The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

[meregreen]

6 hours ago, TreeVillan said:

You'll probably find that most voted leave. That might be the actual issue you're having.

Nonsense. They constantly visit those that voted overwhelmingly to leave. This is not balanced. If they visit bloody Stoke on Trent again I’d like to know exactly why. Given that the referendum vote was a lot closer nationally than it was there.

[blandy]

4 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Not a parody:

 

I don't see a problem with that question.

Clearly it's pejorative from the audience member, but there's two or three things that make it OK as follows:

Firstly, politicians should be exposed to the public, all types, asking questions in their own language. If they're not, nothing will get understood, explained, answered, refuted or whatever.

Secondly, the programme would need to ensure that over time balance is maintained by allowing other party's policies to also be interrogated in the same style.

Thirdly, there's an element of truth in the question - it's not completely based on a false premise (which would make it invalid/unfair). The reason I say that is because Labour has a policy, or has in the past aired a desire in their manifesto to nationalise e.g. Water. Now currently the Water companies have shareholders including pension funds. Pensions of "ordinary people" are invested in and therefore own part of the water industry. If Labour nationalises Water, then either they pay market value, which renders the point "steal property" as wrong - and Labour could promise to pay the market rate, and explain why nationalisation is in their view a good idea, or they could explain why they will pay below the market rate, thus taking money out of people's pensions "stealing it" in effect. You're a I dunno, shop-keeper or factory worker with a pension you contribute to, whose money is invested in Water shares (amongst others) a drop in value of those shares takes your pension from (say) £12 grand a year to £10 grand a year - Labour's just taken 2 grand a year from a factory worker. Not a good look.

[StefanAVFC]

What the **** is this?

[Mic09]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I don't see a problem with that question.

Clearly it's pejorative from the audience member, but there's two or three things that make it OK as follows:

Firstly, politicians should be exposed to the public, all types, asking questions in their own language. If they're not, nothing will get understood, explained, answered, refuted or whatever.

Secondly, the programme would need to ensure that over time balance is maintained by allowing other party's policies to also be interrogated in the same style.

Thirdly, there's an element of truth in the question - it's not completely based on a false premise (which would make it invalid/unfair). The reason I say that is because Labour has a policy, or has in the past aired a desire in their manifesto to nationalise e.g. Water. Now currently the Water companies have shareholders including pension funds. Pensions of "ordinary people" are invested in and therefore own part of the water industry. If Labour nationalises Water, then either they pay market value, which renders the point "steal property" as wrong - and Labour could promise to pay the market rate, and explain why nationalisation is in their view a good idea, or they could explain why they will pay below the market rate, thus taking money out of people's pensions "stealing it" in effect. You're a I dunno, shop-keeper or factory worker with a pension you contribute to, whose money is invested in Water shares (amongst others) a drop in value of those shares takes your pension from (say) £12 grand a year to £10 grand a year - Labour's just taken 2 grand a year from a factory worker. Not a good look.

You raise a good point.

I think that, without going into the detail of answering the question, modern western politics made it unthinkable to ask about morality of taxation and nationalisation of services. 

I'm a cynic when it comes to politics. I don't think it's envy, it's a desire to win votes.

 

[bickster]

27 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I don't think it's envy, it's a desire to win votes.

It's neither of those, if anything it's a desire to win the Labour Party. If Labour desired to win votes their policies would be hugely different. Class War isn't envy it's an appeal to the base instincts of stupid people in much the same way as the Brexiteers are doing.

[Mic09]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

It's neither of those, if anything it's a desire to win the Labour Party. If Labour desired to win votes their policies would be hugely different. Class War isn't envy it's an appeal to the base instincts of stupid people in much the same way as the Brexiteers are doing.

You may be right, but again, I am a cynic.

Class war is an appeal to base instincts of stupid people, and I think that there are more stupid people than there are smart ones. Hence, rather than blaming Labour's policy on envy, I'd say it's a desire to get more stupid people to vote for them.

