The BBC, Those Pesky Rapist Jews And The Silent Palestinians

Robin Shepherd Online » Post Archive » A tale of Israeli “rapists” that has enraged the Palestinians but won’t make the BBC

An interesting story via Biased BBC.

BBC Paid By EU

Fears of bias as BBC gets £141m in EU loans - Times Online

No wonder the EU rarely figures much in news reports - and never in documetaries or current affairs programmes.

Trafigura Trafigura Carter-Ruck Trafigura BBC

New Statesman - BBC removes Trafigura story after legal threat.

The bastards are at it again.

Watch the orginal video on Charters & Co Youtube: Trafigura.

BBC Only Get Child Snooping Partly Right

Just watched Look North dealing with the School Entry Wellbeing Report.

Fairly even-handed, with a guy from Big Brother Watch putting the case against; although the presenter kept making the mistake of talking about the information on the form going to the school and the education authority, when it's actually destined for the Health Service.

And the guy from Big Brother Watch missed a chance to make the point that many of the questions were directed at the parents and were concerned with personal, non-health issues.

BBC Repeats Usual Lies About Lisbon Treaty

Czech court clears Lisbon Treaty

The Czech constitutional court has ruled that the Lisbon Treaty is in line with the constitution, clearing the way for President Vaclav Klaus to sign it.

The Czech Republic is the only EU member yet to ratify the treaty, and the decision removes the penultimate hurdle to its passage.

The Eurosceptic Mr Klaus, who was awaiting the court's decision, has said he will not further oppose the treaty.

The treaty was drawn up to streamline decision-making in the 27-member body.

Its supporters say it will allow the bloc to operate more efficiently and give it greater influence in world affairs. Critics say it will cede too many national powers to Brussels.

To be fair to the BBC, this line is the one churned out by most of the ignorant and feckless British media.

The Lisbon Treaty is the former European Constitution in a new format. It has nothing to do with 'streamlining' anything. It has nothing to do with operating more 'efficiently'.

It is about establishing a United States of Europe in the form of the EU as a federal superstate, whose citizens we become. It is about transferring more and more sovereignty to unelected politicians in Brussels.

Do any of these overpaid goons ever do any research?

Safeguarding Trust (Bolshevik Broadcasting Corp)

(BBC) Safeguarding Trust - Introduction

This is to make sure people producing stuff for the BBC don't offend ANYONE.

And what is with this government and SAFEGUARDING?

And why I am suddenly using capital letters?

The Westminster Conspiracy

THE WESTMINSTER CONSPIRACY An under-reported speech by Greg Dyke, attacking the political class for their stranglehold on democracy.

Last month, Greg Dyke, who was the BBC's director general from 2000-2004, described the BBC as part of a "conspiracy" preventing the "radical changes" needed to UK democracy. Speaking at the Liberal Democrat party's conference, Dyke said:

"The evidence that our democracy is failing is overwhelming and yet those with the biggest interest in sustaining the current system - the Westminster village, the media and particularly the political parties, including this one - are the groups most in denial about what is really happening to our democracy."

Repeated nonsense from the politicos about cleaning up politics and improving the system are smoke-screens to cover up their intentions to do nothing so that they remain in power.

As I have repeatedly said, the problem is not so much the system as the people in it. Even if you have the best system in the world it'll be rubbish if the people within it are a bunch of self-serving shits.

Taking the Biased BBC To Task

Licence rebel prosecuted as BBC finally tackles TV fee 'refuseniks':

The BBC is prosecuting a viewer who has refused on principle to pay his television licence for seven years, amid claims the Corporation is fearful of a growing backlash against the fee.

Retired engineer John Kelly was one of several thousand people who have refused to pay since 2002 in protest at what they regard as bias in the BBC's news coverage of issues such as the European Union.

It's not just the EU the BBC doesn't cover impartially (or at all).

Wacko Jacko 1, Irate Iran 0

Iran seems to have dropped off the BBC's news radar, being replaced last night by the far more pressing concern about the pitifully insignificant expenses of the BBC hierachy. Tonight they devoted more than fifteen minutes to the death of Michael Jackson.

For once it was a relief when the regional news programme came on - thank God they couldn't find a local connection to Wacko.

Cameron Broken BBC Politics Goes Post-Bureaucratic

Oh, to be in Blighty:

in Britain today a growing culture of rule-following, box-ticking and central prescription robs people of the chance to use their judgement or to take responsibility for making the right decisions.

