I feel uncomfortable about a number of things to do with the MSM reporting on the Notre Dame fire.
1. The bovine acceptance of the French authorities' very early claim the cause of the fire was definitely accidental - in advance of any meaningful investigation. It now appears "no hypothesis is being ruled out" and also that experts have still not been able to investigate the crucial seat(s) of the fire.
There is now a leak from a French official suggesting it was an electrical short circuit. That sounds more like a hope than a fact.
2. The complete lack of interest in the fact a fire (smoke) alarm went off 30 minutes before flames were spotted. This was investigated. It is said the alarm gave the wrong location. Again, no interest in this v. puzzling report in the MSM narrative. Remember the building was occupied - there were plenty of people there. Again the MSM seem uninterested in exactly what was noticed when.
3. The MSM seems completely uninterested in the 400 plus acts of vandalism against Catholic churches over the previous year many of them serious acts of vandalism or the attempted arson on churches by Islamic extremists or the dry run attack on Notre Dame by Islamic extremists.
4. There has, rightly, been much sorrow at the loss of this much loved landmark - roof and spire (thankfully the two towers are preserved). But what does Macron do immediately after? Announce an "international competition" for a new spire with the implication being that the new spire might look nothing like the old one and might be some "carbuncle on the face of a much loved friend" as someone once said. Why no discussion about that? Why no outrage? I bet the majority of French people would be outraged at that. The Russians rebuilt virtually the whole of St Petersburg's centre from scratch after WW2 as a facsimile of what was there before.
What can't be in doubt is the quality of the scaffolding design and installation. This will have taken many months to erect. That it survived the fire indicates a high level of professionalism from that contractor. I understood that work hadn't yet started on the roof repairs. An 'electrical short circuit' doesn't ring true.
The announcement of an International Competition for the redesign conjures up to me images of an all-glass visitor centre making the Fosters, Rogers, Chipperfields and McAslans of this world rub their hands in glee.
Experience of other projects such as Stonehenge, SS Great Britain etc inevitably lead to a detachment from the subject - making the visitor just a number - in the case of Notr Dame, unable to enjoy the solemnity or liturgy directly.
It was possibly the strength and positioning of the scaffolding that provided stability to the perimeter stonework of Notre Dame during and after the fire - I should have added.
Arne - yes I did see the video. I don't know anything about its provenance or whether the claimed timing is accurate. If it is genuine then one has to ask what was going on. It may have been a workmen recording the work undertaken but the level and angle of the "phone" seems rather odd.
Arthur - It does appear there were workers on site but they had all departed some time before (some reports say an hour before I think) the fire began. I have read a suggestion that an electrical fault in construction lift used on site might have been the cause but that sounds little unlikely to me. I've never heard of a fire being caused by one before. Normally in this sort of incident if it's accidental it's because someone left a blowtorch on, or threw a cigarette away.
An electrical short circuit of the magnitude of a lightning strike would have been necessary to ignite this fire. That is unless there was a build-up of detritus which might afford a period of kindling which went undetected for hours.
Quite, Arthur. It seems counter-intuitive. But none of us (I presume) are experts in this field and so we await further investigation. What was troubling was the "rush to judgement" or in this case the unsupported declaration of innocence re terrorists who have previously on numerous occasions targeted French churches - before any thorough invesigation has been undertaken. Even if it looked accidental (say an unattended blowtorch) it could be malicious (deliberately left on by a worker with mal intent).
While we are on the subject of religion, looks like comments didn't go too well for Jacob Rees-Mogg's virtue signalling tweet about how "anti-Islamic comments have no place in society". I think if Jacob looked back over history he'd find find any number of anti-Islamic comments from revered Popes.
JRM's stock is plummeting. This is the man who voted for May's deal after saying he wouldn't vote for it unless the DUP voted for it (and they didn't). He is now officially "Vaccilator in Chief".
He is part of the establishment and mainstream politics and always was. His comment is the official line on the subject and none of them will stray from it. To do so means you are out of a job and ostracised forever.
He doesn't seem prepared to put in the moral and spiritual effort required to defend free speeh. In the current age it does require a huge amount of effort.
Is he saying anti-Catholic, anti-Plymouth Brethren and anti-Scientology comments are unacceptable in society? If not, why not? Voltaire was famously rude about Catholicism. Presumably he would be arrested on the spot if Rees-Mogg had his way. Or is Rees-Mogg saying there is something about this one religion above all others that means it must have special protection?
In my opinion, JRM has gone from hero to zero in a matter of days. He is a true blue Conservative who realises that their days are in government are numbered. To have stuck to his ERG principles might at least have preserved a percentage of Conservative MPs upon whom the electorate could have relied upon and rallied behind, he has thrown his lot in with May.
Easter Quiz 9pm BBC1 Have I got News For You Who is the female guest ? .. How many guesses will it take you ?
Clue #1 She's female Clue #2 She lives in London supports Remain, supports Labour .. Not much of a clue cos thats 90% of their guests Clue #3 she specifically supports Corbyn, and is a bit of a communist Clue 4 She's Muslim in ethnicity ..you must have got it Clue 5 : Not Yasmin
A for Ayesha? Oh no! She turned up the other day pontificating about food or Easter or something...I can't remember what programme it was. Damn. She's A H. It must be the other one. Ash...?
BBC/Sky not only celebrate Ash Friday .. they celebrate : Ash Monday, Ash Tuesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Saturday, .......... and Ash Sarkar Sunday as well.
It's because she self-identifies as a Feminist AND a Muslim AND a Communist (literally!) PLUS she has a dark skin tone. If that's not going to give the BBC a hard-on they will have to start taking triple dose Vi-a-gara. (Also she has pretty nails - probably put on by Vietnamese slave workers in her local nail bar - what's not to like!).
9pm Radio4 a repeat of How to be a Better Activist What with Tommy Robinson and James Goddard ? Nope Blurb "Co-founder of the global Occupy protests, Micah White, explains how the failure of his movement showed him how activism needs to be redefined." https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lfbh9
Here's a recent impartial tweet from the programme maker Calling for a Corbyn Remainer government https://twitter.com/zoesqwilliams/status/1118852296253878272
Some appear to want to end carbon emissions. That's doable in 25 years. Doing it within 6 years as they want would cause poverty and untold suffering. The poor would suffer the most of course.
Some appear to want us to cut back on consumption to agrarian levels. That would result in the collapse of the NHS, millions of deaths, famine and abject poverty.
Some appear to think the human race is in danger of extinction from climate change - surely one of the most absurd claims ever made. There's absolutely no evidence for it but the BBC is happy to let these lunatics make such Fake News claims (treating them with respect rather than disdain) which are then watched by vulnerable children. The BBC is laying the ground for an ecoterrorist movement.
Some don't want to have children. Fair enough. We've seen such religious nutjob movements before - Shakers and so on, although the Shakers gave us nice furniture and one reasonable tune whereas I doubt this lot would be up to anything as impressive.
Basically this is just a physical manifestation of the Virtue Signalling Culture that has been produced by the BBC and others who should know better over the last few decades. They are the successors to extreme Puritans who banned Christmas and looked forward to the end of days.
The BBC have racialised comedy, socialised art, denatured drama and politicised nature. What a miserable bunch they are.
I'm not saying the Brexit Party won't do well in the EU elections, but looking at the Brexit Party Nottingham rally I just get the feeling they were re-running the 2016 Referendum campaign. That is now irrelevant as far as I am concerned.
For all their many faults it seems to me UKIP have the best take on everything. They understand this is not now a campaign about whether or not we leave the EU - this is a campaign about whether we have a country with a functioning democracy or not.
Sky reporting 30 dead and 280 injured as three explosions rip through 3 Christian churches on Eastern Sunday in Sri Lanka. Needless to say, the BBC 'are still investigating reports.....' You all know where the story goes from here.
There was a man named Sopel, Jon Who cried out one day "Hope! - all gone. Though impartial, free and fair I really cannot bear To hear Trump say to Mueller: 'Well done'!"
LIMERICK 2
There was a young man called Zurcher Who couldn't have been more berserker. If someone said "Trump" He'd do a big dump On the sidewalk - well, what a ferker!
BBC 10 O'Clock News tonight has been a collector's piece. Ten minutes of reports on Sri Lanka outrages and not even a mention of the possibility of Islamic terrorism. But plenty of confuse-a-cat references to the Tamil Tigers and Buddhist attacks on Mosques. And Huw signed off with a cheery "Have a good night". Nothing of Huw's grave sepulchral tones reserved for other similar occasions about which the BBC has less ambiguous feelings.
Why no mention of the AFP "prior warning" report identifying NTJ, a radical Islamic group as planning the attacks, having last year attacked Buddhist statues (seemingly the prior warning has now confirmed by the Sir Lankan PM)?
Why are the BBC protecting a violent Jihadist group like NTJ?
Made worse when I watched ITV News just now. Although they too were being very circumspect, they showed an image of a tweet featuring a photo of the prior police intelligence warning - naming the Islamic terrorist group - which had been put up by a Sri Lankan government minister. The BBC is knowingly sowing confusion and indulging in Fake News.
Yes, & they'll string it out for so long that, by the time the true identity of the attackers is known, the bombings will have become stale news or been nudged off the front page by some new atrocity. They really are a contemptible crew.
