BS: BBC bias

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:51 PM

Salford council have nothing to do with housing. It is all handled by profit making organisations. The council do not use anyone as they have no control over them.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:26 PM

No Dave.
Councils use private rented accommodation these days.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 02:07 PM

There is an absence of any housing, never mind social housing.

I thought we were talking about social housing. Council housing is what Social housing was called until it was taken into private care. It is also highly unlikely that refugees or economic migrants would be buying there own homes so surely it is ONLY social housing we are talking about. Isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 02:01 PM

But you know all about my lovely house and garden though. Are you God?

No need for divinity.You have posted extensively about your life in a place I know well.

My life is now comfortable too thank you, but you stated, "You haven't lived, have you, Keith."
You have no idea.
As ever you makes assertions based on total ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 01:38 PM

But you know all about my lovely house and garden though. Are you God? I do know that you live in leafy, prosperous Hertford, though, a nice country town I know quite well. There, is that childish enough for you?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 01:19 PM

As for your stupid remarks about the food festival, etc., I won't dignify them with a response if you don't mind. You must be feeling desperate.

Not desperate, appalled at your callous contempt for those who really are desperate.
"Lame" to express concern for them.

You haven't lived, have you, Keith.

You have no idea.
As ever you makes assertions based on total ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 12:52 PM

We could have an interesting discussion about social housing, and perhaps we will, but I was talking about the severe lack of housing being an argument against inviting even more people to make the plight and suffering of those desperate for a home even worse.

There is an absence of any housing, never mind social housing.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:35 AM

Yes it did change the quality of the housing stock, for the worse. Once you've sold off your good stuff, you can let the tatty inner-city stuff run down because the tenants you have left matter a lot less and won't fight back. I know this because I worked in the East End and Walthamstow in two of the toughest bloody schools in London, whose kids came almost exclusively from those shitty, run-down estates. I lived in one of them for three years as it happened, a very formative experience, a four-year-old old tower block, lifts not working and full of piss, whole floors no-go areas, heating system always bust. That's what Tories don't give a flying shite about, Keith. The undeserving poor. You haven't lived, have you, Keith. It takes the PC Blakelocks and the Damilolas to open people's eyes, and how bloody sad is that?

As for your stupid remarks about the food festival, etc., I won't dignify them with a response if you don't mind. You must be feeling desperate.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:32 AM

It's dead simple really. I worked for Worsley Urban District council building maintenance and then, after 1974, Salford City council. I followed that with a spate in City of Manchester direct works. What did they all have in common? They built and maintained houses for renting to those who could not afford to buy or rent in the private sector. They were massive organisations, run by left wing authorities that Thatcher saw as a direct threat to everything she for.

Then all the houses that they built and maintained for years were sold out under them. They stopped building, stopped repairing and the houses that were left after being sold to the tenants for peanuts were often, quite literally, given away to housing associations. The housing associations are interested in one thing only. Making money. They do not spend to build affordable dwellings, certainly not in the areas I worked in.

No-one can ever say what would have happened for certain but chances are, if the power to build and rent out housing had remained with the local authorities, they would have probably continued building on a scale that is unheard of amongst todays profit lead housing authorities. The housing shortage would have been addressed and the sheer profiteering that occurs in the south east would be nothing like it is today.

Steve is right. Selling off the houses may not have caused a direct shortage but it sowed the seeds for the absence of new social housing today.

Not that I expect you to believe that Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:26 AM

So, Terribilis, you are now an expert on the quality of steel as well?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:20 AM

"Britain had an excellent manufacturing and engineering industry - it was sacrificed because it was cheaper to buy inferior goods and materials abroad, leaving us with nothing to sell and reliant on foreign imports,"

Exactly, and we didn't particularly care about the terrible conditions of the workers who were providing those cheap goods so that Maggie and that bloody idiot Lawson could unleash the City spivs and pave the way to yuppiedom (sadly, his daughter's recipes are bloody superb).

