A few observations, but please make allowances for someone who only managed about four hours sleep.
Thank you for a lively open thread. (You may use this as a new one if you like)
The magic has deserted the grandpa. The full pronunciation of ‘Party’ has resumed; Jeremy's ’T’ has been restored to its rightful place. He probably deduced that pandering to glottal-stopping troops was a waste of time if they’re going to just turn on him and kick him when he’s down.
Although I wouldn’t class Lisa Nandy and Lucy Powell as particularly disloyal, or Corbynista troops - not by a long chalk - but don’t forget, they would have stood by him if Labour hadn’t been thoroughly trounced.
Both of them publicly turned on him this morning, albeit in measured tones. Lucy Powell said he could have shown some contrition and taken responsibility for Labour’s failure. He didn’t. He was irritable and he doubled down on the weaknesses in his campaign with remarkably stubborn intransigence. Sulky and, what’s the opposite of magnanimous? Mean-spirited?
I was sorry that Caroline Flint lost her seat. She was magnanimous. That's the way to do it.
What will happen next?
Where will all the antisemitism go? It’s out of the bottle and it can’t go back.
Let’s see how the BBC will adjust. Will they pretend they weren't institutionally hostile to the Tories all along?
Look at "ex-BBC" Paul Mason! I think he's completely lost touch with reality. Yet the BBC once employed him as a BBC economics expert. Look at shifty Shami Chakrabarti. She's been interviewed by the BBC's finest a few times since 'the whitewash'. Yet she wasn't even challenged on the fiasco of a report that earned her a peerage.
But, hey. Pheewwww!
The Conservatives polled 14 million votes.
ReplyDeleteThe really scary thing is that Labour still polled 10 million votes. Despite Corbyn, anti-semitism, Marxist agenda, £83billion of spending.
Yes, about a third of the electorate voted for those things, and that is scary. Thankfully, the bulk of the public give it a whalloping thumbs down.
DeleteIt's clear that Labour behind the scenes won the social media side of things, targeting their youngsters effectively - but how refreshing it is that doing so didn't amount to a row of beans.
DeleteAre you genuinely surprised that Labour got 10 million votes ?
DeleteBy the end of January, unless Boris pulls a magic rabbit out of his bum, it'll be game over.
By the Summer, you may well see riots.
The Conservative party can only float on the 'one nation' boat for so long 'cos it's got a big hole in it. He's got to move very fast and do an awful lot.
You are quite right Charlie. That is what the Conservatives need to realise. They need to realise they only won this victory by being more populist, not more Conservative.
DeleteAnonymous - Not credible. We will be out of the EU as a matter of law by the end of January. No riots.
DeleteI wasn't clear. I didn't mean Brexiter riots, I meant 'people who are being promised things that they don't get' riots.
DeleteCaroline Flint lost her seat while Richard Burgon kept his. On looking at the results, it appears his is one of several where there was a bit of a swing away from Labour, an increased Conservative vote and a substantial Brexit Party one. If the Conservatives and the Brexit Party had combined forces they may have been able to unseat some of those Labour MPs. As it turns out, it doesn't matter too much but it would have been nice all the same.
ReplyDeleteLen McCluskey said today;
ReplyDelete'It is Labour's slow-motion collapse into the arms of the People's Vote movement and others who have never accepted the democratic decision of June 2016 for a single moment which has caused this defeat.
As important as it is, too often, Labour addresses the metropolitan wing of its electoral coalition in terms of values - opennes, tolerance, human rights - and the 'traditional' working-class wing simply in terms of a material offer, as if their constituencies did not have their own values of solidarity and community.'
'Corbyn's failure to apologise for anti-semitism 'when pressed to do so, capped years of mishandling this question'.
The BBC are usually quick to report his pronouncements, but not this one. Buried quickly.
Not buried, just expunged - not reported at all on the BBC News website. Did he say this on a BBC channel? His comments are spot on.
DeleteAgreed. No, to the Huff post. I saw the report on Daily Mail website.
DeleteAnother was Alan Johnston on ITV
Delete"Corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep. Everyone knew he couldn’t lead the working class out of a paper bag."
Interesting...we all know the BBC buries stuff that doesn't fit the narrative.
DeleteOnly got a couple of minutes into HIGNFY. Haven't watched it in a long time but thought I'd give it a go for a bit of schadenfreude.
ReplyDeleteWithin one minute the execrable Hislop stated it was sad that Boris had won - making plain that he was politically biased - and then claimed that Boris had only won by lying and fooling all of the people all of the time.
And the BBC expect us to believe they are an impartial broadcasting outfit?
By the way Hislop now looks disgustingly fat I see as well as full of bile.
There was a time when satirists were genuinely intelligent surveyors of the scene - Peter Cook being the acme I would say (never forget his "Thorpe Trial" skit!) - but now these pathetic groundlings populate our media.
Yes I saw that - Hislops wobbling double chin is now the funniest thing on the show
DeleteThe Remain/Left are the section of society to which Len McCluskey (who'd think it?) was referring. Hislop is one of their chief spokesmen. To be in denial of the 2016 referendum result is bad enough, but now, to be in denial of the election result and to continue in their bubble as if nothing has happened in their own backyard defies belief.
DeleteSadly Alexander Armstrong also allowed himself to be the vehicle for the slander that Boris was receiving "Russian Gold" to fund his campaign.
DeleteNot funny and not clever...just anti-democratic subversion.
Saw quite a bit of Question Time. Audience populated by lunatics, liars and libellers. Panel not much better. Grant Shapps is not my favourite politician but he (along with Michael Dobbs) did a good job of trying to inject some common sense into the proceedings.
ReplyDeleteFiona Bruce was accused, on at least one occasion, that the media was biased towards the right wing. She replied "you don't mean the BBC, of course!".
DeleteYet when she asked the audience if anyone had voted conservative, I only counted 2 hands going up. Considering that approx 44% of the electorate had indeed voted Tory, I would have expected a few more.
To be fair, if the labour party had just won a landslide victory with PM Corbyn installed, I'd imagine the audience would have been full of Conservatives and brexiteers gnashing and wailing.
What on earth was that incoherent verbal diarrhea from Kuenssberg that passed as analysis on the 10om News tonight? Tiredness or just a beeboids inability to say anything nice about Boris?
ReplyDeleteDidn't see it, but I did mention on another thread she looked dreadfully tired - might have the flu. No excuse though.
DeleteJust saw "Have I got news for you" and the audience responses - a bunch of lefties there and on the panel. A very sour and nasty programme this week.... but not unlike earlier weeks with venomous, not funny, attacks on Boris and Tories and a softer gentler kind of treatment for Corbyn and Labour.
ReplyDeleteHeard Chiles on Radio 5 Live this morning. What a fake and liar that guy is.
ReplyDeleteIt was absolutely clear he is a Labour supporter because he was so concerned to ensure Labour tacked back to the centre and become electable again, not caring what Labour members want. He was snide and sarcastic about Boris's victory.
Newsnight does comedy...referring to David Lammy: "One of the men tipped to be Leader..." :) I know Labour has its suicidal moments but Lammy? Er, no.
ReplyDeleteThe same used to be touted about Umunna but he's no longer available. Where do these 'tipped to be leader' trailers come from? The BBC is not telling. Was it a figment of the presenter's own imagination? I think we should be told.