The BBC website is a disgrace. They've shut down the live update - even though thousands of Brits are trapped there in hotels after a traumatising 24 hours and thousands more Brits are either en route for holidays there or wondering WTF is going on. The main report is disrespetctfully skimpy for such a major event and confusing despite, or because of its, liberal use of explainers. It STILL doesn't mention the police warning of Islamic terrorism that has been tweeted by a Sri Lankan government minister.
They can't wait to take the story down the news agenda. It's obvious.
Contemptible indeed - lying, deceitful, prevaricating, procrastinating bunch of reprobates with the morals of a hyena, the backbone of a jellyfish and the insight of a bat in a cave. Sorry to all animal life, you don't deserve to be compared to BBC staff but I needed some metaphors.
The report was updated at 3:36 am to say 'Late on Sunday Sri Lanka's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said security services had been "aware of information" of a possible attacks' but the BBC still hasn't mentioned that police warning/government minister tweet about the likelihood of an Islamic terrorist attack.
Finally, at 5:50 am, they've added (14 paragraphs down): 'The BBC's Azzam Ameen in Colombo says the attackers are thought to be part of a "radical extremist Islamist group" according to authorities.'
So it took them a long while but they've finally sneaked a mention of Islamism in. No names though still.
Craig, it's really not sensible to look to the BBC for news anymore. Neither TV, Radio or Website. Yesterday afternoon I was reading an AFP report on "GulfNews" that gave the name of one of the suicide bombers as a Mhd Azzam Mhd.
What an extraordinary use of language this is in the BBC News website leading headline:
'Sri Lankan Death Toll Soars to 290'.
Buzzards soar, temperatures soar - but a death toll? In the dictionary the third meaning given to soar reads:
'increase rapidly above the usual level' Are we to assume that there is a 'usual level' for deaths of this type? This slack journalism - unthinking dilution of the horror before us.
Latest BBC headline: "Sri Lanka attacks: 'International network' linked to bombings"
"International Network" - sounds like the bad guys in a Thunderbirds production.
The are now admitting openly that this relates to a Jihadist group. But they are relucant to explain what a "Jihadist" is. Only much later down the article do we find reference to a "radical Islamist terrorist group".
Absolutely. Nearly 2000 words in that report and the nearest they get to who did it is ‘jihadist’. The whole wordy thing is dispassionate and analysis light.
The article deliberately muddy the waters a number of times and very deliberately states;
‘The nation has seen some sporadic violence since. In March 2018 a state of emergency was declared after members of the majority Buddhist Sinhala community attacked mosques and Muslim-owned properties.’
They managed to avoid the word Catholic as well. I've had to look online to find out from newspapers including the Telegraph, Mail and New York Times, the names, denominations and other details of the churches. The NYT has several articles, including a detailed one about other religious attacks throughout South Asia, Sri Lanka included. The BBC's correspondent is either an incompetent or a partisan reporter or subject to BBC editorial policy. It's striking how that policy or practice varies depending on the subject matter. When someone says a wrong word, they don't resort to similar vagueness such as 'Man used unapproved language' or 'Person offended group'. It'll be specified and highlighted as 'Race', attributed to specific named personhood and detailed as, for example, 'Tory Councillor' or 'right-wing /extremist'.
You'd think they'd have mentioned early on the tradition that St Thomas founded Christianity on the island in the 1st century AD. Certainly there have been Christian communities there from well before the birth of Islam.
This makes me think of incompetence: " Theravada Buddhism is Sri Lanka's biggest religious group, making up about 70.2% of the population, according to the most recent census.Hindus and Muslims make up 12.6% and 9.7% of the population respectively.
Sri Lanka is also home to about 1.5 million Christians, according to the 2012 census, the vast majority of them Roman Catholic."
The reference to Christians is like something tacked on as an afterthought and doesn't even bother to give the percentage! I came across the percentage figure of 6% in the NYT. I suspect the BBC lazily cut and pasted that from a Catholic news agency that I noticed when looking online for details of the bombed churches. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48012085
It's been given a very cursory 10 mins or so on Radio 4 on WATO. I didn't hear it all, so might have missed something, but seems it's being dealt with in the vaguest terms. No sense of the full horror being conveyed.
Main discussion at BBC must be "When can we move it off top story?"
Some people are suggesting that the BBC is hiding behind a refusal to run with unverified or unverifiable accusations. Far from the truth. They are quite happy to run with unverifiable allegations:
Yes, they are forever posting speculation, opinion and even what is going to happen, rather than what has happened. They've been happy to attribute motives and even murder to politicians and the effects of Leaving the EU, without verification.
Mr Urban Liberal just tweeted and was quickly retweeted by Nihal \\ I know the #ExtinctionRebellion protesters are not everyone's cup of tea, and some are posh/young/poser types who can sound silly, but the sight of these individuals being belittled by veteran anchormen who look like they had half the planet for lunch is pretty revolting
"belittled by veteran anchormen who look like they had half the planet for lunch is pretty revolting" That's an ad hom That's fat shaming ..Adam Boulton's name came in the replies
Screenshot of tweet, that Nihal rushed to retweet cos it denied there had been threats from Islamic terrorists.. its keyline "The AG confirms that this document is fake" except that itself wasn't true
I saw quite a bit of that yesterday, and Al Jazeera actually deleted a report they'd posted based on it on the grounds (they said) that there were doubts about it authenticity. Ouch!
Saw YAB on Sky News Press Preview. The excellent Brendan O'Neil was on as well - treating her like the nutter on the bus, studiously avoiding all eye contact with her, lest that give her encouragement. She announced she was a practising Muslim. Er - we're not interested.
She kept talking over him but he continued speaking to make his point. He's very calm when faced with these nutters. I don't know how he manages to keep his composure and his train of thought but he does.
Yes he's very good. Seen him with several such nutters - Rachel Shabi being another one. Best not to engage with their insane virtue signalling non sequitirs. Just plough on with the point you want to make! :)
Although YAB has only a tenuous grasp on reality, she did make one good point: the Sri Lankan attacks were reminiscent of the Mumbai attacks. Those attacks were co-ordinated from Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organisation thought to have the blessing of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's intelligence services.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some such connection is found here, but the BBC and MSM generally are being incredibly coy about such speculation. It does tie in with a regional power game (Sri Linka is as I understand very much in India's sphere of influence). The attack might have been focussed on Christian targets rather than Buddhist ones because Pakistan has quite close relations with Bhuddist Mynamar.
Obviously I've no idea but surely there must be people who can illuminate what's going on. Why are we being kept in the dark by the BBC and others?
There are other regional tensions affecting them. Apparently one conflict between different individuals or parts of government is about the involvement with China. Some lean towards it, others towards India. I've read before there have been problems about China building large infrastructure projects, leaving Sri Lanka indebted beyond its means to repay. YAB did say it is a very secretive, securitised place, following the years of civil war so it is hard to find out what is going on. Another thought occurs to me at mention of Myanmar: the Catholic charity CAFOD has been very active in relief work and advocacy on behalf of the Rohingya, long before we were hearing about them in the media. It was one of the main priorities in the Vatican for its aid work. As well as the hostility within Sri Lanka itself towards Christians as former colonials, there may be others in the wider region with motives that are not so obvious at first.
I am sure there are many tangled interests in the region - and China will definitely be a player as well along with the USA and EU. There are tangled interests in all regions including out own. But since we have to pay such a large sum to view the BBC we could at least expect them to shed some light on this. But all we get is "no idea who did it" and just vague references to nebulous entities like "international networks", "local groups", "foreign networks" and so on. The BBC has clearly decided on a policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil" until we all forget about it.
I first heard about Sri Lanka's indebtedness to China on a Sky News report about a new but largely unused airport which had been financed and built by the Chinese. A search brings up more about this from 2016: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-to-sri-lanka-we-want-our-money-not-your-empty-airport/#64a0aea61beb The search also brought up a report which said India offered to buy Sri Lanka's debt to China - and a BBC report all the way back in 2010 about Chinese involvement. There are loads of reports online about all this. The NYT came up again and probably has more in-depth reporting.
On the impartial pro-Remain Radio 4 this morning...
The impartial Remainer Jonathan Freedland has on his programme "The Long View" an impartial look at the parallels between our relationship with the EU and those between Mercia and Frankia - the continental superpower of the time. His guide is the impartial Major and Blair negotiator, Remainer Stephen Wall. Jonathan appeared particularly pleased to be able to read out that the disruption in the Mercian-Frankian alliance was "the work of the devil" and that free movement at the time was a blessing and a boon, allowing English Monks in this country to work on behalf of Charlemagne's empire (bit like Blair working and his minions working for Tusk and Macron).
We're getting the BBC agenda full blast this morning. I heard that and knew what to expect from Remainer Freedland and Steeped-in-the-EU Stephen Wall but 'the work of the devil' was what I heard earlier from the blatant baiting of Bill Cash by Robinson on Today. While on the one hand alleging - in a tone of assumed pious fervour - the use of the language of war (a fiction got up by Robbo) in talking of humiliatingly grovelling to France and Germany, he went on and actually goaded Cash to call them the enemy. How in hell can he get away with this? I will be very surprised if there aren't complaints about this and that Robbo isn't told to get back in his box.
Monday's Today was probably an all time low for the programme; Jack de Manio, Brian Redhead and John Timpson would have been rolling in their graves at the ludicrous political correctness in spite of 290 dead in Sri Lanka. Time and again, presenters referred to 'Churches' , 'Easter worshippers'; they did all possible to avoid references to Christians or, heaven forbid, Catholics killed by the terrorists. There was no mention of who might have committed the atrocities in spite of strong evidence, already circulating in informed circles, that the NTJ were likely culprits. Every other culprit, other than the startlingly obvious, was thought possible candidates for the horrific attack on Catholics praying on Easter Sunday; the holiest day in the Christian calendar. Even the Sri Lankan ambassador to the UK was wheeled out to say that the attack could have been perpetrated by ' any number of agencies'. Despicable performance from all involved.
Later in the programme, Nick Robinson made it even more damnable by asking a police chief in Northern Ireland if the murder of Lyra McKee had been as a result of the tensions raised by 'Brexit' and the discussions over the Irish border. It was reassuring to hear the police chief kick that idea swiftly into touch.
All in all, a really disgraceful performance from all involved at the Today programme and a historic low in their political journalism and investigative reporting.
Catherine Uttley's appraisal of the BBC's approach to this atrocity is worth a read in the Article, see below;
Why is the BBC and Nick Robinson for one pushing what someone on Biased BBC rightly called "a New Age death cult" so assiduously? The reference to "death cult" is not a joke, this is quite serious.
Nearly all experts agree that if the ER policies were implemented overnight (and it would have to be overnight, given their targets), there would be a very rapid economic collapse of unprecedented proportions. Living standards would decline rapidly, there would be hyperinflation - but not just that, our food production would probably reduce by anything between 50 and 80%. But we wouldn't be able to import food as we wouldn't have the infrastructure to do so.
This would mean that millions would die of starvation, and that more millions would fall victim to a range of diseases.
Sanitation, e.g. water purification would collapse. Factories would stop producing goods. Unemployment would soar upwards to something like 80% of the workforce. The vast majority of people would become poor in ways that have not been seen since the 1800s.
Meanwhile NHS hospitals would also fall into chaos as their supply chains fell apart. Again millions would die in appalling suffering as a result.
It's difficult to think of a more extreme political movemen and yet the BBC supports it, defends it and promotes it. The BBC broacasts no criticism of its lies (e.g. the absurd claim that climate change will result in our extinction as a species - how exactly?) while it happily persecutes someone like Bill Cash MP for expressing how he feels about the Brexit process in florid language (whereas of course Soubry and Lammy get a free pass).
Trump State Visit: BBC News Channel at approximately 12.25. A Beeb reporter has just, unbelievably, not only told us the probable route of the cavalcade, but identified the Mall as the place where he suspects anti-Trump demonstrators will probably want to make their views known. He forgot to indicate the whereabouts of any grassy knolls.
Look who's in the news as an MEP candidate for the Remain party that calls itself Change. Well if it isn't the ex-BBC Hissing Gavin Esssler! We are grateful for quality insights and honoured to receive the benefit of his wisdom: "Our political system is a joke, it's a worldwide joke".
Yes, Gavin, this democracy thingey is very annoying. Fortunately through a combination of Miller, Bercow, the Electoral Commission, the Supreme Court and the BBC you can pretty much ignore it.
"The easiest transition to politics there has probably ever been. Gavin Esler was always a political activist. It's just as BBC licence payers we had to pay for the privilege of him making world politics his own 'progressive hobby'."
The BBC is very eager to shift the blame to the Sri Lankan Government/security services. Sorry Beeb, the culprits are the people who built & detonated the bombs.
Your starter for ten...which of the following three BBC headlines sound more like an advert than a headline to a news story?
1. "Nigel Farage launches Brexit Party ahead of European elections"
2. "Brexit Party launch: Farage on 'democratic revolution'"
3. "Join the Remain alliance, urges Change UK at Euro election launch"
Notice how "democratic revolution" is given distancing inverted commas to encourage a degree of scepticism, whereas the reference to "the Remain alliance" (without the distancing speech marks) makes it sound like there really is something called the Remain alliance, when there isn't.
Nope, it's not your imagination. I noticed it the other day in a news bulletin. The tone is kind of sceptical-indulgent (like humouring an ancient relative) for The Brexit Party. For UKIP the dark tone preserved for the Far Right is used these days.
Another contrast. The Sky News website has a headline story about one of Change UK's candidates, Ali Sadjady, already having to resign:
Change UK candidate Ali Sadjady quits after pro-Brexit, anti-Romanian tweet unearthed.
He said he'd back Brexit if it stopped Romanian pickpockets.
The BBC News website doesn't have the news of him quitting yet, and only mentions the controversy surrounding him midway through an article describing the party's campaign launch - the with the headline MB mentions.
If this had been a UKIP candidate, the BBC would have had this as a headline story in a flash.
Geeta Guru-Murthy on the BBC News Channel 11.30 papers review was discussing with Lance Price and a 'Steve' I didn't recognise, the contrast between the immediate polling impact of Farage's Brexit Party, and the challenge faced by the damp squib that is the CUKs. 'Steve' suggested an emotional 'tell them again' hook that Farage is tapping into, while Guru-Murthy characterised CUK's struggles as follows:
"It was always part of the difficulty isn't it? One is a more perhaps considered, rational side of the argument, the other is, is...(inaudible)...sentimental."
There you have it. True BBC impartiality in all its yawning glory...
If only one of the men hadn't talked over her at that point. The inaudible bit at the end could have been saying "is considered less sensible", but - having re-watched it a few times - I can't tell if it was that or "considered sentimental", or something else. But the point she was trying to make was very clear and is, just as you say, direct from the BBC's echo chamber.
What could be more sentimental and irrational than to think that the European superstate project is about peace and love (what most true believing Remainiacs seem to think)as opposed to power and control over one sixth of the world's GDP.
A very unpleasant case of racism involving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with the lead perpetrator, Michal Szewczuk, merely described as a 'neo-Nazi' and 'of Leeds' in Daniel De Simone's report.
Naturally, I had to find out from elsewhere that Michal Szewczuk is actually a Polish national.
Why on earth might the BBC have overlooked such a minor detail?
Apart from two of their current clanging agendas that immediately spring to my mind, and probably yours, of course.
Thanks Rob. Interesting. All of a piece with their constant refrain that the "Far Right" is on the rise in the UK, when there isn't a single Far Right MP, while maintaining radio silence about the rise of the Far Right all over mainland Europe in the EU. There is a very real possibility that a future European superstate could end up controlled by a Far Right European Council and European Parliament.
Do they dare disappear it like they have disappeared huge Islamic terrorist bombings of churches in Egypt, Iraq and the Philippines in the past? I don't think so. They're not stupid, they can see people are watching how they dealing with this in comparison with the very recent NZ mosques atrocity and will maintain some minimal coverage is my guess. But they will continue to obfuscate and avoid all discussion of real motivation (related to religious teaching and texts).
Schama confirms he's suffering from terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome and also that he lives in the USA (not the UK, as he likes to imply when appearing on Question Time).
"corrupt pocket-lining egomaniacal narcissist, barely literate serial liar, abuser of the constitution and and an enemy of free speech" says the man who's never lined his pockets out of the widow's mite (TV licence fee to you and me), never mangled the English sentence by turning it into an incoherent never-ending jerking spasm of emotion, never tried to overturn the result of a democratic vote carried out under our constitution, never supported the closing down of other people's free speech and of course never lied about anything at all.
Did you see Politics Live today where Claire Fox, former Marxist, got a grilling over a libel case that bankrupted the magazine LM - Living Marxism - about 20 years ago? The case was brought by ITV over an allegation in the magazine about a photo of a detention camp shown by ITV during the Serbian Bosnian war. In fact, Coburn had two goes at her about it, not being satisfied she'd made enough of a meal of it in the first round. We all know of Communists who don't get any stern moral inquisition on the BBC. Indeed the same programme recently sent one off to make a long boring film - as David Starkey called it - of meeting an Italian communist.
You're For Brexit? = You're Fair Game as far as the BBC are concerned. They'd challenge your choice of sock colour if they thought it would advance the Remain cause.
As mentioned on earlier posts President Trump’s visit to the UK is getting the illiberal liberals hot under the collar. The BBC is ramping up its coverage and, as we know only too well, are not adverse to giving him a good kicking.
In the middle of a formal article about what a state visit is all about they have dropped in an all out assault under the guise of - ‘why has his planned visit upset some people?’
Using their oft used tactic of quoting criticism by others, they list only the classic Trump negatives. - his immigration policies - building a wall - banning citizens from some Muslim-majority countries - withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change - making misogynistic remarks about women - banning certain transgender people from the military - LGBT discrimination
They then go on to use selective quotes such as "the world's number one racist, warmonger and misogynist"
and
"It is time for everyone who opposes this politics of hate and bigotry to stand up and be counted."
‘Dust off the Blimp’ is another.
I have no problem with the BBC reporting like this if they used balance and listed in a similar fashion why he should be allowed to come and used pro visit quotes.
But of course they don’t do that because their aim is to damage and stir up sentiment against the visit.
It’s rank hypocrisy because thy preach that they need to be careful with the way they use language and words, but clearly that isn’t universally applied and certainly not with anything right wing or Trumpian. They hate him with a passion.