And an increasingly Orwellian surveillance state - symbolised by the simultaneously ineffective and intrusive ID cards scheme - reminds people that the powers-that-be don't really trust them.

So this compounds the rage that we feel.

We rage that as we go about our business we are picked and poked and bossed around, annoyed and irritated and endlessly harassed by public and private sector officialdom...

...that treats us like children with rules and regulations and directives and laws that no-one voted for, no-one supports, but no-one ever seems to be able to do the slightest thing about.

No trust. No discretion. No judgment.

Astute words from David Cameron, who seems to have caught something essential in the public mood that is eluding Labour and the mainstream media. But...he's a politician salivating at the prospect of being Prime Minister and he'll promise anything he thinks will get him votes.

As Neue Arbeit Macht Frei points out, the central problem is not properly addressed, ie that to regain our national sovereignty and democracy we must leave the EU. Cameron is kite-flying when it comes to the EU - he's the only UK political leader daring to talk about it openly. If the anti-European powder trail catches fire he may end up with something he hadn't bargained on.

Just watched the BBC 6 o'clock news version of events. No mention of the EU, of course, and, in the interest of 'balance', a deft redirection to the line that all the major political parties are urging reform, then back on to the expenses saga.

Cue also the execrable Straw, defending the government's indefensible track record, inviting Cameron to cross-party talks on the issue. He deserves a punch in the face.

Informed Stasi Citizen Bolshevik Broadcasting Company

Not content with presenting the public with its highly selective and frequently misleading diet of 'news', the BBC has also embraced the role of Social Engineer and Propagandist on behalf of New Labour, hence this nonsense about 'informed citizenship', which found its way into its last Charter (2004).

I'd be happy if the BBC actually stuck to reporting the facts more often than it does and kept its nose out of trying to mould our attitudes. The BBC has a duty to its public; citizenship does not come into it.

Just how far the BBC has become a political tool of New Labour is further revealed in the fact that has its own 'citizenship' website for children, Citizen X. It's full of New Labour newspeak about 'rights', 'responsibilities', 'identity' and 'diversity', as you'd expect and sounds like a child-friendly version of Every Child Matters. All of which comes at a time when the government is daily depriving its citizens of their freedoms.

There are also sections on government, local democracy, voting and community action. There's irony for you.

The Briefly Broadcasting Company

So, here's the run-down of tonight's six o'clock news from the Beeb:

1 the Australian bushfires
2 Gordon Brown promises 'sweeping' review of bank management: a 'review', please note (and 'sweeping' (that must have featured in the Press Release)
3 Jacqui Smith - bingo! - must have lasted all of ten seconds; blink and you missed a pointless clip of said clone getting into ministerial car; absolutely no follow-up
4 more bad weather on the way; cue pictures of sheep in snowy fields, etc
5 ghost ship Clemenceau on its way to the Northeast
6 sport
7 films
(plenty of time on the last two).

Overpaid Morons

Follow-up on the BBC's coverage of the Lindsey refinery strike: 'BBC apologises for misleading edit of striking worker'. Editing is something the BBC is very good at (see my previous post on Jeremy Clarkson). It's just covering extremely important issues where it's shit.

Will Hutton demonstrates why he's an overpaid moron: he believes The Spawn of the Manse should institute the equivalent of Roosevelt's New deal programme, because Labour believes in 'deploying the state to create a fair society'. Christ, is that what they believe in? Doesn't look like that to me.

Gordon Brown should not be Prime Minister and New Labour should not be in power. They have demonstrated a complete inability to manage the economy, treated the citizens of this country with total contempt and instituted a campaign of destruction of our freedoms unmatched by any government in two hundred years. Anyone who thinks these sanctimonious cretins should continue in power or advocates a National Government that includes them is a moron.

And talking of morons, having read that a couple of bloggers that Tom Harris is one of the better New Labour bloggers, I dropped in on his site to have a look. He's the man who didn't understand the point of the Libertarian Party's campaign to get a copy of 1984 sent to every MP. He still doesn't understand about surveillance. Or quite possibly he just doesn't give a fuck, because he's all right, Jack.

Anyway, to return to the BBC, I look forward to watching tonight's six o'clock news, to see what important information is omitted.

More Bolshie Broadcasting Company Bollocks

Two things I noted about the BBC news last night.

