Don – very soon Hannan will be too left-wing for the Tories!

Or alternatively a Labour pollster, a former Labour spin doctor, a former Labour donor (and candidate) and a former Labour Minister.

I would tend to agree that the panel is not nearly as biased as it might appear initially, but it might have helped to provide an appearance of impartiality if one of the panel had an association with a right wing party.

An alternative panel might be Tim Bell, Bernard Ingham, Stuart Wheeler and Michael Portillo. None of them exactly in with the Tories nowadays, one of whom has left the party because they are not right wing enough (in the same way Greg Dyke left Labour because they were too Thatcherite) but would you really consider it a balanced panel?

I note that Iain Dale was also complaining on this issue. However, yesterday Newsnight offered Iain Dale the opportunity to go up against John Prescott but he turned it down saying he had a prior engagement on Sky News.

Okay, no-one from the Tories. No-one from the left or even centre-left, or centre either (which is repeatedly where surveys place the public, slightly left of centre). No-one to question the neo-liberal orthodoxies that have buggered things up so royally.
And this would be an enlightening panle in what way?

“it might have helped to provide an appearance of impartiality if one of the panel had an association with a right wing party.”

New Labour ARE a bloody right wing party you political illiterate!

New Labour ARE a bloody right wing party you political illiterate!

I know, I know, like the fascists and the communists and the Maoists.

Don’t forget Kim Jong-Il, he’s right-wing.

“It would be different and quite fun to get, say, Daniel Hannan, John McDonnell, Frank Field and Sir Patrick Cormack as the panel, but there’s nothing wrong with Newsnight deciding it is more interesting to get a panel of people in the political mainstream and then different people from other perspectives putting forward proposals.”

What the BBC presents as ‘mainstream opinion’ is actually nothing of the sort. It’s just a cosy consensus centred around the cuddles between Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott on the Politics show sofa. It has no connection with public opinion on any of the issues people care about most. It is a creation of the political class for the political class so that its politicians can hide from big decisions, and stick to the conventional wisdom. If the BBC were to give a fair hearing to the mainstream opinions of the electorate on tax, crime, immigration and the like, Liberal Conspiracy would no longer be so quick to rush to the BBC’s defence every time it makes an indefensible mistake. I daresay you’d be calling for the BBC to be taken off air completely.

“New Labour ARE a bloody right wing party you political illiterate!”

Colonel Richard Hindrance – another pitiful slave to the conventional wisdom calling other people political illiterates.

One thing I’ve noticed the Tories are keeping very quiet about is the fact that on the same edition of Newsnight the Tax Payers Alliance had not one, not two, but three different spokespeople. Indeed, TPA reports are regularly reported on the BBC as unbiased fact these days.

Timbo and co can’t have it both ways.

#9 “One thing I’ve noticed the Tories are keeping very quiet about is the fact that on the same edition of Newsnight the Tax Payers Alliance had not one, not two, but three different spokespeople. Indeed, TPA reports are regularly reported on the BBC as unbiased fact these days.”

That is indeed a more serious problem, particularly when the TPA can say things like this – “More evidence that lower spending is popular” – with a straight face.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/07/more-evidence-that-lower-spending-is-popular.html

The “evidence” was a survey of Guido’s readers.

If the BBC were to give a fair hearing to the mainstream opinions of the electorate on tax, crime, immigration and the like

I must be seeing things when we end up with Melanie Phillips, Phil Woolas, Rod Liddle etc on BBC television. Not to mention every other day those loonies from Migration Watch.

Unless the BBC becomes as loony as the Daily Mail some people will never accept it will they?

One thing I’ve noticed the Tories are keeping very quiet about is the fact that on the same edition of Newsnight the Tax Payers Alliance had not one, not two, but three different spokespeople. Indeed, TPA reports are regularly reported on the BBC as unbiased fact these days.

Timbo and co can’t have it both ways

Well, on the day that there is a balanced panel of the Taxpayers Alliance, Migration Watch and Policy Exchange on Newsnight discussing planned spending cuts, I’ll agree with you that the BBC are going too far with their unchecked bias.

Some people aren’t too clear what right and left means it seems…

@passing libertarian
“What the BBC presents as “mainstreram opinion ” is actually nothing of the sort.
Its just a cosy consensus centred around the cuddles between Micheal Portillo and Diane Abbott on the politics show sofa. It has no connection with public opinion on any of the issues people care about most. it is a creaction by the political class for the political class so that its politicians can hide from big decisions,and stick to the conventional wisdom.If the B.B.C were to give a fair hearing to the mainstream opinions of the electorate on tax,crime,immigration and the like,Liberal Conspiracy would no longer be quiet so quick to rush to the B.B.C,s defence every time it makes an indefensible mistake. I dare say you,d be calling for the B.B.C to be taken off air completely.”

