1 - On "official agreements". We would do well to remember that Labour and the Lib Dems had an "unofficial official agreement" in 1997, when strategists met up without telling many people.
There's also an (I think) Compass Online podcast somewhere.
2 - I think you underweight the prospect of RefUK disintagrating. There are a lot of people embedded with extreme views / affiliations, and Farage is stepping back from dealing with them.
Also deserves a nod for some implied constituency betting suggestions.
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
You are more sensible than this. For example, any likely settlement will be peanuts, not something that hobbles the BBC’s programming. Trump has threatened a law suit, but hasn’t actually started one: who knows if he ever will. Trump partially controls the Supreme Court, but not most of the lower courts, who have happily tossed Trump’s defamation cases before.
Folks, we’ve got to dial down the hyperbole!
There is no chance of a successful lawsuit against the BBC in the US, because their libel laws a really strict. And selective editing of a politicians speech doesn't come anywhere near the hurdle needed for success.
In the UK there's a much better chance of him prevailing. (Albeit it's still by no means certain.)
But the problem is that maximum payouts in the UK are really low. And the BBC would chuck a million quid offer in at the start of proceedings, and the Judge would say "so long as damages awarded are less than or equal to 1m, then any costs incurred past this point will be the responsibility of the plaintiff."
I doubt he would get anywhere near £1b in damages in the UK even if successful.
There has never been a libel award against an individual in the UK that has passed the 1m mark.
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
Note that Newsom is the only likely contender with a successful parody account running alongside his own efforts.
I DON'T RUN CALIFORNIA THE WAY HE RUNS AMERICA. I DON'T BUILD BALLROOMS, BAILOUT ARGENTINA, STARVE AMERICANS, BASE POLICY ON MY TERROR OF WINDMILLS & THE MYSTERY OF MAGNETS, AND I DON'T ATTACK OUR CITIES. I HAVE THE 4TH LARGEST ECONOMY, HE HAS THE 4TH LARGEST CANKLES. --GCN.. https://x.com/AwesomeNewsom/status/1988100392144830899
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
The issue is a bit like Labour and the Tories, there isn't anybody better....the likes of Bethell are having a rough time and played virtually no red ball cricket, we still open with nicks r us Crawley....
PB obsesses over the licence fee but it’s £15 a month. Two coffees and two cakes in Costa costs about the same. It’s small, small fry in the grand scheme of things when it comes to taxes.
Meanwhile I pay £350 a month in student loan repayments. PB would have a collective aneurysm if income tax was increased to give a £350 a month additional tax burden.
Point of order PBers procure their two coffees and two cakes from Gail's, so the licence fee cost is even more of a trifle (not available at Gail's, although Gail's Mess is an alternative).
So the people on benefits who get dragged into court for non-payment of the license fee should just stop getting their coffee at Gails? Just eat the cake, possible?
It's an absurd system in the 21st cent. Should have gone with encrypted channels when the digital broadcast changeover happened.
Don't you think unvarnished news is worth having? Should everything be governed by the self interest of those with the deepest pockets?
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
Good article. Two minor quibbles however. Firstly. Comparisons with 2010 aren't particularly great. Cameron's Tories weren't perceived as extreme, dangerous or racist by most of their opponents. Indeed, they weren't seen as much difference tbh. An entirely different level of motivation. Secondly. Labour and other voters on the Left vowing to vote Conservative to stop Reform is dismissed as a scenario without evidence. Why? I would. That's just an unsupported opinion. We'll see. But much later.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
4 minutes of Steve Rosenberg's review of the Russian press, which includes some helpful advice for President Trump on winning next year's midterms.
I highly recommend the US government doubles the healthcare costs of 22 to 24 million Americans, while simultaneously denying there is any inflation.
That's the way to win the midterms.
"It's the economy, stupid" has been shortened into the new buzzword of "affordability". Paying for health means you won't be able to afford much of anything else.
The idea that Americans have to pay double (often much more) for their healthcare so that billionaires can have a chunky tax cut does, on the face of it, appear to be one of the most suicidal political ideas ever adopted.
All the hyperbole over BBC will die down, they will install a more Labour friendly DG, they will get licence fee renewal and it will carry on as before like nothing had happened just like every previous scandal.
Longer term the trend isnt their friend.
There’s already several hundred thousand cancellations per year, and as even Sky moves to use broadband rather than satellite connections, that rate will only go up as aerials and dishes become obsolete.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Basically a description of any large long-established organisation; cf. the Post Office
Note that Newsom is the only likely contender with a successful parody account running alongside his own efforts.
I DON'T RUN CALIFORNIA THE WAY HE RUNS AMERICA. I DON'T BUILD BALLROOMS, BAILOUT ARGENTINA, STARVE AMERICANS, BASE POLICY ON MY TERROR OF WINDMILLS & THE MYSTERY OF MAGNETS, AND I DON'T ATTACK OUR CITIES. I HAVE THE 4TH LARGEST ECONOMY, HE HAS THE 4TH LARGEST CANKLES. --GCN.. https://x.com/AwesomeNewsom/status/1988100392144830899
His social media game is excellent.
I don't have any great love for Newsom, and suspect he'd play poorly outside California.
However... he's managed to be front and centre of the Trump resistance, and that's the first step to being the nominee. Polymarket has him at a 38% chance, with AOC in second place. Now normally I'd say 'sell the favourite'. In this case, I can't say that.
Interestingly, Polymarket has Jon Ossoff in fourth place with a 5% chance. Now, not to blow my own horn here, but I bought him at 1% and 2%. I think he's a really good shout: he's from a Purple State, he's young and articulate. I think of him as a not gay Buttigieg, with an actual history of getting elected as something other than the Mayor of a small midwestern town. Will 2028 be his year? Probably not, but I think he's a better shout than AOC on 13%.
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
Note that Newsom is the only likely contender with a successful parody account running alongside his own efforts.
I DON'T RUN CALIFORNIA THE WAY HE RUNS AMERICA. I DON'T BUILD BALLROOMS, BAILOUT ARGENTINA, STARVE AMERICANS, BASE POLICY ON MY TERROR OF WINDMILLS & THE MYSTERY OF MAGNETS, AND I DON'T ATTACK OUR CITIES. I HAVE THE 4TH LARGEST ECONOMY, HE HAS THE 4TH LARGEST CANKLES. --GCN.. https://x.com/AwesomeNewsom/status/1988100392144830899
His social media game is excellent.
I don't have any great love for Newsom, and suspect he'd play poorly outside California.
However... he's managed to be front and centre of the Trump resistance, and that's the first step to being the nominee. Polymarket has him at a 38% chance, with AOC in second place. Now normally I'd say 'sell the favourite'. In this case, I can't say that.
Interestingly, Polymarket has Jon Ossoff in fourth place with a 5% chance. Now, not to blow my own horn here, but I bought him at 1% and 2%. I think he's a really good shout: he's from a Purple State, he's young and articulate. I think of him as a not gay Buttigieg, with an actual history of getting elected as something other than the Mayor of a small midwestern town. Will 2028 be his year? Probably not, but I think he's a better shout than AOC on 13%.
Yes, he wouldn't be my first choice, either. But that's no reason the bet against him.
