Monday, October 05, 2009

The EU and BBC bias

As expected, the Irish people - faced with a mounting economic crisis and the offer of substantial bribes coupled with thinly veiled threats - have reversed their original vote against the Lisbon Treaty and have now voted to accept it at the second time of asking.

No doubt some people will argue that this proves that the Irish media, business and political establishment have successfully argued the case for the Lisbon Treaty - personally I think it more accurately reflects the pragmatism of the Irish people who, realising that they will be repeatedly asked to vote again and again until they say "yes", decided to concede now rather later.

So the Irish vote tells us nothing new - just reinforces the point that any attempt by any member nation to reassert their national sovereignty as a member will be received with the usual cold contempt by the architects of the EU.

For me, though, the most infuriating thing about the run up to the Irish capitulation was that whenever the BBC mentioned the impending vote they always referred to the treaty as ".... the Lisbon Treaty - designed to improve/reform/modernise the way the EU works" or something along those lines. This is the worst sort of subliminal indoctrination there is - repeatedly slipping in some term with positive connotations for the explicit purpose of making the subject more acceptable.

Who says that the Lisbon Treaty was "designed to improve/reform/modernise" the EU? The designers! Yet they know full well that that is not what the Lisbon Treaty was designed for. It was designed to give the EU full legal status - to allow for the imposition of a permanent EU presidency and foreign office. It was designed to make sure that the Irish, French, Dutch, British or whoever - regardless of their constitution - will never ever be allowed a referendum on such things again.

Yet not once did you hear any of this from the BBC. And while we are on the subject of BBC bias - I watched this morning as Bill Turnbull interviewed Boris Johnson on breakfast television and asked him about his time in the infamous Bullingdon Club while at university with Cameron - as if this is somehow relevant or important.

It isn't. Sorry to dismiss all the conspiracy theories, but members of parliament and the political establishment belonging to elite clubs and behaving in arrogant, superior ways when they were young is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries and still goes on today. There have been countless ministers of the state who have belonged to these sorts of clubs from both sides of the house.

What is new to British politics is that there are now ministers of state who have been - and may be still are -active communists, but they never get asked about their past by the BBC. I wonder why that is?

6 comments:

dickiebo said...

Quite so. I have pondered your question on my blog! (I was sure that you wouldn't mind!!!)

Bob's Head Revisited said...

I watched a BBC report the night before the Irish vote and it was so biased it was embarrassing. The reporter said something like, "Will the Irish vote for common sense this time?" FFS.

The BBC news that night ended with the "spectacular" fireworks in China celebrating 60 years of achievement under Communist rule.

I kid you not.

Stan said...

Of course I don't mind, dickiebo!

The BBC coverage is embarrassing, BHR - at least it is to us. To the BBC it probably seems well balanced - but what would you expect for an organisation which has senior broadcasters and political commentators who refer to the Labour Party as "us" and "we" on air (James Naughtie and Nick Robinson).

It's funny that there is a call to ban BNP members from being teachers - if anything we need to have more transparency on what political parties BBC employees and presenters support. Except we don't really neet that as we know they support either the Labour Party, Lib Dems or Green Party - and often all three (they're all left wing extremists anyway).

Talking of "extremists" I also watched part of the politics show yesterday in which the feeble foreign secretary repeatedly referred to Conservative MPs who oppose the Lisbon Treaty as "extremists" and the BBC presenter said nothing! If that had been Robin Day he would have slapped Milliband down with a very sharp and extremely barbed comment.

Anonymous said...

The BBC is just a mouthpiece of the left and has been for some time.

I wouldn't object so much if i wasn't paying for it.

Good point about the communist past of many cabinet ministers.

Their policies show exactly where their hearts truly lie - the so called 'progressive' policies, where the all knowing State is king, have already started reaping a harvest of destruction in societal terms.

Anonymous said...

Strange that the closest the bbc came to mentioning the amount of EU money poured into getting a YES vote in Ireland, was the comment that they "outspent their opponents".
Nothing about the millions of euros to obtain a yes in spite of a totally reviled government.

Larry said...

David Miliband has proudly admitted in interviews he is a Marxist. Somehow the BBC find this acceptable, and even admirable. But if a politician in the Labour or Tory party were to defend the BNP, their career would be all but over.

How many deaths has Marx been responsible for, and how many deaths has the BNP been responsible for?

Go figure.

Liberalism: it's a mental disorder.

Keep up the good work, Stan.