Notoriously, the BBC recently reported that the Israeli army was “targeting people, including medical teams as well as Arab speakers” – a misreading, it appears, of a Reuters report that stated: “the IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers”. The Spectator‘s Stephen Daisley has taken a look at the long list of the other anti-Israel ‘mistakes’ that the BBC has made in its coverage of the Gaza conflict.
After the explosion at Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison editorialised on air that it was “hard to see” how it could have been caused by anything “other than an Israeli air strike”. He provided no evidence to support his assertion. BBC News Deputy Chief Executive Jonathan Munro described this as a “mistake”. When an antisemitic mob stormed Dagestan airport in Russia, saying “We are here for the Jews, we came to kill them with knives and shoot at them”, the BBC described them as simply “anti-Israel” (the BBC says it later updated the piece to reference that the mob targeted Jews). When the Israelis arrested Palestinian Ahed Tamimi for incitement – she is accused of posting on social media: “We will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke, we will drink your blood and eat your skulls”; her mother denies she wrote the post – the BBC described her as “an international symbol of resistance to Israel’s occupation”. In fact, Tamimi became an international symbol because she was jailed in 2018 after admitting to the aggravated assault of an Israeli soldier and incitement to violence (the BBC does mention her crimes in the piece). When Emmanuel Macron of France told the BBC: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed”, the Corporation reported the allegation without quotation marks in its headline: “Macron calls on Israel to stop killing Gaza’s women and babies.” (The BBC says “Macron calls on” is sufficient for there to be no quotation marks).
While it is content to run headlines like that and describe Tamimi as a symbol of resistance to Israel’s occupation, the BBC refuses to describe Hamas as a terrorist group, saying this would compromise the objectivity of its reporting.
Worth reading in full.
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I have stated more than once on DS that as far as I am concerned once cash goes it is game over. I see no evidence suggesting I am wrong.
I agree with you HP. We are few though and they are many. Unless we have an Ace up our sleeve, we’re goonered. I continue to use cash when I can and luckily most places down where I live take it but go to London and you might as well be handing them flapjacks. The arguments against cash continue to proliferate and the main thrust of these arguments seems to be about the bother of cash, the inconvenience of it in some sort of Orwellian double-take because if the internet is down or the card machine not connecting then cash is the only convenient exchange for goods etc!! Although stamps now appear with Chuckles on them, I haven’t seen any coins with his head on them – this should tell us all we need to know!
Thanks Aethelred. I must admit that I have heard that Chuckles does not have his head on our coinage so that tells a tale.
(I know where I’d like to see his head.)
I always use cash. Fortunately, up here amongst the dark, satanic mills nobody is currently refusing cash. That I know of.
Good to know that cash is still alive out in the sticks.
The less I see Chuckles’ head the better I think! Better not think too much about his head actually, especially in view of his ancestral namesake!
Sorry to disabuse you both – King Chuck’s head is now on coinage, I got some from the post office the other day. Although both the PO chap & me said that after so many decades of Queenie, somehow it was just wrong….
Chuckles on a coin with a WEF background!
100% agree that it’s massively important.
“ask whether a libertarian approach could help”
I’ve got strong libertarian tendencies, but expecting a large powerful state to have such tendencies is pie in the sky and historically hasn’t been the case. Recent events suggest to me that liberty is most effectively preserved by making tyrannical measures logistically hard to enforce, and by the mass of citizens simply refusing to comply.
I think we’re well aware here on this forum, because we are not stupid (which “anonymous IT reporter” seems to think we are), that cash facilitates crime. Lots of things that make liberty safer also make criminals life easier, but I am more worried about the government committing crimes than I am about small increases in crime. Perhaps improving detection and much longer, punitive prison sentences might be a better approach.
My view on cash crimes, which after all tend to centre on tax avoidance, have certainly become more liberalised shall we say, these last four years.
Crimes with biggest financial impact all done by corporates and governments without cash.
Facilitates crime is a red herring. All so-called human or basic rights limit what government is allowed to do. As they’re universal, this necessarily means all criminals have them, too. And because they’re criminals, they might end up using them for criminal purposes. But since nobody, including the government, has a priori knowledge of which people are criminals and which actions will turn out to be criminal, this simply can’t be helped. Either people have rights. Then, criminals will have them, too. Or people have no rights. Then, everything becomes a lot easier for government, including dealing with criminals. Says the government, at least. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Minority Report!
What is your evidence you are right?
CBDC’s will be part one of…
‘You will own nothing…’
Once the kinks and bumps are ironed out slavery is inevitable. It doesn’t take any intellectual prowess to work that out.
