      B) Could this be more proof that the population of the country is much, much higher than the government is telling us?

         0 likes

  13. George R says:

    MALI.

    INBBC puts words (such as its favourite, ‘militant’ ) into the mouth of victim of of Islamic JIHAHISTS.

    INBBC is now reporting Al Qaeda as ‘moderate’ compared with other murderous Islamic jihad groups!

    “Mali prisoner: ‘Militants cut off my hand with a knife'”

    By Thomas Fessy.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21467982

    Come on, Fessy, where does this victim of jihad call them ‘militants’?
    Fess up.

    And today in Mali:-

    INBBC avoids a subject or perpetrator in this censored headline of this latest jihad crime.

    So I’ll write it for them:

    ‘Mali: Jihadists massacre seven people with car bomb.’

    In contrast, and for political purposes, INBBC goes with headline implying that bomb has a mind of its own-

    “Mali car bomb ‘targets Tuareg checkpoint’ in Kidal”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21595018

       18 likes

  14. Umbongo says:

    I await the BBC report (and David Gregory’s comment) on this evisceration of Sir Paul Nurse in respect of Nurse’s slander of Nigel Lawson.
    H/T Bishop Hill

       33 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      It shows the importance of only listening to scientists that can explain the causes of climate change, not those who can only measure the temperature.

      A Geneticist who can only remember that the temperature went up in the 20th century, fighting against the enemies of science, who are not heard on the BBC, because he fears that they will denying that the Climate Changes for ideological reasons.

      According to the President of the Royal Society, denying 21st Century Global Warming, is for political ideological reasons, does that mean that the Met Office and the IPCC have swung to the political right, or should he look into the mirror for any left-wing tendencies as the reason for the violation of the Royal Society principal of “Nullius in verba” on an issue that, he is not even an expert.

      I am sure that whatever you opinion. Facts and evidence are more important than opinion, assumptions, and ideology when it comes to the fact that Global Warming peaked 17 years ago, and as usual, Global Cooling will follow.

         22 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘I await the BBC report (and David Gregory’s comment)’
      I’d stock up.

         5 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      Nigel Lawson – (proper) big beast, intellect, quality (the research into climate science he did for his book ‘An Appeal to Reason’ was incredible). Compare and contrast with today’s Westminster numpties – Diane Abbott springs to mind – who can hardly string two words of sense together.

         0 likes

  15. David Lamb says:

    Just a thought on the Eastleigh by-election and the media coverage which indicates concern only with the shenanagans of the political class. Some of the extreme far out (hope y’all like the terminology) candidates are more in touch with the electorate but are not being covered. The Monster Raving Looney candidate appears to be the only one who recognises the pride in Benny Hill, a former local milkman who deserves a statue in the town. Of course, his comedy – involving lots of semi dressed women – is not PC for the current BBC. And the Elvis Loves Pets Party is campaigning against high costs of veterinary fees. Given that there are 12 million companion animals in the UK – from reptiles to equines – this is an issue of some importance, bearing in mind that the BBC has been banging on in support of statutory regulations for example, dog breeding, enforced and financed by the tax-payer. One might conclude that the voters are not relevant in elections.

       19 likes

  16. Germanicus says:

    An interesting couple of points made in Making History on Radio 4 yesterday. When it comes to regional identity the English aren’t keen, the example given that the North West of England has no cultural identity that the people who live there seem to bother about. The commentator then went on to say that the Welsh and Scottish have very strong regional identities and this shows with their Scottish Parliament and Welsh Asslemby, but the English are happy with Westminster and Local Councils. Yet more erosion of Englishness. And this on a factual programme about history. They also called the Battle Of Agincourt a myth!

       32 likes

    • Demon says:

      “They also called the Battle Of Agincourt a myth! “

      Shocking but not surprising. No wonder children are ignorant if they get their “facts” from the BBC.

         28 likes

      • John wood says:

        It may be a legend but the story goes that the French said that they would cut off the fingers of the english archers when they captured and killed them.

        After the end of the battle the English raised the two fingers used to pull back the bowstring to show to the French that they still had them.

        The rest is history.

           20 likes

    • George R says:

      Let’s hope that this has some effect:-

      “Leading historians back reforms to history curriculum
      A group of eminent historians including David Starkey and Niall Ferguson has backed Education Secretary Michael Gove’s plans to reform the history curriculum.”

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9896725/Leading-historians-back-reforms-to-history-curriculum.html

         27 likes

      • George R says:

        BBC-NUJ catching up?:-

        “Historians back Gove’s curriculum plans”

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21600298

           5 likes

        • richard D says:

          BBC-NUJ now ahead of the game (as they see it) ?

          Your link is now attached to a report headed

          “Historians split over Gove’s curriculum plans”

          ‘Twas ever thus – the BBC hates it when anyone points to the great history of these islands, and actively seeks out those who conform to its view of the UK.

             6 likes

    • Hadda says:

      Compare the recent series by Janina Ramirez, also on BBC4, about the Hundred Years War, which was very matter-of-fact, non-judgemental and on the whole very good, if a bit ‘whistle-stop’ at times. It veered at times so close to a manifesto for English exceptionalness that I wondered how on earth it ever got through the Beeb’s filters.

      Oh, and the battle of Agincourt itself is not a myth, but you cannot deny that a hell of a lot of mythology has built up around it. I think that’s what they meant, not that it didn’t happen at all.

         11 likes

      • Wild says:

        Agincourt

        French 0

        English 1

           18 likes

        • Span Ows says:

          No, the Battle of Crécy almost 70 years before made it 1-0

             6 likes

          • Hadda says:

            Here’s the full list.

            Final score:

            England 28
            France 28

            England win under the away goals rule

               14 likes

            • wallygreeninker says:

              Is Cameron going to apologise for Joan of Arc?

                 12 likes

              • Ian Hills says:

                We burned Joan on the orders of a French ecclesiastical court, after our French allies had captured her (the official French side wouldn’t pay ransom). Not for witchcraft, of which a lot of the locals suspected her – the answers she gave at her trial were too good to convict her of that.

                No, the court could only convict her of the heretical perversity of wearing trousers (she was a girl, after all). But no doubt Le Beeb and Cameron The Betrayer would agree with the somewhat selective modern French version of events.

                   9 likes

          • pah says:

            I think you’ll find Poitiers made it 2-0 and Azincourt made it 3-0. Where is Basil Fawlty when you need him?

            But we still lost what was rightfully ours, i.e most of France! 😉

               10 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘I think that’s what they meant’
        Good enough for 3 more likes, at least.