Sounds to me like a ” one party state in all but name “.
Left of centre party,centre party,right of centre party–with all the centre the parties desperately clawing for the “dung heap”of the centre. Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dee.
The last remnants of this one party state to pack up its few belongings and move house to Brussels shortly.(Hope they take ´Lord Haw-Haw B.B.C with them)
Liberal democracies die by a thousand cuts.You can never define the moment you actually lost.
We will loose our freedoms as we aquirred them,bit by bit.
The dominant B.B.C/Guardianista ideology is so dominant–it is almost invisible.
Invisible-obscene-immoral-criminal-and suicidal and in contravention of the ” United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”.
The “lab rats”in Cohn Bendit,s quasi hybrid corporate marxist experiment.
A society turning in ever decreasing circles until finally disappearing up its own arse.
Big sign post ” Sanctuary for every murderer,rapist,thief,embezzler,traitor,clerical fascist and sanctimonious “proggressive termite”–right here.

“The dominant B.B.C/Guardianista ideology is so dominant–it is almost invisible.”

There is, of course, a simpler explanation for its invisibilty.

Is Journeyman Newmania? I think we should be told.

I love the consistent full stops after “B” and “B” but not “C”, which just add to the slightly crazed self-importance. He even goes to the extent of altering them a couple of times when quoting passinglibertarian.

@tim f
” I love the consistent full stops after “B” and “B” but not “C”,which just adds to the slightly crazed self-importance.
He even goes to the extent of altering them a couple of times when quoting passinglibertarian “.

“self importance”.Its not that easy to do this and deal with an inferiority complex at the same time.
Believe me,if there was any choice in the matter–I do have much more rewarding activities to occupy my time.

Oh come on,no I just don,t believe it. You,ve got to be kidding.
The psychology of micro analysis personality punctuation.(said in a French accent ) Eeet is a leetel mischevooos provecation-non???

@Niel (15 ) Do I win a prize?You mean its not there–right
Try instead,been around for so long-like Tony Benn–that after a while it feels just like part of the furniture.
Like that recent interview of his on the ( B;B;C;)claiming that during his time in Dads Army he was trained as a terrorist.
You chaps are really just going to have to sort out which side you were on in WW2.
Whats that?? oh sorry..Tony Benn is a member of the “other left”.

And funny that the Beeb didn,t press Tony Benn on his , “Dads Army were terrorists” ,remark.

Newmania doesn’t know how to separate blocks of texts into different paragraphs.

Denim Justice (20)
Well.at least you are staying on topic.

Four letters in my name, and it still gets it wrong. Four letters!

Is it a bot, perhaps?

I’ve no idea about the rest, but the idea that Digby Jones is a left winger is utterly insane. I spent his entire tenure waiting for the CBI to publish a report calling for an urgent crackdown on employee rights due to the millions of working hours lost because of employees sleeping at night and suffering from terminal diseases.

Tim Montgomerie should not be taken seriously, he is a neocon idiot who just repeats right wing talking points from America. He has no original ideas himself, he just copies his American whack job friends.

The idea that Digby (I hate the public sector) Jones is a leftie just shows how ridiculous Montgomeries claims are. Just like Dale he has no credibility.

Fell over this example of creeping /incremental / civilizational / apologetic/ repeat it often enough/civilizational submission at;
Gates Of Vienna( no apologies )
Thursday,July,02,2009
BY Baron Boddisey

B.B.C. GSCE “Bitesize”
Religious Studies
Quote;
” Paul Weston returns to take a look at how the B.B.C helps its young readers get their minds right about prejudice.
Although the BBC has a reputation for bias ,dishonesty and the promotion of cretinous infantile ideologies,designed to destroy civilized society,they appear to have surpassed themselves in their attitude to Christianity and Islam on their GCSE Bitesize revision web-site which is so fantastically biased,so hatefully anti-Christian and so perversely pro-Islamic that when one considers it is aimed at the uninformed minds of young children,it must surely be tantamount to child abuse.
The “test-bite concludes the section.There is nothing suprising in it;just a continuation of the B.B.C,s overt propaganda suggesting Islam is divine,pure,non-racist and non-sexist.
Another section on Christian and Islamic attitudes to fighting and warfare:
The general thrust of the propaganda is that Christians and Jews are warlike and Islam is a religion of peace.
That the BBC should peddle such overt and dishonest propaganda is obscene in itself.But to whitewash Islam with its arranged marriages,honour killings,global violent jihad. ect ect,
while painting Christianity as a religion of rascism,sexism, colonization,enslavement and murder leaves me struggling for a word stronger than “obscene”.
And to peddle it to innocent school children words fail me.
“I suppose there must come a day of reckoning with the genuinely evil apparatchicks of the BBc and when that day comes I will gladly watch the bastards swing from the lamp posts-such is the rage they ignite in the soul of a pacifist man”–end quote.
I am (jouneyman) by the way a rabid atheist.

