Britannia Radio

Biased BBC

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 David Vance # TORIES IN THE CROSS-WIRES Another morning and another chance to present the notion that the Conservative Party is divided. Yesterday it was on Inheritance tax, today it is on Europe. Mark Mardell was using the line that for the Conservative Party to withdraw from the (utterly useless) EPP would set up a crisis with the likes of MEP Christopher Weasley sorry, Christopher Beasely applying to join the EPP! Labour, and by definition the BBC, will open up more attacks on the Conservatives as we start the run-in to the June Euro-polls and I suspect this was just the beginning. The line being retailed is that the Conservatives are "extreme" if they seek to doanything that might de-rail the EU gravy train. Also, shouldn't the BBC declare that it receives funding from the EU before it runs any story on this subject? Full disclosure is always a good idea when trying to pretend one in impartial. Comments: 17 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # HOT AIR FROM THE  BIRDS. Why is that the BBC presents the decision as to whether we ruin our British coastline through the building of legions of on-shore wind farms as lying within the gift of the politically biased RSPB? The BBC ran an item this morning which suggested that so long as the developers of these monstrous wind-farms are "sensitive" to specific areas outlined by the RSPB, then they have the green light to go ahead. So that makes it OK then?  There is substantial opposition to these on-shore wind-farms on just about every basis one could imagine - economic, scientific, political - and yet the BBC chooses to frame this within the context of what the RSPB considers acceptable. Not in my name, to borrow a phrase.  Comments: 11 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # CONSERVATIVE MUSLIMS. To paraphrase Abba, "tonight the super snooper teams are gonna get you", if one listens to the new Brown policy of training 60,000 shop and hotel workers "t0 deal" with a terrorist attack. However the thing that struck me - and not for the first time - was how the BBC insists on defining the nature of this terrorist threat; you see it comes from non-violent conservative Muslim groups that teach that Islam is incompatible with Western democracy. Note - not RADICAL Muslim groups, oh no, CONSERVATIVE Muslim groups. Well, here's the deal then; if these really are conservative groups this implies they teach the essential traditions of Islam which in turn would rather indicate that Islam ITSELF is the threat. Will the BBC run with that idea  or will it instead continue to use the subtlety of language to associate the term conservatism with the worst dregs of radical Islam? Comments: 8 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Monday, March 23, 2009 sue # PotKettleBiased That terrible scourge of Israel, human rights spokesperson Richard Falk, has decided that Israel’s war crimes are “not a question of whether Israel used disproportionate force in Gaza, but rather whether Israel acted lawfully in entering Gaza at all.” (The next stage is obviously declaring that the existence of Israel is itself a war crime.)Today reported this, and ended by stating that by condemning Israel for human rights violations so frequently and so much more harshly than other countries who were equally, if not more, guilty of human rights violations, human rights commissioners or whatever they're called are beginning to look less than even-handed. Was the speaker Imogen Foulkes? I don’t know because Today iplayer isn’t working. Comments: 32 (unread) - Biased BBC Home sue # Hague Left Hanging I considered posting about Andrew Marr’s interview with William Hague yesterday, where in the final stages he suddenly threw in a question about the “pretty appalling-looking” reports by the IDF. My impression was that Hague was subtly supportive of Israel, but was almost bullied into reiterating the word ‘appalling,’ knowing it was his only hope of retaining credibility with the audience. He was supportive of Israel merely by making two points that went against the grain. a) We don’t know the truth, and, b) that Israel has a mechanism for investigating such things, and for bringing to book those found guilty. Even mentioning these points at all was daringly radical in the circumstances; because, a) such remarks are the very things that Israel’s enemies always scoff at, and b) the subject was slipped in abruptly at the end and left hanging. There wasn't time to elaborate, and that was what made his points seem unconvincing and far-fetched. I saw it as bullying and covert bias. I didn’t post yesterday because the thought of the chanting chorus made me weary. But today Melanie P has gone much further and is less generous with Hague. Her examination of the issues is well worth looking at, as usual.