April 24, 2005
The BBC is a disgrace and the Conservative party makes me sad
Regardless of what I think of CNN or CBS or ABC, and regardless of what you think of Fox, we really don't know about hack journalism until we look at the BBC. The BBC planted hecklers at a Conservative party event, supposedly because they were filming a story about the history of heckling. Put aside that that is one of the more retarded story ideas I've heard, it is a telling story about the difference between the Conservatives in Britain and the Republicans in America.
The Conservatives have called for an apology and an assurance that no such incident will occur again. It has also demanded that the BBC promises never to broadcast the footage. The corporation said it would investigate "very fully". It and other broadcasters have a statutory duty to remain impartial during election campaigns. The corporation's guidelines for producers state: "Our audiences rightly expect the highest editorial and ethical standards from the BBC."
An apology? Oh swell. If my tax dollars were being used to equip hecklers to interfere with my party's political gatherings, while screaming fawning things like "You can only trust Tony Blair", I'd be demanding a hell of a lot more than an apology. I'd want firings. I'd want the end of the BBC. If you can't handle the responsibility of even semi-responsible journalism, then you've gotta go. The big, bad, sad thing about the Conservatives is that they're a bunch of wusses who don't seem to understand politics. Apart from the fact that I have no idea what they stand for or what they believe, now they are mealymouthed and weak when faced with this egregious situation. Where is their Karl Rove or Dick Morris? Hell, where is their Bob Shrum? But more importantly, where are their cajones and how long do they plan to exist without them?
Posted by Karol at April 24, 2005 11:50 AM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags:
The way I look at it is, socially the Conservatives make the far right of the US look downright progressive, and fiscally Labour makes Ralph Nader seem conservative. But the Liberal Democrats...*shudder*...imagine a bunch of uber-hippies baked off their asses and talking about everything free for the poor and a 50% income tax for the wealthy (which in their mind means making over $200,000 a year).
The problem is most people in the UK are so addicted to social services, far more so than the children of the New Deal, the only people off the wall enough to propose less services (and thus decreased taxes) also tend to be a bit...regressed.
Many of the most educated Brits I know are shocked to learn what the US government doesn't pay for. Like the news for example.
This is typical of the left-wing MSM dirty tricks to undermine democracy in the free-world. They don't trust the people to pick the right leader so they ie, cheat, falsity documents, commit fraud, suppress news and make up news using hired street thugs.
Only bloggers stand between us and the dictatorship of the left.
Posted by: Jake at April 24, 2005 01:55 PMThe other difference is that Republicans wouldn't want the video shelved. We'd want it aired, prominently, on every network in prime time. With a big introduction explaining the whole story.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at April 24, 2005 05:24 PMWait, wait, wait. I'm supposed to take the word of Michelle Malkin? The woman thinks emo is a brand new form of music. I'd sooner get my news from the Beeb.
Posted by: Shawn at April 24, 2005 05:31 PMshawn,
If you bothered clicking on the link, you'd find out that Malkin is just linking a story from the Telegraph UK.
Oh wait-- you don't believe them, either. All those quotes from the BBC promising a "full investigation" must be invented, right?
Posted by: ace at April 24, 2005 06:34 PMI'm sorry, ace, did I badmouth your woman?
Posted by: Shawn at April 24, 2005 06:56 PMthe knee-jerk "nyaah, nyaah, I don't believe it if it doesn't come from Michael Moore" schtick gets a little old, dude.
Posted by: ace at April 24, 2005 09:29 PMSounds to me like the hecklers would have been heckling anyway... at least we now have these useful idiots on camera...
Posted by: Ron Atkinson at April 24, 2005 10:30 PMNot that this fact excuses the BBC but the BBC is more than just a news channel. The people producing the documentary were not the BBC News and they weren't reporting the news. The People you are talking about are called the BBC News.
This whole topic isn't even about the BBC News, in case people are confused.
There's nothing wrong with social services. Nor is it stupid to say that with an Mean wage of $50k / year that anyone who makes over $200k makes 'a lot'.