That last sentence from the journeybot makes more sense without the last word.

Neil(26)
All the fine young cannibals.

“What the BBC presents as ‘mainstream opinion’ is actually nothing of the sort. It’s just a cosy consensus centred around the cuddles between Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott on the Politics show sofa. It has no connection with public opinion on any of the issues people care about most. It is a creation of the political class for the political class so that its politicians can hide from big decisions, and stick to the conventional wisdom. If the BBC were to give a fair hearing to the mainstream opinions of the electorate on tax, crime, immigration and the like, Liberal Conspiracy would no longer be so quick to rush to the BBC’s defence every time it makes an indefensible mistake. I daresay you’d be calling for the BBC to be taken off air completely.”

An underappreciated but notable pillar of internet libertarianism: that people are scum.

well spotted Journeyman.

Neil, Tim F – can’t you argue the issue a little more and leave out the ad hominen – and the puctuation obsessions.

James@28
” An underappreciated but notable pillar of internet libertarianism;that people are scum.”.

I,m not sure how to interpret your above remark on “passing libertarian,s”comment at (8).
I am but an ordinary mortal , and as is wont to these days,with terms looseing their meaning, cannot decide as to wether you support his view or attack it.

I dare not toss a coin to decide which.
Please elaborate.

Personally I’m in disagreement with that view. I also think it’s one of the reasons libertarian’s aren’t really getting anywhere, despite their immense strength online: they just don’t like people. They like their ideology, being able to call the postman a bastard & justify themselves by proclaiming him “an agent of the state” & other such self-important past times.

I imagine it helps you get through life, but that sort of grumpy-old-gittism will never generate a dynamic & successful political movement.

James@31
I presume you were attempting to answer my question.
I am not a conservative,and would die before voting for them.Or Lab or Lib.

“don,t like people” “call the postman a bastard” “an agent of the state”

Nothing to do with me mate,you,ve got the wrong geezer.
I,m just here to post a comment about “the ever more ideologically inbreed, old cronies,nepotism of the baby-boomer,poly-tech,L:S.E.champagne career socialist, third worldist, avoid mention of the elephant in the room ,B.B.C.(with lashings of P.C.cream)
Noticing that some article had popped up related to the subject and thinking “passing libertarians “comment—who ever he is,was well said….thought I,d stick in my tupence worth.
I must have stumblled into ,for want of a better word “in-crowd—in-talk”..

“also think it’s one of the reasons libertarian’s aren’t really getting anywhere, despite their immense strength online: they just don’t like people.”

I dunno, in my experience, we libertarians make quite a gregarious crowd. Our biggest drawback is that we are quite likely to get too pissed or stoned to make it up for a protest the next day.

Tbh there don’t seem to exist that many libertarians in the real world. There are plenty on the internet, though, & although there are indeed the charming Reason Magazine variety (& perhaps they’re even more numerous than the other sort, I grant you) they suffer from being a lot less loud than the “Fuck ZaNSDPLeibourfascistfuckthefascistsocialistleninistcuntsohthey’recuntsohgodhelpusbour!” crowd.

Who, largely, are mental misanthropes.

Journeyman, I followed up your links: the BBC really do deserve a kicking, when they write:
“The idea of Jihad is often misunderstood by non-Muslims who then see Islam as not being a pacifist religion.”

Errr, Muslim scholars don’t see Islam as a pacifist religion either… so I guess the BBC think the Muslims and non-Muslims alike have misunderstood what Islam really is ?

