Le Pen Demands Respect from Beeb & Quite Right Too

I am deeply suspicious of poujadists of any nationality: it's all too easy, and often unsavoury.  Politics is about power, not protest.  What vocal-minority party ever manoeuvred its way into a sustainable national-policy-dictating position ?

Marine le Pen, however, is still an elected politician which is more than can be said for Laura Kuenssberg, Le Pen's interrogator on Newsnight yesterday.   Kuenssberg duly essayed the ill-mannered, interruptive, dumb-down style of Snow and Wark, under which legions of courteous American interviewees have suffered with restrained dignity.  Le Pen was having none of it and replied calmly but firmly:  Madame, you seem more interested in your own questions than in my replies.

Good for her: would that more politicos could find ways to put these self-important gits in their place.  It is said that Ian Katz, the recently-installed editor of Newnight, bust the budget to get Kuenssberg as a replacement for Michael Crick.  It's not a bargain.

Crick may be quirky but he actually breaks exclusive stories by actually doing *gasp* actual research.  When Crick is rude, it's because he has caught someone with their pants around their ankles.  No-one's heart will ever sink at the words "Laura Kuenssberg is in reception for you ..."

ND

Privatise the BBC improve journalistic standards

I nearly put a question mark on the title but realised that would only make it a rhetorical question. The BBC has been brought low by two appalling decisions recently. One not to explore its own history with Jimmy Savile and the second to join in a Labour-inspired (yes, that is you do the inspiring Tom Watson) piece of crazed journalism implicating a Tory in a paedophile ring.

This really stinks of the worst days of Damian Mcbride and shows how many on the left-wing in this country will believe anything they are told about Tories, I guess this is why the moniker 'baby-eaters' has stuck.

However the BBC is meant to be a non-political organisation, indeed its TV news broadcasts are forced by law to walk the middle line. Now we all know that Channel 4 News has this mandate yet manages to bend most stories round to a very left-wing approach. Yet in the Country as a whole, right-wing media outsell left-wing media. But somehow the BBC manages to host a huge amount of left-wing bias and to my knowledge no right-wing broadcasters or journalists at all. It news reporters focus on cuts and austerity and as a huge state backed institution it instinctively backs all moves to bigger Government and the status quo which sees us all pay for its existence under threat of fines and imprisonment.

If people in this country were top be freed from having to the pay the TV licence then this would change overnight - it would have to for the realities of a commercial existence would mean the BBC was unable to ignore such large parts of its potential audience or else it would have to shrink quite rapidly. I would imagine in reality the latter would happen and the BBC would retreat to its left-wing core and let other organisations step into the breach.

For the Country as a whole, the subsidising of our TV, Radio and Internet services is simply not needed. We don't need every recipe in history stored for free on a BBC website. There is plenty of scope to reduce the influence of the BBC. Commercially, the organisation would thrive given its brand and quality of production and understanding of its audience. Yes it would be smaller, but more attuned with the needs of its audience and host country. The opportunity for international expansion would open up too.

Finally of course, everyone in the Country would get a £130 tax cut which would be nice and stimulative to the economy. So when can we see this Bill in Parliament?

FSA & Barclays

< Sees bandwagon, *jumps* ... >

Bit of a coincidence, after the Goodwin post below.  One might have thought, after all the FSA mea culpa in 2008, they would have jumped all over Barclays this time.  But no, they have blown them a kiss.

This is par for the course.  From my own little corner of the universe I can relate that several years ago a fairly clear-cut prima facie case of the same kind of distorted price-reporting - this time in the energy sector, and again involving a blue-chip, household name player - was brought to their attention.  They did nothing - nothing at all.

How can the Barclays case (and, we are led to believe, several more that will come to light in due course) not be one of making a false market ?  All the comments on the previous post bear repeating.  It Has To Be Prison.

Finally, late at night, I have just nearly fallen off my chair as Emily Brainless on Newsnight offers the observation: "it hasn't been proved that anyone lost money over this".  What the **** ?!  The whole point of distorting LIBOR was to make the other side lose money (and win bonus for the dealmaker concerned), on each and every occasion !  Sole purpose of the exercise: and self-evidently, it sometimes had the desired effect - read the emails you stupid woman.