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:10 AM

Steve,
Council houses were sold, but that did not change the quality of our housing stock one iota.
How could it?
Only the names on the deeds changed.
Nothing else.
It is an irrelevance but you keep banging on about it because you do not know what else to say!

It is also very lame to suggest that we shouldn't take more refugees because of a housing shortage.

The people here who would remain or be made homeless would not think it lame Steve.
Try to put yourself in their position, and not your comfortable position that you so love to keep telling us about.

You have yet to tell us what delicacies you returned to your lovely home with on the second day of the food fest., and which of the bountiful crop in your lovely garden will garnish them.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 11:00 AM

"yes unemployment is one of life's realities!"
Not what I said - I said it is inevitable under the system we live in if you sign up to the values which that system adheres to.
Thatcher set out to make greed and acquisition respectable and in doing so, she split Britain very sharply in half - the haves and the have nots.
The divide she created has widened considerably (you've tried to claim that was not the case but have gone silent on that fact since you have been given the statistics).
Old Labour believed they could compromise with the system to lessen its effects on tho less well of, but since Blair, it has abandoned any pretence of supporting the people who created the party and have settle into holding office in one form or another, as 'Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition', or, if they can manage it, as part of a coalition.
Mass unemployment has become a permanent feature of British life, whoever is in power, and unless or until it rebuilds an industrial base, that will remain the case.
British industry was no more "crap" than the troops who fought in World War One were the liars you described them as.
Britain had an excellent manufacturing and engineering industry - it was sacrificed because it was cheaper to buy inferior goods and materials abroad, leaving us with nothing to sell and reliant on foreign imports.
We've seen the effects of a fucked-up, profit based economy through the continuing crises, financial balls-ups and political corruption - that's what the right has to offer.
It's the 'Patriotic' Right who claim our industry was crap and our workers parasitic no-marks.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 10:56 AM

Just after ten in the morning, 21 September, Keith. You said that everyone was in favour of good quality housing. Not lots of lots of housing. That was not mentioned. I do not agree that the Tories were that bothered about good quality housing. They sold off the good quality housing to the council tenants who were in the best ones, cut-price to the people they were wooing in order to turn them into into property-opening, Tory-voting capitalists. Simultaneously, she was selling off, again way below their value, the public utilities and (OK, later) the railways to get millions of people to buy cheap shares for the same reason. That stuff belonged to all of us, but the Tories sold it to the relative few who had enough spare dosh to make a quick buck. The crappy housing, that stayed crappy housing, was left to the poorest people in inner cities who were a lost cause to the Tories in terms of voting support. That's the Toryism that you support and don't want to discuss and that's what makes you right-wing. You helped to initiate the good-quality housing strand by saying everyone wanted it and that's what I responded to. You didn't not mention it, Keith, but then you hurriedly tried to dash off along a different track that you thought was more in your comfort zone. Actually, apropos of the terrible house-building record of all sides, I can't argue with you. But I can argue with your usual disreputable tactics that a lot of people around here find so bloody tiresome and dishonest. It is also very lame to suggest that we shouldn't take more refugees because of a housing shortage. They are not living in houses in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, are they, in their millions, but I suppose that, for you, they're far enough away for them to be of little concern. And you have the cheek to suggest that I should be looking up "humanitarian".

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 10:15 AM

well all i can say is there is nothing in the shops nowadays of the quality of the Viners cutlery i got as a wedding present in 1971.

you're talking bollocks Terry. i understand you've got right wing ideals, but it shouldn't tempt you to talk complete shit.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 10:04 AM

At last some realism fro Jim Carroll - yes unemployment is one of life's realities and it is not the deliberate policy of any shade of government to create it.

Another reality of life is that when governments are faced with taking tough decisions it is far, far better for the country as a whole that those decisions are taken there and then as opposed to the adoption of populist policies that just kick the can a bit further down the road in order to merely delay the inevitable.

