OPEN THREAD....

OPEN THREAD....

>> FRIDAY, MARCH 04, 2011

As we all know, the BBC provides us with a rich vein of culture, high class entertainment and topical humour. But more often it provides us with biased dross - detail your thoughts on it here...

BIASED BBC - TOP TEN WHISTLEBLOWER SITE

My sincere thanks to the folks at Cision for placing Biased BBC in their top 10 UK whistleblowing blogs. Good to see that our efforts are appreciated. As ever I am indebted to all our writers and of course our exceptionally astute readers! Is it any wonder the BBC hate us?

TRICKY VICKY GOES MANUFACTURING....

...on the BBC at least. A B-BBC reader writes...

On 5Live on Wednesday Victoria Derbyshire gave us a fine example of the BBC manufacturing a news story. Riven Vincent. the mother of a disabled child who caught the headlines in January for her criticism of provision for respite care, was dragged into the studio by Derbyshire for an interview....she wasn't a 'current' story in the news so.... Why? This is an old story and it seems that VD intended solely to use Vincent as a vehicle to attack the Government. The summary of the inteview was that Riven Vincent has declared that she 'no longer believes David Cameron is on the side of disabled children.' This was then cut and pasted into 5Live News. Why? It wasn't 'news'...it was a regurgitated story from January in which Vincent said the same thing. The conclusion has to be that this is the BBC casting around for ways to attack Cameron...this is the same 5Live that assiduously followed every anti-cuts protest and helpfully told us where and when they would be occurring. Contrast the normal BBC reaction with the cuts which is to blame the Governemt as 'savage and brutal'....when VD asked who was to blame, expecting 'the government' as the answer, what she got, to her dismay, was the callers blaming the councils. VD's reaction was to say the councils must balance their budgets and make decisions that reflect tight budgets....isn't that exactly what the Government is trying to do?

COMPARE AND CONTRAST - PART ONE.

Here's one view on US unemployment;

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 10.3 percent in February, up from 9.8 percent at the end of January, according to the Gallup polling agency. The rate of those considered to be underemployed, meanwhile, reached 19.9 percent last month, up from 18.9 percent at the end of January, Gallup says. Results are based on a 30-day rolling average.

Here's another;

The US unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.9% in February, down from 9% the month before. It is the third month in a row that the jobless rate has fallen, with February's figure marking a near two-year low.

Can you GUESS which one of these comes from the BBC?

No Bite in the Bark

Sir Howard Davies was given an easy time this morning by rottweiler Humph.
Sir Howard’s resignation may have been a noble selfless thing for the sake of that fandabbydozy institution the LSE, but I felt we never got to the nitty gritty.
What about the influence this dosh from despots might have on the teaching? Humph did ask, but he let Sir Howard get away with a distinctly cavalier denial. Where was Humph’s terrier-like dog-with-a-bone tenacity that we have grown to love and hate?

It may well be a good thing that Gaddafi’s elite are well trained and taught how to do things properly, and it may well be desirable for reputable universities to become global villages at the heart of London even if it means they risk sacrificing their independence, and it may well be necessary to engage with bad people. But must this fearsome, penetrating interviewer accept it all with little more than a murmur ?
Would everyone who might utter: “I’ve made two ‘errors of judgement’ but they weren’t my fault” or: “the government made me make some bad decisions” be let off as lightly?
What made the old dog lie down and let these important questions go, not with a bang but a whimper?

Stephen Pollard, in the Telegraph, wonders about the university funding question too. He is worried about the money that has gone to Islamic study centres.

“A study of five years of politics lectures at the Middle Eastern Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford, found that 70 per cent were “implacably hostile” to the West and Israel. A friend of mine, a former Oxford academic, felt that his time was largely spent battling a cadre of academics overwhelmingly hostile to the West, in an ambience in which students – from both Britain and abroad – were presented a world-view that was almost exclusively anti-Western. “

Apart from the Oxbridge universities he mentions - for another example I give you Exeter University, the one that has recently announced its decision to charge the maximum tuition fee. It’s the home of a major Saudi-funded Islamic study centre, and it boasts revisionist historian Ilan Pappéand the fragrant Palestinian activist Ghada Karmi as members of its teaching staff. I find this alarming.

These are the things that I want John Humphrys to consider, and I’d like him to savage all intractable interviewees, whatever their politics, in the same ferocious manner presently reserved uniquely for those he disagrees with.

Question Time LiveBlog 3rd March 2011

>> THURSDAY, MARCH 03, 2011

Question Time tonight, on the day of the Barnsley by-election, comes fromDerby.

On the panel we have Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan SmithMP. Fresh from her recent victory overCathy Ashton in the regional heats of International Face Like A Horse, there is the local Labour MP and former foreign secretary (really) Margaret Beckett. Also former Labour minister 'Lord' Malloch Brown, historian David Starkey and economist and journalist Liam Halligan.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo we'll be using the Pointless Voting Rules. Voting will be just about over in the Welsh Referendum to change the way the Assembly votes on...zzzzzzzzzzz *snore* and Barnsley will be voting in Mugabesque percentages for a lamppost with a red rosette on it. That leaves us open to Thatcher, Miners, and Doom. All three on your card and in the same sentence wins 100 points and a B-BBC coffee cup.

LibDem Meltdown and UKIP or BNP Surge also score tonight, with double points if used in an attack on the Coalition. Defence Cuts make a predicable return to the Bingo card this week, although Sea Harriers Scrapped by Labour in 2004 isn't on your card as it won't be mentioned. Play your Libya Chaos joker quickly for bonus hidden prizes.

The LiveBlog will also cover the insane This Week, with Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo, a random lefty politician (probably Jacqui Smith now that the inconvenient expenses theft fraud lies stuff has been airbrushed out of history) and a collection of X-Factor rejects.

TheEye and David Mosque will be operating a no-fly zone here from 10:30pm.

PEOPLE'S ENEMY

I have reported before that the PR outfit Futerra is a BBC-linked organisation that trains BBC people on how to spread climate change propaganda. Here, Richard Black, bemoaning the scrapping of the useless quango the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), fantasises that it might wash its hands of dirty government funding and transmute instead into a body that becomes "a people's watchdog" on green government. He spouts with enthusiastic glee:

The new body would use techniques such as crowdsourcing and social media to dissect data and lobby government. There is no funding for the new group, although conversations are underway...The proposed body would monitor all government departments and follow all relevant issues, providing a running audit of the coalition's pledge to be the "greenest ever government".

I haven't the faintest idea what the jargon he deploys actually means (have you?) but no doubt it chimes loudly with the messages that Futerra have been spreading amongst the BBC climate-zealot community; it's clear that this is the case, because he goes on to quote the Futerra boss as saying that this people's SDC would become a pressure group like the Taxpayers' Alliance. Laying aside that the Taxpayers' Alliance actually condemns the spending of our money on green scams, the messages involved certainly fit neatly also with what Mr Black has been doing for years, that is, rammming climate change propaganda down our throats under the totally misnomer of "news".

What's even more chilling is that among the senior staff of the SDC is a lady whom Mr Black also adoringly quotes, one Rebecca Willis. Her credentials for this role as high-priestess of global warming and higher energy bills and fuel tax surchages?

Rebecca is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, and has written for The Guardian, New Statesman and the journal Renewal. She is an Associate of Green Alliance, the leading environmental think tank, and from 2001-4 was the organisation’s Director. Before joining Green Alliance in 1998, Rebecca spent two years as a policy adviser at the European Parliament in Brussels, specialising in international environmental issues. Rebecca has a first class degree in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and a masters degree in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex.

I rest my case. Mr Black is in bed with, and unquestioningly and uncritically recycles, the nonsense of Guardian-loving activists whose mission in life is to send us back to the stone age, and to make misery - through higher taxes - the lives of millions.

The Day Today

I was listening, on and off, to Today this morning. Somewhere in a news bulletin I thought I heard:
“US President Barack Obama has condemned the shooting of two American airmen. He described it as an "outrageous act", and pledged to "ensure that all the perpetrators are brought to justice"
I’m sure they will leave no turn unstoned to discover the motive.
Then I heard Evan Davis discussing the Pope’s extraordinary decision toforgive the Jews. More on that later.
I avoided Jeremy Bowen. The programme ended with Justin Webb’sinterview with a glottal-stopping expert on ‘gigs for despots’ by the likes of Beyonce who get zillions of dollars for two-song sets for sons of sheikhs. Say that wiv your teef out. To his credit, Justin mentioned double standards, where celebs “Make a lot of fuss about playing in Israel.” Then he said, I thought somewhat reflectively, “It’s cooler to play for an Arab dictator than it is to play in Israel.”

For reasons that I won’t go into, my late father always felt deeply uncomfortable about the Catholic church’s theological condemnation of the Jewish race. So I had more than a passing interest in the latest decision by Pope Benedict to reinterpret the matter. Oddly, this item is omitted from the Today website running order, so I’ve transcribed the whole thing and posted in the comments field so as not to bore you with it here.

This issue has always troubled people particularly because, as even theGuardian acknowledges

“Anti-Jewish Catholic doctrines such as the claim that the Jews murdered Christ were said to have ideologically underpinned nazism. Vatican officials allegedly helped Nazis escape Europe after the war.”

So. No small matter. At the end of the piece, Evan asks, ‘ if the Pope is able to ‘reinterpret’ such a thing theologically, how could such a big mistake have been made for a couple of centuries?’

Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. But no. We aren’t going to get a straight answer to that, especially with such gentle questioning.

There is, however, another question this papal uturn begs. If it’s so easy for a Pope to turn such a fundamental theological matter upon its head, what’s to stop another Pope reverting to default position at some future date? This was touched upon in the Guardian piece.

“Disquiet that the apology was a beautiful gesture but a theological mistake bubbled to the surface last week.

Echoing widespread concern from liberal as well as conservative theologians, the Bishop of Como, Alessandro Maggiolini, said: "In whose name, exactly, is the holy father asking pardon? He is relying on a group of experts, but tomorrow another group of experts might come up with different examples."

And how well will it go down with the other antisemites of the world?

“Other churchmen said the gesture would be seen by Muslims as a sign of weakness and by secular enemies as a cue to launch further attacks.”

What is my point? I’m not sure. It’s all verbal chip paper anyway, all forgotten by the next day.

"MURDOCH WOULD HAVE SOLD HIS GRANNY"

The BBC'S DAY OF RAGE at the Government approval for the Newscorp buy out of BSkyB continues. I wonder what it is about the prospect of an alleged all dominant media monopoly that so vexes the BBC? Obviously the BBC does not "do" irony.

USEFUL IDIOTS

>> WEDNESDAY, MARCH 02, 2011

I've been away for a few days and am busy catching up on recent blogposts and comments (and excellent stuff it is too).

I see that the BBC has devoted some attention to links between the Gaddafi family and various British institutions and politicians. However, I can't seem to find any mention of the useful idiots who, in the name of climate change, supported this particular PR exercise/vanity project back in 2007:

The Libyan government has announced the creation of what it claims is "the world’s first sustainable region". It’s backed by architects Foster and Partners, enthusiastically endorsed by Sir Nicholas Stern – and directed by the Colonel’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

The Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority (GMCDA) will cover the northeastern region of Jabal al Akhdar (literally, ‘Green Mountain’). This encompasses several of the country’s major cities, including Benghazi, and stretches from the coast inland to a plateau featuring junipers, cypresses and wild olives. According to Norman Foster, it’s "one of the most beautiful and little known landscapes on earth"…

Sir Nicholas Stern… has given his blessing: "If we are to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change… we need urgently to build new economic and social models of development on a substantial scale. The GMCDA will show how environmental and cultural objectives can help to build a thriving and sustainable local economy in a crucial part of the world." Among other organisations involved are UNESCO, WWF and the Prince of Wales School of Traditional Arts.

The locals didn't seem to share the enthusiasm of Lords Stern and Foster and the Prince of Wales for Saif Gaddafi's vision. Green Mountain and Benghazi were among the first areas to revolt.

The BBC's Michael Hirst was at the press conference at which Saif's eco-utopia was unveiled. It's a shame he didn't remind his colleagues on Newsnight about it before their recent report; I can't be alone in wondering how much money Foster and Partners received for their work on young Gaddafi's project, or what financial return Lord Stern and others got for their endorsement. (Yes, I know - the BBC avoids asking the blessed Lord Stern awkward questions, especially concerning his lucrative career as one of the world's foremost climate change alarmists.)

One final point relating to people who have in the past sucked up to the Gaddafis - who else remembers the edition of Have Your Say from the Oxford Union in which the BBC's David Eades made a total tart of himself?
UPDATE. Thanks to John Horne Tooke for pointing out that David Eades continues to make a tart of himself, most recently at a "Sustainability Day" sponsored by Italian energy giant Enel last month - see here and here.

TRANSPHOBIA

No, I don't listen to Woman's Hour (or Wimmin's Hour to be more accurate) but it happened to be on when I was in the car earlier and before I could turn it off I caught a conversation concerning how "patronising" the use of the word "lady" is when referring to a member of the contradictory gender. There was some arch-feminist on - let's call her Millie Tant - who was suggesting that she was in no way ladylike. I am sure she is right. However the bit that really caught my attention was when she attacked David Walliams and Matt Lucas for their "I'm a lady" sketch on Litte Britain. This, she insisted, was transphobic. I think even the presenter was taken back by that one. What a pointless programme.

OPEN THREAD

Hi folks. It's Wednesday, mid way through our weekly bias fest, so time for a new one of these! I'm making my re-appearance to remind you that the Ministry of Truth was never as malignant at the State Broadcaster has become. You want proof? Provide it here...

