Informing and educating
Posted on
February 04, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
By now we imagine most readers have already seen the alleged leak of the Ashcroft polling results which aren’t due to be officially released until 11am today [EDIT 00.47am: out now], and which suggest some jaw-dropping SNP gains.
We’re not going to go off half-cocked until those have been confirmed, so instead here’s something sent in by an alert reader. It’s an extract from the autobiography of former Radio 1 DJ Liz Kershaw, and describes events around the funeral of Princess Diana. We think you’ll find it enlightening.
Revealing indeed. Explains a lot.
It’s the people who had such trust in the ideal of the BBC who feel most betrayed when the reality of the organisation becomes apparent. Yew Choob’s BBC Blah Blah kinds sums it up for me
For what it’s worth, I was at a WOMAD festival in Morecambe of all places, can’t say it was on everyones mind there either.
Always liked Liz Kershaw, not changed on that one, Now hurry up 11 o’clock tomorrow
You mean to say if the Beeb don’t get the story they want, they just make it up anyway? Surely not?????
The should just make Simon Cowell the Governor General of the BBC and be done with it. Yeah! I know X Factor is not on BBC but that never prevented Michael Grade getting the gig.
This deserves a much larger audience.
Like the whole BBC news audience!
news is what the news want to make. If you step off the bus then some things become clear. I stopped watching tv 6-7 years ago and I find it refreshing to find things out that doesnt have a spin on it.
Bloody hell. Not really a surprise, but a surprise to find it so blatant so long ago.
I remember that Sunday morning on a short drive hearing it on the radio and calling in on some pals who were a bit shocked watching the news (nobody likes to hear of a lassie dying accident after all) anyway, I strolled in and said “Did you hear the bad news” ….. “Fergie’s still alive!”
My son was a toddler in 1997, so I was up with him at 7am (the joys!) I put on the TV for Tellytubbies, and BBC News were on both BBC 1 & 2. They already had journalists stationed at the royal palaces, and were desperately waiting for someone to turn up with a “tribute”, and cry onscreen. A taxi driver eventually appeared with a bouquet, but I always suspected it was fake.
There was no doubt the BBC had all guns primed. I assumed it was a rehearsal for the Queen Mother’s eventual demise, but they milked it for a week, no doubt about it.
I remember phoning the BBC in Edinburgh at the time.Not to complain but to confirm that the grief they were reporting existed in the streets of Scotland. I wanted clarification that the reality I was observing was not what they were reporting. In the conversation with what could have been a doorman or receptionist for all I knew,I was told a lot of people were accusing the BBC of being “the comisars of grief” but he said London and Bristol and “everywhere” were saying they were bereft and he supposed we in Scotland were also bereft. I could hear his tongue being firmly stuck in his cheek. He knew as I knew that it was a set up.
I remember being gobsmacked by the crazy BBC coverage and having a huge laugh about it at work with similarly amazed colleagues on the Monday morning. It really was sickeningly OTT. Does anyone else remember how the Beeb suddenly became *MAXIMUM SOLEMNITY* THE BBC, FROM LONDON, presumably because they were being broadcast all over the place.
On the Saturday of the funeral I was in Aberdeen for the Scotland – Belarus football international. Having read the above article, it has been amusing to go back and read press reports of the controversy that confronted the SFA’s decision to go ahead with the game as planned from 3:00pm (the funeral service having ended just after noon).
What sticks in my memory is that before the game I had been for a pee in public toilets somewhere between the Esplanade and Pittodrie, as I turned to come out I saw pasted to the back of the door a notice saying that as a mark of respect the facility was going to closed and locked up imminently. I was so amazed by the lunacy of this that I was going to take a photo, and then I thought, with my luck someone will come through the door to close the place up and I’ll get arrested for performing a perverted and disrespectful act in a Gent’s toilet. So it joined the list of photos that I regret not having taken.
The television will not be revolutionised! 😉
Had I read this at the time I’d have been shocked. Not now though, I used to (naively) think the BBC a were above all this sort of crap. Those illusions have been shattered in recent times. The BBC are no better than the tabloid style crap you get from the likes of SKY or other satellite/cable shit.
I honestly think the whole Diana “a nation mourns” thing was a bizarre BBC fantasy anyway. I was working in Manchester at the time and honestly the Mancs didn’t give a toss.
Indeed, nothing highlights the establishment bias at the BBC more than it’s coverage of the royals. We very seldom see anyone from Republic commenting on royal news and I don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone on to remark that they’re not that bothered about Prince Edwards bath time farts or any other royal activity at all.
Oh well, there goes 11 oclock tomorrow, us nasty nat hackers have seen to that
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/02/scottish-battleground/
I recall as a seven year old in Muirton, Perth. We kids once had a conversation about the Queen in regard to how she did the toilet.
One little girl reckoned she had a fur lined toilet seat. I pointed out that would not be easy to keep clean.
But the new boy recently up from England solemnly pointed out that the Queen doesn’t do the toilet. The jaw dropping on our part was not at the possibility of this new information being true but at the fact anyone could believe that even at that young age.
OT…sorry… Robert Peffers
Wee message over on off topic
Better not tell Derek Bateman, he doesn’t believe the BBC does this stuff!!!
The BBC have had at least 18 years of lying, deception,
cover-up, distortion, creating the news as a work of fiction.
No wonder they’re so bloody good at it.
Until the Referendum debate, I had no idea it was as bad.
I feel such a fool for trusting the BBC for so many years.
But no more. Don’t watch the telly now at all.
Only read The National – with a few reservations.
From Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll http://www.lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/02/scottish-battleground/#more-7456
it looks like the majority have woke up.
But seemingly, with so many Labour ‘red till dead’ and ‘no surrender’ voters,
Scotland still has a millstone round it’s neck.
Looking forward to reading your analysis, Stu.
I just know, with your insight, you’ll be unpicking a few more stitches in the fabric of the Union.
