The Aged P

…just toasting and ruminating….

Why Was The BBC So Keen To Humiliate Sir Cliff Richard?

 

Very good news…..


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I suspect that some of the drivers of this escapade were

1. Police and BBC guilt over covering up the Jimmy Savile stuff for so long
2. Sir Cliff’s insistence that his sexuality is a private matter
3. Sir Cliff’s very unfashionable public stance as a Christian

Points 2 & 3 do not appear to fit easily into the world view of the 21st century BBC…..indeed the beeb seems positively antagonistic to such sentiments as discretion about sexuality and declarations of Christian faith.

Hence an almost fanatical determination to use the naming of Sir Cliff as a suspect in an underage sexual abuse investigation and the resultant police search as a golden opportunity to publicly humiliate the man.

Naturally the BBC and the rest of the media are bloviating about “press freedom” and “the public’s right to know.

Pure bollocks.

The BBC didn’t post the report discreetly on the TV equivalent of page 15 – it was not only given a front page splash but also subsequently entered for a “scoop of the year” competition. They probably saw it as an opportunity to humiliate someone whose slightly old fashioned views just didn’t resonate with their own “liberated”, progressive outlook.

Strangely my Facebook timeline (usually full of anti Trump, anti Brexit, pro Corbyn bloviations) is almost silent over the judge’s damning indictment. Imagine. however, the cacophony from certain quarters if it had been the Mail or The Sun “wot done it”….

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No Need For A New Pro EU, LibDem Green Platform, Mr Blair – The BBC Is Already Doing It

According to Guido Tony Blair has finally grasped that a return to front line politics is a definite no no

 I can’t come into front-line politics. There’s just too much hostility, and also there are elements of the media who would literally move to destroy mode if I tried to do that

But he is still convinced he has his finger on the pulse of the British people

Blair says there are millions of “politically homeless” people in Britain

You don’t have to be a genius, of course, to realise his idea of the politically homeless does not refer to the Sunderlands and Dudleys and those millions of other working class voters who used the referendum to give a V sign to all the great and the good.

Clearly he means people like him – pro EU, metropolitan, internationally minded, virtue signaling and well salaried members of the chattering classes….Blairite, Lib Dem and oh so Green

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So he intends to work behind the scenes, using his wealth and contacts to help  build a platform for these folk to exchange ideas and share a vision and comfort each other through the post referendum, post Trump dark days

Problem is there already exists a ready made platform for such people that is also run by them – and it’s taxpayer funded…

The BBC……

 

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Celebs Should Have To Pay For Pimping Their Stuff On BBC Chat Shows!!!!

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Celebs pimping their latest book, film, album, play or tour on TV chat shows….

It’s as inevitable as a starving public sector worker sobbing over Tory “cuts” in a  BBCQT audience – or the presence of some unfunny left wing privately educated “comedian” on HIGNFY.

The reasoning is quite straightforward, of course. It’s a relatively cheap format and certainly not labour intensive. Most of the preparatory planning is driven by publicists, agents and PR drones hustling for a bit of action. The set, once constructed, can be wheeled out time and time again and you can bet your boots that there will be zero tension filled moments. The stage will be swirling with ersatz bonhomie, fixed smiles and false laughter and the celeb will be treated as a veritable genius of comedy or music or whatever.

It’s Polyfilla TV, padding out premium broadcasting space and making life simpler for the schedulers..hence the ubiquitous presence of chat shows on every channel….but especially the BBC.

And it’s the Beeb which must provide us with a particular problem. Over the weeks the celebs tramp though BBC Breakfast, The One Show, Graham Norton and several others all with something to sell. Tickets, books – they are marketing a product, they are ADVERTISING…..

Such a dirty word on the advert free Beeb – yet their publicist or the studio or the record company or the publisher are plumping these celebs in front of the cameras and onto our screens to make money. What’s more, with their appearance fees the celebs are being paid to encourage us to buy more stuff – paid out of the poll tax levy taken out of our pockets and pursed via the TV licence fee.

No wonder they’re all grinning like imbeciles and slapping each other on the back – it’s trebles all round courtesy of the taxpayer.

So here’s a suggestion to balance the scales just a little. From the moment the chat show airs all  payments to the celeb from sales of tickets, records, book etc. should be taxed at, say, 5% and, at the end of the financial year, the total should be re-distributed to TV licence payers as a bonus for putting up with these self-important grinning morons for another year….

Simples…

 

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“Youth Flocks To Corbyn”…..ROTFLMAO….

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The kids will keep the Red Flag flying….

