Did anyone see The Sunday Politics today? In the London section, Norman Smith, presenting in place of Jo Coburn, seemed to be busting a gut to accuse Theresa May of lying when she said that they would find the Grenfell survivors permanent homes within three weeks.
What evidence did he have to support such a serious accusation? He didn't produce any. In the absence of any, how does he know what was the PM's mind or intention? There's a big difference between being wrong or unrealistic and lying. How can a BBC presenter get away with that? I know he's excitable and always seems to be jumping out of his skin over something but that seemed to me to be going beyond proper enquiry or comment. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has seen it or could review it on iPlayer.
I didn't see it but I'll take a look at it. Norman Smith is certainly excitable and often lets his hyperbole get the better of him but he's also prone to bias.
It's worth reading the whole of Andrew O'Hagan's book/article - May and Saj-Jav don't come out well - and nor, particularly, do the screaming activists. May's from the hip claim to find homes for all the unfortunates within 3 weeks was uttered without any serious analysis, and so was utterly dishonest.
Yes, the present PM and the new home secretary come out of Andrew O'Hagan's piece disgracefully. I've posted a transcript of today's 'Sunday Politics: London' debate about it for better-informed-than-me readers to judge whether presenter Norman Smith overstepped the mark in pushing the line that Mrs May lied about that 3 weeks pledge.
I would understand that promise to refer to non-hotel accommodation and to embrace temporary homes. A lot of the survivors were, not unreasonably, perhaps reluctant to accept temporary accommodation that they feared might be made permanent or which was in a location unsuitable for school or work compared with the GT location. That doesn't necessarily make May a liar, although I've not looked into the matter myself.
It seems to have taken the BBC about 18 hours to report the large scale disturbance at an Eritrean "Cycling" Event in Manchester...What happened during those 18 hours? Does the BBC have some internal procedure for delaying "sensitive" items involving communal violence? You can imagine someone at the BBC with a post title "Head of Sensitivity" who chairs the "Sensitivity Assessment Committee".
Incidentally the BBC doesn't feature the poster advertising the event which makes it sound a lot more like politics than cycling.
A new cat! Regenerated à la Dr Who, one presumes. I do worry about the last one though. To the casual observer, it might have looked your archetypal pampered, vacuum cleaner-clogging kind of house-cat, but look again; look at those eyes! That, I submit, is not a cat preoccupied by banal feline concerns: "Where's my next tin of Whiskas coming from?, "Are they going to have the gall to serve me skimmed milk again tonight?" or "Am I about to be grabbed by the President of the USA? No, that is a traumatised cat - a cat suffering from existential angst.
My theory is that the cat, a tom not so long ago, was whisked off to the vet's for a spot of gender-reassignment. This accounts for its wistful expression, tinged with resentment. If you think you also detect a hint of puzzlement, you're right,it's trying to work out whether it's a 'ze', a 'hir', or a 'zir'. Fortunately, the BBC is an expert in these matters (ad nauseam) and will no doubt be happy to advise.
You're right! Cat Nipp as she is now known (you may recall she read the news on the other thread) was originally born Christopher (Kit) Nippolopolos. He was rescued from his reprobate tomcat lifestyle by a group of concerned feminists called "The Kindest Cut". Cat Nipp is now happy in herself. "Losing my balls was the best thing that ever happened to me," she purred during a recent interview in the Sunday Times's weekly "Where I Spray" feature. "I've gone from rampant tom to contented kitten." However, if there is one thing which will get her baring her teeth and hissing, it's ailurophobia. "There are still too many ailurophobes out there. If we are to build a tolerant society we need to hunt them down, ripped out their guts and feast on their innards," she announced boldy, flashing her trademark enigmatic smile.
MB: Nice to know the spirit of the Telegraph's 'Peter Simple' lives on in this blog!:) Do hope you have a legal protection policy, though - you may need to get 'lawyered-up' when, inspired by your words, the razor-wielding equality-twins, I speak of none other than than the Mizzez Gracie & Husain, have rampaged through the 'Today' studio, leaving John Humphrys singing in a higher register than of yore! Dr Spacely-Welby, the go-ahead Archbishop of Canterbury is unavailable for comment - it is believed he is praying for world peace in an ashram somewhere in the foothills of Smethwick.
Yes, I think I must have been channelling Peter Simple, which I take as a great compliment...he was very funny, but of course his flights of satirical fantasy have now sadly become mainstream politics and culture.
You're right, Peter Simple is an excellent writer to channel - just a pity the great wet-Left is now using his writings as a training manual! I wonder what he would make of the snowflake generation!
The BBC found time for the knickers protest against Christopher Chope, involving perhaps a max of two people.
However the "Free Tommy" protest involving probably 10,000 people in central London got no coverage, apart from a brief negative report on a clash between police and demonstrators.
It's good to know they have got their priorities right, I mean Left.
I didn't hear it but I heard the trailer for an earnest Radio 5 Live discussion regarding why this time round for the World Cup there are so few England flags around...
The BBC wants to have its cake and eat it!
It wants people to indulge in faux patriotism but not real patriotism.
Having rubbished English football supporters, the English Defence League, and English nationalism (see Craig's posts on Mark Easton's anti-English reports), whilst at the same time championing colonial compensation, internationalism, the EU, Islam, Hope not Hate, and PC multicuturalism, they wonder why so few people want to fly the English flag with it's cross of St George...
Might it not be because people think if they do they will be arrested and sentenced to 13 months in chokey?
They just want tame monkeys flying the flag when it's international football time, that's all and otherwise keeping their mouths shut.
Quite! Over the last, 25 years, since the mid 90s the population of potential England supporters in London must have dropped from maybe 70% to something more like 25%.
The BBC prefer a cosy sort of patriotism - that with groups of supporters (from all sorts of countries) in a happy cosmopolitan street setting surrounded by good humour and frothing European beer. In that way, there is no threat of populism, nor any danger of nationalistic political outreach.
This all fits in very nicely with a happy European community and an inclusive diverse London.
On the BBC R4 website it is now advertising a programme "National Health Stories; Poor Treatment - How the nation coped before the NHS with basic treatments and kitchen table surgery". Implies that time would have stood still without the envy of the World being created in 1948. Cripes the NHS is important and of supernatural status.
There's a very interesting piece on BBBC by Ian Rushlow June 20th 10.26 am:
... A contact of mine who worked within the BBC explained that it works along the following lines: 1. They have ‘indirect’ or ‘oblique’ topics that are designed to support key themes. For instance, the obsession with black women’s hair is to support the racism discusson (sic) and menstruation articles support women’s issues/feminism. 2. Certain themes have ‘standing orders’ associated with them, and will be returned to time and time again to promote them. These are usually in support of UN, EU or Government themes, for example Sugar Tax and Eating Insects are currently on the list. 3. Articles are prepared in advance, such that they are ‘ready to go’ at an opportune moment. Sometimes considerable effort has been expended on these, including interviews, detailed graphics and so on, often working with NGO, activists and comrade organisations such as Buzzfeed and SPLC. So, for instance, if there is a ‘news’ item about migrants or American gun crime, a detailed explanatory/propaganda piece is available to supplement it. All of the above may seem blatantly obvious, but it is interesting that there are formal mechanisms in place and none of it is random....
This confirms what we at ITBBCB? have always known.
Sounds v plausible. The PC mulitculturalists are like an eco system feeding off various issues and policies.
Sometimes they feed on each other as we see with feminists and TG advocates or in the struggles between Corbynites and Blairites! - but most of the time it is a co-operative eco-system that feeds off the rich nutrients of grievance, avarice and advancement.
There are globalist billionaires who want no borders free movement of labour and capital for their own selfish financial reasons...there are overlapping interests there with liberal and socialist internationalists of various types who oppose nationalism as backward looking and want to see borders eradicated. Socialism overlaps with feminism (really, uberfeminism). There is considerable overlap between socialist/feminists and the soggy left but of course soggy leftists tend to venture more into transgender, gay and other lifestyle issues. Socialists, feminists and the soggy left have a strong affinity with the public spending lobby (which of course includes a lot of hard business types) which in turn is closely linked to the trade union movement. Minority lobbying looks to further the interests of minorities of all types, but especially ethnic minorities. The minority lobbyists support free movement and unrestricted migration. Mass migration is one of the key elements in the eco system: it delivers moral virtue to sentimental internationalists, it delivers votes to Labour, it undermines nationalism, and creates myriad opportunities for silencing opposition under threat of the R word.
This PC eco system has a sort of symbiotic relationship with Islam even though ideologically the two could not be further apart and both ideologies would dearly like to kill off the other (the BBC in no way likes or endorses Islam in my view - they are just scared of it, recognise its power and are trying to co-opt into the system they support). The PC multiculturalists pretend that Islam is just another minority group like other minorities (as opposed to a total ideology with global ambitions). Islamic groups go along with the pretence as much as it suits them.
The BBC fits into this eco-system as the voice of soggy-leftism...Blairite at its harder business end and emotive/irrational at its soggiest.
Of course a lot of BBC media types do very well out of the system enjoying large salaries, secure jobs, good pensions and an enviable lifestyle. It's not hairshirt leftism that floats their boat.