Ultimately, my favourite comment was from a friend of a friend, who incurred the wrath of a few girls in the room when he uttered the immortal “Di’s dead? Oh well, one less bullet, come the revolution”!
With these poll results, do you reckon we’ll get another vow this week or have to wait a bit longer?
Tony Bliar became Prime Minister on 2nd May 2007, Lady Diana died on 31st Aug of the same year. Is anyone surprised at the actions of the BBC with Bliar in charge?
It’s all been downhill since.
I remember on the Sunday (or maybe it was the Bank Holiday Monday) when she was killed, I didn’t have the TV on, and some time in the afternoon the convener of SNP London Branch phoned me with some question about the referendum that was coming up in the next week or two. He said what his question was, and then said, “and then with Diana’s death….”
I frantically racked my brains trying to think of someone in London Branch called Diana, or in the SNP at all, or even just a mutual acquaintance who might have died, and came up with zilch. “Diana who?” I asked innocently….
Tony Bliar became Prime Minister on 2nd May 2007, Lady Diana died on 31st Aug of the same year. Is anyone surprised at the actions of the BBC with Bliar in charge?
?????
1997, surely.
@ liz g Saw your Message for Robert Peffers Over on off topic. Don’t see Robert over on off topic much. so have Translated that for you on off topic. Hope it is Helpful.
I was at the Martell in Falkirk and was walking home.Stopped at the garage for munchies and the first editions had it front page.
I wasn’t bothered but my Mum was pretty upset.
@Morag
Oh Dear!
Cognitive dissonance right enough, how the hell I managed that I have no idea. Gotta laugh though 🙂
Michael McCabe @2.05
Thank You Very Much
@ liz g Your Welcome.
Thanks for that Rev.
I found Liz Kershaw’s recollection of the woman whose son had just died extremely moving and poignant. It reminded me of my own (utterly true) “Where were you when …” story, for I had spent that day in Birmingham with my wife at the bedside of her totally wonderful and kindly 90-year old aunt who had lived her life selflessly,quietly and far from the public gaze and who, sadly, passed away that very afternoon (in some pain and discomfort it must be said).
As we drove back to London later that night we tried desperately to find something on the radio to lighten the atmosphere but soon gave up – it was wall-to-wall wailing and Diana-lamentation. Understandably, with our personal loss still very much in our minds we felt more than a bit annoyed at these manufactured public outpourings of grief. But, as our route down the M1 took us through Diana’s home turf we happened to tune into the local BBC radio station which was desperately trying to milk the grief by conducting a phone-in, hoping that someone who gave a toss might contact them. They were failing miserably, but then, as we were about to switch channels, a woman caller came on the line. It was hard to say whether she was grief-stricken or not but anyway she proceeded to pronounce the following immortal words:
“I was cooking a pork-chop when I heard the news and I thought, well, she’ll never cook a pork-chop again.”
Ah, how true, how true, we nodded. If only Blair had managed to fit that sentiment into his heart-felt, cynical, vote-winning tribute…
Or, alternatively, if Sir Elton had added another verse to his rewrite of ‘Candle in the Wind’ and renamed it “Goodbye, England’s Pork-chop” – maybe he could have made even bigger bucks, who knows?
Ooft.
Who knew?
I feel very uncomfortable with this thread,
the morning of Diana’s death
I woke up and went down stairs and went down to the local papershop to get a Sunday times and I nearly collapsed when I heard that Diana had died in a car crash I went upstairs and woke my wife up and the two of us stood in front of the tv numb with shock,
Now we hear that most people were getting on with their lives as if nothing had happened,
That’s not my recollection, the locals in my town placed flowers at the war memorial in her memory I was bereft with grief,
Was that a false memory? ABSOLUTELY NOT, was it a classic case of mass hysteria driven by the media? I would be inconsolable at my own lack of awareness if it was
I am starting to wonder if we lost something more than a Princess, because of the change in public thinking since then in that we have a much more cynical view of our world and Im not at all happy to be part of that,
I know what I felt and it was genuine not a faux emotion propagated by the media, I suspect Ms Kershaw’s recollection not because I disbelieve her but because I really do believe the BBC hierarchy had a clearer understanding about the real and keenly felt public grief that really DID exist,
For once (and I cant believe I’m saying this) I actually agree with the BBC
WERE WE ALL MANCHURIAN CANDIDATES?
I still cant make up my mind if I dislike the person I have become since then or pity the poor fool I was!
And you know what,
I wouldn’t even describe myself as a royalist.
Many years ago I was sent by my ward sister to take part in a documentary for the BBC where they were comparing Crichton Royal Hospital to Nine Wells. We were to sit in the boardroom and be filmed being given information by one of the board members. The spin was that communication was so much better in our hospital than in Dundee and that these briefing sessions were a regular occurance which kept nursing staff informed of what was happening at board level and how great that was for patient care. When we all pointed out that this never happened at all, never mind routinely and that none of us knew who the board member was as we’d never seen him before, no one batted an eye. Cancelling my TV licence has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. No more lies and spin from lazy BBC journalists for me.
My own recollection (I was living in the North east of England at the time) was that people were stunned at the news, but there was no “outpouring” of national grief. I had no time for the royals and so never broached the topic, so perhaps I simply didn’t see or hear this as a national disaster. I avoided the TV for the same reason – it was so far OTT that I thought I was living in a fantasy state.
My father told me afterwards that HE had stopped talking about it with people he knew as to say anything even neutral about the Diana situation was to receive a level of vitriol he had never experienced before. It was as though people who never even met the woman had become her staunchest supporters.
Shortly after that I started working overseas (in particular in the Balkans) and it became immediately apparent that the “Message” from the BBC about the Yugoslav wars was so far from an honest presentation of the facts, that I stopped trusting them from that point on. The Diana overreaction maybe opened my eyes, but the lies about the Yugoslav civil wars was the clincher.
No license, from late 1990s and I have hardly watched the BBC since.
