Wintonsweek BBC’s Climate Change Cover Ignores Charter Obligations Why Won’t BBC Insist on Balance And Fairness in Documentaries? Parliament Must Insist That Standards Are Restored The BBC should be an honest forum for debate. Unhappily, it has become a tendentious, opinionated virtual “Guardian” of the airwaves, with only time for a right-on view of the world. The BBC’s Climate Change programmes are a testament to the fact that this state controlled media monopoly has junked its charter responsibilities, which should guarantee balance and fairness, in favour of political correctness and lefty, mindless, feel good posturing. David Attenborough’s contribution last week in his programme “Are We Changing Planet Earth?” was particularly egregious. I suppose a series which has the sub-title “Climate Chaos”, tells you that the participants probably have already made up their minds that human action is changing our weather, and Attenborough’s anecdotal, sentimental, unprofessional, and ignorant attempt to bamboozle his audience was a travesty of the charter requirements of fairness and balance. He started off with the clear intention of tugging at our heartstrings, with pictures of the cutest polar bears at play in the Arctic. But his nonsensical stand became obvious when he talked about how, if the ice is melting at a rapid pace (real climate scientists know that this is not happening), the polar bear population will decline because they will be unable to feed on their traditional food, the seal. The fact that seals can be cute too, and will appreciate not being munched on by polar bears, was quickly passed over. There were no tired old chestnuts and clichés that the octogenarian animal lover was too ashamed to use. Attenborough made full use of file film to frighten us about hurricanes. We had pictures of huge waves battering coastlines and searing winds knocking houses down. Climate scientists know that no links have been established between supposed global warming and increased hurricane activity, but it is a nice cheap and easy point to make, if you are intent on frightening and battering people into submission, rather than presenting reasoned arguments and intellectual evidence to make your case. The Katrina hurricane wasn’t especially strong, it just hit a low lying area where defences had been shamefully neglected over the years by an incompetent local government. And 2005 wasn’t the worst ever season for hurricanes ever recorded in the U.S. Hurricane action varies over a cycle of about 20 years. Attenborough gave us retreating glaciers in Patagonia, on the move since 1870, way before the great industrialisation of the late 20th century. Then the other tired old factoid about the death toll from the heat wave of 2003 in France, when in fact more old people die in the winter because of the cold. The crowning glory was the Hadlee Centre graphic, which was projected on to a huge floor area, and purported to clinch the case. In fact the graphic glossed over the fact that between 1940 and 1975, world temperatures dived while industrial activity and CO2 output soared, leading sucker scientists to wail about the fact that we all going to die because of climate cooling. Attenborough concluded his programmed with this. “So there you have it. There seems little doubt that his is due to human beings.” On the contrary, he hadn’t come close to proving his “case”. After an hour-long travesty of a “documentary”, there were no opposing views at all. At the very least he should have allowed a proper climate scientist to argue against the Hadlee Centre’s data, which is disputed as tendentious and just plain wrong by those that have knowledge in this field. A responsible programme would have had a least 50 per cent of the air time taken up by opposing views, so that the audience could listen to the arguments and make up its own mid. But the BBC never does this now. It is in violation of its charter duties. It must be made to conform to these responsibilities by our parliamentarians. But don’t hold your breath. Known Liar Cameron Shows He’s A Fool As Well We know that Tory leader David Cameron is liar. Now we know he is a fool as well, and that can only mean an early bath for his leadership. His campaign for the leadership late last year was one long porkie. If he had fought his campaign seeking support for policies that junked grammar schools, was disinterested in lower tax or reform of the National Health Service, and wanted state action to limit our personal carbon use, he would never have reached the starting line. Cameron’s achievements in life before seeking the Tory leadership were a big fat zero. He has the thinnest CV, with his only job a two-bit PR man for a TV company. Once, he carried Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont’s bags, and got himself photographed standing behind him, looking guilty, on Black Wednesday (later known as White Wednesday, when the benefits of leaving the European exchange rate mechanism became obvious). This week Cameron revealed himself to be a fool as well, with his ludicrous speech on happiness. This old-Etonian, who only got his job with Conservative Central Office after the intervention of a representative of the Queen, and born with a silver shovel in his mouth, has the temerity to lecture us on how to forego a bit of work, and spend more time with our families. This is the same man that doesn’t think that tax cuts are very important, even though the imposition of harsh taxes by neo-Labour has forced millions into the kind of long-hours regime Cameron says we should dump. With Cameron rapidly becoming the butt of jokes and morphing into more of a pathetic John Prescott figure than a serious political leader, he wrote an article for publication in the Daily Mail (well, it was under his name anyway) trying to repair the damage. I was struck by a particularly ludicrous sentence in the article, which was beyond parody, and which should, if there was any justice in the world, see Cameron stuffed into the Central Office revolving doors, toute suite. “So I want the Conservative Party to lead a great national debate on happiness.” Is this man a fool or is he a fool? Galloway; He’s No Fool, Just Mad As Box Of Frogs Don’t forget that Galloway shamed himself with various acts of obsequiousness in front of Saddam Hussein. (And of course he didn’t take a penny of the U.N. oil-for-food scam). Galloway doesn’t seem to think that getting rid of this grotesque, cold-blooded killer made any sense. And he sides with the outrageous suicide bombing and maiming of the innocent in Iraq today. He apologises for the Islamic maniacs who seek to destroy the fledgling democracy that is trying to rise from the ruins of Saddam’s killing fields. Socialists/communist commissars like Galloway are truly amazing. They ignore all the lessons of the 20th century, where totalitarian socialist regimes led by Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, various and sundry lefties in Asia, showed conclusively for those of us with at least half a brain, that collectivism doesn’t and cannot work at best, and tend to degenerate into killing machines. I suppose when you think about it, leftism is really madness. There’s no other way to explain those that would ignore the clear evidence of history. BBC: Danish Cartoons Reacted To Islamic Extremism I listened in amazement to this morning's (BBC Radio 4 Today programme) interview between Sarah Montague and the Danish editor who published the cartoons that "offended" Muslims. Her aggressive, foolish and ill-informed line completely ignored the fact that the cartoons were a reaction to Muslim intimidation. You may remember that illustrators of books on Islam in Denmark had been intimidated into withdrawing from a book project about Islam by death threats. The cartons were a response to this, not a context free attempt to annoy Muslims, as Ms Montague seems to think. Come to think of it, the BBC's coverage of this cartoon event, also relentlessly ignored the context. I think it is time that you at the BBC remembered that you have a charter which governs your actions, and which insists on balance and fairness. It should not allow politically correct lines to be taken. Neil Winton – May 28, 2006 |
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