Its a strange thing but on the Sunday political offerings from the BBC, Wednesday was billed as a "make or break" test for the government, could be the end of Theresa May, could be a no-confidence vote, an election, the end of Brexit etc.etc. But it seems all television coverage has found something new to report (an old NHS scandal, again) ? I wonder what happened ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44542156
Yep Newsnight spent half an hour on the NHS scandal and then dealt with the remarkable volte face of the Tory "rebels" in a couple of minutes. On the main news, they gave prominence to Grieve's self-serving remarks in Parliament while suggesting that the Government won the vote because of the machinations of Government Whips and giving no excerpts from pro-Leave MPs. Laura K. looked positively funereal on delivering the news about the vote. As usual there was no mention of the fact that all Tory MPs all stood on a manifesto in 2017 that said we were leaving the EU, leaving its single market and leaving its Customs Union.
You can see the disappointment writ large in Jo Coburn describing it on the Daily Politics as a bit of a damp squib. I thought it was quite dramatic myself with a tight vote, the objector in chief giving way at the eleventh hour and the key withdrawal Bill getting through. Phew!
The BBC loves drama and sensation, much of it created by its own busy chattering and opining. It seems though it has to be drama in a certain direction only that will satisfy. If Brexit wasn't stalled, the government in crisis and the PM in jeopardy, that's a damp squib.
"OK guys we've got a discussion about EU migration and Merkel's proposals for a coalition of the willing...Who can we draft in to give the required objective insights and balance?"
"I know - how about Judy Dempsey, author of a major hagiography of Merkel and Timothy Garton-Ash, serial misjudger of events who describes himself as a "liberal internationlist" and believes the EU embodies the principles of liberal internationalism."
Mishal Husain, interviewing, seemed to think the BBC had "got the balance about right." But it was interesting to hear her describe the illegal migration into Europe as "a burden" that needed to be shared. That's not how I recall the migration wave of 2015. I don't recall Jenny Hill jumping up and down and shouting "Here's comes a big burden that will need to be shared." I seem to recall all the migrants they interviewed were going to become engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, professional footballers and classical musicians. I don't recall a single one saying "I will be a welfare recipient for many years and so will my family."
Yes,the Beeb is mounting one last(?) big Remainiac push. Even the Midlands TV news was at it, hi-jacking a friendly visit by Norman farmers to their Herefordshire counterparts & turning it into a Brexit-bashing exercise. The message from both lots of farmers was that they would like more details (wouldn't we all), but it was left to the on-the-spot reporter to assure us, as he summarised for the studio anchor-man, that he had spoken to a number of farmers who voted Leave & a some of them had told him they were having second thoughts. Just a pity he didn't manage to film that isn't it?
There's a subtle change in emphasis from the BBC this morning over:
...'Airbus warns no-deal Brexit could see it leave UK'...
Today's project fear is concerned with 'what happens if we can't extend the transition period?' The BBC finally seems to have accepted that Brexit will happen. Now, attention has shifted - now to undermine the UK negotiating position on the terms of Brexit.
Yes, the long faces of the Beebists suggests they realise Brexit will now go through. As you say, the all important thing now is to keep us tied as closely to the EU as possible. They are quite shameless about having to reverse all their previous propaganda, as previously they went big on suggesting this was an impossibly complex task - remember how they kept telling us trade deals take 7-10 years to negotiate? Now they will be telling us that a deal can be done but only one that keeps us in close embrace with the EU. If they achieve that, then the BBC's campaign to get Labour to commit to a second referendum on rejoining the EU after we leave can begin.
easyJet and British Airways are two of Airbus' most important customers. Will they, Airbus, run the risk of alienating them? As usual, the BBC accentuates the negative (that's one of Craig's lines).
Agree with you both LC & MB. The airbus woman assured us this has nothing to do with project fear - it does, of course; I think I'm right in saying the UK has been a world leader in advanced wing design & manufacture since Concorde - could any EU country replace us overnight? As for the BMW Mini chap, he'd do better to worry about what will happen to BMW exports if Donald Trump slaps on 20% tax!
Alex Deane on Sky News tonight (as so often, better balanced than the BBC News Channels paper reviews), began (just as few minutes back):
"People with good memories in the UK will remember this is the same business that said they would leave if we didn't join the euro. Thank goodness we didn't join the euro, and Airbus is still here.
Then, of course, before we had the referendum, they said they would strongly consider leaving were we so foolish as to vote to determine our own national future and vote to leave the EU, and we did so and they're still here."
With a rare free weekend ahead I should probably check that. Has the BBC been airing such points?
The BBC allowed some comments from a pro-Leave group on WATO suggesting Airbus was act on orders of the French government. :) But only after we'd non stop news, analysis and Mardell comments all taking the Airbus Project Fear contribution very seriously.
What a shame we don't have a Trump negotiating for our side. "Maybe we won't let Airbus fly through our airspace, folks. Who knows? I'm a reasonable guy, but her comments I found disrespectful, I've got to be honest."
BBC publishes an article by alleged experts from something called "Centre for Cities" referencing the huge growth in city centre populations...which doesn't make any mention of mass immigration. Bit odd that. Fortunately the non-expert comments in a rare "Have Your Say" make good the omission.
I've not looked into this yet but the one thing I know about Centre for Cities is that it was an offspring of pre-Corbyn Labour's favourite think tank, the Blairite IPPR. That might explain their 'mind blank' over immigration.
Interesting comment about Question Time from Steve Richards on Twitter: unwatchable...doomed...5th panellist...editors naïvely going for downmarket predictability...
For any masochists among us, Profile of Grieve on Radio 4 by Mark Coles at 7 this evening.
"His wife Caroline tells Mark Coles he has been misunderstood, and describes how he agonised over this week's vote. She also outlines some of the quirkier aspects of her husband's character."
One of the many unattractive aspects of the ghastly man is that he sounds like the ghastly George Osborne. Similar thin horrible voice.
Does anyone listen to that Clive Anderson programme Loose Ends on Radio 4? Out of seven guests I've heard of only one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6pjmc I wonder who they all are and what they are about. There isn't anything there to make me want to listen or think I'm missing something when I take to Radio 3 on Saturday evenings.
When I looked up the Instituto Igarape, which appears to have produced the maps referenced in the video, I found - surprise, surprise that Soros's Open Society Foundations were supporting the "think tank" (aka propaganda unit).
This is pure Fake News that the BBC is foisting on the public. To take one example, the video referenced parts of Florida going under the water due to global warming.
I looked into this Florida myth previously. The key problem in Florida is that they have been building and continue to build huge urban settlements on not v. stable ground (bascially marshes). That exerts downward pressure on the land (ie the land sinks) and because the underlying rock is very porous limestone which is soaked with sea water, the inevitable result is increased flooding. That has nothing to do with global warming, although global warming could of course exacerbate the problem. But if you were genuinely interested in the science of global warming the last place you would start is Florida, not the first as in this video.
Putting videos like this up is pure lying propaganda with no right of even the usual cursory response allowed in other parts of the BBC.
Yesterday, the BBC news was certain that Erdogan's days were numbered in Turkey, with a centre-left hero taking a majority in Parliament and forcing a second round in the presidential vote. Today, none of the above happened. Has all journalism at the BBC given way to wishful thinking ?
Wishful thinking, spite, misrepresentation, fact denial...the list goes on! Sounds to be like Erdogan dragged the BBC into his master plan, which was to make it seem like there was a real democratic process taking place in Turkey which could conceivably result in Erdogan being replaced. I never thought that likely for one moment.
Their online report about it is still calling it "the most fiercely-fought (election) in many years", despite Erdogan getting an even higher percentage of the vote than he did in 2014 and winning by an even larger margin over the second-placed candidate, with that centre-left hero (who was wowing massive crowds and making it such a white-knuckle fight) scoring 7-8% LESS than the second-placed candidate last time round! Whether wishful thinking or them allowing themselves to be duped by Erdogan, the BBC's Turkish election coverage has been way-off target, reality-wise.
The tweet quoted at the end of the article from the BBC's main reporter there, Mark Lowen, made me laugh. It wasn't just the opposition who was 'dreaming', was it Mark? He even admits to "surprise" at the centre-left hero's failure to turn BBC reporting into reality!:
"The opposition dared to dream...but it seems it was not to be. Celebrations going on late at #AKP HQ in Istanbul. Two surprises: that #Ince couldn’t capitalise on the momentum and that #MHP polled so high. Yet again one half of #Turkey that feels invincible, the other distraught."
For the BBC football is not a sport, it is politics by other means...
Here we go -
Apparently this is what the BBC defines as a Sport/Football story...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44585980
Liverpool's Mayor, the unfortunately named Steve Rotheram (sure he would rather his surname didn't constantly remind us) says:
"To have that breakdown of Islamophobia caused by one person [Mo Salah] is an absolutely phenomenal achievement."
Meanwhile Mo's been cosying up with serial anti-gay, anti-feminist human rights violator Ramzan Kadyrov - almost as if he doesn't give a flying eff about human rights as understood in the UK.
But the BBC are having none of it. They are determined to protect their poster boy. They even go so far as offering Kadyrov the courtesy of repeating his denial of being a human rights abuser - something they don't usually extend to Trump, Putin or Orban.
Here's the pathetic BBC article framing everything as Kadyrov manipulating poor little naive Mo.
Where the BBC piece is a prolonged defence of Mo Salah the Sky piece is the case for the prosecution, ending with demands for answers from Mo from Liverpool FC's LBGT fan group.
Yesterday I sat through “Reporting Trump’s First Year: The Forth Estate” on BBC 2. That was a rather surreal experience. There is something utterly absurd about a bunch of New York Times journalists making a fly on the wall documentary about themselves. Yet with all their colossal self-regard they still don’t get it. In abandoning the people the liberal/left has always represented in favour of extreme identity politics it is they, with their mouthpieces in organisations like the BBC and the New York Times, who created the conditions for a Trump Presidency. Not the voters who they patronise with terms like “populist”.