Yes the removal of cash per se doesn’t perhaps lead to disaster – it’s what comes after which is the replacement of money handled by private banks with a CDBC where all transactions go through (eventually) World Government. It’s another “utopian” solution that will lead to the opposite of utopia. I’m rather afraid that “Anonymous IT Reporter” is a closet utopianist who still has some misplaced faith in human nature.
Maybe we will end up trading in other items, out of ‘the system’ if you like. I am just being optimistic, it is Friday after all.
Yup check out Redacted on Rumble, look for the WEF video where they interview Whitney Webb on CBDCs for the latest on their push to eliminate cash. Whitney is a proper journalist, you wouldn’t get Peston or any BBC journalist asking the real questions that she does.
Thanks Ron.
Thanks for the link, Ron. I’ve watched it now & it is truly disturbing. We are certainly heading for the precipice like lemmings but we are being kept in the dark by the MSM except for forums like this.
Completely pointless article.
As I wrote in a past comment, most so-called ‘crimes’ involving cash transactions are more properly described as financial transactions the government doesn’t agree with, either because of tax evasion or because of violations of government rules on trades of goods, eg, buying illegal drugs. The government has an obvious interest in making such transactions impossible by assuming that every transaction is principally meant to violate some law unless proven otherwise, ie, forcing all economical transactions under blanket government surveillance and enabling the government to deny those it doesn’t like.
When everybody has the right and the ability to engage in economic activity without prior government approval, ‘criminals’ will obviously have it, too. But that’s similar to approaching people in the street: Absent Corona rules, that’s usually allowed. Hence, criminals can do it, too. Corona measures must thus urgently be reintroduced to fight crime. Says an anonymous IT reporter. And the answer is “Get stuffed!”. Emphatically.
Brilliant demolition of nonsense arguments.
I think the people who can get a bank account but don’t want one, should get together with those who can’t and want one.
Maybe betwixt the two groups something can be worked out?
The problem in Britain – and it is a problem – is thanks to welfare statism, many believe services are free. But every activity has a cost and that includes banking.
The banks made a rod for their own backs by offering free banking, the concept being the cash-float the bank would have in current accounts could be invested, cover operating costs and yield a return.
As so many expenses have increased over the years, this model doesn’t work anymore. Instead of introducing bank charges – the way it used to be – they have reduced services.
The answer is to introduce charges, so non-profitable accounts aren’t a loss, and those who prefer cash, which is expensive to handle, can pay an extra fee for this with banks and retailers.
There is plenty of shoplifting going on and it ain’t just cash. food, jewellery etc. I bought a car for cash yesterday, just over 2k….The first I’ve ever had delivered before viewing because Billy no mates has nobody to drive him to the garage! Because I don’t do online banking and the trader didn’t have a card machine, I just said I’d pay extra for the delivery providing the car is the condition that was claimed. So I had to drive 20 miles to my nearest Bank branch and because I know the girl who counted my money she asked “buying anything nice”….So I told her. Come to think of it, I wonder if she was obliged to ask because you hear a lot of stories of Banks asking what you’re doing with your own money.
CASH IS KING USE IT OR LOSE IT!
When I first started working I was paid weekly in cash. It was only since the 1980s that employers started insisting employees have bank accounts. And of course there’s been no non cash financial crime committed since that happened has there!
I am Treasurer of a small Not For Profit which, for very old legal reasons which we can’t change, is a Limited Company.
I recently tried to switch our bank account to Lloyds for various very legitimate reasons but without success. The application can only be made online and if you cannot comply with their requirements/enter data TO THE LETTER the application will be automatically rejected.
We can’t comply TO THE LETTER – not least because they require exactly 100% of Shares to be allocated and the Shareholder identified – and we have 19 Shares. 19 into 100 works out at 5.26 and about 8 other decimal places% each …… and they only permit 2 decimal places ….. so we will never be able to honestly comply with their requirements!
Another problem which couldn’t be overcome was their requirement for every Shareholder’s email address and mobile phone number to be entered. A number of Shareholders are very elderly and have neither …. so they couldn’t be entered.
Despite several conversations with several “the-computer-says-no” so-called customer service personnel the impasse could not be overcome.
In my personal life, I am using cash as much as I possibly can. I am part of the “awkward squad” which is doing its level best to prevent the imposition of CBDCs and a social credit system. I ditched my Nectar card several years ago, the only store card I’ve ever had: my data is not for sale for a penny or two off my shopping.