BBC News at 10

[Hounslowrover]

I'm watching this and as I post nothing  about Boris and missing Cobra meetings or Gove' response. Plenty about schools not opening, it could have taken one sentence. What's happening to reporting in the media?

[BillyStubbsTears]

There were muffled whispers last week from journalists that the BBC top brass have instructed interviewers and presenters to "go easy" on the Govt.

This morning, a normally vicious R4 presenter hurriedly moved on the guests who were reviewing the papers when they started with that ST story. Having heard that, and Marr doing a similar thing with a "hindsight is all very well" b*llocks line, I'm convinced that is the case. Political journalists would have been itching to get into that story. It's their lifeblood.

[IDM]

If the issue has been picked up on, and discussed on the off topic page of a third division football club fans’ forum, then the same issue will be rife through the country..

[BillyStubbsTears]

IDM

True.

But if most people just "meh", it doesn't really matter does it?

[Nudga]

Bill and Melinda Gates company paid the BBC £5.6 million in awarded grants in 2019.
They are not in impartial.

[IDM]

IDM

True.

But if most people just "meh", it doesn't really matter does it?

Yes but there is a difference between being indifferent to a social media rumour, and something written in a “serious” newspaper like the Times.

The penny will drop with the population eventually..

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

Fine.

Have it Johnson and Cummings's way.

You'll be the one who is likely to die, not me.

Have it that way. Let me go back to work and start saving the company that employs young people with young families.

You go off and have the destiny that this Govt was preparing for you in February.

Go on. Off you go.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

You are determined to not look at the mounting evidence that the Govt DID have a policy of Herd Immunity throughout February.

That WOULD have meant sacrificing half a million of your generation.

The evidence is out there in spades. But if you utterly refuse to look at it, you won't see it.

Meanwhile, you keep on arguing with the people who have been shouting for a policy that actually protects you. Even though it will mean a significantly poorer future for us.

I truly don't get your motivation.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Pathetic bst, the goverment are being advised do you understand that? Do you honestly believe boris said one day ok herd immunity is the way to go? You are probably a lovely guy and you take lots of time sharing information and replying to my sometimes informative views but you are obsessed and quite frankly paranoid that conservatives are out to either kill everyone or make everyone homeless and poor, stop just looking from things from a labour point of view it might just not seem as bad then, I removed my above post as not to argue if you wondered, take care I need my sleep

Governments get lots of advice from all sorts of places.

It is the Government that decides which advice of that offered to follow, not the advisers. That's what governments do, and what they're supposed to be competent at.

FFS stop pushing the line that nothing the Government has done is anything to do with them but down to their advisers. It's truly pathetic.

[ravenrover]

I thought that Boris takes advice from just one source

[BillyStubbsTears]

As Wilts pointed out last week, a venerated Tory leader once said, "Advisers advise. Politicians decide."

But that was in the day when politicians took responsibility.

[Glyn_Wigley]

I thought that Boris takes advice from just one source

Any government that - if only offered one line of advice - doesn't ask for, or actively seeks, more options isn't just incompetent. It's dangerously incompetent.

[wilts rover]

For whatever reason the BBC has become a propaganda arm for the Tory party - more an editorial line than any particular presenter.

For instance it's Laura Kuenssberg's job to check whether or not the 'line' she is broadcasting to the public is factually true. If this bloke can see it - why can't she:

https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1252212761393876992

[wilts rover]

Contrast that with Hugh Pym's question about the lack of PPE at the presser today. He knows what the true situation is with PPE because he has researched his information from the hospitals and is not prepared to put up with the government spin. Bet we don't see him again!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Agreed Wilts.

This, from the BBC's Political editor is simply breathtaking.

"the spread of coronavirus accelerated in a way that few in Whitehall expected."

She's not using that in a critical sense. She's using it to suggest that the Govt should be cut some slack.

Here's the full quote.

"Just as the spread of coronavirus accelerated in a way that few in Whitehall expected, so the situation could still evolve in unexpected ways in the next few weeks."

That is simply beyond belief.

ANYONE with A-level maths who listened to the news knew from mid February, broadly, how the virus was likely to spread.

This is the BBC Political Editor simply giving the Govt a free pass.

In fact, it is worse than that. It is actively re-writing history. The Govt had been told by the epidemiologidts broadly how it would spread if we lost control of it. By mid-Feb we had cases in the UK and losing control was a strong possibility. So saying, gently and supportively, that Whitehall didn't expect it, is just b*llocks.

[wilts rover]

And it's not true Billy. Look back at the Sunday Times article. They knew in January that if unchecked there would be 500000 deaths and they could see in February how quickly it was spreading in South Korea & Italy. The evidence was there for them.

Appalling journalism. She is paid by the public to represent us - not Cummings/Johnson to represent them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

That's what I'm saying Wilts. It's re-writing the history in a way that is very helpful to the Govt.

[Donnywolf]

1984 all over again.

They dont wait too long to rewrite the past though as others do it for them

Ironic they keep saying this is not the time for "a wash up" whilst doing (or getting someone tp do for them) the preliminary "excuses" into the public domain already

[BobG]

IT has to be to do with the next Charter renewal. It's not all that far away. The BBC has few friends these days. It's already taken a major kicking from the last Tory government over the funding of the over 75's licenses. It hears various right wing think tanks urging on it's commercialisation; it hears various Tory big wigs musing about breaking it up. It's scared to death. It's recent reaction to the 'uproar' when it announced the closure of teletext shows you just how scared the BBC is. Trouble is, they've got someone frit at the top. That's why the concept of journalism has disappeared, and it's why the BBC will end up disappearing too. They may lose a fight. But they will certainly lose a none fight. These are its dying days.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

Amen Bob

They choose not to fight and debase themselves in order to try to survive.

It reminds me of Churchill's excoriating speech to Chamberlain after the Munich meeting with Hitler.

"You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you WILL have war."

So many things I'd have disagreed with Churchill on when it came to economic and domestic policy. He wanted to send troops in to shoot striking miners. He was an unmitigated disaster as Chancellor with putting us back on the Gold Standard. But he was a visionary genius on foreign policy.

That line still sends shivers down my spine. At how you need visionaries when you are in a serious crisis. Prepared to do the hard, unpopular, but right thing.

Munich was wildly popular among the public. But it probably ended up costing 40 million lives. If Chamberlain had done what Churchill said and stood up to Hitler, even at the risk of war, Germany would have been knocked down relatively quickly.

[BillyStubbsTears]

OK...so I've dived into a web page of Churchill quotes.

This one. If only more of our leaders would absorb this one:

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop."