NURSE! NURSE!

NURSE! NURSE!

>> SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 2010

The BBC News Channel's coverage of the government's decision to scrap NHS Direct has descended into self-parody. The story broke this afternoon. BBC political correspondent Arif Ansari initially reported the story fairly, presenting pros and cons, but the BBC News Channel is nothing if not biased so... 16.03 Frank Dobson, Labour - strongly attacked the move 16.06 Lord John Prescott, Labour -strongly attacked the move 16.33 Nick Chapman, chief executive of NHS Direct - spoiled the narrative by being strongly supportive of the move. Presenter Carole Walker sounded a bit taken aback by this and, having realised that he wasn't the aggrieved quangocrat she was expecting, soon started interrupting, pushing the Prescott points. She thanked him at the end very sourly. Ha! 17.01 Reprise of part of the Chapman interview. 17.11 Reprise of part of the Prescott interview 18.03 Andy Burnham, Labour - strongly criticised the move 19.02 Partial reprise of Burnham attack (following report featuring Mr Chapman and Lord Prescott) 20.02 Partial reprise of Burnham attack 21.03 Partial reprise of Burnham attack 21.04 Gail Adams, UNISON - strongly attacked the move ("the same service but on the cheap") Worst BBC interviewer so far? Chris Rogers. Here are his questions to fellow beeboid Ben Wright: - "Cameron in the early days of the last election said 'I'll cut the deficit not the NHS'. It was on their campaign posters. How are they justifying this?"("Cameron"? Doesn't he mean "David Cameron", "Mr Cameron" or "the prime minister"?) - "A lot of people have been contacting BBC News today saying they've used the NHS Direct service. They're now very concerned at the talk of 60 hours of training for the staff, no real qualified GPs and nurses are going to be on call. Are the government saying that this new service, 111, will be safe?" Of course, they're "concerned". Labour and the BBC had been scaring them all evening! - "Of course the pressure is on though. John Prescott is..I think it's 2,500 signatures (wow!!) for his petition now..if it gets to a 100,000 - which it could easily do as momentum builds (you can hope!) - this could be an embarrassment for the government?" So, besides the head of NHS Direct, that's three Labour politicians, a trades unionist and some biased questioning. That's BBC impartiality for you!

THE RETURN OF QUESTION TIME...LIVE

Summer is melting into Autumn and that means the return of Question Time. It kicks off on September 16th and it will be an ALL Labour panel. So, no change there then. When I sat this photo I assumed it was a gathering of the QT production team but it appears these people may harbour political ambitions! Anyway, we will be liveblogging this for the new season and I hope YOU will come along and join in the inquisitorial fun each week.

'NEWSNIGHT' - A LABOUR-SAVING DEVICE?

If you were thinking that you seem to have seen a lot of Labour MPs onNewsnight recently, well you have. Here is a list of all the UK politicians who have appeared on Newsnight this month, whether as interviewees or as 'talking heads' in reports. (Duplicated names mean appearances in more than one edition!): Conservatives: Cllr Gavin Elsey (who opposes the government's immigation cap!), Damian Green, Mark Hoban, Nadine Dorries, Stephen Dorrell, David Willetts, Chris Grayling, John Redwood, Oliver Heald, Peter Lilley, Michael Portillo, Nick Hurd, Bob Stewart ****Total = 13 Lib Democrats: Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne, Simon Hughes, Lord Taylor ****Total = 4 Labour: Keith Vaz, Ed Balls, Tom Harris, Andy Burnham, Stephen Pound, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Diane Abbott, John Prescott, Tessa Jowell, Lord Myners, John McFall, Lord Dubbs, Caroline Flint, Shahid Malik, Tom Harris, Khalid Mahmood, Chuka Umunna, John Mann ****Total - 19 SDLP (Labour's sister party): Delores Kelly ****Total = 1 (I didn't include ex-minister Lord West, as he's not supposed to be a Labour party man - though he did attack the new government on the programme.) So, unlike when Labour were in power and the government dominated the airwaves, the main opposition now gets more invites to speak onNewsnight than both of the government parties combined. That seems a bit odd, doesn't it Mr Hunt?

BEYOND THE FRINGE...

Did you see that BBC Director General Mark Thompson has used his Edinburgh TV festival (Where else, natch?) speech to hit backat the corporation's critics. He accepted the need for "radical change" in the corporation but rejected calls for the licence fee to be cut. Why? It seems to me that the license fee must be abolished (or at least savagely cut!) to enable the BBC to play on a level playing field! What say you? The bias can continue but we should not be funding it.

GOVE JIHAD

Poor Michael Gove. From the very beginning, it is obvious that the BBC has it in for him as their farcical coverage of this issue demonstrated. I noted that Today had this to say following Gove's appearance on Today yesterday. Note the use of words to set him up even before Collins got stuck in...

"On this programme yesterday Education Secretary Michael Gove again trumpeted the government's plans to introduce a "pupil premium" to make sure schools in disadvantaged areas get more money. Times columnist Philip Collins, a former adviser to Tony Blair, gives his analysis of the policy."

Anti-Tory Bias & Sucking Up To Alastair Campbell Pays Off For The Right-On Roger Mellie

>> FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010

Alternative headline - "Richard Bacon Gets Tony Blair Interview": I bet Susanna Reid isn’t the only BBC journalist who reacted this way: Oh, he's serious.

OPEN THREAD...

Here we go, it is Friday and I'm hoping that this will last until Monday without getting too big! The floor is yours - you see, hear and and read the bias, share it with us.

THE THREE MOSQUE-TIERS

A Biased BBC reader writes..

"The remarkable burst of pro-Muslim extremist eulogies are continuing to issue forth from the BBC almost daily....not bad considering there are less than 2 million Muslims in this country...why the blanket coverage for this favoured section of the community?

The BBC has broadcast 4 programmes whitewashing Muslim extremism....omitting important facts whilst elevating others to undue prominence in the name of community peace and harmony.

Programmes telling us the Muslim Brotherhood are 'mostly harmless' and probably best if we engage with them, then Newsnight gave us a limited and one sided view of why the Niqab is being worn more in Britain, Radio 4 gave Moazzam Begg a platform for his defence as an innocent victim of Crusading Western aggression which is besieging Islam, and now we have a programme purporting to give us the history of the East London Mosque as a beacon of tolerance and interfaith dialogue but was in reality merely a vehicle for another pro-Muslim programme telling us that Islam is harmless. See here

All very true. The sanitisation of Islamic extremism seems to be a core value for the BBC these days and it part of the daily broadcast output.

My own view is that whilst we must not generalise, the fact remains that pretty much every terror threat facing our country (excluding Northern Ireland, natch) comes from those who have a dedication to the Religion of Peace. I also think that for Newsnight to try and suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood is anything other than a hate-driven malignancy is surreal. Why can the BBC just not accept that even Islam has a problem with Islam and the rest of us definitely have an issue with those who would seek to kill us in the name of Mohammed? Has the BBC become dhimmified from within (Yes) and if so, how? Can't the liberals see that THEY would be the very first victims of a Sharia-fied UK? None so blind...