Agree regarding AOC. I suspect she'll look to be in the Senate for a time before having a serious go at the nomination, anyway.
The Russians are peddling a story about foiling an Anglo-Ukrainian plot to hijack a MiG-31 armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile and flying it at a Romanian airbase to provoke NATO.
These sorts of information operations are often mounted by Russia in advance of them taking the action they accuse Ukraine of attempting/planning.
Man those Anglos are living rent free in Russia’s head!
I suspect there are some real UK lead plots against Russia. But we will have to wait a long time to find out what they actually were. Hopefully the day will come when the people involved can publically celebrate their part in Ukraine's victory.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
For full transparency, it should be noted that Emily Maitlis cited Robbie Gibbs' political interference in the McTaggart lecture and Lewis Goodall says Gibb targeted him. So their views of the malignant right wing turd might not be entirely unbiased.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
You are more sensible than this. For example, any likely settlement will be peanuts, not something that hobbles the BBC’s programming. Trump has threatened a law suit, but hasn’t actually started one: who knows if he ever will. Trump partially controls the Supreme Court, but not most of the lower courts, who have happily tossed Trump’s defamation cases before.
Folks, we’ve got to dial down the hyperbole!
There is no chance of a successful lawsuit against the BBC in the US, because their libel laws a really strict. And selective editing of a politicians speech doesn't come anywhere near the hurdle needed for success.
In the UK there's a much better chance of him prevailing. (Albeit it's still by no means certain.)
But the problem is that maximum payouts in the UK are really low. And the BBC would chuck a million quid offer in at the start of proceedings, and the Judge would say "so long as damages awarded are less than or equal to 1m, then any costs incurred past this point will be the responsibility of the plaintiff."
I doubt he would get anywhere near £1b in damages in the UK even if successful.
There has never been a libel award against an individual in the UK that has passed the 1m mark.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
You are more sensible than this. For example, any likely settlement will be peanuts, not something that hobbles the BBC’s programming. Trump has threatened a law suit, but hasn’t actually started one: who knows if he ever will. Trump partially controls the Supreme Court, but not most of the lower courts, who have happily tossed Trump’s defamation cases before.
Folks, we’ve got to dial down the hyperbole!
There is no chance of a successful lawsuit against the BBC in the US, because their libel laws a really strict. And selective editing of a politicians speech doesn't come anywhere near the hurdle needed for success.
In the UK there's a much better chance of him prevailing. (Albeit it's still by no means certain.)
But the problem is that maximum payouts in the UK are really low. And the BBC would chuck a million quid offer in at the start of proceedings, and the Judge would say "so long as damages awarded are less than or equal to 1m, then any costs incurred past this point will be the responsibility of the plaintiff."
I doubt he would get anywhere near £1b in damages in the UK even if successful.
There has never been a libel award against an individual in the UK that has passed the 1m mark.
Not correct. Aldington was awarded £2.5 million in his case against Tolstoy, although Tolstoy never actually paid it (because in addition to being a liar and a Nazi he is also a sore loser).
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
Even if Pope was replaced by someone of great cricketing skill, we would still be losing the Ashes this year.
Much as I hate to agree, I tend to agree. Its really hard to win away against most test teams, let alone Australia. You have to be really, really good and ideally have a settled side. England have two incredible batsman (Root, and yes, I think Brook is in that class too) plus Stokes can be amazing. But they have a collapse in them and one collapse in a test is usually good night. And the bowling attack is callow.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
I think the answer is that the BBC would love for the issue to be seen as a very narrow one around one edit of a Trump speech, because that’s their comfort zone, and neatly side-steps needing to answer the much more difficult issues around certain other policy areas where their concept of impartiality has fallen well short.
Note that Newsom is the only likely contender with a successful parody account running alongside his own efforts.
I DON'T RUN CALIFORNIA THE WAY HE RUNS AMERICA. I DON'T BUILD BALLROOMS, BAILOUT ARGENTINA, STARVE AMERICANS, BASE POLICY ON MY TERROR OF WINDMILLS & THE MYSTERY OF MAGNETS, AND I DON'T ATTACK OUR CITIES. I HAVE THE 4TH LARGEST ECONOMY, HE HAS THE 4TH LARGEST CANKLES. --GCN.. https://x.com/AwesomeNewsom/status/1988100392144830899
His social media game is excellent.
I don't have any great love for Newsom, and suspect he'd play poorly outside California.
However... he's managed to be front and centre of the Trump resistance, and that's the first step to being the nominee. Polymarket has him at a 38% chance, with AOC in second place. Now normally I'd say 'sell the favourite'. In this case, I can't say that.
Interestingly, Polymarket has Jon Ossoff in fourth place with a 5% chance. Now, not to blow my own horn here, but I bought him at 1% and 2%. I think he's a really good shout: he's from a Purple State, he's young and articulate. I think of him as a not gay Buttigieg, with an actual history of getting elected as something other than the Mayor of a small midwestern town. Will 2028 be his year? Probably not, but I think he's a better shout than AOC on 13%.
Depending on what happens next, there are two possibilities.
One is that the Democrats win, whoever their candidate is. Think what happened to Starmer, turned up to 11.
The other is that they lose, irrespective of the brilliance of their candidate.
It would be brilliant if I knew which of those possibilities is going to happen, but that's not really up to me.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
Yes - the BBC has played a blinder in the last 24h in shifting it to this.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Phew it is a relief that the older, typically male, right wing, establishment brigade are there to ensure we have some impartiality and avoid any bias.
I also note that Gibb, just like Cummings, has links to Russia from his young adult days. Remarkable how so many of these types manage to be involved in the destruction of our establishment, pure coincidence I'm sure.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
It isn't easy.
And I suspect that's the underlying problem. A big generational shift in the understanding of what "normal" looks like, leading to mutual misunderstanding and mistrust.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Phew it is a relief that the older, typically male, right wing, establishment brigade are there to ensure we have some impartiality and avoid any bias.
I also note that Gibb, just like Cummings, has links to Russia from his young adult days. Remarkable how so many of these types manage to be involved in the destruction of our establishment, pure coincidence I'm sure.
Thats not what I said. And you really think that the BBC is full of old right wing men?
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Phew it is a relief that the older, typically male, right wing, establishment brigade are there to ensure we have some impartiality and avoid any bias.
I also note that Gibb, just like Cummings, has links to Russia from his young adult days. Remarkable how so many of these types manage to be involved in the destruction of our establishment, pure coincidence I'm sure.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
PB obsesses over the licence fee but it’s £15 a month. Two coffees and two cakes in Costa costs about the same. It’s small, small fry in the grand scheme of things when it comes to taxes.
Meanwhile I pay £350 a month in student loan repayments. PB would have a collective aneurysm if income tax was increased to give a £350 a month additional tax burden.
Point of order PBers procure their two coffees and two cakes from Gail's, so the licence fee cost is even more of a trifle (not available at Gail's, although Gail's Mess is an alternative).
So the people on benefits who get dragged into court for non-payment of the license fee should just stop getting their coffee at Gails? Just eat the cake, possible?
It's an absurd system in the 21st cent. Should have gone with encrypted channels when the digital broadcast changeover happened.