           2 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      There was a 16 min interview with John Gray, the political philosopher on Nightwaves (R3) last night in which he said imperialism meant genocide and slavery and invokes Joseph Conrad in support. In fact he was talking about Conrad’s descriptions of the horrors that occurred in the Belgian Congo: I remember a passage somewhere in Conrad, where Marlowe looks at the map of the world and reflects that at least some good was being done in the parts coloured pink.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p015n1tp

      Gray is an LSE professor who writes regularly for the Guardian, TLS and new Statesman. Among his books are ‘False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism’ (1998), which argues that free market globalization is an unstable Enlightenment project currently in the process of disintegration and .Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals ‘(2003), which attacks philosophical humanism, a worldview which Gray sees as originating in religious ideologies.
      The interviewers on these discussion programmes seem more interested in drawing out the ideas of their subjects, rather than in arguing with them.

         10 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        From “…Guardian, TLS and New Statesman … to …religious ideologies.’ I quote from wiki

           5 likes

    • Chop says:

      As a proud Mancunian, I despise Scousers.

      How’s that for a strong regional identity Mr BBC man/woman/transgendered?

         8 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Perhaps creepy little commie Tony Robinson will dig up the evidence, ie thousands of snooty French knights slaughtered by English peasant longbowmen. Perhaps not, though – it might make us feel too good about ourselves.

      The only mythical thing about the battle is the name, which a contemporary chronicler misspelt. It should be “Azincourt”, after the nearby village.

         7 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      ‘…the example given that the North West of England has no cultural identity that the people who live there seem to bother about’.

      I’ll challenge that thur BBC chappie to a shin-kicking contest, then, that’ll teach him a bit o’ North West ‘cultural identity’. Twat.

         0 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        I’d imagine the influx of Irish immigrants in the 19th century complicates things in that region.

           1 likes

  17. George R says:

    EGYPT.

    What does INBBC’s Cairo Bureau do all day?

    Censored out by INBBC:-

    ‘Jihadwatch’ –

    “Sharia in action in Egypt: Islamic supremacists surround church, attempt to stop its construction.”

    [Opening excerpt]:-

    “Islamic law forbids subject dhimmi communities to build new houses of worship or repair old ones. ”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/02/sharia-in-action-in-egypt-islamic-supremacists-surround-church-attempt-to-stop-its-construction.html

       22 likes

  18. George R says:

    The Maldives.

    INBBC has great political difficulty in reporting of the implementation of violent Sharia law on people there.

    So again, the words, ‘Sharia law’, and ‘Islam’ are avoided in the headline to this INBBC report:

    “Maldives girl gets 100 lashes for pre-marital sex.”
    By Olivia Lang.

    One has to read beyond half-way down the article to see the word ‘Sharia’.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21595814

    Ms Lang should explicitly state that the implementation of such violent Sharia punishment is part of the Islamisation of The Maldives.

    “Maldives: Customs officials seize men for carrying books about Christianity” (2012).

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/maldives-customs-officials-seize-men-for-carrying-books-about-christianity.html

       17 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      Oh the cultural enrichment we could get from that 7th century ideology !! ( and yes, that’s irony)

         11 likes

    • Andy S. says:

      Is this the same Maldives that Barack Obama suggested we negotiate with the Argentinians over?

         18 likes

  19. George R says:

    Ah:-

    “GDP: UK economy grew more than thought in 2012”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21598509

       8 likes

  20. +james says:

    Noticed on the BBC News that they were promoting the Book of Mormon musical. I thought that the BBC wasn’t supposed to have advertising.

    And would the BBC promote musical called Book of Muhammad?

       17 likes

    • colditz says:

      All media outlets ‘review’ and preview new film, plays and musicals. What planet do you inhabit?

         7 likes

    • Scott M says:

      I don’t see why news programmes shouldn’t cover arts events too. And a big, multi-award winning Broadway transfer that has been selling phenomenally well prior to its opening justifies a bit of coverage.

      if that’s “promotion”, then news programmes also promote the multi-million pound businesses that field football teams. Why is that different, when far more people visit the theatre every year than attend Premier League matches?

         7 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        Hi Scott, interesting point you make there.

        Theatre audiences v Premier League is a close run thing.

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/9025373/Theatre-losing-its-appeal.html

        The number of theatergoers at subsidised venues fell from 14.1 million in 2009 to 13 million last year, according to Arts Council England

        http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/eng-premier-league-2010-2011/1/

        overall total 13,403,792

        Theatre deserves some coverage on the BBC – so long as there is some balance in the kind of shows that get that coverage. Afterall it would be very noticable if the BBC only promoted soccer teams that play in red.

           12 likes

        • Scott M says:

          The key words there are “subsidised venues” – i.e., the Arts Council England figures only cover those venues who receive funding through ACE. It therefore doesn’t include West End audiences at commercial theatres, which in the Society of London Theatres’ latest stats count for an additional 14m ticket sales.

          There’ll be some duplication in there, of course, but the same can be said of football attendances. I suspect the number of people who go to multiple West End shows every year is quite small: the number of football fans who attend more than one match, on the other hand…

             9 likes

          • AsISeeIt says:

            “subsidised venues” True.

            And of course the soccer attendances are just the Premier League.

            Here’s a thing: I follow football but very rarely attend. Easy to do with so much coverage. I wish the BBC would do more to promote theatre but fear this won’t happen in the general dumbing down we see.

               9 likes

        • Joshaw says:

          It’s interesting that this should come up.

          About twenty years ago, some organisation produced figures showing that attendance at certain artistic events exceeded attendance at football matches by a significant margin in the same period. Obviously the definition of “artistic events” was quite wide but it did shatter a few myths. On the other hand, attendance at large theatres and concert halls (2000+), six/seven days a week, throughout the year, quickly mounts up, and not all football clubs are well attended.

          I’ve been trying to track this data down for some time, without success. If anyone remembers where it came from I’d be grateful.

             2 likes

          • chrisH says:

            As soon as the BBC get attendance figures for anything, then you`d best be counting the spoons.
            The Popes final mass today apparently had as many as 200 doughnutted in St Peters Square. That 200,000 figures being bandied about by the rest of the world…well, their foreigners who don`t count in the Islamic right to left way…er, erm…
            It was 200 then…now that TUC rally had absolutely millions…got that!
            Scumzatellzya!

               9 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Except news outlets other than the BBC cover sports because they have to keep the audience watching in order to continue the flow of advertizing revenue. The BBC has no need for that. Of course, since that last re-imagining of the Charter, the BBC needs only high ratings to prove their value to public service.