What I find interesting is people claim to not have been bothered about Dianas death yet can remember very clearly when they first heard the news of it. People who are shocked at famous people’s deaths always remember where they were / what they were doing when the death was revealed to them. So really it would’ve been significant if your honest? I came home from a long party weekend put the box on, ran into my sleeping dads room and exclaimed ”Diana’s DEAD ” to which he replied ” WHO? ”
“It was as though people who never even met the woman had become her staunchest supporters.”
True
I left the pub and on my way home I stopped at the the war memorial to look at the messages on the flowers left there, and while I was browsing them several young men who had also left a pub challenged me as to what I was doing in case I was stealing the flowers or something
they were aggressive
I felt very threatened.
A couple of years ago one of my boys (12 now) asked if people actually liked royals. I showed him the video of people wailing at Kensington Palace. He still doesn’t understand why they were so upset about a woman they never knew who didn’t bother wearing a seatbelt.
A friend who lives in London was threatened in a pub because he wasn’t seen to be properly upset.
I just get annoyed when they dump Bilko to show more royal guff but I got all of Bilko on DVD last month so no worries there now.
And on the where were you thing, I was in a tent in Lochranza. We saw some half mast flags in Corrie and assumed it was Elizabeth Windsor snr, We didn’t see a paper till lunchtime in Brodick.
Did any educated person outside of the UK elite or BBC payroll
ever have any doubt that the BBC is little more that a propaganda channel?
I recall the Blue Peter slip up when they pulled a kid off the street to pretend that they were a competition winner.
They also had the Telephone Vote debacle when you paid your money
and your vote went nowhere. You were still charged after the allotted voting period. How difficult it must have been to pull the plug at that point?
Liars, Cheats, Thieves! Pravda UK Corporation.
BBC Breathtaking Bias & Corruption
I do remember a genuinely shocking news moment. The destruction of the twin towers in New York.
To me Diana was just a yah who hated Scotland. The queen was excoricised in the media for not appearing to care, but to me she caught the public mood more accurately than Tony Blair.
@M4rkyboy.
I’m not surprised your Mum was upset.
Fancy going to the Martell :-))
I also remember Ally McCoist suggesting the Scotland team not turn up for their international, and for the devo referendum be cancelled as a mark of respect. Fortunately that met with indifference, if not the derision it deserved.
John King – fair play to you man; you were obviously more caring than the rest of us cynical buggers!
O/T sorry Rev
Just a thought , does anyone think that the Tories with the poster of Salmond and Ed, then Salmond, Ed and Gerry Adams is a bit off ?
I was thinking ” This would be a catastrophy” headline so that when they go into coalition with UKIP they’ll turn round and point to it with a cheery ” at least it’s not as bad as that !”
Bit of long term planning going on perhaps ?
The miners strike told me the BBC were lying, manipulating bastards. As for the *cough* “peoples princes”, I couldn’t give a toss, a sad day for her nearest and dearest but, other than that, nope nothing.
I Liked Diana. I think she was to good for the royals. Anyway can anybody tell me if the Queen has paid the Bedroom tax on all her Spare Bedrooms.
Couldn’t care less who murdered her, Royals, Tony Blair, Journalists,
Funny, see how long the list of suspects is,
Why on earth should anybody care anyway? These people bare no relation to the rest of us David Ike may be on to something here, they might as well come from another planet
Not that i think they do, i just think they’re a shower of Vampires even when the are condescendingly nice to us peasants
Still, as long as the BBC tell us in hushed tones to be respectful at all times and revere our betters
“Yus me lord” (bowing and scraping as i say it)
…it is ALWAYS about the manipulation of the public.
From Diana to Bradfords FOI campaigns on the NHS.
Journalism is now reduced to propaganda/spin.
When ah heard about yon Lassie’s death,whit crossed ma mind was “The bastards have killed her”.
Ah’ve long been disillusioned wi’ English broadcasting. In the cold war days ah pit oan oan Radio Moscow. Thocht the news was somewhaur atween the twa. In the Gulf War it wis Al Jazeera.
Noo ah mind being in the Daily Recker news room sometime in the seventies, an’ ah jist said ” Oh is this whaur ye mak’ the news?” The reporter ah wis wi’ jumpit in a wheen ower fast “Shh! We dinnae mak’ the news” Cheinged days?
I was working in london, my office was number 1 Northumberland Avenue (famous for fleming fans) and some of my colleagues were talking about people gathering outside Kensington palace and Buckie Pal. So I wandered along at lunchtime with a colleague and saw the HUGE pile of flowers. It must have been half the size of a football pitch, I’ll never forget the smell. The people there were openly sniffling and one or teary people. Most there for the spectacle I suppose.
I remember the day of the funeral. I drove up to Culloden Moor and signed Hail Alba in the visitor book.
The woman was not a saint. She was the public PR face of a dysfunctional family, who by naivety or as a willing participant in the sham, helped to maintain a hereditary elite in power for yet another generation. Her ex husband may not last long, but her son is likely to be around for another 50 or more years.
I stayed in a hotel this weekend. No longer watching TV at home, I turned it on in the room. What tosh. I think the best decision I made after Yes and joining the NP, was to stop watching that idiot box. Its a wee bit hard to get all your news without searching using the web, but it is gives a warn smug feeling to realise you are better informed as a result.
No doubt part of the BBC’s brief was to deflect Joe Public from thinking about how convenient the accident was.
@ John King
Well said John.
Unlike yourself I felt no grief, merely sympathy for a life lost in a pointless, awful fashion. I couldn’t tell you the day or hour as some could, or what I was doing the moment I heard. I do recall feeling pity, but that, as I say, is just me and I think a normal human reaction to anyone’s loss.
I listen to Radio 4 – but only to find out what propaganda they are peddling.
I don’t bother to listen to Radio Scotland. I don’t need to. If SNP is mentioned it is bad. People like Murphy and Brown get glorified.
