Written an amusing pamphlet comparing the United States government and its foreign policy choices with those facing the Corleone mafia clan from 1972 gangster classic The Godfather ?
“… the ageing Don, Vito Corleone – emblematic of a declining hegemony …”
“… when he’s shot at the fruit-stand this is in many ways a parallel to what happened to the United States on September the 11th …”
Take 10 minutes of primetime breakfast listening.
You couldn’t make it up.
Further to David’s post, this from Guido Fawkes :
When the result came in yesterday Mark Mardell looked shocked and sounded exasperated. The BBC has continually been running this line in its reporting of Ireland’s historic vote on the Lisbon Treaty:
“Just over three million Irish voters are registered – in a European Union of 490 million people.”
The implication is clear. Those beastly Paddies are depriving everyone else in Europe of the benefits of the Lisbon Treaty. They want to convey the image of a minority running rough shod over every one else. The BBC fails to mention that Ireland is not depriving Europeans of their say. It is the only member state which gave its people a say on the matter. It is the other member states who are depriving their people of a say lest they give the wrong answer.
There’s more – read the whole thing.
UPDATE – from a Guido commenter :
BBC reporting yesterday was a disgrace. They continued to say that turnout was 45% even after the official result was declared (the actual turnout was 53.13%, “a significant improvement on past referendums” – LT). Either wilful distortion or BBC hack too thick to look up the official referendum website.
UPDATE2 – On Any Answers Eddie Mair read out a letter arguing that the low turnour of only 40% compromised the authority of the vote. Mair, out of bias or (more likely IMHO) ignorance, failed to point out the correct turnout. These people just aren’t up to the job.
A seventeen-minute prime time euthanasia promotion, courtesy of Tuesday’s Today programme.
One pro-euthanasia campaigner given the easiest of breathless interviews by reporter Jon Manel, no anti-euthanasia campaigners, an interview with euthanasia sceptic and hospice doctor Sheila Cassidy featuring John Humphrys trying (not very hard) and failing completely to keep on the right side of the line that divides reporter from advocate. The interview was actually Humphrys arguing with Dr Cassidy in favour of euthanasia.
“My father … ghastly few years … enormously distressing …why couldn’t he have been given a bit of help ?”
“I suppose it’s because it’s against the law”
“Couldn’t the law be changed ?”
John Humphrys, as an outspoken advocate of euthanasia, should never have been chosen to present this piece. The editor, whoever he or she was, has made a dreadful – and disgraceful – decision.
(Declaration of personal interest – I find it objectionable that my taxes are used to give a platform to an already wealthy journalist’s campaign to allow the killing of the sick (but not murderers)).
Is it just me, or is the BBC’s current ‘It’s all in the database‘ money-with-menaces ad wonderfully Orwellian ? The background siren, the dog barking, the knock on the door ?
This site has an interesting video of a licensing official stepping perhaps beyond his remit.
Adloyada reports on the destruction of Jewish civilian graves in East London, French Muslim war graves in France, and British (Christian) war graves in Gaza.
Only one of these stories gets BBC coverage. You would simply never guess which.
And two “spots” at Harry’s Place – the ten-minute commercial for the Socialist Worker’s Party towards the close of Sunday’s Westminster Hour – and the still unanswered questions about BBC researcher Nasreen Suleaman and her testimony at a recent terrorism trial.
Where would the BBC be without it’s regular diet of “surveys”, “reports” and “enquiries” ? On Radio Four’s seven o’clock news this morning, the first three of four stories were all supplied to the BBC. While I’m not a great fan of the journalist Nick Davies’ analytical capabilities, his observational skills are first class – and in his book Flat Earth news he charges that too many news organisations are content to regurgitate the press releases without enquiring into the motives behind them.
Today’s top story featured an organisation new to me, the “Independent Asylum Commission“, which has produced a report lambasting Britain for its appalling treatment of asylum seekers. Said report is getting top billing on BBC news.
The morning is young, and I have work to do. But given that the Commission is sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, what are the odds that it will turn out to consist of pro-asylum, pro-immigration activists ? If any commenters have time to dig I’d be grateful.
Let’s look at another “independent” organisation.
From BBC News a while back :
Reforms of the criminal justice system are largely ineffective in cutting crime, an independent think-tank says.
The Crime and Society Foundation, at King’s College, London, says ministers should focus instead on tackling root causes such as poverty and sexism.
This ‘independent think-tank‘ is staffed by :
A former communications director for the anti-prison, pro-criminal National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders.
A former researcher for the anti-prison ‘children’s liberation’ National Children’s Bureau and the Child Poverty Action Group.
A former Communications Officer at Action for Prisoners’ Families.
A former employee of the Howard League for Penal Reform, aka the Howard League For The Abolition of Punishment.
On its advisory board sits the anti-prison campaigner Una Padel and one Nick Page. Could it be this Nick Page ? Alas I think it’s this one.
There’s “independent”. And there’s BBC “independent”.