That's it in a nutshell. I couldn't agree more. They've created these conditions in which there has to be a populist response because the liberal elite have become completely detached from the people.
Alistair Campbell can't complain about this. BBC have now upped their estimate of the Pro-EU, anti-democracy march on Saturday from "tens of thousands" to half a million!!!
Appalling Newnsnight bias tonight. Emily Maitlis aggressively interviewing Hungarian Government rep in a most insulting and partisan fashion. The guy stood his ground. She was obviously pleased by her biased performance.
Followed up later by a segment targetting Poles and Poland.
This was headed up by Nawal Al-Maghafi, presumably a member of the Sharia community. It included a very leisurely interview with a Faith Matters spokesperson, also a member of the Sharia community it would seem. He was just allowed to speak at length with no interruption. By contrast, the interview with the Polish commentator, Marcin Rola, allegedly "far right", was all interruptions and suspicious edits. Is he really far right? Here's his rather naive take on the matter (perhaps not realising how much the BBC will edit you to make you sound incoherent and/or malevolent). (This is a machine translation from his Polish Twitter account).
"The BBC journalist, who interrupted today's patriotic debate in Leeds, decided to do an interview with me after all. The questions were biased, but in my opinion it worked out well. We also recorded this interview so it will go the day after the BBC broadcast"
So BBC did well in defence of Sharia tonight. But they are playing a very, very, very dangerous game.
Critics questioned the fact that she was the daughter of a leading politician, Jacek Rostowski, from Civic Platform - the main opponents of the PiS party - and that in her early 20s she used to work in the office of Radoslaw Sikorski, the then Civic Platform foreign minister. Does she have a personal motive for producing anti PiS reports for 'Newsnight'?
Craig, "Does she have a personal motive?" might also apply to the presenter, Nawal AL-Maghafi.
She is best known for her reports from Yemen. She is of Yemeni background herself. She is the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who was based in London. You don't get to be a Yemeni diplomat in London without having a clear position within Yemeni politics would be my surmise.
How she has herself come to be living in the UK is not clear. She appears to have started her journalistic career as an independent activist in the Arab Spring (which she remains committed to as being an "anti-authoritarian" uprising - a description that displays a lot of bias).
How she went from there to being a "BBC journalist" is not clear. To me it sounds like she is definitely a "player" and not a referee or spectator.
Shameful bias and misreporting in this article. Here is the offending paragraph.
Mrs May's former top aide, Nick Timothy, has urged her to face down her opponents in the cabinet, telling the Daily Telegraph the "time for playing nice and being exploited are over".
In the Telegraph article Nick Timothy was saying that Britain's good faith is being exploited by the Europeans but the BBC framed it to look like her own cabinet were doing the exploiting.
The BBC approach to the EU in my view is "lie or die". They see the EU as vital to the PC multiculturalist project and so protect it at every turn. Why do they never ask the EU why they want to put up a hard border in Northern Ireland? Why didn't they highlight Barnier's cancellation of a press conference yesterday, reportedly because of splits within the EU over whether to offer the UK a "bespoke" deal? Why don't they tell us that Macron is now promoting the idea of European sovereignty and how to increase it? Why do they not make clear that Airbus is basically a Franco-German company with close ties to the EU and the French and German national companies?
Then there is the strange tale of migration. The BBC keeps telling us the migrant crisis is over...because numbers have dwindled away. True up to a point. The crisis of huge sea borne migration has abated significantly.
But in another sense the crisis is just getting started. The EU has no defences against "chain migration" whereby migrants are able to bring in dependents or marry people from abroad and bring in spouses.
There are 22 million non-EU citizens in the EU and 2 million entered legally in 2016. There are also of course huge movements within the EU, with over 400,000 entering Germany in one year, 2016, dwarfing our own figure of 240,000.
So if you add the impact of legal migration to detected undocumented migration and the (huge but unestimated) numbers who enter the EU and are not detected,and then you can see that there are huge migrant communities who have no intention of integrating with the majority cultures in any meaningful sense, you can see the problem is not going away. Added to that the Germans have discovered that the propaganda about the 2015 migrant wave solving their potential labour shortage as their population declines was false. Only a small proportion of migrants have found work outside the state sponsored "make-work" schemes. The migrants are a huge financial burden on the state - tens of billions of Euros every year.
The BBC doesn't want to describe clearly the scale of the migration crisis in the EU beause (a) it undermines their desire to present the EU as a united, confident and formidable superpower and (b) it plays into the Leave arguments for Brexit.
Only just seen this hatchet job by the BBC on Tommy Robinson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVmDWS2rfjY
The BBC gives its opinion that he "hasn't been muzzled" despite that fact that over 500,000 petition signers think he has been muzzled. Sorry BBC, that's just an opinion, but you are presenting that as "fact" and so it is fake news.
No mention of his family life. No comparison with other contempt of court cases. No mention that other independent journos were making videos on the case. Classic bit of direction where they juxtapose general comments about contempt cases to imply that Robinson was guilty of these. No discussion of why reporting restrictions are applied to some cases but not others. No addressing of the fact he was arrested on breach of peace (not contempt of court), but that he was not charged with breach of peace (which would have meant a proper trial). No explanation of why the arrest, charge and trial were over within 24 hours. No discussion of impact on his family. No discussion of whether there was any realistic chance of the trial being collapsed (in my view: absolutely none).
No explanation for why his "name swap" is considered relevant to the issue of whether or not he has been treated freely. Irrelevant but part of the negative spin.
No discussion of why he might have pleaded guilty (possibly having been misadvised by a court lawyer about the likely sentence). No mention of (what I believe to be true) that Robinson is preparing an appeal of some sort.
This is an absolute travesty of a report.
Lastly, why if thousands have been demonstrating on his behalf up and down the country why has the BBC chosen up till now to disguise the fact?
Pointed out by someone at bBBC. The Sun have this story about an alleged £12 million fraud involving immigration judges...pretty incendiary stuff you might think.
It was, in fact, replaced by the story of the 'sex-trading' of Nigerian women to Germany by a British nurse. The presentation of this: an interview by Fiona Bruce, in Germany, was decidedly odd - it felt more like a documentary than a news item. Fiona insisted heavily on the fact that the Nigerian woman was in danger of being deported back to Nigeria, where poverty is rife. Could it be that the BBC believes that she should come to the UK?
I think I heard "British nurse" today...but on the website it's now "London-based nurse".
According to the BBC:
"She was born in Liberia, but became a British citizen in 2009 having been allowed to stay in the UK due to her nursing qualifications."
They've missed a bit out there haven't they? The bit where she was here illegally and should have been deported. But she was allowed to stay by our useless Government. Do we know if her nursing qualifications are genuine? There are loads of bogus nurses in this country who have fake qualifications - forged or corruptly acquired. Has she ever passed a nursing test in this country?
That whole sequence was weird though. On the day the EU was debating tightening migration here was Fiona Bruce, with her doleful eyes and thoughtful head-cocking, highlighting the plight of one migrant who wants to stay in Germany (or somewhere in the EU), and whose story is undoubtedly a sad one. You could tell the emotive tone as well from some of the language used, e.g. that the woman was "just 21".
Yes - I think they're softening us up, ready for when May signs us up to a rotten deal with the EU which requires us to take 'our fair share' of the problem Merkel created.
The key thing for all PC multiculturalist virtue-signallers is NEVER to discuss numbers! If you say, OK you're happy to let in 4,000...what about 40,000...what about 400,000 or 4 million? they will look at you like you just accused their mother of fellating the milkman.
When you get down to it, it's all about "numbers". There was a time I recall when Labour and Lib Dems always accused Tories of "playing the numbers game" when it came to migration. Well it is a numbers game. At a certain point we find that numbers have changed the nature of society.
The sane approach of course is to have an active policy of encouraging people-orientated development in Africa and elsewhere - rather than oligarch-orientated development. Africans need roads, functioning schools and mobile phone masts. They can sort the rest out themselves.
The world class BBC News service finally got round to noting that British industry had won a £20 billion defence contract from Australia...about 10 hours after more reputable news outlets...
Ah, but you see the world class BBC news service had to hold a seies of meetings to discuss how to spin this unpalatable news item - I mean, it might give the impression that Brexit isn't harming our defence industry! Wasn't BAe supposed to be one of the main losers if Leave won?
Meanwhile, in other news, the BBC is bravely criticising a global religion for its oppression of children, its attempts to control their behaviour and its denial of normal instincts. What is this religion you ask? Mormonism. Yes, very brave of them.
And by the way I think the Church of Latter Day Saints etc don't like being called "The Mormon Church".
Occasionally the world class BBC News Service decides to spend a couple of hundred quid out of its £5 billion revenue to bring us something that is inspiring, interesting and insightful...before returning to its self appointed task of spending the £4billion plus remainder on its usual obsessions about sexism in football, lack of gender balance in engineering, and domination of the business world by white males - and about 3000 other "equality" issues.
Still, enjoy the £200 worth of your dosh they spent on this:
According to the BBC there’s been a surge in UK citizens applying for UK citizenship - Surge would equal a lot yes? Er no not really it’s gone from 6 thousand to 12 thousand, only really news if you want to imply something with the headline....
UK citizens seeking EU citizenship? I've just seen the article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44629193
Apparently the BBC believe there is an EU Nation since they talk about EU nationality. But maybe they mean nationality of countries within the EU.
Remember all that hype about UK citizens with Irish family background seeking Irish citizenship? And it looks like 400 more than before have obtained citizenship.
I think the surge is explained in part by the natural growth in marriages between migrants and UK citizens resulting from the huge influx of EU citizens per annum who then marry UK citizens. The German surge I think has to do with migrant communities (from SW Asia and Turkey) continuing to maintain their ability to travel at will across Europe.
Very interesting viewing figures published this week.
BBC One's output in the first five months of the year was down nine per cent across the schedule and 14 per cent in primetime when compared to the same period in 2017.
Their response did make me chuckle - typical BBC speak....
A BBC spokesman said: "BBC One is the most watched channel in the UK and the proud winner of three Channel of the Year awards. BBC One brings the nation together and takes risks with a range of high quality, distinctive programmes where ratings are not the only measure of success."
I think it will become harder for them to justify the licence fee and employee salaries as their audience dwindles.
Yes there must come a point at which it becomes politically unsustainable, however much the frit MPs feel they have to bow to the BBC. What is that point? When the BBC has only a 10% share of viewing? Of course they are flattered by the percentages since TV viewing as a whole is declining re other forms of AV entertainment like computer games.
I have always been surprised that Sky have never tried to turn their Sky 1 into a BBC 1 replica.
Anonymous, that's an important decline, do you have the source of those viewing figures? I have checked obvious angles though Google but come up with nothing.
I wonder if it will ever occur to them that viewers are tired of unfunny 'comedy' programmes and didactic dramas peddling the BBC's 'take' on Brexit, diversity, immigration, gender etc. As John Cleese has pointed out, Monty Python would never have been commissioned today - what, educated, white, middle-class males? - out of the question! And how many episodes of Fawlty Towers would have been entangled in the fine mesh ofthe Beeb's PC filters? "Don't mention the war" and Mr O'Reilly would be out, for a start - blatant anti-EU racism!
RE Viewing figures I bet it’s worse than that, it’ll be some kind of “balanced” survey. The funny thing is that I dont think the millennials watch it at all.
Yes - already today's kids don't know how to work a radio; how long 'til they can't work a tv? And whose fault will it be? why, everyone's except their own!
Good observation...part of the grand hypocrisy of this age...these millennials virtue signal but when it comes to their audiovisual entertainment they don't bother with the BBC, they go for box sets and computer games that have, when all is said and done, a pretty traditional view of gender roles and, in music, genres that have in fact parodically over-defined gender roles.
Absolutely, Anonymous. A Hitler & J Stalin had a similar unifying effect. By the way, in case it wasn't clear, when I said above (1st reply in this block) "whose fault will it be? Why, everyone's except their own," I meant the BBC's fault!
Zurcher continued slow decline as he enters the tertiary stage of Trump Derangement Syndrome...
Appallingly biased article that finds every excuse for the left's incivility and resort to bully boy tactics but makes no excuses for the anger of Trumpites.
Uses every BBC trick, including going to an academic who just happens to be an anti-Trumpist (as seen from the ever useful Twitter account) for an "independent" view. Use of photos to demonise Trump supporters and present Trump as hyper-aggressive. Then amnesia on things like HRC's anathematising of a huge proportion of US citizens as "deplorables". Promoting Obama as a "healer" (despite the growth in racial division under him, seen by the rise of BLM under his presidency, his call for illegal migrants to vote in the US Presidential election and his attendance for 20 years at a Church where the preacher indulged in violently anti-American sermons). No recognition that (a) the migrant family separation policy dated back to the Clinton era or (b) that the policy had now been changed.
Zurcher being sarky about Trump's unwillingness to plough through tomes of legalese before deciding on who to appoint to the Supreme Court...does he think Clinton, George W Bush or Obama ever did?
Half of Zurcher wants to mock Trump for believing there is a Deep State apparatus briefing against him, and the other half wants to make use of the Deep State's briefings against Trump...
Eddie Mair is leaving the BBC in August. Good riddance, he is one of the worst in displaying bias. Last I read, he was in dispute over cuts to his pay.
I think we know his type. Just a big mummy's boy whose mummy used to tell him he was brilliant, even though he wasn't...sadly we've had to suffer the result: a hyper-inflated ego. As you say, he is overtly biased. If he ever puts the case for the side he doesn't support he does so in a "I know this is crazy" smirky voice designed to encourage incredulity in the listener. Can't stand him but I guess he had to go to make way for the TGs and other minorities pressing forward.
Eddie Mair can be quite good with 'members of the public', giving them a sympathetic hearing and plenty of support. I eventually had enough of him after one of his 'beast mode' interviews with a government minister over an issue that wasn't anything to do with her department. When he is like that he isn't looking for answers to questions, he is looking for a complete confession of guilt, "when did you stop beating your wife?" writ large. As a listener there is no pleasure in hearing the implied call for a confession over and over and over again. As to making way for minorities, has the BBC realised that their 'gays' are now so mainstream in the organisation that their victim card has expired?
The Windrush debacle has become as highly politicised as Grenfell Tower. BBC London never fails to remind us that the Windrush generation single handedly transformed London. Tonight was a perfect example; in a feature to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS we were introduced to Olga King a member of the Windrush generation from Barbados. She trained as a nurse at Hillingdon Hospital. BBC London took Olga back to Hillingdon to share her memories. In almost the first piece to camera, Olga openly admits that most of the nurses she worked with, and especially those responsible for her training, were all Irish. The early NHS heavily relied on immigrant nurses from Ireland, north and south, to staff and run the new health service yet here was a major BBC feature trying to tell us what a significant contribution the Windrush generation made to the NHS. It was a classic case of the BBC trying to rewrite history.
No disrespect but Olga's story was unremarkable and, as far as I could see, she made no special contribution to the NHS. The whole point of the story was to highlight that Windrush generation made a significant in London to healthcare; a contribution maybe, but 'significant'? Such revisionism, commonplace in many BBC programmes day after day, is insidious and dangerous.
Yes, this desire to rewrite history has become ingrained within all parts of the BBC's output. Even on Songs of Praise, the last three Sundays have been about (1). Grenfell Tower - how the community has 'come together' as a result of the tragedy, (2). the Windrush Generation and how Immigrant churchmen established gospel music and evangelism within the country as they helped to rebuild postwar Britain, and (3 yesterday) it was a celebration of the seventy years of the NHS and how immigrant groups provided staff for the fledgling organisation.
Talking of the NHS, am I alone in finding the BBC's trailer for 70th anniversary celebrations: an ICU heart monitor playing 'Happy birthday to you,' while a patient lies in a coma, pretty damned tasteless?
Did anyone see The Sunday Politics today? In the London section, Norman Smith, presenting in place of Jo Coburn, seemed to be busting a gut to accuse Theresa May of lying when she said that they would find the Grenfell survivors permanent homes within three weeks.
ReplyDeleteWhat evidence did he have to support such a serious accusation? He didn't produce any. In the absence of any, how does he know what was the PM's mind or intention? There's a big difference between being wrong or unrealistic and lying. How can a BBC presenter get away with that? I know he's excitable and always seems to be jumping out of his skin over something but that seemed to me to be going beyond proper enquiry or comment.
I'd be interested to know if anyone else has seen it or could review it on iPlayer.
I didn't see it but I'll take a look at it. Norman Smith is certainly excitable and often lets his hyperbole get the better of him but he's also prone to bias.
DeleteThanks for posting the transcript, Craig.
DeleteIt's worth reading the whole of Andrew O'Hagan's book/article - May and Saj-Jav don't come out well - and nor, particularly, do the screaming activists. May's from the hip claim to find homes for all the unfortunates within 3 weeks was uttered without any serious analysis, and so was utterly dishonest.
ReplyDeleteYes, the present PM and the new home secretary come out of Andrew O'Hagan's piece disgracefully. I've posted a transcript of today's 'Sunday Politics: London' debate about it for better-informed-than-me readers to judge whether presenter Norman Smith overstepped the mark in pushing the line that Mrs May lied about that 3 weeks pledge.
DeleteI would understand that promise to refer to non-hotel accommodation and to embrace temporary homes. A lot of the survivors were, not unreasonably, perhaps reluctant to accept temporary accommodation that they feared might be made permanent or which was in a location unsuitable for school or work compared with the GT location. That doesn't necessarily make May a liar, although I've not looked into the matter myself.
DeleteThe slowest news outfit on the planet?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44511779
It seems to have taken the BBC about 18 hours to report the large scale disturbance at an Eritrean "Cycling" Event in Manchester...What happened during those 18 hours? Does the BBC have some internal procedure for delaying "sensitive" items involving communal violence?
You can imagine someone at the BBC with a post title "Head of Sensitivity" who chairs the "Sensitivity Assessment Committee".
Incidentally the BBC doesn't feature the poster advertising the event which makes it sound a lot more like politics than cycling.
The BBC: 'Reporting the truth/eventually/some of the time.' Delete as appropriate.
DeleteCan I delete all three please?
DeleteYup! :)
DeleteI meant to insert 'some of/' in front of 'the truth'!
CAT PHOTO:
ReplyDeleteA new cat! Regenerated à la Dr Who, one presumes. I do worry about the last one though. To the casual observer, it might have looked your archetypal pampered, vacuum cleaner-clogging kind of house-cat, but look again; look at those eyes! That, I submit, is not a cat preoccupied by banal feline concerns: "Where's my next tin of Whiskas coming from?, "Are they going to have the gall to serve me skimmed milk again tonight?" or "Am I about to be grabbed by the President of the USA? No, that is a traumatised cat - a cat suffering from existential angst.
