More tales from the impartial BBC

I've been fairly unimpressed by the BBC's much vaunted impartiality for many years, and for a while joined in the revels on biasedBBC.com. It's time for a quick recap.

The bias news is mixed. The customary harmonious chumminess towards the Labour party was rudely interrupted by the excellent grilling of Mr Miliband on the World at One. I cannot remember Radio 4 being so hard on a Labour leader before. What an honest, straightforward chap he is!

Anyway full marks to the Beeb there - if only for spreading the excreta far, wide, and generously.

On the other hand, I'm sad to report that the once excellent series Coast is having a disappointing eighth series. There are only so many times you can go around the British coastline and find many original things to say. (they've already stretched a point and been to France, Belgium, and Denmark)

Searching for original ideas, some goon proposed that they give a theme to each program. OK, could be worse, and there are episodes on estuaries and on how we take our pleasures by the seaside. Unfortunately episode 2 was entitled "The Workers", and the soundtrack for the first 5 minutes was some stirring Soviet Revolutionary music.

No doubt this was meant in jest (yes?) but - bearing in mind the dishonesty of* proclaiming ones impartiality whilst sending employees to workshops to ensure the correct point of view - perhaps they need to be told that the joke isn't funny.

* choosing just one example from many, here is another viewpoint showing the same phenomenon.

"The Riddle" all nonsense. Well of course it was

When I enjoy a morning coffee in Costas, they currently play quite a lot of 80s music in the background, and some of it is not bad. Whoever does the UK playlists for Costas and Starbucks evidently knows their stuff.

Today I found myself whistling along to Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle", and thinking about the nonsensical lyrics. A look at the video made me wince, and I decided the only honourable explanation was that he made up the lyrics with  tongue in cheek, and released it as such to see if people made anything of it. I was pleased that my research brought up this interview:

"My producer (Peter Collins) came over to my house just before we commenced recording on the second album to hear how I was getting on with the writing. He went away saying he thought it sounded great but didn't think I had the first single. Incensed by this, I went straight up to the spare room and got the chords and melody together for the Riddle. This must've taken all of twenty minutes. Knowing time was short before we started recording I jotted down some jibberish with the intention of writing the real lyric as we were recording it.

... we decided to stick with what we had. "Let's call it the Riddle", I thought. Then people would think it was actually about something. 

.. to make matters worse, the marketing and promotions people at MCA decided to make a competition out of it (without telling me). The response was unbelievable. We got sack loads of mail with elaborate and detailed analysis of the song. Line by line, word by word. Some were the size of small novels. Some even made sense!! People stopped me in the street to give me their thoughts and theories..

It all got a bit out of hand and, very quickly, passed the point at which I could come clean without pissing off a lot of people. In short, "The Riddle" is nonsense, rubbish, bollocks, the confused ramblings of an 80's popstar.

Please forgive me. I knew not what I did."

Nice tune though - I was initially attracted to it as having a similar melody line to Chris deBurgh's "Spaceman" song and (I may be the only person to make this link) with a version of "Stairway to Heaven" that I knew.

12 Varieties of modern British Bullshit - #1 - "Opponents of mass immigration are all racists"

A new series! And I haven't decided what the 12 Varieties are yet. I'm sure it won't be hard to think of something.

The first is from David Aaronovitch's piece (£) in the Times, entitled "Forget ‘concerns’ on migration. Here are facts". The title tells you a lot: it purports to contain 'facts' about immigration (and it does contain some), but the whole tenor of the piece is slanted with the modern canard, today's piece of Bullshit:

1) those in the UK who oppose immigration are all racists and xenophobes

Things wrong with it: it's not true for a start, but more importantly it immediately stifles debate - precisely what those on the left want, it seems. I've no doubt that there are indeed racists in the UK who oppose immigration, but there is a problem.

We need an honest, clear discussion over how much immigration to allow into the United Kingdom*. Unlimited? None at all? Somewhere inbetween?

Those (always on the left) who think immigration is a Good Thing never seem to explain why. They simply claim that those who oppose them are 'racist'. I'm sorry to treat everyone like idiots but this is not a reason for allowing more immigration.

Unemployment levels in the UK are around 2,500,000. The number of job vacancies is apparently 500,000.  I think it's fair, if slightly simplified, to ask why we need another 500,000 immigrants? Could there be other issues for British society that outweigh any supposed economic benefits? (do the benefits exist?)