Mr Corbyn will thrive, his supporters say, thanks to new support from disaffected young people, and non-voters. “What we have is a huge number of young people, very enthusiastic and brimming with ideas,” he told the BBC during Labour’s leadership campaign.

Here we go again – the perennial myth of millions of “young people” on fire with radical leftie ideas, suddenly leaping into the streets inspired by a superannuated beardie from a wealthy family who has never had a real job in his life.

Corbyn is the most recent of a line of PR puffed celebs who have been proclaimed heroes of “yoof” by  a bunch of 40 something media hacks who still like to think they are down in the street with the kids….or should it be kidz?

Billy Bragg was the classic example. A marginally successful folk/rock leftie in the 80s he was for years adopted as a mascot by the Beeb, often the first port of call for a “yoof” soundbite.

Naturally these quotes were almost always fierce denunciations of the “Thatcher Regime”, grist to the mill for the Oxbridge middle class radish revolutionaries who filled the BBC corridors and studios, imagining it to be a reincarnation of the battleship Potemkin.

The tirades kept on coming and the demos marched down the streets with camera friendly placards – and the Tories kept on winning elections.

Fact is Bragg and the other “yoof” voices only ever spoke for a small segment of the art college/student union gesture politics brigade. They certainly had zilch impact on the kids in the bog standard comps where I taught in the 70s/80s/90s. Indeed, digging down into the world view of the those young people  the majority were very conservative in their views. For all their surface bluster they tended to be big on family, recognised the value of getting a job, had fairly harsh views on what should be done to criminals and were modestly patriotic.

More recently the rather farcical “Occupy” manifestation, oddly described as a “movement” by  a slow news day media, was essentially a piece of performing art casted by a coalition of postgrad students, charity interns/professionals and  benefit financed fulltime protesters. The voices were almost all middle class and there were few, if any, who appeared to be from the ranks of the proletariat (too busy working, maybe?)

“Yoof” protest stories are almost always classic examples of over egging the pudding by media hacks who need to pad out a few square inches to justify their expenses and the “Young Corbynista” is  yet another chimera produced by thei fevered imaginations.

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BBC Question Time Audiences Leftward Leaning? Surely Not……..

 

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The proverbial Martian who was observing Earth and listened to “Any Questions” on BBC Radio or watched BBC Question Time on TV could be forgiven for assuming that, ever since 2010 the British people have been groaning under the boots of a fascist/capitalist/fatcat banker clique and are crying out for a left wing messiah who will lead them to the promised land of rainbows, unicorns and money trees – and (quelle surprise), welcome hundreds of thousands of “refugees” with open arms

Outside in the real world, of course, that particular type of infantilism fails to resonate.

So – why the discrepancy? Alison Pearson, who recently appeared on one of the panels, thinks she might have the answer

After the recording, the show’s excellent host, Jonathan Dimbleby, sighed heavily and told me it was a constant problem. He and the whole AQ team found it immensely frustrating that Tories simply did not show up on the night to add their voices. The producer said it would cost £5,000 a week to pay someone to assemble a politically balanced audience

Maybe – but one anecdote in the comments painted a slightly darker picture

I applied to join the Question Time audience four times using different details each time. Three times I expressed conservative views and voting and I heard nothing. One time I expressed socialist views and voting, and was invited to take part. Only an anecdote, but perhaps it reflects a wider issue. Question Time’s audience is never balanced. Any Questions is always loaded by lefties who use forums or rely on union shop stewards to urge each other on to go along. But I suppose these people feel at home because the current affairs output of the BBC aligns so closely with their political stance

BBC being rather selective? That can’t possibly be true…can it?

 

 

 

 

 

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That BBC Farage/Clegg Debate – If It’s Dimbleby Nigel Needs A Very Long Spoon…

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Classic anti Farage tweaking via the Telegraph’s James Kirkup in a snarky piece about the forthcoming Farage/Clegg debates – Kirkup uses that pic of Farage perspiring during his UKIP conference speech alongside a standard stock photo of Clegg looking steady and serious…..par for the course, I suppose.

Young Kirkup claims that the format is nearing some sort of agreement

LBC, the radio station that hosts Mr Clegg’s weekly phone-in, will stage a debate expected to have fewer rules and restrictions than the BBC. The debate – also before a live audience – will be hosted by Nick Ferrari, a more combative broadcaster than Dimbleby, who is expected to allow more “lively” exchanges.

So far, so good….Ferrari won’t take any prisoners but, unlike anyone at the BBC (except maybe Andrew Neil) he does tend to resonate with white van drivers and their wives, a constituency that is not renowned for going starry eyed over beards and sandals.

