Best Of

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.

He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case.
It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.

And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.

Plenty of his own side called out the Rob Reiner comment, in fact almost all of them did.

One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.

I wonder if the likes of LBC and Times Radio will reputation wash Trump over this like they did thst Oxford Uni student who gloated about Charlie Kirk’s death 🤔

One is a student one is the President of the United States. Pathetic whataboutery from the Trump apologists today.

Show me one post I’ve ever made in support of Trump. I was one of the first to post about his Reiner comments and condemn them. I also contrasted it with Reiners classy comments about Kirk’s death.

The press is hypocritical and is happy to forgive those it supports. That’s my point.

Fair enough, I don't read every comment but as a stand alone comment you appear to be claiming equivalence between something a random student said and something the President of The US has said.

This should read

‘Fair enough but I’ll justify the retarded bollocks I wrote’

Hasn't it just been suggested that Hitler had retarded bollocks?

a

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Interesting indeed. I'm old and I wouldn't agree with any of those (except to say I know little of Col. Gaddafi and for all I know he may have been a genial chap to his friends).

After Gaddafi rather a lot of Libyans migrated to the U.K…

Wasn't Stalin supposed to be a doting uncle or similar?

Stalin became Uncle Joe as soon as Hitler invaded and the USSR became our besties.

Ah, I'd forgotten the 'Uncle Joe' title, but I thought I'd read he was genuinely fond of children, or animals, or something very touchy-feely; which somehow made up for all the mass slaughter.

I don't know Stalin's position on animals. However, my mother tried to learn Russian, not that successfully. The only sentence she could remember was: Ленин любил кошек. Which means: Lenin loved cats. Which is true, he did, as can be seen in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoYls9kgG_I

a

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.

What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this

He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.

Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.

The actual quote is

I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?

The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted

- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result.
- The BBC fucked up in editing the speech

Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.

Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.

I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.

I think the BBC has said as much itself.
Senior directors have resigned, and it has apologised.

That ought to be the end of the matter, since the edit was bad journalism, not libel.

Paying damages would be admitting something which is not true, and would be as bad if not worse than the original mistake.

I'd understood it happened twice, on different programmes, and not just a second programme repeating the clip from the first. I can understand someone like Mr Trump suing, but I hope he doesn't prevail. Much better for the BBC to clean up its act.

The independent production company that made the programme for the BBC...

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Its not the roads its the lights on the vehicles. Way brighter, often set higher up on the vehicle. And the roads are busier.

The other four points are just mad...

Last Xmas was awful. We had a nice morning. Went to the pub, The Drawbridge in Shirley, had a nice drink and got onto the subject of the state pension. I just happened to mention it was a state benefit.

Oh dear. Arguments raged. Got the silent treatment off my wife for the rest of the day. As I’d had a drink I couldn’t drive to a B&B either.

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Interesting indeed. I'm old and I wouldn't agree with any of those (except to say I know little of Col. Gaddafi and for all I know he may have been a genial chap to his friends).

A person I knew who taught him English (he took a short course in Beaconsfield) in the 60s said he was just another pleasant ish young guy but didn't stand out in any way.

A friend of a friend had eye problems as a kid. Recently, her parents were clearing stuff out and gave her a bunch of medical records from her childhood. She was curious to look through these and to find out the name of the lovely doctor who she had seen as a child. Guess who it was?

Assad.

a

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Interesting indeed. I'm old and I wouldn't agree with any of those (except to say I know little of Col. Gaddafi and for all I know he may have been a genial chap to his friends).

After Gaddafi rather a lot of Libyans migrated to the U.K…

Wasn't Stalin supposed to be a doting uncle or similar?

Stalin became Uncle Joe as soon as Hitler invaded and the USSR became our besties.

Ah, I'd forgotten the 'Uncle Joe' title, but I thought I'd read he was genuinely fond of children, or animals, or something very touchy-feely; which somehow made up for all the mass slaughter.

Stalin was ladykiller when young, and a complete party animal.

He graduated to killing ladies (and gents) on an epic scale. And used parties as a kind of punishment for his coterie - force people who didn’t like drinking to drink etc

I don't remember hearing about that. Maybe my recollection about the other things is quite wrong then.

Read some books on Young Stalin.

He comes across as the bandit anti-hero in a Spaghetti Western. But with a really high body count.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Tiflis_bank_robbery

Etc etc…

@peaceandteachin.bsky.social‬

Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board has reached its discovery phase.
Trump claims physical and mental anguish.The board wants all Trump physical and mental examinations, medications, and tax returns for proof.

https://bsky.app/profile/peaceandteachin.bsky.social/post/3ma32to4xts2e

Trump has never won a defamation lawsuit, despite launching many. And he still owes Jean Carroll millions for defaming her.

Yup - it's law fare shakedown, US style.

I recall, with some hilarity, someone trying that on the building firm I am associated with. They sued (for specious reasons) on the basis of "We'll drop the suit if you drop the price of the half completed contract". Being idiots, they hadn't bothered to read the original contract - which specified independent arbitration for disputes with legal action only after that was exhausted. So when they went to court....

Don’t all major contracts have an arbitration clause ? Certainly ours used to.

Construction contracts in the UK generally do not.

Friends of ours who run a small cleaning company were offered a contract to clean some new build buildings. 150 day payment terms.

They politely declined.

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.

What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this

He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.

Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.

Pity you never seem to be as exercised by the lies that pour out of Trump's mouth on a daily basis.

I was having a go at Trump only this morning, over his comments on Rob Reiner and Ukraine.

That doesn’t mean that the BBC don’t have questions to answer over editing his words.

You know PB, it’s always a purity test.

We have to compete in ever more fevered terms in criticising him.

I was condemning him yesterday for his words on Rob Reiner and last week for his economic ineptitude.

But to some here that makes you a fan.