🧵 While the BBC remains fairly well trusted overall and one of the most trusted media sources in the country, the broadcaster has an image problem with Reform voters who are much less likely than average to say they trust the broadcaster and are split between trust/distrust.
The bigger problem isn't the right wing oldies, its youngsters, the BBC doesn't exist to them.
Nor does ITV I presume?
Graun just published this, as it happens, if anyone is interested. Haven'#t read it as I DGAF about Traitors (still don't know or care what it is about) but the blurb stuck in my mind:
"Fandom memes, influencers and TikTok deal helped secure industry’s holy grail: gen Z loyalty"
Watching a show for 2 hours a week for 4 weeks then getting on with the rest of your lives != loyalty.
For decades this has been my biggest bugbear with people who defend the BBC by claiming one decent show, often years ago, shows how valuable it is. No, it does not.
It takes more than just 1 show to inspire loyalty and young people today, quite rightly, are not loyal to a failed and frankly boring outdated behemoth from the past.
Just because someone watched Traitors for an hour does not mean they will now watch Bargain Hunt or the rest of the drivel linearly broadcast.
Its also how poor they are at exploiting hit shows, Strictly and now Traitors being an exception.....I mean the sort of box set high quality drama shows.
I mentioned the other day I rewatched McMafia the other week. A really good show. And of course they didn't sign up the actors, they delayed, COVID came, then Ukraine / Russia, and now its a dead franchise. Taboo was another from a similar time, they spent a fortune on having Tom Hardy, was part of their big Christmas / New Year schedule....and dead...Compare to Slow Horses, they filmed the 2 two seasons back to back, they signed up Jackson Lamb for 5 seasons from the get go.
They did do the recent two seasons of Dr Who back to back. Shame they had a lead who couldn’t really commit to it and the show was tat
I presume that was because Disney was putting a load of money in. The message the BBC will probably take from it was too rushed, we need to do Peaky Blinders and spend 10 years to get 30 odd episodes. Rather than wrong lead, and a writer who has lost the plot where everything has to be political and gay.
🧵 While the BBC remains fairly well trusted overall and one of the most trusted media sources in the country, the broadcaster has an image problem with Reform voters who are much less likely than average to say they trust the broadcaster and are split between trust/distrust.
The bigger problem isn't the right wing oldies, its youngsters, the BBC doesn't exist to them.
Nor does ITV I presume?
Graun just published this, as it happens, if anyone is interested. Haven'#t read it as I DGAF about Traitors (still don't know or care what it is about) but the blurb stuck in my mind:
"Fandom memes, influencers and TikTok deal helped secure industry’s holy grail: gen Z loyalty"
Watching a show for 2 hours a week for 4 weeks then getting on with the rest of your lives != loyalty.
For decades this has been my biggest bugbear with people who defend the BBC by claiming one decent show, often years ago, shows how valuable it is. No, it does not.
It takes more than just 1 show to inspire loyalty and young people today, quite rightly, are not loyal to a failed and frankly boring outdated behemoth from the past.
Just because someone watched Traitors for an hour does not mean they will now watch Bargain Hunt or the rest of the drivel linearly broadcast.
Its also how poor they are at exploiting hit shows, Strictly and now Traitors being an exception.....I mean the sort of box set high quality drama shows.
I mentioned the other day I rewatched McMafia the other week. A really good show. And of course they didn't sign up the actors, they delayed, COVID came, then Ukraine / Russia, and now its a dead franchise. Taboo was another from a similar time, they spent a fortune on having Tom Hardy, was part of their big Christmas / New Year schedule....and dead...Compare to Slow Horses, they filmed the 2 two seasons back to back, they signed up Jackson Lamb for 5 seasons from the get go.
They did do the recent two seasons of Dr Who back to back. Shame they had a lead who couldn’t really commit to it and the show was tat
I presume that was because Disney was putting a load of money in. The message the BBC will probably take from it was too rushed, we need to do Peaky Blinders and spend 10 years to get 30 odd episodes. Rather than wrong lead, and a writer who has lost the plot where everything has to be political and gay.
It looks like they’re seeking another partner to fund it, talk of Paramount, and the Beeb want RTD to stay on.
The problem with Gatwa was signing him on when he couldn’t fully commit to it and now he appears to be being thrown under the bus. Same happened to Eccleston.
I don't think the recent narrative of Gatwa being at fault holds water. Yes he bailed when it became apparent the series wouldn't be renewed soon, and he didn't bellyfeel the show, but he played the part and the words he was given and did them well. The fault has to lie with RTD: two series' climaxes that ruined the show, returning villains nobody except you or I had heard of, bad CGI, excruciating Israel and trans references, christ knows what happened with the Ruby Sunday arc, that child genius, and the fact that a series based on the Buffy structure worked in 2004 but doesn't now in 2025. Aaargh...
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
By far the biggest issue with the press misreporting Trump is the sanewashing, which essentially all the media in the UK does. The best way of reporting Trump is to do so in full and verbatim, and then everyone can see what a dishonest, crooked, moron he is, and draw their own conclusions. e.g. He should be in a padded room, or jail cell, not the Oval Office.
Nobody needs to do anything underhand to make Trump look bad, just let people listen to him for 60 seconds or so.
Problem being Trump's mental decline and obvious health issues are getting no coverage on mainstream US media. They have to frame what he says very carefully just to block out his failings. You don't get that 60 seconds.