But warning bells did start to ring in my head when I read about the TV debate

The two men will be given an hour to argue about the merits of Britain’s membership of the European Union, moderated by David Dimbleby.

Ah, Dimbleby, the Grand Panjandrum of BBC Question Time who inevitably intervenes when he feels a member of the BBCQT panel is simply not up to his own intellectual level. Pompous, smooth and trousering sackfuls of taxpayers’ money via the licence fee he is the epitome of BBC smugness, socially and culturally closer to Clegg than Farage. When you also hear that the audience will be carefully selected to demonstrate “balance” red lights should be flashing in the Farage camp because we just know the BBCQT definition of “balance” from week after week of handpicked rent-a-quote lefty androids who always seem to get chosen when Dimbleby’s eyes scour the audience for his “random” selection…..and isn’t it strange that they often seem to be allowed a few additional comments just in case the message didn’t get through.

During the 2008 and 2012 US Presidential elections the TV debates were organised and “moderated” by the big networks, all dominated by the same liberal/left viewpoint  as our own BBC. The Republican establishment is now coming under increasing pressure from the Tea Party movement to demand a less Democrat friendly structure to the 2016 debates.

I certainly hope that Farage and UKIP also box very cannily with the BBC. It is an organisation that is institutionally inimical to almost everything UKIP stands for.

When you sup with the Beeb you need a very long spoon…..

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Our Media Luvvies Do Get The Hots Over Violent Criminals. But Their Victims? Not So Much….

I watched the BBC’s take on the “Great Train Robbers” last night. The Telegraph dubbed it polished which it certainly was. But I can’t help agreeing with one of the comments.

For my money this show was more style than substance. Yes the filming, sets and score were immaculate but where was the script and believability? It sounded more like a 50’s Pinewood studio crime caper. The dialogue between the crooks was dire as if any of them ever spoke to each other in comic voice bubble language. As a consequence I found it very difficult to believe in them and it failed to add any depth to the plot and characters.

It was an excellent example of the geezer caper genre, but more “Italian Job” than “Get Carter” with the snappy one liners and lack of  atmospheric menace – and the production values were not always 100%….snow and leafless trees in August?

Presenting Bruce Reynolds as framing the blag as a symbolic strike against “The Establishment” was a laughable attempt to over egg the whole affair with retro sixties mythology. They were South London thieves, greedy, violent and preferring others to work hard so that they could then rob them of the fruits of their labour.

Robin Hoods they were not.

But then the romantic affair between media luvvies and violent criminals dates back to that very era of the sixties when the colour supplements began to glamourise the Krays.

Dan Hodges, I think, hit the nail on the head. During the “caper” the train driver, Jack Mills, and some of the postal staff were savagely beaten. Others were terrorised into compliance. But, of course, they weren’t chirpy geezers who were dreaming of opening a club or buying a villa in Spain. They were just ordinary anonymous faces who did the boring jobs that keep our society ticking over.

Tonight, the BBC will present the first of a two-part docudrama on the robbery. One, called the “Copper’s Tale”, focuses on the efforts of the police to catch the perpetrators of the crime. The second, “The Robber’s Tale”, shows things from the perspective of Biggs and his colleagues. I presume it was done that way in the interests of balance. I also suspect there will not be a third episode “The Railway Worker’s Tale”.

Amen to that, say I….

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“100 Women”….BBC Paying Out Half A Million Pounds Of Our Money On Therapy For The Chattering Classes

Hey you licence paying suckers – yes, you over there worried about your job, your bills and the fact you are being priced out of the housing market. You can relax because the BBC is at last responding to your cri de coeur.

The Beeb feels your pain and knows exactly what you want.

So they are paying a hundred women from all over the world to assemble at Broadcasting House on Friday October 25th

We’ll ask them to tell us where they think the world’s women are today, and to set out their goals for the future.

That’s right…air fares, hotel bills, plenty of food and drink over the weekend.

Plus fee payments, of course…..making it, at a conservative estimate, half a million pounds at least – courtesy of the ever generous taxpayer.

Who are these women?

They hail from all over the world, and from walks of life. They do all kinds of things: they make music, save lives, raise children, run businesses, write, preach, act and tell jokes. 