My theory is that the cat, a tom not so long ago, was whisked off to the vet's for a spot of gender-reassignment. This accounts for its wistful expression, tinged with resentment. If you think you also detect a hint of puzzlement, you're right,it's trying to work out whether it's a 'ze', a 'hir', or a 'zir'. Fortunately, the BBC is an expert in these matters (ad nauseam) and will no doubt be happy to advise.
PS I'd advise it to have a word with Jordan Peterson!
DeleteYou're right! Cat Nipp as she is now known (you may recall she read the news on the other thread) was originally born Christopher (Kit) Nippolopolos. He was rescued from his reprobate tomcat lifestyle by a group of concerned feminists called "The Kindest Cut". Cat Nipp is now happy in herself. "Losing my balls was the best thing that ever happened to me," she purred during a recent interview in the Sunday Times's weekly "Where I Spray" feature. "I've gone from rampant tom to contented kitten." However, if there is one thing which will get her baring her teeth and hissing, it's ailurophobia. "There are still too many ailurophobes out there. If we are to build a tolerant society we need to hunt them down, ripped out their guts and feast on their innards," she announced boldy, flashing her trademark enigmatic smile.
DeleteMB: Nice to know the spirit of the Telegraph's 'Peter Simple' lives on in this blog!:) Do hope you have a legal protection policy, though - you may need to get 'lawyered-up' when, inspired by your words, the razor-wielding equality-twins, I speak of none other than than the Mizzez Gracie & Husain, have rampaged through the 'Today' studio, leaving John Humphrys singing in a higher register than of yore! Dr Spacely-Welby, the go-ahead Archbishop of Canterbury is unavailable for comment - it is believed he is praying for world peace in an ashram somewhere in the foothills of Smethwick.
DeleteYes, I think I must have been channelling Peter Simple, which I take as a great compliment...he was very funny, but of course his flights of satirical fantasy have now sadly become mainstream politics and culture.
DeleteYou're right, Peter Simple is an excellent writer to channel - just a pity the great wet-Left is now using his writings as a training manual! I wonder what he would make of the snowflake generation!
DeleteNice populist speech from Caroline Flint, Labour MP:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsPo2XhoM54
If only the whole of Labour followed her lead. :)
[Not featured on BBC website...but Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston, Ken Clarke and all the rest get featured relentlessly by the BBC]
The BBC found time for the knickers protest against Christopher Chope, involving perhaps a max of two people.
ReplyDeleteHowever the "Free Tommy" protest involving probably 10,000 people in central London got no coverage, apart from a brief negative report on a clash between police and demonstrators.
It's good to know they have got their priorities right, I mean Left.
I didn't hear it but I heard the trailer for an earnest Radio 5 Live discussion regarding why this time round for the World Cup there are so few England flags around...
ReplyDeleteThe BBC wants to have its cake and eat it!
It wants people to indulge in faux patriotism but not real patriotism.
Having rubbished English football supporters, the English Defence League, and English nationalism (see Craig's posts on Mark Easton's anti-English reports), whilst at the same time championing colonial compensation, internationalism, the EU, Islam, Hope not Hate, and PC multicuturalism, they wonder why so few people want to fly the English flag with it's cross of St George...
Might it not be because people think if they do they will be arrested and sentenced to 13 months in chokey?
They just want tame monkeys flying the flag when it's international football time, that's all and otherwise keeping their mouths shut.
Yes, perhaps the BBC has woken up to the reality that the majority of 'Londoners' will not be supporting England.
DeleteQuite! Over the last, 25 years, since the mid 90s the population of potential England supporters in London must have dropped from maybe 70% to something more like 25%.
DeleteThe BBC prefer a cosy sort of patriotism - that with groups of supporters (from all sorts of countries) in a happy cosmopolitan street setting surrounded by good humour and frothing European beer. In that way, there is no threat of populism, nor any danger of nationalistic political outreach.
DeleteThis all fits in very nicely with a happy European community and an inclusive diverse London.
Its all part of the overarching BBC worldview.
ReplyDeleteIn that utopia, England flags are associated with white, male privilege and nationalism - which is bad.
Football is good though because middle class, liberal BBC can be seen to associate with the working class of this country.
It's one of many BBC dilemmas and contradictions.
On the BBC R4 website it is now advertising a programme "National Health Stories; Poor Treatment - How the nation coped before the NHS with basic treatments and kitchen table surgery". Implies that time would have stood still without the envy of the World being created in 1948. Cripes the NHS is important and of supernatural status.
ReplyDeleteI haven't the stomach to listen.
The NHS relieved people of anxiety and supplicant status regarding their health treatment. It didn't vastly improve the quality of treatment on offer.
DeleteThere's a very interesting piece on BBBC by Ian Rushlow June 20th 10.26 am:
ReplyDelete... A contact of mine who worked within the BBC explained that it works along the following lines:
1. They have ‘indirect’ or ‘oblique’ topics that are designed to support key themes. For instance, the obsession with black women’s hair is to support the racism discusson (sic) and menstruation articles support women’s issues/feminism.
2. Certain themes have ‘standing orders’ associated with them, and will be returned to time and time again to promote them. These are usually in support of UN, EU or Government themes, for example Sugar Tax and Eating Insects are currently on the list.
3. Articles are prepared in advance, such that they are ‘ready to go’ at an opportune moment. Sometimes considerable effort has been expended on these, including interviews, detailed graphics and so on, often working with NGO, activists and comrade organisations such as Buzzfeed and SPLC. So, for instance, if there is a ‘news’ item about migrants or American gun crime, a detailed explanatory/propaganda piece is available to supplement it.
All of the above may seem blatantly obvious, but it is interesting that there are formal mechanisms in place and none of it is random....
This confirms what we at ITBBCB? have always known.
Sounds v plausible. The PC mulitculturalists are like an eco system feeding off various issues and policies.
DeleteSometimes they feed on each other as we see with feminists and TG advocates or in the struggles between Corbynites and Blairites! - but most of the time it is a co-operative eco-system that feeds off the rich nutrients of grievance, avarice and advancement.
There are globalist billionaires who want no borders free movement of labour and capital for their own selfish financial reasons...there are overlapping interests there with liberal and socialist internationalists of various types who oppose nationalism as backward looking and want to see borders eradicated. Socialism overlaps with feminism (really, uberfeminism). There is considerable overlap between socialist/feminists and the soggy left but of course soggy leftists tend to venture more into transgender, gay and other lifestyle issues. Socialists, feminists and the soggy left have a strong affinity with the public spending lobby (which of course includes a lot of hard business types) which in turn is closely linked to the trade union movement. Minority lobbying looks to further the interests of minorities of all types, but especially ethnic minorities. The minority lobbyists support free movement and unrestricted migration. Mass migration is one of the key elements in the eco system: it delivers moral virtue to sentimental internationalists, it delivers votes to Labour, it undermines nationalism, and creates myriad opportunities for silencing opposition under threat of the R word.
This PC eco system has a sort of symbiotic relationship with Islam even though ideologically the two could not be further apart and both ideologies would dearly like to kill off the other (the BBC in no way likes or endorses Islam in my view - they are just scared of it, recognise its power and are trying to co-opt into the system they support). The PC multiculturalists pretend that Islam is just another minority group like other minorities (as opposed to a total ideology with global ambitions). Islamic groups go along with the pretence as much as it suits them.
The BBC fits into this eco-system as the voice of soggy-leftism...Blairite at its harder business end and emotive/irrational at its soggiest.
Of course a lot of BBC media types do very well out of the system enjoying large salaries, secure jobs, good pensions and an enviable lifestyle. It's not hairshirt leftism that floats their boat.
Its a strange thing but on the Sunday political offerings from the BBC, Wednesday was billed as a "make or break" test for the government, could be the end of Theresa May, could be a no-confidence vote, an election, the end of Brexit etc.etc. But it seems all television coverage has found something new to report (an old NHS scandal, again) ? I wonder what happened ?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44542156
Yep Newsnight spent half an hour on the NHS scandal and then dealt with the remarkable volte face of the Tory "rebels" in a couple of minutes. On the main news, they gave prominence to Grieve's self-serving remarks in Parliament while suggesting that the Government won the vote because of the machinations of Government Whips and giving no excerpts from pro-Leave MPs. Laura K. looked positively funereal on delivering the news about the vote. As usual there was no mention of the fact that all Tory MPs all stood on a manifesto in 2017 that said we were leaving the EU, leaving its single market and leaving its Customs Union.
DeleteYou can see the disappointment writ large in Jo Coburn describing it on the Daily Politics as a bit of a damp squib. I thought it was quite dramatic myself with a tight vote, the objector in chief giving way at the eleventh hour and the key withdrawal Bill getting through. Phew!
DeleteThe BBC loves drama and sensation, much of it created by its own busy chattering and opining. It seems though it has to be drama in a certain direction only that will satisfy. If Brexit wasn't stalled, the government in crisis and the PM in jeopardy, that's a damp squib.
Radio 4, Today...today...
ReplyDelete"OK guys we've got a discussion about EU migration and Merkel's proposals for a coalition of the willing...Who can we draft in to give the required objective insights and balance?"
"I know - how about Judy Dempsey, author of a major hagiography of Merkel and Timothy Garton-Ash, serial misjudger of events who describes himself as a "liberal internationlist" and believes the EU embodies the principles of liberal internationalism."
Mishal Husain, interviewing, seemed to think the BBC had "got the balance about right." But it was interesting to hear her describe the illegal migration into Europe as "a burden" that needed to be shared. That's not how I recall the migration wave of 2015. I don't recall Jenny Hill jumping up and down and shouting "Here's comes a big burden that will need to be shared." I seem to recall all the migrants they interviewed were going to become engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, professional footballers and classical musicians. I don't recall a single one saying "I will be a welfare recipient for many years and so will my family."