British industry during the late 1960s and 1970s was "crap" Jim - on Steel I believe you stated it was the best in the world and that it only needed marketing - Sorry old son but if it was the best in the world as you, and others, claim then it would not need to be marketed as being the best in the world customers would be beating a path to the doors of British Steel in order to buy their fantastic products - truth was nobody was beating a path to the doors of British Steel because the steel they were making came at too high a price per ton, of uncertain delivery and inferior to what was on the market from elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 09:30 AM

Steve,
If I make a point in a discussion you are welcome to respond to THAT POINT.

But THAT POINT was irrelevant to the subject which was refugee settlement.
Our massive housing shortage IS VERY RELEVANT!

Why am I not surprised that it comes from you? Right-wing, Keith, through and through.

It did not come from me.
I actually stated that I did not support that policy!

Once again you resort to name calling because you have no answer to what I actually say.
You can not find one single right wing view ever expressed by me.

You are an embarrassment to the left.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 07:57 AM

"Only one major political party in the UK has a vested interested in maintaining and expanding those living in poverty in order to guarantee it voter base and that is the Labour Party"
The Labour party no longer the support of working people, nor most of the left.
It has chosen to ally itself with right wing Tory policies and has come to fully accept unemployment as a way of life for what they consider 'the lower orders'
Unemployment is not a creation of any party as a policy - it is the inevitable outcome of a system now on the rocks.
Thatcher systematically vandalised "crap" (in your estimation) British industry and in doing do, quadrupled the unemployment figures - not a policy - an outcome.
Labour, having accepted the values of the right, have embraced unemployment as a permanent feature of the system they support.
Unemployment is a creatiuon of the right - no particular party - one is equally as bad as the other.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:50 AM

" "liberal" agenda, support for the so called "Arab Spring"
You continue your attack on "liberals" and 'The Arab Spring' -fair enough with teh first one - you have more than proven you haven't a liberal bone in your body - your arguments are all from the extreme right.
The Arab Spring was a knee-jerk response against despotic feudal democracies probbed up by Western support - it deserved every ounce of support possible, even though it was a first tottering step, the alternative being to leave the despots in charge - apparently the west actually interfering with despotism carried out by the West;'s allies was out of the question.
Your constant sniding against those protests is further support for the despots - which makes sense, in your case.
Jim Carroll

A fair summing up of The Arab Spring, in my opinion.
The term was a reference to the turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1989, when seemingly impregnable Communist regimes began falling down under pressure from mass popular protests in a domino effect. In a short period of time, most countries in the former Communist bloc adopted democratic political systems with a market economy.
But the events in the Middle East went in a less straightforward direction. Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen entered an uncertain transition period, Syria and Libya were drawn into a civil conflict, while the wealthy monarchies in the Persian Gulf remained largely unshaken by the events. The use of the term the "Arab Spring" has since been criticized for being inaccurate and simplistic.
What Was the Aim of Arab Spring Protests?
The protest movement of 2011 was at its core an expression of deep-seated resentment at the ageing Arab dictatorships (some glossed over with rigged elections), anger at the brutality of the security apparatus, unemployment, rising prices, and corruption that followed the privatization of state
But unlike the Communist Eastern Europe in 1989, there was no consensus on the political and economic model that existing systems should be replaced with. Protesters in monarchies like Jordan and Morocco wanted to reform the system under the current rulers, some calling for an immediate transition to constitutional monarchy, others content with gradual reform. People in republican regimes like Egypt and Tunisia wanted to overthrow the president, but other than free elections they had little idea on what to do next.
And, beyond calls for greater social justice there was no magic wand for the economy. Leftist groups and unions wanted higher wages and a reversal of dodgy privatization deals, others wanted liberal reforms to make more room for the private sector. Some hardline Islamists were more concerned with enforcing strict religious norms. All political parties promised more jobs but none came close to developing a program with concrete economic policies
Was Arab Spring a Success or Failure?
Arab Spring was a failure only if one expected that decades of authoritarian regimes could be easily reversed and replaced with stable democratic systems across the region. It has also disappointed those hoping that the removal of corrupt rulers would translate into an instant improvement in living standards. Chronic instability in countries undergoing political transitions have put additional strain on struggling local economies, and deep divisions have emerged between the Islamists and secular Arabs.
But rather than a single event, it's probably more useful to define the 2011 uprisings as a catalyst for long-term change whose final outcome is yet to be seen. The main legacy of the Arab Spring is in smashing the myth of Arabs' political passivity and the perceived invincibility of arrogant ruling elites. Even in countries that avoided mass unrest, the governments take the quiescence of the people at their own peril.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:17 AM