Worse than anything the BBC did. Week after week.
All the more reason for the BBC not to resort to smoke & mirrors.
A curious titbit; it wasn't BBC smoke or mirrors- not directly, anyway.
October Films, the independent production company that made the Trump Panorama, is said to be working on a film about Nigel Farage.
We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past.
There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident; inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine that they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which button to push.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
90% of boomers never went to university. The tweeter will also get the triple lock as it stands when they retire
I wouldn't bet on the triple lock still being in place by the time that Tweeter retires.
It will unless a party wants to commit electoral suicide. At most it might be means tested
Rachel can be brave and scrap the triple lock 2026. CPI only for state pensions. £10bn (roughly) saved
1% on income tax (2% on higher and additional rates) £10bn
Freeze on thresholds to 2030 £10bn
Total £30bn sorted! If there's a shortfall we can always increase inheritance tax 👍
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
I don’t quite get how compulsory voting works. What happens if you don’t vote?
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
I stop reading as soon as someone uses phrases like "boomer", "Gen X", etc.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
I don’t quite get how compulsory voting works. What happens if you don’t vote?
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
90% of boomers never went to university. The tweeter will also get the triple lock as it stands when they retire
I wouldn't bet on the triple lock still being in place by the time that Tweeter retires.
It will unless a party wants to commit electoral suicide. At most it might be means tested
Rachel can be brave and scrap the triple lock 2026. CPI only for state pensions. £10bn (roughly) saved
1% on income tax (2% on higher and additional rates) £10bn
Freeze on thresholds to 2030 £10bn
Total £30bn sorted! If there's a shortfall we can always increase inheritance tax 👍
And wipe the Labour Party out at the next GE too. Fine by me!
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
That was the podcast, yes. I thought the podcast they did on referendums was also really interesting.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
I don’t quite get how compulsory voting works. What happens if you don’t vote?
Transportation to Australia - or something *shrugs shoulders*
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
The price of not voting as much as the oldies do. Its expensive.
I listened to a podcast recently that argued that compulsory voting (as in Australia) would have the effect of evening that up, and thus going some way to breaking the grip that pensioners and near-pensioners have on British politics. I instinctively rebel at the suggestion of compelling voting, but it's an interesting idea.
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
Was that the “past, present, future” podcast? Or at least they did one that made a similar argument. To be honest I always thought the only thing we can learn from Australian politics was the “Democracy Sausage,” however the podcast I listened to made the point that if everyone votes (so young and also non-university educated) then you have at least got to make an effort of convincing them to vote for you (or at least not voting against you).
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
I don’t quite get how compulsory voting works. What happens if you don’t vote?
In Australia they send you a letter telling you that they noticed you didn't vote and giving you a choice of writing to them to explain why you didn't vote (there are exemptions for those who claim a religious bar against voting), or of paying a modest fine.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So rural views don’t matter. Townyfile is the perfect embodiment.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
90% of boomers never went to university. The tweeter will also get the triple lock as it stands when they retire
I wouldn't bet on the triple lock still being in place by the time that Tweeter retires.
It will unless a party wants to commit electoral suicide. At most it might be means tested
Rachel can be brave and scrap the triple lock 2026. CPI only for state pensions. £10bn (roughly) saved
1% on income tax (2% on higher and additional rates) £10bn
Freeze on thresholds to 2030 £10bn
Total £30bn sorted! If there's a shortfall we can always increase inheritance tax 👍
And wipe the Labour Party out at the next GE too. Fine by me!
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So rural views don’t matter. Townyfile is the perfect embodiment.
That's not what I said - or indeed the case with the BBC. But you carry on with your own biased view.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So rural views don’t matter. Townyfile is the perfect embodiment.
That's not what I said - or indeed the case with the BBC. But you carry on with your own biased view.
The divide that matters imo is urban vs suburban/rural which makes it more like 50/50.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So rural views don’t matter. Townyfile is the perfect embodiment.
That's not what I said - or indeed the case with the BBC. But you carry on with your own biased view.
I’m glad people have picked up on the Beeb’s town and city bias. They rely far too much for their “voice of the people” schtick on voxpops from elderly shoppers during weekday lunchtimes in Bury and Stoke.
They need to get out into the proper countryside more. Places like Tiverton and Honiton, North Shropshire or Westmorland and Lonsdale.
By the way good evening from North California where I’ve been following in Leon’s recent footsteps. Touring Napa, Sonoma and the Anderson Valley tasting as I go, walking through groves of giant redwoods, eating oysters on the beach facing a flooded section of the San Andreas fault where they’re grown, and now in an unseasonably sunny and warm San Francisco where the purported human hellhole I’d been led to expect by MAGA is stubbornly failing to show itself.
Photo for the day: a surfer catches a wave off Salmon Creek beach.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
Since 80% of the population don't live in rural areas, the rural/urban imbalance is hardly the same thing as bias.
So rural views don’t matter. Townyfile is the perfect embodiment.
That's not what I said - or indeed the case with the BBC. But you carry on with your own biased view.
The divide that matters imo is urban vs suburban/rural which makes it more like 50/50.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
That seems an out of time, unaware comment.
The boomers also paid for the national infra where investment stopped or slowed in the 1980s - reservoirs, roads, motorways, change to natural gas, and for all the investment in Council houses when they were still being built, and paid off the war debt whilst living less affluent lifestyles than now, and so on.