UPDATE – I see David and I have taken the same story this morning. Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend, as Chairman Mao once said.
David reported yesterday on the hefty BBC coverage given to the views of one Paul McGarr, “a teacher from east London“, who doesn’t like our armed forces much. He featured prominently in news bulletins as well.
Alas, there were one of two things about Mr McGarr that the BBC didn’t care to share with their listeners, viewers and readers. A pity, as they may have provided much-needed context.
Oliver Kamm reports that Mr McGarr is a former council candidate in Millwall for the far-left Respect party. He also links to this piece by Mr McGarr in the far-left paper Socialist Worker, written just before the military campaign against Saddam Hussein.
Socialists have done and continue to do all in our power to build the movement to prevent war and to stop war when it starts. But if war starts the very worst outcome would be a quick victory for the US and Britain.
The best response to war would be protests across the globe which make it impossible for Bush and Blair to continue. But while war lasts by far the lesser evil would be reverses, or defeat, for the US and British forces. That may be unlikely, given the overwhelming military superiority they enjoy. But it would be the best outcome in military terms.
Mr Kamm puts it better than I can :
In short, and given the fact of the Iraq War, Paul McGarr and Socialist Worker wanted Saddam Hussein to win and our armed forces to be defeated. This is not what I say: it’s what they say.
I find it impossible to believe that the BBC would give several paragraphs to, say, a BNP activist talking about immigration, without (correctly) letting viewers and listeners know the political allegiance which informs their speech. Yet a far-left activist who actually wants our soldiers to be defeated is given a free ride. Is it that their journalists know, but don’t care ? Or are they too lazy to type a name into Google ?
The BBC have previous when it comes to this sort of thing. And it’s worth noting that the annual NUT conference is one of only FIVE recorded occasions when BBC News online have detected the presence of a British ‘far-left’. Admittedly the detection took place in 1999.
Hat-tips – DB and other B-BBC commenters, who also point out :
Reporter Hannah Goff is a union activist (I was once an NUR shop steward, mind, so I can’t talk)
Who produced this puff-piece about the keffiyeh-wearing chap who wrote this and this ?
Who fails to mention the fate of resolutions (p90) proposing that curriculum material be provided by CND-except-Iran, the Stop The War Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign ?
Ten minutes to one and as I wandered into the kitchen a public-school English voice was describing the evils of U.S. capital punishment, with lots of doomy-gloomy incidental colour (“we drove on, our mood – and the weather, overcast … incongruously a mynah bird was crying out in the next room …each morning we loaded up the van and drove to the frontier of life and death …“.
“Not Clive Stafford Smith again – he must have a contract with them, he’s on so often. Hang on – it should be “From Our Own Correspondent” at this time of day, surely ? They’re not giving him a slot on that, are they ?”
No, not Clive Stafford-Smith – but one Vivien White, who has been around a long time. It’s a tribute to his dispassionate reporting that they’re so easy to mix up. You can judge for yourself if you click the link for Saturday on the FOOC page – about 20 minutes in.
Blogger Dumb Jon :
Thinking further on the BBC’s already notorious ‘White Girl’ drama, it occurs to me that the very social pathologies which the BBC was bagging the natives for are all things which the left, and the BBC in particular, has assiduously promoted for forty years …
The bottom line is that the BBC not only endorses the underlying attitudes that lead to these social pathologies, but just about every other BBC drama before ‘White Girls’ depicted being hung up about rampant shagging and drug abuse as the mark of an uptight, loser square.
As you can see. They just can’t help feeling proud of themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, “1968”.
A season of programmes on Radio 4 to mark the 40th anniversary of a momentous year – 1968. It was the year of student protests across the globe, riots in the streets of Paris, assassinations rocked America and Soviet Tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Sexual liberation, civil rights, drugs and music were said to shape the thinking of a generation. The pulse for the season will be provided by 1968 – Day by Day.
Yes, it’ll be dope, rock’n’roll, and f***ing in the streets for the next few weeks on Radio Four. Not available on the Asian Network.
The Pub Philosopher reviews “White Girl”, Abi Morgan’s gritty urban drama about typical Yorkshire folk.
Readers will not be too astonished to discover that Ms Morgan is the daughter of a director and an actor, nor that she reads the Guardian and does her research on Google. Nothing wrong in that, of course. But I’m pretty sure that she didn’t go to school in Buttershaw or Holme Wood, to name two of the more challenging places to teach in the fair city of Bradford. I’d be interested to know how much time she spent living in Bradford before producing this rounded portrait of the city.
Killer quote :
The film finished with the mother refusing to return to their old house with her abusive husband and saying “I divorce thee” three times, as her neighbour had said that was all you needed to do to get a divorce under Islamic law. The script writer forgot to point out that only men can initiate this form of divorce under Muslim law but what the hell – it’s only a film isn’t it?
Andrew Billen in the Times sums it up :
“the telling was so good I almost forgot what propagandist tosh White Girl actually was”