Delete"The most sagacious Marxist of our time" - Paul Mason on now.
ReplyDeleteMason now dissing Corbyn! lol After telling us for the last four years that Corbyn was walking on water. Does Barnett call him out on that? Er no.
Prof Matthew Godwin must be the only sensible academic in the whole country. Only surprised he was allowed on the BBC.
DeleteProfessor Goodwin regularly highlights that he is attacked inside academic circles for his research, written work and his high profile lectures and media work. He is a shining star in a very poisonous University environment where conformity to the existing far left (even Marxist) ethos is the route to advancement.
ReplyDeletePaul Mason is a nasty piece of work; running down working class voters. Not short of saying that they are all horrible racists and need re educating!
Reforming the BBC must be on the government's immediate agenda. Who would be the best man or woman in the government to take this forward?
I agree Caroline Flint is a big loss; she could have been possible leadership material. She has moe gravitas than Long Bailey, Rayner, Nancy or, god forbid, Thornberry.
Talking of Labour leadership, the BBC Midnight News managed to find a vox pop who thought it all went wrong for Labour when David Milliband was overlooked ... I think we all know who's the BBC's candidate
DeleteThe King over the Water.
DeleteGood luck with that BBC. Today the Guardian writes
DeleteDavid Miliband swung from the Institute for Public Policy Research to Blair’s office to MP for South Shields, – which, as a longstanding Labour parliamentarian told me yesterday morning, “he couldn’t even find on a map”. Last week Miliband claimed on Twitter: “The biggest Labour challenge is not the angst of the middle class … it is the disbelief of the working class.” This tribune of the Tyneside proletariat now works 3,000 miles away at a New York-based charity that in 2017 reportedly paid him £680,000.
Yes, a charity (International Rescue) that seems to do little except pontificate and have lunch with other important people. BTW International Rescue's Board of Trustees is "hideously white" and "hideously rich". Part of its self-assigned role is to campaign for mass admission of "refugees" into the USA and Europe. In other words, it's just PC Globalism disguised as a charity.
DeleteJust a technical point. I am 75 in Jan, am away before to celebrate. Cancelled my standing order. Got a ltter from bbc asking to contact. Rang and told them. Was told I have to contact 2 weeks before to tell them. Asked why they cant log it. Not possible. Designed to make it harder
ReplyDeleteThe 'licence' - fee is 100% secure in Al Jonsons hands.The political elites are not going to give up endless hours of free publicity and exposure. Plus we will get Brino. Doris is a Liberal to his core. He will be as bad as May. Corbin never had a hope of winning in the first place. Soon people will realise they have been fooled again. The tiresome cycle goes on!
ReplyDeleteHope Not Hate don't seem to like democracy...from their Twitter Feed:
ReplyDelete"This campaign, and these results pose huge challenges for us as a society and those of us who work to combat hate. The years ahead are going to be extremely challenging and at times disheartening but we have overcome such challenges before and we will overcome them again."
They are very dangerous people - like Jess Phillips they want to have vetting of political candidates.
They seem to have a particular beef with the Brexit Party. Why? They offer no reasons. There isn't a single quote from a single Brexit Party spokesperson to illustrate or evidence their continuing insinuations that the Brexit Party is a hate organisation.
Meanwhile I see no criticism on their twitter feed about the disgusting Antifa demo yesterday when there were explicit calls for murder of political opponents.
Boris is very unlikely to propose any serious reform of the BBC at this stage. But he could if he wished at least dangle the prospect of decriminalisation of the licence fee - so failure to pay would be pursued through the courts as a civil matter. It would be lovely to see the BBC defending imprisoning of poor people.
ReplyDeleteSee https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50781341
ReplyDelete... 'General Election 2019: Who will be Labour's next leader?' ...
Here's a BBC pitch for balance - four female candidates versus one male. There must be quite some pressure building to right an historic wrong here - that the Conservatives have had two women as PMs, and Labour have some catching up to do.
It's clear that the BBC are still driving forward their own PC agenda, regardless of recent events.
Rebecca Long-Bailey is simply one of those robot toys. Pull the string and it starts speaking "I have read my brief...I have read my brief..."
DeleteAngela Rayner wouldn't even be able to read and memorise a brief. She's thick, thick, thick.
Emil Thornberry's unjustified superiority complex would alienate millions of Labour voters.
Jess Phillips is a thoroughly nasty piece of work given to violent language. She hasn't much grown up from the days when she hung around with gangs in the local park. She has argued for political vetting of parliamentary candidates by the Electoral Commission, to ensure they are sufficiently PC. In other words, she is a dangerous fanatic (aka "moderate" as far as the BBC are concerned).
That means you have Keith Starmer left...a man who has dedicated his life to the politicisation of human rights, extension of anti-democratic judicial power and elimination of free speech in the UK. He's probably the most presentable and intelligent of the bunch and can do a bit of the Blair thing on TV, but not much.
The Far Left must have someone up their sleeve surely...I don't think this can be the full extent of the field.
What about Richard Burgon or Lloyd Hitler-Moyle?
DeleteBurger Boy is the one videoed encouraging his Muslim constituents to target Labour MPs who were in Friends of Israel. For which he "apologised". So, if he unapologises, he might be in with a chance.
DeleteLloyd Hitler-Moyle needs to work on his facial hair but he might get there.
John McDonnell leaving shadow cabinet - so say the Mail and Guardian - not the BBC yet though - how to spin it, that's the question.
Delete... how to spin it, that's the question. ... Less than an hour ago, the BBC put up a cosy chat with kindly Uncle John:
Delete... 'General election 2019: Labour facing long haul, warns McDonnell' ...
Bad timing BBC.
The Mail on line is reporting some bitter recrimination within the Labour Party following the GE and that McDonnell has 'quit' the shadow cabinet. There's still nothing about this on the BBC News website. Are they shielding Corbyn until his successor is found?
DeleteI'm glad someone else has noticed the cacophony that Radio 4 serves up as its Electioncast - this is supposed to be the news team keeping us informed or something. Dead Ringers has picked it up and given us the flavour in a quick blast of unlistenable noise.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder to listen to Dead Ringers. They were on form today.
DeleteA quick scan of Radio 4's schedule for this afternoon, following the excruciating three-quarter-hour Any Answers?, shows why I mostly don't listen to R4 any more. Three Sisters - but deaf, is the drama; followed by Zepheniah on infertility...zzz; Woman's Hour with that Lapper woman - she was sculpted on that plinth in Trafalgar Sq. Why are they so obsessed wth her? It rounds off the afternoon with 'The Inquiry - Should we ban billionaires?' I am not making that up.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl7j
I gave up at that point, not feeling curious or masochistic enough to read the rest of the evening schedule.
I know how you feel. I click on the Radio 4 schedule quite often and then click off, finding little or nothing of interest. That's a very recent thing though. I used to love Radio 4. Even despite the bias, I'd easily find things to listen to, even up till a couple of years ago or so. I think it got unlistenable-to very suddenly. Probably in pursuit of those pesky, missing youths, Radio 4 decided (as typical Guardian-reading types) to become obsessed with identity politics - race, racism, gender, transgender, etc. It was a conscious BBC editorial decision, enforced with rigour. So, as a result, the bulk of the population has even less reason than ever to listen to Radio 4. Habit is probably keeping their audience figures up. If they continue like this that will surely crumble. Whether the remainder of the population will be prepared to pay, via the licence fee, to keep a very few million middle-to-upper-class left-liberal Remain voters in the style to which they've become extremely accustomed is probably the main question for the BBC to get their head around.