Every generation has built infrastructure. The debt was inflated away in the post-war period more than paid off. I agree they financed the building of a bunch of crappy slums though.
The state pension should be merged with incapacity benefit and restricted to those genuinely unable to work. If people want to stop working early or downshift, fine they can do what they want, but I can't see why the overtaxed young, burdened with disastrous student loans and staggering housing costs, should pay for their end-of-life gap years or decades.
And as for millionaire pensioners getting free public transport while the minimum waged young have to pay full price ...
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
The extremely partial agenda at work in the latest BBC spat isn't that of the BBC.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/09/bbc-attack-trump-telegraph-tories-tim-davie-resignation ..this saga began just a week ago with the leak of a 19-page “devastating memo” from Michael Prescott, a former political journalist who spent three years as an external adviser to the broadcaster, published in the Telegraph. The dossier alleges BBC Panorama doctored a speech by Trump, making him appear to support the January 6 rioters, that its Arabic coverage privileged pro-Hamas views, and that a group of LGBTQ employees had excessive influence on coverage of sex and gender. The Telegraph wrote that the BBC’s very silence “proves there is a serious problem”. Meanwhile, the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s “blast” at Nick Robinson, the only BBC staffer to publicly fight back against the accusations, leads the Mail on Sunday..
An example of the absurd arguments in Prescott's leak:
..Prescott stresses he has never been a member of a political party and that his views “do not come with any political agenda” in the introduction to his 8,000-word note. Yet each criticism of BBC coverage comes from the anti-progressive culture-war playbook.
For example, he is “shocked” that after an hour-long Panorama documentary dealing with Trump and the January 6 insurgency, there was no “similar, balancing” programme about the Democrat presidential candidate, Kamala Harris...
The article makes pretty clear that his own claim of being free from bias is threadbare.
The extremely partial agenda at work in the latest BBC spat isn't that of the BBC.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/09/bbc-attack-trump-telegraph-tories-tim-davie-resignation ..this saga began just a week ago with the leak of a 19-page “devastating memo” from Michael Prescott, a former political journalist who spent three years as an external adviser to the broadcaster, published in the Telegraph. The dossier alleges BBC Panorama doctored a speech by Trump, making him appear to support the January 6 rioters, that its Arabic coverage privileged pro-Hamas views, and that a group of LGBTQ employees had excessive influence on coverage of sex and gender. The Telegraph wrote that the BBC’s very silence “proves there is a serious problem”. Meanwhile, the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s “blast” at Nick Robinson, the only BBC staffer to publicly fight back against the accusations, leads the Mail on Sunday..
An example of the absurd arguments in Prescott's leak:
..Prescott stresses he has never been a member of a political party and that his views “do not come with any political agenda” in the introduction to his 8,000-word note. Yet each criticism of BBC coverage comes from the anti-progressive culture-war playbook.
For example, he is “shocked” that after an hour-long Panorama documentary dealing with Trump and the January 6 insurgency, there was no “similar, balancing” programme about the Democrat presidential candidate, Kamala Harris...
The article makes pretty clear that his own claim of being free from bias is threadbare.
"Now the resignations of both Davie and the CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness, have shown that baying for blood gets results."
You'd never get those results baying for blood at The Guardian...
F1: after moaning about qualifying I can't complain about the race. Fantastically entertaining and, rather surprisingly, all the things I bet on came off, narrowly. Huzzah!
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
Schiff has to be the first of many. I watch his YouTube channel and he knows it's coming.
I understand Trump is looking at Governor Newsom too. Newsom's media performance and profile is such that any prosecution would be contemptuous and counterproductive. It wouldn't surprise me if the Rubicon was crossed and assassination was seen (not necessarily by Trump, but some in his orbit) as a more productive means of silencing opponents, particularly in Newsom's case. It is surely coming.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
The Telegraph (a once august organ and the best newspaper for sports coverage by a country mile) is now the home of unhinged headlines from Allister Heath and Allison Pearson. The Telegraph is now a cut above in the sphere of unreliability.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
Probably not.
There isn't that much money in publishing newspapers these days, and what market there is skews older and older.
So the only way to survive is to cut reporting staff to the bone, publish clickbait to scare/affirm your retired readers (because they're the only ones you have) or hope that some billionaire buys you up as a personal pulpit.
One of the possibilities that gets missed in the pre-budget period is the the sources for all these "Reeves will tax X" stories may be the Treasury, but they may also be the voices in the head of some hack.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
The FT is still pretty good, I think. The others, not really.
The Telegraph used to be ok but went under a few years back. The I and Times are worth a glance, but the FT is the only one left that you could call reliable.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
Probably not.
There isn't that much money in publishing newspapers these days, and what market there is skews older and older.
So the only way to survive is to cut reporting staff to the bone, publish clickbait to scare/affirm your retired readers (because they're the only ones you have) or hope that some billionaire buys you up as a personal pulpit.
One of the possibilities that gets missed in the pre-budget period is the the sources for all these "Reeves will tax X" stories may be the Treasury, but they may also be the voices in the head of some hack.
I hear it's a standard Treasury tactic to say they may blow up bombs everywhere so that when only one or two goes off, rather than four or five, everyone is relieved.
Personally, I'm not sure I buy it. It's a very political angle to take and the Treasury would know the economic damage it could do as it fuels speculation everywhere.