           6 likes

      • Pounce says:

        I see Racist Scott is back on here promoting his white only agenda. Hey racist how many black people go to the theatre. I wonder why you want to promote a white’s only event.
        Racist.

           5 likes

        • John wood says:

          Well why should the British music industry promote a black only event? Surely that is just as racist.

             5 likes

  21. noggin says:

    bbcs 5live richarse bacon, has been reading the back of a postage stamp again …
    re the new ideas for the history in the national
    curriculum …
    so dr david starkey perhaps, oops! not a chance 😀
    … he drags in that f-ckwit historical lightweight from horrible histories .. and thinks that our history should be taught in a multinational way taking into account our diverse multi ethnic/cultural society
    … “behaving like little englanders” he moans,….
    about what exactly eh! chimp? … about english history?
    make sure they get the message about our imperialism
    …. hmm what message would that be eh!
    the myopic potted pc bbc “version” perhaps
    (oh for 2 mins in a lift eh!) … retarded twat
    thats it … off switch!

       33 likes

    • colditz says:

      I’m sure you’ll be missed.

         5 likes

      • noggin says:

        but …
        not by you though 😀 eh! coldtitz
        faster than a UAF bootboy on a lady who wants freedom of speech you are.
        well oi larfed …

           30 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        Usual high standard of contribution, colditz. Noggin making a serious point about left-wing bias, in case you hadn’t noticed. Unchallenged, though, so another goal to B-BBC.

        Latest score B-BBC 9347 – Trolls 2.

           3 likes

    • David Brims says:

      The BBC’s favourite little Somalian Regah Omaar did a 260 part series on BBC 4 about the ‘wonders’ of Islam, the science, medicine and geometry ( they always mention the geometry, I don’t know why, but they do )

      Meanwhile Jeremy Paxmann did a series on the British Empire, a tale of slavery, colonialism, slavery, imperialism and did I mention slavery ? yeah, slavery.

      Here’s a photograph of our little Regah Omaar, trying to look intelligent, hand on forehead, thinking profound thoughts. He’s got one of those faces you want to punch.

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/06/rageh-omaar-interview-slavery-evil

         33 likes

      • noggin says:

        is that pic before – his little “rage-ma” in islamic history of europe …
        clenching his fist and squeezing a tear in anguish … they nearly made it eh!
        yuk! pass the sick bag …

           16 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        Channel 4 did a Islam the Untold Story series, which had to be pulled because it didn’t fit the fantasy world they live in!

           5 likes

        • Scott M says:

          Not quite true. That film (it was a one-off rather than a series) was broadcast on Channel 4, and remains on 4OD. However, a planned (non-broadcast) screening was cancelled after threats were made to the presenter.

             4 likes

          • pah says:

            Oh well, that’s all right then … ???

            Does the M is Scott M stand for Morello by any chance?

               5 likes

          • David Brims says:

            ”a planned (non-broadcast) screening was cancelled after threats were made to the presenter. ”

            Says it all.

               8 likes

          • stewart says:

            “was broadcast” In the way ‘edge of the city’ was broadcast at 2am having
            been puled from its advertised slot on advice of(Read:by orders of the thought) police?
            These threats were not made by the same group that forced C4 to pull the Tom Bell series were they?
            In fairness C4 show more moral back bone than the BBC being prepared,occasionaly,to challenge the orthodoxy not just on islam (‘inside the mosque’) but on other subjects as well (‘great global warming swindle’ and ‘marathons millions’ spring to mind)
            Who would have thought 20yrs ago that C4 would end up less polemic than the BBC

               0 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      How Indians must miss the culture of the Moghul Empire, ie the mass murder of non-moslems. Compo is well overdue.

         8 likes

  22. George R says:

    Not an anniversary for INBBC to remember?:

    “ISLAM’S WAR ON THE WEST:
    NYC MARKS 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF ’93 WORLD TRADE CENTER JIHADI BOMBING”

    http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/02/islams-war-on-the-west-nyc-marks-20th-anniversary-of-93-world-trade-center-jihadi-bombing-.html

       16 likes

  23. wallygreeninker says:

    Clearly a hero for Beeboids (accompanied by personal tribute from Hugh Schofield under the heading ‘analysis’

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21599477):
    “Inspirational French writer Stephane Hessel dies at 95”

    ‘He expressed outrage at the growing gap between haves and have-nots, France’s treatment of illegal immigrants and damage to the environment.’
    Of course, well down the page you find some are less than adulatory:

    ‘However some, like the French Jewish activist Gilles-William Goldnadel, have accused him of exaggerating his role in the work[compiling the Universal Declaration of HumanRights].

    According to Mr Goldnadel, France’s leftist press idealised the former Resistance fighter, a strong critic of Israeli policy, as a “secular saint”. ‘

       17 likes

    • GCooper says:

      Why did the headline writer feel the need to add the word ‘insipirational’? It’s editorialising – an opinion.

      It’s this sort of journalistic malpractice that proves the BBC’s bias on a daily basis.

         20 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Typical useful idiot so beloved by the Left.
      He talked the good fight of the Revolution , but probably wrote about it from his mistresses chambers somewhere chi-chi on the Left Banque.
      And yet another war hero too…The Left seems stuffed full to the gills with them.
      You do wonder if there were so many resistance members, how come the country was so pacific when the Germans called by, and for so long.

      As one of their own said once,
      “Victory has 1000 fathers, but failure is an orphan”.

      Finally-how did he “inspire” Occupy?
      Was he a pampered privileged nomark who stopped little old ladies from going to choral evensong?
      But all too willing to back The Man when he wanted his laptop charged, or some boiling water for his hot water bottle?
      A Tarte de Sartre, safe smoking just as the French foppes like `em, all too often.

         19 likes

      • John Anderson says:

        He was described as helping inspire the Occupy movement – as if that was something good

           8 likes

  24. GCooper says:

    Not political bias (except in the loosest sense) but I see yet another anti-alcohol story is being sprayed all over the Corporation’s ‘news’ (sic) website today. Tomorrow there will be yet another, or the obverse side of this debased currency – some tripe about ‘obesity’ and ‘fizzy drinks’.

    What is the BBC’s agenda here? Why does barely a day pass without it giving oxygen to the health-Nazi wing of the medical profession? It isn’t news, by any stretch of the imagination – it’s a conscious attempt to influence policy by a fringe of neo-puritans. So why is the BBC giving them all the help it can?