@Just Visiting
As a private person not supporting or affiliated with any party/organisation or political wing ,I have on several occasions placed comments here at L.C. ,particularly concerning articles on Islam. (its a dirty job –but somebodies got to do it–or it would be an even smoother walk-over than it already is for the forces of retrogressive,authoritarian theocracy–not that I consider myself particularlly good at it ).
Its a shame that the example of B.B.C / Islamic–Orwellian ideological childrens indoctrination I have commented on at (25)has attracted the ” selective silence “that it has.
As one can see from many of the above comments or lack of them, I suspect people such as myself are percieved as “the greater threat”.
There are those amongst the academic intelligencia who have swallowed hook,line and sinker–the “spun”version of Islam–specifically tailored for “judgement impaired”western Media,goverment and educational institutions–with a sanitized version such as the one promoted by the B.B.C ,and suiting the agenda of the corporate-right and its ambitions nicely.
From some quarters “spin-doctoring” is percieved to be something confined only to the “usual culprits”.
The B.B.C. recieving simply more , ” servile fawning” and lack of scrutiny than is healthy for a modern proggressive society.
One would wonder if organisations such as the National Union of Journalists have been pressured to paint certain “socially cohesive “subjects always in a positive light.
According to the Barcelona Process 2005,agreed to at the highest ministerial level)the integration starting 2010–of North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey,into the European Union—the text of the treaty does included provisions for Media,Govermental,N.G.O and Educational institutions collaborating to prepare Europe by erradicating “negative stereotyping”of Islam,combating xenophobia,racism and promoting “cultural enrichment”.
One has to wonder why the “western intelligencia” didn,t accomodate Nazism, Stalinism, Mao-ism and other such genocidal regimes with the same reverence—but then again–I tell a lie–they did.
We must get out of this bad habit of confining our ” evil,self-serving,corporate,lab-rat,population experiment “–conspiracy suspicions–to the “usual selective,traditional political cliques” , alone.
Although “they”also cannot be trusted.
While you are standing watch on the gate,sniffing around obsessively for wingnuts,trolls or what ever the name is now–some other villlain is climbing in the window.
The correct interpretation of the fundamental corner-stone of Islamic ideology i.e the Koran,is not he BBC,s Bitesize religious studies sanitized perversion but, Al-Queda,s.
And all other interpretations are according to the most respected scholars of Islam–heresy.
Ask any scholar at “Apostates of Islam”.

Journeyman, I’ve no doubt that you have a pertinent point hidden in there, but the seemingly random verbiage and wibble about the Muslims – totally shoehorned into the conversation, AFAICS – make you sound like a nutter.*

The overall effect is a bit like this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU3WgN–sFs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffailblog.org%2Fpage%2F3%2F&feature=player_embedded

*That’s without even looking at the link to Gates of Vienna – a site run by and read by headbanging, hooting lunatics of the worst kind.

FlyingRodent(37)

Its not that I don,t understand why you dismiss “with the usual sanctimonious moral certainty and superiority” that I have been accustomed to here—my example of just one more aspect of B.B.C,s bias,as “random verbiage and wibble”–”make you sound like a nutter”.
The tragedy is I do understand perfectly why you react in that fashion.
Lets be honest,Sunny Hundal and Sunder Katawala,run a tight ship here. Both of them “and with all due respect “, because of their background are perhaps in somewhat of a cutural (double bind—conflict of interest ) and it is to be expected that they will dismiss every word written by Melanie Phillips,Gates of Vienna,Jihad Watch and every other such web-site as .

” sites run by and read by head banging,hooting lunatics of the worst kind”
And your other collegues are no doubt faced with a similar dilemma–being perhaps one more of
ideological alligence if not of any other factor.(no insult intended).

.

The dilemma is understandable,but Í,m not to keen on your “permission slip” system of “I want you to say things in way that I want you to say them”

I,m only suprised you didn,t include sub-humans (such as myself)–Fascists,Nazi,s,and Rascists.

” the overall effect is a bit like this”.
I presume you been somewhat shrill,which even I have to admit I cannot completely deny.
However it has not escaped my attention that both you and your fellow comrades have exhibited an unhealthy obsession with “how loony” some commentator sounds–
regardless of what the he is saying.
Please try to understand that if you start defining parameters of expression and terminology under threat of dismissive insult–thats the slippery slope towards eventually–me being just one more “tribal comfort zone Yes Man”.
And the suttle message is the same as it is the world over on the campus of every poly-tech bastion of Liberal Fascism—the message being ” no-dissent from the orthodox views–conform or get “labelled”.

I prepared for others to dismiss–taking for example–my mention of the Euro-Med integration project with the BBC,s Islamic indoctrination program,as the rantings of a “head banging hooting loony”.
Thats to be expected when those people condemn out -right all sources of information which don,t conform to their views.
I don,t believe you fully realize just exactly how many honourable,noble and scholarly people ,of both the left and the right (admittedly guilty of civilizational patriotism) that you “blanket dismiss”
If you could restrain yourself from L.C.and Left Co.s , obsessive compulsive desire to see a Right-Wing-Sponsored Infiltration loony Bigot under every bed, and go outside the M.S.M.because it is becoming (in my misguided idiotic opinion) the only media remaining,which is willing to report on uncomfortable facts and events which cannot be refuted,and none of these events are contrived or exaggerated or based on the personal views of the author.
We are left with thousands of well documented events which weave a tapestry which can longer be .fobbed of by the wishfull thinking of the “more sophisticated intelligencia”.
If you are totally oblivious too these developments.the mounting concern,and the potential consequences they may bring in the near future,then what more can I possibly say.
I just cannot formulate my views in the style which I percieve is the norm at L.C.–which is somewhat “micro-detailed-focused “on the intricate details of Miliband or some other politician,and neither would I attempt to stick my nose into such an endevour–being out of my depth in the matter.
.
As to “shoe horned into the conversation”
Guilty as charged.
I saw the once in a year opportunity and I took it.
Your views on any subject, I am totally in the dark about.Which leaves me at a disadvantage.