UNIVERAL SHAMI TO RUN LONDON POLICING

Truly nauseating interview with Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens and Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty on Today this morning. The essence, as presented by the BBC, is that the Met are trying to be more polite to street demonstrators and will be tweeting them, providing them with public toilets and bottle of water in future demonstrations. Not sure if aromatherapy is also provided but you can bet it is at least under consideration. However, Universal Shami is still not content with the tactic of "kettling" and you will share my delight that the Met have invited Liberty into their control room for the March 24th TUC coat-trailing exercise through London. Yes, Shami will get to decide if policing meets her high standards. Just two question; WHO elected her that her opinion matters so much and WHY is the Met allowing this particular pressure group such key access?

ANTI-CONSERVATIVE DAY IS EVERYDAY

Cracking morning for Tory-bashing on Today. At 7.35am Nick Robinson got stuck into what he sees as David Cameron's inconsistency on Libya. The idea that a UK PM might talk about possible military intervention in the form of an air-inclusion zone outrages BBC sentiment and this was not the last of it. Then, at 7.42am, the BBC runs an item where it brought "Big Society" Minister Nick Hurd to a small charity to see the awful impact of those dreaded Tory cuts! I thought Hurd answered the BBC trap questions pretty well but even so the BBC meme that the "voluntary" sector is under mortal threat was repeated time after time. Skipping past ANOTHER thought for the day from the fragrant Mona Siddique, our favourite Professor of Islamic studies, we arrive at the first cuckoo of spring - or Paddy Ashdown as he is technically known.

Ashdown was on to further discuss the Libyan situation - although I am unsure quite why his Balkans "experience" qualifies him. Ashdown was quick to point out that without the blessing of the UN security Council, ANY prospect of ANY sort of military action in Libya is not possible. Naturally, a tribune to Mr Moon at the UN will always be well received on the BBC.

Given the daily diatribe against the Conservative Party on Today, I fail to see why Cameron continues with accommodating the BBC. It will hollow out his policies and ensure Labour is santised. It will do everything possible to destroy the Coalition. The BBC is the enemy of a sovereign patriotic Britain and it despises anything and anyone who dares assert our national will. But if we prostrate ourselves to the will of the International Communinty - Labour policy - then the BBC will laud us.Listening to this daily dross is not good for me.

Naughty But Nice

>> TUESDAY, MARCH 01, 2011

Robin Shepherd spots the BBC’s response to Iran’s official complaint that the Olympic logo reads “ZION.”

See how they do that? The 2 is like a Z, the 1 underneath is the I, the 0 is, of course, the O, and the other 2 is a sideways N.

The Iranians find the word Zion so objectionable that they’ve threatened to boycott the Olympics if nothing is done.

In this clip Adrian Warner and the cute BBC presenter find this amusing, if not a little endearing, in an “Ooh you are awful, but I like you” kind of way.

Robin Shepherd sees this as a typical nod to Muslim antisemitism - it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time, and tragically, we’re used to it.

THE SIN OF NOT ENDORSING HOMOSEXUALITY

Fascinating interview @7.50am on Today concerning the Christian coupledenied the right to foster any more children because they dare not endorse homosexuality values for 8 year olds. If you listen to the tone of the interview, there is clear BBC disbelief that ANY Christian person would not seek to convey the joys of the gay lifestyle. As ever the implication is that Christians are bigots and sexists.Having a go at Christians is now an essential aspect of the liberal judiciary and in this case it is one where the BBC is clearly content to go with the law. That said, I thought the couple concerned acquited themselves quite well although I can't wait for the BBC asking Muslim parents their view on gay advocacy.

AIDING POVERTY...

Sometimes the BBC sets up interviews in such a way that whatever they go, the BBC view prevails. Take this discussion on the British overseas aid budget. As you know, the Coalition has taken the decision (wrongly in my view) to ring-fence the currently £8bn a year budget. It has, however, decided not to waste our cash on rich countries like China and Brazil. Cue faux BBC outrage and a liberal brought on to allege the "securitisation" of UK overseas aid. I wonder if the BBC would care to bring on Dambisa Moyowho argues some very interesting views on the dangers of overseas aid? The BBC adopts a paternalistic approach to aid, and the idea of a well educated African born woman suggesting that Aid is counter-productive would probably blow their minds.

FISHY BUSINESS

Given the relentless ruination of the UK fishing industry by the European Union, I would have expected a rather more vigorous "debate" with EU's Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki on Today this morning. 7.13am No such luck! She was able to come on, waffle her way through a pathetic interview concerning the latest nonsense from Brussels. I wonder how many listeners take the sanguine approach to EU Fisheries policy adopted by the BBC? It's almost as if the BBC quite like the decimation of our fishing industry but naturally that couldn't be the case.

Save Now Could it?