Don't you think unvarnished news is worth having? Should everything be governed by the self interest of those with the deepest pockets?
I thought you were saying that we should just listen to Fucker Carlson, instead?
It is perfectly possible to find ways to fund a public broadcaster that don't mean dragging poor people to court to get them to pay.
It's an expensive system to run, and quite ludicrous.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
That's not massively different from what Lewis Goodall said in the article I posted earlier today.
..the BBC is still in its usual bland, mushy central position, with its boring set of dispositions- but it seems more left wing by default. It hasn’t moved- the environment has and continues to do so. But the biggest sin the BBC has in my experience, is that the BBC isn’t that political at all, that it doesn’t have enough truly political people of any type. It should more arch liberals, conservatives, socialists- so long as they can and are willing to think critically. Instead, it too often chooses not to think at all, because it’s easier, and safer- the intellectual crouch position. But that is precisely because it has been so terrified by the criticism it receives. The safe place for output is the stodgy and inoffensive, the twee and the banal. Is it institutionally biased? No. Is it institutionally unimaginative and insufficiently curious to all radical political ideas? Yes. Is it now institutionally risk averse? Yes.....
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Phew it is a relief that the older, typically male, right wing, establishment brigade are there to ensure we have some impartiality and avoid any bias.
I also note that Gibb, just like Cummings, has links to Russia from his young adult days. Remarkable how so many of these types manage to be involved in the destruction of our establishment, pure coincidence I'm sure.
Thats not what I said. And you really think that the BBC is full of old right wing men?
If you think the likes of Gibb, who certainly fits the bill, are there to add impartiality, whilst those you disagree with are there to be deliberately biased, you are being incredibly naive.
PB obsesses over the licence fee but it’s £15 a month. Two coffees and two cakes in Costa costs about the same. It’s small, small fry in the grand scheme of things when it comes to taxes.
Meanwhile I pay £350 a month in student loan repayments. PB would have a collective aneurysm if income tax was increased to give a £350 a month additional tax burden.
Point of order PBers procure their two coffees and two cakes from Gail's, so the licence fee cost is even more of a trifle (not available at Gail's, although Gail's Mess is an alternative).
I was in Birmingham town centre this weekend for the Christmas Market (which was mostly garbage) but I must report that Gail's have made it this far North
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
For full transparency, it should be noted that Emily Maitlis cited Robbie Gibbs' political interference in the McTaggart lecture and Lewis Goodall says Gibb targeted him. So their views of the malignant right wing turd might not be entirely unbiased.
True. But in Goodall's case, he had a dispute with Gibb, which apparently went through an internal process which found in favour of Goodall.
I love these US podcasts. If Trump has a case against the BBC these guys would be millionaires. Tucker Carlson seems to be everyone's football at the moment just after he's become civilised...... This one is par for the course. i think we can happily dismiss Trump even if he tries it on in the US. Analysis US style.....
When you say civilised, you mean an anti-Semite supporter of Russia?
He's certainly not anti semitic. Well nothing I've seen. I didn't know he was a supporter of Russia but there again you got the anti semitic thing wrong so maybe you got the Russia support wrong as well?
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
That's a good summation but those are also the reasons it's the most trusted news organisation in the world.
I've known several people who worked at and for the BBC. I loved the idea that the BBC took the trouble to find out the correct pronunciation of words and names and didn't speculate if they didn't have an answer. The didn't flannel around like Sky and so many of the others did. When the BBC said something it had been checked. It was what made the BBC both loved and trusted.
We had a BBC report on beheaded babies in Gaza which was completely innacurate and within hours repeated by an American President. This was just a simple case of having an inexperienced reporter in the wrong place at the wrong time. But political interference and the odd mistake has certainly tarnished it lately and they've clearly lost some of their confidence
But the good heavily outweighs the bad. It's not just news though it's in all departments and they have discovered some of the best and brightest talent around.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
You appear to have forgotten the two of the BBC's senior managers have reigned over all this.
And yes, mean Mr Trump is absolutely trying to bully us.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
I think the Leicester seats would be the median ones (all equal by their principal settlement). But it might be Coventry.
Does anyone remember the way that most returning officers in 2010 tried to do counting on the next day, and it was only because of a determined campaign by Iain Dale that 95% of them were persuaded to change their mind and continue with election night?
I don't, but well done to him. But it's an idea which will keep coming back, not enough people care enough to retain what is, essentially, just a tradition.
I'm not so sure on this one. Donning my hard-nosed value hat, what is the extra cost of overnight counts compared to next day?
The point about "overnight ballot-stuffing" is imo frivolous.
But at a time of cost-squeeze, I'm not sure overnight counts are always worth their place.
My County Council are this year spending the cost of a new children's playground on flag wagging, that is £75k pissed away on virtue signalling. I'd rather have the children's playground.
Do you feel the same about Pride zebra crossings and the like. I’ve never seen you complain about them.
I've always had a downer on virtue-signalling - starting years ago with the ever expanding list of -isms, and -archies (eg when the oppressive patriarchy became a kiriarchy), on some self-indulgent blogs.
On Rainbow Crossings, I've criticised them here - but I've probably lead with the issue of road safety and confusing assistance dogs etc. We have a rainbow crossing at our local hospital, which I've mentioned as unacceptable for that reason to reception staff. In this case, the white lines elsewhere are so faded on campus that a mini-roundabout has entirely vanished. I do, though, usually steer clear of the PB tans wars.
I think the whole Rainbow Crossing thing is a very effective bit of marketing by a company selling thermoplastic and MMA resin surfaces, creating a market for themselves.
I'm more sympathetic to "rainbow" things (eg murals), than to "flag" things as we have now, as the latter are specifically aimed at driving division imo.
I'm quite happy with items such as the NHS Rainbow Lanyard project which identifies staff with a specific training in questions around LGBT in the NHS etc, who can then be approached for advice.
Quite agree about rainbow crossings from the functional p of v. Es\pecvially [edit] if they are on places like organizational sites where there are no Belisha beacons.
It must also confuse the partly sighted (and some drivers, not necessarily the half blind idiots some of them seem to be). If someone crosses and gets run over by a driver, do the laws (and Highway Code) apply? Hundxreds of speed maniacs got off scot free because some supplier or commissioner made a slip over the specification for the coating of the speed restriction road sign.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted and seen DG and Head of News resign that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk. Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the should be American dictator.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted and seen DG and Head of News resign that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk. Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the should be American dictator.
On topic, if the election were to be in 2026 I think it is spot on. However with two or three years to go, it is premature.
By the time of the election there will be changes from various local elections where Labour are likely to do badly and that may lead to it being obvious which of Reform opponents have the best chance in seats like Hemel. Or it may be that one of the LLG parties has got to 25% area with the other two around 12%, which would again lead to much more clarity on how to use a tactical vote.
It is best left as too early to tell at this stage.
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
Based on ONS data on conurbations derived from the 2011 census summarized on Wikipedia I would reckon the median seat would be part of a town like Swindon, Crawley, Ipswich or Wigan with a population a little under 200k.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
For full transparency, it should be noted that Emily Maitlis cited Robbie Gibbs' political interference in the McTaggart lecture and Lewis Goodall says Gibb targeted him. So their views of the malignant right wing turd might not be entirely unbiased.