But by this point the debate will have already descended into a shambles. Half of England will be shouting "Racism" at the other half. It's a wonderful example of an important debate being derailed by childish behaviour. It's our first bit of modern-day British Bullshit!

I hope you enjoy it.



*does anyone think we shouldn't debate things that affect us all? I think we can ignore them

Broadening definitions for fun and political profit

I'm possibly guilty of getting all my facts from Anna Raccoon - rather her than the Graun or the Torygraph, anyway - but here is yet more of the evidence against Jimmy Savile, from her blog.

"This new and brave survivor of historic abuse had decided to publicly identify herself after 34 years of silence as Leisha Brookes, now aged 45. What a horrific tale she had to tell. At nine years old she was befriended ‘by a cameraman’ who she thought ‘would make her famous’. She was taken to meet Jimmy Savile three or four times at BBC centre. For two years this nine year old was regularly encouraged to ‘sit on the knee’ of 35 other men at the BBC. Or maybe the 35 ‘other men’ were seen on the three or four occasions  she also saw Savile. That’s nearly nine pairs of knees on each occasion, but however many pairs of knees were involved, it is difficult to see the evidence of abuse, or why Savile is singled out for naming in this shocking account - if there are 35 child abusers still alive, including the cameraman, why is the Sunday Express so shy of naming them? Surely they are not waiting for them to die, and be named and shamed like Savile? There could be children at risk right now!"

Anna notes that FleetStreetFox - not a blogger I have much time for - tweeted on another issue "I don't like the comparisons to the Savile affair, this is grown women being groped; not children raped". And this is, I suppose, very much the impression of Savile we've been given by the papers - of a child-rapist. Yet I'm still troubled by 4 things

1) he's dead so cannot defend himself, no lawyers are working for him, and there cannot be a proper trial
2) that being the case, why is everyone sure all these "allegations" are true? (before an investigation is complete)
3) what exactly are the allegations anyway? Anyone have any details?
4) when details of the allegations DO come out, they are pathetic as evidence

I do not know what Jimmy Savile did or didn't do. I wonder if anyone ever will, with the reporting we've had. But I do recall similar inflated figures (tens of thousands annually as I recall) for "child abuse" being publicised by a charity. The definition of "child abuse" had been broadened to anyone under 18 who had been slightly miffed by anything from a search in a police-station to a beating in Brixton etcetc 

Is it also so with the very vague Savile claims? Who knows, really...

We've been here before. Definitions of racism seem to be somewhat flexible, depending on what your political aim happens to be at the time. The definition of "misogyny" was also changed at some stage, to mean the same thing as sexism, though people do, of course, still use it to imply hatred of women (the "old" meaning).

It's an old story, politicians will twist words to try to fool people. And people are stupid enough to fall for it, mainly the journalists who write the sort of rubbish you see in the links in the last paragraph.

Abortion as caring for your offspring

Reading through the heated comements under a Telegraph piece on the issue of abortion, I found this beauty explaining the benefits of abortion. Allow me to quote:

"Such a smug comment suggests that you frown upon people not caring for their offspring, yet you disagree with a persons choice to abort their pregnancy because they will not be able to care for the child"

So caring for your offspring now includes killing them if you doubt - as every parent alive probably does more than once - that you'll be able to look after them.

I wonder at the idea that this is caring for the child. Is it not possible that some of the mothers are in fact, looking after themselves, sadly. These are people who are in many cases as able physically and intellectually, as anyone else to look after a child - do they just choose not to?

And someone has to die because of that?

Watch the Jimmy Saville evidence crumble away..

It's a long read, but how about this for proper investigative journalism. Anna Raccoon has read through and analysed (you know, like journalists are supposed to...) the Leavitt report on an aspect of the Saville witch-hunt.

We are unable to see much of the evidence against Saville, nor can we know who is making the allegations of course, because of their nature. But why are these complainants being called 'victims' already, by the press and by the police? Why are allegations, after someones death, being called 'crimes', without challenge?

Read through the comments as well. Some of the comenters know the people involved, and frequented internet forums where the women (particularly one) discussed the issue for a year before it came out in the press. Each element of the story is examined.

Reading this was like watching the film Twelve Angry Men. A case that initially looks indisputable slowly crumbles as the evidence is actually looked at, item by item. Quite gripping.

