COME ON YOU HAWKS

[malxscfc]

Agree with both of you in part, certainly.

The Heinous Hain affair was offensive beyond belief! He "claimed" to have forgotten about £100,000 he spent on his own ego-boosting.... I can't tell which aspect of it all is most offensive:
1) That a Deputy Leadership election to a Party already in power should need anything more than 5p...
2) Which twats (with a GENUINE Political agenda) can spare 2-3 hundred grand to pay for this man's installation in a Public Office, accountable to the electorate?
3) How can a bloke who's supposed to represent our interests be trusted after:
a) spending such a ludicrous sum...
b) 'forgetting' to declare HALF his budget
c) or be trusted IF indeed he's tried to mislead us
4) How could the media let him off so lightly? How come he wasn't shot/sacked/flayed alive WHILE the news was still hot? It'll be too late now that there've been loads of "good days to bury bad news" since then.....





I'm with Mr. O. Ojive regarding the Beeb.

I pay 90% 0f my £1K per year to Wiltshire County Council (Poll Tax). And no one can tell me where that goes to...

I pay 17.5% VAT on everything I buy, except milk & bread & cake.

I pay 65-odd pence per litre on the fuel which gets me to work... so that I can pay NI and Income Tax.

ALL the Income Tax I struggle to pay in my lifetime won't even pay for one Cruise Missile, yet I never get a say on where we're going to launch it!

The idea that the BBC is not worth a measly £150 per year TO ME is beyond consideration...

When I meant 'complimentary', I didn't mean that it wasn't paid for. Point is that if you're sensible enough (like some) to forego a telly set, you don't need to buy a TV Licence, can Pass "Go", and can avoid Jail!
But you'll still get the best Internet News Service, Complimentary Sports updates on your Mobile, you can download a growing number of archived podcasts, can listen to Radio by 3 different media, and also be allowed to interact with the Corporation - and thence 'Speak unto Nation' by doing so - without having to pay!

All of this is 'complimentary'.

I think I'm mostly talking about social cohesion in what's left of the fabric of our Society. It's one thing we do still all feel part of. The influence of the Church is almost nil. Simple cultural cohesion along, say, Language or Ethnic lines is relatively weaker than before. We haven't had a 'decent' War to pull us together in ages.

I just reckon the Beeb is a bastion of what used to be thought of as Britishness; what's relatively good, and unselfish, and liberal, and fair, and inclusive; in the Modern World.

The (E Pluribus Unum) Yanks all HAVE to pledge allegiance as kids in School each day. We have a far more understated social glue, which everyone is familiar with, but few are even aware of, and is certainly not rammed down your throat!

The BBC is not "Political" in any Party Political sense. That's not ever what I meant, though it's no surprise if some stories inevitably favour an incumbent Government which has been there 10 years, written by people who are marginally left-leaning (as the majority of intellectuals seem to be). In fact its neutrality is astonishingly effective, and is respected all around the world.
But also its agenda is relatively neutral - it's not self-serving like Private Corporations. And as a result it's respected more than the British Government.





I just instinctively know that when eventually the BBC gets privatised and flogged off, Great Britain will be a far lesser place to be.
At that time I don't think I'll want to be here anymore. With luck I'll be old enough to move into an Old Folks' Home in the Gambia, but if not, I guess I'll have to go through with my threat of moving to France (even if it is financially bankrupt....)




P.S. Good Luck, Hawks, BTW!

[Croc]

Game abandoned at Thurrock due to shite lights

[malxscfc]

croc said:

Game abandoned at Thurrock due to shite lights

That's usually Welling's excuse!

[Sultan of Cannock- SRFC]

Oh well, looks like we could debate this BBC thing until the cows come home and we won't be any closer to winning each other over. It's rather like me being unable to persuade my Mom to stop letting BT rip her off because she trusts the brand name.

i could almost hear the strains of "Jerusalem" ringing out as i read some of the replies here. The BBC is not a cuddly organisation but a vicious state-funded giant which lays off loads of it's poorer paid employees at a stroke and has a very successful commercial arm, thank you very much. it was more than a coincidence that when Teamtalk 252 appeared briefly 5 years ago the BBC pumped more of our money than it ever had before into Radio 5 to help strangle the new station almost at birth.

I was horrified to learn that i had misquoted malxscfc earlier. This was unintentional and i apologise, but i can't get away from thinking how biased the BBC actually is when i hear the admission that Broadcasting House was awash with empty champagne bottles when Blair won in '97, the likes of James Naughtie on Radio 4 talking of "when WE win the election tomorrow", When Peter Allen interviews Michael Howard and when the latter claims "Gordon Brown messed up our pensions." instead of pinning Howard to the floor and asking for evidence, Allen retorts, pantomime style, "Oh no he didn't!", Conservative politicians being (rightly) asked to cost out any policies they put forward, whereas when Blair was in opposition New Labour were allowed to say that they would cure the country with teddy bears and sunshine with little, if any, challenge, the "Tory Sleaze" frenzy of the mid 90's, when we've had Hain, Mandelsson, cash-for-answers, the Hindujas, Mandelsson again, Lord Cashpoint, Cash for honours, the Ecclestone affair, Kinnock, his wife AND his son getting nice little earners in Europe, not to mention Northern Rock and Railtrack. If any of this had happened under the Tories their asses would've been absolutely REAMED (and righly so). However, the Beeb has less interest in Labour Sleaze.

I could come back with a lot more but it would be rather like trying to swim upstream with one hand tied behind my back and the other holding a tennis racket. I'm still going to be in a minority of 1 on this subject and because i can't get rid of the TV as this would mean an end to Mrs Sultan's (free to air) Chinese Language services throwing away my licence and cancelling the direct debit would lead to a spell in chokey then i will have to pay up.

I've gone away and meditated on this and reconciled myself to the fact that the licence fee i am paying each year is actually a charitable donation to help bring a little bit of sunshine into everyone's life.

Rant over. Thanks for listening. Peace and love to us all.