I think it's Reeves and her team doing a bit of kiteflying and laying smoke.
By the way good evening from North California where I’ve been following in Leon’s recent footsteps. Touring Napa, Sonoma and the Anderson Valley tasting as I go, walking through groves of giant redwoods, eating oysters on the beach facing a flooded section of the San Andreas fault where they’re grown, and now in an unseasonably sunny and warm San Francisco where the purported human hellhole I’d been led to expect by MAGA is stubbornly failing to show itself.
Photo for the day: a surfer catches a wave off Salmon Creek beach.
Enjoying a glass of that lovely local wine, Blossom Hill ?
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
The FT is still pretty good, I think. The others, not really.
The FT is probably the only paper left where getting it wrong has real-world consequences. Everyone else, even the Times, is now in the bit of business space where "is this exciting, engaging and enraging?" is more important than "is this accurate and important?"
Reports that Chuck Schumer is going to cave without ANY concessions over the shutdown.
This is a massive, massive win for MAGA Mike and Trump.
The DNC deserve to die in a ditch.
Can't quite work out if the trigger was the cancellation of the SNAP payments and people going without food - or the air traffic disruption and politicians going without their air travel.
OT ITV apparently skipped an episode of The 1% Club on Saturday, but the ITVx team put up what would have been the next episode based on episode numbers. Now ITVx has taken it down again but not put anything up, and meanwhile PBers are advised to be wary of drinking games based on next week's quiz.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
Reports that Chuck Schumer is going to cave without ANY concessions over the shutdown.
This is a massive, massive win for MAGA Mike and Trump.
The DNC deserve to die in a ditch.
Can't quite work out if the trigger was the cancellation of the SNAP payments and people going without food - or the air traffic disruption and politicians going without their air travel.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
Probably not.
There isn't that much money in publishing newspapers these days, and what market there is skews older and older.
So the only way to survive is to cut reporting staff to the bone, publish clickbait to scare/affirm your retired readers (because they're the only ones you have) or hope that some billionaire buys you up as a personal pulpit.
One of the possibilities that gets missed in the pre-budget period is the the sources for all these "Reeves will tax X" stories may be the Treasury, but they may also be the voices in the head of some hack.
I hear it's a standard Treasury tactic to say they may blow up bombs everywhere so that when only one or two goes off, rather than four or five, everyone is relieved.
Personally, I'm not sure I buy it. It's a very political angle to take and the Treasury would know the economic damage it could do as it fuels speculation everywhere.
I think it's Reeves and her team doing a bit of kiteflying and laying smoke.
The suggestion of the 20% exit tax was on the news headlines and discussed on the breakfast radio show in the sandpit this morning.
That’s how much of an effect it’s having already, people are making decisions that will stick even if it doesn’t happen this year. People know it’s been floated, and there’s three more Labour budgets still to come.
Reports that Chuck Schumer is going to cave without ANY concessions over the shutdown.
This is a massive, massive win for MAGA Mike and Trump.
The DNC deserve to die in a ditch.
Can't quite work out if the trigger was the cancellation of the SNAP payments and people going without food - or the air traffic disruption and politicians going without their air travel.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Salary sacrifice is too generous imo, and obviously mainly used by those well off. Suspect this will raise even more than predicted.
The logic of paying tax, but not NI, on pension income is that, when you paid in, you got tax relief, but not NI relief, on your contributions. Salary sacrifice undermines that, as it effectively delivers NI relief to pension contributions. Thats why it has to go.
Reports that Chuck Schumer is going to cave without ANY concessions over the shutdown.
This is a massive, massive win for MAGA Mike and Trump.
The DNC deserve to die in a ditch.
Can't quite work out if the trigger was the cancellation of the SNAP payments and people going without food - or the air traffic disruption and politicians going without their air travel.
OT ITV apparently skipped an episode of The 1% Club on Saturday, but the ITVx team put up what would have been the next episode based on episode numbers. Now ITVx has taken it down again but not put anything up, and meanwhile PBers are advised to be wary of drinking games based on next week's quiz.
The twitter feed seems to have all the questions.
We were out so were going to watch it on catch up.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
The FT is still pretty good, I think. The others, not really.
The FT worships Brussels and international liberalism.
There is some good journalism in there, don't get me wrong, but let's not pretend it's objective.
It backed Kinnock in 1992 as well.
'92 is a long time ago and it was Major/Lamont Vs Kinnock/Smith - that Smith could have been a better CoE than Lamont is not a wildly offbeam assessment.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Salary sacrifice is too generous imo, and obviously mainly used by those well off. Suspect this will raise even more than predicted.
The logic of paying tax, but not NI, on pension income is that, when you paid in, you got tax relief, but not NI relief, on your contributions. Salary sacrifice undermines that, as it effectively delivers NI relief to pension contributions. Thats why it has to go.
Nope employer pension contributions aren’t after employer NI. If they are now going to be subject to IR35 thats another hidden increase of 0.45-1% on employer costs.
Biggest issue is that it removes an incentive to save into pension
OT ITV apparently skipped an episode of The 1% Club on Saturday, but the ITVx team put up what would have been the next episode based on episode numbers. Now ITVx has taken it down again but not put anything up, and meanwhile PBers are advised to be wary of drinking games based on next week's quiz.
The twitter feed seems to have all the questions.
We were out so were going to watch it on catch up.
What was on in its place ?
The 1% Club. ITV broadcast episode 6 after episode 4, but ITVx put up episode 5, which ITV will presumably broadcast next week or at some future date.
Rachel Reeves is poised to increase the tax rate on earnings from shares in her Nov 26 Budget, The Telegraph understands. The Chancellor is expected to put up the rate of dividend tax in a move that will hit investors but could raise up to £2bn.
I thought Reeves wanted more people investing in stocks?
I thought the Telegraph was debunked as a thoroughly unreliable source?
Is there any newspaper out there that can be deemed reliable?
The FT is still pretty good, I think. The others, not really.
The FT worships Brussels and international liberalism.
There is some good journalism in there, don't get me wrong, but let's not pretend it's objective.
It backed Kinnock in 1992 as well.
'92 is a long time ago and it was Major/Lamont Vs Kinnock/Smith - that Smith could have been a better CoE than Lamont is not a wildly offbeam assessment.
The problem was not really the Chancellor, it was joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism. That had long been Treasury Policy - they had been following the DM against Margaret Thatcher's express wishes for years.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Salary sacrifice is too generous imo, and obviously mainly used by those well off. Suspect this will raise even more than predicted.
The logic of paying tax, but not NI, on pension income is that, when you paid in, you got tax relief, but not NI relief, on your contributions. Salary sacrifice undermines that, as it effectively delivers NI relief to pension contributions. Thats why it has to go.
Nope employer pension contributions aren’t after employer NI. If they are now going to be subject to IR35 thats another hidden increase of 0.45-1% on employer costs.
Biggest issue is that it removes an incentive to save into pension
Anyone that needs an incentive to save for a pension needs their heads examined. Living for 30+ years on Pension Credit or even SRP is not going to be fun.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
It's appalling and I'm just astounded that the "raging Trot" Robbie Gibb hasn't resigned as well.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
I have just seen the edit on Trump and frankly it was idiotic and unacceptable
I cannot understand how anybody can start to excuse such a crass bit of journalism
Completely self inflicted and sad
That’s for me is the key point. It’s just bad journalism. I trust the editor of panorama (pr whoever did the film) has been hauled over the coals as well
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
Well KGB news has bigger problems than advertising- a totally biased editorial policy that makes Pravda look like The Beano for one.
"In German post-war politics, “there has never been such widespread dissatisfaction with a government in such a short period of time,” Manfred Güllner, director of the Forsa polling institute, told AFP.
For Germans who hoped for more decisive leadership after the last government’s collapse, “their expectations have been dashed,”he said.
The winners of February’s general election, Merz’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc now find themselves neck-and-neck in the polls with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second in the poll and is now the largest opposition party."
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
OK, "furious" here: 1) This now has to go to the House who won't pass it 2) If the House does pass it then we reopen the government and the House releases the Epstein file
Remember that the GOP shut down Congress back in September to avoid losing the vote on Epstein. If you are right and a deal is now done to reopen the government then we get Epstein.
Why would anyone be furious about this? There's plenty of reporting from the Hill that the impending Epstein file release has MAGA trying to figure out how they remove Trump so that they can survive his scandal...
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Salary sacrifice is too generous imo, and obviously mainly used by those well off. Suspect this will raise even more than predicted.
The logic of paying tax, but not NI, on pension income is that, when you paid in, you got tax relief, but not NI relief, on your contributions. Salary sacrifice undermines that, as it effectively delivers NI relief to pension contributions. Thats why it has to go.
Nope employer pension contributions aren’t after employer NI. If they are now going to be subject to IR35 thats another hidden increase of 0.45-1% on employer costs.
Biggest issue is that it removes an incentive to save into pension
I think IanB2 is talking about employee contributions. I personally think a lot of salary sacrifice is a con, and it is unnecessary for pensions as there is already a perfectly good tax regime.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
OK, "furious" here: 1) This now has to go to the House who won't pass it 2) If the House does pass it then we reopen the government and the House releases the Epstein file
Remember that the GOP shut down Congress back in September to avoid losing the vote on Epstein. If you are right and a deal is now done to reopen the government then we get Epstein.
Why would anyone be furious about this? There's plenty of reporting from the Hill that the impending Epstein file release has MAGA trying to figure out how they remove Trump so that they can survive his scandal...
The GOP will just hold the vote in the House and then put it in recess again. No Epstein vote. No swearing in of Dem electees.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Only a very few of us boomers got to go to uni, so we didn't get free uni tuition.
Hang on, didn't you get subsistence grants from your county/Scottish Education Dept, if you did get in [edit]? Admittedly means tested according to parental income,m and supplemented accordingly by the Bank of Mum and Dad. But tuition fees were paid.
Oh, yes, AIUI everything was paid for. But since so few of us were able to go to uni at all, it wasn't a benefit that many of us received.
I don't dispute at all that we've ended up with terrible generational unfairness, but that specific example isn't genuine.
Not everything was paid for by the state, of course - and indeed I recently discovered in my deceased mother's papers the cancelled cheque she'd sent me for my first trance of the parental share of subsistence in 1976.
Moreover of course that a lot of people went to polys or FE, or apprenticeships ... but still.
IRC some LEAs were remarkably slow at processing mandatory grants which covered tuition and subsistence. Polytechnic students might find that their chosen course wasn't eligible for a discretionary award from their LEA,. It wasn't an ideal situation.
The claim now is that he didn't, but the edit make look like he did.
He did.