- - -

A further note in this sorry tale. Another blogger was a little skeptical when the Sunday Express ran a main headline screaming in big capitals: "SAVILLE WAS PART OF SATANIC RING". It turns out that the lone source for this story was a psychotherapist named Valerie Sinason who has relentlessly fed the press stories including "hair-raising accounts of diabolical rituals", she "was, indeed still is, the leading proponent of the view that SRA is widespread in Britain".

These stories tend to be quite hard to verify, and should perhaps be treated with a little caution. If you think I'm being unfair, here is a sample of Sinason's very scientific method from an interview in the Observer newspaper. Read it and weep:

'Sinason insists she doesn't use recovered-memory techniques. "I'm an analytic therapist," she says. "The idea of that is someone showing, through their behaviour, that all sorts of things might have happened to them." Signs that a patient has suffered satanically include flinching at green or purple objects, the colours of the high priest and priestess's robes. "And if someone shudders when they enter a room, you know it's not ordinary incest."

Another warning, she says, is the patient saying: "I don't know." "What they really mean is: 'I can't bear to say.'" A patient who "overpraises" their family is also suspicious. "The more insecure you are, the more you praise. 'Oh my family was wonderful! I can't remember any of it!'"'

Woman's hour tells us how it is!

You've got to love Woman's hour on Radio 4. Apparently there needs to be some balance with the rest of  the station's content, supposedly largely male-biased - though a quick glance at the schedules, or a cursory listen to programmes like Generations apart -  feminist output presented as mainstream - would seem to give the lie to this.

I used to find it hard to put into words exactly what made me so uncomfortable about Woman's hour, concluding that it was the sheer abundance of unchallenged assumptions which makes it such a politically charged programme - on  a channel that proudly boasts of its 'impartiality'.

Yesterday Jane Garvey and guests covered "slut-shaming" and the "sexualisation of girls" at school. One of her guests was Labour MP Dianne Abbott, Shadow Public Health minister. (do the Labour party leadership think everyone has forgotten Ms Abbott's last public relations triumph?). Now Abbott said nothing that surprised me or made me any fonder of her politics (as Public Health minister, would she devote any thought at all to boys? because she doesn't give the impression that she would) But more important, I think, is the nature of the discussion of the topic.

Of course, Woman's hour is a show designed to be by, for and about women. The problem comes with the sniping references to men. They are no longer simply giving a woman's view, but have moved onto different territory: making statements about men and women that need to be verified or not as may be the case. The makers of Woman's hour do not seem to get this point.

Put another way: once you start telling people how much easier men have it, or how they are entirely responsible for a perceived unfairness in sexual politics, then it is (or ought to be) necessary to provide some evidence, or some of the bigger picture that does include how men see things. You can no longer justifiably hide behind the idea that you're giving the "female viewpoint".

Abbott told us with relish (apparently talking about promiscuous sexual activity) that such behaviour is celebrated for men and how unfair it is that women have to suffer for it. This is a rather old and carefully chosen comparison that ignores the big picture of sexual politics.

A student representative joined the discussion to tell us what was going on "on the ground", as Ms Garvey put it. She similarly thought that it was always the girl who was blamed for 'sexting'. If this is true (any evidence?) you could argue that the act of sending a text is slightly more proactive than the act of receiving it, but hey ho. 

Interestingly, the student said, with regard to slut-shaming "but..girls do it to other girls as well. It's not just boys". This was off-message, and the conversation was hurriedly moved along. In actual fact, don't girls in fact care far more what other girls think of them, and compete with each other over how grown-up they are? Then there are the magazine's they read, the music videos they watch. Just how much of this new 'sexualisation' is caused by boys who desperately want sex - and have always been the same way?

Abbott seemed to think that if the adults were as internet-savvy as the kids it might help. But how exactly? She didn't believe in snooping, nor did she suggest how to make porn invisible to kids. The magazine's/TV/music and new attitudes among girls were only obliquely referred to by the discussion. Garvey and her guests skirted around them by talking in the passive - saying vaguely that "pressure was being put" on girls, and that girls were being "victimised by a pornified culture", whatever that means. 

Quick as they were to say how easy men had it, and to imply that all was the fault of men, they deliberately chose unclear ways of talking about where the pressure was actually coming from. This isn't an honest and impartial discussion of an issue, it's propaganda. Myself I prefer education. But I don't think people can tell the difference any more..