       24 likes

    • David Hanson says:

      I think it is all part of the left’s animosity towards people who might actually want to enjoy themselves – if you look at any past or present socialist “paradise”, they are without exception dour and miserable places. Probably explains their love of Islam.

         24 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      There will be a corporate cheer when smokers are herded aboard cattle cars bound for Stafford Hospital too, although no doubt it will be billed as “resettlement in the east”.

         13 likes

  25. Louis Robinson says:

    “Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, with an estimated 2.3 million firearms owned by the country’s eight million people, but such gun attacks are relatively rare.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21601323

    Surely the left’s conventional wisdom is that the higher the gun ownership rate the higher the level of violence? I guess someone didn’t read the memo.

       14 likes

    • Umbongo says:

      I’m all for relevant context in reporting news. Accordingly, Imogen Foulkes (?) in reporting on BBC24 on today’s shooting in Switzerland, highlighted the practice where citizens who serve and have served in the Swiss militia keep their guns at home: hence the possibility that the gunman in this incident might have had easy access to the weapon used. Exemplary reportage: unfortunately she couldn’t leave it at that.
      .
      She continued by bringing in the omnipresent (on the BBC) “some” and “many” who opine that the Swiss gun laws are “old-fashioned” and “dangerous”. I assume, although Imogen failed to mention them, that there are also “some” and “many” who, despite this tragedy and one earlier this year, support the present practice. Whatever, she failed to refer to any polls or even show any vox pop to back up her claims.
      .
      In other words, this was just a BBC mini-editorial inserted through sole reference to the opinion of those Swiss (and they certainly exist) who have concerns about the Swiss gun laws. Moreover, the implication was that those “many” Swiss effectively buy into the BBC Narrative which holds that (as in the UK) guns should only be in the hands of the police, the (active) military and – as happens in reality although the BBC tends to avoid mentioning it as a consequence of UK gun law – criminals.

         16 likes

      • Beeboidal says:

        I assume, although Imogen failed to mention them, that there are also “some” and “many” who, despite this tragedy and one earlier this year, support the present practice.

        Indeed there are, or were in 2011, when the Swiss held a referendum on gun ownership rules. The Swiss rejected the proposal (56.3% to 43.7% – turnout 49.1%). How could Imogen have missed this vox pops par excellence?

           11 likes

      • Louis Robinson says:

        “Citizens who serve and have served in the Swiss militia keep their guns at home” Exemplary reportage? With respect, not quite.

        So far descriptions of the assailant are: “a longtime employee” in a “workplace shooting”. So why introduce the availability of guns to ex-military men. Did this guy serve? When was he released from service? Did he have an military gun? So far we don’t know. But the word “militia” is loaded. (those dirty violent former soldiers). Enough for the tut-tut class to tut-tut.

           7 likes

        • Umbongo says:

          I take your point but my point was primarily connected with context. Accordingly, in the context of the usual Narrative-rich sermonette-style reportage by the BBC this wasn’t a bad (initial) effort by Imogen: maybe “exemplary” was badly chosen but, for a BBC report, it wasn’t initially too nannyish.. However, as I wrote and as you noted, the report soon descended to the usual tut-tutting in respect of the non-approved (= the little people) being allowed to handle grown-up lethal hardware.

             2 likes

      • Maturecheese says:

        Hell you are not even allowed to have a two inch blade utility knife (it locked therefore making it bloody safer to use)on your keyring in this country, as I found out to my cost two years ago.

        I gather in the USA in the states where there are lax gun restrictions there is less gun crime than in the states that have strict gun control. I guess my point is it isn’t guns and knives that kill, it is people and if people were held to account for their crimes (capital punishment and stiff jail sentences) they would be less likely to commit crimes. (and the police might not harass people for having a small knife on their keyring).

           9 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Nah, this is just a subtle way for the racists at the BBC to show that a mostly white population won’t have as much gun crime as other places. And even the Swiss still shoot their wives at an alarming rate, according to the last bit of the report. One way or the other, guns are bad, m’kay?

         4 likes

      • Chop says:

        Wonder when the Beeb are gonna go poking their collective noses into citizen gun ownership in places like….ohhhh, I dunno…

        Afghanistan?…”Palestine”, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan….ect?

        I mean, it’s not as if folk don’t get shot there now, is it?

           11 likes

  26. Alex says:

    According to the multiculturally-obsessed, Islamic groveling, finger-on-the-pulse BBC, the law profession has seen a big drop in applicants from “ethnic minorities”. Who cares?

       21 likes

  27. George R says:

    “Crony fear after new BBC chief gives £395,000 salary job to ex-colleague.
    Anne Bulford tipped as the corporation’s first female director-general.”
    By PAUL REVOIR

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2285085/Crony-fear-new-BBC-chief-gives-395-000-salary-job-ex-colleague.html

       15 likes

    • Dave s says:

      Despite the BBC endlessly telling us times are hard ,that the cuts are vicious etc etc it still sees fit to pay an apparatchnik close to 8000 per week. That is over 1000 per day including Sundays.
      And they wonder why most of us are so cynical about our leaders and presumably our betters.
      It cannot be justified . It insults all of us .
      It is taxpayers money .
      They really do behave like the Ancien regime in 1789.
      They are fools.

         15 likes

  28. George R says:

    “Ex-BBC chief denies discrimination claim made by whistleblower.
    “Mark Thomas alleged to have said women with child-caring responsibilities should not hold senior management positions.”

    Lisa O’Carroll.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/27/ex-bbc-chief-denies-discrimination-claim?

       6 likes

  29. Jeff Waters says:

    Lib Dem MP gets slap on the wrist for anti-Semitic comments: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21605814

    The way this article is hidden away, you’d think it was an utterly trivial matter…

    I wonder if the BBC would have acted likewise had the MP concerned been a Tory. I suspect that they would have made it their lead story and used the term Nasty Party as often as was humanly possible…

    Jeff

       12 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I don’t think the BBC would make too much of a fuss if a Tory said it, either. After all, most BBC staff completely agree with the sentiment.

         8 likes

  30. Pounce says:

    Got to love the bBC
    How many Britons are descended from slave-owners?
    About 3,000 British slave-owners received a total of £20m (£1.8bn in today’s prices) in compensation when slavery was abolished in 1833, research suggests. Among those who received pay-outs were the ancestors of novelists George Orwell and Graham Greene. What does this research tell us about our history?Professor Catherine Hall, who led the research team, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Slavery has been forgotten in conventional British history. What’s been remembered is abolition rather than the slave trade, and extraordinarily many people do not know about Britain’s colonial past in relation to slavery.
    Really?
    The bBC tries to tell me that the people of Britain have forgotten about slavery while centring more on its sole role in abolition . Here’s a test ask the person next to you have they heard about Britian’s role in slavery, then ask them who William Wilberforce was?