Outrageous and disgusting - comparing democratically elected Trump with Ceauşescu, Mubarak and Mugabe who all killed their own people in hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands and Hirohito who launched aggressive war across the whole of Asia and was responsible for millions of deaths and the most brutal mistreatment of those considered racially inferior. How low can the BBC sink? Very, very low.
Just heard Anne Widdicombe slapping down Extreme Remainer Evan Davis on PM (aka "The Evan Davis Show"). Excellent! She told him people were also fed up about politicians not being allowed to get a sentence out. Suitably chastened he did actually allow her to utter a whole sentence - wonders will never cease. Well done Anne.
Actually, I must say she was pretty impressive overall, setting out a v. clear case about what hadn't been done and what needed to be done and positioning herself v. cleverly.
Didn't stop Evan doing his "Paddington Bear" active about whether she might not be worried that she was setting herself against the modern, go-ahead, pro-migration, metropolitan centres.
Just a reminder, Evan, they did that survey on social attitudes a while back and found that LONDON, yes London, was the region in the country with the most retrograde attitudes on homosexuality, feminism, abortion and so on...Reflect on that a while Evan and then come back and tell me why you think that might be...
PM incidentally appeared to be doing their best to disappear the Sir Lankan Islamotivated massacre.
At last some serious investigation by the French Private Eye equivalent - Le Canard Enchaine (not that Private Eye would ever undertake such an investigation these days)...
I doubt the BBC will be much interested in this...especially as security staff are coming under review - it may lead somewhere they don't want to go...
BBC News at 10, Live from Columbo with Clive Myrie, is now solely focused on the Muslim community is Sri Lanka and their fear of reprisals as a result of the suicide bombings. Only on the BBC could the focus shift so quickly from the attacks and those mourning their losses, to the Muslim community expressing their fear of attacks and claiming that those responsible for the bombings do not represent them or their faith. This is a classic BBC play; make us feel sorry for the opposite side rather than those who have lost loved ones. The BBC could not mention the words 'Christian' or 'Catholic' in this whole episode but are quick to mention 'Islam' and 'Muslim'.
Insulting to the over 300 who died, the hundreds more injured, the thousands traumatised and the hundreds of thousands grieving for family members or friends.
Catholic Priest accuses people of failing to prioritise peace over politics in Northern Ireland - why does the BBC assume he wasn't talking to them, given they have spent the last two years talking up the prospect of a return to violence "because of Brexit"?
One of the excellent things about this blog is your evidence based approach to demonstrating BBC bias, so I thought I'd have a look myself at BBC News morning headlines in the days following the appalling Christchruch attacks using the Wayback Machine.
We're now 4 days on from Sri Lanka, and as you say, not a sniff of the story on the BBC News front page even though there have been significant developments overnight with the arrest of the father of two of the suicide bombers. Particularly signficant as this chap is a highly wealthy spice trader, thus giving lie to the left's assertion that Islamic radicalisation is borne from poverty, deprivation and the vulnerability that this can bring.
Anyway, 4 days on from Christchurch: https://web.archive.org/web/20190320080929/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Still the main headline and a further supplementary story.
5 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190320080929/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
The main headline, second story, and a supplementary story.
6 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190321051702/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Still the main story.
7 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190322074944/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Relegated as the top story, but still on the main page as the fourth story.
8 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190323073714/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Third story, plus a detailed analysis of the victims.
9 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190324091552/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
No longer included in the headlines, but the detailed analysis of the victims remains on the front page in the 'Full Story' section.
10 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190325081159/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Back into the headlines, 5th story.
11 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190326052629/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
For the first time, Christchurch no longer makes the front page.
However, it returns for at least the next 3 days, being the second story on two of those days:
12 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190327084127/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
13 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190328085724/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
14 days on: https://web.archive.org/web/20190329080704/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
You get the picture.
Let's see where the BBC goes with this one over the coming days.
(Apologies for the deletions, struggling with the formatting.)
On BBC Midlands Today last night there was an interview with a family from Shrewsbury who all got arrested at the Extinction Rebellion protests in London. The reporter spoke to them adoringly as the teenage daughter explained how proud she was of her parents. Nods of approval from the reporter who spoke in hushed tones and gazed in admiration at the family.
The whole emphasis of this report was one of approval and appreciation. The tone was one of support and solidarity and the emphasis was on grovelling and fawning to a family who had done the right thing on an important protest.
It was BBC bias at its worst. Definitely propaganda not journalism.
Absolutely. Why don't they ask them tough questions like "How would you feel if you knew an ambulance had been delayed as a result of your protest and someone died?" or "How did you travel down to London? Did you cycle or did you walk?"
Arne- I watched that & agree 100%. So, if our 'trusted' national broadcaster thinks being arrested is cool, there must be nothing wrong with being arrested for other things...must there?
Yes, social justice rules on MT, especially for the dispossessed, disadvantaged and those championing the inequalities of minority groups. How pale, stale and male gammon Nick Owen keeps his job there, I’ll never know.
... 'Tommy Robinson to stand in European Parliament election' ...
He is standing as an Independent candidate. This led me to ponder whether his real name will appear on the ballot paper. If it does, then the BBC's insistence of harping on thus: 'Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon ...' will backfire as his real name must be very well known by now.
I believe you are allowed to put "known as etc" on the ballot paper but I am not sure there is actually a requirement to put your full legal name up there as we rarely see Irish people put all their five names up or male Muslims put up the Mohammed which probably forms part of their name on their birth certificate. I think it's more about presenting a name to the Returning Officer that doesn't appear fraudulent. So it's down to the Returning Officer's perception. Think about it - in our multi-cultural society how on Earth would you prove someone's name was genuine? Are you going to search the records in Karachi and then Dehli? Of course not! The average Returning Officer will accept what's presented unless he/she has reason to doubt it.
I feel uncomfortable about a number of things to do with the MSM reporting on the Notre Dame fire.
ReplyDelete1. The bovine acceptance of the French authorities' very early claim the cause of the fire was definitely accidental - in advance of any meaningful investigation. It now appears "no hypothesis is being ruled out" and also that experts have still not been able to investigate the crucial seat(s) of the fire.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/18/europe/notre-dame-fire-cause-short-circuit-intl/index.html
There is now a leak from a French official suggesting it was an electrical short circuit. That sounds more like a hope than a fact.
2. The complete lack of interest in the fact a fire (smoke) alarm went off 30 minutes before flames were spotted. This was investigated. It is said the alarm gave the wrong location. Again, no interest in this v. puzzling report in the MSM narrative. Remember the building was occupied - there were plenty of people there. Again the MSM seem uninterested in exactly what was noticed when.
3. The MSM seems completely uninterested in the 400 plus acts of vandalism against Catholic churches over the previous year many of them serious acts of vandalism or the attempted arson on churches by Islamic extremists or the dry run attack on Notre Dame by Islamic extremists.
4. There has, rightly, been much sorrow at the loss of this much loved landmark - roof and spire (thankfully the two towers are preserved). But what does Macron do immediately after? Announce an "international competition" for a new spire with the implication being that the new spire might look nothing like the old one and might be some "carbuncle on the face of a much loved friend" as someone once said. Why no discussion about that? Why no outrage? I bet the majority of French people would be outraged at that. The Russians rebuilt virtually the whole of St Petersburg's centre from scratch after WW2 as a facsimile of what was there before.
Agree entirely MB.
DeleteHave you seen this video shot an hour before the fire was spotted? MSM are ignoring it.
https://youtu.be/IZ8rN0o_lUw
What can't be in doubt is the quality of the scaffolding design and installation. This will have taken many months to erect. That it survived the fire indicates a high level of professionalism from that contractor. I understood that work hadn't yet started on the roof repairs. An 'electrical short circuit' doesn't ring true.
DeleteThe announcement of an International Competition for the redesign conjures up to me images of an all-glass visitor centre making the Fosters, Rogers, Chipperfields and McAslans of this world rub their hands in glee.
Experience of other projects such as Stonehenge, SS Great Britain etc inevitably lead to a detachment from the subject - making the visitor just a number - in the case of Notr Dame, unable to enjoy the solemnity or liturgy directly.
It was possibly the strength and positioning of the scaffolding that provided stability to the perimeter stonework of Notre Dame during and after the fire - I should have added.
DeleteArne - yes I did see the video. I don't know anything about its provenance or whether the claimed timing is accurate. If it is genuine then one has to ask what was going on. It may have been a workmen recording the work undertaken but the level and angle of the "phone" seems rather odd.
DeleteArthur - It does appear there were workers on site but they had all departed some time before (some reports say an hour before I think) the fire began. I have read a suggestion that an electrical fault in construction lift used on site might have been
Deletethe cause but that sounds little unlikely to me. I've never heard of a fire being caused by one before. Normally in this sort of incident if it's accidental it's because someone left a blowtorch on, or threw a cigarette away.
An electrical short circuit of the magnitude of a lightning strike would have been necessary to ignite this fire. That is unless there was a build-up of detritus which might afford a period of kindling which went undetected for hours.
DeleteQuite, Arthur. It seems counter-intuitive. But none of us (I presume) are experts in this field and so we await further investigation. What was troubling was the "rush to judgement" or in this case the unsupported declaration of innocence re terrorists who have previously on numerous occasions targeted French churches - before any thorough invesigation has been undertaken. Even if it looked accidental (say an unattended blowtorch) it could be malicious (deliberately left on by a worker with mal intent).
