Farmers from Poland, Italy and Germany have joined the Dutch farmers protest. All over Europe the farmers are protesting and the media is completely ignoring it.
What are we going to do about a media that only shows the news they want to show?
Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic.The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.
Can you imagine a Black or Asian person leading the Conservative Party? Others argue that the very concept is diametrically opposed to the party's core values.
Setting out her stall in an opinion article in The Times, Ms Badenoch said a "strong but limited government focussed on the essentials" was needed.You might think they'd use, say, “Strong but limited government”, but they took out “government”, leaving:
Colin Brazier, GB News: Today: a 'helicopter day'; when Sky & BBC put up the chopper to follow cavalcades and lend announcements at No10 a lofty dignity. But aerial shots don't reflect what broadcasters often neglect on the ground. The millions who feel a debt of loyalty for the Brexit Boris gave them.Adam Boulton, ex-Sky: That's because we report the news rather than spout partisan fake news.Rob Burley, ex-BBC, now LBC: Good on Adam calling out the utter junk that is GB News.
His alleged comments, made during an editorial meeting, raised concerns among Newsnight employees on WhatsApp, according to messages seen by The Times. One person quoted Maclean as saying: “We were very critical when Isis were pulling down statues in Palmyra. We need to make sure we reflect that.”“Hot Take Stew is well and truly back,” a Newsnight insider said. Another added: “I honestly have had enough of the crap he spouts.
Those familiar with his tenure as deputy editor claimed that he wanted to bring “balance” to panel discussions about racism on Newsnight by booking white conservatives. Producers are said to have protested against the requests and the debates did not make it to air.
We need to talk about the role the media played in toppling Boris. The BBC and others blew Partygate and Pinchergate out of proportion and goaded Tory rebels to resign. They helped to orchestrate Boris’s fall. That’s not democratic, says Brendan O’Neill.
Here's the passage that relates to the main theme of this 'ere blog:
But just because the push against Boris had no leader and no decipherable purpose does not mean it wasn’t orchestrated. This is where we come to the most chilling feature of this strangest of political takedowns – the role played by the media. As the old public realm has been denuded of structure and ideas, so the media have come to play an outsized part in shaping political discussion and even determining politicians’ fortunes. The media unquestionably stoked the anti-Boris revolt. First by blowing those daft scandals out of proportion, unilaterally decreeing that they were the most important issues in the land. And secondly by goading, subtly and perhaps only semi-consciously, each of the actors in the lonely faction.Indeed, the rebels’ letters of resignation were primarily aimed at the media. They were for the BBC and the Guardian and social media, not for us in the now broken and disregarded realm of what used to be called public life. This is why they all first appeared on Twitter – where else? – and why they were written in such media-speak. Because the audience was the media elites, not the people. A clear symbiotic relationship has now developed between an isolated political class searching for a new public realm in which to execute its business and a media that can sniff the power it accidentally enjoys in the post-party, post-ideological age. Call me old-fashioned, but I see little positive in the removal of a PM voted into power by 14million citizens by disparate aggrieved Tory actors and a media establishment that understands us even less than politicians do.
Even if Boris deserved the boot, doesn't Brendan have a point?
Ms Forstater's case previously gained public attention, including attracting some high-profile supporters, such as Harry Potter author JK Rowling and presenter Jonathan Ross.
Ms Forstater's case previously gained public attention, including attracting some high-profile supporters, such as Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Given that Jonathan Ross has backed her, why was he edited out of this report?
Alastair Stewart: Extraordinary BBC decision to have delayed the news for the tennis, given the lead story...Simon McCoy: Lots of jobs suddenly available. In politics. And BBC scheduling.
The BBC is too big and bureaucratic. It can't react quickly enough, even when their news department must be feverishly chomping at the bit to finally finish off Boris [Johnson, not Becker].
I see it’s thanks to BBC News challenging the BBC over its FOI response that we learned the truth about previous Tim Westwood Complaints. (Guardian today).
Bizarre BBC statement. And sterling work by @blondeafro.
This is an historic case that the BBC has found in its files. We are establishing the facts around it. It did not relate to conduct at the BBC, BBC premises, or conduct towards a BBC staff member, nor was it an accusation of physical assault.
I've asked and we've looked at our records and we've seen no evidence. If something like this were raised or anything comes up, we investigate it fully.
But does the BBC know its place anymore? Its purpose is surely to report the news, which means covering sport (a form of news) on the basis of the level of interest in it, not using it as a vehicle to drive societal change.
Nice that we're going to have some football to watch this summer: the Women's Euros kicks off on Wednesday, it's being played in England and it's all live on the BBC.A shame that BBC Sport's fixture list doesn't show the venues where the games are being played.In details like this I think you can see the decline of the Beeb: a certain slackness and lack of rigour; not doing the basics.They're trying to change the world instead.
Mike Love: Did he? Why is he expressing an opinion like that as a BBC employee? Fine quoting someone else, but not saying it himself.
There's a lot of that going on.
A cabinet minister has insisted Boris Johnson wasn't aware of specific complaints of inappropriate behaviour against the former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher when he was appointed.
The BBC are very insistent, even persistent, in their use of 'insisted' at the moment. A directive surely must have gone out, given how frequently it's used across multiple BBC platforms - from the News Channel to Radio 4.