Interesting use of language from Mishal there.
DeleteYes,the Beeb is mounting one last(?) big Remainiac push. Even the Midlands TV news was at it, hi-jacking a friendly visit by Norman farmers to their Herefordshire counterparts & turning it into a Brexit-bashing exercise. The message from both lots of farmers was that they would like more details (wouldn't we all), but it was left to the on-the-spot reporter to assure us, as he summarised for the studio anchor-man, that he had spoken to a number of farmers who voted Leave & a some of them had told him they were having second thoughts. Just a pity he didn't manage to film that isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThere's a subtle change in emphasis from the BBC this morning over:
Delete...'Airbus warns no-deal Brexit could see it leave UK'...
Today's project fear is concerned with 'what happens if we can't extend the transition period?' The BBC finally seems to have accepted that Brexit will happen. Now, attention has shifted - now to undermine the UK negotiating position on the terms of Brexit.
Yes, the long faces of the Beebists suggests they realise Brexit will now go through. As you say, the all important thing now is to keep us tied as closely to the EU as possible. They are quite shameless about having to reverse all their previous propaganda, as previously they went big on suggesting this was an impossibly complex task - remember how they kept telling us trade deals take 7-10 years to negotiate? Now they will be telling us that a deal can be done but only one that keeps us in close embrace with the EU. If they achieve that, then the BBC's campaign to get Labour to commit to a second referendum on rejoining the EU after we leave can begin.
DeleteeasyJet and British Airways are two of Airbus' most important customers. Will they, Airbus, run the risk of alienating them? As usual, the BBC accentuates the negative (that's one of Craig's lines).
DeleteAgree with you both LC & MB. The airbus woman assured us this has nothing to do with project fear - it does, of course; I think I'm right in saying the UK has been a world leader in advanced wing design & manufacture since Concorde - could any EU country replace us overnight? As for the BMW Mini chap, he'd do better to worry about what will happen to BMW exports if Donald Trump slaps on 20% tax!
DeleteAlex Deane on Sky News tonight (as so often, better balanced than the BBC News Channels paper reviews), began (just as few minutes back):
Delete"People with good memories in the UK will remember this is the same business that said they would leave if we didn't join the euro. Thank goodness we didn't join the euro, and Airbus is still here.
Then, of course, before we had the referendum, they said they would strongly consider leaving were we so foolish as to vote to determine our own national future and vote to leave the EU, and we did so and they're still here."
With a rare free weekend ahead I should probably check that. Has the BBC been airing such points?
The BBC allowed some comments from a pro-Leave group on WATO suggesting Airbus was act on orders of the French government. :) But only after we'd non stop news, analysis and Mardell comments all taking the Airbus Project Fear contribution very seriously.
DeleteWhat a shame we don't have a Trump negotiating for our side. "Maybe we won't let Airbus fly through our airspace, folks. Who knows? I'm a reasonable guy, but her comments I found disrespectful, I've got to be honest."
Super.
ReplyDeleteBBC publishes an article by alleged experts from something called "Centre for Cities" referencing the huge growth in city centre populations...which doesn't make any mention of mass immigration. Bit odd that. Fortunately the non-expert comments in a rare "Have Your Say" make good the omission.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44482291
I've not looked into this yet but the one thing I know about Centre for Cities is that it was an offspring of pre-Corbyn Labour's favourite think tank, the Blairite IPPR. That might explain their 'mind blank' over immigration.
DeleteInteresting comment about Question Time from Steve Richards on Twitter:
ReplyDeleteunwatchable...doomed...5th panellist...editors naïvely going for downmarket predictability...
https://twitter.com/steverichards14
For any masochists among us, Profile of Grieve on Radio 4 by Mark Coles at 7 this evening.
ReplyDelete"His wife Caroline tells Mark Coles he has been misunderstood, and describes how he agonised over this week's vote. She also outlines some of the quirkier aspects of her husband's character."
One of the many unattractive aspects of the ghastly man is that he sounds like the ghastly George Osborne. Similar thin horrible voice.
Does anyone listen to that Clive Anderson programme Loose Ends on Radio 4? Out of seven guests I've heard of only one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6pjmc
ReplyDeleteI wonder who they all are and what they are about. There isn't anything there to make me want to listen or think I'm missing something when I take to Radio 3 on Saturday evenings.
As long as it's diverse...that's all that matters.
DeleteStick to Radio 3 on Saturday evenings!
DeleteRoland Deschain over at bBBC references this propaganda video that the BBC present as impartial, objective news.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-44575392/maps-reveal-hidden-truths-of-the-world-s-cities
When I looked up the Instituto Igarape, which appears to have produced the maps referenced in the video, I found - surprise, surprise that Soros's Open Society Foundations were supporting the "think tank" (aka propaganda unit).
This is pure Fake News that the BBC is foisting on the public. To take one example, the video referenced parts of Florida going under the water due to global warming.
I looked into this Florida myth previously. The key problem in Florida is that they have been building and continue to build huge urban settlements on not v. stable ground (bascially marshes). That exerts downward pressure on the land (ie the land sinks) and because the underlying rock is very porous limestone which is soaked with sea water, the inevitable result is increased flooding. That has nothing to do with global warming, although global warming could of course exacerbate the problem. But if you were genuinely interested in the science of global warming the last place you would start is Florida, not the first as in this video.
Putting videos like this up is pure lying propaganda with no right of even the usual cursory response allowed in other parts of the BBC.
Yesterday, the BBC news was certain that Erdogan's days were numbered in Turkey, with a centre-left hero taking a majority in Parliament and forcing a second round in the presidential vote.
ReplyDeleteToday, none of the above happened. Has all journalism at the BBC given way to wishful thinking ?
Wishful thinking, spite, misrepresentation, fact denial...the list goes on! Sounds to be like Erdogan dragged the BBC into his master plan, which was to make it seem like there was a real democratic process taking place in Turkey which could conceivably result in Erdogan being replaced. I never thought that likely for one moment.
DeleteTheir online report about it is still calling it "the most fiercely-fought (election) in many years", despite Erdogan getting an even higher percentage of the vote than he did in 2014 and winning by an even larger margin over the second-placed candidate, with that centre-left hero (who was wowing massive crowds and making it such a white-knuckle fight) scoring 7-8% LESS than the second-placed candidate last time round! Whether wishful thinking or them allowing themselves to be duped by Erdogan, the BBC's Turkish election coverage has been way-off target, reality-wise.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44596072
The tweet quoted at the end of the article from the BBC's main reporter there, Mark Lowen, made me laugh. It wasn't just the opposition who was 'dreaming', was it Mark? He even admits to "surprise" at the centre-left hero's failure to turn BBC reporting into reality!:
Delete"The opposition dared to dream...but it seems it was not to be. Celebrations going on late at #AKP HQ in Istanbul. Two surprises: that #Ince couldn’t capitalise on the momentum and that #MHP polled so high. Yet again one half of #Turkey that feels invincible, the other distraught."
For the BBC football is not a sport, it is politics by other means...
ReplyDeleteHere we go -
Apparently this is what the BBC defines as a Sport/Football story...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44585980
Liverpool's Mayor, the unfortunately named Steve Rotheram (sure he would rather his surname didn't constantly remind us) says:
"To have that breakdown of Islamophobia caused by one person [Mo Salah] is an absolutely phenomenal achievement."
Meanwhile Mo's been cosying up with serial anti-gay, anti-feminist human rights violator Ramzan Kadyrov - almost as if he doesn't give a flying eff about human rights as understood in the UK.
But the BBC are having none of it. They are determined to protect their poster boy. They even go so far as offering Kadyrov the courtesy of repeating his denial of being a human rights abuser - something they don't usually extend to Trump, Putin or Orban.
Here's the pathetic BBC article framing everything as Kadyrov manipulating poor little naive Mo.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44596022
That does look like the BBC manipulating a story, especially as the Sky Sports report on the Mo/Kadyrov meeting is so very different.
Deletehttp://www.skysports.com/football/news/35849/11414957/mohamed-salah-honoured-by-chechnya-leader-ramzan-kadyrov
Where the BBC piece is a prolonged defence of Mo Salah the Sky piece is the case for the prosecution, ending with demands for answers from Mo from Liverpool FC's LBGT fan group.
Yesterday I sat through “Reporting Trump’s First Year: The Forth Estate” on BBC 2. That was a rather surreal experience. There is something utterly absurd about a bunch of New York Times journalists making a fly on the wall documentary about themselves. Yet with all their colossal self-regard they still don’t get it. In abandoning the people the liberal/left has always represented in favour of extreme identity politics it is they, with their mouthpieces in organisations like the BBC and the New York Times, who created the conditions for a Trump Presidency. Not the voters who they patronise with terms like “populist”.
ReplyDeleteThat's it in a nutshell. I couldn't agree more. They've created these conditions in which there has to be a populist response because the liberal elite have become completely detached from the people.
Delete(As noted on bBBC...)
ReplyDeleteAlistair Campbell can't complain about this. BBC have now upped their estimate of the Pro-EU, anti-democracy march on Saturday from "tens of thousands" to half a million!!!
They are just out and out lying now.
https://twitter.com/BBCTalkback/status/1011195827644223488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiasedbbc.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F06%2F25%2Fstart-the-week-open-thread-25-june-2018%2F
I do a post about this tonight (after work). It's extraordinary.
DeleteAppalling Newnsnight bias tonight. Emily Maitlis aggressively interviewing Hungarian Government rep in a most insulting and partisan fashion. The guy stood his ground. She was obviously pleased by her biased performance.
