I am watching BBC Question Time, for the first time for many months. I am genuinely astonished at the right wing bias of the panel. That the two “non-party” panel members are Digby Jones and Fraser Nelson shows the determination of the BBC to cover the full spectrum of political opinion from very right to very very right.
That they could not find a single panel member who supports the release of al-Megrahi, or who was prepared to mention that he might well not be the Lockerbie bomber, rendered the whole first fifteen minutes of “debate” otiose
As previously mentioned, I was once invited to be a panelist on Question Time but was cancelled by the BBC at short notice. .The BBC more recently caused a storm by inviting the BNP on to Question Time. I have stood against the BNP in two parliamentary elections – one in Norwich, and one in the very heart of the BNP heartland in Blackburn. Combining both parliamentary elections, as a mere individual I gained just two votes less than the BNP.
Yet, according to the BBC, I am officially banned from politics programmes on the BBC because I have no evidence of popular support for my views, while according to the BBC, the BNP have to be invited because of the extent of the popular support for their views.
The truth is that there is no concept of too right wing at the BBC, while there is a concept of too radical. The one no go area is a questioning of the narrative of the War on Terror.
Fascists are within the pale; sceptics are not.
Ruth
I’m reading ‘The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmed’ at the moment, and in his superlative essay ‘Counterinsurgency’ he makes the point that foreign wars abroad corrupt democracy back in the home country, turning it more right-wing and more fascist.
all the best
erratum –
“…foreign wars abroad corrupt democracy back in the home country, turning it more right-wing and more fascist.”
– I was, of course, refering to the ‘Establishment’ back home not the People – such as the Establishment of France during the Algerian War of National Liberation, or presently, the British Establishment reeling under the hammer blows caused by its utterly pathetic foreign policy with regards to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and latterly Iran.
I watched QT with mounting disbelief. Rarely have I heard a panel so unanimous in spouting absolute rubbish, particularly on the Lockerbie issue.
What was deeply alarming is that I am sure that all of that panel knew they were spouting rubbish.
And even more alarming was the usual naive and gullible south of England audience who lapped it all up.
They should have tried running this drivel past a Scottish studio audience.
Except of course that the continuous gratuitous offence dealt out to Scotland, its legal system and its Justice Minister as a central part of the programme would probably have resulted in a riot. Al Megrahi was released by “due process” of Scottish law which has always been independent and which has never kept a terminally ill person in jail(and thankfully never will). The crime and the sentence are irrelevant in this decision.
Given the medical reports and the advice of the prison board and of the parole board Kenny McAskill interpreted the law in the only way he could and to have come to any other decision would have been a case of political interference in the law.
All those on the QT panel were entirely aware of all of this. They chose to distort the facts for crass political reasons and it was disturbing to hear Michael Heseltine in particular continually contradict himself in pursuit of cheap audience applause.
Al Megrahi is of course innocent but what is really important here is that the full facts of a deliberate miscarriage of justice are put into the hands of every British citizen to expose completley the deep extent of both the US and UK authorities in a dangerous and completely disgusting criminal stitch up. Our democracy is now under serious threat, our politics is being decided by a large cross Atlantic conspiracy and our media is a disgrace
ice90 kane
This observation, that power corrupts those who exercise it, has unfolded in front of our eyes with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Frustrating though it was Mrs T washed her hands of the problems of our sister European country, the former Yugoslavia, it now appears that her approach was vastly more principled than the present stalinist policy of the present shayateen.
The Christian doctrine of sacrificial redemption teaches the possibility of sacrificing others on the altar of your own desires. The Judaeo-Christian scriptures testify to the necessity of re-writing the script, after the damage has been done.
These shite, and I include Bush and Obama in the description, have wallowed in Muslim blood and still pretend that they are somehow helping the world situation. They now feel confident enough to announce their Masonic New world order. Their religion is nothing but freemasonry and devil-worship.