DeleteWhile we are on the subject of religion, looks like comments didn't go too well for Jacob Rees-Mogg's virtue signalling tweet about how "anti-Islamic comments have no place in society". I think if Jacob looked back over history he'd find find any number of anti-Islamic comments from revered Popes.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/Jacob_Rees_Mogg/status/1118916073938718720
JRM's stock is plummeting. This is the man who voted for May's deal after saying he wouldn't vote for it unless the DUP voted for it (and they didn't). He is now officially "Vaccilator in Chief".
He is part of the establishment and mainstream politics and always was. His comment is the official line on the subject and none of them will stray from it. To do so means you are out of a job and ostracised forever.
DeleteHe doesn't seem prepared to put in the moral and spiritual effort required to defend free speeh. In the current age it does require a huge amount of effort.
DeleteIs he saying anti-Catholic, anti-Plymouth Brethren and anti-Scientology comments are unacceptable in society? If not, why not? Voltaire was famously rude about Catholicism. Presumably he would be arrested on the spot if Rees-Mogg had his way. Or is Rees-Mogg saying there is something about this one religion above all others that means it must have special protection?
In my opinion, JRM has gone from hero to zero in a matter of days. He is a true blue Conservative who realises that their days are in government are numbered. To have stuck to his ERG principles might at least have preserved a percentage of Conservative MPs upon whom the electorate could have relied upon and rallied behind, he has thrown his lot in with May.
DeleteEaster Quiz
ReplyDelete9pm BBC1 Have I got News For You
Who is the female guest ?
.. How many guesses will it take you ?
Clue #1 She's female
Clue #2 She lives in London supports Remain, supports Labour
.. Not much of a clue cos thats 90% of their guests
Clue #3 she specifically supports Corbyn, and is a bit of a communist
Clue 4 She's Muslim in ethnicity
..you must have got it
Clue 5 : Not Yasmin
Clue 6 : initials A. S.
Arnold Schwartzenegger
DeleteArne Saknussemm
A for Ayesha? Oh no! She turned up the other day pontificating about food or Easter or something...I can't remember what programme it was. Damn. She's A H. It must be the other one. Ash...?
DeleteIt is Ash Friday I believe...and she's not "a bit" of a Communist...she's "literally" a Communist.
DeleteBBC/Sky not only celebrate Ash Friday
Delete.. they celebrate : Ash Monday, Ash Tuesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Saturday,
.......... and Ash Sarkar Sunday as well.
In my youth there was a phrase "flash the ash"...seems to have been taken to heart by our MSM.
DeleteSomeone on Twitter tonight:
Delete"Anyone know why the BBC have such a hard-on for a fringe nutter communist? Doing everything they can to make Sarkar famous."
It's because she self-identifies as a Feminist AND a Muslim AND a Communist (literally!) PLUS she has a dark skin tone. If that's not going to give the BBC a hard-on they will have to start taking triple dose Vi-a-gara. (Also she has pretty nails - probably put on by Vietnamese slave workers in her local nail bar - what's not to like!).
DeleteAnd f***s like a champion. Don't forget that.
Delete9pm Radio4 a repeat of How to be a Better Activist
ReplyDeleteWhat with Tommy Robinson and James Goddard ?
Nope
Blurb "Co-founder of the global Occupy protests, Micah White, explains how the failure of his movement showed him how activism needs to be redefined."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lfbh9
Here's a recent impartial tweet from the programme maker
Calling for a Corbyn Remainer government
https://twitter.com/zoesqwilliams/status/1118852296253878272
The Guardian's Zoe Williams being given a programme on the BBC to present Guardian/BBC stuff. Radio 4 needs 'redefining'. Urgently.
DeleteI did say it was a repeat
Delete.. from 2017 I think
Repeated to fit in with the BBC's XR's joint project
Sir Lefty is well worth the occasional visit:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/SupportOurLefty/status/1119273734882381824
He certainly is.
DeleteExtinction Rebellion - what do they really want?
ReplyDeleteSome appear to want to end carbon emissions. That's doable in 25 years. Doing it within 6 years as they want would cause poverty and untold suffering. The poor would suffer the most of course.
Some appear to want us to cut back on consumption to agrarian levels. That would result in the collapse of the NHS, millions of deaths, famine and abject poverty.
Some appear to think the human race is in danger of extinction from climate change - surely one of the most absurd claims ever made. There's absolutely no evidence for it but the BBC is happy to let these lunatics make such Fake News claims (treating them with respect rather than disdain) which are then watched by vulnerable children. The BBC is laying the ground for an ecoterrorist movement.
Some don't want to have children. Fair enough. We've seen such religious nutjob movements before - Shakers and so on, although the Shakers gave us nice furniture and one reasonable tune whereas I doubt this lot would be up to anything as impressive.
Basically this is just a physical manifestation of the Virtue Signalling Culture that has been produced by the BBC and others who should know better over the last few decades. They are the successors to extreme Puritans who banned Christmas and looked forward to the end of days.
The BBC have racialised comedy, socialised art, denatured drama and politicised nature. What a miserable bunch they are.
Re Notre Dame, this report from France 24 seems much more factual and circumspect than the ones we have had from the BBC and the rest of the MSM:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAjqfMxoTxo
They seem to be saying...no one knows what started the fire...can't argue with that!
I'm not saying the Brexit Party won't do well
ReplyDeletein the EU elections, but looking at the Brexit Party
Nottingham rally I just get the feeling they were
re-running the 2016 Referendum campaign. That is
now irrelevant as far as I am concerned.
For all their many faults it seems to me UKIP have the best take on everything. They understand this is not now a campaign about whether or not we leave the EU - this is a campaign about whether we have a country with a functioning democracy or not.
Good video on the Notre Dame fire...hear what the expert (previously employed on the site) says from around 6:40
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mh4sRYaz6I
Sky reporting 30 dead and 280 injured as three explosions rip through 3 Christian churches on Eastern Sunday in Sri Lanka.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, the BBC 'are still investigating reports.....' You all know where the story goes from here.
Almost no coverage of the now 50 dead on 5 Live. Compare and contrast with the New Zealand attacks.
ReplyDeleteRoland Deschain mentions (over at BBBC) this interesting story...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943815/New-IRA-group-blamed-killing-journalist-Lyra-McKee-putting-strength-cameras.html
BBC's Reggie Yates was making a doc when Lyra McKee was shot.
Jon Sopel likes limericks and Roland D has already composed one.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/BBCJonSopel/status/1119566183232151552
Here's my contribution:
LIMERICK 1
There was a man named Sopel, Jon
Who cried out one day "Hope! - all gone.
Though impartial, free and fair
I really cannot bear
To hear Trump say to Mueller: 'Well done'!"
LIMERICK 2
There was a young man called Zurcher
Who couldn't have been more berserker.
If someone said "Trump"
He'd do a big dump
On the sidewalk - well, what a ferker!
BBC 10 O'Clock News tonight has been a collector's piece. Ten minutes of reports on Sri Lanka outrages and not even a mention of the possibility of Islamic terrorism. But plenty of confuse-a-cat references to the Tamil Tigers and Buddhist attacks on Mosques. And Huw signed off with a cheery "Have a good night". Nothing of Huw's grave sepulchral tones reserved for other similar occasions about which the BBC has less ambiguous feelings.
ReplyDeleteWhy no mention of the AFP "prior warning" report identifying NTJ, a radical Islamic group as planning the attacks, having last year attacked Buddhist statues (seemingly the prior warning has now confirmed by the Sir Lankan PM)?
Why are the BBC protecting a violent Jihadist group like NTJ?
Exactly my thoughts - a new low for their disgraceful reporting of these atrocities. I’m furious.
DeleteMade worse when I watched ITV News just now. Although they too were being very circumspect, they showed an image of a tweet featuring a photo of the prior police intelligence warning - naming the Islamic terrorist group - which had been put up by a Sri Lankan government minister. The BBC is knowingly sowing confusion and indulging in Fake News.
DeleteYes, & they'll string it out for so long that, by the time the true identity of the attackers is known, the bombings will have become stale news or been nudged off the front page by some new atrocity. They really are a contemptible crew.
DeleteThe BBC website is a disgrace. They've shut down the live update - even though thousands of Brits are trapped there in hotels after a traumatising 24 hours and thousands more Brits are either en route for holidays there or wondering WTF is going on. The main report is disrespetctfully skimpy for such a major event and confusing despite, or because of its, liberal use of explainers. It STILL doesn't mention the police warning of Islamic terrorism that has been tweeted by a Sri Lankan government minister.
DeleteThey can't wait to take the story down the news agenda. It's obvious.
Contemptible indeed - lying, deceitful, prevaricating, procrastinating bunch of reprobates with the morals of a hyena, the backbone of a jellyfish and the insight of a bat in a cave. Sorry to all animal life, you don't deserve to be compared to BBC staff but I needed some metaphors.
The report was updated at 3:36 am to say 'Late on Sunday Sri Lanka's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said security services had been "aware of information" of a possible attacks' but the BBC still hasn't mentioned that police warning/government minister tweet about the likelihood of an Islamic terrorist attack.
DeleteFinally, at 5:50 am, they've added (14 paragraphs down): 'The BBC's Azzam Ameen in Colombo says the attackers are thought to be part of a "radical extremist Islamist group" according to authorities.'
