Biased BBC

Moore on Marr

2009-11-04T06:08:00.004Z

Charles Moore here expertly casts his eye over Andrew Marr's BBC series The Making of Modern Britain. It pretty much sums up almost all that is wrong with the BBC today. In a nutshell, Marr ludicrously condemns anything to do with the political right and praises unreservedly the forces of "progress" - especially the trade unions. It's goodies versus baddies and we know who the villains are in Marr's universe.

BACK!

2009-11-03T21:45:00.003Z

Hi all. Just to say I have returned from my break over in the States and am pleased to report I have not caught any BBC output for the past 10 days! Instead, I tuned in to watch the excellent Fox News for some fair and balanced news - putting all points of view. My thanks to all my fellow writers for stepping in here during my absence - I will return tomorrow when the jetlag has worn off! Thanks also to all who have emailed me during my absence, I will respond in due course.

Jo Abbess - Comedy Genius

2009-11-03T19:44:00.006Z

Eco-warrior Jo Abbess, occasional editor of Roger Harrabin articles, is now focusing her attention on another BBC environment correspondent. I would quote some snippets but you really have to read the whole thing to get the full hilarious impact of her authoritarian pomposity.

The question is - will Richard Black follow Harrabin and do as Jo demands?

Update. It seems like a lot of effort considering Black is pretty much on her side anyway.

Ethical Comparison Drawn

2009-11-03T14:07:00.004Z

The BBC's Ethical Man attends a FreedomWorks meeting:

In the US state of Virginia the talk is of revolution. In the basement of a restaurant in Richmond we met 100 or so American patriots -ordinary people who claim to be the vanguard of a great new movement, a movement for American liberty.
"Lower taxes, less government, more freedom", is their rallying cry…

Their call to arms focuses on two issues: healthcare reform and - you guessed it - President Barack Obama's plan for a cap and trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions…

Most of the people I spoke at the Richmond meeting did not believe climate change is something they need worry about…

Bastards! They're no better than the murderous defenders of slavery:

As the meeting broke up one man took me aside to say he was not persuaded by the arguments he had heard.
"You are in a state that fought for the freedom to keep people in slavery," Phil told me.
Indeed, Patrick Henry, who demanded liberty or death as he helped launch the revolt against British tyranny, subsequently worked to defend the slave trade as an attorney.
Phil told me the story of Gabriel, a slave who, 24 years after the Declaration of Independence, attempted to lead a rebellion against the slave owners here in Richmond Virginia…
Gabriel was hanged just a couple of blocks away from the cellar where the FreedomWorks meeting was held.
"Freedom means different things to different people," Phil said as he left the meeting.

They even held their meeting "just a couple of blocks away" from where a slave was hanged! The comparisons are spooky, aren't they?

Coming soon - Ethical Man visits the Holocaust Museum in Washington and writes some nonsense about "deniers".

JOYFUL BBC – CLIMATE CHANGE IS A BELIEF....

2009-11-03T14:02:00.002Z

This was regarded as so important that it was on the BBC News website front page

A man has been told he can take his employer to tribunal on the grounds he was unfairly dismissed because of his views on climate change.

Tim Nicholson, 42, of Oxford, was made redundant in 2008 by Grainger Plc in Didcot, as head of sustainability.
He said his beliefs had contributed to his dismissal and in March a judge ruled he could use employment equality laws to claim it was unfair.
But the firm appealed against this as it believed his views were political.

After the hearing on Monday, Mr Nicholson said he was delighted by the judgement for himself and other people who may feel they are discriminated against because of their views on climate change.
His solicitor, Shah Qureshi, said: "Essentially what the judgment says is that a belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperative is capable of being a philosophical belief and is therefore protected by the 2003 religion or belief regulations."

Naturally the BBC is delighted. For years they have been shilling for the likes of Monbiot and Gore, pushing man made global warming as a political message and doing their best to ignore or demean anyone who questioned the theory. With judges veering towards the classification of the theory as a “belief” it could mean that critics could be identified as “climate change deniers”. From that it would only be a short step to the creation of denial as an offence against the “believers” and – hey presto – more money for Carter-Ruck and Schillings.