DeleteThere was an extraordinary clip on BBC Radio News this afternoon of Michael Heseltine declaring (words to the effect): "We've got to accept that we've lost! Brexit is going to happen". He went on to say that we are looking at a long period of uncertainty etc etc. "we" who is "we"?
ReplyDeleteReading between the lines, BBC News are carrying on with their opposition to Brexit despite the outcome of the General Election. Look forward to more of the Remain narrative, accentuating the negative (Craig's phrase). The average BBC/Remainer took no notice of the 2016 referendum, and now apparently will take no notice of election result.
Yep Chris Morris still maintaining Boris unlikely to achieve a trade treaty with the EU with the year...Of course what he and the rest of the BBC always fail to mention that the EU committed themselves to that timetable, as part of the political agreement. So it is NOT some absurdly ambitious timescale invented by "lying Boris".
DeleteYes. I heard that. You are right Arthur - the BBC are sticking to the carefully crafted narrative.
DeleteOn last nights main news one of the reports said the main reason for the defeat was that the Tories targeted the red wall leave constituencies.
The underlying themes throughout were:
It was a Labour defeat, not a Conservative victory
It was aged Labour voters who supported leaving the EU who were lending their votes.
Corbyn was the problem, not Labour policies
Johnston and the Tories will struggle to look after blue collar and working class voters in traditional Labour areas.
It was a vote against Labour, not a vote for Boris.
I'm hearing those themes too, Charlie. It's like a dizzying swirl of agenda-pushing on so many fronts.
DeleteI expect that clip of Heseltine on the news was lifted from his interview on Today this morning. Yes, they had to have a fanatical remainer on the very day after the landslide victory that crushed the whole movement. They seemed to seek him out as a necessary source of authority and guide to what their path through the wreckage should be. Poor lost lambs.
DeleteHe declared that it was over and Brexit would happen and said something to the effect there was no point in not saying so in plain words; furthermore that put paid to any Remain campaign for another 20 years.
Now that the oracle has spoken they know what to think and say in the news bulletin. I'm sure we'll hear it repeated on Marr, Politics Live and other places.
The PR machine disinformation continues with the Ugly Sisters shouting that they are the most beautiful in the kingdom
ReplyDeleteand that the BBC is biased AGAINST the left
by which they mean the metroliberal Islington bubbleworld
an effing preposterous suggestion
The BBC is biased against the actual working class largely white people of the north unless they conform to their Islington bubbleworld
whilst SpecialVictimhood groups get a free pass.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/14/bbc-staff-express-fear-of-public-distrust-after-election-coverage
MarkH quoted
Delete"BBC journalists based in London, an area with strong Labour support, reported finding it harder now that their friendship groups were increasingly critical of the corporation’s output."
Unconscious admission that the jounalists are lefties.
Had they been right of centre they'd have got fed up of being criticised years ago.
The left is so used to being free of any criticism from the TV media and apart from the news sectors, they still are.
A lot of opinions were aired before this election by TV stars.
Very good spot, Stew. That Guardian quote (inadvertantly) reveals so much.
DeletePresumably Lord Hall has begun his round of Islington dining tables once again to apologise for the BBC's latest failure to deliver a PC-Leftist majority. I think though people are unfair on the BBC - they tried their best, all of them, and I reckon that the BBC alone were probably responsible for 50 Labour MPs retaining or gaining their seats.
DeleteJonathan Freedland punching holes in the BBC impartiality rules..."We can be angry at the Tories for winning this election..."
ReplyDeleteGiving his diagnosis of the Labour Party woes...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/corbynism-labour-left-party?CMP=share_btn_tw
Some more "impartial" insights from Freedland:
"A half-functioning opposition party would have wiped the floor with this Tory party." (Note the telltale pejorative use of "Tory".)
The Conservative victory will "risk the union" - do these late converts to the virtues of uninionism ever pause to consider that Labour's rush to concede a huge amount of devolution - in fact virtual independence - to Scotland might have paved the way for dissolution of the UK?
The Conservative government is going to "trample on our democratic norms"? Really but the Left would never do such a thing would it? I think it was a Labour government that introduced 28 day detention without trial and has wiped out our tradition of free speech!
How can the BBC have someone so biased leading discussion of important political events in our history (on what used to be a rather enjoyable programme until it was super-politicised by Remainiac Freedland?
One of the worst aspects of this skewed article is that Freedland, despite his Jewish heritage mentions not once the anti-semitism of Corbyn and the Corbynistas. The Chief Rabbi's brave intervention during the campaign gets no mention at all!
Freedland is deluded. He can't accept he lost the Brexit argument. He can't see that people are as distrustful of the soggy Guardian Left with their obsession with identity politics, transgenderism and other pro-migration policies as much as the Hard Left of Corbyn and co.
Freedland was the journalist given a free reign on the hastily put together BBC One 7.30pm programme on the day of the referendum result. He was the only pundit on the sofa along with the presenters and they were all shocked, funereal and obviously in mourning.
DeleteWe should have know then that we were hearing the beginning of the BBC remain narrative.
Yep - the BBC Remain narrative. Remember - we were "in love" with the EU!...Mardell's radio series was, ludicrously, called "The EU - a love story"...Bar a small percentage of fanatics like Freedland that was never the case, which is why Remainers always prefaced their remarks during the Referendum campaign with "I'm no fan of the EU, but..." - they had to!
DeleteNote sure whether to laugh or cry...
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1205885787629330432
It was the same in the 80's. I was in a punk band in Exeter and the venues were full of middle classed freedom fighter Exeter Uni students distributing leaflets. Nothing has really changed, it's just more obvious because of t'net.
DeleteMany and Some
ReplyDeleteThe BBC journalists love these words. I notice them a lot, especially on the TV reports.
They are part of the BBCs armoury of deception and used to great effect. They change the emphasis and magnitude of the issue being raised without any regard to the facts.
If just one person mentioned it within their friendship circle (haha) they can use either word without recourse and it’s out there broadcast to millions as fact.
‘Many still have concerns about Boris Johnston’
‘Some think Jeremy Corbyn should resign immediately’
Look out for it to see whether I am right.
I should have added that by and large ‘some’ is used to minimise left wing statements, whereas many’ is used to maximise right wing lines of concern.
DeleteYes, you're not wrong - the "Somes" have often been mentioned here. Ultimate deniability!
DeleteIt's all part of the BBC's armoury of deception. :)
So Dominic Grieve and the BBC finally come clean:
ReplyDeleteThe BBC say he: "fought many battles against Brexit in the Commons" and
Grieve says: "Boris Johnson will be able to implement his policy of taking us out of the European Union on 31 January and I shall not be in parliament to be able to stop him".
Prior to the election the BBC helped Grieve maintain, for the last three years, the polite fiction that he didn't oppose Brexit in principle but only this, that or the other Brexit.
There's humour to be found in even the most tragic situation...