Watching the riot of colour and celebration in London for the 50th anniversary of Pride In London? Join us on @BBCR4Sunday tomorrow for the last in our series featuring LGBTQ people of faith! This week we're covering the topic of celibacy and same-sex attraction.
Geoff Burke: Does it ever occur to you that millions of good people do not buy into this nonsense? I suppose not.
Jane Kelly: What sort of programme is #BBCR4Sunday? You just accept everything said & never challenge or even question anything. Makes it rather dull I'm afraid.
There’s no shortage of programmes about race on television — turn on any channel and you will see Samuel L Jackson flying to Gabon or someone in a slavery drama having their skin flayed off. This month alone there has been Lenny Henry on the Caribbean [BBC Two] and a decent new iteration of the reality show Back in Time for Birmingham, about Asians [also BBC Two]. Our televisions are host to a dizzying range of what producers believe are provocative takes on race and diversity, except none of them is surprising, curious or even new.
None of these programmes says anything different; none of them deviates from the blunt narrative that, for a minority, life is appalling and must be turned into a fetishised form of entertainment. No one white is ever seen as anything except cynical or ill-educated, even though the vast majority of these programmes are produced by concerned white people for concerned white people. Frankly, it’s a nightmare to review them.
I'm so glad I'm not a newspaper critic.
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During Pride month this year a banner has been emblazoned across the BBC’s internal staff website used by every single employee. It features the following text: ‘BBC Pride 2022: Bringing together LGBTQ+ people of all genders, sexualities and identities at the BBC.
Most people who work at the BBC aren’t concerned about this. But the slogan really should ring alarm bells, because behind its seemingly benign message of inclusivity is a latent political message about trans rights that is undermining the corporation’s impartiality.
As a BBC employee I am proud and delighted that the corporation is striving to be a welcoming employer for people from all walks of life, whatever their colour, creed or whoever they choose to sleep with. But the problem is that ‘Pride’ is no longer a movement that is simply fighting for the rights and liberties of people who have faced prejudice and discrimination because they don’t happen to be straight. It has morphed into something altogether more controversial and political – it is promoting a trans agenda that undermines longstanding concepts of sex and gender. Rather than treading carefully, however, the BBC is once again becoming an unthinking conduit for the dominant ‘progressive’ theology bouncing around the social media echo chambers of its Guardian reading bosses.
Cripes - only a month to go now before I leave BBC after 35 years. I did my last turn on Today Prog earlier. Felt very upset walking home. Not for me, but for the fate of the planet. Most people still have no idea how bad it's likely to be.
How come the Supreme Court makes a ruling that will compromise still further the efforts made to rescue this fragile planet? You can trace it back to the fossil fuel firms who funded so-called think tanks to turn climate change into a partisan issue. Good job, guys.
Tonight at Ten. A serious blow to tackling global climate change from the US Supreme Court. It's curbed the US Government's power to limit greenhouse emissions from coal fired power stations.
Surprise, surprise, the BBC’s ‘impartiality guru’ has locked his Twitter account after being found to be completely biased against both Boris and Brexit calling Brexit result ‘utterly stupid’. It’s no wonder the BBC is so shamelessly partisan!
Following our story this morning about his clearly partisan public tweeting, [Richard Sambrook] has now locked his Twitter account making his tweets private.
Salford, we have a problem. The Times reports today that the BBC is so concerned about their journalists discrediting them by expressing their views on Twitter that they've now hired their former head of news, Richard Sambrook, to look into the problem. Mr Sambrook was, you may recall, the co-author of a much-cited, BBC-backed Cardiff University report which 'found' that the BBC didn't just not have a pro-EU bias but 'actually' has a pronounced anti-EU bias. His own Twitter feed reveals him to be anti-Brexit. Wonder what he'll find and recommend?
And Sue, that very same day, wrote:
Hiring Richard Sambrook to review how the BBC “maintains impartiality on social media, amid concerns that journalists are discrediting the corporation by revealing their opinions” is a bit like getting the Supreme Court of Injustice to adjudicate on the lawfulness of something Lady Hale isn’t keen on.
We'd even done a piece in November 2019 on one of Richard Sambrook's impartiality-free 'chats' on Twitter, when he was a mere Cardiff University professor overseeing monitoring of BBC impartiality, which ended with the line:
The people traditionally presented by the BBC as those worthy of holding them to account aren't exactly reassuring me here about their own impartiality.
It's still worth returning to all of this though because the 15 June 2020 Guido Fawkes piece ended with this:
There will now be no confidence in his review, as a former journalist he should know that cover-ups always backfire and transparency would have been better. He will surely have to step aside from the impartiality review…
What happened next? Well, as per various BBC reports from later that year that mentioned his review in passing, he didn't step aside, and he and the BBC seem to have carried on regardless. New guidance on social media use by BBC staff was issued on 29 October 2020, though that apparently came before the Sambrook review itself was finished.
And that's where things get cloudy. Was the Sambrook review ever published? If I ever knew, I've forgotten.
[That's what comes of closing the book and losing your page].
If anyone knows please let me know below.
But Hong Kong has seen huge pro-democracy protests over the years and many, including Western countries, have criticised Beijing's growing interference in the city.
But over the years Hong Kong has seen huge protests and many, including Western countries, have criticised Beijing's growing interference in the city.
Why have they toned it down?
