I was trying to come up with a witty and apposite acronym for BBC to describe what I have just seen on TV, but all I could manage was Beyond Belief Cunts.
Watching BBC World News here in Accra, I have just seen forty minutes of intense and non-stop Israeli propaganda. A live press conference by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak followed by a long, long interview with Mark Regev in which the most searching BBC question could fairly be paraphrased as “How can you be certain that those dastardly Palestinians will not break the ceasefire and start firing rockets again?”
No attempt whatsoever to give a Palestinian a chance to put over their viewpoint. Now fifty minutes of solid coverage around the ceasefire without a single Palestinian view or pro-Palestinian or pro-peace view. And in that entire fifty minutes not one mention of Palestinian dead.
Beyond Belief Cunts. Actually, it’s not a bad effort.
Eh, whoever that other guy is, it’s nothing to do with me. Thank heaven.
To be an EU citizen, it is sufficient and necessary to be a citizen of a member state.
There are arrangements regarding the relationship between the EU and ‘special territories’ of member states. But as far as I know, this does not falsify the above statement. I’d be interested to hear if I’m wrong about this.
Click on the above link and enter a lawyers’ paradise!
“While the outermost regions and the overseas counties and territories fall into structured categories to which common mechanisms apply, this is not true of all the special territories. Some territories enjoy ad-hoc arrangements in their relationship with the EU. Some of these could be called “protocol territories” as their status is governed by protocols attached to their respective countries’ accession treaties. The rest owe their status to European Union legislative provisions which exclude the territories from the application of the legislation concerned. Many opt out from either the VAT area or the customs union or both.”
But as I said, I think the position on EU citizenship is much simpler than all that.
People from the Channel Islands who are UK citizens are automatically EU citizens, because everyone who is a UK citizen is automatically an EU citizen, and there’s nothing any EU body could do about it (at the moment). Anyone, anywhere in the world, who holds UK citizenship for any reason, is an EU citizen.
However, that doesn’t mean they have the same rights within the EU area as other EU citizens do. For example, Channel Islanders holding UK citizenship have to do without some of the rights that most other EU citizens have, as is stated on their passports. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t EU citizens, because they are!
AAArrrggghhhhh! 🙂
So if a citizen of a member state stops being a citizen of a member state for any reason, and they aren’t a citizen of another member state, then they automatically lose their EU citizenship.
Sorry to the other Donald. I posted as ‘Donald’, but I’m not the skelpitheid one.
@Komodo – the quote you post is rather propagandistic. I mean the IRA had Protestants in it since its foundation too. The SNP is protesting (pun intended) a bit too much here. But it is true that they have tried to rope in a fair number of Catholics, and have done so. In some cases, this shows that not all bigots with blue noses are still in the 17th century 🙂
N_
Civil liberties are always an issue. The powers of the police and indeed the courts today are quite frightening, and the police themselves are more casually thuggish and have big ideas about themselves, so much so that retired officers have compared them to an occupying army.
There’s more to it than food. The curtailment in civil liberties is to a purpose, and most people just don’t see what’s going on. It’s bad.
I’m afraid I know little of the Scottish referendum, nor of attitudes to it etc. Sorry.
Nevermind
It gave me a much clearer understanding too, and I know precisely what he means. It just remains to be seen whether he’s right. I hope so.
@ Herbie and N : fair enough point about London! To repeat, I was commenting on coverage from the battlefield, so to say
@ Catalan independence : thanks to Nevermind for supplying a couple of arguments in favour of this, I’m sure Mary will be pleased (and perhaps do so herself next time she comes out with one of her personal opinions).
Of course, you put your finger on the main reason for the independence drive, which has less to do with the cultural dimension and everything to do with money. It’s funny, isn’t it, but when you look at all these Western European separatist movements there’s always money at the bottom of it all. Northern Italy, Flanders, Catalonia et al would all like to be rid of their poorer southern compatriots whom they feel they are ‘paying’ too much for.