ReplyDeleteLast night on Newsnight, po-faced, pro-immigration multiculturalist Jack Straw calls Faiza Shaheen "Faisal" - a man's name. She wasn't best pleased. No - she wasn't smiling for once!
Straw seemed to think it mattered naught. But this is precisely the sort of incident that in everyday life can be used against ordinary people to prove they are "racist", "insensitive", "privileged", "displaying colonial attitudes" and so on which can then impact on their careers and wellbeing. And it's people like Straw who have brought about this situation.
The BBC News website has eventually covered the story of John McDonnell quitting the shadow cabinet. However, it doesn't appear on the home page, but on the Election 2019 page towards the end. The photo is the same one as on the main story about McDonnell:
ReplyDelete... 'Labour facing a long haul..." This appeared earlier on in the day. My guess is that the more important and damaging story of his quitting has been sneaked in late on, and won't be there by the morning.
McDonnell's up to something. He hasn't resigned - just saying he won't stand again. They will have someone in mind to replace him...I'm sceptical that Rebecca Long Bailey will be the real Hard Left candidate.
DeleteBBC might not be helping him as they would prefer a Soft Left (as in differently extreme) candidate - possibly Jess Phillips. Not sure the BBC has yet emerged. We knew they wanted Rory Stewart for Conservative Leader...but we don't know the BBC's favourite yet for the Labour leadership. Might be Starmer I suppose but they would like a woman.
I'm afraid I don't think Jesse Phillips is 'soft left'. Those in that bracket now sit mainly on the Tory benches. This election has underlined that our political labelling is woefully out of kilter with reality; Boris Johnson is Blair, plus or minus a few minor policy differences. Most in the Labour party are cultural Marxists. All but a handful in the Commons are driven by a creed of so-called liberalism that becomes more coercive, totalitarian and prescriptive by the day. Symptoms of that are the Tories' blind allegiance to the NHS (now in performance terms one of the worst health services in the developed world); the point blank refusal to take proper steps to cut immigration; and the kamikaze espousal of climate catastrophism aimed at reducing 'carbon' emissions to zero by 2050 or earlier.
DeleteI think you are broadly correct Robin.
DeleteThe Conservative party sits in the centre nowadays, some MPs are centre left, some are centre right. All are liberal in outlook.
That perceived centre ground is what won Blair his three victories and what has given Boris his with a big leg up from Brexit.
With our two party FPTP system, voters don’t like extremes - as Labour has just found out.
I’m still happy with the outcome.
COMEDY SLOT:
ReplyDeleteAsh can pursue a career as an alternative comedian...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgKeTJwyzRE
Lest we forget...Boris has certainly proved the saviour of the nation, but the co-author of victory has been Dominic Cummings behind the scenes. I think the latter is the person in the administration charting the right course now, which certainly includes putting the BBC under pressure on decriminalisation of the licence fee, sure to be a popular policy in those new northern Conservative constituencies, and one that will cost the Government nothing except Guardian columnists screaming blue murder.
ReplyDeleteThe Ken Loach crowd produced some free publicity for Corbyn's Labour called "A Fork in the Road"...one of the most cynical bits of propaganda from the people who are always lecturing us about "diversity".
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/KenLoachSixteen/status/1204365910947061760
Someone must have said somewhere: "Er, tell the agency we only want white actors for this." You can't get much more cynical than that. Fortunately the voters of the north can think for themsleves, without Multi-Millionaire Loach's help.
ROLL OF HONOUR:
ReplyDelete1. Boris - like some general out of War and Peace, firm of purpose, rightly contemptuous of the stated odds, never wavering.
2. Dominic Cummings - the vital lieutenant seeing the whole of the strategy board.
3. Priti Patel - leading the charge, fearless.
4. Rishi Sunak - cool under fire
5. James Cleverly - dogged and determined, involved in some of the most vicious fighting.
6. Ian Austin - telling it like it is.
7. Nigel Farage - for not putting his party before his country in the end.
8. Nicky Morgan - presumably she's on a promise to go to the Lords...but her defence of Boris was all the stronger for her previously having appeared to be opposing Brexit.
Rees-Mogg must be feeling a bit chastened, but at least he had the decency to shut his gob for the rest of the campaign.
Benn seems to be keeping quiet on Twitter. Haven't seen him on our screens either. But, surely, he has some explaining to do.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't he have to take a big part of the blame for Labour's defeat by putting his name to the Act that tried to humiliate our PM - forcing him to go cap in hand in Brussels and beg for an extension?
Oddly haven't heard any BBC Remainiac Presenter mention his name yet, whereas they used to let the words "Benn Act" linger lovingly on their tongue, knowing how much it enraged Leave Conservatives. :)
I thought he might have been on the list of potential Leaders, but as you say, he is keeping very quiet. He would have a better chance to mend fences with the traditional Labour voters than most.
Delete.... He would have HAD a better chance to mend fences with the traditional Labour voters than most... due to his name alone, but having nailed his colours to the mast with Grieve and Hammond, it his stance on Brexit which has been his undoing - with his name running through it.
DeleteYes. I agree he would have been in with a chance had he - along with Bercow, Gauke, Grieve, Letwin, Soubry and the rest of the vile crew - not tried to humiliate the Prime Minister of our country. The Remainiacs were blinded by their own fanaticism.
DeleteYou won't find the BBC doorstepping him or getting up on screen to demand that he appear for an interview with Andrew Neil or Marr to account for himself.
DeleteI realise you're all understandably engrossed in UK politics, but this is great.
ReplyDeleteThis is how to do an interview. Let the bugger hang himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yfXxeJn3Tc
Chris Wallace is forensic in a way virtually no senior UK journalist, even Andrew Neil, is. That said, Comey is a clever guy.
DeleteI follow US politics...it's important I think as we are joined at the hip and you find out what Sopel, Bryant and Moore are not telling us.
It is actually amazing how the UK media have totally ignored (or more accurately suppressed) the Steele Dossier story. It's got everything: MI5, international spy networks, FBI, a mysterious disappearance of an academic/spy, political plotting, an attempt to topple a President...
And of course we don't really know the half of it. Was Steele really acting by himself without approval of UK authorities? Our "fearless" UK media not interested.
Wow, Craig, I've counted that you have posted no fewer than 26 items today - is that a record? Keep it up, it's much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteIt's that time of year...the FESTIVE FIFTY.
ReplyDeleteAny suggested amendments, deletions or additions?
Firstly a seasonal message from Lord Hall:
OUR FESTIVE FIFTY BIAS TECHNIQUES
2019 began very well, Brexit almost derailed with a lot of help from our dedicated team of reporters and presenters, all also putting in a lot of unpaid hours outside of work on their private twitter feeds to amplify their bias. We couldn't really have expected more!
Sadly, the year has ended on a discordant low note. We shall of course launch a formal inquiry into what went wrong. But one thing I am confident of is that our 50 top bias techniqus will remain (no pun intended) as relevant in 2020 as in 2019 if we are to chip away at, undermine and eventually unseat the Prime Minister...
Season's greetings,
LORD HALL
1. Bias by News Agenda Choice. The biggie. If we don’t report it, it’s not news. If we don't report that Corbyn has been accused of personal anti-semitism, then he hasn't. Simples!