It is based on their direct experience of him. First person testimony. That's not bias.
Warren Buffet says goodbye in his final annual letter today (full copy in the comments below).
As he signed off, the following were final words of advice:
"One perhaps self-serving observation. I’m happy to say I feel better about the second half of my life than the first. My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve. Get the right heroes and copy them. You can start with Tom Murphy; he was the best.
Remember Alfred Nobel, later of Nobel Prize fame, who – reportedly – read his own obituary that was mistakenly printed when his brother died and a newspaper got mixed up. He was horrified at what he read and realized he should change his behavior.
Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up: Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.
Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.
I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman." https://x.com/SMB_Attorney/status/1987959365681504419
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
Based on ONS data on conurbations derived from the 2011 census summarized on Wikipedia I would reckon the median seat would be part of a town like Swindon, Crawley, Ipswich or Wigan with a population a little under 200k.
The first highlight of election night coverage in recent memory has been the town of Nuneaton, which is an early declaration and has been won by the largest party overall since 1997.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
Why not go and read the actual dossier?
I have just read it. It's a report about bias in the BBC that is massively biased itself, ironically. And therefore useless as a guide for improvement. Prescott's basic complaint is that the BBC isn't reporting stuff from his ideological perspective.
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
Why not go and read the actual dossier?
I have just read it. It's a report about bias in the BBC that is massively biased itself, ironically. And therefore useless as a guide for improvement. Prescott's basic complaint is that the BBC isn't reporting stuff from his ideological perspective.
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
Errr, hello
The crooked Democrats rigged the 2020 election. Why didn't Panorama do a program on that???
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
Based on ONS data on conurbations derived from the 2011 census summarized on Wikipedia I would reckon the median seat would be part of a town like Swindon, Crawley, Ipswich or Wigan with a population a little under 200k.
The first highlight of election night coverage in recent memory has been the town of Nuneaton, which is an early declaration and has been won by the largest party overall since 1997.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
Why not go and read the actual dossier?
I have just read it. It's a report about bias in the BBC that is massively biased itself, ironically. And therefore useless as a guide for improvement. Prescott's basic complaint is that the BBC isn't reporting stuff from his ideological perspective.
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
Errr, hello
The crooked Democrats rigged the 2020 election. Why didn't Panorama do a program on that???
No, no, no
The Lizardmen in People Suits rigged the 2020 election.
The Lizardmen were working for the Zeta Reticulans, who were working for the Grand Council of the Illuminati, who were working for the Bildberg Group.
The *Bildberg Group* control the Democrats.
You need to get the organisational diagram right, otherwise you'll never understand The Truth.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
Why not go and read the actual dossier?
I have just read it. It's a report about bias in the BBC that is massively biased itself, ironically. And therefore useless as a guide for improvement. Prescott's basic complaint is that the BBC isn't reporting stuff from his ideological perspective.
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
Errr, hello
The crooked Democrats rigged the 2020 election. Why didn't Panorama do a program on that???
We might laugh, but Prescott is basically saying just that in his dossier.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
Remember the reaction to Huw Edwards....for weeks it was but but but its the Sun, the Sun, THE SUN....oh shit its true, in fact its far worse, but still THE SUN....
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
You could change that to "Much older editorial staff who are anti Palestine and anti trans and younger staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible."
See. It isn't easy.
I don't agree with that. I don't think older editors are necessarily anti Palestine and anti trans. I think its more nuanced.
So editorial staff are nuanced but the interns and juniors are biased? If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
Why not go and read the actual dossier?
I have just read it. It's a report about bias in the BBC that is massively biased itself, ironically. And therefore useless as a guide for improvement. Prescott's basic complaint is that the BBC isn't reporting stuff from his ideological perspective.
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
Errr, hello
The crooked Democrats rigged the 2020 election. Why didn't Panorama do a program on that???
Possibly because there weren't 210 indicted Democrats who testified under oath that they were following Kamala's lead in trying to storm Congress ?
I love these US podcasts. If Trump has a case against the BBC these guys would be millionaires. Tucker Carlson seems to be everyone's football at the moment just after he's become civilised...... This one is par for the course. i think we can happily dismiss Trump even if he tries it on in the US. Analysis US style.....
When you say civilised, you mean an anti-Semite supporter of Russia?
He's certainly not anti semitic. Well nothing I've seen. I didn't know he was a supporter of Russia but there again you got the anti semitic thing wrong so maybe you got the Russia support wrong as well?
There is a major battle going on in the US about support for Israel. Tucker Carlson has changed sides and decided that the US should not be at the whim of Netanyahu and the extremely powerful Israeli lobby. I've since seen dozens of interviews with Carlson and haven't seen any anti semitism from him. He's talented and popular and his opinions have turned 180 degrees so it's easy to see why he scares his opponents.
I don't know much about him before his damascene conversion. This that I posted this morning is worth watching
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
That's a really interesting question. It would not be a small town or similar because we are 85% urbanised, and a majority live in settlements of 100k+ population. The number living in settlements smaller than an entire constituency is a substantial minority, but a minority.
Making an estimate, it would be part of a settlement which is larger than the Constituency. Say something like half of Dundee, York, Gloucester, Burnley, Telford, Blackburn, Basildon, Grimsby, which are urban areas in the 150k range.
The UK population is 68 million. And counting down the list, the cumulative sum gets to 34 million somewhere around line 55 - which is the size I identified above.
I love these US podcasts. If Trump has a case against the BBC these guys would be millionaires. Tucker Carlson seems to be everyone's football at the moment just after he's become civilised...... This one is par for the course. i think we can happily dismiss Trump even if he tries it on in the US. Analysis US style.....
When you say civilised, you mean an anti-Semite supporter of Russia?
He's certainly not anti semitic. Well nothing I've seen. I didn't know he was a supporter of Russia but there again you got the anti semitic thing wrong so maybe you got the Russia support wrong as well?
There is a major battle going on in the US about support for Israel. Tucker Carlson has changed sides and decided that the US should not be at the whim of Netanyahu and the extremely powerful Israeli lobby. I've since seen dozens of interviews with Carlson and haven't seen any anti semitism from him. He's talented and popular and his opinions have turned 180 degrees so it's easy to see why he scares his opponents.
I don't know much about him before his damascene conversion. This that I posted this morning is worth watching
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
I thought the 4 country representatives were appointed on the advice of the relevant First Minister (ie Boris at the time).
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
Which part of the editorial or production team was Gibbs on? Which part of the gender critical debate did he consort output from?
Here’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
I've known several people who worked at and for the BBC. I loved the idea that the BBC took the trouble to find out the correct pronunciation of words and names and didn't speculate if they didn't have an answer. The didn't flannel around like Sky and so many of the others did. When the BBC said something it had been checked. It was what made the BBC both loved and trusted.
We had a BBC report on beheaded babies in Gaza which was completely innacurate and within hours repeated by an American President. This was just a simple case of having an inexperienced reporter in the wrong place at the wrong time. But political interference and the odd mistake has certainly tarnished it lately and they've clearly lost some of their confidence
But the good heavily outweighs the bad. It's not just news though it's in all departments and they have discovered some of the best and brightest talent around.