The edit doesn't change that.
But it provides an easy rebuttal for the post-truth social media led world
And that's the irreducible core of the challenge. How do you try to tell as close to the truth as you can, when rivals simply aren't bothering?
Part of the news media is downright shoddy. (I wonder how much of Michael Prescott's work at the Sunday Times met the standards he is now calling for?) It's good that some news media are better than that, but better isn't necessarily enough.
"Let the one without sin cast the first stone" is a wonderful aspiration, but can also be an excuse for the bad guys to get away with bad things.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
I am of course biased (but my inherent woke leftiness is at least tempered by a deep suspicion of the BBC) but I thought Moore was terrible, barely able to stammer out a case for his hobbyhorses. I’m curious on whether true blue British patriots think there are any UK institutions that are doing a good job?
It’s a trade off between administrative simplicity and/ capex and tax.
If you are going to tax per mile usage then you can have a massive camera network (capex) or rely on MOT tests/self certification (simple albeit with some risk of under declaration).
If you go for self certification you can either have multiple data points to account for when people are in France or in the UK or you can go for the simple solution and accept that some people are going to pay tax when they are driving in another country.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
How come everyone who was furious last week about the US government being shut down and not paying salaries or food stamps, is also now furious that it will shortly reopen?
OK, "furious" here: 1) This now has to go to the House who won't pass it 2) If the House does pass it then we reopen the government and the House releases the Epstein file
Remember that the GOP shut down Congress back in September to avoid losing the vote on Epstein. If you are right and a deal is now done to reopen the government then we get Epstein.
Why would anyone be furious about this? There's plenty of reporting from the Hill that the impending Epstein file release has MAGA trying to figure out how they remove Trump so that they can survive his scandal...
The GOP will just hold the vote in the House and then put it in recess again. No Epstein vote. No swearing in of Dem electees.
Even better! Lets have the US government cease to function and Trump rule by decree.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Salary sacrifice is too generous imo, and obviously mainly used by those well off. Suspect this will raise even more than predicted.
The logic of paying tax, but not NI, on pension income is that, when you paid in, you got tax relief, but not NI relief, on your contributions. Salary sacrifice undermines that, as it effectively delivers NI relief to pension contributions. Thats why it has to go.
Nope employer pension contributions aren’t after employer NI. If they are now going to be subject to IR35 thats another hidden increase of 0.45-1% on employer costs.
Biggest issue is that it removes an incentive to save into pension
Anyone that needs an incentive to save for a pension needs their heads examined. Living for 30+ years on Pension Credit or even SRP is not going to be fun.
And yet many don't because they either don't have the money, and have more immediate priorities, or think it's pointless because the government keeps shifting the goalposts.
It would help if the rules didn't keep changing every 2-3 years but, sadly, there is little prospect of this.
Interesting that resigning head of news denies the BBC is biased.. they just don't get it. Corrupt.. biased... call it what you like. If you can't trust the BBC then something is terribly wrong. To call a disgraceful edit that had to be by design.. "a mistake" is not fooling anyone.
The BBC was forced to make 215 corrections in the last two years over the coverage by its BBC Arabic arm ( funded through our licence fee) of the Gaza conflict.
This is why it isn't really the Trump thing, although that will be all the focus.
The BBC is biased to the right if one is left of centre (me) and biased to the left if one is right of centre (the PB Tory massif).
Clearly one can offset those 215 pro Gazan corrections with the 215 or so times the BBC has relied on Eylon Levy and other assorted ghouls for "unbiased" commentary on the Gaza war.
There is a lot of merit in the first sentence. Personally I think the bias is not left/right, it’s more metropolitan/young vs rural/old. It’s the advert conundrum in another form. Young BBC staffers living young urban lives are surrounded by people from all kinds of backgrounds that crucially share most of the same values. So that’s the view that dominates. It reminds me of all the uni staff who never met anyone who voted for Brexit. Well of course, because their circle didn’t.
To an extent but the BBC to its credit also still does Countryfile, Farming Today, the Archers etc
The Archers !
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
Even more true for Countryfile. Farming Today manages not to mention the catastrophe which this government would be for the Farming Industry if it isn't ousted in 2029.
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
I think the BBC has become like the Church of England.
The gap between its laity and its clergy has never been wider.
The people that agree with its take on sociocultural issues simply don't watch it and, unfortunately, they're just not making enough good "must watch" television.
Shouldn't the people who made and broadcasted the edit of Trump's speech get the sack along with the editors and reporters of the other misleading news items documented in Michael Prescott's report?
It wasn't misleading, unless you are arguing Trump did not incite a riot (which he obviously did)
Cutting part of a speech out but not making clear that it is two partial clips is just bad journalism
David Cameron worked for Carlton TV, which was part of the dumbing-down of British TV post-Thames, and Thatcher's reorganisation of ITV in 1990. Thus not the best recommendation, from Charles Moore there.
So after paying for my uni tuition that the boomers got for free, I now have to pay tax on my pension contributions when the boomers didn't, just to make sure that the boomers get an even more generous state pension with their final salary pensions, of which I will get neither. https://x.com/ebullienteddie/status/1987057199714037978
Only a very few of us boomers got to go to uni, so we didn't get free uni tuition.
Hang on, didn't you get subsistence grants from your county/Scottish Education Dept, if you did get in [edit]? Admittedly means tested according to parental income,m and supplemented accordingly by the Bank of Mum and Dad. But tuition fees were paid.