2. Bias by News Prioritising. OK, sometimes we can’t avoid reporting something but we can certainly give it very low priority. It only needs to appear for a nanosecond for us to be able to say that we have done our journalistic duty.
3. Bias in Perpetuity. If we like a story…”Tories Islamophobic says report”…we might leave it up on our website for months to make sure just about everyone gets to see it, even though we are allegedly a “news” organisation. Likewise we will return obsessively to stories we love, like Grenfell Tower.
4. Bias by Burying. If we don’t like a story we will bury it away somewhere like “News from Leicester” which you get to by navigating four or five pages on our website. In terms of broadcasting you will have to live in the East Midlands to be informed of what happened.
5. Bias by Headline Creep. Sometimes we know a story hasn’t really got legs but by using the headline ruse we can make it sound a lot better. So “Boris “racism” claim” on the front page of the website becomes…”Boris claims government is acting on racism”….becomes “Boris has rejected a UN report claiming that racism in the UK is rising at an alarming rate”. Clever, eh?
(...continued)
6. Bias by Interruption. An old time favourite…if you don’t like what the interviewer is saying, interrupt them to hell and back, so that they can’t get their points across. Some right wing obsessives on the internet try to expose this bias by recording the number of such interruptions and comparing that number with interruptions of favoured guests, but such statistical exposure of this technique can be dismissed by a vague, airy “Notwithstanding this particular interview, we consider the programme, taken in the round, was balanced and impartial”. Hats off to Andrew Marr for conducting an interview with the Prime Minister that consisted of more interruptions than questions raising the bar for other BBC interviewers.
ReplyDelete7. Bias by Misrepresentation. It’s important that we at the BBC control debate by ensuring we get to mispresent viewpoints. Under this approach, being worried about hardly ever hearing the English language spoken in your neighbourhood (a perfectly legitimate concern) obviously becomes “racist attitudes to migrants”. Of course we don’t simply assert that – to do so would be crass and far too obvious. Instead we imply it via other bias techniques e.g. “Bias by Question and Some Say”. For 2020 we are planning to put this question on our website: “Is it racist to decriminalise the TV licence fee?”
8. Bias by Concept Merge. Sometimes it pays to be pedantically precise about definitions (Chris Morris makes use of pedantry to good effect on the BBC Reality Cheat (sic) ). But with this particular technique, it is important to be vague and overlap differing concepts until the viewer or listener is taught, in Pavlovian fashion, to associate “Member of Conservative Party” with “Far Right Nut”. Thus we merge “Neo-Nazi” into “Far Right”, which in turn merges into “Right Wing” which then merges into “Nationalist” (as in “Bad Nationalist” – obviously does not apply to SNP, Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru) and further blends with “Tory” and “Conservative”. By constant mixing and association Neo Nazis, Nationalists and Tories all become part of a dangerous amorphous group that like to persecute minorities. We find this approach very effective at the BBC.
9. Bias by Mirroring. Under this ruse we call extreme radicals like Iranian Mullahs or Chinese Communists “Conservatives” so as to make the whole “conservative” brand toxic. You have to admire our cheek in doing so! But the useless Tories never make any effective protests about this. Let’s hope that doesn’t change in 2020.
10. Bias by Intimidation. We tell our audience that we will report them to their employer or school if they voice opinions of which we disapprove. This can be more effective than you might think. Of course we have combined this with a sustained attack on the Have Your Say function on our website and also by turning the Feedback programme into a meaningless “complaints from both sides” exercise now stuffed full of disguised adverts for unpopular BBC programmes.
(...continued)
Well done, MB.
DeleteA timely example of '9. Bias by Mirroring' on the Business Page this morning.
"Hallmark apologises for pulling same-sex ads" as the main headline, with the sub-headline, "The company withdrew the adverts under pressure from conservatives, then reversed its decision."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50804827
Those pesky conservatives get everywhere!
Delete11. Bias by Mockery. The mockery is not just something for “comedy” panel shows or the Now Show. News presenters can also join in the mockery of anything the BBC doesn’t like. Jonny Diamond has done some excellent work in this area. But woe betide anyone who mocked say Stella Creasy or Rory Stewart!!! BBC staff know who can and who can’t be mocked. We expect Boris Johnson to remain top of the Mockery List in 2020.
ReplyDelete12. Bias by Complaint Dismissal. As long as we keep batting away complaints in the face of the truth and the facts, we can maintain our absurd formal claim of impartiality. It is therefore important that the programmes we claim allow the viewer or listener a voice should be tightly controlled. We have of course instructed all editors and producers to hold the line and deny bias by claiming complaints from both sides and if they cannot defend something, claim a broader overall balance across the piece. We apologise for the unfortunate incident in 2020 when Naga Munchetty was found in breach of guidelines by the Editorial Complaints Unit - someone didn’t get the memo! We hope to disband the unit within the next few months.
13. Bias by Propaganda Tentacle. The BBC has a long reach. Our correspondents can use Twitter to voice more extreme anti-democratic, pro-Antifa opinions through re-tweeting. We are now going into schools as well to brainwash children with our “Fake News” agenda. We are even experimenting with AI to make our propaganda more effective. Our tentacles can basically reach anywhere.
14. Bias by Question Selection. What questions get asked is vital. If you think we pull the QT questions out of a hat then you are very, very naïve. Andrew Neil’s piece to camera about Boris’s no show was a good demonstration of how important the question bias is!
15. Bias by Simple Fact Denial or Avoidance. For instance we will not admit even the possibility that the housing crisis might have something to do with mass immigration. It’s rather like that loose thread in a pullover. If you start pulling on it before long the whole thing will unravel. So we have to maintain “Complete Fact Denial” in those very sensitive areas touching on the central tenets of our PC Multiculturalist doctrine.
16. Bias by Expert. We choose the experts. Our experts are guaranteed to support our views. That’s how and why we select them!
17. Bias by Org-Labelling. For instance, that think tank is “right wing”, this think tank (the one we like) is “respected”! It’s not so difficult once you get the hang of it. We never mention for instance that the Institute for Government is funded by arch Remainiac billionaire Lord Sainsbury and its board is stuffed full of Remainers. No - the IFG is “independent”, “non-partisan” and “respected”.
18. Bias by Person Labelling. That person (someone standing up for beliefs that were uncontroversial 50 years ago) is “Far Right”, this person (a Marxist totalitarian) is the “conscience of the left” or a “revered academic and commentator”.
19. Bias by Tone of Voice. So important! When we are children we listen to our parents’ tone of voice before we understand the meaning of their words. Are our parents angry or pleased with us? The BBC knows this well and so we play on these very human weaknesses. Our presenters sound surprised if a right wing person does a nice thing or somehow escapes justice when we have been looking forward to their downfall. Equally they make it sound like their mother has died if the PC Multicultarist liberal-left suffer a reversal, however minor.
(...continued)
20. Bias by Atypical Person Choice. It may be true that most female followers of Islam in Bradford may wear a Hijab and rarely go outside the family home but we have the resources at our disposal to find one who doesn’t wear a head covering, uses make up, wears tight jeans and has set up her own business. Once we have found her we are going to give her the full PR treatment on our shows, eventually giving her her own series.
