The Nigel Farage Show

Something fishy is going on at the BBC (and it has nothing to do with weathermen – outdated, I know). The BBC is one of the great institutions of the UK, recognised and respected worldwide as a reliable, trustworthy and largely impartial source of information and news. But I am increasingly convinced that there is a growing bias in the BBC towards the scourge of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and has been developing since at least the last European Elections in 2004. If you remember, that was the election where the entire country was plastered in UKIP posters and the greatest political idiot in the World, Robert Kilroy-Silk, Britain’s very own Benito Berlusconi, was their top candidate. The nation was awash with Europhobia, because after all, if not ‘Brussels’, who can we blame for all our problems?

The BBC runs a very useful television channel available on digital called ‘BBC Parliament’, which helps keep people in touch with what’s going on in the world of politics at regional, national and European levels. Broadcast weekly on this channel, and repeated on BBC News 24 (their news channel) is a lovely show called ‘The Nigel Farage Show’. Well, actually it’s called something like ‘The Record: Europe’ but Nigel Farage, UKIP leader and MEP and regular Eurobasher, seems to be the star guest every week, and responds to every single question with an answer that always leads back to the same question… Why is the UK in the EU? In fact, he is quite a genius! If only I knew how to turn absolutely any questions around and direct it towards my own political agenda…

– So, Mr Farage, don’t you agree that the EU is doing a good job through it’s Neighbourhood Association Agreements with certain states that border the EU such as Morocco?
– Well, perhaps I should remind everyone that Morocco is a dictatorship, so really it’s just another example of British taxpayer’s money poured down the Brussels drain and another reason why the UK should get out of the EU.

Wow. That was easier that I thought… perhaps Nigel Farage isn’t as clever as I thought. But this goes beyond the Nigel Farage Show, in other aspects the BBC seams to give excessive coverage to UKIP, considering how small the number of seats they and the parties in their grouping actually hold in the European Parliament. If you look around the BBC News website you are sure to find plenty of examples of coverage given by the BBC to UKIP and its members.

So, is the BBC really biased towards UKIP or am I just seeing things which aren’t really there. Of course UKIP has a right to have its voice heard in a fair and democratic debate, but I do suggest the BBC lends its cameras and web pages far too much to UKIP. I invite the BBC to defend itself.

And I’m back…

Well it’s been quite some time since I posted on my blog. In fact this is the first update I’ve really been able to do since I moved to Peru. So my new situation is simple, I’m living in a rented apartment in Tarapoto, which is the largest city in the rural region of San Martín. Tarapoto sits at a few hundred meters above sea level, in the eastern foothills of the Andes, on the edge of the vast Amazonian jungle. Over the past few months I’ve been very busy getting used to my new career teaching English. I have a job in the Language Centre of a national private university, Universidad César Vallejo, they pay me just enough to get by. Well, almost just enough, it would be sufficient if I didn’t have huge expenses travelling back and forth to the capital Lima (unfortunately the only practical option is by air, a bus takes more than 25 hours and passes through some of the most dangerous roads in the world, with bus loads of people dieing every week in accidents) organising various immigration documents. The world would be such a simpler and quite possibly safer place without borders, passports or ‘foreignership cards’.

Meanwhile, before I left the UK to come here, I took a decision which I have regretted for a number of reasons to renounce my membership of the Green Party of England and Wales. This was a very difficult thing to do, but I consider that it was a justified measure of my anger towards the ever increasing influence of socialism and outright communism over the period since I initially joined the party. Since I left, the extent to which the party is being hijacked to serve another agenda has deepened.

The truth is that I haven’t ever been fully at ease with some of the policies of the party. And I am utterly convinced that ecological sustainability can coexist in harmony with a capitalist economy, provided the necessary adjustments are made to the economy. Not only are such adjustments possible, but they are the only viable option for a safe and stable transition to an ecologically sound and sustainable economy and society, without the strife and disruption of a full blown, pitchforks at the ready, socialist revolution. It’s even possible that such adjustments will occur by themselves as the reality of global warming becomes more and more evident.

Since August I have been involved in a new political movement across Europe, which combines many of the ideas and principles which I believe in and support. Open and transparent democracy, an ecologically sustainable society and economy, equality and social justice, and a united and federal Europe which fully embraces all of its peoples, from all corners of the continent, even Turkey. Although in its infancy, Europe United has grown rapidly and continues to show potential. But, this movement has attracted people from various political corners, including the more sinister. I believe that this is however only a teething problem, brought about by the party’s open and revolutionary development on the internet, and we all know there are all kinds of freaks on the web.

So, nonetheless, Europe United is full of potential. When I read the party’s founding charter, it was almost as if it were something I could have written myself. The fundamental commitment to European unity, to global democracy, and to sustainable development is the key political perspective I have been looking for in a party for years.

Chau.