Archive for BBC

Another startling revelation by the BBC

February 15, 2009 BBC 13 comments

The BBC Money Box programme has “discovered” that banks are allowed to take credit balances people hold with them to pay that person’s debts.  Quite a discovery, I wonder if Peston had anything to do with this startling revelation.

Exercising right of set-off was quite routine when I did a stint for the NatWest debt recovery office about 10 years ago.  It was an unspoken rule that we only did it when people were taking the piss – the kind of people who owed the bank 10 grand and offered to pay it off at a tenner a month but had a holiday fund, Sky TV and spent 200 quid a month on fags and booze.

Citizens Advice is asking banks not to exercise their right of set-off any more because it leaves people unable to pay their mortage and other bills.

They are quite right, it does leave them unable to pay their bills but why should a bank forego their right to claim money that’s been deposited with them to pay off a debt that the same person has with them?  If someone owes a bank money and they’ve got the means to pay all or part of that debt in another account with the bank, why is it unreasonable for the bank to expect them to do so?  It’s no different to a mortage provider having the right to reposess and sell someone’s house if they don’t pay the mortgage, they just don’t have to go through a lot of expensive hoops to get their hands on the assets.

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MMR

November 28, 2008 BBC, Health 5 comments

The BBC were bleating this morning about another promised measles epidemic (the last one they said was going to happen didn’t, I wonder if this one will) and navel gazing about the number of children that aren’t getting vaccinated.

What they failed to mention was that it was the BBC was one of the media outlets that made such a big thing about the scientifically dubious and widely disputed claims that MMR vaccines could cause autism in children that has resulted in so many children not being given the MMR vaccination.

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BBC Impartiality Review

November 18, 2007 BBC No comments

The BBC Trust is going to review the BBC’s impartiality following devolution.

Cardiff University School of Journalism is going to review the BBC’s coverage of local elections in England and the elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Irish Assembly.  The report will be authored by Dr Anthony King, professor of government at Exeter University and the project director is Mike Robinson, a former BBC news and current affairs editor.

Dr King, a Canadian, once talked about a new English national identity evolving from sport on Radio 5 and writes for the Daily Torygraph.  Mike Robinson worked for the BBC for 25 years and resigned last year after falling out with the BBC1 controller over the scheduling of Panorama.

So, a Canadian professor, a BBC “lifer” and a Welsh university are going to review the impartiality of the BBC … right.

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BBC Cutbacks

October 27, 2007 BBC 2 comments

The BBC is shedding thousands of jobs to cut costs.  People like Jonafan Woss and Jeremy Clarkson are looking like losing their jobs for being too expensive.

However, the mini-budget the other week announced new farsi and arabic channels from the BBC but there’s no mention of cutbacks on that front.  Nor is there any indication whether they’ll stop the totally unnecessary cost of broadcasting both English and Welsh versions of the same sports events.

Flicking through the channels this afternoon I came across the same rugby match in English on BBC1 and in Welsh on S4C (courtesy of the BBC).  I expect it was on BBC Radio Wales in English and BBC Cymru in Welsh as well.

How much does this cost on average, I wonder?

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Metrication by Degrees

August 12, 2007 BBC, Federal Europe, Transport 22 comments

Despite the metrication project instigated by our masters in the European Federation, we are still predominantly an imperial country but despite the European Federation graciously allowing us to use imperial measurements beyond their forced-metrication deadline, efforts to wipe out imperial measurements are being stepped up.

When I went to primary school 20-odd years ago we had two types of maths lessons – “mathematics” and “practical maths”, the former using metric and the latter using imperial.  Now they don’t teach imperial measurements despite them being the only legal form of measurements in America and being used in many countries worldwide, mostly in the Anglosphere.  Kids now are only taught metric.

Some local authorities have tried putting up metric road signs but these are illegal and they’ve been forced to take them down.  This applies to road signs, footpath signs and bridleways.  This explains the road signs you sometimes see sited at 110yds (100m), 328yds (300m) or 383yds (350m) from it’s destination.  However, it doesn’t seem to apply to the British government.

The Terrorism Act bans unauthorised protests with 1km of Parliament.  That’s one kilometre, not one mile.  The foot and mouth regulations DEFRA have put in place specifies exclusion zones and observations zones in kilometres, not miles.