Most media reporting is either sensationalized or fragmented into dumbed down snippets which become distorted more and more as the day progresses.
A free press serving the public and democracy? You must be joking.
Wot we need is busloads of Diana lookalikes to wave to the poor and pictures of Jim Murphy in a foodbank.
Royal waddins, funerals, births, Jubilees coupled the London Olympics and celebrating the beginninig of WWI are the stuff ot the EBC, Team GB Meejah amnd HM Labour Party. Oh, and the return of the Old Firm. Circuses afore breid.
Looked more closely at some of Ashcroft’s now-released tables. I do not know if this applies in them all, but I noticed that the C1 social category was the most likely to support the SNP in the one I looked at most closely. Does this suggest that, in some areas of Scotland at least, Ed Miliband’s ‘squeezed middle’ think the SNP are the ones to speak for them? Interesting.
I was in America at the time and contrary to what her majesty’s press were reporting…nobody gave a fuck.
Even on the news channels.
Iain Taylor (not that one)
“is” not “was”
In 1982 in the Falklands at ”Action Stations”waiting on the early morning air attacks, we were listening to the BBC World Service, when we were struck NUMB. The BBC reporter broadcast the reason the bombs that were hitting the ships weren’t exploding ”they are not dropping them fro a high enough height for the arming mechanism to fully arm”.
The bombs went off after that.
She was weak. Pacific Quay shills would rig up a mass weep and wail in, easy as pie.
And the most important message from Diana’s death? Where a bloody seatbelt!
@Callum
Huge pile of flowers, people sniffing, some teary –
aye hayfever is a terrible thing. Luckily you can get antihistimines over the counter.
My memories are that people were shocked in that it was unexpected but few cared much other than feeling the same empathy for her nearest and dearest that they would feel when anyone died.
All I thought about Diana’s death was being sorry to hear of any person dying in such a horrible accident, and I also remember being sorry for her sons, still children, who were paraded through the streets so the mob outside Buck House could gorge itself on seeing two children mourn their mother, but I felt sorry for them as children, not as Royals, and I certainly didn’t feel any personal grief.
I certainly never saw any mass grief here, or detected it in friends or relatives (I can’t even remember discussing it beyond the usual horrible thing to happen etc).
Anyway we went shopping up west, it’s what she would have wanted.
Can we move on soon, please.
There is so much wrong with news reporting these days.
Setting aside (not to diminish this, though) outlets having agendas and bias, I think one aspect stands out ….
News outlets, the BBC more than most, seem to think their role is to manufacture news, not report it!
Not so long ago, they would investigate, collect information, then break a big story of genuine relevance to people’s lives.
Over the last 30-40 years the industry appears to have moved to generating and driving a big story, sometimes with so little evidence that subsequently the story is proven to have little substance.
Where does all this come from? Partly, I guess, a desire to show a UK with the accent on United; partly a belief that everyone thinks like people in London, and thinks about London all the time; partly vulgar journalism – here’s a easy story that we can exploit for days.
Notoriously, the whole media-inspired sob-in reached the point of harassing organisations which didn’t close down their operations on the day of the funeral. They were actually phoned up and explanations demanded. Sporting fixtures were cancelled. Yet back in the days when there was genuine attachment to the royals, nothing of that sort happened. On the day of the funeral of George VI in 1952, nothing stopped outside the centre of London, and there was a full card of football fixtures.
Patrick Roden:
Better not tell Derek Bateman, he doesn’t believe the BBC does this stuff!!!
I do. More here: The Bastardisation of the BBC
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-basterdisation-of-the-bbc/
Probably my first real thought that the BBC and the media were manipulating the news (my light bulb moment) came at the time England were bidding to host the 2006 World Cup so I guess it must have been the late 1990s.
Millwall had been playing Man City (I think) in a midweek match and the next day a guy called in to BBC 5 live saying he was at the match and he had saw and heard gunfire amongst the fighting outside the ground the previous night – his point was that he could not believe it wasn’t being reported anywhere as this should be a massive story. He said he genuinely feared for his life.
Around the same time England played Scotland at Wembley and several of my Scottish friends witnessed the most appalling violence on the streets of London again it went unreported.
The reason it was unreported was the huge effort the English establishment were making to host the 2006 World Cup Finals and there was no way they were going to let the world know that the hooligan element was still alive and kicking.
The happy ending was that Germany hosted the 2006 WCF
The only grieving I did at Diana’s death was for the lost week when campaigning for the referendum was suspended.
@James Caithness
The only time the bastards told the truth, helping the “enemy”, ffs.
AnneDon says:
(12:56 am)
“I assumed it was a rehearsal for the Queen Mother’s eventual demise, but they milked it for a week, no doubt about it.”
Di got the QM’s funeral, which was already planned. They had to write a new one for the QM.
I was sick of the vicious circle of displays of grief on TV stoking displays of grief in real life which were then reported on TV… However my hat’s off to the poor bloody infantry in the BBC, who mounted a major outside broadcast to cover the memorial service later the same day in an impossibly short time. The production manager who got that job dropped on him did well.
Whether it was worth doing is of course another matter.
I always felt the Southern English have a very odd attitude to royalty.
For me, the BBC news fell from grace the day Chernobyl went up. Very early on in the morning there were sensible experts saying sensible things, that I knew were sensible because I had knowledge about radiation. By the time most people were waking up and tuning in, the bullshit and rather dangerous lies were in full flow.
Greater Maryhill Foodbank.
As many of you will already know via TV newspapers several large donations were given to the Foodbank.
I spent half my day yesterday helping out,I noticed on the computer several donations from Wingers, (no names,no pack drill)but donated under WOS A big Thanks to Wingers.
Anyone wishing to donate go to Greater Maryhill Page & donate through (Just Giving.com)ither the Chelsea Somerville or to the foodbank, you will see that that Just Giving was set up for a heating system,just say where you want your donation to go to ie Chelsea /Foodbank /Heating.
It will be Friday before another donation page can be set up.
