From: David Halpin
Sent: 01 October 2012 17:00
To: HILTON Susie (via Bridgepoint address)
Subject: For the attention of Lord Patten of Bridgepoint
Dear Lord Patten,
"Our European Advisory Board (Bridgepoint) brings together exceptional people from business and political spheres, and offers the Firm informed external perspectives on strategic, political, social and other issues." QUITE.
I was not aware that you sat on the advisory board of Bridgepoint. I came to this after studying LGC forensics, another Bridgepoint holding, via a BBC report of terrible incompetence which caused a man to be held in jail for two months on a rape charge.
Care UK is a substantial holding (of Bridgepoint). The BBC is pumping out material that is strongly biased towards the early workings of the Health and Social Security Bill 2011. There is little doubt among many that the NHS might not survive as more than a logo - as used by the many private 'health' companies, if the destabilising/eviscerating strategy is maintained.
Whilst the BBC maintains this posture, which I see in microcosm in the SW via Spotlight, I suggest that you either resign your post at Bridgepoint, leaving Messrs Milburn and Rose, or resign as Chairman of the BBC Chair of Governors. I should add that I have studied BBC output for many years and that I have written in complaint many times about its reporting in regard to the remnant of Palestine in particular. The balance in the output has steadily deteriorated, and that re. Syria is a good example.
Yours sincerely
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
Dear Mr Halpin,
Lord Patten has seen your email addressed to Bridgepoint.
Lord Patten’s outside interests are published and well known to the parliamentary committee which considered him a suitable candidate for the post of BBC Trust Chairman. However, he does not need to be reminded of the importance of avoiding any conflicts of interest. If you have a complaint about a BBC programme the correct procedure, as you may know, is via the BBC complaints process which requires the BBC’s management to be given the opportunity to respond to complaints in the first instance. The Trust’s role in the process is at the final stage hearing complaints on appeal. If you wish to pursue a complaint about BBC programming, then do contact BBC Audience services. Details of how to contact them and of the complaints process can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. I hope this is helpful.
Best wishes
June
June Prunty
PA to Chairman
BBC Trust
180 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QZ
T. 020 3214 4941 E. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. bbc.co.uk/bbctrust
Dear Ms Prunty,
Thank you. I reply through you to Lord Patten. I bear in mind that, unlike very many of prominence, he spoke up for justice in Palestine and that he visited the internment camp which is Gaza. I salute him for his moral courage in this.
A few of thousands of examples of perceived partisanship by the BBC:-
1. http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/25-articles/complaints-regarding-bbc-bias/5-gross-bias-in-presentation-of-alleged-uranium-enrichment-in-iran - with responses from Gavin Allen
2. http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/25-articles/complaints-regarding-bbc-bias/22-israeli-palestinian-impartiality-review This represented very many hours of work recording complaints and submitting them by a deadline for review to the Marylebone office. I found some years later that my evidence had NEVER been looked at.
3. This careful study of BBC duplicity is very interesting -
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/25-articles/complaints-regarding-bbc-bias/103-bbcensorship-on-norwegian-divestment-from-zionist-colony-construction-companies
In the introduction of my letter to the BBC I say "...Its propaganda underpins the monarchy, imperial war, capital, the corporations, Mount Zion and the status quo. The list is much longer. It was shown to have allowed only 3% of broadcasting time to humans who opposed the looming genocidal war on Iraq. Instead it used gigawatts to bring the poison of Perle, Wolfowitz, Edelman, Blair and a very long list of fellow psychopaths onto our screens. ..."
4. More duplicity. A Palestinian cameraman is shot in both legs (?explosive bullets) as he lies on the ground by the IOF. He led demonstrations in Gaza for the release from captivity of Alan Johnson, BBC correspondent. The BBC reporting of this barbarity was deficient.
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/6-articles/palestineisrael/44-the-bbc-its-former-gaza-correspondent-and-an-arab
On 31 January 2003, I was on the bridge of a cargo vessel I had chartered to take ourselves and 50 tonnes of first class food and other aid to the poorest families in Gaza. I was being interviewed on camera by a young reporter from BBC Spotlight South West. The ship was to slip its moorings the next day. I explained that I was doing it to focus attention on an unresolved conflict (dreadful euphemism for genocide, in fact) and to demonstrate our common humanity. I went on to say that the second purpose was to stand for peace and reason against the unreason and destructiveness of the looming war on Iraq.
“Stop the recording. We cannot include that, Mr Halpin. There is no balancing comment,” the reporter said. I replied that we had suffered wall to wall warmongers like Perle, Edelman, Wolfowitz and their like on the BBC for months. My voice would move the balance by a fraction in the opposite direction.
The camera rolled, the same words were said, and again the interview was stopped. The interview was only allowed to proceed with the future incineration of Iraqi children excluded. The ITN interviews, on the other hand, included this second reason for the voyage of the Dove and the Dolphin. It was obvious that the BBC reporter had been given his battle orders.