Stay tuned for the man made global warming message to become even more fervent as the true believers do their best to ratchet it up to messianic levels. Doubters will be demonised as servants of the great beast Anthropogenor (I’m not making that up – you’ve seen the end of days doomsday prediction that cost £6 million of your money) and cast out into the darkness –or, more likely sacked, fined or jailed.

Normally, of course, the BBC’s heart usually bleeds for people punished by the courts – but there are certain crimes that strike at everything the BBC holds dear so don’t hold your breath for any Newsnight features pimping sympathy for climate change deniers being hit by the full force of m’learned friends.....

Open Thread

2009-11-03T12:04:00.000Z

I declare this new thread open.

Earley Morning

2009-11-02T17:32:00.008Z

James Naughtie introducing a Steve Earle interview this morning:

"The American singer-songwriter Steve Earle has been interviewed quite often on this programme over the years about his political views."

I can't for the life of me think what it is about the political views of this anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-Guantanamo, anti-death penalty left-wing American singer-songwriter that makes him such a favourite on the Today programme.

MORE NUTT

2009-11-02T06:37:00.004Z

Briefly, for those who believe Professor Nutt is a genuine scientist who was martyred for uttering objective truths about drug use, I recommend this article by Melanie Phillips. Hat tip to Marky.

There isn't the space on this blog to analyse why he so richly deserved the sack, but from what I've seen so far of the BBC's continued coverage this morning , you won't see it there. And for the record, though I am not a scientist, I do sit on a body which contains many experts on drugs (working in both academic fields and rehabilitation) who have markedly different views from Professor Nutt and his fellow government cronies. What they have been saying has been a huge matter of concern to my committee for years. But its views are consistently ignored by the BBC.

NUTT OUT (PART2)

2009-11-01T17:56:00.005Z

The BBC is rousing itself today into a highly-predictable frenzy of indignation over the aftermath of Professor David Nutt's justified sacking as head of the government drugs advisory committee.

As a Biased BBC reader has pointed out, the pro-cocaine culture at the BBC is both illegal and has demonstrable victims. Now the BBC journalists are whipping this story up as if it were entirely a matter of academic freedom, when in reality, Professor Nutt and his associates are wet liberals who are as wrong in their analysis of drug-taking and its impact as our chums at the Met Office are about so-called "climate change".

The real scandal here is that for years, the corrupt government of Blair and Brown has stacked so-called advisory committees with their own cronies and poodles. When their pigeons come home to roost, they don't like it. Chances of the BBC investigating that? Zero.

Not Amused

2009-11-01T16:22:00.002Z

For me, humour can overcome certain political views if it’s funny enough.

The assumption that everyone will automatically agree is still irritating , but I can put that aside if there’s a good laugh in there.

Did anyone see how miffed that Mark Steel fellow was when Ian Hislop called him a Stalinist on HIGNFY ? He was definitely bovvered.

The thing I’m not so sure about is the stupid Anne Frank joke from the ubiquitous David Mitchell who I usually quite like. His attempted joke drew a complaint on Feedback which was briefly and peremptorily dealt with, below several letters praising other programmes.

He thought an amusing example of something very ridiculous was the idea that someone whose need to keep quiet was a matter of life or death - would ask for a drum kit. Ha very ha.

The fact that we all know Anne Frank’s terrible fate makes this not one of the occasions where the humor justifies the content.

QUESTION TIME?

2009-10-31T13:39:00.004Z

I see that the BBC's strange version of political 'balance' was in evidence again in this week's edition of R4's Any Questions? It was time for an appearance by UKIP (Marta Andreason, the former chief accountant of the EU,now an MEP for UKIP), so who is lined up against her? The ridiculous (but fanatic europhile) Charlie Faulkner, Shirley Williams (ditto) and from the Tories, one of the last remaining europhile MPs Kenneth Clark. Not only that, they chose an audience from Cambridge University that, judging from its reactions, was also madly pro-EU. Predictably, the three panellists had a joint love-in about how wonderful the EU was, while Andrea - though giving as good an account of herself as possible in the circumstances - was pushed to the margins. According to my sums, parties with eurosceptic policies amassed almost 60% of the vote at the June elections, not 25%.