    The bBC, the traitors within our midst

       23 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      It’s harder to stain the US with that brush and claim ultimate moral superiority if they focus too much on that.

         4 likes

    • Maturecheese says:

      What pisses me off is slavery was an abhorrent evil practice but you would swear that only Britain did it, not the Islamic world, way before us incidentally, not the Africans themselves, no other European countries either. I am not proud of our part in that business but I am proud of most of our past so up your BBC.

         25 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        It still goes on in the Islamic world and Africa. The ancestors of those who did it before are still doing it.

           20 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        More than Britain, according to Beeboids like Justin Webb, the US is the really “stained” country.

           7 likes

      • Colonel Blimp says:

        a few years ago Hollywood tried to film Barry Unsworth’s “Sacred Hunger” about the slave trade; the project foundered when the author refused to go along with a studio request to make a key African slaver character white because they couldn’t portray a black person selling Africans into slavery

           14 likes

      • thoughtful says:

        What you are unlikely to hear is that it was other Africans who captured these slaves and sold them in the first place, without that initial ‘work’ the slave trade could not have taken place.

        Many black people took an active role in slavery, and some owned slaves of their own. You are very unlikely to ever hear the story of Nataniel Wells on the bBC as it flies against everything they want people to believe.

        “Nathaniel Wells (10 September 1779 – 13 May 1852), was the son of a Welsh merchant and a black slave. After inheriting his father’s plantations, he became a wealthy land owner, magistrate, the second black person to hold a commission in the Armed Forces of the Crown (after Captain John Perkins. He was also Britain’s first black High Sheriff.”

        This is not the mark of a ‘racist’ country & it gives the lie to the assertion that slavery was based on race.

        There have been several high profile black people in the history of this country and John Archer was Londons first black mayor elected in 1913 returned as MP in 1919. This is not the country the left finds profitable to portray, neither was the British Empire the racist oppressors portrayed either.

           10 likes

        • Joshaw says:

          And Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who was PM from 1812 to 1827, was of part Indian descent.

             4 likes

        • Sidleybird says:

          This: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/21294292 literally made my jaw drop! What next? Jackboot Day? Gulag Appreciation Week?
          I thought the BBC was against slavery? And yet here they are, pretending that the signs of slavery are some kind of fashion statement?? No mention, of course, of the ideology that says that women have to be covered up or they are asking to be raped. No, just the normal BBC defence of the misogynistic, fascistic oppression of women that is Islamic “culture”. And this is what they are telling children? AND forcing us to pay for it? Where are we? On the Moon? I really don’t know anymore.

             6 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            So it has found its way to Ceebeebies?
            My two would have been up for it, if with a few tweaks, being keen on the Ninja mode of dress option in some XBox game that also pits Centurions vs. Pirates for no reason I can fathom.
            The piece doesn’t say in the headline or intro (which is what the BBC seems to feel can be as vague or inaccurate as it likes on the presupposition folk read on every time), but I’m guessing it’s open to boys too?

               4 likes

          • johnnythefish says:

            Could I add (for public sector workers in particular): ‘Try Wearing a Cross at Work for a Day, Day’.

               1 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:

      Catherine Hall (born 1946, Kettering, Northamptonshire, England) is a feminist historian from Great Britain. Since 2009 she has been Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London. Her work explores the interrelation between metropole and colony in an attempt to rewrite the narrative of certain aspects of ‘British history’ in the mid nineteenth century empire period.
      She is married to Professor Stuart Hall.
      (It was after watching Stuart Hall’s OU sociology lectures on TV that a lot of Tory MP’s started wondering if a subject which seemed to consist almost entirely of left-wing nonsense ought to be taught, at the state’s expense, at all.)

         18 likes

      • Ian Hills says:

        Still, only rote-learning morons get OU degrees, so they wouldn’t have been subverted.

           4 likes

      • Dave s says:

        A typical 68er. Ideas fixed. Mind closed. Predictable. Hopefully retired soon.
        A leading light of the worst generation to afflict this or any other country.

           10 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          ‘Worst generation’ of what?

             0 likes

          • Buggy says:

            Take your pick frankly, there’s a whole raft of correct answers out there, but I’ll spot you:

            “Worst generation of doctrinaire idiots who continue to affect non-D.I.’s unto the nth generation on the public teat, even though their vapid, adolescent theories were dead about a week after they were promulgated.”

               2 likes

  31. Pounce says:

    I wonder why the Uber Green bBC isn’t reporting on this story:
    Mystery of massacre of the manta rays: Why DID dozens of bloodied sea creatures wash up on Gaza beach?
    Palestinian fishermen were pictured today with dozens of Manta Ray fish that were washed up on the beach in Gaza City and carted off to market. It was the first time the fish had been seen on the beach for six years, according to a local video report purporting to show fisherman examining the Rays.

    So a shoal of Mantra rays beach themselves in Gaza and the bBC say nothing. Have a look at those DM pictures, then have a look at some more taken from the news agency which aired the story. Have a look at Photo number 3. How many fish and since when do fish beach themselves in straight lines? The have a look at how half are on their fronts and the other half are on their backs
    http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2013/02/27/foto/centinaia_di_mante_spiaggiate_a_gaza_beach-53532782/1/?ref=FRAG-1#3
    And the bBC remains silent?

       10 likes

    • Pounce says:

      Hah,
      Ma’an the Pal news agency tells me what the so called Nasty rightwing Daily Mail doesn’t. Those fish didn’t beach themselves they were caught by Gazan fishermen.
      http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=569562

      Expect the bBC to remain silent on this story.

         14 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Or find a way to blame Israel for driving them to do this.

           12 likes

        • Buggy says:

          “Starving fishermen, victims of Israeli blockades, catch tasty but rare fish for their suppers (but also to draw the world’s attention to their plight as starving fisherfolk at the mercy of the occupiers next door).

             2 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            It’s a stroke of genius when you put it that way. Don’t give Donnison and Co. any ideas.

