The bbc, again.

[Teddy Eagle]

You don’t have to pay them to watch other channels. You pay the licence fee to fund our national broadcaster in a way that avoids the money going through government hands with the potential for direct interference that provides. It’s a tax in all but name. One that you have legal ways of avoiding.

You can watch many channels if you decide to abrogate that responsibility. Just not live tv.

YouTube is now the second most watched TV outlet. You don’t need a licence to watch most of its output, nor for other streaming services.

I hope the upcoming licence review closes this debate and replaces the licence with an internet levy. So everyone pays an extra charge per month alongside the cost of their WiFi. It would force even greater competition for WiFi whilst stopping the moaning about the BBC.

Yes you do. You need a license to watch any live television. Do the government have any direct control over ITV or Channel 4? Put it on WiFi and you'll be taxing people who might not even own a television which won't be popular.
Make the BBC a subscription service and anyone who wants it will pay for it.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

I have no idea what the personal political views of Jon Sopel or Emily Maitlis are. They are professional journalists who leave such things at home. I only see their professional activities. I have only known one journalist as a friend in my life. He was a committed socialist in his personal life but he worked for the Express and the Mail. You would never have guessed his own politics from his writing in both. He is a professional.

So are you. You would never have allowed personal views to interfere with professional decisions.

Of course GBNews should be allowed to broadcast. Just so long as they comply with the legal requirements of impartiality. The reason they have faced problems is because they haven’t complied and Ofcom have had to get involved.

Farage has been leading the campaign against the BBC for years, mirroring in many ways the attacks seen in the USA by Trump on the public broadcasters there.

The BBC is a huge organisation with an enormous output. It works to extremely high standards so is a sitting duck for anyone capricious enough to always be searching for mistakes rather than the great work it does every day.

This whole event highlights this issue. The Panorama edit has been judged in hindsight to have been done poorly. It should been accompanied by a more obvious fade to indicate that the two comments were not contemporaneous. However, everyone seems to forget this programme was made nearly 4 years after the event. A event that was only one piece of the actual story. That story being Trump’s attempt to overturn an election result.

That mob would not have been there but for Trump’s encouragement to believe a lie. If they weren’t there they could not have stormed the Capitol building.

Now we have those found guilty of crimes during that event being pardoned with Trump’s co-conspirators also being pardoned in the middle of the night two days ago!

The Parorama programme told a basic truth. Trump was responsible for the storming of the Capitol. Without him it would not have happened. That in telling that truth there was a mistake made in the narrative has resulted in the high standards of the BBC being compromised. Not though the basic truth.

The BBC being self appointed arbiters of what is and isn't true is hardly impartial. Take Trump out of the equation and this reasoning would be even more specious.

 

[McAhuna]

There is a risk that these debates break down into a pro-Trump/anti-Trump debate. Which isn't really the point.
I don't care much for Trump, but he has a right to be quoted accurately.
And the BBC have been doing this sort of thing for decades to anyone the State disappproves of from the right or the left. Jeremy Corbyn's 'anti-Semitic' stitch up being another example.
George Galloway nails it.

 

[Hrolf The Ganger]

Or built by them.

Yes, in their own time.

Of course, we have a viable energy source for the national grid called nuclear fusion, but the powers that be failed to properly invest in it. Perhaps a lesson in the dangers of fear mongering.
Any meltdown in Europe would be coming our way, as Chernobyl demonstrated, so having our own would make little difference to safety.

This has little to do with the BBC.

 

[Badger11]

There is a risk that these debates break down into a pro-Trump/anti-Trump debate. Which isn't really the point.
I don't care much for Trump, but he has a right to be quoted accurately.
And the BBC have been doing this sort of thing for decades to anyone the State disappproves of from the right or the left. Jeremy Corbyn's 'anti-Semitic' stitch up being another example.
George Galloway nails it.
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[Hrolf The Ganger]

We are an island. Variations in tides exist around our entire shoreline. Tides are predictable and regular and yet we concentrate our green policy on erratic wind and solar generation. The fossil fuel industry naturally tries to protect its interests; the wind and solar industry is the same, hence why tidal power has been relegated. There was a planned project for a tidal barrier in Swansea Bay but shelved, although I believe some smaller Scottish tidal generators exist but not large scale. Tidal should have been the future…

I don't want the thread to be sidetracked by Silvertop's climate paranoia, but yes, tidal was a better option than wind.
Short termism and self interest are problems with politicians, as is the lack of a deeper understanding of technology.

 

[Glazier#1]

The debate is around the extent of human impact on global warming.
Do you, or I really know the answer to that? Scientists have a rather chequered history of accuracy on such matters.
Even accepting that they are correct, it does not justify our current policy. The idea that we can influence India, China or the US is optimism beyond reason. The idea that fossil fuel will run out soon is also a fantasy. They have been saying that for decades. It is nowhere near exhausted.

Britain is a bit short of natural resources. We have shut mines, the North Sea is dwindling, and fracking is risky. Wind farms are a joke. That is our misfortune, but it cannot be undone by an expensive and unrealistic policy.
The world will never free itself from fossil fuel all the time the big oil producers run the show. Any new technology that reduces or removes the need for fossil fuels and is genuinely efficient will be suppressed.

