The BBC - A Left-Wing Organisation? Part II

Of course, how could it not be??

New London mayor Boris Johnson has hired ex-BBC political correspondent Guto Harri as his director of communications.

Mr Harri, 41, left the BBC earlier this year to work as a consultant for PR company Fleishman Hillard.

But he has now resigned his post to take up his new role at City Hall.

Mr Harri, who was at Oxford University with Mr Johnson, had previously been linked with a job as a spokesman for Tory leader David Cameron.

Mr Harri was at Mr Johnson's side earlier as he held talks with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg at City Hall.

Err.....

Government 'Wrong' To Drop BAE Inquiry

A stunning indictment of the British government's craven attitude towards Saudi Arabia and big business:

The high court today ruled that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was wrong to drop an investigation into alleged bribery in a massive arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia.

The decision represents a stunning victory for Campaign Against Arms Trade and Corner House Research, which campaigns against corruption in international trade, as well as a major embarrassment for the government.

The two groups sought a review of the decision by the SFO director, Robert Wardle, to drop the investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption in contracts between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. BAE and a Saudi national security adviser, Prince Bandar, deny the accusations.

At a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the groups argued that the SFO's decision in December 2006 to drop its investigation into the Al-Yamamah deal was caused by Saudi Arabian pressure that amounted to diplomatic blackmail.

Tony Blair, the then prime minister, said the Saudis had privately threatened to cut intelligence cooperation over terrorism unless the inquiry was stopped.

In today's ruling, Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan ruled Wardle "was required to satisfy the court that all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat".


The judge went on to comment:

"No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice."

"It is the failure of government and the defendant to bear that essential principle in mind that justifies the intervention of this court."


This story goes to the very heart of all that was wrong with Tony Blair and his government. Fortunately for him, he has left office and has managed to collect a multitude of well payed roles within the corporate sector. This government, as it did with the Iraq war, has put the interests of a foreign power ahead of that of the UK and it's people.

Meanwhile, not all media outlets were keen to recognise the importance of this event. Only a couple of minutes into a report by a correspondent of Sky News, the channel decided to switch to a live press conference involving the parents of Madeline McCann about a new child protection system. In short, with all due sympathy to the parents, this was a pretty minor story when compared with the corrupt nature of the British government (at time of writing, it seems to have barely registered on the radar of most media outlets). Once again, the mainstream media diverts attention while our government continues to act in a corrupt manner. That they use the spectre of child abduction to do so is even more sickening.

Racism, Beyonce, political convenience, and shitty pre-war coverage of Iran

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. . .

. . . like 'excessive', 'hair product', 'Iron Cross', 'sadist' and, uh,... 'shloop'.

This is Debra Cagan. She's a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to US Secretary for Defence Robert Gates. There is a great little newsbreak here in the Daily Mail about how she told a group of visiting British MPs that "I hate all Iranians". Strangely, this hasn't received the coverage and twisting that might happen if, say, an Iranian official commented that the current regime in charge of Israel should be removed from the pages of history.

"She seemed more keen on saying she didn't like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran," said one MP. "She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words."

Another MP said: "I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming."

Also amusing is the observation that

Tory Stuart Graham, who was on the ten-day trip, would not discuss Ms Cagan but said: "It was very sobering to hear from the horse's mouth how the US sees the situation."

I would suggest that he actually is discussing Ms Cagan, but he would have surely referred to 'the horse's ass'. . . and even then that would still be an insult to horses.

And although some people complain that mainstream media really have their priorities wrong, I'm glad that this time - in australia at least - that has not been the case.

Because it is far more important to damn Beyonce for 'snubbing' Malaysia by cancelling her concerts because of Islamic fundamentalists intent on regulating her clothing and choreography choices . . . than to report that US military operations on the Iranian border are being run by a sociopathic bigot.

And although I'll obviously be one of squillions of Australians voting in almost any manner likely to eject our current Board of Detractors and install a government more closely resembling a group of people with souls, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has really done damage to his credibility today for anybody willing to really think about it.

The Oz reports that while campaigning in a heavily Jewish Sydney electorate, Rudd committed to trying to bring charges of incitement to genocide against the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if Labor is elected at the next election.

This is the most outstandingly stupid thing that Rudd has yet committed to.

