Britain - BBC's Version of Reality

I love it when I see an article by veteran BBC gas bag, John Simpson. It's the BBC at it's best creating an alternate universe where facts don't even enter into the equation. Take Simpson's latest work of fiction as an example.

Speaking of Blair's election with a reduced majority, Simpson frames the article with this sentence in the first paragraph.

For the first time since 1941, it may no longer be the automatic choice to stick close to Washington.

Why? According to Simpson it's due to the fallout over Iraq. But the Conservatives said they would have gone to Iraq had they been in power. And between them, Labour and the Conservatives represent the vast majority Britain.

Any move away from the US is due more to the anti-American crusade being waged by the likes of Simpson and the BBC.

Who needs facts when you have opinions? Simpson gives us a few of his.

After the John Major years he seemed like a real breath of fresh air - as clever as Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac, but without the accompanying whiff of scandal, and livelier and brighter than George W Bush.

Clinton and Chirac? Some heroes you got there Simpson.

How do you measure brightness John? Bush has degrees from both Yale and Harvard, was elected and re-elected as President of the United States, a country whose population is more than five times the size of Britain, and is the world's only superpower. As a result of Bush's vision, both Afghanistan and Iraq are now free, Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction and Syria pulled out of Lebanon. Don't get me wrong, I like Blair as well, I think he is a much better public speaker and he might well be brighter, but how does Simpson know he is "brighter" than Bush? He doesn't.

Simpson continues in his alternate universe.

Then came the obfuscation and misinformation about Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Care to point to any misinformation John? All the reports into the Iraq war back up everything Blair said. In contrast your BBC had to fire the two top executives and a reporter over the BBC's misinformation on Iraq. And I've documented a lot of BBC misinformation.

Talk about misinformation, look at this bold claim by Simpson.

Iraq wasn't the only election issue, but it was the defining one.

Despite your and the BBC's attempts to make it that John, Iraq was way down on the list of voter concerns. Since both Labour and the Conservatives agree on Iraq neither made it a campaign issue. Even for the Lib Dems Iraq was 10th on the issues list, with social issues dominating.

Simpson devotes the rest of the piece to telling us how Britain and America have learned their lessons with Iraq and finally plays the Vietnam card. Simpson ends the piece with this:

"...future British governments will be much more careful than Mr Blair about taking action for a cause that doesn't have full and clear international backing."

In other words, Simpson, like John Kerry, thinks you should have a permission slip from the useless UN.

It must be sad to be John Simpson and work at the BBC - living in an alternate universe.
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