I believe that many conscientious citizens share my analysis. There are several forces sucking the BBC downwards. For instance, 'foreign policy' is the euphemism for the most murderous and unlawful wars. The BBC ends up with journalists like Ms Caroline Wyatt and Paul Wood embedded in those wars. She reports the undiagnosed pregnancy in a Fijian 'soldier' but never is the British citizenry shown babies that have been burned or shredded in our name and allegedly for our defence.
You have spoken Lord Patten of the need to dismantle the management structure of the BBC. I humbly suggest the BBC needs to be dismantled right down to its elaborate foundations. (I have been viewing the cost of the new buildings.) This vital public service can then be rebuilt with the fullest input from the citizenry and that which is good in the BBC can grow back. When management personnel are chosen they must be people of nous, of good education, no vested ethnic or other interests, and without connection to the 'good, the great and the moneyed.' We have had them up to our necks.
It is our BBC. 'Nation shall speak Truth unto Nation'. What devilish irony when note is taken above of the analysis of BBC coverage of the bombardment and invasion of Iraq. Referred to here with other lessons coming out of poor or biased journalism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_You_Don%27t_See Note the last sentence especially - "calls on his fellow journalists to be the voice of people not power.
I have been delayed in this response but that has allowed me to witness the very many examples of pro-Zionist bias in BBC reporting from Palestine in these last 7 days. I have said this before to the BBC. Never is there any history. Many Britons do not know that the Palestinians are the native people and that two-thirds of that population - 800 thousand, were driven by terror (as with Deir Yassin) and armed force from their homes, their land and thus from their living in 1948. Over 400 villages and towns were razed and the rubble planted with alien pines. At least 10,000 were killed. Many do not know that over 700 British soldiers lost their lives to the bullets and high explosive of the Zionist terror gangs. That those same British forces helped free Europe was mentioned, once as far as I recall, in the BBC series on the history of terrorism. The Zionist examples were the first in this series on modern 'terrorism'. A survey of British university students showed that over 60% thought that Palestinians had invaded 'Israel'.
What BBC report from Gaza mentioned that about half of the 1.6 million souls were refugees and their descendants from that nakba - catastrophe of 1948? When I have spoken with many of them over these past 9 years the elders fondly recalled their work and family homes in Jaffa, Sarafande and many other places. Not one person without the facts would gather from the BBC the tears and terrible loss in this part of their history alone.
Yesterday 20 November BBC 'News' 'Mr Netanyahu has decided not to push on with the ground offensive.' A casual pair of words are 'push on' and related to the British army's 'crack on'. Push on with multiplying the numbers killed by ten in a ground offensive/invasion like the Greater Shoah of Vilnai around Christmas 2008. Will the BBC tell Britain and the world that 'Israel' has 3000 Merkava tanks and every conceivable modern weapon. The BBC has portrayed this 'Israeli' action as one of counter-terrorism and has seldom recorded the minute by minute torment of most Palestinians in those three remnants of mandate Palestine. 19 November BBC 'News' The opening line of the BBC 6pm news, as read by Ms Fiona Bruce. ‘As Israel and Gaza continue to fire rockets at one another…….’ There is the customary BBC equivalence for you. Just rockets from Israel Ms Bruce? No Hellfire thermobaric missiles, bombs including massive penetrating types, shells from artillery in the east and from a dozen ships in the west. Drones by the dozen, some with Hellfire missiles in their bellies. 'Nation shall speak truth unto nation'. When? And when might the BBC convey what I believe with many others? “That not one mother and child should be in the least harmed anywhere in our still beautiful world.” Instead, the MSM with the BBC in the vanguard, helps inure populations to the 'perpetual war' of Petraeus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV4wc2qh8j0
Yours sincerely
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
ps I should be grateful Ms Prunty for your telling me the address of Dame Janet's inquiry. I imagine she would welcome observations from a senior citizen who takes the closest interest in the world and its creatures.
ANNEXE
1. From BBC Trust web site
Current external positions of Lord Patten
• Chancellor, University of Oxford
• Co-chair, UK-India Round Table
• Non-executive Director, Russell Reynolds Associates
• Member, International Advisory Board, BP
• Member, Stakeholder Advisory Panel, EDF
• Member, European Advisory Board, Bridgepoint
• European Adviser, Hutchinson Whampoa Ltd
• Co-chair of British Council’s Annual Conference, Italy
• International Adviser to the Praemium Imperiale, Japan Art Association
• Member, Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador Network
• Member, Sabanci University, Board of Overseers
• Member, Advisory Council, The Hague Institute for Global Justice
• Trustee, ‘The Tablet’ journal
How Trustees are appointed -
BBC Trustees are appointed by the Queen on advice from DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) ministers through the Prime Minister. When new Trustees are needed the posts are publicly advertised. Trustees are chosen on merit and the process is regulated by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Comment.