Here’s a taster

Salwa Abu Libdeh Palestinian TV journalist

Madawi Al-Rasheed Saudi academic, gender expert @MadawiDr

Nadia Al-Sakkaf Editor, Yemen Times @theyementimes

Sreymom Ang Cambodian fashion designer

Joyce Aoko Aruga Student teacher, Kenya

And who do we have from Britain? Here’s a sample

Anna Arrowsmith English porn film director @annaarrowsmith

Sarah Walker (No picture) Head of the English Collective of Prostitutes

Kate Smurthwaite British stand-up comedian and activist @cruella1

Jacqui Smith Former UK Home Secretary @smithjj62

Oh and I almost forgot….

Cherie Blair British barrister and philanthropist @CherieBlairFndn

Cherie Blair…..philanthropist…..lol…

Don’t get me wrong. Some of the 100 women listed are worthy of respect and have achieved a great deal against immense odds. But too many are failed politicians, international bureaucrats, scribblers or obscure inhabitants of The Guardian Arts pages. If they want to meet together to produce a bland concoction of anodyne declarations that are heavy on good intentions but empty of substance then that’s fine. But let someone pay for it out of their own bank account – not out of the taxpayer’s pocket.

No…this is yet another example of the profligacy of the BBC. Pumping out middle class therapy for the chattering classes paid for you and me via the BBC Poll Tax.

You’ll be able to follow every development on BBC TV, radio and online.

No thanks – I’ll be busy rubbing bleach into my eyes. It’ll be far less painful…..

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White BBC Pundits Assure UKIP’s Amjad Bashir That He Is In Denial About His “Racist” Fellow Members

Rather bizarre few minutes on BBC Daily Politics…Amjad Bashir, UKIP’s spokesman on Small Business (a Yorkshireman with a Pakistani background) being assured by Jo Coburn and two other white people that Tory Grandee Lord Heseltine was right in saying there was a substantial “racist” element within his party.  Mr Bashir pointed out that he, unlike Heseltine and the three of them, had experienced being the target of racism but never in UKIP.  Indeed he had been warmly received when he spoke at UKIP’s recent conference and was on the party’s short list of potential MEPs.

You could see the patronising look in their eyes……they had already filed him under “Uncle Tom”

After all a bunch of white middle class media pundits always know better…

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You Don’t Fool Us, Mr. Miliband…Like Cameron, You Are Scared Of Facing Ukip’s Nigel Farage In TV Debate

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Labour leader Ed Miliband is eager to confront David Cameron on TV during the 2015 General Election campaign but, he claims, Cameron is scared of him.

David Cameron should stop “ducking and diving” and agree to take part in televised debates ahead of the next election, Ed Miliband said.

Cameron certainly has got good reason to be nervous of another TV Debate for in 2010 his weak performance is often credited with being the cause of the Conservatives failure to win an overall majority at that election. He had an open goal but the smooth PR man allowed himself to be Clegged.

But Milliband’s portrayal of himself as the alley cat fighter willing to take on anybody in the mean streets of TV politics is a hypocritical charade

Mr Miliband said: “I will debate [with] anybody. In the end that’s a matter for the broadcasters.

“In the end that’s a matter for the broadcasters” – and in that phrase he showed himself up to be a blustering windbag, using tough guy talk to cover up his own cowardice. Because that was his answer to someone who asked him if he would debate with Ukip’s Nigel Farage.

It’s obvious that Cameron and Miliband have made it crystal clear that they don’t want Farage, whose party’s polling now regularly parallels Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, to play any part in a TV debate. They have watched him hold his own with fellow panellists and audiences on BBC TV’s Question Time too often to fail to realise that he is a formidable debater with a message that resounds not just with disgruntled Tories but also with many Labour voters. Recent elections and polling show there is a great swathe of the working class who feel that Labour has sold them out to a metropolitan elite who despise them for their failure to grasp that mass immigration, multiculturism and the creation of a swollen class of work refusers subsidised by their taxes is the best thing since sliced bread.

Cameron and now Miliband are playing the usual establishment game of stitching us up to keep us quiet and, at present, the media is willing to play by their rules. The worn out husks of political parties that were once vibrant movements energised by mass membership are messing their pants over Ukip, as are their hangers on in the media and the lobbying “industry”

So let’s take the battle to the court of public opinion…..raise such a fuss that the media will have to sit up and take notice and shame the toadies of the political class at ITV, BBC and Channel 4 into admitting Farage into the debate.

Because we have a lever.

It’s not politics because the Grand Panjandrums of TV loath Ukip and all it stands for. But they have a higher love than politics. They worship RATINGS.

The formula is straightforward.

Cameron, Miliband, Clegg…..yawn yawn, universal narcolepsy

Cameron, Miliband, Clegg plus Farage…..ratings gold!!!

Bring it on…….

 

pic h/t

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