I am surprised that so many people on this blog – who usually present themselves as guardians of equality and morality – appear to buy into that desire. A desire which is certainly understandable, but morally perhaps somewhat questionable. Perhaps by the same token the UK should get rid of Northern Ireland – and why not Wales as well? Anyone for that?
BBC double act appear at DCMS committee.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20509003
I liked the line – “We are not urging you to go. But we are not urging you to stay.”
I was attempting to match them to some of the past double acts. Flanagan and Allen, Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise etc but could not get a fit.
Donald: There’s religious bigotry for sure in Scotland and it has plagued us over the centuries and into this one with our two main football teams and to a much lesser extent our Edinburgh teams. It is on the wane tho’, and I have no idea where you’re coming from with this bigoted SNP sh**e.I know catholics, protestants and episcopalians like myself in the party.I’m from Fife, so no idea where you get your facts from.It is neither exclusive on religious or ethnic grounds. The goal is and always has been an independent Scotland, a step on from devolution, self determination, and stepping out of the Union which we joined. It isn’t Anti English, but it is Anti Westminster. And has been shown by the interest from the Scottish people in the referendum, they are well aware this is not the same as the World Cup.
There are quite a few questions being raised about what happens if we say YES! That’s when the purveyors of doom and gloom with the help of the pro Union Press in Scotland tell us that the English border is 15 miles off of St Andrews, we’d be kicked out of NATO and the EU, and that our benefits would stop from day 1, and no doubt the sky ‘ll faw oan oor heids ‘naw.
Our position in Europe won’t change geographically, and England will still be our neighbour.Business and Beaurocracy will rage on unhindered by the whole process with a bit more beaurocracy.
If the EU don’t want us, I’m sure that will add sceptics to the yes vote, and if NATO kicks us out then there’ll be a few more.It will be in Englands interest to preserve defence together with a future Scottish Govt.
At the end of the day, it’s a yes or no question.
The people of Scotland shall decide.
ZOMBIES are real
A reply to “Whitewashing an Assault: BBC Coverage of the Israel-Gaza Ceasefire” in News Unspun:
“AliPali 26 November 2012 20:29
What is conspicuously absent from most media reports is any acknowledgement of the care that Israeli took to minimise loss of human life.
It is absolutely astounding that Israel managed to inflict so much damage to 1500 infrastructure targets, over a period of 8 days, yet despite the high population density of Gaza were responsible for less than 60 civilian deaths. It is doubtful that any other aerial bombardment campaign has achieved such a ratio. Even the International bombardment of Libya was a massacre by comparison, and Syria, although admittedly deliberate targeting civilians, is responsible for more civilian deaths on a daily basis.”
http://www.newsunspun.org/article/whitewashing-an-assault-bbc-coverage-of-the-israelgaza-ceasefire
Habbabkuk
“@ Herbie and N : fair enough point about London! To repeat, I was commenting on coverage from the battlefield, so to say”
I’ve looked through the postings and the exchange between yourself and Mary and your point seems to be about BBC coverage from London. Neither you nor Mary specify interviewing in Gaza.
In fact 23.112012 6.13pm you specify only London. You say:
“The PLO diplomats in London are not likely to speak up for Hamas, probably delighted they’re getting a hammering”.
So, how do you explain that?
I think it’s quite important that you do explain it, or at least apologise, especially since you were so remarkably cheeky to Mary on the point, and you’ve now conceded she was correct all along.
It was nothing to do with the “battlefield”. In the very least it was a generic point about the BBC, and the only specificity was London.
Catalonia, Indy movements in general:
American independence stemmed from over taxation.” No taxation without representation. ”
I am quite sure catalonians get well pissed off by Madrid’s mishandling of their tax money and being unable to spend it the way they want.
Charity does begin at home. You get your own house in order,then you can afford to lend a helping hand.You don’t hand over your cash to people who can neither look after it or account for it.
And the same can be said for the United States of Europe. They still cannot tax us directly but they want a massive increase in contributions,which amounts to almost the same thing, and yet for 11 years they have been unable to account for a single € spent.
I personally hate to see decision making get further and further away and ultimate responsibility for where you live and your tax money being in the hands of someone who doesn’t have a clue nor care.