That's not really my point. It's not that they 'find out' the correct pronunciation of words, they seek to *define* them. And then largely pretend the earlier defintions were never a thing, as though it's always been 'Kyiv' and 'Türkiye' and 'Global Majority' and whatever the correct transgenderspeak term happens to be this morning, before someone comes up with new one. The very notion that there is a 'correct' and an 'incorrect', and that these are mutable is part of the problem.
I'm not sure the BBC is really 'loved and trusted' when it keeps shifting the plates and pandering to the transient whims of wokery - at least not outside of its own overprotected bubble of righteousness.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
Which part of the editorial or production team was Gibbs on? Which part of the gender critical debate did he consort output from?
Here’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
Read up about what Gibb has been up to . Interfering beyond his remit .
I love these US podcasts. If Trump has a case against the BBC these guys would be millionaires. Tucker Carlson seems to be everyone's football at the moment just after he's become civilised...... This one is par for the course. i think we can happily dismiss Trump even if he tries it on in the US. Analysis US style.....
When you say civilised, you mean an anti-Semite supporter of Russia?
He's certainly not anti semitic. Well nothing I've seen. I didn't know he was a supporter of Russia but there again you got the anti semitic thing wrong so maybe you got the Russia support wrong as well?
There is a major battle going on in the US about support for Israel. Tucker Carlson has changed sides and decided that the US should not be at the whim of Netanyahu and the extremely powerful Israeli lobby. I've since seen dozens of interviews with Carlson and haven't seen any anti semitism from him. He's talented and popular and his opinions have turned 180 degrees so it's easy to see why he scares his opponents.
I don't know much about him before his damascene conversion. This that I posted this morning is worth watching
Just because he is anti-Netanyahu, you’ve decided to ignore the other stuff.
For example, just last year he invited onto his show and *politely agreed* with Dugin. The Russian self declared Fascist who is the “philosopher” of Putin’s political party.
By Fascist, I don’t mean a bit right wing. Or a bit anti immigrant. He (Dugin) has expressed in clear and simple words that he see himself as a Russian Fascist and wants to be the intellectual base of that movement.
Carlson is an utterly putrid, ghastly person, who did an enormous amount to support and enable Trumpism.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
Which part of the editorial or production team was Gibbs on? Which part of the gender critical debate did he consort output from?
Here’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
If 400 prominent people write in complaining about him 111 from the BBC I would say there's plenty of reason. Or do you suspect a conspiracy?
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
Which part of the editorial or production team was Gibbs on? Which part of the gender critical debate did he consort output from?
Here’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
I think Gibb's, who has been stirring over recent years, part of this issue is in being one of the ones who prevented a timely response by the BBC - in preventing a statement being issued quickly to cap the problem off.
Rather than an immediate response it went round and round in the Board for days, which prevented management of the issue and made it worse.
I can't comment on whether that was a deliberate effort to undermine the credibility of the BBC. If that is true, it will emerge somehow, I am sure.
I've known several people who worked at and for the BBC. I loved the idea that the BBC took the trouble to find out the correct pronunciation of words and names and didn't speculate if they didn't have an answer. The didn't flannel around like Sky and so many of the others did. When the BBC said something it had been checked. It was what made the BBC both loved and trusted.
We had a BBC report on beheaded babies in Gaza which was completely innacurate and within hours repeated by an American President. This was just a simple case of having an inexperienced reporter in the wrong place at the wrong time. But political interference and the odd mistake has certainly tarnished it lately and they've clearly lost some of their confidence
But the good heavily outweighs the bad. It's not just news though it's in all departments and they have discovered some of the best and brightest talent around.
That's not really my point. It's not that they 'find out' the correct pronunciation of words, they seek to *define* them. And then largely pretend the earlier defintions were never a thing, as though it's always been 'Kyiv' and 'Türkiye' and 'Global Majority' and whatever the correct transgenderspeak term happens to be this morning, before someone comes up with new one. The very notion that there is a 'correct' and an 'incorrect', and that these are mutable is part of the problem.
I'm not sure the BBC is really 'loved and trusted' when it keeps shifting the plates and pandering to the transient whims of wokery - at least not outside of its own overprotected bubble of righteousness.
Tis wondrous that we employ not the selfsame words as we did these five hundred years past.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
Remember the reaction to Huw Edwards....for weeks it was but but but its the Sun, the Sun, THE SUN....oh shit its true, in fact its far worse, but still THE SUN....
I wonder how many Huw Edwards, Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, DLT types are still around the BBC and are still being covered up because the BBC are scared of the publicity, or worse still, because they are BBC types? It’s not just politically that the BBC are a failing organisation.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
Remember the reaction to Huw Edwards....for weeks it was but but but its the Sun, the Sun, THE SUN....oh shit its true, in fact its far worse, but still THE SUN....
I wonder how many Huw Edwards, Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, DLT types are still around the BBC and are still being covered up because the BBC are scared of the publicity, or worse still, because they are BBC types? It’s not just politically that the BBC are a failing organisation.
Well remember nobody knew anything about Tim Westwood, Wusselly Brand.....
My perspective, having worked at the BBC (albeit 25 years ago), is that BBC bias is misunderstood.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
Yup. With two important caveats.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
In the big cities, yes, but not so much in the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
That's a really interesting question. It would not be a small town or similar because we are 85% urbanised, and a majority live in settlements of 100k+ population. The number living in settlements smaller than an entire constituency is a substantial minority, but a minority.
Making an estimate, it would be part of a settlement which is larger than the Constituency. Say something like half of Dundee, York, Gloucester, Burnley, Telford, Blackburn, Basildon, Grimsby, which are urban areas in the 150k range.
The UK population is 68 million. And counting down the list, the cumulative sum gets to 34 million somewhere around line 55 - which is the size I identified above.
Reflecting, another way to get at this would be to take the middle 10 constituencies in a list ordered by area, and look at the size of their settlements.
Since the populations are close within narrow margins, that should give a decent approximate measure of size of settlement (or size of settlement of which the constituency is a part).
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
Remember the reaction to Huw Edwards....for weeks it was but but but its the Sun, the Sun, THE SUN....oh shit its true, in fact its far worse, but still THE SUN....
Not even the Sunday Sport would have published that story without triple-checking facts and sources.
He’d have sued their arse for a million and several million more in costs, and we know he has good lawyers because he managed to get his sentence suspended.
Based on ONS data on conurbations derived from the 2011 census summarized on Wikipedia I would reckon the median seat would be part of a town like Swindon, Crawley, Ipswich or Wigan with a population a little under 200k.
I don't think anwhere can be a truly representive median. None of these places feel like a microcosm of Britain (or even England) as a whole, or even just a 'typical place'.
Ipswich, where I lived for several years, is strangely isolated and insular. When I was there it was trying to make something of the 'tech corridor' between itself and Cambridge, which failed because there was pretty much nothing in between the two.
Crawley is a few miles down the road from where I am now and I have to go to meetings there sometimes. It lacks an identity and feels dominated by Gatwick and out-of-town aviation sector employment. A dull, characterless place where I can't imagine people feel much of a sense of belonging.
Wigan just feels too overtly 'Northern' to be representative. Rugby League. Old Mills. Old Labour.