Blowing the Whistle

2009-10-31T12:17:00.003Z

Did anyone else read Nick Cohen’s disturbing piece about whistleblower Derek Pasquill. He is bringing a case of unfair dismissal (hopeless) against the FCO.

It isn’t true to say that the BBC hasn’t reported this subject, they have. But they focus on the ethics of whistleblowing itself rather than what was ‘blown.’
Things more scandalous than several duck houses and home-flippings put together.

Putting aside the fact that many people are skeptical about whether there can be truly moderate Muslims, if there really are, it would undoubtedly be a good thing. After all, Muslims have fitted into U.S. society without all the difficulties we have here.

Our government recognises the necessity of befriending the Muslims it deliberately brought here. But rather than encouraging and supporting moderates they have chosen to appease and support the likes of the extreme MCB.

It seems Jack “I-come-from-immigrants” Straw was complicit in all this. Sitting there on the QT panel telling us all about that, he looked half deflated; likely to shrivel up altogether at any moment.

Hazel Blears was beginning to get it. She made a stand, then she was sacrificed in the expenses row.

Instead of debating the morality of whistleblowing, shouldn’t the BBC be debating the morality of appeasing, funding and fêting extreme Islamists?

NUTT OUT

2009-10-31T11:10:00.004Z

The BBC, of course, loves the idea of liberalising the drug laws, or better still, making hard drugs legal so that the boys and girls at White City can have oodles of their favourite white powder and waccy baccy. So when Alan Johnson - under pressure from dear Gordon - sacks Professor David Nutt for over-stepping his brief and lobbying to have cannabis re-classified (again) as a class 'C' drug, there's no question where their loyalties lie.

The whole row is cast as a matter of freedom of expression and opinion, with batteries of experts wheeled out to say a) that Professor Nutt is a jolly good all-round egg and scientist who should be allowed to say what he wants, and b)the government is being repressive. Naturally, in support of the good professor in the BBC's coverage are charities such as Drugscope and Release, which for years have been pressing for legalisation of all kinds of drugs, and who believe that methadone is a 'cure' for heroin addiction.

But what's completely missing from the equation is any consideration that Professor Nutt and his colleagues have been a joke for years because the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs - which he chaired - has been hijacked by liberals like him. Also, that - although Alan Johnson has actually done something right for once - the whole of the government's policy towards illegal drug use is a shambles, and it is they that caused the current climate of ill-judged and highly dangerous liberalism.

Party Posturing (Part 2)

2009-10-30T08:56:00.006Z

Credit where credit is due. Following Today's attempted ambush of William Hague yesterday over the alleged Nazi sympathies of Michael Kaminski, the leader of Poland's Law and Justice Party who are the Conservative party's new European allies, the programme invited on this morning Michael Shudrich, Poland's chief rabbi, to clarify whether or not - as David Miliband alleged yesterday - he believed Mr Kaminski was anti-semitic. Very cooly and precisely, Mr Shudrich said that, although Mr Kaminski had in his youth belonged to a neo-Nazi party, he had long since moved on and was now strongly pro-Isreal and "anti anti-semitic"in his beliefs. Not only that, again despite what Mr Miliband disgracefully alleged, the Law and Justice Party was not right-extremist (ie racist), but a respectable centre-right party.

So the programme definitely went out of its way - by tracking Mr Shudrich down to be interviewed - to demonstrate that David Miliband's claims were preposterous.

However, and there is always a big 'however' when the BBC finds something that supports a view to the right of centre, Nick Robinson came in on the act at the end to say that - despite the clarification over Poland -problems still were in store over the new Conservative grouping in the European Parliament, because there were big (unspecified) questions about the Latvians, another member of the new group. The menacing innuendo in his claims was so strong that he virtually nullified all that had been said by the chief rabbi.