What is wrong with a union of Independent States ?
@Donald
I think you should read the Wiki entry on multiple citizenship. Quite a variety of systems are in use across the planet and you give no indication why you think the SNP should incline to one position rather than another. You also affect not to know the SNP position on citizenship, which is surprising as it is easily discoverable. To save you the tiresome labour of ten seconds with Google, the SNP is the only party in the UK with a civic definition of citiizenship – if you are here, you can have Scottish citizenship if you want it. Dual UK/Scottish citizenship is supported. People living outside Scotland may apply for citizenship based on the usual factors. Overall, the SNP thinks that Scotland needs more people so the rules are accordingly liberal.
The UK currently supports dual citizenship and I can see no reason why that should change. It would be rather odd if the UK continued to support dual citizenship for all but Scots. I have dual Irish/British citizenship and I have never lived in Ireland.
I’m a Catholic (as the Irish citizenship might perhaps have suggested) and I have been a member of the SNP for several decades. I’m not a dewy-eyed supporter who thinks the party can do no wrong, as several of my posts here will have shown. But I have to say I have never encountered the sectarianismyou mention, and I was for several years a constituency convener.
If most Scots have already had enough of the SNP then I can only say they have a rather tangential way of showing it. The SNP has a majority parliament in an electoral system designed to prevent it, they have the only popular party leader, and just recently they moved ahead of New Labour in Westminster voting intention. Yes, Westminster, not Holyrood. That means a majority of Scottish MPs will be Nationalists next time around. Winston Churchill once said that that would be the only mandate for independence he would consider.
Your rage at the prospect of Scottish independence is curiously at odds with your conviction that it will never happen. Do try to relax, perhaps you’re right.
Komodo and others
Thanks for your concerns. The shop assures me that the area was 100% tested clean from asbestos. I don’t believe them because nearby boxing has been replaced with MDF. The material I saw above the present ceiling which fell on me was greyish-blue like plasterboard. Because the stakes are high, I expect I’m not going to be able to get the evidence I need. The samples that I hid in my toolbox were secretly removed by someone. It costs 40 pounds to test for asbestos, but I don’t have them anymore.
@ Herbie : I reference my post of 23 Nov at 6.15 pm : “Sorry, when I wrote “BBC coverage” I was referring to the news broadcasts – can’t speak about the longer analyses or progs like Newsnight and so on.”
I think you’ll agree that footage of and interviews with people on the ground (ie, not in London) figured prominently in those news broadcasts? And it was to that which I was referring – the fluent Palestinians certainly exist, but not, I suggest, IN GAZA ITSELF. Now, if Mary chooses – perhaps in her haste to vent her outrage – to talk instead about linguistic competency in relation to programmes filmed in London and not to understand what I’m talking about, then I would suggest that this is her problem, not mine. Perhaps she (and you?) should read other people’s posts more carefully.
(PS – the reference to the PLO (I should have said PA) people in London was only an afterthought – the idea being that although probably fluent, they are not Hamas and are not going to speak up for Hamas.)
Habbabkuk – we’re in favour of free speech on this blog, but not at the cost of civility. A couple of your comments – to Ben and Mary in particular – appear to be deliberate attempts to start an argument. Easy does it please 🙂
He or she will get no argument from me as I make it a rule not to allow myself to be drawn in although I do take exception to some of the stuff which is basically ad hominem and which has been experienced before. Nothing is added to the blog. I think we all know what is going on. End of. I used to know an outspoken South African guy whose favourite expression was ‘Get off my back’.
Guano, get yourself some more samples, if your employer was as lax with his H&S, then he was lax at cleaning the place up.
If it was a shop that is now open to xmas custom, then they should be informed of this malaise, ideally by the persons who carry out the work, your employer, if he denies he has broken into or disturbed blue asbestos and the shop does not let you take samples, (you can’t reopen a source as that would be a separate event) your screwed.