ReplyDelete21. Bias by Drama and Soap. I can’t overemphasise the importance of this bias technique. This is how we really buttress the news and indoctrination agenda. We use drama and soap to signal approval or disapproval and to identify what issues the public should think are important.
22. Bias by Lifestyle Show. We can make frightening things appear comforting all by the magic of lifestyle TV. Of course this has to be managed. It can be an area requiring sensitive handling. We didn’t show a Hijab for years. Big beard presenters are still out and the Burka is sadly still a big no-no. But this is a Long March we are on. Eventually we will be able to de-sensitive the backward segment of the British public on such matters by associating such features with nice things like baking, cooking, shopping and home décor.
23. Bias by Over-representation of Minorities. You see a lot of this on TV adverts of course and we have to take our hat off to our commercial colleagues in that regard. The message of course is “resistance is useless”. It is supposed to deliver a jolt and acclimatise people to further volcanic demographic change. We are of course doing everything we can at the BBC to ensure that minorities (officially only 13% of the population) are over-represented in a number of key areas like news presentation. When it comes to drama, we are quite happy to provide misleading representations of classics from the Victorian period now, sacrificing accuracy to our PC Multiculturalist principles. Of course when we talk about ethnic minority representation we mean generally African-Caribbean, African and South Asian. At the BBC we don’t much care about how many Poles, Arabs, Romanians, Chinese, French or Latin Americans are on our screens despite there being very large communities from those ethnic groups in our country.
24. Bias by Slow Information Release. We wouldn’t want you to run away with the idea there’s just been a terrorist incident carried out by an IS operative migrant who shouted Allahu Akbar…so we will slowly drip feed the news and then disappear the story altogether. Often we will use the “mental ill health” ploy to justify this.
25. Bias by Local News as National News. Local news is a good way of extending the bias especially in areas where there are lots of Labour MPs and we can call on them to provide a steady drumbeat of public expenditure propaganda . We always favour local news with a national flavour…so expect lots of NHS cuts and not much about the County Show.
(...continued)
26. Bias by Survey. Our opinion polls are frequently wrong. But they always seem to favour the left for some reason. Sometimes our levels of bias are off the scale as was the case with the Newsnight panel of “ordinary voters” that voted 9-1 to Remain. BBC Staff should not be embarrassed by this; rather they should see polls as weapons in our hand not instruments of science.
ReplyDelete27. Bias by Decree. Here, the likes of John Simpson or Jon Sopel - once respected as cutting edge journalists - trot out the BBC narrative without appearing to have thought about what they are saying first. In our BBC world of bias, if they say it is so, it must be true. You might call this the “Hillary Good, Trump Bad” approach.
28. Bias by Obfuscation. If we can, through obfuscation, make you think a murderous anti-semitic member of a Black Power Church is a White Far Right Racist e.g. by not putting photos up of the suspects we will do it.
29. Bias by Yawn and Infectious Depression. Sadly this is a rare example of a technique that has been tried but proved unsuccessful. It was attempted in the run up to and during the early part of the EU Referendum campaign as we got nearly all our TV and radio presenters to imply that everyone was bored with the Referendum debate even though we now all know the opposite was true: family and friends often ended up having passionate debates on the subject (some are still continuing to this date!). But we at the BBC were trying to reduce the interest in the campaign, as we knew that was important in ensuring the anti-EU vote did not get mobilised. Frankly, we failed. This year we tried to make everyone feel depressed about the “miserable” election - we did this because we were (rightly) afraid there was a mood of grim determination in many constituencies to punish both the Lib Dems and Labour.
30. Bias by False Friend. This is one we have used a lot over the year e.g.: "So let's go over to Washington to discuss Trump's latest tweet. We have leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Republican Governor for Wyoming..." Our audience thinks this sounds balanced since it’s one Democrat and one Republican. But of course, we know something they don’t – this particular Republican Governor hates Trump as much as the Democrat. We used similar set ups earlier in the year with our domestic politics as part of our anti-Brexit campaign - often getting a pro-Remain Labour MP and a pro-Remain Conservative MP in the studio, in a pretence that they were on opposite sides.
31. Bias by Herd Instinct. Human beings have a tendency to follow the herd or the “troop” (since we are primates!)…so we at the BBC do our best to create bandwagons for the campaigns we favour. Biased BBC Trending do a lot of good work in this area. We are always encouraging people to be fearful of being accused of being socially conservative.
32. Bias by Recruitment . This is what we at the BBC call the “Guardian readers only need apply” ploy. This is really a very important and self-fulfilling bias category. Often it’s just “Guardian journalists only” need apply. Our latest recruit to Newsnight is Lewis Goddard from Sky News (whom are very much onside these days) - who has previously made clear his support for Labour.
(...continued)
33. Bias by Vocabulary Choice. This is of course a huge area of bias. The “bread and butter” of bias you might call it. It covers many things but among my favourites are right wing think tanks "claim", "assert", things whereas left wing think tanks "point out", "conclude", "find evidence"...During the EU Referendum campaign pro-Remain agencies were always concluding, calculating, pointing our and finding...or projecting, predicting (never guessing!)...When Remain claims were criticised by the Leave side, we at the BBC always used the language of emotion and violence instead of cool consideration: the Leave side "angrily denied", "lashed out", "slammed" etc
ReplyDelete34. Bias by Paragraphing. We often leave the key information to the penultimate para of a long article (not the final paragraph because people sometimes skip to that). You can hope the punters have got bored by then and miss it...thinking the perpetrator was simply a "man" with known "mental health issues" not someone who visited Afghanistan last year and was carrying an IS flag.
35. Bias by Mandy Rice Davies. The point of this technique is to make the denial sound as thin as possible. Norman Smith is quite good at this. Norman is adept at telling us the unfavoured have "denied" something...but does so in a "well wouldn't you too if you'd been found out" sort of way...It's normally those on the Right who get this treatment of course but there was a phase when the BBC when we were gunning for Corbyn and we gave him the same treatment. Given the 2019 election result, perhaps we should have gone after him harder.
36. - Bias by Uneven Standards. Of course at the BBC we believe in high standards, we just don’t believe in applying them consistently around the world. For instance we hold Israel to a much higher standard than Saudi Arabia (which doesn’t even allow people to profess Christianity). We report obsessively about their “illegal occupation” of Arab land. But illegal occupation of land is a rather flexible concept. We never, or only very rarely, give Russia and China any grief about their huge empires and their occupation of territories against the people's will. We don’t ask representatives of countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada and Argentina about eradication of indigenous peoples. Romania's occupation of Magyar lands is of no interest to us at the BBC. Likewise, while we show an inordinate interest in civilian killings in the US by gunfire we have no interest in such killings in Mexico or Brazil, and absolutely no interest in the murder of thousands of white farmers in South Africa. While we at the BBC are willing to shed tears over a few thousand Palestinian Arabs losing their homes and being "forced" to flee some 70 years ago, we have no interest in the many millions of Europeans, Jews, Hindus and Christians forced to flee from the Middle East and South Asia and in reality not much interest in all the displaced persons in Sub-Saharan Africa.
37. Bias by Photo Choice. A picture tells a thousand words and picture bias tells a million. During 2019 we often chose a nice one of Jeremy looking either messianic or avuncular, surrounded by happy smiling people, whereas for Boris we would choose one that made him look like a lunatic or an idiot. Nicola Sturgeon is always shown as looking happy and relaxed.
