Mitt Romney lambasted in attack ad for speaking French

Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad – for speaking French.

The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry.

Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics.

The Republicans are vying to challenge President Obama in November’s election.

Correspondents say the highlighting of Mr Romney’s alleged French-language skills is an attempt to portray him as an elitist, European-style liberal wimp.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16549624 –

You may claim impartiality to be the ‘cornerstone’ of BBC News and Current Affairs, but I’m afraid that is obviously just lip service, which is proven by your refusal to accept there may be a problem and to even read my complaint properly. I made no reference to This Week, but did reference a particular installment of The Daily Politics.

I have to inform you I made my original complaint to the BBC public, prior to sending, as I knew that I would simply be fobbed off with a pat answer such as the one you have offered me and as I said in my original complaint: this is just not good enough. I will therefore be making your response (and all future correspondence on this matter) public too (with names obviously omitted), to show all the people who read and responded to my original complaint that the BBC no longer has any real interest in being impartial (as many of them had already concluded).

To further illustrate my point Question Time last night was absolutely ridiculous, with two members of the panel from the government and Kelvin MacKenzie (need I say more?) and again only one member of the official opposition and a representative of the Scottish Parliament (who was rarely allowed to speak without badgering from Dimbleby) – are you seriously claiming this is balanced?

To avoid any confusion as to my motives I would like to state that I support no political party. My only interest in this is impartiality and the removal of the bias it would appear only the BBC itself cannot see in its own current affairs programmes.

People are beginning seriously lose trust in the BBC so please take this from someone who still wants to support the organisation – you need to start taking this matter seriously.

Regards
GB

Reference ###

Thanks for contacting us.

I understand you feel our programmes, including ‘This Week’ and ‘Question Time’, are biased toward the Conservative Party.

Impartiality is the cornerstone of all our news and current affairs output and we ensure all our correspondents and production teams are aware of this to help us deliver fair and balanced coverage for all the stories we report.

It’s not always possible or practical to reflect all the different opinions on a subject within individual programmes. Editors are charged to ensure that over a reasonable period they reflect the range of significant views, opinions and trends in their subject area. The BBC doesn’t seek to denigrate any view, nor to promote any view. It seeks rather to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of the audience. Among other evidence, audience research indicates widespread confidence in the impartiality of the BBC’s reporting.

Senior editorial staff, the Executive Committee and the BBC Trust keep a close watch on programmes to ensure that standards of impartiality are maintained.

I’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s made available to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

#

BBC Complaints

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

Hello,

The BBC is supposedly the neutral public broadcaster but this is now very sadly not the case.

The Daily Politics should be renamed the Daily Cameron Love-in. The presenters never seem to hold any government MPs to task and reserve all badgering scrutiny to members of the opposition. However today was a new low with the BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson going out of his way to tell us what a wonderful chap David Cameron is after discussing Ed Milibands problems (I have to say it made me feel more than a little bilious).

Question Time is now so biased almost all the people I know, who are serious about politics, think it’s a joke (two members of the government as opposed to one from the opposition every week and Dimbleby again badgering the opposition only).

I also think it is very unwise for the public broadcaster to have it’s two most high profile political commentators both be open supporters of the same poltical party i.e. Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson both openly admit their support for the Conservative Party and I’m afraid this certainly comes across in everything they report and host.

As a long time supporter of the BBC I have to tell you the organisation has lost all credibility for fairness and it just is not good enough.

Regards
GB

Ever get the feeling you’re being conned? You know – people are telling you one thing when they mean the exact opposite. Using words like ‘freedom’ – when what they really mean is more restrictions. And ‘choice’ – but only if you can afford it.
It’s a bit like that with the right wing. They pretend they are all for less regulation and more individualism, when in reality the biggest regulator of freedom and individualism is the amount of available income one has and, as I’m sure most of us are aware, there is definitely not as much cash left for most to make any real choices at all.

I think it was George Orwell who warned that the first sure sign of dictatorship is when the meaning of words suddenly change.

The right has no greater advocate of this backwards thinking than the current Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. He preaches the democratic right to choose as though he is quoting directly from the Bible and yet he uses increasingly right wing rhetoric to denounce anyone who dares to voice an opinion that differs from his hard line.

Just this week he attacked the critics of the Academy Schools policy by claiming they are ‘happy with failure’, when all that they were really stating was the reality, which is that so-called academies are no different than any other schools besides the fact they have less Local Authority control and are therefore less transparent to scrutiny.

The people who criticise education policy are not the ones hooked on failure, far from it. In fact they are the ones trying to make the people realise that it is the politicians who are hard-wired into a system that is not fit for purpose and things need to change.

So we need to stop falling for the right wing rhetoric and start listening to what dictatorial politicians like Gove really mean; i.e. he is saying put up and shut – and you don’t get any more undemocratic that.

Read more: http://www.economicvoice.com/the-michael-gove-dictatorship/50027033#ixzz1illhP6C2

This week’s Tribune piece. Merry Christmas everybody.