All credit to Julie & her team of volunteers for coping throughout this trying period, dealing with food donations coming in,foodparsels going out,reporters/photographers,telephone radio interviews, hectic/chaotic, but still the humour & smiling faces for the service users,& not a sign of Jim Murphy, there again Maryhill isent a Trussell Trust Foodbank.
The BBC in full anti SNP mode this morning. Louise White spoke to Shona Robertson in a completely disgraceful way about A&E. Eleanor Bradford sitting in on the programme to stick the boot in.
They are clearly shitting it about Lord Ashcroft figures and attacking (best form of defence?).
I will put money on that Ashcroft isn’t mentioned in a similar way tomorrow.
What we need is an infiltrator to call up with a false anti SNP story and then attack Whyte and Bradford for their bias. (I can’t because of my job)
Louise White and Eleanor Bradford teaming up to monster Shona Robison re waiting times.Total lack of respect IMO
Just as well the people of Scotland can see through the agenda setting and propaganda …
Someone on just now calling LW out on her behaviour and bbc agenda setting. Good on you Bob. Well done mister
Well done to the man (David?) who just gave Louise White a flea in her ear about her rudeness – she did not like it one wee toty bit, and could probably rival Paula Rose for foot-stamping.
I remember feeling decidedly queasy at the BBCs coverage of an ex princess being smashed about in the back of a posh motor like a ping-pong ball and her subsequent planting but i was actually physically sick when Elton bloody John began singing…
My memory of Princess Diana is of an overprivileged, overwrought Cinderalla-type character. The day of her death I went to a Manfred concert somewhere in Glasgow. The band came out and said they had hesitated about putting the show on and asked the audience what they thought. The show went on.
I thought at the time that the ‘grief stricken’ aspect of the whole thing was media-driven and taken up by people who spent a lot of time watching American TV soaps. They wanted ’emotion’ and then wallowed in it.
My sympathy was with the two children who were forced to parade themselves in public to satisfy the media and the grieving public.
What we should all know but nice to hear it from someone involved in the propaganda machine. I swear it’s worse now than I’ve ever seen it – just switch Diana for Kate
@John King
“I woke up and went down stairs and went down to the local papershop to get a Sunday times and I nearly collapsed when I heard that Diana had died in a car crash I went upstairs and woke my wife up and the two of us stood in front of the tv numb with shock”
“Now we hear that most people were getting on with their lives as if nothing had happened”
You and your wife are two people.
What do you actually mean by “getting on with their lives as if nothing happened”? Are you suggesting that her death was anything more to you than a talking point?
“I was bereft with grief”
For someone you never even knew?
“Was that a false memory?”
Again, your memory of yourself and a few people’s experiences isn’t necessarily representative.
Besides, with you being “bereft with grief”, you’re not really seeing things clearly, are you?
“I know what I felt and it was genuine”
Again, that’s relating to you, as an individual. Why did you feel that way, in the first place?
Aside from her being a shameless self-publicist, manipulative parasite, what caused you to experience grief for someone with no connection to you?
Anyway, clearly there were many people with the same emotions as you. But there were many people with the same emotions as me (who could not, in essence, give a shit, and were embarrassed to be in a country where there was such hysteria from a substantial group of people).
Regarding Liz Kershaw’s disillusionment: it didn’t stop her being part of the corporation, or indeed part of a show that was fined for what was tantamount of fraud.
She. Is. One. Of. Them.
Have to admit I did feel genuinely upset when I heard of Diana’s death!
Not the wailing public show of grief type nonsense, that the MSM whipped up, but just genuinely upset that this poor woman who seemed to be trying to do some good in the world had passed away.
Watched a documentary (banned in the UK) a couple of weeks ago, linked by someone on Wings, about the establishment cover-up after Diana and Dodi died, again we see the BBC doing the bidding of the establishment and covering their backs.
Don’t get me started!!!
Call Louise asked ‘what purpose do waiting times serve?’ I have text her the answer that they keep Eleanor Bradford in a job. More disgraceful stuff from BBC Scotland
Well we had Louise Whyte on Call Kayeeeee this morning, addressing the health secretary Shona Robison like a naughty child. Explain yourself she said c’mon fess up why are you not meeting targets. That other useless article Helana Bradford goading her in the background. Again no balance on BBC Scotland. 9/10 people in A & E seen on time. But lets focus on the couple of bad health boards not meeting the targets and the 1/10 moaners.
@scotspine & @Graeme Doig
I agree! BBC not even trying to disguise their bias now!
BBC correspondent Matt Frei was with BBC America at the time of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he was told to get down there and report on looting, rioting and people fighting over meagre supplies. He went on camera to make his report, the problem was there was no rioting or fighting but told the world that what was going on, he looked like an idiot with serene calmness in the background. Why? Because the French army were there organising the relief effort and patrolling the streets. Charlie Brooker picked up on this on his Weekly Wipe series and slaughtered the BBC and Matt Frei over it.
Just months later Matt Frei moved to Channel Four.
Just had a quick look at the data for my constituency of Cumbernauld, Kylsyth and Kirkintiloch East and found that despite the fact that the survey contained a higher proportion of women and those aged over 45, McClymont is still out of a job!
I do think people were genuinely shocked but the BBC ramped it up to such an extent that by the time of the funeral they had people practically chucking themselves on top of her coffin.
scotspine & Graeme Doig
Fully agree BBC Scotland are a total disgrace, especially their Health reporter Ms Bradford
Fact is , and something not reported by the BBC, is that NHS Scotland has the best turn around in A&E of all the parts of the UK. It may not be up to the 99.9% sought by some. But its a heck of a lot better than NHS Wales (run by Labour) which is a complete shambles and a lot better than NHS England, the latter seeing some patients wait 12 hours!
I can only think that there is an agenda going on, in which Labour through the likes of Bradford are trying to paint a picture suggesting that Scotland is worse than either England or Wales.
