Unexpected Aberration?

Unexpected Aberration?

>> SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2011

Nick Cohen wrote: “........... Jeremy Bowen is blinking at his cameraman in Tripoli, like some startled, uncomprehending mammal who has been shaken by the convulsions around him from a hibernation that has lasted for most of his career." He’s still blinking. Caught in the headlights in Tripoli, I think he has suddenly woken up! He’s telling us that the rebels in Libya might not be all they’re cracked up to be. And despite all our efforts, Gaddafi. Aint. Bovvered. Meanwhile Orla Geurin has gone to the intensive care department of a hospital to emote about civilian casualties inflicted by Gaddafi’s army. I’m always suspicious of broadcasts from hospital wards, especially those direct from intensive care. While the BBC is trying to get us onside in the war against Gaddafi, Bowen is warning us that we should give some consideration to the ‘better the devil you know’ theory. Now I see that General Lord Dannatt doesn’t think this kind of thing is ‘helpful.’ Just to be clear, I’m ambivalent about our involvement in Libya. But that is neither here nor there. When the BBC is overtly campaigning for something I automatically become suspicious. Is this really me, or have I metamorphosed into someone else. .... because I’m wondering if Jeremy Bowen has suddenly ‘grown a pair’?

SAINT OR SINNER?

I had the misfortune to work on a freelance basis a couple of times for Richard Branson. My conclusion? He's a greedy, publicity-mad, calculating, self-serving, tight-fisted egomaniac (objectionable enough to make even the Adam Smith Institute into anti-capitalists). So I find this cat-spatbetween Richard Black and said Mr Branson tiresomely engaging. In the one corner, eco-nut Black is busting a gut to tell us that the Branson publicity wheeze to introduce lemurs to his Caribbean tax-dodge Mosquito Island is very, very bad, because it breaches the UN hallowed rules about biodiversity and the import of foreign species. How is it - I sometimes muse - that BBC reporters don't apply the same lip-curling xenophobic contempt to immigration stories? The irony would be lost on them, I suppose. On the other hand, our BBC environment campaigner is lost in admiration and reminds us that Mr Branson's Necker resort is all about the saintly pursuit of eco-tourism. What a fantastic puff...the highest acccolade in greenieland is to be called "eco". This $2,000-a-night retreat is obviously somewhere Mr Black dearly wants to go. In glowing Technicolor - the dilemmas and conflicts of BBC green-creed journalism.

HOW BIASED IS THE NOLAN SHOW?

>> FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2011

HI folks - just popping in from the election trail to ask you your thoughts on BBC's Stephen Nolan. You see, I'm returning the favour because Mr Nolan keeps talking about me on his election programmes. It's as if he would like to try and damage my Party's election chances by selective quotes from A Tangled Web but he NEVER quotes from Biased BBC. I think this is such a shame such is the richness and accuracy of comment here. SO...If you listen to Nolan on any BBC airwaves why not detail your thought about his impartiality, or lack of, so his little researchers can have some more material for their boss. Next week, I meet him on air, so the talking will be to my face, not behind my back.