1) Regarding the latest teacup storm concerning Jeremy Clarkson (see link in my previous post): the BBC didn't show the video either in part or whole but presented a sequence of photos of it and played a voice recording - ONLY OF THE FIRST HALF OF CLARKSON'S COMMENT, ie 'in England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot', thus leaving out the really important bit about Brown lying to us over the economic situation, and thereby directing the PR into Righteously-Offended La-La Land.

2) Regarding the settlement at Killingholme refinery and the 'social dumping' of foreign workers under EU regulations: the reporter on our regional tv interviewed a man from a local engineering company who said we can't afford to be protectionist because his firm did so much trade with Europe. Notice the misleading blurring between employment and trade.

This is not the first time this line has been used when reporting the strikes and walk-outs. The Lindsey dispute is about employment, not the ability to trade with European countries and it may have escaped the notice of BBC journalists that people on these islands have been trading with people on the Continent for thousands of years - with or without regulations.

And Just Journalism have released an analysis of media coverage of the Gaza conflict which proves what was blatantly obvious to many of us, ie that the BBC in particular was biased against Israel.

Its summary includes the following: that the BBC failed to make crucial distinctions between opinion and fact; that it did not differentiate between civilian and Hamas casualties; and that its Middle East Editor's online diary was 'highly partial', 'often emotional' and showed 'a preoccupation with humanizing Palestinian perspectives' to the detriment of his impartiality.

The Bolshevik Broadcasting Company

Lord Elvis at 10 Drowning Street accuses the BBC of fabricating nonsense news stories with itself at the centre to avoid real news. I wouldn't disagree. The amount of garbage presented on primetime BBC news is ridiculous - non-stories about celebrities, actors, footballers, and local or foreign news items bigged up as something important. How lucky for them a bit of snow has fallen in the last couple of days.

I have not heard one mention on the main news about the Coroners and Justice Bill, the Data Retention Bill or any of the slew of legislation enacted by the government to destroy our liberties. Nothing about ContactPoint, nothing about the amendments to the Terrorism Bill to allow police to harass photographers, and certainly nothing about the EU (except when it becomes absolutely unavoidable).

I suppose they can get away with it to some extent by claiming that they feature some of this information on their website. An item such as that about Hamas seizing UN aid, for instance. No mention of that on the 6 0'clock news, just as there was no mention of Hamas breaking the recent ceasefire by blowing up an Israeli landrover, etc.

The BBC also makes sure its reporters and presenters mention the word 'recession' as infrequently as possible and use 'downturn', 'credit crunch' or other euphemisms instead. The snap above highlights the 'global' and US element as a means to distract from the fact that the UK is badly hit by the recession and is as much to blame for its own problems as anybody else (that keeps it in line with Brownian thinking).

And yet there goes The Spawn of the Manse himself succumbing to the Freudian slippage and saying the word 'depression' in parliament. Depression is the right word to describe the condition of having to live in the bankrupt, authoritarian shithole this country has become under him and his collaborators over the last 11 years.

Iceland Collapses, Sky Joins BBC

Iceland's coalition government collapses. Iceland, of course, had to go to the IMF last year for a bailout.

Haven't heard anything about the situation in Iceland on the BBC (apart from a little story about them sending jumpers to Immingham).

Sky have also decided not to air the DEC appeal for aid for Gaza.

Protestors should ask themselves: since when was it an obligation for a broadcaster to put out an appeal of this (or any) kind?

A useful round-up at UK Liberty of what's been happening to our freedoms over the last year.

Tory MP John Redwood has a post on his blog about the government's implementation of the EU's data retention directive. Not that Labour needed any encouragement on this front.

And I noted that the BBC website today, having started out with "UK e-mail law attack on rights'" on its main page, relegated it elsewhere, preferring to amuse the licence-payer with more important news, such as the McCanns' anger at a stupid Tory Party activist and film of a rare venomous mammal. No truth in accusations of dumbing-down or favouring Labour, then.

Ross Brand BBC Distraction Bullshit

God, am I sick to death of the this endlessly regurgitated crap from the media!

What purposes does it fulfil, apart from allowing media wankers to pleasures themelves in public?

1) distraction from the reality of recession and the Mandelson-Osborne-Deripaska scandal

2) fuel for the incoming Tory government to start dismantling the BBC.

And, as a postscript to reveal the utter intellectual vacuousness of our elected representatives, is a post from Devil's Kitchen regarding MP Tom Harris's reaction to receiving a copy of Orwell's 1984.

Mr Harris appears to have been asleep while the government was passing various bits of legislation which increase the intensity and scope of the surveillance we are to be put under (and which we were not told about).