ReplyDeleteFollowed up later by a segment targetting Poles and Poland.
This was headed up by Nawal Al-Maghafi, presumably a member of the Sharia community. It included a very leisurely interview with a Faith Matters spokesperson, also a member of the Sharia community it would seem. He was just allowed to speak at length with no interruption. By contrast, the interview with the Polish commentator, Marcin Rola, allegedly "far right", was all interruptions and suspicious edits. Is he really far right? Here's his rather naive take on the matter (perhaps not realising how much the BBC will edit you to make you sound incoherent and/or malevolent). (This is a machine translation from his Polish Twitter account).
"The BBC journalist, who interrupted today's patriotic debate in Leeds, decided to do an interview with me after all. The questions were biased, but in my opinion it worked out well. We also recorded this interview so it will go the day after the BBC broadcast"
So BBC did well in defence of Sharia tonight. But they are playing a very, very, very dangerous game.
It looks as if the main 'Newsnight' figure behind that report was producer Maya Rostowska:
Delete"A disturbing but essential watch from Newsnight producer @maya_rstw and reporter @BBCNawalMaghafi at 22:30."
https://twitter.com/esmewren/status/1011356189609820160
She came in for flak for producing a very hostile 'Newsnight' report about the incoming PiS government in Poland back in 2016.
https://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polityka/maya-rostowska-wyprodukowala-w-bbc-krytyczny-material-o-polsce/06ynr87
Critics questioned the fact that she was the daughter of a leading politician, Jacek Rostowski, from Civic Platform - the main opponents of the PiS party - and that in her early 20s she used to work in the office of Radoslaw Sikorski, the then Civic Platform foreign minister. Does she have a personal motive for producing anti PiS reports for 'Newsnight'?
We did a piece about that at the time:
Deletehttp://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.com/2016/02/more-controversy.html#comment-form
Craig, "Does she have a personal motive?" might also apply to the presenter, Nawal AL-Maghafi.
ReplyDeleteShe is best known for her reports from Yemen. She is of Yemeni background herself. She is the daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who was based in London. You don't get to be a Yemeni diplomat in London without having a clear position within Yemeni politics would be my surmise.
How she has herself come to be living in the UK is not clear. She appears to have started her journalistic career as an independent activist in the Arab Spring (which she remains committed to as being an "anti-authoritarian" uprising - a description that displays a lot of bias).
How she went from there to being a "BBC journalist" is not clear. To me it sounds like she is definitely a "player" and not a referee or spectator.
This piece she wrote is revealing:
https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/yemen-the-forgotton-war-zone-nawal-al-maghafi-conflict-middle-east-lost-generation/66939
Non-British broadcasting outfit says it was a British plumber what done it...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44613587
Is a conservative majority the same as a majority? Not according to the BBC it would seem:
ReplyDelete"Lower courts had deemed the ban unconstitutional, but the US top court reversed the decision in a 5-4 conservative majority ruling."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44636755
ReplyDeleteShameful bias and misreporting in this article. Here is the offending paragraph.
Mrs May's former top aide, Nick Timothy, has urged her to face down her opponents in the cabinet, telling the Daily Telegraph the "time for playing nice and being exploited are over".
In the Telegraph article Nick Timothy was saying that Britain's good faith is being exploited by the Europeans but the BBC framed it to look like her own cabinet were doing the exploiting.
The BBC approach to the EU in my view is "lie or die". They see the EU as vital to the PC multiculturalist project and so protect it at every turn. Why do they never ask the EU why they want to put up a hard border in Northern Ireland? Why didn't they highlight Barnier's cancellation of a press conference yesterday, reportedly because of splits within the EU over whether to offer the UK a "bespoke" deal? Why don't they tell us that Macron is now promoting the idea of European sovereignty and how to increase it? Why do they not make clear that Airbus is basically a Franco-German company with close ties to the EU and the French and German national companies?
DeleteThen there is the strange tale of migration. The BBC keeps telling us the migrant crisis is over...because numbers have dwindled away. True up to a point. The crisis of huge sea borne migration has abated significantly.
But in another sense the crisis is just getting started. The EU has no defences against "chain migration" whereby migrants are able to bring in dependents or marry people from abroad and bring in spouses.
There are 22 million non-EU citizens in the EU and 2 million entered legally in 2016.
There are also of course huge movements within the EU, with over 400,000 entering Germany in one year, 2016, dwarfing our own figure of 240,000.
So if you add the impact of legal migration to detected undocumented migration and the (huge but unestimated) numbers who enter the EU and are not detected,and then you can see that there are huge migrant communities who have no intention of integrating with the majority cultures in any meaningful sense, you can see the problem is not going away. Added to that the Germans have discovered that the propaganda about the 2015 migrant wave solving their potential labour shortage as their population declines was false. Only a small proportion of migrants have found work outside the state sponsored "make-work" schemes. The migrants are a huge financial burden on the state - tens of billions of Euros every year.
The BBC doesn't want to describe clearly the scale of the migration crisis in the EU beause (a) it undermines their desire to present the EU as a united, confident and formidable superpower and (b) it plays into the Leave arguments for Brexit.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_2_million_non-EU_immigrants
Only just seen this hatchet job by the BBC on Tommy Robinson:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVmDWS2rfjY
The BBC gives its opinion that he "hasn't been muzzled" despite that fact that over 500,000 petition signers think he has been muzzled. Sorry BBC, that's just an opinion, but you are presenting that as "fact" and so it is fake news.
No mention of his family life. No comparison with other contempt of court cases. No mention that other independent journos were making videos on the case. Classic bit of direction where they juxtapose general comments about contempt cases to imply that Robinson was guilty of these. No discussion of why reporting restrictions are applied to some cases but not others.
No addressing of the fact he was arrested on breach of peace (not contempt of court), but that he was not charged with breach of peace (which would have meant a proper trial). No explanation of why the arrest, charge and trial were over within 24 hours. No discussion of impact on his family. No discussion of whether there was any realistic chance of the trial being collapsed (in my view: absolutely none).
No explanation for why his "name swap" is considered relevant to the issue of whether or not he has been treated freely. Irrelevant but part of the negative spin.
No discussion of why he might have pleaded guilty (possibly having been misadvised by a court lawyer about the likely sentence). No mention of (what I believe to be true) that Robinson is preparing an appeal of some sort.
This is an absolute travesty of a report.
Lastly, why if thousands have been demonstrating on his behalf up and down the country why has the BBC chosen up till now to disguise the fact?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-44577573/who-is-tommy-robinson-and-why-is-he-in-jail
Pointed out by someone at bBBC. The Sun have this story about an alleged £12 million fraud involving immigration judges...pretty incendiary stuff you might think.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6642702/three-immigration-and-civil-judges-charged-over-alleged-12-6m-bogus-legal-aid-scam/
But the BBC seem to have their own self-imposed reporting restrictions.
We'd probably better not comment while this is sub judice (!), but the GBP is surely entitled to know that charges have been brought.
DeleteIndeed. And the BBC has a very loose view of sub judice when it suits them.
Delete6pm News: does the BBC lead with Guido's story that Australia is ordering nine anti-submarine warships from BAe Systems? Of course not - they bury it!
ReplyDeleteIt was, in fact, replaced by the story of the 'sex-trading' of Nigerian women to Germany by a British nurse. The presentation of this: an interview by Fiona Bruce, in Germany, was decidedly odd - it felt more like a documentary than a news item. Fiona insisted heavily on the fact that the Nigerian woman was in danger of being deported back to Nigeria, where poverty is rife. Could it be that the BBC believes that she should come to the UK?
DeleteI think I heard "British nurse" today...but on the website it's now "London-based nurse".
DeleteAccording to the BBC:
"She was born in Liberia, but became a British citizen in 2009 having been allowed to stay in the UK due to her nursing qualifications."
They've missed a bit out there haven't they? The bit where she was here illegally and should have been deported. But she was allowed to stay by our useless Government. Do we know if her nursing qualifications are genuine? There are loads of bogus nurses in this country who have fake qualifications - forged or corruptly acquired. Has she ever passed a nursing test in this country?
Lots of questions the BBC will never ask.
I'm wondering if that use of "London-based" follows criticism of the terrorist described as a "British plumber".
DeleteBBC One's 'News at Ten' went back to 'British nurse' again. Its opening headline was:
Delete"A British nurse is found guilty of trafficking Nigerian women and girls."
That whole sequence was weird though. On the day the EU was debating tightening migration here was Fiona Bruce, with her doleful eyes and thoughtful head-cocking, highlighting the plight of one migrant who wants to stay in Germany (or somewhere in the EU), and whose story is undoubtedly a sad one. You could tell the emotive tone as well from some of the language used, e.g. that the woman was "just 21".
DeleteYes and that all poor people from Africa should come to the U.K. ... and receive housing, health care, cash ... it’s a most perculiar stance.
ReplyDeleteYes - I think they're softening us up, ready for when May signs us up to a rotten deal with the EU which requires us to take 'our fair share' of the problem Merkel created.
DeleteThe key thing for all PC multiculturalist virtue-signallers is NEVER to discuss numbers! If you say, OK you're happy to let in 4,000...what about 40,000...what about 400,000 or 4 million? they will look at you like you just accused their mother of fellating the milkman.
DeleteWhen you get down to it, it's all about "numbers". There was a time I recall when Labour and Lib Dems always accused Tories of "playing the numbers game" when it came to migration. Well it is a numbers game. At a certain point we find that numbers have changed the nature of society.