The BBC have recently started using metric in place of imperial rather than giving the metric measurements in brackets afterwards or vice versa.  The British government pulls most of the strings in the BBC, the EU pulls the rest of them through it’s propaganda funding of state broadcasters.

There is no need to replace imperial measurements with metric.  Most people are still unfamiliar with metric and we still do more trade with the Anglosphere than we do with Federal Europe so imperial is much more relevant to English people than metric.  Metricating road signs will cost billions and it will take years (and millions of pounds of speeding fines) before people get to grips with the foreign measurements.  It is a thoroughly pointless exercise.

Flagging up discrimination

July 29, 2007 Anglophobia, BBC, Propaganda No comments

The SNP have ruled out flying the British flag over Scottish Executive buildings and are planning to force public buildings in Scotland to fly the Scottish flag instead.  They are also planning to change the rules north of the border to allow the Scottish flag to be flown with precedence to the British flag.

The Welsh Assembly isn’t mentioned but if flag flying is devolved then it is quite likely the Welsh will follow suit leaving the English to have No Mandate Brown’s faux-Britishness inflicted on them.

The BBC, as usual, misrepresents the facts over flag flying rules backing up No Mandate Brown’s false claim that he is responsible for changing the rules to allow English public buildings to fly the British flag all year round.  The 18 day rule that they refer to are the 18 days that it is mandatory for public buildings to fly the British flag – they are allowed to fly it any time of the year under existing rules.

And if anyone knows where the picture on the right was taken, please let me know.  Flying the British flag over the English flag is a declaration of war.

BBC – Brown-nose Broadcasting Corporation

May 30, 2007 BBC One comment

I read the other day that the Scottish Executive now wants to be called “the government”.

What a surprise to see the BBC sucking up to their future Scottish masters:

Government to scrap council tax

Yep, that’s the Scottish government, not the British government.  Less than a fortnight ago Newsnight asked for nominations for an award – The Order of the Brown Nose – for the syncophant who had sucked up to Gordon Brown the most.  Will they be presenting themselves with the one?

Update:
And another – Government faces transport battle

West Midlands NO! on BBC website

February 11, 2007 BBC, Regions No comments

As mentioned the other day, West Midlands NO! will be featured on todays BBC Politics Show at 12 o’clock on BBC1.

The Politics Show website has been updated with details of the programme and a mention of the West Midlands NO! Campaign.

BBC say the “E” word

January 16, 2007 BBC, England 2 comments

The BBC have been uncharacteristically keen on discussing the break-up of the union, nationalism and they even seem to have rediscovered the “E” word (England).

A BBC-commissioned poll showed that 61% of people were in favour of the establishment of an English Parliament.  This is despite the BBC weighting the Scottish and Welsh contribution to the poll so that they made up around 3/5ths of the people asked.  Old habits die hard I guess.

This mornings BBC News carried the story every half an hour, BBC Radio 5 also had a phone-in on the subject and even good old BBC Radio Shropshire were in on the act interviewing Edward Higginbottom, the Shropshire Branch co-ordinator for the CEP.

Newsnight will tonight be welcoming Scilla Cullen and Christine Constable, the chairwomen of the CEP and the English Democrats respectively, onto the panel where they will get a chance to lock heads with Charlie Falconer.

BBC where?

October 30, 2006 BBC No comments

Mrs Sane tells me that from 11am today, BBC1 was bedecked with BBC Scotland logo’s.

It could just be Telewest getting things arse about face (it wouldn’t be the first time – Adventure 1 on Telewest has Dutch Teletext subtitles) or it could be that the Raj have finally taken over the BBC and Braveheart will be shown end to end on all the BBC kids TV channels to educate them about the evil Sassenach’s.

Well done BBC

September 20, 2006 BBC No comments

This morning I spotted the BBC mixing up England and Britain again on their website.

Following on from complaints made by several members of the CEP, the BBC have corrected the misleading article.

BBC confusing England and Britain again

September 20, 2006 BBC, Tories One comment

The BBC is at it again, confusing England with Britain.

Apparently, the North British Conservative logo is bigger and leans less to the right than the English Conservative logo.  Amazing really considering there is no English Conservative Party and no English logo.  The Conservative Party that operates in England is the British Conservative Party and the logo of the British Conservative Party is the British logo.

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