So it took them a long while but they've finally sneaked a mention of Islamism in. No names though still.
Craig, it's really not sensible to look to the BBC for news anymore. Neither TV, Radio or Website. Yesterday afternoon I was reading an AFP report on "GulfNews" that gave the name of one of the suicide bombers as a Mhd Azzam Mhd.
DeleteAgreed, Oz. AFP is going to be my first port of call the next time there is a terrorist attack.
Delete"The BBC - Burying the Truth."
And itself!
DeleteWhat an extraordinary use of language this is in the BBC News website leading headline:
ReplyDelete'Sri Lankan Death Toll Soars to 290'.
Buzzards soar, temperatures soar - but a death toll? In the dictionary the third meaning given to soar reads:
'increase rapidly above the usual level' Are we to assume that there is a 'usual level' for deaths of this type? This slack journalism - unthinking dilution of the horror before us.
Latest BBC headline: "Sri Lanka attacks: 'International network' linked to bombings"
ReplyDelete"International Network" - sounds like the bad guys in a Thunderbirds production.
The are now admitting openly that this relates to a Jihadist group. But they are relucant to explain what a "Jihadist" is. Only much later down the article do we find reference to a "radical Islamist terrorist group".
Absolutely. Nearly 2000 words in that report and the nearest they get to who did it is ‘jihadist’. The whole wordy thing is dispassionate and analysis light.
DeleteThe article deliberately muddy the waters a number of times and very deliberately states;
‘The nation has seen some sporadic violence since. In March 2018 a state of emergency was declared after members of the majority Buddhist Sinhala community attacked mosques and Muslim-owned properties.’
They managed to avoid the word Catholic as well. I've had to look online to find out from newspapers including the Telegraph, Mail and New York Times, the names, denominations and other details of the churches. The NYT has several articles, including a detailed one about other religious attacks throughout South Asia, Sri Lanka included. The BBC's correspondent is either an incompetent or a partisan reporter or subject to BBC editorial policy.
DeleteIt's striking how that policy or practice varies depending on the subject matter. When someone says a wrong word, they don't resort to similar vagueness such as 'Man used unapproved language' or 'Person offended group'. It'll be specified and highlighted as 'Race', attributed to specific named personhood and detailed as, for example, 'Tory Councillor' or 'right-wing /extremist'.
You'd think they'd have mentioned early on the tradition that St Thomas founded Christianity on the island in the 1st century AD. Certainly there have been Christian communities there from well before the birth of Islam.
DeleteThe NY Times article about religious attacks
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-religion-christians.html?module=inline
This makes me think of incompetence: " Theravada Buddhism is Sri Lanka's biggest religious group, making up about 70.2% of the population, according to the most recent census.Hindus and Muslims make up 12.6% and 9.7% of the population respectively.
DeleteSri Lanka is also home to about 1.5 million Christians, according to the 2012 census, the vast majority of them Roman Catholic."
The reference to Christians is like something tacked on as an afterthought and doesn't even bother to give the percentage! I came across the percentage figure of 6% in the NYT. I suspect the BBC lazily cut and pasted that from a Catholic news agency that I noticed when looking online for details of the bombed churches.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48012085
It's been given a very cursory 10 mins or so on Radio 4 on WATO. I didn't hear it all, so might have missed something, but seems it's being dealt with in the vaguest terms. No sense of the full horror being conveyed.
ReplyDeleteMain discussion at BBC must be "When can we move it off top story?"
Some people are suggesting that the BBC is hiding behind a refusal to run with unverified or unverifiable accusations. Far from the truth. They are quite happy to run with unverifiable allegations:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/be8f4f0b-02aa-43d3-9924-f22c23263ecb
It just has to be the right story.
Yes, they are forever posting speculation, opinion and even what is going to happen, rather than what has happened. They've been happy to attribute motives and even murder to politicians and the effects of Leaving the EU, without verification.
DeleteMr Urban Liberal just tweeted
ReplyDeleteand was quickly retweeted by Nihal
\\ I know the #ExtinctionRebellion protesters are not everyone's cup of tea,
and some are posh/young/poser types who can sound silly,
but the sight of these individuals being belittled by veteran anchormen who look like they had half the planet for lunch is pretty revolting
Ah, I'm guessing Andrew Neil was in their cross hairs.
DeleteJeremy Vine was disobeying Fran's Law there: Don't slag off your BBC colleagues on Twitter. She threatened consequences if people did. Popcorn time?
DeleteThough he could have meant Adam Boulton of Sky.
Delete"belittled by veteran anchormen who look like they had half the planet for lunch is pretty revolting"
DeleteThat's an ad hom
That's fat shaming
..Adam Boulton's name came in the replies
Screenshot of tweet, that Nihal rushed to retweet
ReplyDeletecos it denied there had been threats from Islamic terrorists..
its keyline "The AG confirms that this document is fake"
except that itself wasn't true
I saw quite a bit of that yesterday, and Al Jazeera actually deleted a report they'd posted based on it on the grounds (they said) that there were doubts about it authenticity. Ouch!
DeleteSaw YAB on Sky News Press Preview. The excellent Brendan O'Neil was on as well - treating her like the nutter on the bus, studiously avoiding all eye contact with her, lest that give her encouragement. She announced she was a practising Muslim. Er - we're not interested.
ReplyDeleteShe kept talking over him but he continued speaking to make his point. He's very calm when faced with these nutters. I don't know how he manages to keep his composure and his train of thought but he does.
DeleteYes he's very good. Seen him with several such nutters - Rachel Shabi being another one. Best not to engage with their insane virtue signalling non sequitirs. Just plough on with the point you want to make! :)
DeleteAlthough YAB has only a tenuous grasp on reality, she did make one good point: the Sri Lankan attacks were reminiscent of the Mumbai attacks. Those attacks were co-ordinated from Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organisation thought to have the blessing of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's intelligence services.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some such connection is found here, but the BBC and MSM generally are being incredibly coy about such speculation. It does tie in with a regional power game (Sri Linka is as I understand very much in India's sphere of influence). The attack might have been focussed on Christian targets rather than Buddhist ones because Pakistan has quite close relations with Bhuddist Mynamar.
Obviously I've no idea but surely there must be people who can illuminate what's going on. Why are we being kept in the dark by the BBC and others?
There are other regional tensions affecting them. Apparently one conflict between different individuals or parts of government is about the involvement with China. Some lean towards it, others towards India. I've read before there have been problems about China building large infrastructure projects, leaving Sri Lanka indebted beyond its means to repay.
DeleteYAB did say it is a very secretive, securitised place, following the years of civil war so it is hard to find out what is going on. Another thought occurs to me at mention of Myanmar: the Catholic charity CAFOD has been very active in relief work and advocacy on behalf of the Rohingya, long before we were hearing about them in the media. It was one of the main priorities in the Vatican for its aid work. As well as the hostility within Sri Lanka itself towards Christians as former colonials, there may be others in the wider region with motives that are not so obvious at first.
I am sure there are many tangled interests in the region - and China will definitely be a player as well along with the USA and EU. There are tangled interests in all regions including out own. But since we have to pay such a large sum to view the BBC we could at least expect them to shed some light on this. But all we get is "no idea who did it" and just vague references to nebulous entities like "international networks", "local groups", "foreign networks" and so on. The BBC has clearly decided on a policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil" until we all forget about it.
DeleteI first heard about Sri Lanka's indebtedness to China on a Sky News report about a new but largely unused airport which had been financed and built by the Chinese. A search brings up more about this from 2016: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-to-sri-lanka-we-want-our-money-not-your-empty-airport/#64a0aea61beb
DeleteThe search also brought up a report which said India offered to buy Sri Lanka's debt to China - and a BBC report all the way back in 2010 about Chinese involvement. There are loads of reports online about all this. The NYT came up again and probably has more in-depth reporting.
An intelligent discussion between two people...of the type you won't ever get on BBC.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfrc5Zd-O-o
They will both be banned by YT soon.
And Carl Benjamin in probably his natural environment -
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9InBlsjHer8
On the impartial pro-Remain Radio 4 this morning...
ReplyDeleteThe impartial Remainer Jonathan Freedland has on his programme "The Long View" an impartial look at the parallels between our relationship with the EU and those between Mercia and Frankia - the continental superpower of the time. His guide is the impartial Major and Blair negotiator, Remainer Stephen Wall. Jonathan appeared particularly pleased to be able to read out that the disruption in the Mercian-Frankian alliance was "the work of the devil" and that free movement at the time was a blessing and a boon, allowing English Monks in this country to work on behalf of Charlemagne's empire (bit like Blair working and his minions working for Tusk and Macron).
We're getting the BBC agenda full blast this morning. I heard that and knew what to expect from Remainer Freedland and Steeped-in-the-EU Stephen Wall but 'the work of the devil' was what I heard earlier from the blatant baiting of Bill Cash by Robinson on Today. While on the one hand alleging - in a tone of assumed pious fervour - the use of the language of war (a fiction got up by Robbo) in talking of humiliatingly grovelling to France and Germany, he went on and actually goaded Cash to call them the enemy. How in hell can he get away with this? I will be very surprised if there aren't complaints about this and that Robbo isn't told to get back in his box.