ND

Paul Mason can't wait for the end of Capitalism

Marxist economist Paul Mason is the economics correspondent for BBC Newsnight. Now it is not a shock to find that BBC thinks a marxist economist is an appropriate balance for a mainstream news show. Even when h is publishing a new book egging on a global marxist revolution against capitalism.

However is ranty blog yesterday reaches new depths -'A Turning Point In British History.'

In it he claims that the Tories plan A is dead and that expansionary contraction won't work. He comes pretty close to glee at this point and then revels in saying nothing else is going to work either, really. Labour and Tories are toast. We live in extreme times, but for the supposedly intellectual BBC newsnight site this is a new low. Allowing a reporter to get on their own hobbyhorse of marxist revolution.

Not only that but much of his analysis is wrong anyway. We will never know if the Tory Plan A would have worked because the Euro Crisis has utterly de-railed their plans and in May 2010 we did not know that Germans were planning a new offensive to conquer Europe via economic warfare. Lo it has come to pass and times change.

Also Mr Mason has his own view on what we should do - hardly impartial having berated the Government for the whole post:

"The alternatives to this? Raise your economic potential through investment: in machines, research and better skilled people; re-orientate to different export markets; and disincentivise the importation of low-skilled operations. I.e. become a high-skill, high productivity economy oriented to the world, not Europe."

Note his lovely phrase of low skilled operations instead of importing low-skilled workers (which would mean the same thing but would of course be racist and right wing). Also his lovely view is that if we just invest more then everything will be OK - rather missing the point that the time to do this was in 1998 not in 2011 when we are already bust. So, in the end, he wants magic fairy money to come and save everyone just like every other socialist.


I used to really like newsnight but can't abide it in difficult economic times when instead of sober debate they decide to have a running commentary by a marxist willing the markets on to collapse and the end of the Western world, its pathetic. He makes Robert Peston look like a Genius by comparison.

Newsnight.. what was the point of that?

Newsnight have had their favourite pollster and focus group sessions again at the Tory party conference. I suppose it fills the time but its utterly pointless.

A group of Mancunians managed to conclude that they hate toffs.
George and Dave are toffs, so they hate them. The do nothing Tories who have no experience of real people's lives are not getting anyone's votes.
Mind you they weren't too keen on Labour either, and less keen on Brown as PM.
But the conclusion was the Tories have not sealed the deal and there is an awful lot of work to do to convinve people to vote for them.

Well, who'd have thought that entrenched Labour controlled seats aren't keen on conservatives.
Amazingly in Kensington and Chelsea they don't think much of wealth redistribution either.

The pollster talked about how Obama had won votes from the Republicans to win the election.
But did he? Didn't he win back Democrats who had gone over to the Republicans, youth voters, African American and minority unregistered voters, floating voters and brand new, never voted before voters. He did not, for example , have to convince Alaska to vote for him. They didn't and never have. Palin land has been Republican since .. forever.
He did need, and got, Florida.

Dave doesn't have to win Manchester from Gerald Kauffman with his 53% of the vote to the Tories 10%. The Tories are in third place here. A long way behind Lab and Lib.
He does have to win in Stafford where the vote split 44% lab to 37% Tory. That is the battleground. Instead we had people who are never going to embrace a posh toff, son of Thatcher, banker's friend tell us .. well tell us exactly that.

I don't remember if Newsnight did the same shtick at the Brighton conference, but Brighton is Labour anyway. So, apart from a little hint of bias about how the Tories aren't going to make many inroads what was the point of it?

Now I know things are bad

Just posted the comment below Guido's. Apart from the very odd footie match I only really watch Newsnight on Telly. This is now being replaced by CNBC and Sky News. Sad how much things have developed....








"The whole programme last night was flawed. Red Ken and Paddick, both defeated by Boris and laying into him. A Labour Government minister also oddly deciding Boris had done wrong. One Tory who was only allowed to speak under 4 way cross-examination. Barely a mention of any scandal.

Funny, no member of say the de Menezes family on for balance?

AND

Then on comes 'marxist' Paul Mason to warn the world is doomed without massive government intervention everywhere in the economy.

Worse he says, the Irish, the Yanks and the Europeans are going to do it...we'll be last in the gravy queue of socialism. As if somehow Gordon and Alistair throwing all our good money after bad is the only idea in town. His piece to Paxo almost ended in tears (his, Paxo seemed out of his depth).

I used to love Newsnight, it is a disgrace these days.