1. it's obvious pandering to a boutique interest group

2. it displays a lazy attitude toward fact-gathering (maybe he should consider this reportage of what Ahmadinejad actually said about Israel, this Islamic discussion of what he said in Farsi, this detail of the use of bogus human rights groups to generate anti-Iranian propaganda, this detail of how America is gearing up for another slaughter, or even just Wiki it)

3. any serious legal action against Iran will undo much of the good work that Rudd could achieve through aggressive diplomacy with China because of the Iran - China oil relationship.

4. this legitimises rather than challenges the current US propaganda line which is in effect for no other reason than justifying another illegal attack that has already been planned.

5. it suggests that some important lessons made available by decades of globally disastrous Western policy on Middle Eastern affairs really haven't been learnt.

6. and the idea of Australia pointing the genocide stick at anybody is a stretch, but at somebody who hasn't actually committed or actively encouraged genocide is just tragic.

Perhaps the final wonderful words should go to Professor Gary Leupp in his clarifying discussion of US foreign policy, media, and political values.

If you hate all of them (and are grotesquely ignorant of their vast contribution to human civilization), why not nuke them, and their monuments and treasures, and destroy their 3000 year history, and "wipe them off the map"? Why not prepare public opinion for that shattering scenario, and grind those boot heels into the brains of any sympathizers of those you call "sand-niggers" as you try to spread Bush's gospel of hate?

Thank the Lord for our free trade deal with Uncle Spam - we get 'gospel of hate' at 22% off!

Is the BBC Really The Propaganda Arm of Hamas?

It is if you believe what Melanie Phillips has to say in The Spectator:

Since [Alan] Johnston’s release, the BBC seems to have turned itself into a vehicle for Hamas propaganda. Alastair Crooke has been given airtime granted to no other lobbyist, in interviews and one-off programmes giving him unprecedented opportunity to push his views.

Now that same BBC, along with a shadowy intelligence establishment and panicky politicians, is promoting ‘engagement’ with Hamas. But this is a terrorist outfit committed to the destruction of Israel and the Islamisation of the West. The Johnston kidnap represents a turning point in the war to defend the free world. It is not a turn in the direction of victory.

What is most interesting is the timing of this article by Phillips. A recent article by John Pilger in the New Statesman (redeeming itself slightly after the debacle that was the Chavez article), seems to undermine this rather dubious argument put forward by the rights arch-conspiracist. Pilger writes:

One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video [see clip at end of post]shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target". The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist". At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

Dr David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. "The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting," he wrote. "It should honour Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel."

He received no reply.

The atrocity was reported in two sentences on the BBC online. Along with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israelis on the same day, Alan Johnston's now legless champion slipped into what George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four called the memory hole. (It was Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth to make disappear all facts embarrassing to Big Brother.) While Alan Johnston was being held, I was asked by the BBC World Service if I would say a few words of support for him. I readily agreed, and suggested I also mention the thousands of Palestinians abducted and held hostage. The answer was a polite no; and all the other hostages remained in the memory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of such unmentionables: "It never happened. Nothing ever happened . . . It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

Doesn't seem like the BBC are that bothered about acting as the propaganda arm of Hamas, does it? If they were, why would Jeremy Bowen ignore calls to report this story? Why would BBC online devote only two sentences to a story about a journalist being shot by the Israeli military? Why would BBC World Service refuse to allow Pilger to speak out against the treatment of Palestinian prisoners?? If the BBC was working on PR for Hamas, I'm sure they will be fired soon enough. Meanwhile, perhaps Melanie Phillips might like to pay closer attention to facts rather than spurious, ill-founded allegations.

Venezuela on Brink of Civil War

That's the claim in the latest issue of the New Statesman. In an entirely one-sided article, Alice O'Keeffe claims that the very fabric of Venezuealan society is falling apart at the seams. In one paragraph, O'Keefe examines the 'typical symptoms' of a country heading towards a civil war:

William Ury, a conflict resolution expert at Harvard, identifies three typical symptoms of a country on the brink of civil war. The first is that the population begins to arm itself; the second is that each side begins to dehumanise and impute evil intentions to the other; and the third is the politicisation of the media. Contemporary Venezuela has each of these conditions in abundance. Ury suggests that the key to defusing the threat is to strengthen the "third side": those organisations or people who empathise with both sides of the conflict and will encourage others to resolve their differences non-violently.