               2 likes

  32. Pounce says:

    The bBC brings you another story about intolerant Britain.
    The real witch hunters: Hopkins and Stearne
    Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is the latest film to appeal to an audience fascination with the macabre. But witch hunters are not mere figments of Hollywood’s imagination. They have their place in our own history, just a few hundred years ago. On the night of 24 March 1645, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne visited the home of Elizabeth Clarke in the small Essex town of Manningtree. The 80-year-old woman, poor and with a missing leg, had the misfortune to be accused of witchcraft at a time when bizarre but damning evidence was easy for a zealous witch hunter to find.
    The bBC sums up their story with:
    The conditions required for a witch-hunt may be extreme but in the religious and social conflict of East Anglia during the English Civil War, Hopkins and Stearne found exactly that – a perfect storm which bore them through the region on a wave of paranoia, grievance and zeal.

    Yeah those nasty British guilty of paranoia grievance and Zeal, oh here’s a couple of bBC stories from London which for some reason the bBC didn’t mention:
    Girl tortured ‘for being a witch’

    Couple guilty of witchcraft murder

       18 likes

    • thoughtful says:

      Witch hunting is alive and well today, only the name has changed. Today it’s called ‘racism’ and the same bizzarre evidence is required.

         7 likes

  33. Fred Bloggs says:

    R5 While driving on a Wednesday I always try to listen to PMQ’s. So it did not surprise me when the bBC started talking about the ‘bedroom tax’. They literally used Labours campaign words of bedroom tax. Nice to see R5 reading their Labour supplied propaganda notes.

       27 likes

    • #88 says:

      One of the Five Live reporters, interviewed ‘don’t know’ a voter in Eastleigh. She was looking for a party who would be focussed on neither the poor or the rich, bit the ordinary workers. He obliged by putting the words. ‘Squeezed middle’ into her mouth.

      Always on message these Beeboids. I wonder if he was wearing a red rosette?

      Over to Newsnight who are looking forward to the Tories coming third.

         16 likes

      • AsISeeIt says:

        ‘Squeezed middle’

        Yes I heard that. The BBC just can’t help themselves reading from Labour’s script.

           8 likes

  34. uncle bup says:

    Same old same old on the Today Programme.

    Never occurred to Humphrys to ask Centrica’s CEO why they have budgeted a billion quid for offshore wind’power’ capex and a whole zero for nuclear power.

    hint 1. John, windmills are 16th century technology
    hint 2. John we have split the atom.

    Never occurred to Humphrys to ask to what extent the utterly pointless ‘green’ spending Centrica has done has jacked up the bills to the householder. No sir.

    Then Humphrys questioned whether Centrica should be more ‘socially responsible’ and reduce bills, dividends, and profits.

    Utterly utterly laughable given that the BBC blows every penny it taxes and is on a perennial crusade to steal increasingly more from the taxpayer. Not so socially responsible eh.

       25 likes

  35. uncle bup says:

    … and bee tee dubs, are you a really unfunny ‘comedienne’, capable of mining hoary comedy cliches from crap seventies sitcoms, perhaps lesbian, and certainly from the pretrendy left, who really really can’t act, and who really really can’t write comedy, prepared to write several episodes of pc drivel? If so the BBC’s Head of Comedy i/c UK’s energy policy is looking for you. #sueperkins #effinputrid #righton

       14 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Oh uncle b!
      Sue`s been a riot around all those BBC outlets conveniently provided for her to drum up some interest in her “comedy”.
      Yet the eyes look hunted-whatever happened to her chum, Mel?
      No-one is asking I suppose, but Mel has not been seen since 2003 I`d guess.
      Does IVF take that long?
      Any chance of Citizen Khan getting the old BBC straw directly injected into the pleural cavity to pretend that some life can be raised into their “comedy schedule”?

      Or are we just to shut up and be “Saviled `til sundown” as we say?

         5 likes

      • wallygreeninker says:

        She was chairing her comedy panel show ‘Dilemma’ in the 18.30 (time not age of target audience) spot on R4 yesterday, with Owen Jones among the panelists (has his voice broken yet?). First dilemma was: ‘You have invited some Muslim friends around for dinner. After eating the meal you look in the fridge and find you accidentally fed them ordinary meat, in stead of the halal meat you got specially and is still in the there. Do you tell them?.’ Nothing totally contrived and unlikely about that one.
        Tonight in the same spot is Jeremy Hardy addresses the nation: we are treated to such gems as: ‘private sector = incompetence + greed ; public sector = incompetence + good intentions.

           4 likes

  36. noggin says:

    rather a lot of prominance this morning from al bbc
    … for a meeting between John “the plank” Kerry and
    W (little willy). Vague , about increasing the aid to the Syrian facist jihad plot … er oops! … i mean freedom fighters
    … followed by (unverified i know, why show?) erm “freedom fighter” propaganda i mean footage … recently “leaked” to the bbc.

    Enhanced communication equipment to trade for weapons – vehicles to trade for weapons – financial aid for food to trade for weapons … etc etc.
    but NO aid to buy weapons … thank goodness for that eh!
    … thats a load off

       12 likes

    • chrisH says:

      And yet, noggin….
      Didn`t Kerry tell the American people that they have the right to remain stupid…just as long as they stayed tolerant of the rights of others…to be stupid or not to be ,even…er…erm?
      Right to bear arms, to remain silent and now…finally “to remain stupid”…indeed the Demots and the BBC insist on this last one.

         6 likes

      • noggin says:

        you know … can t help it, but everytime i see kerry i m reminded of one of those wooden indians the cowpokes used to strike their matches on outside the saloon 😀

        and Vague 😀 … its eric n ernie two in a bed palava …
        he s only my P.A. i tell you,
        (matching caps 😀 )
        bring me sunshine

           4 likes

        • chrisH says:

          I think of his “reporting for duty moment” at the Democrat Convention…a classic, we don`t see anywhere near enough.
          And we`ll not be seeing it anytime soon I bet either.
          Fred Scuttle as done by Father Stone(from Father Ted series)…that`s now crap HE is!

             4 likes

          • John Anderson says:

            The wretched Caroline Hawley gave us a puff piece on Kerry – stressing that he had 3 Purple Hearts.

            Oddly, she failed to mention that a lot of Navy people claimed that he was a total fraud, not worthy of any Purple Heart (which he has himself applied for) Also, she made no mention of his traitorious behaviour after he wangled his release from the Navy.

            Given the huge controversy there had been about Kerry’s actions in Vietnam days, would it not have been prudent to give both sides of the story – not present him as some kind of unquestioned hero?

            A balanced report – from Caroline Haw;ley ???

               8 likes

  37. Beeboidal says:

    Looney Cornwall councillor story gets a headline on the BBC News website

    A councillor at the centre of a row over his remark that “disabled children should be put down” resigns.