DeleteMonday's Today was probably an all time low for the programme; Jack de Manio, Brian Redhead and John Timpson would have been rolling in their graves at the ludicrous political correctness in spite of 290 dead in Sri Lanka.
DeleteTime and again, presenters referred to 'Churches' , 'Easter worshippers'; they did all possible to avoid references to Christians or, heaven forbid, Catholics killed by the terrorists. There was no mention of who might have committed the atrocities in spite of strong evidence, already circulating in informed circles, that the NTJ were likely culprits. Every other culprit, other than the startlingly obvious, was thought possible candidates for the horrific attack on Catholics praying on Easter Sunday; the holiest day in the Christian calendar. Even the Sri Lankan ambassador to the UK was wheeled out to say that the attack could have been perpetrated by ' any number of agencies'. Despicable performance from all involved.
Later in the programme, Nick Robinson made it even more damnable by asking a police chief in Northern Ireland if the murder of Lyra McKee had been as a result of the tensions raised by 'Brexit' and the discussions over the Irish border. It was reassuring to hear the police chief kick that idea swiftly into touch.
All in all, a really disgraceful performance from all involved at the Today programme and a historic low in their political journalism and investigative reporting.
Catherine Uttley's appraisal of the BBC's approach to this atrocity is worth a read in the Article, see below;
https://www.thearticle.com/ignorance-and-anti-catholic-bias-at-the-bbc-a-former-employee-writes
Why is the BBC and Nick Robinson for one pushing what someone on Biased BBC rightly called "a New Age death cult" so assiduously? The reference to "death cult" is not a joke, this is quite serious.
ReplyDeleteNearly all experts agree that if the ER policies were implemented overnight (and it would have to be overnight, given their targets), there would be a very rapid economic collapse of unprecedented proportions. Living standards would decline rapidly, there would be hyperinflation - but not just that, our food production would probably reduce by anything between 50 and 80%. But we wouldn't be able to import food as we wouldn't have the infrastructure to do so.
This would mean that millions would die of starvation, and that more millions would fall victim to a range of diseases.
Sanitation, e.g. water purification would collapse.
Factories would stop producing goods. Unemployment would soar upwards to something like 80% of the workforce. The vast majority of people would become poor in ways that have not been seen since the 1800s.
Meanwhile NHS hospitals would also fall into chaos as their supply chains fell apart. Again millions would die in appalling suffering as a result.
It's difficult to think of a more extreme political movemen and yet the BBC supports it, defends it and promotes it. The BBC broacasts no criticism of its lies (e.g. the absurd claim that climate change will result in our extinction as a species - how exactly?) while it happily persecutes someone like Bill Cash MP for expressing how he feels about the Brexit process in florid language (whereas of course Soubry and Lammy get a free pass).
Trump State Visit: BBC News Channel at approximately 12.25. A Beeb reporter has just, unbelievably, not only told us the probable route of the cavalcade, but identified the Mall as the place where he suspects anti-Trump demonstrators will probably want to make their views known. He forgot to indicate the whereabouts of any grassy knolls.
ReplyDeleteIs that the BBC's new Protest Editor? As far as I recall that post used to be occupied by Paul Mason, then Economics Editor of Newsnight.
DeleteMan called 'Diment' or maybe 'Diament'. I didn't catch the title but 'Protest Editor' would fit!
DeleteOh, it must be that excitable individual, Jonny Diamond, latterly known as the Royal Correspondent (or something like that).
DeleteMason will be the future Media Commissar under the Corbynista Marxist-Leninist government permanently ensconced in Broadcasting House.
DeleteLook who's in the news as an MEP candidate for the Remain party that calls itself Change. Well if it isn't the ex-BBC Hissing Gavin Esssler! We are grateful for quality insights and honoured to receive the benefit of his wisdom: "Our political system is a joke, it's a worldwide joke".
ReplyDeleteYes, Gavin, this democracy thingey is very annoying. Fortunately through a combination of Miller, Bercow, the Electoral Commission, the Supreme Court and the BBC you can pretty much ignore it.
DeleteA tweet from historian/author Tom Gallagher:
Delete"The easiest transition to politics there has probably ever been. Gavin Esler was always a political activist. It's just as BBC licence payers we had to pay for the privilege of him making world politics his own 'progressive hobby'."
By pandering to this dangerous New Age death cult (the Extinction Rebellion) Gove shows he is entirely unfit for office.
ReplyDeleteHe has sat at Dave and Theresa's feet and learned...nothing whatever!
DeleteThat photo of him, Ed Miliband and Lib Dem Leila is like a modern-day 'The Adoration of the Magi'.
DeleteJust comparing AFP's straightforward news reporting...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.afp.com/en/news/15/islamic-state-group-claims-sri-lanka-suicide-bombings-doc-1fv0hd6
...with the BBC's slanted SNM (sensitive news management).
The BBC don't come out of it well.
The BBC is very eager to shift the blame to the Sri Lankan Government/security services. Sorry Beeb, the culprits are the people who built & detonated the bombs.
DeleteThat AFP report is vastly more informative (and informed) than the BBC's reports.
DeleteYour starter for ten...which of the following three BBC headlines sound more like an advert than a headline to a news story?
ReplyDelete1. "Nigel Farage launches Brexit Party ahead of European elections"
2. "Brexit Party launch: Farage on 'democratic revolution'"
3. "Join the Remain alliance, urges Change UK at Euro election launch"
Notice how "democratic revolution" is given distancing inverted commas to encourage a degree of scepticism, whereas the reference to "the Remain alliance" (without the distancing speech marks) makes it sound like there really is something called the Remain alliance, when there isn't.
Is it my imagination or do BBC News presenters adopt an up-beat tone and indulgent smile when speaking of the, unfortunately-named CUK Party?
DeleteNope, it's not your imagination. I noticed it the other day in a news bulletin. The tone is kind of sceptical-indulgent (like humouring an ancient relative) for The Brexit Party. For UKIP the dark tone preserved for the Far Right is used these days.
DeleteAnother contrast. The Sky News website has a headline story about one of Change UK's candidates, Ali Sadjady, already having to resign:
DeleteChange UK candidate Ali Sadjady quits after pro-Brexit, anti-Romanian tweet unearthed.
He said he'd back Brexit if it stopped Romanian pickpockets.
The BBC News website doesn't have the news of him quitting yet, and only mentions the controversy surrounding him midway through an article describing the party's campaign launch - the with the headline MB mentions.
If this had been a UKIP candidate, the BBC would have had this as a headline story in a flash.
Unfortunate indeed, Sisyphus!
ReplyDeleteGeeta Guru-Murthy on the BBC News Channel 11.30 papers review was discussing with Lance Price and a 'Steve' I didn't recognise, the contrast between the immediate polling impact of Farage's Brexit Party, and the challenge faced by the damp squib that is the CUKs. 'Steve' suggested an emotional 'tell them again' hook that Farage is tapping into, while Guru-Murthy characterised CUK's struggles as follows:
"It was always part of the difficulty isn't it? One is a more perhaps considered, rational side of the argument, the other is, is...(inaudible)...sentimental."
There you have it. True BBC impartiality in all its yawning glory...
...direct from their echo chamber.
If only one of the men hadn't talked over her at that point. The inaudible bit at the end could have been saying "is considered less sensible", but - having re-watched it a few times - I can't tell if it was that or "considered sentimental", or something else. But the point she was trying to make was very clear and is, just as you say, direct from the BBC's echo chamber.
DeleteWhat could be more sentimental and irrational than to think that the European superstate project is about peace and love (what most true believing Remainiacs seem to think)as opposed to power and control over one sixth of the world's GDP.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48027056
ReplyDeleteA very unpleasant case of racism involving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with the lead perpetrator, Michal Szewczuk, merely described as a 'neo-Nazi' and 'of Leeds' in Daniel De Simone's report.
Naturally, I had to find out from elsewhere that Michal Szewczuk is actually a Polish national.
Why on earth might the BBC have overlooked such a minor detail?
Apart from two of their current clanging agendas that immediately spring to my mind, and probably yours, of course.
Quite, Rob. Many other UK media outlets ARE calling him a Polish national or a Polish student. The BBC itself did months ago.
DeleteThanks Rob. Interesting. All of a piece with their constant refrain that the "Far Right" is on the rise in the UK, when there isn't a single Far Right MP, while maintaining radio silence about the rise of the Far Right all over mainland Europe in the EU. There is a very real possibility that a future European superstate could end up controlled by a Far Right European Council and European Parliament.
DeleteAs people here predicted, Sri Lanka is now no longer the lead story on the BBC News website. It remains the lead story on the Sky News website.
ReplyDeleteYes it was me - we can predict their behaviour with some certainty now. Their actions are now as blatant are they are transparent.
DeleteDo they dare disappear it like they have disappeared huge Islamic terrorist bombings of churches in Egypt, Iraq and the Philippines in the past? I don't think so. They're not stupid, they can see people are watching how they dealing with this in comparison with the very recent NZ mosques atrocity and will maintain some minimal coverage is my guess. But they will continue to obfuscate and avoid all discussion of real motivation (related to religious teaching and texts).
DeleteThe Schama needs to lie down in a darkened room...
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/simon_schama/status/1120885543628345346
Schama confirms he's suffering from terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome and also that he lives in the USA (not the UK, as he likes to imply when appearing on Question Time).