Richard Bridge - Date: 21 Sep 15 - 09:27 AM

You see, Terribilis, left wingers think that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be a good thing. Con-servatives and others think that it would be a bad thing, because then the poor would be less terrified of the powers of the rich and organised capital. It's quite remarkable how you can say what you do so soon after a coroner has officially found that the death of a person was due to the effects of government policy over benefits."

Only one major political party in the UK has a vested interested in maintaining and expanding those living in poverty in order to guarantee it voter base and that is the Labour Party - In Scotland the Labour Party has never done a thing to improve the lot of the "poor" in decades gone by they'd all vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette and the Party down in London knew that they always would - then along came the SNP and pissed all over that cosy little arrangement. Pity that the Labour voters down in England haven't cottoned on.

Housing? City and Town Councils could not afford to maintain their stock of houses, the tenants themselves had no interest or means in maintaining them and they were all rapidly turning into the self same rundown slums they originally replaced. The trouble with Socialists running things from a base of political dogma - ideology and a poor ideology at that does not meet the needs of real problems - that is why no socialist government has ever worked and it is why Corbyn will remain unelectable as far as the British electorate are concerned.

" GUEST,Fred McCormick - PM
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:46 AM

To everyone who responded to my posting about full employment, good quality housing etc.

I didn't say that conservatives don't believe in these things."

No-one mentioned conservatives Fred, I know I certainly did not - I asked you to prove evidence of ANYONE stating that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages are somehow bad - those were your words Fred so please can we try to stick to them in discussing this point. As far as I am aware no-one I know of has ever stated anything even remotely approaching that.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:08 AM

If I make a point in a discussion you are welcome to respond to THAT POINT. Changing the subject to not enough house-building and pretending it has to do with Thatcher's purely ideologically-driven determination to turn Britain into a nation of capitalist, property-owning, share-owning stakeholders, at any cost, so that we'd all vote Tory for eternity, is just vexatious. Why am I not surprised that it comes from you? Right-wing, Keith, through and through.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:01 AM

I was never a supporter of the sale of council houses below the market price, though renting below market rates is accepted.

Had it not happened, we would have the same massive shortage of houses and it would still deepen every year as the population grows much faster than we could ever build.
That is why I say it is irrelevant in this context.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 05:51 AM

You invent your own "contexts" for every conversation, Keith, which is why you are seen as an incredibly tiresome person. The point I made was about Thatcher initiating the sale of council houses which had been built with our tax money, sold off at massively discounted prices. No-one ever gave me a discount on the house I was buying at that same time when Maggie's policies whacked my mortgage interest rate up to 15%. Yes, for a time there was mortgage interest tax relief on a proportion of repayments, long since abolished, but the right-to-buyers got that too. Hardly anyone opted to buy the crappy Keith Joseph tower-block flats where I worked in Poplar and Walthamstow, I noticed. The undeserving poor got the grease, as ever. All the nice stuff with gardens on quiet estates sold off, much of it now in the hands of grabbing private landlords who buy with favourable mortgage deals and who are immune from rent controls. As Kevin says, we now have to subsidise those properties all over again with housing benefits, straight into the hands of the landlords, who put up the rents until the pips squeak. A nice clear channel for money to flow from the poor to the rich. Toryism, Keith, right up your right-wing alley, as you are demonstrating in this thread. If you wish to discuss the entirely separate matter of not enough house-building, start another thread.