@ Habbabkuk who continues to concentrate to denigrate posters, not the message with this:
“Catalan independence : thanks to Nevermind for supplying a couple of arguments in favour of this, I’m sure Mary will be pleased (and perhaps do so herself next time she comes out with one of her personal opinions).”
You are a case for moderation.
Habbabkuk
I think it’s quite clear that when you say this:,
““The PLO diplomats in London are not likely to speak up for Hamas, probably delighted they’re getting a hammering”.”
in a context where you’re defending the lack of Palestinian interviewees on the BBC, then you haven’t a leg to stand on.
London is full of people who could make the Palestinian case, as you subsequently conceded. The BBC just chooses not to interview them. Your earlier comments to Mary were therefore garbage.
Now you’re just looking for any old nonsense to bluff your way out of it. The rest is just waffle by someone not man enough to fess up and apologise.
Others can make up their own minds as they see fit.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if you worked for the BBC. You seem to have the same questionable standards in behaviour.
@DoNNyDarKo
“At the end of the day, it’s a yes or no question.”
It isn’t. If you think it is, what do you think you would be saying ‘yes’ to? That means what will the consequences be.
Will anyone have to choose between Scottish and rump-UK citizenship? That’s a yes or no question too. If the vote goes yes, you don’t know what answer will be any more than I do. If it goes no, the answer will be no.
So if you don’t want anyone to have to choose between Scottish and rump-UK citizenship, and that’s important to you, obviously you should vote no.
Will a Scottish person from Scotland, travelling or living in England, have to get get a European Health Insurance Card in order to get free state healthcare?
Because, my friend, that’s what it’s usually like when a citizen of one EEA state travels to another. If you want England to be ‘abroad’, in the way that France is ‘abroad’, that’s what it would be like.
Ditto, of course, for an English person in England, travelling or living in Scotland. If they get ill in Inverness, the same would probably apply to them, by usual bilateral principles, as to a Scot who falls sick in Southampton.
Frankly, who wants to have to deal with that crap? Things are better as they are.
And I’m assuming here that a Scottish citizen would be entitled to get an EHIC, which they wouldn’t be if Scotland weren’t in either the EU or the EEA.
Not that opinion formers on the TV have started talking about the EEA yet. They probably won’t, either.
“The people of Scotland shall decide”
It’s not good to think in soundbites. Otherwise if you don’t watch yourself, you’ll end up saying Persil washes whiter. Or Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.
Some people in Scotland will vote. Those who do vote will have thought about the issues with different amounts of effort, sense, selfishness and unselfishness, foresight, wisdom, and concentration on what might happen afterwards if the vote goes ‘yes’ or if it goes ‘no’.
“The people of Scotland” are no more an entity than Microsoft, and can’t decide anything, any more than Microsoft can.
It’ll be horrible if the vote goes ‘yes’. Everybody trying to persuade you against their well, almost every bloody politician (from any of the main parties), every newspaper editor, every company trying to sell you something, will cloak their message in nationalism until, if you’ve got an nervous system left, it will make you feel sick.
Then after a finger down your throat, you’ll wake up and wonder whether your son or daughter in England is going to get the treatment they need on the NHS or not.
Guano: Hint: Mini vacuum cleaner.
Like this, maybe:
http://www.envizage.com/products/tool-kits/patar-st-910-computer-laptop-notebook-handy-hoover-vacuum-cleaner.html
Get in, get samples, get out, and transfer sample to safe place. Nevermind knows more about this than I do (but I can identify crocidolite fibres)- but it seems unlikely that the place was cleaned up in the absence of a big visible operation – with warning signs prominently displayed.
Herbie, what on earth are you talking about?
“London is full of people who could make the Palestinian case..” – I’m sure you’re right. What about Gaza (which is what I was talking about) – is that also full of people who could make the Palestinian case, preferably in fluent English?
Chucking around words like ‘garbage’, ‘not man enough’, and ‘you’re probably working for the BBC’ is just silly, the sort of tactic the Israelis get up to, when you think about it. Loosen up!