Oh, yes, AIUI everything was paid for. But since so few of us were able to go to uni at all, it wasn't a benefit that many of us received.
I don't dispute at all that we've ended up with terrible generational unfairness, but that specific example isn't genuine.
Not everything was paid for by the state, of course - and indeed I recently discovered in my deceased mother's papers the cancelled cheque she'd sent me for my first trance of the parental share of subsistence in 1976.
Moreover of course that a lot of people went to polys or FE, or apprenticeships ... but still.
IRC some LEAs were remarkably slow at processing mandatory grants which covered tuition and subsistence. Polytechnic students might find that their chosen course wasn't eligible for a discretionary award from their LEA,. It wasn't an ideal situation.
IIRC (it is along time ago) student loans came in after a county council decided to use its "discretion" to not make any awards at all.
This is perhaps the one good (or bad) thing I have done. An acquaintance needed a discretionary award from a council where she no longer lived. As it happened, I knew a councillor there, and by an extraordinary coincidence he had just joined the education committee, so I put in a word, so he put in a word, so she got her grant and her degree (at the ratepayers' expense if you want to be cynical about it).
ETA one is reminded of the physics Nobel prizewinner Abdus Salam, who related that he came to London on a special scholarship scheme from rural Pakistan that only ever gave one award, as if God had created it especially for him.
the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Tim Davie’s and Deborah Turness’s resignations must be seen as the beginning, rather than the end, of a process of renewal. Deep cultural change will be necessary to once again restore trust in one of our nation’s most cherished institutions.”
"Tim Davie's and Deborah Turness's resignations must be seen as the beginning, rather than the end, of a process of renewal. Deep cultural change will be necessary to once again restore trust in one of our nation's most cherished institutions."
Our full statement below: pic.twitter.com/Gp5TOPjJiW
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) November 9, 2025
Complete nonsense as you'd expect from the BoD.
Once again you are wrong. The Board of Deputies, which is a fully representative body covering essentially the whole spectrum of Jews in the UK, has been rightly concerned about the institutional bias of the BBC for some time.
the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Tim Davie’s and Deborah Turness’s resignations must be seen as the beginning, rather than the end, of a process of renewal. Deep cultural change will be necessary to once again restore trust in one of our nation’s most cherished institutions.”
"Tim Davie's and Deborah Turness's resignations must be seen as the beginning, rather than the end, of a process of renewal. Deep cultural change will be necessary to once again restore trust in one of our nation's most cherished institutions."
Our full statement below: pic.twitter.com/Gp5TOPjJiW
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) November 9, 2025
Complete nonsense as you'd expect from the BoD.
Once again you are wrong. The Board of Deputies, which is a fully representative body covering essentially the whole spectrum of Jews in the UK, has been rightly concerned about the institutional bias of the BBC for some time.
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) November 9, 2025
Complete nonsense as you'd expect from the BoD.
Once again you are wrong. The Board of Deputies, which is a fully representative body covering essentially the whole spectrum of Jews in the UK, has been rightly concerned about the institutional bias of the BBC for some time.
Comments
My preference would be to grant the vote to everyone, from birth, with the primary care giver casting a vote by proxy for the child until they claim the vote for themselves. I think that's the only way to decisively break the hold of the gerontocracy on British politics.
How an Adam Schiff indictment could shake the Senate
If Schiff is indicted, it would mark the first time Trump’s pursuit of political adversaries has directly affected a sitting member of the Senate.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/09/adam-schiff-indictment-trump-doj-00643603
AOC: 55%
Schumer: 36%
Data For Progress / March 31, 2025 / n=767
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1908136312537756069
What that means for policy is not clear - but given it was something I thought daft (I think Terry Prachett must of mocked compulsory voting at some point) I now think that maybe there is something in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXurmD0XtLM
We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past.
There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident; inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine that they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which button to push.
1% on income tax (2% on higher and additional rates) £10bn
Freeze on thresholds to 2030 £10bn
Total £30bn sorted! If there's a shortfall we can always increase inheritance tax 👍
Hegseth thinks it’s a training manual.
But you carry on with your own biased view.
They need to get out into the proper countryside more. Places like Tiverton and Honiton, North Shropshire or Westmorland and Lonsdale.
Photo for the day: a surfer catches a wave off Salmon Creek beach.
https://x.com/PressSec/status/1987591745610359152#m
https://x.com/PressSec/status/1987623529177838045#m
The state pension should be merged with incapacity benefit and restricted to those genuinely unable to work. If people want to stop working early or downshift, fine they can do what they want, but I can't see why the overtaxed young, burdened with disastrous student loans and staggering housing costs, should pay for their end-of-life gap years or decades.
And as for millionaire pensioners getting free public transport while the minimum waged young have to pay full price ...
Middle class metropolitan drivel with no idea of life in the countryside.
For morons only.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/09/bbc-attack-trump-telegraph-tories-tim-davie-resignation
..this saga began just a week ago with the leak of a 19-page “devastating memo” from Michael Prescott, a former political journalist who spent three years as an external adviser to the broadcaster, published in the Telegraph. The dossier alleges BBC Panorama doctored a speech by Trump, making him appear to support the January 6 rioters, that its Arabic coverage privileged pro-Hamas views, and that a group of LGBTQ employees had excessive influence on coverage of sex and gender. The Telegraph wrote that the BBC’s very silence “proves there is a serious problem”. Meanwhile, the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s “blast” at Nick Robinson, the only BBC staffer to publicly fight back against the accusations, leads the Mail on Sunday..
