Best Of

R4 WATO spent 5 minutes on the Jerusalem murders, another 5 on the death of Supertamp's Rick Davies and a 35 minute hatchet job on the Government. Now that is fair enough, but surely any pretence that the BBC are still impartial needs to be clarified. The BBC should, like the press media endorse a specific party so we the viewer and listener know where we are, be that Reform or the Conservatives. The Charter is no longer applied.

Supertramp came up with two 10/10 songs in 1979 imo: Breakfast In America and the Logical Song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQdoUUi3iJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kln_bIndDJg

Paul McCartney apparently said at the time that the Logical Song was the best song he'd heard in 10 years.

And freshly topical.

I said, now, watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Oh, won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable
Respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable..

https://x.com/transportgovuk/status/1964967200806384048?s=19

You cant look at the picture and conclude anything other than hes very very sorry

Good northern lad. I can only assume that rail and road links across Yorkshire will be getting a significant upgrade

(Selby MP, I've voted for him twice, making him only the second Labour Westminster candidate I've voted for. He is very visible locally, FWIW, I've run into him a few times since his election.)

I want to know what he did to look so coy and shameful about!

It's probably more what he knows he's going to have to do now on the government payroll!

(Or disappointment with the offered role - "What? Transport? Oh yes, that would be... lovely.")

Reading the judges comments, it sounds like he’s addressing a teenage orphan who has been in trouble for shoplifting

A JUDGE has sparked fury by wishing the 7/7 bombings mastermind “all the best” as he prepares to walk free.

Sir Robert Jay sympathised with al-Qaeda fiend Haroon Aswat, 50, who will be released from hospital to Yorkshire despite police fears he remains a threat.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36609040/sir-robert-jay-judge-haroon-aswat-best-wishes/

I doubt I want this bastard out on the streets any more than you do. But once again it is an attack by far right figures Farage and Jenrick on the judiciary and individual judges. Surely there must be some sort of guidance he has to use. If there is a problem with this MF's release it is the Government's responsibility not that of the Judge who is following their rules.

Maybe I'm imagining it but I'm sure the left used to criticise judges a long time ago when they had a reputation for being extremely conservative, old-fashioned, etc.

"Security concerns spiralled after probation officials refused to assess his risk because rules forbid checks on psychiatric patients."#

How on earth have we landed with that particular wrinkle in the system ?

A scandalous cock-up of Earth shattering magnitude.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/08/great-north-run-apologises-newcastle-map-medals-sunderland

It's nice design though, other than the cartographical cock-up - far more interesting than mine from seven (crikey! really?) years ago

Fascinating to know the source of the cockup - some incorrectly labelled stock artwork that was used as a base? But how the heck does no-one involved spot that in advance?

Maybe people did spot it but were ignored, just like when the London Olympics logo was kept despite many pointing out it looked like Lisa Simpson giving a blow job. It might be coincidence that Lord Coe was involved in both.

R4 WATO spent 5 minutes on the Jerusalem murders, another 5 on the death of Supertamp's Rick Davies and a 35 minute hatchet job on the Government. Now that is fair enough, but surely any pretence that the BBC are still impartial needs to be clarified. The BBC should, like the press media endorse a specific party so we the viewer and listener know where we are, be that Reform or the Conservatives. The Charter is no longer applied.

To many (most) journalists, "taking the government line" means being Tame Press. Hence Brian Redhead vs Tebbit I mentioned a little while ago.

I recall at the beginning of the New Labour era a similar disbelief that*they* were now being criticised.

Another one was during the First Gulf War. The head of CNN complained that they weren't being given all the videos from smart bomb strikes. And that the US government was hiding the truth by not showing all the misses. The hit rate was about 85% at this point. In an interview (BBC, I think), the CNN guy said that, if given the complete set of videos, they would show a couple of the hits - and all the misses.

Gen Z are flocking to the National Trust to relieve climate anxiety and get away from social media.

The conservation charity has seen a surge in popularity among young people, with membership among 18 to 25-year-olds rising by 35 per cent in the year to March. Young membership numbers have increased by a further 16 per cent since the start of March, according to its annual report.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/08/gen-z-flock-to-national-trust-as-antidote-to-climate-anxiet/

No booze, church and National Trust. Gen Z are a funny lot.

Young people are weirdly wholesome. Nothing my 19 year old daughter likes more than doing a jigsaw. She's started making her own clothes. My 13 year old is massively into crochet. It's baffling.

Perhaps they are just normal, and normality is returning. There was, and still is, a culture obsessing with youth being excessive and different arising, I think, from the post WWII world, and reinforced from about 1963 by Beatles etc inspired music culture and (see Philip Larkin's Annus Mirabilis) the shift in sexual mores from the decline of religion and the advance of contraception. By contraception and extended education youth got extended from about age 20 to about 30 something.

The Me Too and various related movements also, along with other features, proclaim the right of women and girls to be autonomous, private, and for those who wish it, modest in the old fashioned sense and to expect men to conduct their lives in a civilized way; while, interestingly, preserving the modern sense (again see Larkin) that autonomous sexual choices are not matters for shame, while rampant male behaviour is indeed shameful.

R4 WATO spent 5 minutes on the Jerusalem murders, another 5 on the death of Supertamp's Rick Davies and a 35 minute hatchet job on the Government. Now that is fair enough, but surely any pretence that the BBC are still impartial needs to be clarified. The BBC should, like the press media endorse a specific party so we the viewer and listener know where we are, be that Reform or the Conservatives. The Charter is no longer applied.

To many (most) journalists, "taking the government line" means being Tame Press. Hence Brian Redhead vs Tebbit I mentioned a little while ago.

I recall at the beginning of the New Labour era a similar disbelief that*they* were now being criticised.

Another one was during the First Gulf War. The head of CNN complained that they weren't being given all the videos from smart bomb strikes. And that the US government was hiding the truth by not showing all the misses. The hit rate was about 85% at this point. In an interview (BBC, I think), the CNN guy said that, if given the complete set of videos, they would show a couple of the hits - and all the misses.

There is no attempt at balance either in the criticism of the Government and the reporting of Reform. It is simply black and white. The Government are bad, Reform are good.

Now I don't want a repeat of 2016 Boris Johnson Cenotaph footage replacing his 2019 Cenotaph fiasco. I do not want Russia Today.

It is interesting that when Montague or Dimond host we get virtually no international news just a critique of the Government and the Tories and Eulogies for Farage and Corbyn. When Simon Jack or Stourton present we get Ukraine, or Trump, or Gaza and a little bit of Westminster.

There's a particular kind of domestic focus of WATO on the business of politics that can sometimes be very dull.

I think the World Tonight is often much more informative, although it doesn't get as many listeners, from what I understand.