"corrupt pocket-lining egomaniacal narcissist, barely literate serial liar, abuser of the constitution and and an enemy of free speech" says the man who's never lined his pockets out of the widow's mite (TV licence fee to you and me), never mangled the English sentence by turning it into an incoherent never-ending jerking spasm of emotion, never tried to overturn the result of a democratic vote carried out under our constitution, never supported the closing down of other people's free speech and of course never lied about anything at all.
Excellent - from Brendan O'Neill, my favourite ex Revolutionary Communist after Claire Fox...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/22/the-cult-of-greta-thunberg/
Did you see Politics Live today where Claire Fox, former Marxist, got a grilling over a libel case that bankrupted the magazine LM - Living Marxism - about 20 years ago? The case was brought by ITV over an allegation in the magazine about a photo of a detention camp shown by ITV during the Serbian Bosnian war. In fact, Coburn had two goes at her about it, not being satisfied she'd made enough of a meal of it in the first round. We all know of Communists who don't get any stern moral inquisition on the BBC. Indeed the same programme recently sent one off to make a long boring film - as David Starkey called it - of meeting an Italian communist.
DeleteYou're For Brexit? = You're Fair Game as far as the BBC are concerned. They'd challenge your choice of sock colour if they thought it would advance the Remain cause.
DeleteAs mentioned on earlier posts President Trump’s visit to the UK is getting the illiberal liberals hot under the collar. The BBC is ramping up its coverage and, as we know only too well, are not adverse to giving him a good kicking.
ReplyDeleteIn the middle of a formal article about what a state visit is all about they have dropped in an all out assault under the guise of - ‘why has his planned visit upset some people?’
Using their oft used tactic of quoting criticism by others, they list only the classic Trump negatives.
- his immigration policies
- building a wall
- banning citizens from some Muslim-majority countries
- withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change
- making misogynistic remarks about women
- banning certain transgender people from the military
- LGBT discrimination
They then go on to use selective quotes such as "the world's number one racist, warmonger and misogynist"
and
"It is time for everyone who opposes this politics of hate and bigotry to stand up and be counted."
‘Dust off the Blimp’ is another.
I have no problem with the BBC reporting like this if they used balance and listed in a similar fashion why he should be allowed to come and used pro visit quotes.
But of course they don’t do that because their aim is to damage and stir up sentiment against the visit.
It’s rank hypocrisy because thy preach that they need to be careful with the way they use language and words, but clearly that isn’t universally applied and certainly not with anything right wing or Trumpian. They hate him with a passion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38794886
Outrageous and disgusting - comparing democratically elected Trump with Ceauşescu, Mubarak and Mugabe who all killed their own people in hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands and Hirohito who launched aggressive war across the whole of Asia and was responsible for millions of deaths and the most brutal mistreatment of those considered racially inferior. How low can the BBC sink? Very, very low.
ReplyDeleteJust heard Anne Widdicombe slapping down Extreme Remainer Evan Davis on PM (aka "The Evan Davis Show").
ReplyDeleteExcellent! She told him people were also fed up about politicians not being allowed to get a sentence out. Suitably chastened he did actually allow her to utter a whole sentence - wonders will never cease. Well done Anne.
Actually, I must say she was pretty impressive overall, setting out a v. clear case about what hadn't been done and what needed to be done and positioning herself v. cleverly.
Didn't stop Evan doing his "Paddington Bear" active about whether she might not be worried that she was setting herself against the modern, go-ahead, pro-migration, metropolitan centres.
Just a reminder, Evan, they did that survey on social attitudes a while back and found that LONDON, yes London, was the region in the country with the most retrograde attitudes on homosexuality, feminism, abortion and so on...Reflect on that a while Evan and then come back and tell me why you think that might be...
PM incidentally appeared to be doing their best to disappear the Sir Lankan Islamotivated massacre.
Notre Dame fire...
ReplyDeleteAt last some serious investigation by the French Private Eye equivalent - Le Canard Enchaine (not that Private Eye would ever undertake such an investigation these days)...
https://www.france24.com/en/20190424-france-notre-dame-fire-investigation-safety-violations-lack-preparedness
I doubt the BBC will be much interested in this...especially as security staff are coming under review - it may lead somewhere they don't want to go...
BBC News at 10, Live from Columbo with Clive Myrie, is now solely focused on the Muslim community is Sri Lanka and their fear of reprisals as a result of the suicide bombings. Only on the BBC could the focus shift so quickly from the attacks and those mourning their losses, to the Muslim community expressing their fear of attacks and claiming that those responsible for the bombings do not represent them or their faith. This is a classic BBC play; make us feel sorry for the opposite side rather than those who have lost loved ones. The BBC could not mention the words 'Christian' or 'Catholic' in this whole episode but are quick to mention 'Islam' and 'Muslim'.
ReplyDeleteInsulting to the over 300 who died, the hundreds more injured, the thousands traumatised and the hundreds of thousands grieving for family members or friends.
DeleteCatholic Priest accuses people of failing to prioritise peace over politics in Northern Ireland - why does the BBC assume he wasn't talking to them, given they have spent the last two years talking up the prospect of a return to violence "because of Brexit"?
ReplyDeleteBecause the BBC is righteous, and being Godlike, can do no wrong.
DeleteOh yeah - I forgot. Thanks for the reminder Emily...or is it Evan?
DeleteThere are 13 headline stories on the BBC News website this morning, and Sri Lanka isn't among them.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the Christchurch mosque attacks are back as one of the top 6 headline stories.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteQuite, Craig.
ReplyDeleteOne of the excellent things about this blog is your evidence based approach to demonstrating BBC bias, so I thought I'd have a look myself at BBC News morning headlines in the days following the appalling Christchruch attacks using the Wayback Machine.
We're now 4 days on from Sri Lanka, and as you say, not a sniff of the story on the BBC News front page even though there have been significant developments overnight with the arrest of the father of two of the suicide bombers. Particularly signficant as this chap is a highly wealthy spice trader, thus giving lie to the left's assertion that Islamic radicalisation is borne from poverty, deprivation and the vulnerability that this can bring.
Anyway, 4 days on from Christchurch:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190320080929/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Still the main headline and a further supplementary story.
5 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190320080929/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
The main headline, second story, and a supplementary story.
6 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190321051702/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Still the main story.
7 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190322074944/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Relegated as the top story, but still on the main page as the fourth story.
8 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190323073714/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Third story, plus a detailed analysis of the victims.
9 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190324091552/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
No longer included in the headlines, but the detailed analysis of the victims remains on the front page in the 'Full Story' section.
10 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190325081159/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Back into the headlines, 5th story.
11 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190326052629/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
For the first time, Christchurch no longer makes the front page.
However, it returns for at least the next 3 days, being the second story on two of those days:
12 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190327084127/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
13 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190328085724/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
14 days on:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190329080704/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
You get the picture.
Let's see where the BBC goes with this one over the coming days.
(Apologies for the deletions, struggling with the formatting.)
On BBC Midlands Today last night there was an interview with a family from Shrewsbury who all got arrested at the Extinction Rebellion protests in London. The reporter spoke to them adoringly as the teenage daughter explained how proud she was of her parents. Nods of approval from the reporter who spoke in hushed tones and gazed in admiration at the family.
ReplyDeleteThe whole emphasis of this report was one of approval and appreciation. The tone was one of support and solidarity and the emphasis was on grovelling and fawning to a family who had done the right thing on an important protest.
It was BBC bias at its worst. Definitely propaganda not journalism.
Absolutely. Why don't they ask them tough questions like "How would you feel if you knew an ambulance had been delayed as a result of your protest and someone died?" or "How did you travel down to London? Did you cycle or did you walk?"
DeleteArne- I watched that & agree 100%. So, if our 'trusted' national broadcaster thinks being arrested is cool, there must be nothing wrong with being arrested for other things...must there?
DeletePS As I've said before, BBC Midlands is constantly trying to out-Herod Herod.
DeleteYes, social justice rules on MT, especially for the dispossessed, disadvantaged and those championing the inequalities of minority groups. How pale, stale and male gammon Nick Owen keeps his job there, I’ll never know.
DeleteThere's a story that didn't make the BBC News website Homepage:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-48055802
... 'Tommy Robinson to stand in European Parliament election' ...
He is standing as an Independent candidate. This led me to ponder whether his real name will appear on the ballot paper. If it does, then the BBC's insistence of harping on thus: 'Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon ...' will backfire as his real name must be very well known by now.
I believe you are allowed to put "known as etc" on the ballot paper but I am not sure there is actually a requirement to put your full legal name up there as we rarely see Irish people put all their five names up or male Muslims put up the Mohammed which probably forms part of their name on their birth certificate. I think it's more about presenting a name to the Returning Officer that doesn't appear fraudulent. So it's down to the Returning Officer's perception. Think about it - in our multi-cultural society how on Earth would you prove someone's name was genuine? Are you going to search the records in Karachi and then Dehli? Of course not! The average Returning Officer will accept what's presented unless he/she has reason to doubt it.
DeleteGood stuff:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq_7-cQvisI
Carl is rising in my opinion.
I take back everything I said about Kate McCann being a good honest reporter - this is appalling, just pure PC Globalist ideology from Kate. :(
DeleteCarl did well challenging all her suppositions but I am not sure there is any point engaging with these liars. Just crowd-fund an honest media! :)