    But if you scroll down to the Health section and click the link, you can get a story about people actually dying and a potential cover up.
    Data fears over septicaemia deaths at Royal Bolton Hospital

    Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) confirmed the trust recorded 800 cases from March 2011 to April 2012.

    The figure is four times higher than a trust similar in size would expect, according to Bolton CCG.

    Bolton NHS Trust said acting chief executive Dr Jackie Bene had stepped aside after initial findings revealed “potential discrepancies” in data.

    The BBC understands the investigation is looking at allegations that records were altered to make the hospital’s mortality rates look better.

    Interesting priorities, Beeb.

       6 likes

    • pah says:

      I thought it was common knowledge that parents are given a ‘DNR option’ with severely disabled neonates. The poor mite is taken away and the parents informed of its unfortunate demise later.

         0 likes

  38. David Brims says:

    Ken Loach is on Question Time tonight.

    I wont be watching.

       11 likes

    • stewart says:

      Not many,out side of the bien-pensant patrician class,will.
      Bit like his films really

         9 likes

      • Beeboidal says:

        I’ll watch. I love watching lefty luvvies in action. Hopefully Alan Spartridge will be back on QT soon.

           6 likes

        • stewart says:

          You may have a point. However I am ,unfortunately (?),on late shift tonight
          so will look forward to your review

             0 likes

        • chrisH says:

          Do like this word stewart…a Spartridge!
          We now have a new category of classification of leftie.
          You`ve left a word now for the ages!
          Thank you-bloody “Meaning of Liff” who are supposed to do all this for nothing…spent half an hour of wasting wind on this notion-but for nothing.
          Now- Scott, Dez…moveable pepperpots and farting powder in salt cellars…mobile and moving around the site…can I call their like “trollies”.
          Ah go on..go on, go on!

             5 likes

          • stewart says:

            Kudos belongs Beeboidal.you are right though Alan Spartridge is great invention.All most as good as Marcus Priggstock (all my own work)
            This could be start of new craze

               5 likes

            • bodo says:

              I thought ‘pollygentsia’ was a good one.

              But then I would.

                 3 likes

              • AsISeeIt says:

                In a similar vein – you will hear many of their voices on the BBC and recently they seem to have been calling for a new non-Catholic Pope, they are course the “Stormtroopers for PC”

                   3 likes

                • stewart says:

                  Surely nothing less than a non-christian pope would suite them.
                  Have they backed off of wanting a black pope?
                  I did say in a previous thread that they should be carfull what they wish for

                     0 likes

  39. chrisH says:

    With due credit to AISI(@2013)-trollie indeed !

       1 likes

  40. chrisH says:

    Oh heck…do we owe Beeboidal? If so thank you sir!

       2 likes

  41. Umbongo says:

    Although I didn’t hear the item I note that Today, in its role as enabler of the extreme left, gave completely unwarranted publicity to the latest rant book by New Economics Foundation loony Andrew Simms. Simms and another adornment of left-wing academia – Frances Cairncross – were in discussion. I’m sure one of the BBC claque commenting on this site from time to time could find out but, AFAIAA, in living memory a book by an “extreme” right-wing economist (or just a non-lefty) has not been given the oxygen of challenge-free publicity by Today.

       10 likes

  42. uncle bup says:

    BBC going to full howl today on bankerzbonizziz.

    Don’t suppose they’ve had lozotex about how you can completely and utterly fail and yet walk away with the licence fees of 3092 harwuknfamlees.

    Least there’s an (ostensible) performance element to bankerzbonizziz

       11 likes

    • George R says:

      And, of course, it not just the Beeboid ‘leftists’ who are propagandising thus in schools.

      In U.S:-

      “Is Leftist School Indoctrination Unstoppable?”

      By Bruce Thornton.

      http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/is-leftist-school-indoctrination-unstoppable/

         3 likes

      • johnnythefish says:

        Good article, but old hat to anybody who has seen their kids and grandchildren go through the UK education system in the last 35 years.

           3 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Maybe Blue Peter can join in for the boys?
      “Here’s one we made earlier.
      First get one of Grandpa’s vests from the laundry… don’t worry, he won’t be angry. In fact, he’ll soon have your picture ready to proudly show Jon, Wyre, Orla & the team.
      You’ll of course have some sticky-back plastic, as mentioning capitalist dog brands is the last thing we’d want to get caught doing. Use this to attach lots of washing up bottles around the vest waist.
      Then if Dad’s shed isn’t stocked, down to the local Countrywide for some nails and fertiliser… high nitrate is best….”

      Boom-boom, as Basil used to say.

         7 likes

    • noggin says:

      try a hijab for a day …
      another day …. another brit brainwashing corp attempt to deceive the minds of our children.
      how about getting those brainwashed masses out of islamic school, and give them, actual, factual education for a day … how about mo s pork dinner for their lunch
      these are the things that will bring the start of integration, not bloody wear garments of subdugation for women, subservience to allah …
      shame on the bbc.

         10 likes

      • noggin says:

        its a religion of peace i tell you …
        i note i person thinks it reminds him of london

           4 likes

        • johnnythefish says:

          ‘The government has blocked some websites for hurting religious sentiments’.

          Wonder if Leveson’s recommendations will be implemented in full.

             4 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          This must be the kind of “less nuanced” reaction Huw Edwards was referring to back when the BBC was demonizing that dopey pastor in Florida for mentioning that he was thinking about burning a Koran.

             5 likes

    • Joshaw says:

      Got a better idea – join the 21st century for a day.

         9 likes

    • +james says:

      6a00d8341c60bf53ef017c37262095970b-600wi

         3 likes

      • +james says:

        I presume the BBC means Non-Muslim Females are being asked to try the hijab for a day.

        If blokes wore it for a laugh I suppose they might be offended.

           13 likes

      • noggin says:

        kosovo headscarf ban schools

        turkey headscarf ban schools

        france headscarf ban schools

        what the hell is the out of touch bbc doing
        promoting wearing it?

           11 likes

      • David Brims says:

        Sickening. If you have a glance at BBC childrens programmes, the Cultural Marxist brainwashing is at its worst.

           8 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      LOL!

      Some good comments there, here’s one:

      “Awesome! Can they have they’re drivers licenses taken and be beaten by the men in their families! Let’s give them the full Muslim experience!”

         17 likes

  43. regag says:

    Without a shadow of doubt the BBC will be asking young Muslims to ‘try wearing a cross for a day’ to find out more about why people wear them. You know, just for that precious BBC reporting balance we hear about so often…

       18 likes

    • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

      To repeat a previous comment, but indeed apt here:
      Get the bbc female employees to try female circumcision for a week!