Nevermind: As I recall the SNP’s position was about the same as I understand it to be today. Independence within the EU was the phrase. Though, as there was still oil under the North Sea, Norway was often cited as a model, so a close association rather than membership was also under consideration. This was more speculation than policy – realistically, as the SNP (given that it could only get half a dozen Scottish MP’s at that time) was still looking wistfully at independence as a distant vision.
@Vronsky
“(…)just recently (the SNP) moved ahead of New Labour in Westminster voting intention. Yes, Westminster, not Holyrood. That means a majority of Scottish MPs will be Nationalists next time around.”
It doesn’t mean any such thing. I am surprised that with your long party-political experience you could say otherwise, even by mistake.
Support for a ‘yes’ vote is falling. That’s based on what people tell me, and also on polls, although I don’t doubt that you would be able to find a poll or two saying it’s rising, looked at one way or another. Especially one paid for by the SNP.
I’ve talked a bit about what people tell me about how they’re thinking and feeling. So now I’ll talk about a poll: this one from Ipsos-MORI:
among those who say they are “certain to vote” in the referendum, voting intentions have changed as follows:
Jan 2012: YES 39%, NO 50%
Jun 2012: YES 34%, NO 53%
Oct 2012: YES 30%, NO 58%
I’m not sure what the bookmakers are saying. I might check that out. I’ll be surprised if the ‘NO’ vote isn’t twice as big as the ‘YES’ one.
As for Holyrood voting intentions, the same pollsters give:
Jun 2012: SNP 45%, Lab 32%
Oct 2012: SNP 40%, Lab 35%
so a swing to Labour away from the SNP.
Yes Salmond is the most popular party leader, indeed the only one other than Patrick Harvie (Green) who is ‘popular’ rather than ‘unpopular’ by the obvious metric. Meanwhile Salmond’s satisfaction rating has fallen from +35% to +10% between Dec 2011 and Oct 2010. It will fall even further when more people lose their jobs, get into worse debt problems, etc. etc., and he tells them the answer is ‘independence’. At least I hope so!!
Jon : I’m sorry that you find my posts uncivil. And I’m also in favour of free speech.
But free speech cuts both ways, doesn’t it? In its name, Mary feels free to bombard readers with an unending stream of often unsubstantiated comments and suppositions tending to show that the the whole world is in an organised conspiracy against…whom, actually? In its name, Ben Franklin feels free to treat us to gnomic comments which I suspect puzzle more than one reader.
And in its name I feel free to point this out. This is, after all, a public space.
Donald S
The people of Scotland choose yes or no. There is only one question.
The choice is not do you want to live in a rump UK ?
Scottish people now travelling ,either have health insurance to cover their holidays or travel, or the HS has an agreement with specific European countries. I suppose something silmilar will be in operation. And if unsure, pay your holiday with a certain credit card and your covered.
No better ,no worse than now. Who knows, might be better.
And as for people in England, if they pay their health insurance along with their tax, then they are covered no matter whether they are Scots or English or even Russian.
Or are you not aware of how our health system works ?
As for the rest of your post Donald S , no offence ,but you sound like maybe the gas flume in your house is leaky, or you’ve knocked over a bottle of thinners. Rambling is a pretty good description. Your post and way of writing resembles that other rambler Donald. No relation eh ?
Habbabkuk
If London is full of people who could easily make the Palestinian case then your point about PLO diplomats not wanting to make the case, as a defence of the BBC is nonsense, is it not?
Why raise it? It’s a poor defence to the lamentable lack of Palestinian voices on the BBC.
You see, the discussion was always about the lack of the Palestinian perspective on the BBC generally. It wasn’t about the lack of Palestinians on the BBC in Gaza. That’s just your own later invention.
The point ultimately is that you sought to defend the BBC’s lack of Palestinian perspective, and in raising the matter of the PLO diplomats in London not wishing to speak to the matter, you made a very poor point, as you later conceded.
BUT in raising the PLO diplomats AT ALL you showed that you were aware the discussion was about the Palestinian perspective on the BBC more generally and even more particularly in the studio in London where the vast majority of the interviews take place anyway.