The appointment process is tainted by political involvement. We are the licence fee payers, the listeners and viewers
2. How often does a BBC journalist or 'discussion' programme like Newsnight refer to UN resolutions on Palestine?
Contempt for UN resolutions
There are countless rulings by the United Nations and by the International Court of Justice. These are waiting to be implemented and enforced http://tinyurl.com/auozdpl Here are some examples…..
Resolution 181 (the Partition Plan of 1947 accepted by the Jews) declares Jerusalem, including Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, a corpus separatum – to be run under an international UN administration. This was reiterated in Resolution 303 a year later. We’re still waiting. Resolution 194: resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage. That was 64 years ago.
Resolution 237: Israel to allow return of the “new” 1967 Palestinian refugees.
Resolution 242: emphasizes the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war and calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from land occupied in 1967.
Resolution 252: declares invalid Israel’s attempts to unify Jerusalem as the Jewish capital.
Resolution 271: condemns Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem.
Resolution 298: deplores Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem.
Resolution 446: determines that Israeli settlements are a “serious obstruction” to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Resolution 452: calls on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories.
Resolution 465: deplores Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel’s settlements program.
Resolution 469: strongly deplores Israel’s failure to observe the Council’s order not to deport Palestinians.
Resolution 471: expresses deep concern at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Resolution 476: reiterates that Israel’s claims to Jerusalem are null and void.
Resolution 478: censures Israel in the strongest terms for its claim to Jerusalem in its Basic Law.
Resolution 605: strongly deplores Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.
Resolution 608: deeply regrets that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians.
Resolution 641: deplores Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 673: deplores Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations.
Resolution 681: deplores Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 694: deplores Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
Resolution 726: strongly condemns Israel’s deportation of Palestinians.
Resolution 799: ditto
3. Have any ME BBC journalists ever looked into the abduction of children in the dead of night by 'Israeli' military personnel, their frequent torture and imprisonment of children from the 'West Bank'. They might be imprisoned for months, and some without charge or trial. In September 189 were imprisoned http://www.dci-palestine.org/
4. Has the BBC ever spoken of the deliberate and methodical shooting by Israeli snipers of boys gathering concrete rubble for ballast at Erez? http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/6-articles/palestineisrael/107-the-methodical-shooting-of-boys-at-work-in-gaza-by-snipers-of-the-israeli-occupation-force
5. A brief account by Craig Murray, former HMG Ambassador to Uzbekistan this morning - http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/11/the-palestinain-genocide-continues/
21 November 2012
Dear Ms Prunty,
This is in response to your kind e-mail of 5 October. I should be most grateful if you would pass this letter to the Chairman. It is on the long side but it is sent in the best spirit. We must recognise that SS Great Britain is heading for the rocks and that in saving her we must be brutally honest, one to another. Thank you.
For truth
16 December 2012
Title Getting the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers (BBC Trust web site - http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/)
From the above Trust web site - “Led by the Chairman Lord Patten, and consisting of 12 Trustees, the Trust is the guardian of licence fee revenue and of the public interest in the BBC.”
Dear Ms Prunty,
I see it is now over 3 weeks since I wrote to you. I have received neither an acknowledgement nor confirmation that you passed my letter to Lord Patten. Given the maelstrom that is the BBC, I would expect any well intended and thoughtful advice would be welcome. Amongst the excellence there has been much that was hideous. The BBC projected and protected weird people like Savile, Ross and Brand. And it poured millions and millions down their gullets.
Whilst I have been waiting for a response I have noted some of the biased reports and discussions among many.
1. I woke just before 4.30 am one morning to hear the announcer talking of the 'top of the hour' (US lingo) and of Obama's claim that the Assad 'regime' was preparing chemical weapons. There was no mention of Fort Detrick or of the most massive US arsenal of nuclear weapons. This assertion was repeated at half hourly intervals and through Today. Oddly enough, it was announced around tha same time that John Simpson was to visit Halabja to learn more as to what happened to those 5000+ victims. This was pure coincidence no doubt but it allowed a recital of the dire effects of various gases. The first use of mustard gas against Arabs was not mentioned; that would have blurred the black propaganda against Bashar. "Churchill was in no doubt that gas could be profitably employed against the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the Empire): *I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.*" And so it was used in the 1920s.
2. A Start the Week with Marr on the Iranian Nuclear Bomb and whether there will be a pre-emptive strike by the paragon of international law 'Israel'. Lady Shirley Williams leavened, a little, an otherwise polemical discussion. Sir Geoffrey Robertson QC predicted an Iranian bomb within a year and Douglas Murray was issuing his usual poison. One asks why he is on every other BBC programme.
I will post this correspondence on my own web site http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/ and on Media Lens. This doughty organisation logs dozens of complaints (re bias mostly) every month. They relate mostly to the BBC.
For truth
David Halpin FRCS