(...continued)
38. Bias by Placard Placement. This is something that featured a lot in 2019. We at the BBC know we are not going to get away with a newsreader saying "The Tory fascists have decided to dismantle the NHS." But there's nothing to stop us showing a placard in a protest that says something like that: "Tory fascist scum will kill the NHS". Nothing to stop the cameraman zooming in on that as a lingering image to underline a report. When , rarely, we cover right wing protests, the placards get far less prominence, unless of course we think we've found one that is an own goal. Obviously we were quite happy to feature old eccentric people covered in Union Jacks opposing the EU in robust terms. That’s an image we like to cultivate.
ReplyDelete39. Bias by Soft Interview. This is a technique that is sometimes underestimated but it can be very effective. We particularly make use of this technique when we want to put rocket boosters on a political position we approve of. During our anti-Brexit campaign we often deployed this technique e.g. giving Tony Blair and Michael Heseltine where they could speak at length unchallenged.
40. Bias by Celebrity Endorsement. No! This doesn’t refer to the celebrity endorsing a product but the BBC endorsing some celebrities over others. We love Lily Allen because she’s lefty, mouthy and feminist in a non-threatening way.
41. Bias by Reality Checking. One of our recent bias techniques of which we are very proud is BBC Reality Check. This helps us create a kind of alternative universe where matters of policy can be judged objectively by reference to "facts". Anyone who looks at BBC Reality Check can see instantly it has nothing to do with "reality" and everything to do with our policy preferences. The Reality Checks are - in reality! - just opinion pieces of the type you might find in the Guardian, FT or Times.
42. Bias by Absent or Abbreviated Nomenclature. At the BBC we pride ourselves that Trump is more often Trump than President Trump whereas President Obama was nearly always President Obama, certainly for his first term - just as Thatcher was more often Thatcher than Lady Thatcher. Use of the "criminal" surname is often reserved for those perceived as "right wing" Tories. That’s why we favoured “Johnson” over “Boris”.
43. Bias by Emotional Response. This is where we ensure the BBC acts as emotional gatekeeper to the nation. You can cry about your factory closing down but not about your neighbourhood being changed out of all recognition by mass immigration. If you are the victim of Islamic terrorism we prefer smiling defiance to tears. But other forms of terrorism may be treated differently depending on context.
(...continued)
44. Bias by Views as News. This is something we have always practised but these days we have expanded it into all areas. Under our “news” pages on the BBC website we often insert opinion pieces from our reporters and left-leaning guest academics. Very effective propaganda.
ReplyDelete45. Bias by Vox Pop. Never underestimate the power of Vox Pop! Vox Pops are a really important bias tool which you will find used in nearly every national and local news programme. They can really put a nice spin on a story. We even feature vox pops expressing views we don’t like - but make sure they tend to be from fat guys on mobility scooters with cigarettes in the corner of their mouths.
46. Bias by Newspaper Review. This is a specific technique we use to build a kind of Potemkin village of opinion out of MSM news. By using left-liberal reviewers, a left-liberal presenter and a selection of stories biased to the left-liberal view of the world, we are able create the erroneous impression that the BBC’s agenda is very much in line with that of the rest of the MSM. Where necessary the Review can be used to chastise heretical opinions deemed as offensive to PC Multiculturalist beliefs.
47. Bias by Some-say. Let’s be honest, it is rare for an hour to go by without a BBC presenter or reporter having recourse to that well known family "The Somes". "But some say this belief in fundamental biologically-based differences between men and women is just petty-minded fascistic prejudice which will soon be consigned to the dustbin of history." The Somes come in very useful to us at the BBC when we want to advance the "progressive agenda" but realise we are on tricky ground. A non-specific "some" is a nice way of suggesting support is building for a "progressive" idea. It sounds a lot better than "that mad columnist from the Guardian". Given we live in a nation of nearly 70 million people, if you say "some" then most fair-minded people will think you mean a few hundred thousand or a few million at least, if not yet a majority, whereas it might only be that mad columnist from the Guardian, 12 people in Hampstead and five in Islington as in “Some say transgender toilet facilities are a matter of basic human rights”.
48. Bias by History. The past is not such a foreign country to us at the BBC. In order for the PC Multiculturalist Fantasy to be realised in the modern world the past needs to be tweaked or given a complete makeover. So, looking back at the past through our Wrong Way Round BBC-PC Telescope we see that slavery was something that was visited on Africans only by Europeans. Arabs did not enslave Africans in their millions and if they did, it wasn’t really slavery. Likewise only West Europeans have engaged in imperialism. Chinese imperialism is really of no note at all…and so on.
49. Bias by Counterintuitive Injury Reporting. At the BBC we use this mostly in the context of domestic or American demonstrations. So if there is a pro-Trump rally, and an Antifa gang turn up to disrupt the rally, we will report it as “A Pro-Trump Rally condemned as Far Right by Anti-Fascist counter-demonstrators, ended in 23 injuries including 5 to Police Officers; there were 24 arrests”. We don’t tell you the 23 injuries were among the Pro-Trump crowd and the 24 arrests were all among the Antifa demonstrators.
50. Bias by Absorption. There are many cultural events or phenomena which we seek to make our own. Glastonbury, Turner Prize, MOBOs, Chelsea Flower Show, Women’s Football...we are like some giant amoeba, absorbing chunks of other DNA safe in the knowledge that it can replicate inside us and produce a yet more bloated version of the BBC itself. I think it’s what I would call cultural synergy. By absorbing these other cultural phenomena we make ourselves stronger and better project our cultural aims.
(...continued)
Not sure that the Festive Fifty is so relevant these days...time moves on...we all seem much more aware of how the BBC does bias! Maybe this will be it's last outing...but I hope it has brought some festive joy to people's hearts. :)
DeleteA new form of bias has emerged since the last festive season:
DeleteBias by false equivalence. for example,
1. Anti-semitism has an equivalence to Islamophobia.
2. Far right terrorism has an equivalence to ideologically driven mass murder.
3. Far right populism in the UK as represented by Boris Johnson supporters has an equivalence with right wing extremism in the USA as represented by Donald Trump supporters, who al must be rednecks and/or KKK followers.
No doubt there are others.
Yes, I think the false equivalence bias should be in the Festive Fifty! It has been wielded numerous time in regard to anti-semitism = Islamophobia.
DeleteIt has a twin mentioned in passing under Bias in History...that is "no equivalence" bias. So there is, for some reason, no equivalence between Islamic or African led slavery and European-led slavery.
There is, for some reason, no equivalence between the European Union described by the great Guy Verhofstadt (when addressing the Lib Dems)as "an empire" and any other Empire that has ever existed.
There is, for some reason, no equivalence between the cult of Extinction Rebellion and any other cult.
I'll leave it there.
The counterpart to Bias by False Equivalence would be:
Delete'There's an blaringly obvious link here, but we're going to chose to ignore it, and we expect you all to do the same'.
Brilliant again, MB. Thanks for doing this for another year.
DeleteRoll of Honour Continued:
ReplyDeleteLeave.EU
They called it right all along I think.
They knew May was plotting betrayal. They opposed her Abject Surrender deal and exposed her underhand dealings.
