Britannia Radio

Biased BBC

Tuesday, September 09, 2008 David Vance # WE ARE THE WORLD. I was reading over on Drudge that whilst US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival John McCain in polls at home, people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said! Naturally. All 22 countries covered in the BBC poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain. In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins. Looks like the rest of the world could be in a for a big disappointment if all those polls the BBC isn't so keen on are right. Comments: 13 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh # Hold the front page "Daring Mission: Al-Qaeda's most ambitious attempt since 9/11," says the Beeb's website. Thrill as jihadists plot to blow up men, women and children; gasp as they target the UK; laugh as Rashid Rauf eludes the infidels; cry as you realise your license fee is being used to produce this. Comments: 19 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Laban # More on Sarah Palin ... Following Hugh's post on the 'redneck' item - I listened on the weekend to the views of that people's tribune Liz Forgan (Benenden and Oxford) on Any Questions. Ms Forgan's career took her from the Guardian to Channel Four and then to the BBC, where she was MD of BBC Network Radio. When she left the BBC she became a Guardian columnist and is now chair of the Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian. Do we see a pattern here ? Let Ms Forgan speak for herself. Apologies for the illiterate transcriber (I found 'roons' for 'runes', 'principle' for 'principal' and 'electrics' for 'electorates'). On Charles Clarke's attacking Gordon Brown's premiership : "Charles has nothing to lose, he thinks he can do that and encourage real debate in the Party. Unfortunately the consequences of his doing so has been absolutely a lead balloon. Everyone is still under the table, with the tablecloth pulled around their ears ..." On male and female equality : You know you have a vision of a progressive struggle towards a sensible disposition of society and its work and when people choose to roll backwards from that it makes me really very sad ... the problem is not women, it is men ... and I think that although it is illegal to ask a woman who applies for a job are you intending to have children and what are you going to do about them I actually think we should legislate to compel employers to ask men when they apply for a job do you have children and what is your intention to look after them. And on Sarah Palin : I have been a card-carrying feminist for 40 years and this woman has found somewhere in me a little kernel of sexism. She causes me to make a failure of sisterhood. Sorry Charlie but I cannot stand her candy coated philistinism, I hate her crass creationism, I loath her parading of her family about the place, God forgive me I even hate her teenage hair ... I do really fear the fact that she touches something deep in America, something real in America I agree with you about that and that makes me very afraid and the only solution I can see to it is that the principal governors of super powers should be elected by global electorates ... There is a ray of hope. History shows that people who arrive with a stock in trade of being pure, innocent and untouched by civilisation often end up having terrible skeletons in their cupboards. And I am really hopeful that the dreadful hacks will find them out. Ms Forgan, as we've seen above, thinks of herself as a left-winger and a feminist. Par for the BBC course. But what we're hearing there isn't just hatred of Sarah Palin's politics. What comes over strongly is hatred of Sarah Palin's class. An upper-class liberal looks down on a hick from the sticks. God, have you seen her hair ? Once, within living memory, the Left used to have something of a bias in favour of 'ordinary people'. Whatever happened to it ? (Much of the US liberal media shares Ms Forgan's dismay. The phenomenon's neatly summarised in this Clive Crook FT piece) Comments: 41 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh # Maybe I'm a redneck too... Because I seem to be missing the point of this brilliant piece of irony. Is it the Today programme's last ditch effort to give the Mail editor an aneurysm; an article designed to achieve the Beeb's aim of balance over time, and I just missed the Mark Steyn piece preceding it; or could it be just what it seems* - a lament that the left has failed to reach the Republican base and the fat, stupid, gun-totting, God-bothering idiots whose reflexive belief system "has every thinking person here in the US, except perhaps John McCain and Sarah Palin, worried". * For a clearer summary of Bageant's argument, try this. Oh, and thanks to Andrew Ian Dodge in the comments for alerting me to the BBC piece. Comments: 20 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh # Room for a little one? You'll have your own views on the bias of this piece on immigration by Easton, but the main objection must be that it's astonishingly silly. After careful study of his colour-coded maps, Easton has concluded that we can, after all, fit a few more people on this island without pushing the Cornish into the sea. "The debate, it seems to me, is not 'can we cope?' but 'how would a larger population change our way of life - for better or worse?'," says Easton sagely. Am I alone in begining to suspect they think we're a bit thick? Comments: 14 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh # General BBC-related comment thread! Please use this thread for comments about the BBC's current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog - scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It's your space, use it wisely. Comments: 18 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # PITY THE STATE SECTOR? Again early this morning on the business section of the Today programme between 6am and half pas the hourt, I listened to a BBC correspondent suggest that the state sector had suffered in recent years with very modest wage increases. This was related to the TUC conference today where the comrades are seeking to encourage Brown and Darling to open the cheque-book for some inflation-busting wage increases for the army of state workers. Now I appreciate that the BBC is PART of the State but please, can we not just have the facts? You know the facts I'm talking about, don't you? The ones that show that average state sector worker now earns MORE than his private sector equivalent? The ones that show that the average state sector worker has enjoyed years of wage increases way greater than those awarded in the private sector? The ones that show that 99% of state sector workers enjoy final salary pension schemes (compared to 18% in the private sector)? If we want to debate the merits of wage increases in the state sector, can we please have the full economic background and not just selective cherry-picking by biased BBC journalists aimed at making us feel sorry for the state? Comments: 8 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # THOSE CONSERVATIVE MULLAHS. Listened to a report on Today this morning around 6.20am concerning the saga of the death sentence handed down by the Afghan authorities to a 23 year old student whose crime was to download an article of the net on the treatment of women in Islamic societies and noted the references by the BBC correspondent to the "conservative" mullahs behind this rampant stone(ing) age intolerance compared to the "liberal" elements with Afghanistan that want to see the sentence reversed. Now I know that he is not actually suggesting that the Mullahs are card carrying members of Cameron's party BUT the term "conservative" is smeared in this way by attaching it to the behaviour of these radical Islamic barbarians and I suggest to you that the BBC knows exactly what it is doing when allowing this language air-time. Comments: 11 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Monday, September 08, 2008 David Vance # ISLAMISTS CONVICTED... AND SO IS USA. Just caught the BBC Ten O Clock News and listened to Al Beeb's coverage of the conviction of three Muslims intent on mass murder. However what started me was whenFrank Gardner appeared to tell us that although the men have been found guilty of a massive terrorist conspiracy to murder involving home-made bombs the men were not convicted on charges of plotting to bomb transatlantic airliners. Frank blamed the US for this failure in the UK courts- alleging that unspecified American pressure had caused charges to be brought before full evidence was gathered. So once more the BBC is keener to put the US in the dock before the murderous Jihadists. Gardner is a disgrace. Comments: 33 (unread) - Biased BBC Home