Now Even The BBC Has It In For Labour

Those who say (and there are plenty of them, including me, at times) that the BBC panders to the government's agenda, and that they're scared stiff of New Labour, should listen to this clip from the Today programme this morning.

They play a recording from an interview with Ed Balls last week, when he was talking about Damian McBride. Balls said he didn't know and wasn't involved in McBride's "political work".

Without actually using the word "liar", Nick Robinson does all but. ("My eyebrows shot to the ceiling when I heard that" is pretty much as close as it gets). He says that Balls knew McBride very well, and used McBride to promote his own ends, and that No 10 knew and liked his style. And then Jim Naughtie said that Brown's claim that he "knows less about McBride's activities than anyone else in Westminster is not a very credible line". Which for the BBC is powerful stuff.

Spotted...

...on the BBC's interactive weather forecast this evening:

Apparently, at 9 o'clock tonight, we were expecting rain, with sunny intervals.

There must be something in this global warming business after all....

The Bearded Wonder - RIP

Just seen that Bill Frindall, the wonderful statisician on Test Match Special, has died. How very very sad.

He might have had a job which made me insanely jealous, but he did it supremely well. Fantastically accurate, he had an ability to unearth obscure facts and records with astounding speed. He would then articulate them calmly and cleary without fuss or over-statement. Despite spending far less time talking on air than any of the commentators, he was an integral part of a fabulous programme.

Cricket will miss him.

Sense Czech On Europe's Sense Of Humour

I think I'm falling in love with the Czech Republic.

Firstly, at the start of the year, we got a fabulous commentary from the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, whose country is just taking on the EU Presidency. He talked openly about the EU's “democratic deficit”, denied climate change and blamed the financial crisis on “immodest, over-confident politicians playing with the market”. That must have stung a few people.

And now we have a couple of Czech artists taking the Mickey out of every member country in a sculpture which has been built to stand inside the foyer of the EU presidency building in Brussels.

Apparently there's a tradition whereby the country which holds the Presidency constructs a decoration or sculpture which is displayed in Brussels during their tenure. Obviously these will usually be meaningless pieces of abstract art created at huge cost.

The Czech government commissioned a certain David Cerny, who said he would put forward something that was going to be the joint work of artists representing each of the 27 member countries.

Instead, he just got hold of a mate of his, and together they've created an "artistic map of Europe" called "Entropa", which lampoons every member country by tapping into its national stereotype.

Thus:
.....Romania is depicted as a Dracula theme park on the back of its most famous fictional character;
.....Sweden is an IKEA-style furniture flatpack;
.....Greece is on fire, because of all the riots they've had recently;
.....Holland is flooded, and all you can see are the minarets of mosques;
.....France has a banner with the word GRÈVE (French for "Strike") on it, and, best of all...
.....Britain is omitted completely, on the back of our Euroscepticism !



What a truly wonderful creation. I want a scaled-down replica.

Needless to say loads of people are failing to see the funny side, not least of all (sadly) the Czech government, who are feeling a bit miffed that they've had the wool pulled over their eyes by a 41-year-old bloke who promised to make something through cross-border co-operation and has instead hacked something together in his shed. The Bulgarians have summoned the Czech ambassador to Sofia to explain why their country is depicted as a toilet. And one EU spokesman is quoted as saying 'This is very provocative for an official building and does not seem to have been properly discussed in the appropriate forum." My God, you can't commit a bigger sin than failing to have something discussed in the appropriate forum, can you ?

It would be nice to think that the EU has got the balls to keep this sculpture in place for six months, but somehow I doubt it has. As Mr Cerny said . "We knew the truth would come out, but before that we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself." I think I know the answer to that. Expect to see "Entropa" on Ebay in a few weeks time.

Incidentally, it's interesting to see how different news outlets are reporting this -
.....the Daily Mail clearly thinks it's a hoot;
.....Radio Prague is pretty neutral, playing it with whatever the Czech equivalent of a straight bat is;
.........and needless to say the BBC spins the indignant moral outrage line for all it's worth.

That's The Way The Money Goes

Just to cheer us all up, I see we've been fined another £95,000 on the back of the BBC's inability to stage an honest phone-in competition.

When I say "we", I mean we poor souls who pay the licence fee, because that's where the money will come from. Just as the £400,000 came from us when the BBC were caught faking phone-ins on Children in Need and Comic Relief.

Well, it's nice to know our money's being spent wisely, anyway. I wonder what happens to it once it's reached Offcom ?

Hat-tip to the non-licence-fee-paying Conspirator for the graphic.

Sacked For Speaking His Mind

My, isn't there a difference between working in the public and private sector ?

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross can leave distasteful messages on someone's answering machine and the BBC does nothing for a week until a Sunday newspaper writes about it. One of them resigns early doors but the one who doesn't is simply suspended for three months. The BBC has already publicised Jonathan Ross's return date. Still, it's nice to see the BBC making some effort to defend free speech for a change.

On the other hand, calling some State-sponsored toerag a "Nazi" earned presenter Jon Gaunt an immediate suspension, and, within a week, the sack from privately-owned Talksport. Gaunt threw his insult at Conservative councillor Michael Stark, who was attempting to defend Redbridge Council's ban on smokers becoming foster parents. Jon Gaunt was himself a foster child (to a mother who smoked like a chimney) and admitted afterwards that he lost his rag with the totalitarian tosser partly, at least, because it's an issue that's very close to his heart. He issued an on-air apology but obviously if you offend anyone these days then unless you work for the BBC you're pretty much finished.

(There is a further career option, for those who want to fail completely in the jobs, which is to work for Harringey Council. But I digress).

Actually, there's some justifcation in likening the anti-smoking lobby to Nazis. Hitler introduced what were, at that time, the most dragonian anti-smoking policies in history. Smoking was banned from trams, post offices, government workplaces and rest homes by the Nationalist Socialists.

It just goes to show: if you want to "offend" people, you're better off working for the BBC; if you want smoking banned, vote for socialism in one form or other.

Rant Alert....Rant Alert...Rant Alert...Rant Alert...Rant Alert...

RANT STARTS HERE

Margaret Hodge (Minister of Culture, whatever that means) has been having a pop at the Proms. She is concerned that many people would not feel comfortable at attending them.

How's this for some Grade A twaddle?
"The audiences for some of many of our greatest cultural events - I'm thinking particularly of the Proms - is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this.
"I know this is not about making every audience completely representative, but if we claim great things for our sectors in terms of their power to bring people together, then we have a right to expect they will do that wherever they can."

So, cultural activities have an inherent responsibility to "bring people together" ? And "we have a right to expect" them to do so ? God Almighty.

Look, I'm no huge fan of the Proms. I can cope with classical music - I've got Beethoven on my iPod - but I wouldn't necessarily pay money to go and listen to it. If I did, I'd have to find someone other than Mrs Womble On Tour to go with. The Last Night of the Proms - which is probably what Mrs Hodge has really got a bee in her bonnet about - does nothing for me either, seeing as it is dedicated to a country (Britain) that I no longer believe in.

But why do the organisers have a duty to "bring people together" ?
Is it necessary that every cultural event prevents everyone from "feeling uncomfortable" ?
Why does everything have to be "inclusive" ?
What is wrong with different things appealing to different people ?
Why can't people who don't want to go just decide to stay away, and if they do decide to stay away why does it have to be an issue for the Culture Minister ?
Why is it that socialists find it so hard to put up with events that appeal only to certain sections of society ?

END OF RANT

"Oxygen Of Publicity" Syndrome Strikes Our Broadcasters

Iain Dale had an interesting slant on the protest on the roof of the Houses of Parliament today. He alleges that both Sky News and the BBC stopped their coverage having received emails from viewers saying that they were "playing into the protesters' hands" by showing pictures.

So, let me get this right. News companies elect not a broadcast a newsworthy protest because they don't want to give the people taking part any publicity.

That's censorship in my book.

I bet Gordon Brown thinks it's fantastic.

Turned Out Nice Again

Wonble On Tour-land (aka Huddersfield) has been in the news today because of flooding. Some people have been turned out of their homes less than half a mile away from our own burrow because a beck has burst its banks, and life must be utterly miserable for them right now.

We've had a lot of rain this month, and another couple of inches today. I've just been down to look at the River Holme and it's as high and as fast as I've seen it.