The sane approach of course is to have an active policy of encouraging people-orientated development in Africa and elsewhere - rather than oligarch-orientated development. Africans need roads, functioning schools and mobile phone masts. They can sort the rest out themselves.
The world class BBC News service finally got round to noting that British industry had won a £20 billion defence contract from Australia...about 10 hours after more reputable news outlets...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44649959
Ah, but you see the world class BBC news service had to hold a seies of meetings to discuss how to spin this unpalatable news item - I mean, it might give the impression that Brexit isn't harming our defence industry! Wasn't BAe supposed to be one of the main losers if Leave won?
DeleteMeanwhile, in other news, the BBC is bravely criticising a global religion for its oppression of children, its attempts to control their behaviour and its denial of normal instincts. What is this religion you ask? Mormonism. Yes, very brave of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way I think the Church of Latter Day Saints etc don't like being called "The Mormon Church".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44644130
Occasionally the world class BBC News Service decides to spend a couple of hundred quid out of its £5 billion revenue to bring us something that is inspiring, interesting and insightful...before returning to its self appointed task of spending the £4billion plus remainder on its usual obsessions about sexism in football, lack of gender balance in engineering, and domination of the business world by white males - and about 3000 other "equality" issues.
ReplyDeleteStill, enjoy the £200 worth of your dosh they spent on this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/must_see/44637256/kareem-waris-olamilekan-a-young-nigerian-artist-with-grand-plans
According to the BBC there’s been a surge in UK citizens applying for UK citizenship - Surge would equal a lot yes? Er no not really it’s gone from 6 thousand to 12 thousand, only really news if you want to imply something with the headline....
ReplyDeleteUK citizens seeking EU citizenship? I've just seen the article:
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44629193
Apparently the BBC believe there is an EU Nation since they talk about EU nationality. But maybe they mean nationality of countries within the EU.
Remember all that hype about UK citizens with Irish family background seeking Irish citizenship? And it looks like 400 more than before have obtained citizenship.
I think the surge is explained in part by the natural growth in marriages between migrants and UK citizens resulting from the huge influx of EU citizens per annum who then marry UK citizens. The German surge I think has to do with migrant communities (from SW Asia and Turkey) continuing to maintain their ability to travel at will across Europe.
(As seen on bBBC)....
ReplyDeleteAt last! The BBC's role in spreading gang violence via support for drill music is being exposed:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rappers-tales-of-violence-and-drugs-are-put-online-by-bbc-0jr8q2qws
This is one of those issues that exposes the hypocrisy and cynicism of the BBC elite. They promote guns and sexism when it suits them.
Very interesting viewing figures published this week.
ReplyDeleteBBC One's output in the first five months of the year was down nine per cent across the schedule and 14 per cent in primetime when compared to the same period in 2017.
Their response did make me chuckle - typical BBC speak....
A BBC spokesman said: "BBC One is the most watched channel in the UK and the proud winner of three Channel of the Year awards. BBC One brings the nation together and takes risks with a range of high quality, distinctive programmes where ratings are not the only measure of success."
I think it will become harder for them to justify the licence fee and employee salaries as their audience dwindles.
Yes there must come a point at which it becomes politically unsustainable, however much the frit MPs feel they have to bow to the BBC. What is that point? When the BBC has only a 10% share of viewing? Of course they are flattered by the percentages since TV viewing as a whole is declining re other forms of AV entertainment like computer games.
DeleteI have always been surprised that Sky have never tried to turn their Sky 1 into a BBC 1 replica.
Anonymous, that's an important decline, do you have the source of those viewing figures? I have checked obvious angles though Google but come up with nothing.
Deletehttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/30/bbc1-audience-figures-lowest-16-years-saturday-night-drama-experiment/
DeleteI wonder if it will ever occur to them that viewers are tired of unfunny 'comedy' programmes and didactic dramas peddling the BBC's 'take' on Brexit, diversity, immigration, gender etc. As John Cleese has pointed out, Monty Python would never have been commissioned today - what, educated, white, middle-class males? - out of the question! And how many episodes of Fawlty Towers would have been entangled in the fine mesh ofthe Beeb's PC filters? "Don't mention the war" and Mr O'Reilly would be out, for a start - blatant anti-EU racism!
ReplyDeleteAs long as the 400 plus Transgender employees are watching, that's all that matters. :)
DeleteThat would be funny, except that it's probably true! :)
DeleteRE Viewing figures I bet it’s worse than that, it’ll be some kind of “balanced” survey. The funny thing is that I dont think the millennials watch it at all.
ReplyDeleteYes - already today's kids don't know how to work a radio; how long 'til they can't work a tv? And whose fault will it be? why, everyone's except their own!
DeleteClockwork,
DeleteGood observation...part of the grand hypocrisy of this age...these millennials virtue signal but when it comes to their audiovisual entertainment they don't bother with the BBC, they go for box sets and computer games that have, when all is said and done, a pretty traditional view of gender roles and, in music, genres that have in fact parodically over-defined gender roles.
BBC One brings the nation together. Clearly it doesn’t!
DeleteThe younger generation don’t watch it much because it doesn’t offer up what they want.
An increasing section of the older generation find it biased.
So just how does it bring our nation together?
Maybe by being disliked
Absolutely, Anonymous. A Hitler & J Stalin had a similar unifying effect. By the way, in case it wasn't clear, when I said above (1st reply in this block) "whose fault will it be? Why, everyone's except their own," I meant the BBC's fault!
DeleteZurcher continued slow decline as he enters the tertiary stage of Trump Derangement Syndrome...
ReplyDeleteAppallingly biased article that finds every excuse for the left's incivility and resort to bully boy tactics but makes no excuses for the anger of Trumpites.
Uses every BBC trick, including going to an academic who just happens to be an anti-Trumpist (as seen from the ever useful Twitter account) for an "independent" view. Use of photos to demonise Trump supporters and present Trump as hyper-aggressive. Then amnesia on things like HRC's anathematising of a huge proportion of US citizens as "deplorables". Promoting Obama as a "healer" (despite the growth in racial division under him, seen by the rise of BLM under his presidency, his call for illegal migrants to vote in the US Presidential election and his attendance for 20 years at a Church where the preacher indulged in violently anti-American sermons). No recognition that (a) the migrant family separation policy dated back to the Clinton era or (b) that the policy had now been changed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44620412
Zurcher being sarky about Trump's unwillingness to plough through tomes of legalese before deciding on who to appoint to the Supreme Court...does he think Clinton, George W Bush or Obama ever did?
https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1013243362441416704
Half of Zurcher wants to mock Trump for believing there is a Deep State apparatus briefing against him, and the other half wants to make use of the Deep State's briefings against Trump...
https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1012824784747548673
Eddie Mair is leaving the BBC in August.
ReplyDeleteGood riddance, he is one of the worst in displaying bias.
Last I read, he was in dispute over cuts to his pay.
I think we know his type. Just a big mummy's boy whose mummy used to tell him he was brilliant, even though he wasn't...sadly we've had to suffer the result: a hyper-inflated ego. As you say, he is overtly biased. If he ever puts the case for the side he doesn't support he does so in a "I know this is crazy" smirky voice designed to encourage incredulity in the listener. Can't stand him but I guess he had to go to make way for the TGs and other minorities pressing forward.
DeleteEddie Mair can be quite good with 'members of the public', giving them a sympathetic hearing and plenty of support. I eventually had enough of him after one of his 'beast mode' interviews with a government minister over an issue that wasn't anything to do with her department. When he is like that he isn't looking for answers to questions, he is looking for a complete confession of guilt, "when did you stop beating your wife?" writ large. As a listener there is no pleasure in hearing the implied call for a confession over and over and over again.
DeleteAs to making way for minorities, has the BBC realised that their 'gays' are now so mainstream in the organisation that their victim card has expired?
I think so. They are yesterday's minority. That's why so many of the staff are now self-identifying as TG. Promotion guaranteed!
DeleteThe Windrush debacle has become as highly politicised as Grenfell Tower. BBC London never fails to remind us that the Windrush generation single handedly transformed London.
ReplyDeleteTonight was a perfect example; in a feature to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS we were introduced to Olga King a member of the Windrush generation from Barbados. She trained as a nurse at Hillingdon Hospital. BBC London took Olga back to Hillingdon to share her memories. In almost the first piece to camera, Olga openly admits that most of the nurses she worked with, and especially those responsible for her training, were all Irish. The early NHS heavily relied on immigrant nurses from Ireland, north and south, to staff and run the new health service yet here was a major BBC feature trying to tell us what a significant contribution the Windrush generation made to the NHS. It was a classic case of the BBC trying to rewrite history.
No disrespect but Olga's story was unremarkable and, as far as I could see, she made no special contribution to the NHS. The whole point of the story was to highlight that Windrush generation made a significant in London to healthcare; a contribution maybe, but 'significant'? Such revisionism, commonplace in many BBC programmes day after day, is insidious and dangerous.
Yes, this desire to rewrite history has become ingrained within all parts of the BBC's output. Even on Songs of Praise, the last three Sundays have been about (1). Grenfell Tower - how the community has 'come together' as a result of the tragedy, (2). the Windrush Generation and how Immigrant churchmen established gospel music and evangelism within the country as they helped to rebuild postwar Britain, and (3 yesterday) it was a celebration of the seventy years of the NHS and how immigrant groups provided staff for the fledgling organisation.
DeleteTalking of the NHS, am I alone in finding the BBC's trailer for 70th anniversary celebrations: an ICU heart monitor playing 'Happy birthday to you,' while a patient lies in a coma, pretty damned tasteless?
ReplyDelete