"The neighbouring countries only provide the ground for the camps"

This statement is indeed a heady mix of ignorance, cluelessness and slander. The refugees in Turkey have cost the country $6 billion so far, rising fast, at least half of that straight out of central government budget. We have spent less than a quarter of that, and what we spend is mostly money diverted from our international aid budget.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 05:48 AM

Keith - of course they desire water shortage - read up on Nestle.

Of course they desire famine - it raises the price of food.

Of course they desire disease - it raises the price of privatised medical treatment.

The present "fall" in unemployment is a fake. The extra "jobs" are not jobs at all, just poor people starving on zero hours contracts and the fake self-employed going bankrupt.

How can you be so wilfully stupid?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 05:36 AM

mean while the bbc refused to report Cameron[ in his student days] burning a 50 pound note in front of a homeless person, and interfering with a dead pig.
the B BBCare clearly pro establishment

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 05:32 AM

The problem is that we cannot continue to degrade our environment for ever.
The building process nowadays involves huge energy usage, a large proportion of building materials and components are imported into this country. The houses and their occupants produce waste in huge quantities, degrading land sea and air.

In many West Coast Scottish towns, houses are being bought as investments, and left empty for much of the year.
This destroys communities and adds to the shortage of houses available to local people.

We need a completely new housing policy, one which is not geared to marketing, but to the needs of society.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:58 AM

The problem is not enough houses.
Who owns them is not an issue in this context.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:55 AM

An estimated 42% of former council homes which were bought under Right to Buy, with massive discounts, are now rented out privately, with rents far higher than those of remaining social housing.

In many cases tenants in such housing receive Housing Benefit, since their income from work is so low. This means the local authorit, which subsidised the sale of the houses, now has to subsidise the tenants living in those same houses.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:32 AM

. What we send is peanuts compared to what Turkey has spent.

Not true.
The neighbouring countries only provide the ground for the camps.
The refugees are supported by international humanitarian aid.

We do not have homes to offer.
We have to house an extra population every year much bigger than that of Greater Manchester.
That increase far outstrips our ability to build.
We have had a shortage since WW2 and every year it gets more hopeless.

Germany's population has been falling!
They need more people.
The inescapable fact is that every newcomer here deprives someone of a home, a school place, a GP etc.
We should give what we can.
We have money. We do not have homes.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:17 AM

Steve,
"Past Labour governments, elected with good intentions, still all left office with higher unemployment than they inherited.

Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s, Labour politicians saw low unemployment as a measure of economic success, they are now curiously silent on that metric. That is partially because unemployment is falling rapidly when Labour predicted it would rise by more than a million. Gordon Brown's administration was marked by soaring unemployment, and they've nothing new to say about creating jobs and tackling unemployment, beyond repeating the ideas they tried when last in office. Labour has sacrificed the mantle of the party of full employment to the Conservatives."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/conservatives-full-employment-million-new-jobs

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:18 PM

Jaysus, I'm quaking in my bloody boots, I am.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:05 PM

Keith is right on the ball with all his answers bar one.

We have been complicit in the destabilisation of the Middle East but it was done largely to serve a "liberal" agenda, support for the so called "Arab Spring" and the "liberation"(nudge, nudge), of the Iraqi people. Our interventions have been largely instigated by or supported by a Labour government. Even the crime in Libya was supported by Labour.
Regarding employment get real, the working class no longer exists the huge manufacturing and natural resource employers were uncompetitive.
The nature of employment has changed and will never return to 70's levels. we are going to have to share out work, find ways to spend more "free time" and get used to being less well off financially.