QUESTION TIME LIVE-CHAT TONIGHT

2009-10-29T17:37:00.000Z

Tonights Question Time live-chat will be here. The programme itself comes from Llandudno and the panel will consist of the former home secretary Jacqui Smith MP, Shadow Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan MP, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats Lembit Opik MP, Plaid Cymru's Elfyn Llwyd and John Sergeant.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;altcast_code=96648f3459" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Question Time 29th October&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

As usual, we'll be staying open for business through This Week as well.....and hoping for gems like HobNobGate from last week. The BBC have been trying very hard to avoid a race controversy by removing all evidence of Andrew Neil comparing Diane Abbott to a chocolate biscuit from websites and iPlayer. There were, apparently, 15 complaints. Regular contributor and blogger Dazed and Confused has other ideas though. Enjoy.

Party Posturing?

2009-10-29T14:20:00.003Z

I listened with astonishment to the interview with David Miliband and William Hague on Today.

Halfway through the interview about the uselessness of having a referendum after ratification, they started chatting about the spat over the Tory party’s partnership/ alliance with Poland. David Miliband is furious because he thinks remarks made by Polish MEP Michal Kaminski are antisemitic, even though the Chief Rabbi of Poland has come to Mr. Kaminski’s defence.
I don’t know whether Mr. Kaminski is antisemitic by Polish standards, and I know very little about the implications of David Cameron’s relationship with his new best friends, but was surprised about Mr. Miliband’s outrage.

Considering the the government’s pro Muslim position - in general, and regarding immigration, not to mention their non vote on the Goldstone resolution, his outrage looked a bit disingenuous. I couldn’t find the promised statement on the Today website either. Can anyone help?

John Humphrys might have given them a more penetrating grilling than James Naughtie’s limp questioning, though maybe not in a good way.

HOBNOBGATE

2009-10-29T09:22:00.005Z

There's a good analysis here of 'Hobnobgate' - the ridiculous BBC hypocrisy over Andrew Neil's lighthearted (and even affectionate) remark on the BBC1 programme This Week that panellist MP Diane Abbott was like a "chocolate hobnob", while her companion Michael Portillo was more like a "custard cream". As Christopher Hart eloquently points out, the PC police at the BBC go into flatspin panic the minute 10 Guardian readers complain about alleged racism, while they do virtually nothing at all when an oaf like Jonathan Ross mounts a nasty, vicious, spiteful attack on the gentle Andrew Sachs. And what steps are our revered senior managers at the BBC taking to rid us of genuinely offensive parts of their output, such as using the f-word at every opportunity, or getting Andrew Marr to present an analysis of British history (as he did last night)? His programme was so full of crass class-hatred judgments that the best comparison is with 1066 And All That (although not nearly as funny).

QUESTION TIME LIVE-CHAT 29th OCTOBER

2009-10-28T21:02:00.000Z

As is usual, Biased-BBC will be holding a live-chat in parallel with Question Time tomorrow night starting at 10:30pm UK time.

The panel in Llandudno will consist of the former home secretary Jacqui Smith MP, Shadow Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan MP, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and meteorite-man Lembit Opik MP, Plaid Cymru's Elfyn Llwyd and John Sergeant.

Yours truly will, in the absence of David Vance, be promoting myself from assistant moderator into the big seat for the evening. Please join us!

Water Water Everywhere. Except in the West Bank.

2009-10-28T20:04:00.002Z

There is little doubt that the BBC hierarchy doesn’t like Israel. If they did, they wouldn’t obsess about every report, summary, or pronouncement condemning Israel that can be presented as a war crime, human rights abuse, or other misdeed. Furthermore, if they did report such perfidious findings, they wouldn’t sensationalise them in a way likely to cause maximum outrage amongst their trusting viewers.
Yet another report from Amnesty International condemning Israel, picked up and run with by your BBC.