In short. Your subsequent point about the lack of Palestinian English speakers on the ground in Gaza willing to be interviewed on the BBC as the shells whizz about is a red herring.
Even in London, in the most propitious of circumstances the BBC will downplay the Palestinian perspective by ensuring that the vast majority of the interviews are with the apologists for Israeli terrorism.
Nothing to do with on the ground in Gaza, at all!!
In other words. You have no argument.
Apropos of nothing in particular, I am still agog to find out whether Tony Blair has visited Gaza even once since 2009, when he paid a flying visit.
-Why would he do so? you might ask. And I might reply that this is the verminous little weasel who associated himself by proxy with the Northern Ireland negotiations, and took the credit for opening a dialogue with the terrorists (or “the terrorists” if you prefer. No judgement is implied.) So why isn’t the Quartet’s Envoy (or “envoy”) talking to “the terrorists” now? Indeed, why does he support their utter anathematisation by the Europe and the USA?
These are, of course, rhetorical questions. And The Office of Tony Blair and the The Office of the Quartet’s Envoy (same server) are slow to respond to my enquiry. Maybe I should try the Tony Blair Sports Foundation?
@DoNNyDarKo “The people of Scotland choose yes or no. OK, so you don’t want to engage with my questioning of the concepts your using here. You prefer to repeat the soundbite.
“There is only one question.
The choice is not do you want to live in a rump UK ?”
Is that your best summary of what I was saying??
“Scottish people now travelling ,either have health insurance to cover their holidays or travel, or the HS has an agreement with specific European countries. I suppose something silmilar will be in operation. And if unsure, pay your holiday with a certain credit card and your covered.
No better ,no worse than now. Who knows, might be better.
And as for people in England, if they pay their health insurance along with their tax, then they are covered no matter whether they are Scots or English or even Russian.
“Or are you not aware of how our health system works ?”
I am obviously a lot more aware than you are about what the position is regarding health treatment when someone with citizenship of one EEA state travels to another.
Sorry mate, but you don’t know much about how the NHS works. Whether or not someone is entitled to treatment under the NHS does NOT depend on whether they’ve paid their tax or national insurance.
Clearly (please correct me if I’m wrong, because I like to be sure that I’ve made sufficient effort to understand what people are saying before I reply to it) you think Scottish citizens having to get their credit cards out to pay for health insurance when living in England is an acceptable price to pay for Scottish ‘independence’. Yes?
“As for the rest of your post Donald S , no offence ,but you sound like maybe the gas flume in your house is leaky, or you’ve knocked over a bottle of thinners. Rambling is a pretty good description.”
You choose not to answer my concrete questions.
As I said:
“Those who do vote will have thought about the issues with different amounts of effort, sense, selfishness and unselfishness, foresight, wisdom, and concentration on what might happen afterwards if the vote goes ‘yes’ or if it goes ‘no’.”
Re. the two Donalds, please see above. I didn’t know someone else posted here as Donald, and when I found out, I changed to ‘Donald S’.
Bookies are pretty good at measuring intent:
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics-and-election/scottish-independence/referendum-outcome
Donald – I emailed the SNP about the citizenship issue a couple of years ago and their answer was that any British citizen resident in Scotland when it becomes Independent will be eligible to apply for Scottish citizenship. This answers some of your questions but not all, I would imagine people born in Scotland but no longer resident or not resident at the time of independence would be apply to get citizenship too, but I cannot confirm that as SNP policy. Please note also this is what the SNP propose, but I understand following a YES vote a constitution would have be drafted and various things negotiated with rUK before actual independence happens, and these things may be effected by these negotiations etc. As to whether Scottish citizens will be able to retain rUK citizenship, that would be up to westminster and I suspect they do not have a clear policy on this (happy to be proven wrong though).
You should probably send your citizenship questions to the SNP (or YES Scotland) as they gave me a very prompt and clear reply on similar issue.
Personally can’t wait to have a Scottish passport.
As to who gets to vote, that is very clear and simple. Anyone registered to vote in Scotland (ie at Scottish address) can vote in the referendum.