I note the BBC are running this story about a farmer who has been "murdered". It is suggested to me that the man concerned may have been run down and killed by thieves who COULD be of the "traveller" persuasion. Given the anxiety that this sort of incident has on our farmers, one would think the BBC would pursue the story rather more vigorously but then again who knows where that might lead? Instead this is conveniently tucked away in the Sussex section, next to an item concerning Winnie the Pooh stamps. Melanie Phillips has written an unusually optimistic article “Decency Fights Back.” Robert Peston is a strange bloke. I was watching his interview on the Ten News with Sir Philip Green who made the point that the commercial incompetence of Government would put any private business to the wall. Green pointed out that vast sums of money can be saved for the taxpayer if government could learn to be efficient. But then, after the interview, Peston turns the whole issue around and says that Government should stop being "such a soft touch" and that Private business might just have to put up with lesser profits. Wrong. Green spells out the vast incompetence of Government and how it wastes OUR cash. It's not about being "a soft touch" The latest article by Time magazine political analyst Mark Halperin (hardly a frothing right-winger) is quite a doozy (via Hot Air): You know, I was very sorry to read of the tragic death of kidnapped UK aid worker Linda Norgove in Afghanistan. As you know, an attempted rescue was made but it ended in her death. What annoys me is the way in which the BBC are going after US forces on this now that it appears a US grenade used in the attempted rescue may have killed her. The BBC is coy about the fact that it was Islamic savages that kidnapped her, that it was Islamic savages who planned to kill her, and that responsibility for her death lies entirely with the Islamic savages concerned. The BBC meme is that US soldiers must always be in the wrong. Well, maybe the BBC want to go after the man in ultimate charge of US forces, Obama! For at good few hours today this was the main news story on the BBC US & Canada page: It's curious that despite it's vast journalistic and technological resources, the BBC seems unable (or unwilling?) to report on the substantial gains made by the anti-Islamic unfettered immigration Freedom Party in Vienna, Austria yesterday. I wonder why? I am sure they will give this due prominence, eventually but at time of writing I cannot find any news update from them. Not a word. It's a question of priority, of course, but is there anybody out there who REALLY thinks that a report by the leftist quango headed by Trevor Philips merits theprime time slot on "Today"? Philips was spouting the usual lefty clap trap about "unfairness" and the BBC earnestly carries the headlines from the reports that transgendered students "said" they were bullied and that Pakistani babies were twice as likely to die in the first year as white babies. Oh, and that pesky gender trap has still not closed. I thought Humphyrs was reasonably robust with Philips but towards the end of the interview this seemed to melt and the bon homie appeared. Philips is a greivance-monger whose utopian fantasies are indulged rather than critiqued. The BBC is running a week long series of items on "fairness" - it seems to me that this has the pre-designed aim to ensure that whatever the Coalition does is viewed as "unfair" Right, let me start by saying I abhor intolerance and violence towards ANY group of people. (Except terrorists). So reports of mob violence at a Gay Pride parade in Belgrade are concerning - as would be the case if they were happening to any lawful parade, anywhere. But I was surprised at this comment by by BBC reporter Mark Lowen in Belgrade;
"MURDERED"
>> TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2010
Hope for Change
Her first topic is Robin’s department, and I’m ill-equipped to comment, but I do happen to have read, through links on the socially inadequate, pimpled , unmarried, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed-run blogosphere, two of the other articles she highlights.
The first was by Peter Hitchens (Daily Mail) about being imprisoned in David Cameron’s “prison camp”, and the second by Nick Cohen (Observer) on the mind(boggling)set of the authorities at UCL who can’t understand how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got those silly ideas.
The other hopeful sign Melanie mentions is a pro Israel demonstration that took place in Rome last week.
Peter Hitchens is no apologist for Israel, so if the BBC turns a blind eye to his personal account of Gaza and the West Bank, defending the impartiality of their Middle East staff will look even more of a travesty. As for the University College London, I despair.SO NOW WE REALLY KNOW...
Andrew Marr's show on the BBC symbolises all that is wrong with the corporation. It has consistently been simpering and supine to Labour, and he makes David Frost, whom he replaced, look like a model of journalistic propriety. And now he has confirmed what an elitist, condescending piece of work he is.This is what he thinks of the blogsphere: British journalist Andrew Marr has angered bloggers by suggesting they are "inadequate, pimpled and single." Marr, was formerly the BBC's political editor, also said that citizen journalism is "spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night". He made the comments at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, saying: "A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people."
Sadly, Mr Marr's outlook is patently shared by the entire £1bn leftist, moral relativist, elitist, eco-nut, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, pro-Islam, pro-EU journalistic cadre at the BBC. It shows in the way they brook no dissent to their views and in how they so haughtily dismiss all those who dare to question them.
This is the organisation that has today also astonishingly and disgracefully handed a leaving package worth £4.7m to Mark Byford, the soon-to-be-redundant deputy director general. Everyone who has met Mark will - I am sure - share with me the sense of sheer amazement that such a without-talent individual should be worth so much of our money. But then, nothing is surprising in the Mickey Mouse world of BBCland.WHY GOVERNMENT IS A SOFT TOUCH
>> MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010
OBAMA IN OVER HIS HEAD
With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.
Not the impression we get from the BBC.
Matt Frei described the book Game Change, which Halperin co-authored, as "the definitive account of the 2008 election campaign" (Americana, BBC R4, 26 Sept 2010). It'll be interesting to see if any BBC correspondents acknowledge these latest revelations about insider attitudes towards Obama's failing administration.
(Frei will have to catch up on the article later - he's joined the ever-growing army of BBC hacks in Chile. Another "I was there" moment he simply had to have for his memoirs.)AMERICANS TO BLAME
something something US REPUBLICAN NAZI !!! something something
A Republican candidate for a very safe Democrat seat is a member of a re-enactment society and dressed up as, among other things, an SS officer. A bit embarrassing for a political candidate when the photos come out, but was it really the most important news item in North America? No, of course not, but the BBC wasn't going to miss the chance to bash the Republicans. Added bonus - using "Republican" and "Nazi" in the same headline. "Republican" appeared in the blurb beneath, and in the opening sentence of the actual story, too.OPEN THREAD...
Monday morning comes along, a fresh week, and a new Open Thread for you to share latest BBC bias...THE GATES OF VIENNA...
UTOPIANISM...
BBC POSTER BOY BINYAM BECOMES COCKNEY SPARROW...
>> SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010
GAY - THE FINAL FRONTIER
This is not the image Serbia wants the world to see. A successful gay parade was supposed to be an indication of how far this country has come from the ultranationalism and violence of the 1990s.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Really? Is the acceptance of gay parades now the marker of a civilised society? Is tolerance of public expression of a particular sexual lifestyle proof of a move away from "ultranationalism"? I missed that memo - maybe it is instilled into BBC reporters when they are young but it seems to me that seeking to equate an tolerance of gay activists in the public square with a sophisticated modern Nation is, at least, somewhat peculiar. Mark seems quite interested in this topic area, having filed a story about Albania "approving gay marriage" I must admit that I had not realised the centrality of the gay issue to these emerging societies, so thank goodness for Mark.
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