I should probably give a rare hat-tip to the BBC tonight. I don't usually have many good things to say about them (and don't ever, ever get me onto the subject of the Licence Fee) but on the drive home from work this evening Radio Leeds was fantastic. They extended their "Drive Time" programme to keep people in the loop. Informative (and accurate, as far as I could tell), helpful and determedly cheerful without being flippant. It was public service broadcasting at it's supposed to be.

Licence (Fee) To Politicise

My God, the BBC are hypocritical sods, aren’t they ?

Having taken great pleasure in de-Christianising Christmas by putting on a nativity play in which Mary and Joseph are asylum seekers, they’re now banning the Pogues’ 1987 Christmas hit Fairytale of New York because it contains the word “faggot”. In other words, in the eyes of the BBC it’s fine to do something that might offend Christians, but if it’s likely to put the gay community’s nose out of joint (which it isn’t anyway) then it’s a no-no.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve no problem with them risking Christians taking offence from something they do. I’d just like to see a level playing field. What's good for Christians ought to be good for everybody else. Slightly more seriously, I still find it worrying that we've got a State-run, State-funded (i.e. taxpayer-funded) broadcasting monster blatantly pushing a political agenda.

UPDATE: The BBC (Radio 1 to be precise) have back-tracked and said that they'll now play the song in full, instead of playing with blanks over words they didn't care for, which is what they were doing originally. Even so, the statement they've issued isn't exactly a reason for put the flags out.

Station controller Andy Parfitt has talked of "careful consideration" going into this decision, adding pompously, "It is not always easy to get this right, mindful of our responsibility to our young audience", then patronisingly, "While we would never condone prejudice of any kind, we know our audiences are smart enough to distinguish between maliciousness and creative freedom", before finishing menacingly, "In the context of this song, I do not feel that there is any negative intent behind the use of the words, hence the reversal of the decision."

In other words:
..yes folks, it's true, licence fee payers' money really has been spent discussing this issue;
..we feel it's completely right in principle to indoctrinate our young audience with our own contempt for freedom of expression;
..we would always ban something if we thought it was being "malicious" or "negative" (man) about one of our beloved special-interest groups (including gays but doubtless excluding Christians or members of the Conservative Party, to take two wild examples of which I am neither).

As victories for free speech go, this is about as hollow as they come. Sometimes I really wish I was powerful, just so that I could personally dispense with the filth that run institutions like the BBC.

Conservatives And The BBC

Conservative Party activists rarely have a good word to say about the BBC. They obviously feel the BBC is a centre-left dominated media organisation which has got it in them. But even the Tories can't complain about the coverage they've had this week.

The animosity goes back as far I can remember and probably a great deal longer. The Conservative Party has never forgiven the BBC for some of its Falklands coverage, including the infamous line commenting on a government briefing that started "The British government, if it is to be believed...". There were many other regular run-ins in the Thatcher and Major era, including a decision not to show a drama documentary about the Falklands because it showed Mrs Thatcher in too favourable a light and numerous allegations of giving too much prominence to sleaze in the mid-90s. When I was involved in party politics I was a fully paid-up member of the BBC Hate Club but since packing it up 15 years ago I've seen them in a slightly different (but not always favourable) light for the line it takes.

The Tory Party journeyed to Blackpool fully expecting what would be, in their eyes, another hatchet job. News of splits and rows, loads of coverage to the right-wing dissidents and more anti-Cameron propaganda than you could shake a stick at. What's come about is very different.

The Conservatives are widely accepted to have had a very good conference, and the BBC haven't been slow to say so. The party has come across as a united bunch, all aching to get stuck into Gordon Brown. The key-note speakers have, pretty much to a man, had good reports. And when Brown went to Iraq earlier in the week the BBC's main slant was not the reduction in troop numbers but more the Tory party's furious reaction to the way Brown announced it.

The BBC, as do all media organisations, have an impossible job in keeping every political party happy. But they may have gone some way this week to repairing some the long-done damage in its relationship with Conservative Central Office (or whatever it's called now).

Has the coverage been good enough to dissuade GB from calling an election ? I doubt it. I expect a polling date of 8th November. You heard it here, ooh, about 12,031st.