The author leaves the reader in no doubt about her views when she 'examines' the revocation of RCTV's licence. In two passages she gives the game away entirely:

the recently closed anti-Chávez television station Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV)

and

the government shut down RCTV

As most informed people are only too aware, RCTV was not shut down. In actual fact, it's licence to broadcast as a terrestrial channel was revoked. It can, however, continue to broadcast via satellite and cable. To claim that this is equivalent to 'shutting it down' is at best disingenuous and at worst inflammatory. This lie has been spread ad nauseum via the mainstream media in a blatant attempt to destabilise a country that has dared to take the path dictated to by the West. That a supposedly left-wing publication can perpetuate such a lie is a truly worrying sign of how far some on the left have veered to the right.

Furthermore, O'Keefe seems willing to overlook the role RCTV played in the 2002 coup. She writes:

The charges against it were of anti-government bias, in particular its refusal to air news of the pro-Chávez protests that brought him back to power after the 2002 coup.

This seems to rather downplay the role that RCTV played in the coup. It was RCTV who showed footage that claimed that Chavez supporters were firing on civilians during the US backed coup. The reality was that footage was manipulated by RCTV to make it look like they were firing on unarmed protesters. RCTV's role in the coup was so significant, the news director of the time had to resign when RCTV and other networks decided to censor the civil uprising aimed at restoring democratically elected Chavez after the coup d'etat. RCTV's role in proceedings isn't even mentioned in the article.

What is even more intriguing is O'Keefe's defence of RCTV. Early in the article, she claims that:

....RCTV was predominantly an entertainment channel, and showed some of the nation's favourite soap operas, or "novelas".

You would deduce from this that RCTV's news coverage was pretty minor compared to its 'entertainment' output. However, O'Keefe then goes on to quote a student who was opposed to the shut down:

"When they closed RCTV, we really got desperate, and furious about the lack of freedom of expression and diversity of thought," she said. "We realised we could not let it carry on. It is not like the president says - I'm not from the elite; my family doesn't even own a house. I just can't see this happen to my country."

How can the revocation of a licence for a network whose main output is 'soap operas' possibly have an impact on 'diversity of thought'? The two things don't add up. Either it is an entertainment channel providing harmless 'novelas', or it is a vital voice of diversity. If O'Keefe is so willing to dismiss RCTV as an entertainment channel (and so question why Chavez took the action he took), why are student protesters claiming it was a source of diversity? Perhaps because this is nothing more than a put-up job to appease the establishment. After all, she did title the piece:

Chávez: From hero to tyrant.

For sometime I have toyed with the idea of a subscription to the New Statesman, mainly due to the odd article by Pilger or Chomsky. On the basis of this evidence, I think I will give it a miss.

BBC Apologises To Queen - Will They Do The Same To The Miners?

Well, I was going to avoid this non-story like the plague, but the absurd furore caused by a badly edited video has become too much to cope with. The usual suspects are at force (four posts for fuck's sake), claiming this is another example of left-wing bias. Take a second to stop and think about it though. Would the BBC, a broadcaster that has had a long history of privileged access to the monarchy, really do something deliberately that would jeopardise this relationship? Of course not. They wouldn't dream of putting their privileged access to the monarchy under threat. However, the apology is intriguing. The BBC seems to have no qualms about apologising to the monarchy over a badly edited trailer yet, as someone has pointed out in today's letter pages in The Guardian, the BBC didn't apologise over its badly edited coverage of the Battle of Orgreave. It's interesting to know where a 'left-wing' broadcaster's loyalties truly lay.

Ofcom May Allow Politically Biased News

On the subject of de-regulation, worrying noises coming from Ofcom:

BSkyB and other commercial broadcasters, apart from ITV, Channel 4 and Five, could be allowed to produce politically slanted news programmes from 2012, the broadcast regulator Ofcom said yesterday.

The idea could pave the way for Iran’s news channel Press TV on cable or satellite, or broadcasters with a party political affiliation such as the pro-Conservative 18DoughtyStreet.com.

Ofcom, in a consultation document entitled New News, Future News, said that the “enormous expansion in the number of television news services available raises questions about the continuing relevance of rules on impartiality” because every new news channel adopted a similar approach. (The Times)

Fox News is on its way, bet The Times was over the moon when it received this piece of news. They also added at the bottom of their report the following:

The regulator is calling for responses and the replies generated will feed into a review of the future of public service broadcasting in the UK.

Typically, they give no information on how to respond to Ofcom, so I have hunted through their website (not an easy task) to find out how you can voice your concerns about this move.

You can read their News Release here.

To give your feedback contact john.glover@ofcom.org.uk

Take action now!!