Fuck off, journeyman.

@Dekka Draper
Twenty years down the line and you,ll be standing in parliament and claiming a duck house on your expenses.
.

Journeyman…

It might, I suspect, not be their “sanctimonious moral certainty and superiority” that lead them to dismiss you, but the fact that you say things like this…

“One has to wonder why the “western intelligencia” didn,t accomodate Nazism, Stalinism, Mao-ism and other such genocidal regimes with the same reverence—but then again–I tell a lie–they did.”

In the case of Stalin alone – why not, it’s not like you’ve justified your claim – you overlook, well, almost all of the “western intelligencia“: Orwell, Arendt, Russell, Camus, Pivert, Koestler, James etc. etc. It’s ironic – though only tediously so – that you go on to berate “Liberal Fascis[ts]” for their “obsessive compulsive desire to see a…loony Bigot under every bed“. Motes, beams and that…

It’s also hardly surprising that Gates of Vienna is “dismissive[ly] insult[ed]“. The article you refer to does, after all, end with a heartfelt plea for a “day of reckoning“, when the author will, he states, slavering, “gladly watch the bastards swing from the lamp posts“. In addition, he asserts that the BBC wants to “eradicate Christianity“. Running Songs of Praise, Thought for the Day and numerous dramas/documentaries on, er, Christianity is a whacky way of going about it. I’m not fond of the BBC – and that Bitesize thingy is dreadful, I agree – but this argument is just showy hyperbole.

Speaking of showy hyperbole…

“The correct interpretation of the fundamental corner-stone of Islamic ideology i.e the Koran,is not he BBC,s Bitesize religious studies sanitized perversion but, Al-Queda,s.
And all other interpretations are according to the most respected scholars of Islam–heresy.
Ask any scholar at “Apostates of Islam”.”

Again, your sweeping brush-strokes pass over the fact that the “scholars” I assume you’re referring to have repeatedly denounced al-Qaeda. Laws against apostasy are awful, I agree – and frighteningly widespread – but many Islamic figures and intellectuals have publicly rejected their validity.

“Digby Jones, the former Director General of the CBI, who was approached by the Conservative Party about being their candidate for Mayor of London, who described trade unions as ‘backward looking and not on today’s agenda’ and Labour as ‘always in thrall to the unions’, and who wouldn’t join the Labour Party even when Gordon Brown appointed him as a minister”

What was Brown thinking? No one who isn’t pro-union should be allowed within 100 miles of a Labour government. Being pro-union is basically the whole of the point after all!

However it has not escaped my attention that both you and your fellow comrades have exhibited an unhealthy obsession with “how loony” some commentator sounds–
regardless of what the he is saying.

Son, sidle up to someone in a bus queue and start rattling about Liberal Fascism. Pipe up about the BBC’s Islamic indoctrination program in the canteen at your work and see what you get. You might find that it’s not only the awful liberals on websites that are taken aback by such extended diatribes.

I throw this out there as idle conjecture, but have you considered the possibility that people dismiss your views as lunacy because they are, in fact, lunatic?

Plus, there’s no obligation on anyone to trawl your comments and rebut each individual point. People arse around on websites because it’s interesting and fun, but having to bash out thousand-word rebuttals of someone’s paranoid anti-Jihadist fluff is neither interesting nor fun. I’d say the same if you were explaining how the twin towers were brought down by controlled explosions or how the moon landings were fake.

Your views on any subject, I am totally in the dark about.Which leaves me at a disadvantage.

Well, my name is highlighted because it’s a link to my blog, which contains lots of my opinions. I’ll save you time by reducing my opinions on the issues you’ve raised to a single word, and that word is “Bollocks”.

Tbh I found this comment as ridiculous as Journeyman’s:

“What was Brown thinking? No one who isn’t pro-union should be allowed within 100 miles of a Labour government. Being pro-union is basically the whole of the point after all!”

Did you sleep through the 1990s, Chris?