The fact is completely the opposite
Oh the BBC sure got themselves in a lather, didn’t they?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/diana/soccer.html
Asswipes.
@ Soda
Yeah, saw Mr McClymont out canvassing at the weekend. Thought to masel’ as he and his team passed by he was ontae plums in my old stomping grounds. Even my old dad had nothing good to say about his chances and Labours in general come May.
I think they had similar problems finding enthusiastic NO supporters (under the age of 70) last year. The silent majority were too ashamed to be seen and heard.
From BBC website
Regarding A&E waiting times
NHS England
Target 95% for patients seen in 4 hours at A&E
Actual 89.4% patients seen in 4 hours at major A&E hospitals
Northern Ireland
Target 95% for patients seen in 4 hours at A&E
Actual 76.7% patients seen in 4 hours at A&E hospitals
Wales (Labour run remember)
Target 95% for patients seen in 4 hours at A&E
Actual 81.0 % patients seen in 4 hours at A&E hospitals
NHS Scotland
Target 98% for patients seen in 4 hours at A&E
Actual 89.9% patients seen in 4 hours at A&E hospitals
Note that NHS Scotland is the only one with a higher target!
Sober reading indeed.
Gone are the days of BBC received pronunciation reporting the facts, which people duly pondered on, with out someone dictating their opinion for them, their emotions determined on their behalf. In effect being deprived of any personal response to events/issues.
It’s like a cross between Drop the Dead Donkey and some mad nordic noir backstabbing drama. It’s all about the Story Stupid..
Sensation, Sensation, Sensation
It’s pretty clear that Bradford is a mouthpiece for the likes of Jackie Baillie. To have two people accusing the health secretary in unison this morning was utterly pathetic. They ahve nothing else to throw at the SNP so continually seek new angles on the same story. It’s either waiting times or funding. You never hear any nurses or doctors from the NHS boards on their programmes. I wonder why!
Read:
http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/appendix_4.htm
The latest Kaiser Report is also about the lies and propaganda of the media, especially the BBC, especially when not telling the truth about our economic situation. The Newsnight interview with the new Greek Finance Minister (which I linked to a couple of threads ago – it’s on his blog) gets a mention.
http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/228687-episode-714-max-keiser/
@ John King
I admire your post recording your honest recollections.
I, however, after being initially shocked that the woman had died, remember being aware within minutes of turning on the telly that we were about to be submerged in BBC angst. I don’t think even I imagined it would go on for so long.
I do know that some people were, unreasonably in my opinion, overcome with grief. A young woman opined that “she wished she could go to London…” to which my friend replied, “Why, did you know her?”. My friend and I talked of how some people might like to lynch us if they heard what we thought of the woman and the outpourings from the BBC which in our eyes was manipulating public reaction.
Having witnessed the lady and her husband during a visit to the Western Isles, we were struck by how her public persona as reported by the Beeb slipped somewhat when she thought no one important was looking. Despite her reputation, when her husband attempted to speak to the locals, she most certainly did not want to do so nor even wave goodbye to the kids waiting at the airport as they left and hurried him away. I was aware even then that the BBC was little more than a propaganda machine.
John, it’s not you, it’s the system. It would take a saint to be less than cynical about the way our media tries to manipulate public opinion. It is a sad state of affairs. They are dangerous.
Thinking back to hearing the news of Dianas death on the radio. There were a few hours between the initial reports that she was injured and the announcement of her death. I remember feeling sympathy for Diana and for her children as I would for anyone killed in tragic circumstances.
It only sticks in my mind only because it was a big news story not because it had any real impact on me personally.
I also remember getting the bus into town a couple of days later and quite a few passengers were talking about it. There was one woman who was practically hysterical and I distinctly remember her saying “how will we manage without Princess Diana”. I found it quite disturbing that she could be so upset about someone she didn’t know and who had no real influence on her life” It just seemed so unreal.
Thinking about it now I actually trusted the BBC back then and while I could not understand the hysteria over Diana I assumed that it was being accurately reported.
I think we all know different now. It seemed unreal because it was – a manufactured hysteria which some people got swept up in. We’ve seen plenty of manufactured hysteria and outrage from the BBC since, especially in the last couple of years. It is having an ever diminishing effect as, one by one, we are all waking up.
Hmm,another example of BBC manipulation.
Their cover up of Jimmy Savile started the rot for me. The referendum was the icing on the cake and showed them up to be nothing other than a manipulative elitist establishment. It wouldn’t be so bad but the public are paying for this rubbish.
Has anybody else noticed over the last couple of days their attempts to shift the focus of child sexual abuse away from politicians and back on to families? I wonder why…maybe Exaro news is getting too close for comfort.
When you recall that Diana week on the BBC and fast forward it to what they did during the referendum no wonder we lost,brainwashing on an industrial scale. Yep, the BBC are enemy number one.
@ Chris Baxter
you seem to have had an empathy bypass. Not only is it possible to feel sorrow at the death of people you never met (read an account of Auschwitz for example), but you would have to be pretty inhuman not to.
When people accept that the main principle of the Television became not so much to inform as to entertain, to grab its viewing ratings, and that it will schedule, enhance, re-write, any propaganda that it feels in its vested interest ( or that of it’s shareholders, sponsors and supporters) then perhaps we will have moved beyond the roll that the establishment have formed it into for control of empire.
I felt sad at the time for loss of another young woman, taken from her time early, like many, yet this one had been minced as part of the establishment, she had gone against them and become another body below the wheels of the machine that tries to control what remains of the Empire.
She tried to do what she saw as her bit, using the advantages given her by being taken into that elite circle, and for that she is to be commended, as are anyone that goes against the grain of the antiqued furniture where at last the veneer is starting to lift, showing its ugly side.
I do not regret that I show more emotion, on April 16th for example, for the ending of a way of life under an earlier incarnation of the Empires determination to hold on to it’s power, or at subsequent dates like 18th September where we failed to take power back to the people.