Swindon is the best candidate of these. Sits on the frontier between South East and South West, and feels quite neutral. I suspect middling scores in various demographic metrics. Tends to be a bellwether at parliamentary level. Has a largely forgotten old town and lot of new stuff. I don't like the place very much.
Based on geography, population, and general averageness in many departments, I'd be tempted to suggest... Peterborough.
But my understanding is that in the US to win a defamation case you mistakenly not only prove that the statement is untrue and libellous but that you were acting with malice. That is quite a high bar.
Also the US has stated that US courts will not automatically recognise libel judgments of the UK courts because they do not meet the high standards of US press freedom and First Amendment rights.
So Trump might not win the US courts and if he won in the UK courts might not be able to enforce. (Not that I'd expect him to sue in the UK.)
There's no case in the US. These were the actual words of the President. Now, were they cut to make him look more guilty? Yes.
But if that constitutes libel, then the vast majority of US political attack adverts, which similarly take remarks out of context, are then equally guilty.
Libel has a far superior construction in the US compared to the UK where the bar is far too low though
A UK libel trial could be highly amusing. Trump would have to appear in person and be cross-examined surely?
Then to recieve the princely sum of £1 in damages to his reputation, being a known liar and sexual predator.
Is there enough popcorn in the world?
My understanding is the jurisdiction of choice is Florida.
Presumably Panorama has a hefty audience figure in the Sunshine State.
As with everything Trump it is all theatre.
The pernicious element to the whole story is the role of ex GBNews top dog Robbie Gibb in escalating the issue, and what exactly are his motives. Robbie Gibb is another example of Long Johnson.
"The first step towards saving our precious BBC: remove Robbie Gibb from the board" Ed Davey
Ah yes, History Repeating
For those who don't remember, during the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS was gradually made more and more legal liable for fuckups. Whistleblowers weren't protected - that would have been excessive! - but the automatic utter destruction of people trying to blow the whistle was ended. Kinda.
An example of the hilarity - in the law 90s, the NHS was to start recording and collating surgical outcomes. The surgeons revolted - all would resign. Then the government announced it wouldn't be retrospective and would, in fact, be brought in at an announced future date. Calm was resumed. A number of rather old surgeons officially moved into management.....
Anyway, through this process of discovering accountability, the theme was often repeated that "Anyone criticising problems in the NHS is attacking the NHS". Certain politicians even backed campaigns against those raising issues.
It took a long time for the truth to sink in - in all organisations, raising the issues is to *protect* the organisation. The problems aren't the whistleblower's or those campaigning to fix problems. The problems are the problems.
Yes but Robbie Gibb is not sorting the problem, he is part of the problem. Let the journalists do their job. Separate news from comment. Root out hidden agendas
That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.
The report on bias issues is there. Have you read it?
Yes I have in full. Do you know who wrote the report and who appointed him?
Listen to this. These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
The person raising the complaint is the problem - that was the standard NHS behaviour, until the courts beat the understanding that whistleblowing is a public service, into them.
Remember the reaction to Huw Edwards....for weeks it was but but but its the Sun, the Sun, THE SUN....oh shit its true, in fact its far worse, but still THE SUN....
Not even the Sunday Sport would have published that story without triple-checking facts and sources.
He’d have sued their arse for a million and several million more in costs, and we know he has good lawyers because he managed to get his sentence suspended.
The claim that also blew up was that well typical Sun must have been muck raking, paid for the story, etc etc etc, when the family came to them after trying and failing with the BBC etc. It was a terribly sad story.
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
I thought the 4 country representatives were appointed on the advice of the relevant First Minister (ie Boris at the time).
What is the convention about sacking one?
According to Article 28 of the BBC's Royal Charter, a non-executive member of the Board ceases to hold office if their appointment is terminated by an Order in Council. This termination can only occur if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, (Lisa Nandy) having consulted the BBC Board (and the relevant devolved government for a Nation Member), the member is "unable, unfit or unwilling to perform the functions of a member".
That's quite a high bar.
He was appointed by the previous Tory government before the 2024 general election. "Following Privy Council approval on 13 March, Sir Robbie Gibb has been reappointed for four years from 07 May 2024 to 06 May 2028."
Tories only 8% behind Reform. That may well close up after the Budget. I certainly expect clear blue water between Labour and the Tories by next month.
Based on ONS data on conurbations derived from the 2011 census summarized on Wikipedia I would reckon the median seat would be part of a town like Swindon, Crawley, Ipswich or Wigan with a population a little under 200k.
I don't think anwhere can be a truly representive median. None of these places feel like a microcosm of Britain (or even England) as a whole, or even just a 'typical place'.
Ipswich, where I lived for several years, is strangely isolated and insular. When I was there it was trying to make something of the 'tech corridor' between itself and Cambridge, which failed because there was pretty much nothing in between the two.
Crawley is a few miles down the road from where I am now and I have to go to meetings there sometimes. It lacks an identity and feels dominated by Gatwick and out-of-town aviation sector employment. A dull, characterless place where I can't imagine people feel much of a sense of belonging.
Wigan just feels too overtly 'Northern' to be representative. Rugby League. Old Mills. Old Labour.
Swindon is the best candidate of these. Sits on the frontier between South East and South West, and feels quite neutral. I suspect middling scores in various demographic metrics. Tends to be a bellwether at parliamentary level. Has a largely forgotten old town and lot of new stuff. I don't like the place very much.
Based on geography, population, and general averageness in many departments, I'd be tempted to suggest... Peterborough.
Swindon being "middle Britain" is a profoundly depressing idea; it's ghastly
A few scenarios how they end 1) They obsequiously apologise, with some kind of grotesque new standard for "impartiality" imposed so that just like GBNews they send a presenter to salute Trump's motorcade. We still have BBC News, but now with a Reform puppet as overlord. 2) They pay Trumpler a settlement amount. Public money. Which means they have to then cancel a whole load of programmes that people actually watch as no money to pay for them. They stagger on but its a shadow of where it was 3) Someone at the BBC grows a pair and they go contest it in Florida. They'll lose because of course they will - Florida is MAGA and Trumpler controls the courts.
I am astonished at how this affair has become all about Trump. Its not. There are far wider areas of concern - notably bias in coverage of Gaza, trans issues and so on. The most perceptive coverage has drawn the distinction between much younger staff, more likely to be pro Palestine, pro Trans etc, and older editorial staff who are struggling to keep as impartial as possible.
Because it becomes easy to excuse away bad behaviour. If it’s a fixed choice between Trump and the BBC it’s easy. And that’s the way many are trying to frame it. In some ways bizarrely as if the BBC is the injured party in all this and that mean mr Trump is trying to bully us.
That's exactly how I see it.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
Ah yes. Because those attacking the BBC are bad (they are), we should ignore any issues. Because drawing attention to the problems undermines the organisation.
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump - Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
I agree with this. But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed. Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
Which part of the editorial or production team was Gibbs on? Which part of the gender critical debate did he consort output from?
Here’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
I don't think you understand what Gibbs role has been, and why the head of News has resigned.
Comments
Gareth's headers are consistently good.