We are at the mercy of the super rich, and they don't appear to care about global warming.

Bang on.

Exxon Mobil funds the Heritage Foundation, which in turn funds project 25.

 

[Glazier#1]

DT suggests that his pre-riot speech was 'calming'. Of course it was.

After the riot he spoke to the rioters thus:

“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt,” Trump said. “But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order.”

Hmmm. A bit late.
In another tweet sent later, Trump said:

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Now we are led to believe that the has been wronged.

Yeah right.

One has to ask why this has surfaced only now, given that the programme was aired in OCT 24.

Who's pulling these strings?

 

[McAhuna]

DT suggests that his pre-riot speech was 'calming'. Of course it was.

After the riot he spoke to the rioters thus:



Hmmm. A bit late.
In another tweet sent later Wednesday, Trump said:



Now we are led to believe that the has been wronged.

Yeah right.

One has to ask why this has surfaced only now, given that the programme was aired in OCT 24.

Whose pulling these strings?

The timing is interesting.

But it can't be used as an excuse to exonerate the guilty.
Having done the crime, the BBC and its supporters can't really complain about when their opponents choose to expose them.

 

[silvertop]

Yes, in their own time.

Of course, we have a viable energy source for the national grid called nuclear fusion, but the powers that be failed to properly invest in it. Perhaps a lesson in the dangers of fear mongering.
Any meltdown in Europe would be coming our way, as Chernobyl demonstrated, so having our own would make little difference to safety.

This has little to do with the BBC.

Are you seriously suggesting we went off topic???

 

[silvertop]

I don't want the thread to be sidetracked by Silvertop's climate paranoia, but yes, tidal was a better option than wind.
Short termism and self interest are problems with politicians, as is the lack of a deeper understanding of technology.

I knew you were out to get me.

 

[Glazier#1]

The timing is interesting.

But it can't be used as an excuse to exonerate the guilty.
Having done the crime, the BBC and its supporters can't really complain about when their opponents choose to expose them.

No excuses.

The BBC were just dumb to shoot themselves in the foot thus, agreed.

However, Trump is disingenuous when he plays the docile peacemaker. A disingenuous, duplicitous story teller. Despicable man and the BBC are fools for allowing themselves to be put in this position.

Idiots.

 

[Glazier#1]

I knew you were out to get me.

If you're really lucky, he'll put you on ignore lol.

 

[McAhuna]

No excuses.

The BBC were just dumb to shoot themselves in the foot thus, agreed.

However, Trump is disingenuous when he plays the docile peacemaker. A disingenuous, duplicitous story teller. Despicable man and the BBC are fools for allowing themselves to be put in this position.

Idiots.

When did he play the docile peacemaker? I must have missed that.

Politicians are universally ambitious and competitive. He is no different.

 

[Stirlingsays]

Well, yes.

Modern life is like a Monty Python sketch from the early 70s.

 

[Wisbech Eagle]

Yes you do. You need a license to watch any live television. Do the government have any direct control over ITV or Channel 4? Put it on WiFi and you'll be taxing people who might not even own a television which won't be popular.
Make the BBC a subscription service and anyone who wants it will pay for it.

You claimed not to be able to watch other channels but you can. There are some that I cannot watch because I refuse to pay. There are others I can. We both have a choice.

Everyone paying what is essentially a tax is sensible in my opinion. I pay for things I don’t use too.

 

[Rudi Hedman]

You claimed not to be able to watch other channels but you can. There are some that I cannot watch because I refuse to pay. There are others I can. We both have a choice.

Everyone paying what is essentially a tax is sensible in my opinion. I pay for things I don’t use too.

You CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT watch live tv including itv, channel 4 and channel 5 without a tv licence!!!!!!

You can watch programmes on the itv, channel 4 and 5 apps, but not bbc iPlayer. But you can’t watch their programmes LIVE!!!

I don’t watch any bbc now so I wouldn’t subscribe and may as well cancel my licence. Last thing I watched was ‘This City is Ours’, which although quite good, had women making decisions in an underworld drug dealing family organisation in Liverpool. Very unlikely but they shoehorned it in as usual.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

You claimed not to be able to watch other channels but you can. There are some that I cannot watch because I refuse to pay. There are others I can. We both have a choice.

Everyone paying what is essentially a tax is sensible in my opinion. I pay for things I don’t use too.

You can't watch any live TV without a license. It's not a claim, it's a fact.
The things for which you pay tax provide a benefit for someone else - paying for someone else to watch EastEnders hardly counts.

 

[Rudi Hedman]

You claimed not to be able to watch other channels but you can. There are some that I cannot watch because I refuse to pay. There are others I can. We both have a choice.

Everyone paying what is essentially a tax is sensible in my opinion. I pay for things I don’t use too.

Not a really a ‘tax’ is it? You’re paying for the BBC to make programmes many don’t watch and don’t agree with their political opinions and delivery. Then there’s the wokery and ridiculous inclusion of ethnic minorities in dramas that are simply untrue.

 

[McAhuna]

This is funny.

The BBC have fecked up their own insurance