The BBC is being threatened constantly by the government with having its budget reduced, at the behest of Rupert Murdoch. They have even been told to make less good programmes so as not to compete with the commercial market. As a result, they are now just the organ of the Party - the Conservative Party, though, not Ingsoc.
A lot of people in the UK do know that the City is riddled with corruption and that the entire economy is being biased to support this. Thatâs why Boris Johnson will probably be next PM, to ensure the status quo continues. But a lot of people will never learn it because they never go out of the mainstream news sources.
Britain doesnât need to leave the EU: the City of London does. Itâs basically a money launderer like the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Jersey and Guernsey, and weâd be better off without it.
The BBC has happily reported on R-R bribery issues in the past. I donât think theyâre unwilling to.
Doesnât look like itâs just the BBC not reporting on this. Maybe they havenât been able to confirm any of it themselves yet.
Tata is selling off British Steel, Osborneâs economics turn out to be, indeed, Harrods-towel-folder level, weâve had a regressive Budget and it has been noticed, we have an unnecessary EU referendum causing economic uncertainty and a fall in the ÂŁ. Now is not the time for the right wing news media to add âand by the way a lot of our economy is about a money-laundering casino operation.â
[this was written before the Panama revelationsâŚand the latest one about Cameronâs intervention in the EU in 2013 to preserve the special status of tax havens like the one his Daddy used.]
you mean the financial industry at large?
Pretty much and it wouldnât be the first time the BBC was threatened by the government. Though it is worth pointing out that once or twice ITV has received similar threats as well, although most of the governmentsâ fire tends to be directed at the BBC. You can take your pick;
The most recent spat between the BBC and government was during the blair years. Most noticably the row between the BBC, âNewâ labour, the death of UN Weapons inspector Dr david kelly and BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan.
Going back before that in the late 80s Mrs thatcher inacted a truly bonkers and ridiculous new act of parliament after becoming enraged at ITV (Thames TV) for their documentary âDeath on the rockâ which alleged that the SAS had shot dead 3 IRA members in Gibraltar. She was apparently so enraged that the 1990 broadcasting act - largely directed at ITV - was enacted. It brought in crazy one-time bids for ITV franchises that hasnât been repeated since.
And during the 1980s Mrs thatcher also tried to get advertising onto the BBC via the peacock report (from memory, mid 80s) but it failed. Actually I think this was it;
Or then thereâs the whole Mrs Thatcher/Diana Gould incident back in 1983 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JZlP5qQVtE ) which after the interview apparently upset thatcher; she did not have a very good opinion of the BBC after this interview.
Then thereâs the genuine mistake that happened way back in 1979 during the election of that year and the election that brought Mrs thatcher to power. The mistake was made by the BBC â a timing error ment that they missed thatchersâ trip to meet the queen, showing TCF (Test card âFâ) on BBC1 and kidsâ show âPlay schoolâ on BBC2. Thatcher apparently took that the wrong way though it was a genuine mistake.
And then thereâs the whole bizarre story of BSB and Sky (Murdochâs TV Company) and what happened with that, and the favouring of Sky over BSB or the regional identities of ITV vanishing to become one generic awful mass that is now ITV. And then thereâs the really stange BBC TV âshowâ - a one off - shown back in the early 70âs called âYesterdayâs Menâ though Iâm starting to go off topic.
Its been going on for agesâŚ
The city of london though btw is a very strange place indeed - there is a system of âlivery companiesâ some going by the name of âThe worshipful company ofâŚâ - it is a very stange place indeed.
Ok, hereâs an intresting quote from memory.
âThe phrase âcity of londonâ is somewhat misleadingâŚThe city has grown through mainly foreign money and foreign names - most of the top banking houses for example were started by refugees from the napoleonic wars. Of the top 17 merchant banks in the city, 15 were started by immigrants and the square mile is a tax haven for literally hundreds of overseas comapnies - so in this sense, the city isnât british at all - itâs an offshort island run with other peoplesâ money; money that will probably go away again if the going gets toughâ
â James Bellini, âRule britanniaâ (ATV/ITV), 1981
ljones
No search results at CNN, either: http://www.cnn.com/search/?text=unaoil, or at Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/Search/?q=unaoil.
A half-dozen results at the NYTimes: http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click#/unaoil/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/
Take off, nuke the site from orbit, only way to be sureâŚ
Do you mean to imply an expose in HuffPo is not the same as a guilty verdict in court? How much more evidence do they need?
It is odd (although itâs certainly not only the BBC). Even if the BBC is unsure about the credibility of the story, it should at least mention that an oil scandal story involving British companies has been breaking in the media.
Itâs possible that there is some kind of injunction ( e.g. the Trafigura injunction) in action but we shouldnât underestimate the self-censorship of the mainstream media.
After all, the BBC spent a whole week cheerfully ignoring the blatant use of White Phosphorus against Palestinian civilians during Operation Cast LeadâŚThe BBC of course has virtually zero interactivity. Whereas on many other news sites you can comment on stories and complain about censorship, this is not possible at the massively-funded BBC site. (Forget âHave Your Sayâ, itâs a joke)
Looks like those NYT results are all AP and Reuters articles, and they havenât done any original reporting yet.
Are you looking for quality reporting or just fast reporting? Give the BBC time.
Yes. It often takes a good deal of time for permission to trickle down from on high.
This isnât all the BBC hasnât mentioned. But, then again, neither have the rest of the MSM. How different it might be if it involved a junior member of the shadow cabinet rather than the Minister for CultureâŚ
Nor did there seem to be any at CBC or NHK. The general search results for news of unaoil seemed to have a few more for Australia and New Zealand than one would expect from a random distribution.
Itâs a good reminder that these institutions are generally not our friends.
My guess is that if these things get verified, the mainstream press will get very interested in the next few weeks. My very limited exposure to larger stories is that most of the large expose pieces are in place for weeks getting verified, vetted by lawyers, etc. before being splashed on the front pages.
The fact that the big names are not the source means that clock starts ticking now for verification, etc.
Of course, if another heavily mainstream source goes open with it, then the others will jump in immediately for fear of being left behind. But itâs a bit like penguins on the ice flow, jostling around waiting for one to fall in the water. If itâs not instantly devoured by orcas, then the rest will follow shortly thereafter.
Frankly, Iâm a bit surprised that the paper that initially broke the story didnât bring in someone with reputation who isnât a direct competitor to âshareâ the story with (say the NYT). That way your story goes world-wide and you get credit. This way, by the time the MSM picks the story up, the public may have forgotten that you broke it.
And next to nothing in German-language media, only the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger covered this more detailed.
Are there any institutions who are our friends? Our more accurately, can an institution have friends?
Personally, I think it wiser to look for institutions (and people) whose interests align with my own, and thus not take offense when they do as I do and act in their own best interest.
For a person, that personal interest can include the joy that one receives in helping another. An institution, devoid of emotional payoff, cannot be expected to have interests that do not fundamentally revolve around self-preservation. We can only structure society (and our expectations) such that that self-preserving behaviour has some social good.
tl;dr - Institutions cannot have a soul - assuming that they can is an invitation into disappointment and unhappiness. But even the soulless can be very helpful if handled correctly.
Monaco and Iraq are investigating:
Doesnât that qualify as ânewsâ?
Meanwhile:
"Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Sunday night after beginning a sit-in in Baghdadâs highly fortified Green Zone intended to be a show of force following his calls to combat government corruption.
Earlier in the day security forces stepped aside to allow al-Sadr to enter the Green Zone after weeks of protests in the Iraqi capital."