Strangely I still believed in the BBC for many years, but that stopped irrevocably at the beginning of 2014, even though doubts had been there for a while in 2013 as my awareness of the truth, that I could research and cross check, gained ground.
Rather like deep in the cold snows of Glencoe in the year 1692, the ("Tractor" - Ed)s that will remain in memory forever is not the enemy you accept and expect no better from, but the one siding with the “enemy” that you thought was, if not on your side, at least tried to distance itself, or even hopefully be impartial.
As such, the BBC will now be remembered by myself, if not by a huge swathe of the population of Scotland, forever more, as a betrayer of our lives and our faith.
Court Circular: Buckingham Palace – 2nd Feb 2015
The Lord Peel (Lord Chamberlain) had an audience with HM The Queen this morning shortly after she graciously took a dump and used pink toilet paper.
The BBC is the State Broadcaster which is in thrall to the London Establishment and sycophantic towards the Monarchy.
I remember the farce surrounding Unionist pressure led by players from a certain club to cancel an important Scotland international football match following the death of Diana.
My mum cried for a week after Diana was murdered. The thought police were everywhere listening out for any dissent to the grief and angst it was horrible. And don’t forget 2 other people died that night but they didn’t deserve the grief…
I remember waking I was up early on the morning of her death. I wanted to hear the weather forecast but all news on Radio 4 was on full time Diana. I kept thinking that we would soon get back to normal programming but no. No Letter from America or re-run of the Archers were all cancelled. I got more and more annoyed at the way it had taken over from normal life. It wasn’t till the shipping forecast came on at mid day that there was the first normal programme and then it reverted to full time Diana again. The repeat of the News Quiz from Friday night, which had Alan Coren make disparaging comments about Diana’s number of sexual partners and how he wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole was apparently taken away and put under lock and key at the BBC. I don’t suppose anyone has a recording of that now?
I was living in Slough at the time and when we were in Windsor later in the week we saw crowds flocking to the castle carrying bunches of flowers. We went in because it was a chance to get inside the castle walls without paying! I was astounded by the mounds of flowers, most of them now rotting in the heat and felt a very strong urge to shout out, “She was only one woman. What about the millions that died in the wars or children still dying in third world countries.”
I do remember some people who were due to get married on the day of the funeral and felt that they had to cancel it. Many local shopkeepers were closed on the day of the funeral, not because they felt they had to show their respect but because they worried about being “targeted” if they stayed open.
I do remember the day she died. I hadn’t heard the news & visited my daughter’s house. My young grandson opened the door & told me “Princes Di’s dead”. My first thought was that she had committed suicide. He had been watching a children’s programme and a message had come up about an important announcement on the news. The whole family were suitably grieved, sadly, by the outpourings on BBC news, showing how easy it is to even manipulate little children! The next day at work, someone asked me “Have you signed the book of condolence yet?” I asked why I should do that when I didn’t even know her. I was looked at in horror by several people, who suddenly decided I was a totally unfeeling monster!
Keith Richards on hearing of Princess Diana’s death. responded by saying ‘I never knew the chick.’
Which sums up the subject nicely
I’m afraid I didn’t shed a tear for the death of Princess Diana. Not because I didn’t like her, but because I have long believed that a royals (or celebrity’s) death is only equal to any other death.
To me it is absolutely manufactured, and media play a huge role in telling us who we should be following and idolising. I get that she did good in the world, but there are thousands if not millions more out there who do the same without the head start, where’s their wall to wall mourning? Didn’t Mother Theresa die the same year, I can’t recall her blanket coverage.
Week on week we see how the BBC is not working as it should. Surely time to do something more about it. Perhaps a petition that ‘we the undersigned are of the view that the BBC is not fulfilling its purpose of providing objective information in Scotland’. Doesn’t seem like much but it might have an impact. It would require a response from the BBC which would be made public and it might contribute to calling out the beneficiaries of BBC bias to defend it. The defence they offer is then open to scrutiny. Nae pint in jist greetin intae oor hankies.
@ Grouse Beater 8:44
Excellent piece of writing, sums up the State Propaganda Machine to a tee.
Should be made compulsory reading when Scottish history is inevitably introduced to a ‘free from chains’ education system.
Targets?
What % of BBC Scotland’s news output is ‘fair and balanced?
Eh, Louise and Eleanor?
With Diana’s death being used to manipulate group grief it did occur to me that all of us carry ghosts and though her death may have been treated to ridiculous hysteria , many who grieved were grieving for their own.
I did wonder why we had become the less than stiff upper lip nations of which we boast. It kind of goes with political correctness , maudlin interest in soap operas and elevating the talentless to an unwarranted status.
Re reading this I realise I hold a quite jaundiced view regarding our society.
now will people beleave, the establishment rule, it was showtime!
I was in a club in Tenerife the night she died and word got around the club that night. TBH though I was pretty wasted so i didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. I suppose I was also sucked in to the drama afterwards as well. I never felt any grief for her personally, although I do remember feeling sad for her boys.
It’s funny people remember so much about where they were and things. I wonder if it’ll be the same for her Vadgesty and wee Charlie.
I always got really pissed off with the BBC every time they used to say ,that the “queen mum”was everybody’s favourite gran….My Arse.
https://www.facebook.com/events/779063018851870/?pnref=story
Tells us what we already know about their beloved auntie Beeb, bullshit propaganda service.
If they had got their unhappy Welshman, they would have shown the world how sad Wales was for their beloved leader.
Do you think by the time Queen pops her clogs we will be forced to cry for the cameras?
When she was murdered I did feel sad for the wee bairns, but hey ho, the Brit establishment did its dirty work in the same old dirty sleekit way
Aye well.
The financial crash and Robert Peston’s lying opened my eyes wide open.