The supported the Brexit Party when it was doing good work in destroying the Tory Traitor Gang.
They went after the traitorous elements like Soubry, Letwin, Grieve, Gauke and the rest, using the deselection threat. That scared a lot of Conservative MPs into line.
They supported Boris for the leadership and opposed the last ditch attempts of the Tory Traitors to remove him.
They supported the early election strategy.
They withdrew support from the Brexit Party when they threatened a Conservative majority and pursued an impossibilist agenda.
They kept up a barrage of necessary invective against the pro-terrorist Corbyn-Labour gang and the Illiberal Anti-democrats under Swinson.
They kept up every Leaver's morale throughout!
Well done Leave.EU - you too deserve a medal!!!
Lessons of the election:
ReplyDelete1. It is necessary to be more conscious of ideology in our politics. The main reason this election didn't end up in a complete disaster was because Dominic Cummings understood that.
2. Populism is popular. There were two big winners here: the SNP and the Conservative Party. Both essentially ran on a populist agenda, one to the left and one to the right, rather than one based on purist Marxist or capitalist ideology.
3. The media, led by the BBC, are not the people's friend. They have normalised the Far Left, demonised Israel (and thus facilitated anti-semitism), undermined the Conservatives at every turn, supported mass immigration, mocked cultural conservatism and sought to block Brexit with a massive relentless Project Fear campaign.
They have to be punished or they will never learn.
Decriminalisation of the licence fee system at the earliest opportunity will be a sensible first move.
4. The resilience of the hardy British people has been amazing in sticking with Brexit despite that relentless barrage of Project Fear lies from the BBC, day in day out for the last 4 years really (there was a year's full-on propaganda in the run-up to the Referendum). The message I take from that is "trust the people".
5. The Conservatives cannot rest on the laurels of this victory. While our universities, schools and BBC are free to continue brainwashing our young people in no-borders PC globalist-leftism day in day out, there can be no complacency. It takes a long time for young people to unlearn the PC ideology through life experience. Add to that, every year the Labour Party is gaining probably enough new voters via mass immigration to swing 5 constituencies or more Labour's way.
I can't see the Conservatives turning themselves into a truly populist party, on the model of say Viktor Orban's party so they will have to work hard to maintain this coalition, and hope also they can win back some of their pro-Remain ex voters in London and other cities. They must also pursue constituency boundary reform and introduce anti-electoral fraud measures.
Excellent points MB.
DeleteI would add that another lesson is that political parties shouldn’t allow the media to say you have avoided scrutiny but that doesn’t mean the traditional MSM have a god given right to lead that scrutiny and that every invitation must be accepted.
Avoid the ones that are really only interested in those gotcha traps. Face those genuinely asking searching questions about your policies and what you stand for.
Heard on WATO, just before an item meant to demonstrate that the BBC gets "complaints from both sides" and is therefore totally impartial...
ReplyDeleteGordon Smith, I think it was, a BBC reporter, set out the consequences of the Conservatives achieving a large majority in the Commons and noted that now the Conservatives would have to address the issue of social care. Fair enough perhaps but he finished off with an aggressive "You could say Boris is out of excuses..." They really don't learn do they? There was absolutely no need to imply that Boris had been making excuses for not tackling social care, so continuing the BBC's biased campaigning even though the BBC lost the election (it had been campaigning for a hung Parliament is my view). I've never heard anyone be that rude about Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell, Thornberry or the rest..."out of excuses"!
Yes, Boris - you're clean out of excuses.
DeleteHaving assumed office on the 24th July, you've had nearly 5 months to sort this out...during which time you've only had to contend with operating without a majority in Parliament, renegotiating May's Withdrawal Agreement, and running a General Election campaign.
Given that Parliament returned from its summer recess in early September, even with the days lost to prorogation (naughty boy!) and the election, there must have been at least 20 parliamentary sitting days to sort out this problem that's been furrowing the brow of legislators for a generation or more.
Come on man, sort it out...no more excuses!
They really don't learn do they?
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/BBCDanielS
Quite astonishing...now we have the BBC's Daniel Sandford offering the Labour Party free advice on how to win next time:
"1) Labour voters need to join the party in large numbers in order to get the leader and policies they want, otherwise the party will keep on offering only what the current membership advocate.
2) It is not enough to tell voters what they want. You have to listen to them. If they don’t agree with you, you have to win the argument or possible alter your policy. Do not shout at them and call life-long Labour voters Tories."
Ah, wise Daniel...that was the problem was it? Corbynistas telling lifelong Labour voters they were "Tories" (yes you can hear he doesn't like Tories either!).
He then gets into a twitter spat with the online Corbynistas. With some justice they can say this proves reporters at the BBC are actively opposed to Corbynism.
Surely Sandford is well outside the impartiality guidance with his comments?
Even if not, his comments give the lie to WATO's claims of BBC impartiality. Sandford is here espousing what I think is the true political position of most BBC staff: a kind of left wing Blairism. Blairism without the pro-Americanism.
Agreed. It is interesting that from Twitter to BBC One news to Jeremy Vine to Radio4, they are all about only talking about Labour, the defeat, the new leader and what to do about it.
DeleteIt is very revealing indeed. The fixation on the defeated party and accompanying detailed analysis shows just how hard this has hit the BBC.
Hue Edwards, writing in toay's Times, says that the BBC is not biased. The BTL comments are well worth reading: - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/huw-edwards-hits-back-at-bbc-bias-accusations-fpxfrxjkr
ReplyDeleteHuw’s logic is flawed. He is saying that 1000s of BBC journalists don’t and wouldn’t follow some imaginary political mantra from senior management.
DeleteThey aren’t, but BBC has a distinct culture and is broadly metro-liberal so the real mantra isn’t top down from up on high , it’s bottom up, a groundswell of unspoken group speak that determines their collective political outlook. .
I haven't watched the BBC Sports Personality of the Year programme for years because, like so much the BBC broadcasts, it portrays the BBC as being at the centre of sporting coverage - which they aren't. The laddish presenters, male and female, are all of the Lineker mould who willingly subscribe to the BBC PC ideology or else they wouldn't be there.
ReplyDeleteHow refreshing it was, therefore, that Ben Stokes won, when the BBC don't cover men's cricket (I think they have bought limited rights for next year), and consistently push the message that Asian cricketers, and India in particular now hold the financial reins of the game, and that women's cricket deserves equal status to men's.
English cricket carries the connotations of class, privilege and colonialism, which the BBC seeks to lead us away from, but England won the world cup with the most ethnically diverse of all the teams taking part, and later in the year drew an exciting Ashes series with the old cricketing adversaries Australia. It was a summer of celebration for the most English of games - and threw up Stokes as the hero. In the BBC book he has little going for him.
From our friends at Cardiff University who the BBC use to prove that they are unbiased.
ReplyDeleteJohn Jewell , The director of Undergrad studies for journalism, media and culture (JOMEC) tweets ;
How can anybody - anybody - who professes to have a social conscience vote Conservative. It’s that simple
Andy Willamd another lecturer at Cardiff Univerity JOMEC tweets;
I stand by my view of Tories as vermin.
Those who support, whether unwittingly or not, the human devastation doled out by the Conservative Party are not worthy of respect
Both tweets are now deleted but you can still see them here on Twitter @CardiffUniCons