         16 likes

  44. Guest Who says:

    It’s rather a shame that this little niche site, which no one reads, or pays attention to, seems to have hit the less than magical 200+ backwater on the latest open thread in less than 24hrs plus, I notice, passing the 15M mark not too long ago.
    Here’s one from an editor of the £4B BBC:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19250118
    To be fair, they do tend to pull ’em quite quick, so he may have made double digits in another week.
    Looking across the BBC Editor blogs they really don’t seem too fussed by the whole interactive thing any more, with most, assuming they are yet back from hols (Ms. Flanders ever doting), forgoing the option.
    It will be interesting to see if The Editors celebrates its full month of silence tomorrow, which is a metaphor for so much.
    Maybe they could retitle it ‘The Redactors’ in honour of all the news they didn’t feel the urge to mention of late?

       11 likes

  45. Louis Robinson says:

    Katty Kay invites you to ask her questions:

    “Confused about sequestration? I’ll try to make sense of it (is that possible?) at 2.30pm EST in a twitter Q&A #AskBBCKatty – send me your ?s”

    I do not tweet. Would someone ask her whose idea the sequestration was? Watch her protect the Pharaoh. (2:30 ET is 7:30 British time.)

       5 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I’d also like to ask her if spending is actually going to increase, and if this is really only a slight reduction in how much.

         4 likes

  46. Guest Who says:

    I keep hearing how the BBC Trust is here to ensure the best use is made of UK licence fee payers’ money.
    If so, their Handshakes & Parachutes Division must be a hoot.
    There’s the head honcho going ‘Sorry to see you go George; here’s a wad of dosh anyway. Oh, here’s another on top’.
    Then there’s the incoming:
    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/bbc-essentials.html?
    ‘There’s one piece of BBC spin that defeats me. It is apparently ok for Ms Bulford to get close to £400k, because she’s replacing both Zarin Patel (CFO) and Caroline Thomson. Caroline’s job as COO was abolished, wasn’t it, BEFORE Ms Bulford’s arrival ? The BBC has teetered on for nearly six months without her… ‘
    If they make better output than that I can’t see the £4Bpa going too far past the first quarter.
    Unique.

       4 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      So much for the notion that the top-heavy management problem is going to be fixed. They simply don’t care about any criticism. They reluctantly gave up the one scapegoat (who was not the head they wanted to put on the spike outside the Tower for public display), but the only other quasi-casualty from this is Stephen Mitchell, who still gets to stay on for six months at full whack and train his replacement how to carry on as before as if nothing happened, and then retire on full pension. Boaden moved sideways with no other penalty, and they keep adding new layers of top management, the exact opposite of all recommendations.

      And the BBC will get away with it because they published the criticisms. Just like they do with viewer opinions, the fact that they print them or broadcast phone-ins means they’ve “listened”. And then they get to tell you how wonderful it all is because only the BBC would have such a public spectacle about internal matters.

      However, there’s a difference between listening and heeding.

      They’ll get away with it because of the whole “national treasure” thing, and they know it.

         6 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘They’ll get away with it because of the whole “national treasure” thing, and they know it.’
        Certainly when my (Tory) Daily Politics sofa-addicted MP actually uses such a phrase when shrugging his tweedy shoulders at his powerlessness in the face of an institution revered over the decades, yes.
        But then, he has only 3 more years before the error of that may become apparent.
        There are other avenues.

           2 likes

  47. Guest Who says:

    I signed up for the BBC ‘breaking news’ email ages ago.
    It is an interesting insight into the priorities and moral relativism that exists within the corporation.
    I haven’t had one for a while, so I guess nothing of note can have taken place.
    Then, today, out of the blue, the skies darkened, the birds fell silent, and the presses stopped…
    Great Train Robber dies

    Bruce Reynolds, the man who planned the Great Train Robbery in 1963, has died aged 81.
    I can safely say I have never heard of this man, and if his one contribution to his stay on this mortal coil was planning a robbery that resulted in innocents being maimed, I won’t miss him now he’s left.
    Quite why the UK national broadcaster felt this was the top story of the week remains a mystery.
    Will we get a senior editor moved to tears on air too?
    Easton… start plucking those nose hairs!

       7 likes

    • Jeff says:

      The only innocent injured was the heroic driver who refused to move the train. Otherwise it would have been regarded as a victimless crime. The culprits weren’t choir boys, but neither were they mindless thugs. At the time it was the biggest heist in history. Nowadays more violence is used to to get an old lady’s handbag for a measly few quid.

         2 likes

    • stewart says:

      Bourgeois love a ‘scally’ as long as they stay in the ‘theme park’ and dont move next door

         0 likes

  48. AsISeeIt says:

    Multiple choice question

    Given the headline titles of a BBC correpondent’s recent reports – guess their area of expertise.

    Choose from:

    a) Politics
    b) European Far-Right Politics
    c) World Affairs
    d) Youth and Technology
    e) Ethnic Minority Rights within Europe
    f) International Labour History
    g) Economics

    The reports are:

    19 February 2013
    Greece asylum: Journey through a broken system

    13 February 2013
    ‘Blackmail, terrorism and tension’

    17 January 2013
    Abe Lincoln and the ‘sublime heroism’ of British worker

    18 December 2012
    Amid scars of past conflict Spanish far right grows

    20 November 2012
    Yang Jisheng: The man who discovered 36 million dead

    14 November 2012
    China’s Great Hall minus the people

    1 November 2012
    I meet Tumblr whizz-kid David Karp

    26 October 2012
    Love or nothing: The real Greek parallel with Weimar

    24 October 2012
    Greek police accused over racism

    17 October 2012
    Alarm at Greek police ‘collusion’ with far-right

    15 October 2012
    From networked protest to ‘non-capitalism’

    [Massive clue (or perhaps it isn’t?) : the BBC man in question is Paul Mason]

    [Correct answer : “g” (believe it or not?) Paul Mason is Newsnight ECONOMICS editor]

       5 likes

  49. wallygreeninker says:

    A trivial enough point but would you describe a fall of 6.7% as ‘slight’ (young people not in education, employment or training (16 – 24) numbers have dropped from 957,000 in the last quarter of 2011 to 893,000 at the end of 2112.

    If “Skills Minister Matthew Hancock welcomed the falls: ‘These figures show the proportion of young people not in employment, education or training has fallen sharply, and at 16-18 is the lowest comparable figure for a decade.’ ” why does the Beeb feel the need to head the story:
    “Young jobless ‘Neets’ total falls slightly”

       4 likes