That’s plain to see by anyone who still has eyes to see in the world, so they are far from accomplishing their goals, in spite of their controlling the media and projecting their evil propaganda into our homes. 99% of the population can see through them, maybe 1 % get paid for supporting their crimes.
“I never thought I’d ever quote the Morning Star, but this review of “Newspeak In The 21st Century” by David Edwards and David Cromwell is worth a read”
The Morning Star is changing! The news pages are a good digest with good news values, and since its relaunch this summer the feature pages are generally more broad left and interesting than before. 24 pages daily for 60p and I find it just the ticket to read on the tube.
If Joe says all 3 parties are “extreme right wing” it suggests his standpoint isn’t exactly biased. I will finesse my previous answer slightly by saying that the BBC are strongly biased towards the Greens. However they hardly count as a party but as the flotsam carried by the wave of government regulation & fascism we are living under & the propaganda, much though not all through the BBC, used to persuade us that nanny knows best.
There will be at least two fascists on QT on 22nd October – Straw and Griffin.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8277399.stm
“Yet Tom Welsh claims Mr Gilligan’s journalism, broadcast at seven in the morning on Radio 4, had the effect of turning the BBC into liberal left-wingers”.
joe90 kane, I think that sentence of yours reveals a communication gap between us. Specifically the last three words, “liberal left-wingers”. I see nothing in the least bit liberal about left-wingers, certainly those who call themselves left-wingers today. Remember that Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, and Pol Pot were left wingers.
I think of left wingers as people who take a scornful view of the world as it presently exists, and believe that they could quite easily make it far better if they had the power. That attitude has led to some of the most frightful atrocities in history.
Liberals are people who, other things being equal, are in favour of freedom. (Hence the name). Left wingers sometimes talk a lot about freedom, but in my experience they hate and fear it in practice. How can they remake the world along the ideal lines they can so clearly imagine, when pesky ordinary people keep wandering out of line and clogging up the works with their illegitimate wishes and preferences?
Thanks Tom Welsh.
I was using the traditional definitions of these political labels rather than the Orwellian degraded forms that are currently employed by the likes of the BBC and the 3 main British political parties. Same goes for labels such as ‘communism’ ‘left-wing’ and that sort of thing.
Left-wing politics – concerned with human rights.
Liberal politics – concerned with property rights.
Right-wing politcs – selfish concern for the rights of the rich and powerful.
There is also the other definition of ‘liberal’ which is support for free speech, tolerance and that sort of thing – but this doesn’t neccessarily have to be put into practice, as the BBC’s flagship programme QT demonstrates.
Pol Pot was a progressive left-winger – hence the reason the US supported the Khmer Rouge at the UN was it?
‘Remember that Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, and Pol Pot were left wingers.’
– I also remember the attacks by the West on the societies of these people, especially Cambodia where the US genocide via Kissinger-Nixon’s secret bombing campaign cause one genocide, resulting in the growth of the Khmer Rouge who went on and carried out a second genocide.
‘Liberals are people who, other things being equal, are in favour of freedom. ‘
– Hence, all that ‘democracy building’ in the Middle East I presume.
The liberal West loves democracy so much that, in Third World especially, if you don’t follow its orders it will come and butcher you.
The BBC are becoming sickening purveyors of racism and warmongering, too cowed by the purge that followed their accurate reporting of what Kelly was saying on Iraq’s (lack of) WMDs to report anything that might upset the two main parties, while happy to give airtime to the BNP, much as the inter-war British and American governments backed Hitler and Mussolini and Franco’s fascists as “bulwarks against Communism”.
I’ve pretty much stopped watching News 24 entirely, except for ‘Hard Talk’.
I dont think the BBC is at all right wing, as someone who has no strong political believes, unlike the authur I can be open minded, I actually believe that the BBC is of the centre left
May I ask the authur what his views of stalin and Mau
I would expect he had respect for their mildly left of centre governemnts andideas