So by a quick back count........Keith wins and you lose.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:01 PM

Or perhaps you could apply it to those poor people in Gaza, suffering a terrible plight

Agreed, the terrible plight suffered by the people of Gaza is Hamas. I suggest you have a look at where the humanitarian aid given to Gaza ends up.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:49 PM

Aid to Syrian refugees? Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq now shelter almost FIVE MILLION Syrian refugees. One person in five in Lebanon is now a Syrian refugee. We have taken five thousand. We send money to keep people in camps. What we send is peanuts compared to what Turkey has spent. If we've spent more than other EU countries, that's to their shame, not to our glory, as you seem to think. So kindly keep the lecturing about the meaning of "humanitarian" to yourself. Or perhaps you could apply it to those poor people in Gaza, suffering a terrible plight That never seems to concern you.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:25 PM

Not forgetting, which I nearly did, all those workers who now have say that they're "self-employed". Bogus yet again.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:23 PM

Let's be clear. The 1979 unemployment figure rocketed under Thatcher. She never got it back to 1979 levels. She pretended to get close by counting hundreds of thousands of industrial workers, thrown out of their jobs in favour of spivs and yuppies in the newly-deregulated City, as on incapacity benefit instead of what they really were, unemployed. John Major failed to get unemployment back to the 1979 level. It was years of New Labour before the figure got down to the 1979 level. In over five years of recent Torydom, the level has got nowhere close to the 1.4 million of 1979. Have you got it yet, Keith? As for current levels of employment, for the THIRD BLOODY TIME, Keith, the "millions of jobs" created by Cameron et al. are overwhelmingly temporary, or part-time, or bogus apprenticeships on half the legal minimum wage, or, almost a MILLION of 'em, zero-hours contracts, almost unknown a decade ago. Welcome to the Tory "flexible labour market", a nice euphemism which means keeping as many employees as possible as insecure as possible with as few rights as possible on as low pay as possible. And do you know what the huge great bloody giveaway clue to it is, Keith? Productivity in this country is flat-lining. Even Osborne is "disappointed". So pray tell me what these wonderful new Tory jobs are actually creating, Keith. You can't spot a deliberately-created Tory illusion if it comes up and bites you on the bum, can you, and even if you did spot it you'd deny it with every twist and turn and misrepresentation you could muster. That's why you're so right-wing, Keith. Easy peasy.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:39 PM

Cease your puerile pretence.
It is simplistic, naive, puerile pretence that anyone "desires" famine, disease and water shortage.

The 1979 low was not achieved again until years into new Labour.

Not Tory then.

It (unemployment) is much higher than that today,

So is employment.The population is much higher.

My comment on housing was nothing to do with house building. I was referring to council house selloffs.

Why?
The problem is a shortage of housing.
The sell off did not reduce the housing stock at all.
All those houses still exist and are still occupied.

The refugee crisis (not just a migrant crisis, your words) is squarely the upshot of decades of terrible foreign policy balls-ups over decades by the west in the Middle East in which we have been thoroughly complicit.

We have not been complicit in any way in the implosion of Syria.
Only about 30% are from Syria anyway.
Most are from Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

The government is only sending money to try to stop them coming here,

Not true.
Most can not afford the thousands that it costs to make the trip.
The humanitarian aid is for schools, shelter, health care.
Look up "humanitarian."

and not only is it completely inadequate, it is also coming off our foreign aid budget.

Our aid to Syrian refugees is second only to USA and more that the rest of the EU combined.
We give proportionally more in foreign aid than anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 03:20 PM

Cammeroon has been around long enough to be assumed as Tory. Corebin hasn't been in such a public eye for long enough. The BBC are, if anything acknowledging that 60% of the electorate are so dis-interested in which politician belongs to which label that they don't even vote.

The BBC are always criticised for their biases. The lefties find some cockamamie reason that can be explained in another way.

The Tories are for ever citing left bias from all those arty-farty lefty lovies.

Lesser parties are always claiming unfair exposure, ie not getting enough.

