Angolagate

In October 2009, Gaydamak and French magnate Pierre Falcone were convicted by a French court of organizing arms trafficking in Angola during the civil war in 1993-1998 in the amount of 790 million dollars, in violation of the Lusaka Protocol. He was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison, but his conviction on the arms dealing charges was overturned by the Court of Appeal in Paris on April 29, 2011. He is currently in Israel. France had attempted unsuccessfully to extradite Gaydamak from Israel, although Israeli law has changed in the interim and extradition is now possible.[8] It has been claimed by Peter Storrie that this situation helped to precipitate the financial crisis at Portsmouth Football Club. The club was owned by his son Alexandre, and the allegations caused banks to withdraw overdraft facilities from the club, and to demand total repayment.[9]

Is that the same BBC that covered up the biggest child abuser Britain has ever known?

Oh and slinging Jonathon Ross however many million squid it was per year!

Not exactly a cover up but still unforgivable.

The BBC didn't come out of the Hutton report too well!

The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.

On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee of the Ministry of Defence, was found dead after he had been named as the source of quotations used by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan. These quotations had formed the basis of media reports claiming that Tony Blair's Labour government had knowingly "sexed up" the "September Dossier", a report into Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. The inquiry opened in August 2003 and reported on 28 January 2004. The Hutton report cleared the government of wrongdoing, while the BBC was strongly criticised, leading to the resignation of the BBC's chairman Gavyn Davies and director-general Greg Dyke. The report was met with scepticism by the British public,[1] and criticism by British newspapers such as The Guardian, Independent, and the Daily Mail, though others said it exposed serious flaws within the BBC.

The BBC has also been accused of racism. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2008, Lenny Henry said that ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved" in television comedy and that little had changed at senior levels in terms of ethnic representation during his 32 years in television. Jimmy McGovern in a 2007 interview called the BBC "one of the most racist institutions in England".

In 2001, BBC director-general Greg Dyke admitted that the BBC was "hideously white", and acknowledged difficulties with "race relations". He acknowledged that it was having difficulties in retaining minority staff and outlined plans towards solving these problems


The Independent, a British morning newspaper, has accused the BBC of being "institutionally homophobic" towards the Gay community after an investigation by the University of Leeds found 80% of portrayals by the BBC of those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ('LGBT') were negative and accounted for just 0.4% of output. Focus groups[which?] accused the BBC of being the worst broadcaster in terms of gay and lesbian issues and their portrayal of them

Oh and slinging Jonathon Ross however many million squid it was per year!

Not exactly a cover up but still unforgivable.

Accounts published today show 16 top earners shared around £16.4 million in 2011/12.

In 2010/11, 19 people filled the top three bands pulling in pay of more than £21 million

The BBC Trust has said that it will bow to public pressure by ordering the corporation to publish more details about its biggest earners, but not how much they are individually paid.

Speaking today to BBC Breakfast, Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said that the move to reveal the BBC's biggest earners is designed to "recapture public confidence" in the corporation.However, he also confirmed that the corporation will not have to disclose how much each of its stars actually earn, which is likely to prove controversial with the BBC's critics.

Reclaiming Our Futures: Activists target BBC over welfare reform ‘bias’
Disabled activists have targeted the BBC to protest at its “biased” coverage of the impact of the government’s welfare cuts and reforms on disabled people.

Campaigners from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Black Triangle and the Mental Health Resistance Network, working with members of the mainstream anti-cuts movement, locked their wheelchairs together at the entrance to Broadcasting House in central London.

The peaceful protest was part of DPAC’s Reclaiming Our Futures week of action, and saw the front entrance to the new Broadcasting House blocked off for an hour.

Although police officers did arrive and talk to the protesters, there were no arrests.

The protesters said they were there because the BBC had played a key part in deteriorating public attitudes towards disabled people.

Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s steering group, said that current affairs programmes like The Future State of Welfare, Saints and Scroungers, and We All Pay Your Benefits were “pitching disabled people and benefit claimants against the working poor”.

And he said that the BBC Trust’s decision last month to criticise The Future State Of Welfare “proves that actually this is not just an abstract accusation, this is happening right across the BBC”.

He said that disabled people were being held responsible for the government’s cuts, with BBC radio phone-ins full of callers claiming that “most disabled people are swinging the lead”.

He added: “The only thing we seem to be talking about is how the poor in this country are to blame for being poor and need to sharpen their act and work harder at not being poor.

“The barriers in society are not being addressed. Nobody is holding politicians to account, while individuals are being demonised and hounded throughout the media. It is not right that a state-owned broadcaster is participating in this propaganda.

“Why are they not holding these politicians to account? Why are they not challenging the narrative and creating spaces for us who are challenging it to be heard.”

He called on the BBC to provide an “unbiased and balanced opportunity” for those disabled people affected by the government’s cuts and reforms “to have their say” and hold politicians to account.

Conan Doyle, another of the DPAC protesters, said: “The idea of the BBC is fantastic. It makes some of the best programmes in the world on such a tiny budget.

“I love the BBC – but when I see how much they misrepresent us, that is when it makes me angry. They are complicit in the propaganda of the ‘benefit scrounger’.”

He added: “I know a lot of disabled people who work. They are called scroungers just because they look different.”

In the last few weeks he said he had been having difficulty walking and “somebody just shouted ‘benefit scrounger’ at me”.

He said: “I think all media outlets play a part in that. By giving only one side of the story in the way it does, the BBC is one of the most complicit television networks.”

Paula Peters, from the Mental Health Resistance Network, said: “We want the BBC to start hearing our voice and start giving a more measured argument.

“We have got a voice, we have got a right to be heard and we are going to keep coming back until we are heard.”

A BBC spokesman said: “We don’t comment on security matters.”

Got to love the last sentence eh...

After giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in January 2012 on media sexism and hosting a follow-up seminar in March, Eaves (in collaboration with End Violence Against Women, Equality Now and Object), wrote to George Entwistle, Director General of the BBC, last week to call on the BBC to investigate institutional sexism in relation to the Jimmy Savile Inquiry.

The letter recommends that the inquiry consults with sexual violence experts in order to gain a deeper understanding into victims of violence and sexual abuse. It also calls on the BBC to recognise the links between institutionalised sexism and sexual abuse in the workplace, and to look not only at the allegations in the past but at the current culture in the BBC.

It is hoped that the letter will put pressure on Entwistle who is being questioned about the scandal by the same committee who investigated the phone hacking scandal.

“The BBC is a great and important institution, we are pleased that they have opened an inquiry but we hope that they make the links between the abuse in the 70’s and the broader culture of institutionalised sexism”.

The BBC has been forced to apologise after presenter John Inverdale said that women's Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli was "never going to be a looker".

Comments made by the freelance BBC presenter Colin Murray about Olympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill’s “bottom” have been cited by the Culture Secretary Maria Miller as further evidence that the broadcaster needs to do more to confront sexism.

Murray upset some athletics fans during the warm-up for the Anniversary Games on Friday evening when he suggested to the crowd of 65,000 that a perfect athlete would combine “the stamina of Mo [Farah], the speed of [Usain] Bolt, the leap of [Greg] Rutherford and the bottom of Jess Ennis”. What he said was not broadcast.

‘In TV and radio in the 70s, 80s and even 90s, women were all too often regarded as something to have smutty fun with’
Janet Street Porter

‘I want George Entwistle to be prepared for anything that might be coming, because it will come out’
Liz Kershaw

‘Staff need to know there are avenues they can go down to complain and that they will see results’
Lorraine Heggessey

‘I consider this a culture endemic across the whole of radio and television and certainly not limited to the BBC’
Sandi Toksvig

‘There were fewer women in positions of power then to speak out’
Daisy Goodwin

I do take issue with JSP over her staying mum about Saville

I do here you Abs and I'm in no way targetting negativity toward her. I just think she was in a position, as her career developed, to say something. For whatever reason, she chose not to.