The fact is only 15pc of UK workers earn over the mean average wag, and only a very small percentage over $200k - but it is a long tail that is probably responsible for over HALF the country's wealth.
Did you know that Bill Gates has as much wealth as the 112million poorest Americans COMBINED? Would it stagger you that Britain's richest man made $20billion last year and paid $0 in tax? What if we whacked him for $10bil in taxes, maybe he'd emigrate next year - but we'd still have that $10bil for this year :P Would it concern you that he made a donation to the Labour party before being awarded a government contract that made him hundreds of millions a couple years back?
Again Britain's second richest man made $5bil last year, guess how much (err little) tax he paid?
The problem with our social services isn't what is provided but it is all the bureaucracy on top that wastes a good $200 bil a year (about 20pc of government spending). And the news (BBC) is paid for by a TV licence not from government taxes. However we had Reuters and all the independent newspapers too. Plus Sky News (owned by Murdoch, read Fox), ITV News.
But dont expect to gauge my ideas from this comment, it really is just to show the 'other side'.
Posted by: Monjo at April 25, 2005 07:54 AMMaybe I should re-think my "What not to Wear" obsession.
Posted by: Vanessa at April 25, 2005 08:36 AMCan't see the big deal except someone in the Telegraph getting over excited. If the BBC is so biased against the Conservatives, why was there a huge fight between Labour and the BBC over WMD and David Kelly ?
Posted by: Urbane McMeercat at April 25, 2005 08:40 AMYour ok with What Not To Wear. Its not produced by the BBC. And the fat one was shagging some minor royal for years and is very keen on the needles suffering of small animals.
Posted by: Graeme at April 25, 2005 08:54 AMOh my goodness. Who was Suzanna shagging?
Lord Linley I think. He's the queens nephew or somthing. They went out for 8 years
Posted by: Graeme at April 25, 2005 10:14 AMFabricated heckles aside, I think "history of heckling" is a great story idea. You not be as big a fan of "Prime Minister's Question Time" as I am.
Posted by: Steve at April 25, 2005 10:23 AMthe knee-jerk "nyaah, nyaah, I don't believe it if it doesn't come from Michael Moore" schtick gets a little old, dude.
Tell me about it. There's so much embellishment in Fahrenheit 9/11 that any desire I had for seeing Bowling for Columbine has been snuffed out.
Posted by: Shawn at April 25, 2005 12:04 PMThe fact is only 15pc of UK workers earn over the mean average wage
Um. It's been a long time since I took statistics, but I'm pretty sure that precisely half of UK workers earn over the "mean average wage." That's what "average" means.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at April 25, 2005 12:40 PMJeff:
Precisely half the workers earn more than the median wage, not the mean wage. It is quite likely that less than half the workers earn above the mean wage.
Posted by: Dan at April 25, 2005 03:17 PMAccording to the socialist party website (not one id trust without checking stats elsewhere) about a third of UK workers earn AS MUCH as the Mean Wage.
Posted by: Nick Saunders at April 25, 2005 06:27 PMMonjo,
I fully agree with you on the issues of the two richest people in the UK not paying any taxes, but here's the problem
People get trumped up about raising taxes because the rich aren't paying any, and its the majority of the working-middle class that end up getting shafted, and the rich still never paying much in taxes. It's not the tax rates, its the loop holes, and since the politicians and their cronies take advantage of the same loop holes, they aren't going to go closing them up.
The soak the rich excuse is how they gain support for taxation plans that end up screwing the very people who can't afford more taxes (unless of course you are labour in which case, you can ALWAYS afford more taxes)
As for the TV license not being a tax, that is pure semantics. This is an annual fee that is extorted from you under the threat of government.
Why can't I get 20 quid from every house hold in the UK that has a television? Will the government send people to jail if they don't pay me?
McMeercat, as for the Kelly, BBC, Blair triangle, Blair has labour in quite an awkward position in that his base (which includes the BBC) is rather opposed to the Iraq war. So while they are eager to televise most kinds of propaganda for Labour, they will also do anything possible to discredit the war in Iraq.