An example of the absurd arguments in Prescott's leak:
..Prescott stresses he has never been a member of a political party and that his views “do not come with any political agenda” in the introduction to his 8,000-word note. Yet each criticism of BBC coverage comes from the anti-progressive culture-war playbook.
For example, he is “shocked” that after an hour-long Panorama documentary dealing with Trump and the January 6 insurgency, there was no “similar, balancing” programme about the Democrat presidential candidate, Kamala Harris...
The article makes pretty clear that his own claim of being free from bias is threadbare.
You'd never get those results baying for blood at The Guardian...
F1: after moaning about qualifying I can't complain about the race. Fantastically entertaining and, rather surprisingly, all the things I bet on came off, narrowly. Huzzah!
https://x.com/steveguest/status/1987718023810322933
I understand Trump is looking at Governor Newsom too. Newsom's media performance and profile is such that any prosecution would be contemptuous and counterproductive. It wouldn't surprise me if the Rubicon was crossed and assassination was seen (not necessarily by Trump, but some in his orbit) as a more productive means of silencing opponents, particularly in Newsom's case. It is surely coming.
That could spell utter catastrophe for the administration if the Epstein files are released as a result and are even one-tenth as bad as rumoured.
There isn't that much money in publishing newspapers these days, and what market there is skews older and older.
So the only way to survive is to cut reporting staff to the bone, publish clickbait to scare/affirm your retired readers (because they're the only ones you have) or hope that some billionaire buys you up as a personal pulpit.
One of the possibilities that gets missed in the pre-budget period is the the sources for all these "Reeves will tax X" stories may be the Treasury, but they may also be the voices in the head of some hack.
The Star is fine in a niche kind of way.
Personally, I'm not sure I buy it. It's a very political angle to take and the Treasury would know the economic damage it could do as it fuels speculation everywhere.
I think it's Reeves and her team doing a bit of kiteflying and laying smoke.
He lost control of his caucus though.
That’s how much of an effect it’s having already, people are making decisions that will stick even if it doesn’t happen this year. People know it’s been floated, and there’s three more Labour budgets still to come.
There is some good journalism in there, don't get me wrong, but let's not pretend it's objective.
It backed Kinnock in 1992 as well.
We were out so were going to watch it on catch up.
What was on in its place ?
Biggest issue is that it removes an incentive to save into pension
Charles Moore did a good job at giving the real issues for the BBC this morning. By, the intervieweress was seriously not happy.
If the Beeb really wanted to protect itself for the future they would appoint David Cameron or Liz Truss to the vacancy. They won't of course and that will be as grave a mistake as anything they have done so far.
But if GB New wants to overtake the Beeb then they need to sort out their endless online adds.
A GB news farming programme would be interesting.
"In German post-war politics, “there has never been such widespread dissatisfaction with a government in such a short period of time,” Manfred Güllner, director of the Forsa polling institute, told AFP.
For Germans who hoped for more decisive leadership after the last government’s collapse, “their expectations have been dashed,”he said.
The winners of February’s general election, Merz’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc now find themselves neck-and-neck in the polls with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second in the poll and is now the largest opposition party."
1) This now has to go to the House who won't pass it
2) If the House does pass it then we reopen the government and the House releases the Epstein file
Remember that the GOP shut down Congress back in September to avoid losing the vote on Epstein. If you are right and a deal is now done to reopen the government then we get Epstein.
Why would anyone be furious about this? There's plenty of reporting from the Hill that the impending Epstein file release has MAGA trying to figure out how they remove Trump so that they can survive his scandal...
Part of the news media is downright shoddy. (I wonder how much of Michael Prescott's work at the Sunday Times met the standards he is now calling for?) It's good that some news media are better than that, but better isn't necessarily enough.
"Let the one without sin cast the first stone" is a wonderful aspiration, but can also be an excuse for the bad guys to get away with bad things.
I’m curious on whether true blue British patriots think there are any UK institutions that are doing a good job?
It’s a trade off between administrative simplicity and/ capex and tax.
If you are going to tax per mile usage then you can have a massive camera network (capex) or rely on MOT tests/self certification (simple albeit with some risk of under declaration).
If you go for self certification you can either have multiple data points to account for when people are in France or in the UK or you can go for the simple solution and accept that some people are going to pay tax when they are driving in another country.
(Not so much Cameron, but Truss?)
NEW THREAD
It would help if the rules didn't keep changing every 2-3 years but, sadly, there is little prospect of this.
The gap between its laity and its clergy has never been wider.
The people that agree with its take on sociocultural issues simply don't watch it and, unfortunately, they're just not making enough good "must watch" television.
David Cameron worked for Carlton TV, which was part of the dumbing-down of British TV post-Thames, and Thatcher's reorganisation of ITV in 1990. Thus not the best recommendation, from Charles Moore there.
ETA one is reminded of the physics Nobel prizewinner Abdus Salam, who related that he came to London on a special scholarship scheme from rural Pakistan that only ever gave one award, as if God had created it especially for him.
Once again you are wrong. The Board of Deputies, which is a fully representative body covering essentially the whole spectrum of Jews in the UK, has been rightly concerned about the institutional bias of the BBC for some time.