Who knows, maybe if it wasn't for Brexit they might have got the bigger share of the stupid electorate and gave Tories a go. Right now the, the stupid electorate is split between wanting to take the private schools away from those evil rich people and wanting the Romanians out of the country.

It's a sad sad situation.

[Xann]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

... Now currently the Water companies have shareholders including pension funds... 

It's by design. 

My employer's enhanced pension scheme includes a section that allows to you choose the industries where your money is invested.

I walked out the meeting. All the options were shit. Energy, big pharma, finance and others. All had issues that would need addressing before my retirement. Nothing progressive.

They're using us. So they can apply leverage on governments present and future, so they can keep behaving like pigs.

[NoelVilla]

So a public company financed by a licensing fee is not fair and balanced in it's reporting. I am really shocked. 

[chrisp65]

So, didn’t we once own the water companies?

Hopefully, the following week the question is along the lines of:

Why do the tories always steal from the people and sell them their stuff back, having made sure their friends make enough profit to get Tory MP’s fat consultancies on the boards of the utilities they’ve stolen. Are tories about more than thieving for their own personal greed?

That would redress the balance.

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

What the **** is this?

Brendan O'Neill being Brendan O'Neill.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Xann said:

It's by design. 

My employer's enhanced pension scheme includes a section that allows to you choose the industries where your money is invested.

..., so they can keep behaving like pigs.

Maybe so. Doesn’t change any facts, though. The world we live in is what it is. Yes sign our petitions, lobby our MPs, but still, our pensions are affected by, in this case, decisions of government.

[Xann]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

The world we live in is what it is.

Cutting its own throat for money.

Time to shift from that course.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

So, didn’t we once own the water companies?

Hopefully, the following week the question is along the lines of:

Why do the tories always steal from the people and sell them their stuff back, having made sure their friends make enough profit to get Tory MP’s fat consultancies on the boards of the utilities they’ve stolen. Are tories about more than thieving for their own personal greed?

That would redress the balance.

Yes. Exactly. I think/hope that was implicit in my post.  Don’t ban asking awkward questions because some parts of society don’t agree with them. I happen to agree as an individual with one questions underlying take compared to another’s, but don’t ban or block people from asking.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Xann said:

Cutting its own throat for money.

Time to shift from that course.

Yeah, totally, IMO. Labour’s not doing that, though, they’re falling into sound bites.

[Dr_Pangloss]

12 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

 

[Xann]

9 hours ago, blandy said:

Yeah, totally, IMO. Labour’s not doing that, though, they’re falling into sound bites.

Of course they want private interests out of the former public services.

[HanoiVillan]

If you can't see the actual headlines, the three article titles are:

• PM 'model of restraint' amid language row
• Boris Johnson denies wrongdoing over Arcuri link
• Government plans billions for hospital projects

The former two are just quotes from his interview with Marr.

[HanoiVillan]

Incidentally, by the way, the third story was formerly titled 'Government plans 40 new hospitals and a mental health services pilot'; they changed the title when it was pointed out that the money was to upgrade six exisiting hospitals in the next 5 years, and to develop plans to upgrade a further 36 hospitals at some indefinite point in the future.

 

[chrisp65]

They’ve further changed it, from across UK to across England.

Both the BBC and the government really struggle with what’s a devolved power. 

I say struggle, obviously I mean ignore when it suits them.

[bickster]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Incidentally, by the way, the third story was formerly titled 'Government plans 40 new hospitals and a mental health services pilot'; they changed the title when it was pointed out that the money was to upgrade six exisiting hospitals in the next 5 years, and to develop plans to upgrade a further 36 hospitals at some indefinite point in the future.

Does anyone know if one of the six hospitals is the New Liverpool Royal Hospital (original opening date autumn 2017)?

The building is almost completed (but badly built and has problems that need corecting), it is to replace the current hospital by the same name which is a disgrace but it got caught up in the Carrilion scandal and work halted when they went under.

If so knock one off the six, if not... why the f*** not! It's the main hospital for a huge chunk of the North West and North Wales