“Peston’s 2008 Bank Propaganda Piece”
http://bailoutswindle.com/TruthLiesDeciet/Peston2008Propaganda.html
“Robert Peston: Lying To A Nation, and getting away with it”
http://bailoutswindle.com/TruthLiesDeciet/PestonLyingToANation.html
And if you’ve read those two, you have to conclude with this
“BBC News: Lying To A Nation, and getting away with it”
http://bailoutswindle.com/TruthLiesDeciet/BBCNewsLyingToANation.html
@AnneDon
Us too, our kids came upstairs that Sat morning complaining their Sat morning TV was gone. I think they put on a VHS tape, probably Disney instead.
The eldest got dragged into Central London by her primary headmaster, male, who held her hand ALL the time, to lay a wreath outside Buck Palace with all the others. She found the whole experience ersatz and creepy.
Children the nation over should be thankful for digital telly when Liz finally pops her clogs.
I felt sad Diana had died; not because I was a fan, but because she was a human being (& quite a sad character really).
What saddens me far more are reports of old age pensioners dying of the cold because they can’t afford to heat their homes; people taking their lives due to benefit cuts and many more of the horror stories ‘gladly’ provided to us by a rich, greedy Westminster Parliament.
Glorifying Diana, Thatcher and Churchill just doesn’t float my boat I’m afraid.
Diana was a broodmare for purpose of widening the gene pool after she provided the required offspring she was got rid of, landmines all over the worlds conflict zones maim mostly children she tried to do something about it probably upsetting the biggest arms manufacturing corporations around the world.
Dead ? no surprise there then !
The BBC have targeted Shona Robison since she got the Health job. This mornings shambles of a programme is just another step along the way. From now till the election it will get worse, for those who listen, amuse yourselves by playing spot the Trolls. They are there all right!
Why are people still complaining about the BBC and still paying the licence ?
It is and always has been a peacetime propaganda perception manipulation tool so why people have only realised since the referendum baffles me.
The list of deceit is endless yet peeps still pay the licence and complain.
I have no tv since i was an early teen for the above reasons
Please dump TV and get your life back again.
Andy: Excellent piece of writing, sums up the State Propaganda Machine to a tee.
Thanks. 🙂
And there’s more. You can read from ‘About’ on my blog home page I worked for them tv and radio. Well, everybody is due one error of judgement.
Here’s another insight: The Pitch
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/a-short-story-of-bbc-scotland/
When Diana died I didn’t feel much except that she had probably been ‘got rid of’.
There was some story from paparazzi at the time saying she was teasing them about something she was going to say.
I did feel sad at her funeral because of her boys as my two girls are about the same ages.
Always thought it was a bit weird that her boys very quickly adopted all of the royal paraphernalia but I suppose they were only young.
She didn’t like Scotland one bit, too old, cold and settled in it’s ways or maybe she wasn’t shown the respect she thought she deserved.
When was the autobiography published?
When TV first came to Scotland I had not long finished my apprenticeship in Rosyth Dockyard. My pal and travel companion had also just finished his apprenticeship at Donibrstle Fleet Air Arm base. BonnyB was closing so he needed another employer. He applied for, and got, a job with the new BBC TV Studio in Glasgow.
I used to go through to Glasgow at weekends to the Studio with him. The only Scottish programmes then, other than the short Scottish news insert into the UK National news was Saturday sports and later The White Heather Club. So after setting up his gear he was free to go to a football match, dash back to the Studio and later we would, “Gan tae the Giggin’ at the Pally”.
The BBC management were almost exclusively English as there were initially no trained staff in Scotland. I remember speaking with the, “Heid Bummer”, and I’ll give my account as best I remember after all those years.
The normal state of things was organized chaos with everyone in a tizzy and I, (being my usual ironic self), said, “I marvel how things seem so frantic to visitors but result in such fine programme output. It must be down to good teamwork. How would you describe that fine teamwork”?
I’ll never forget his reply but must paraphrase it after all those years. His description went along these lines, “Good Teamwork is when everyone in this bloody department does exactly what I tell them without bloody-well whining”.
Seems nothing has changed in BBC Scotland since then – Everyone must obey the English bosses without question or whining.
I was very upset the day Diana died. I’d lost a fiver that morning. I mean, a fiver! That’s was a lot back then. I had been working late and was on my way home when I noticed it was missing. I looked EVERYWHERE! Drawers, pockets, everywhere. Unfortunately I never found it.
Coincidentally that was the day that Diana died…
@Grendel
It could have been worse it could have been the day Pavorotti died and you lost a Tenor….lol
@stonefree
Get tae fuck hahahahaha
So long as one family can be revered by the national broadcasting service, we will always be accepting that some people deserve more than others, just because they do. It’s time we did away with the royal family and its hangers on – this is one family I would like to have removed from the benefits system.
This is the PISH reply i got from my complaint re Shona Robison interview by Louise White the other day.. ARGH….!!
Thank you for your comments regarding Morning Call on Wednesday 4 February 2015.
We are sorry you are unhappy with Louise White’s style of interviewing. Louise merely wishes to get the best out of the interview and the interviewee.
We’re sure you’re aware that many people and politicians in particular, are very adept at evading questions and following their own agenda when replying. It’s part of Louise’s role to ensure that they are reminded, when appropriate, of the original question or pressed on points that are of particular public interest.
Louise’s job is to ask the questions likely to be in the minds of informed listeners and to seek answers. This can lead to forceful and persistent questioning but, in our experience, politicians expect their views to be scrutinised and they respond with corresponding firmness. Those being interviewed can sometimes significantly influence the style and outcome of the interview by their willingness to respond, their wish to avoid certain subjects and so on. The aim isn’t to generate hostility, but to put important questions with the proper combination of firmness and civility.
While courtesy should always be observed, it’s worth noting that politicians are no less professional in handling questions than Louise is in posing them. The task of informing the public sometimes demands a degree of persistence, which would be out of place in ordinary social conversation.
We realise you may continue to feel differently, but hope our response goes some way to explain our view and the thought that goes behind such matters.
Thank you, once again, for taking the time to contact us.