Fearless Frankie

2009-10-28T15:59:00.003Z

Our friend Frankie Boyle has been defending his freedom of speech. Or his right to insult Rebecca Adlington’s appearance. Why he ever thought that was funny in the first place escapes me, but he puts the rebuke he has had from the BBC Trust down to a clampdown on cutting edge satire.
What his quip about Ms. Adlington’s nose has to do with satire also escapes me, but he has a point about the directive that the BBC has issued which he calls the “don’t frighten the horses” edict.

I’m all in favour of frightening horses if it means we get something good on TV. But not from Frankie Boyle. His views on Afghanistan and other political topics we can do without.

Open thread

2009-10-28T15:27:00.000Z

It must be time for a midweek open thread.

MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS?

2009-10-27T20:10:00.003Z

Jeremy Hunt talks to Andrew Neil about what the Conservatives are planning for the BBC after the next election. It'll be interesting to see how far, if at all, these moves will address the bias.

HUDD "SACKED TO MAKE WAY FOR ROSS"

2009-10-27T17:29:00.006Z

The News Huddlines (Radio 2) was one of the BBC's last old-style comedy shows, with fine roots that could be traced back back to the great days of shows like ITMA and Beyond the Fringe. Despite being hugely popular with its audience, it was axed unceremoniously at the end of 2001. Roy Hudd, its presenter, has just revealed why. He was taken to lunch by an (unnamed) BBC senior executive and told bluntly: "We'd like you to be more like Jonathan Ross". The executive, says Hudd, then explained that Wossy's flashy blend of "smut and smugness", was what was now wanted of Radio 2 performers - "cool, edgy, relevant".

Now I'm all for making change when change is due and maybe after 26 years, the News Huddlines was a tad tired. But it had a loyal older audience, and it surely speaks volumes about today's BBC that its senior executives prefer the obscene, in-your-face Ross to steely veteran professionals like Roy Hudd. And instead of the deceptively gentle, genuinely humorous satire of Hudd and his crew (which included brilliant performers such as Alison Steadman) we now have, disguised as BBC 'comedy', the blatant left-wing cant of idiots like Marcus Brigstocke.

HUMPHRYS IN FART SCARE

2009-10-27T09:50:00.008Z

Lord Stern, a self-appointed expert on 'climate change' who in reality is nothing but a jumped-up economist wrote, back in 2006, a deeply flawed report that contained a tissue of extremist political untruths - dressed up as scientific 'truth' - about what he claimed were the threats facing mankind. His work was comprehensively debunked at the time by the doughty economist Ruth Lea, who rightly observed that like all the outpourings of greenies, this was in reality yet another call for higher taxes and more central government oppression.

For the BBC, though, his lordship is still a figure of worship. So when he makes the loony suggestion that we all become vegetarians because farm animals fart too much 'dangerous' methane, he's invited on the Today programme and treated with fawning reverence by John Humphrys. To be fair, Mr Humphrys did acknowledge there were "deniers" out there who disbelieved his scare-mongering, and also suggested that his climate change beliefs were only based on computer models, but when Lord Stern persisted that the science was proven, simple and definitely settled, the supposed Torquemada of the BBC rolled over and purred in agreement. Not only that, Mr Humphrys just sat back and listened as Lord Stern spouted nonsense about moves to "zero carbon electricity". And he concluded by suggesting that Lord Stern was not being tough enough in pursuing his loony agenda.

PUSHOVER FOR MILIBAND

2009-10-26T18:43:00.005Z

The boy David Miliband has been revealing the real post-Lisbon EU agenda today; that he and the rest of his rotten party want Tony Blair to become president of Europe, and the UK itself to be a vassal state in the pursuit of EU goals. As usual, the BBC gives him acres of space to push his federalist views, both on the website and on most major news programmes such as World at One.

And what's almost completely missing from this fawning coverage? Any idea - as was clearly expressed on June 3 in the European elections - that the whole vast EU edifice stinks, that Britain hates Tony Blair and that what the EU is doing is against the wishes of the British people.

The only opposition that WATO could muster to the Miliband's mad dash to crown Tony Blair was French foreign affairs spokesman Bernard Kouchner, whose only objections were that Blair had not joined the euro and that us Brits did not like the EU enough.