Marcus Trescothick has hinted Ollie Pope will remain as England's first-choice number three for the Ashes, saying the tourists are "very consistent" in their selection.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/czxk54y27wjo
Among Black Democratic Voters - Presidential Polling:
Harris: 40%
Newsom: 15%
Booker: 7%
Buttigieg: 4%
Warren: 3%
Sanders: 3%
Walz: 3%
AOC: 2%
YouGov / Nov 9, 2025
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1987988674378703305
Note that Newsom is the only likely contender with a successful parody account running alongside his own efforts.
I DON'T RUN CALIFORNIA THE WAY HE RUNS AMERICA. I DON'T BUILD BALLROOMS, BAILOUT ARGENTINA, STARVE AMERICANS, BASE POLICY ON MY TERROR OF WINDMILLS & THE MYSTERY OF MAGNETS, AND I DON'T ATTACK OUR CITIES. I HAVE THE 4TH LARGEST ECONOMY, HE HAS THE 4TH LARGEST CANKLES. --GCN..
https://x.com/AwesomeNewsom/status/1988100392144830899
His social media game is excellent.
https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episodes/7Drv8Cz/
Listen to this.
These three are well connected to the BBC and have spoken to at least 30 people within the BBC and on the Board to try to find out what is going on.
You say "That is the phraseology used over many. many NHS scandals.". That is simply not true.
Two minor quibbles however.
Firstly. Comparisons with 2010 aren't particularly great. Cameron's Tories weren't perceived as extreme, dangerous or racist by most of their opponents. Indeed, they weren't seen as much difference tbh.
An entirely different level of motivation.
Secondly. Labour and other voters on the Left vowing to vote Conservative to stop Reform is dismissed as a scenario without evidence. Why? I would. That's just an unsupported opinion.
We'll see. But much later.
It undoubtedly exists, but instead of thinking in terms of Left and Right, it is that the BBC has a strong inherent bias towards the BBC way of doing things. It is fundamentally and existentially pro-self.
What this means in reality is that self-selection and groupthink coupled with an almost religious belief in 'what is right' results in the corporation being unshakingly confident in its own correctness, even when the nature of said correctness has completely changed.
Little example: Back in the day, it was considered right and proper for practically all broadcasters, especially at a National level, to speak using RP. They had dedicated speech trainers to ensure this was the case. Regional or, God forbid, Continental/Colonial accents were a big no-no. One has to speak the BBC English, old boy, it's the way we do things...
Now the absolute opposite is true. The right, good and correct thing is that everyone gets to hear a huge range of regional and international accents. Apart from RP. RP is an anachronism. Not the way we do things...
But the thing is... despite these two editorial and presentational positions being complete polar opposites of one another, both were considered to be entirely correct at the time because they were the BBC way of doing things. The BBC conscience not only believes itself to be right, but that it always has been right and always will be right.
I'm not even sure they have internal debates when policy changes, even drastically. It just happens; the war with Eurasia is erased and the war with Eastasia has always been.
Same with the way things are edited. The edit makes something appear a certain way, so that's how it happened. Re-edit to make it different, and that's still how it happened; how it always happened. Narrative over facts. Narrative is facts.
This Trump editing kerfuffle is singularly unsurprising, because it's just a part of BBC life. The way highlights from a football match are selected and cut together can tell a variety of different stories, depending on what is included/excluded. That's just how broadcast media works.
Current BBC bias has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, Woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it, but none of these are as significant as its strong bias towards itself, whatever it happens to be at the time!
The idea that Americans have to pay double (often much more) for their healthcare so that billionaires can have a chunky tax cut does, on the face of it, appear to be one of the most suicidal political ideas ever adopted.
However... he's managed to be front and centre of the Trump resistance, and that's the first step to being the nominee. Polymarket has him at a 38% chance, with AOC in second place. Now normally I'd say 'sell the favourite'. In this case, I can't say that.
Interestingly, Polymarket has Jon Ossoff in fourth place with a 5% chance. Now, not to blow my own horn here, but I bought him at 1% and 2%. I think he's a really good shout: he's from a Purple State, he's young and articulate. I think of him as a not gay Buttigieg, with an actual history of getting elected as something other than the Mayor of a small midwestern town. Will 2028 be his year? Probably not, but I think he's a better shout than AOC on 13%.
That might just improve things a touch...
But that's no reason the bet against him.
Agree regarding AOC. I suspect she'll look to be in the Senate for a time before having a serious go at the nomination, anyway.
So their views of the malignant right wing turd might not be entirely unbiased.
The really important one is that every organisation has a bias towards itself. That might be an argument against big organisations, but they are sometimes necessary.
The other is that in the grand scheme of things, Britain has a sort of soft-Left, Internationalist, woke, environmentalist anti-Trump kind of hue about it. Not everyone, everywhere, sure. But on average, yes. And those you yearn for something stronger are often badly triggered by that.
It isn't easy.
It was Mark Urban with the perceptive comment about the generational aspect, posted FPT:
https://markurban.substack.com/p/liberal-bias-us
One is that the Democrats win, whoever their candidate is. Think what happened to Starmer, turned up to 11.
The other is that they lose, irrespective of the brilliance of their candidate.
It would be brilliant if I knew which of those possibilities is going to happen, but that's not really up to me.
Otherwise why did the Brexit referendum go the way it did?
London is a world city, but it is not the world, and nor is it Britain. If you ordered the constituencies in Britain by the population of their principal settlement, which would be the median seat?
I also note that Gibb, just like Cummings, has links to Russia from his young adult days. Remarkable how so many of these types manage to be involved in the destruction of our establishment, pure coincidence I'm sure.
https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-bbcs-road-to-appeasement
If that were the case then, just like any organisation the senior managers views would win out.
It is perfectly possible to find ways to fund a public broadcaster that don't mean dragging poor people to court to get them to pay.
It's an expensive system to run, and quite ludicrous.
..the BBC is still in its usual bland, mushy central position, with its boring set of dispositions- but it seems more left wing by default. It hasn’t moved- the environment has and continues to do so. But the biggest sin the BBC has in my experience, is that the BBC isn’t that political at all, that it doesn’t have enough truly political people of any type. It should more arch liberals, conservatives, socialists- so long as they can and are willing to think critically. Instead, it too often chooses not to think at all, because it’s easier, and safer- the intellectual crouch position. But that is precisely because it has been so terrified by the criticism it receives. The safe place for output is the stodgy and inoffensive, the twee and the banal. Is it institutionally biased? No. Is it institutionally unimaginative and insufficiently curious to all radical political ideas? Yes. Is it now institutionally risk averse? Yes.....
But in Goodall's case, he had a dispute with Gibb, which apparently went through an internal process which found in favour of Goodall.
I've known several people who worked at and for the BBC. I loved the idea that the BBC took the trouble to find out the correct pronunciation of words and names and didn't speculate if they didn't have an answer. The didn't flannel around like Sky and so many of the others did. When the BBC said something it had been checked. It was what made the BBC both loved and trusted.
We had a BBC report on beheaded babies in Gaza which was completely innacurate and within hours repeated by an American President. This was just a simple case of having an inexperienced reporter in the wrong place at the wrong time. But political interference and the odd mistake has certainly tarnished it lately and they've clearly lost some of their confidence
But the good heavily outweighs the bad. It's not just news though it's in all departments and they have discovered some of the best and brightest talent around.