The BBC for all their faults are damned if they don't and damned if they do. They plough a pretty straight furrow despite the crosswinds.

Ask the plebs in any totalitarian regime - they like the World Service for its better delivery of truths.

What would you prefer? Rupert Merde-Hoc deciding what you should think?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 03:19 PM

For fuck's sake, KtheA. Capital and conservatives DESIRE poverty and deprivation in the lower orders because it makes labour (the workers, not the party) more malleable to the demands of capital. Cease your puerile pretence.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 12:39 PM

You were given the post-1979 unemployment record by Jim last week. The 1979 low was not achieved again until years into new Labour. It is much higher than that today, and a damn sight higher still when you take into account all the cheat statistics that "forget about" bogus apprenticeships, bogus self-employed numbers and almost a million on zero-hours contracts. My comment on housing was nothing to do with house building. I was referring to council house selloffs. The refugee crisis (not just a migrant crisis, your words) is squarely the upshot of decades of terrible foreign policy balls-ups over decades by the west in the Middle East in which we have been thoroughly complicit. The government is only sending money to try to stop them coming here, and not only is it completely inadequate, it is also coming off our foreign aid budget. And I do not appreciate very much your sneaky attempt to shift the ground on two out of three of the points I made, thank you. You still haven't learned the lessons of your Wheatcroft misrepresentations, have you?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:16 AM

Sigh!

BBC apologizes for 'anti-Semitic' cartoon in music program

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:04 AM

If the Tories record on employment is worse than Labour's, I would like to see the evidence.
Likewise house building.
The migrant crisis is not our fault, and this government sends more aid to Syrian refugees than the rest of the EU put together.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:54 AM

Er, they're all true. Check 'em out.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:48 AM

Steve, I challenge all of your examples.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:46 AM

To everyone who responded to my posting about full employment, good quality housing etc.

I didn't say that conservatives don't believe in these things. Over the years I have met many compassionate conservative voters who are just as concerned about the state of the world as I am.

The trouble is that they have hitched their wagon to the wrong star. Capitalism is founded on the principles of inequality and dog eat dog. It's called the free market and until it is done away the world will remain full of suffering.

For anyone who hasn't yet apprehended that fact, I wouldn't try wading through Karl Marx's Capital, easily the most impenetrable book I have ever read. Instead, read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, especially the chapter which begins "The spring is beautiful in California". Although set in the 1930s' of the American depression, its critique of capitalism as a socio/economic system is universal.

It's not that the world is full of greedy people, or that there's something unalterable about the laws of human behaviour which makes for social inequality, and which makes some people better off than others.

It is that the system itself is wrong. It is founded on profit and greed where it should be about satisfying human need.

Do I think that Jeremy Corbyn is the man to cure all the problems of capitalism? He probably isn't, but he could well be the person to give us a good hard nudge in the right direction.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:22 AM

Full employment? The Tories since 1979 have a terrible record. Housing? The Tories sell off all the best public housing stock at massive discounts, leaving the slums for the undeserving poor. World free from famine, etc? The Tories want to limit the numbers fleeing from a crisis that's our fault to 4000 a year, and they're talking about paying for that out of the foreign aid budget. Not trying very hard to achieve them, eh, Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:08 AM

left wingers think that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be a good thing. Con-servatives and others think that it would be a bad thing,

Such childlike, naive prejudice.
Everyone is in favour of those things silly, only differing in the best way to achieve them.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Stu
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:02 AM

Bilderberg, Tezza.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 09:27 AM

You see, Terribilis, left wingers think that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be a good thing. Con-servatives and others think that it would be a bad thing, because then the poor would be less terrified of the powers of the rich and organised capital. It's quite remarkable how you can say what you do so soon after a coroner has officially found that the death of a person was due to the effects of government policy over benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 09:00 AM

I wouldn't worry, Teribus. Just about every other media outlet is biased in favour of your lot anyway.