And yes, mean Mr Trump is absolutely trying to bully us.
It must also confuse the partly sighted (and some drivers, not necessarily the half blind idiots some of them seem to be). If someone crosses and gets run over by a driver, do the laws (and Highway Code) apply? Hundxreds of speed maniacs got off scot free because some supplier or commissioner made a slip over the specification for the coating of the speed restriction road sign.
You guys on the right are being played. Although tbf some on the right are also doing the playing:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/10/bbc-board-member-tory-links-led-charge-systemic-bias-claims
Sure the BBC allowed a fuck-up to be made and broadcast but having apologised, retracted, and seen DG and Head of News resign, that's enough.
There's no need to allow one of the brightest beacons of British soft power and balanced accurate news broadcasting in the world to be sunk.
Any true patriots should be defending the BBC against the wanna-be American dictator.
By the time of the election there will be changes from various local elections where Labour are likely to do badly and that may lead to it being obvious which of Reform opponents have the best chance in seats like Hemel. Or it may be that one of the LLG parties has got to 25% area with the other two around 12%, which would again lead to much more clarity on how to use a tactical vote.
It is best left as too early to tell at this stage.
That's not bias.
Warren Buffet says goodbye in his final annual letter today (full copy in the comments below).
As he signed off, the following were final words of advice:
"One perhaps self-serving observation. I’m happy to say I feel better about the second half of my life than the first. My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve. Get the right heroes and copy them. You can start with Tom Murphy; he was the best.
Remember Alfred Nobel, later of Nobel Prize fame, who – reportedly – read his own obituary that was mistakenly printed when his brother died and a newspaper got mixed up. He was horrified at what he read and realized he should change his behavior.
Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up: Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.
Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.
I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman."
https://x.com/SMB_Attorney/status/1987959365681504419
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuneaton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
I did chuckle over one of his grumbles - that he was shocked Panorama didn't run an equivalent programme about Kamala Harris. How many insurrections against the US government did Harris lead?
The police used to sing that song. Quite a lot.
The sane response is to
- Arkell v Pressdram to Trump
- Do some reform within the BBC.
Fixing problems in an organisation makes it stronger. Not fixing them is to destroy it.
The NHS is *better* because the scandals came out. The police are *better* because the scandals came out and are addressed. The Post Office is *better* because the truth came out, in the end.
In all those cases, acting earlier would have saved vast amounts of pain and money.
The crooked Democrats rigged the 2020 election. Why didn't Panorama do a program on that???
The Lizardmen in People Suits rigged the 2020 election.
The Lizardmen were working for the Zeta Reticulans, who were working for the Grand Council of the Illuminati, who were working for the Bildberg Group.
The *Bildberg Group* control the Democrats.
You need to get the organisational diagram right, otherwise you'll never understand The Truth.
But it's no thanks to Gibbs who is part of the problem, and I hope is now being exposed.
Come on Lisa. Fire him. You should have acted earlier.
I don't know much about him before his damascene conversion. This that I posted this morning is worth watching
Making an estimate, it would be part of a settlement which is larger than the Constituency. Say something like half of Dundee, York, Gloucester, Burnley, Telford, Blackburn, Basildon, Grimsby, which are urban areas in the 150k range.
Method. Taking the list if "UK Urban Areas sorted by population" from Wiki (definition is built up areas with gaps of less than 200m between sections):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom
The UK population is 68 million. And counting down the list, the cumulative sum gets to 34 million somewhere around line 55 - which is the size I identified above.
They also need to fire those on the board like Gibb who are trying to destroy the organisation from within .
What is the convention about sacking one?
Here’s a problem.
Here’s a solution. Sack someone who played no part in the problem.
That's not really my point. It's not that they 'find out' the correct pronunciation of words, they seek to *define* them. And then largely pretend the earlier defintions were never a thing, as though it's always been 'Kyiv' and 'Türkiye' and 'Global Majority' and whatever the correct transgenderspeak term happens to be this morning, before someone comes up with new one. The very notion that there is a 'correct' and an 'incorrect', and that these are mutable is part of the problem.
I'm not sure the BBC is really 'loved and trusted' when it keeps shifting the plates and pandering to the transient whims of wokery - at least not outside of its own overprotected bubble of righteousness.
However... 2029 is four years away. A lot can happen in four years.
For example, just last year he invited onto his show and *politely agreed* with Dugin. The Russian self declared Fascist who is the “philosopher” of Putin’s political party.
By Fascist, I don’t mean a bit right wing. Or a bit anti immigrant. He (Dugin) has expressed in clear and simple words that he see himself as a Russian Fascist and wants to be the intellectual base of that movement.
Carlson is an utterly putrid, ghastly person, who did an enormous amount to support and enable Trumpism.
Very positive news from China.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jul/02/more-than-400-media-figures-urge-bbc-board-to-remove-robbie-gibb-over-gaza
Rather than an immediate response it went round and round in the Board for days, which prevented management of the issue and made it worse.
I can't comment on whether that was a deliberate effort to undermine the credibility of the BBC. If that is true, it will emerge somehow, I am sure.
Since the populations are close within narrow margins, that should give a decent approximate measure of size of settlement (or size of settlement of which the constituency is a part).
RFM: 26% (-1)
LAB: 19% (-1)
CON: 18% (+2)
GRN: 15% (-1)
LDM: 14% (-1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via
@YouGov
, 9-10 Nov.
Changes w/ 2-3 Nov.
He’d have sued their arse for a million and several million more in costs, and we know he has good lawyers because he managed to get his sentence suspended.
Tradesmen are being shafted by an epidemic of tool theft. It’s destroying their livelihoods. We must have their backs.
https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1988177497612046434?s=20
He is turning into the Cook Report.
I don't think anwhere can be a truly representive median. None of these places feel like a microcosm of Britain (or even England) as a whole, or even just a 'typical place'.
Ipswich, where I lived for several years, is strangely isolated and insular. When I was there it was trying to make something of the 'tech corridor' between itself and Cambridge, which failed because there was pretty much nothing in between the two.
Crawley is a few miles down the road from where I am now and I have to go to meetings there sometimes. It lacks an identity and feels dominated by Gatwick and out-of-town aviation sector employment. A dull, characterless place where I can't imagine people feel much of a sense of belonging.
Wigan just feels too overtly 'Northern' to be representative. Rugby League. Old Mills. Old Labour.
Swindon is the best candidate of these. Sits on the frontier between South East and South West, and feels quite neutral. I suspect middling scores in various demographic metrics. Tends to be a bellwether at parliamentary level. Has a largely forgotten old town and lot of new stuff. I don't like the place very much.
Based on geography, population, and general averageness in many departments, I'd be tempted to suggest... Peterborough.
Hopefully police and trading standards raid the place next weekend. One might suspect they’ve already been given a nudge and chosen not to act.
That's quite a high bar.
He was appointed by the previous Tory government before the 2024 general election.
"Following Privy Council approval on 13 March, Sir Robbie Gibb has been reappointed for four years from 07 May 2024 to 06 May 2028."
The battle of the age: the enlightenment vs the dark ages.