BBC should apologise

“Dateline September 1939 and this is Richard Dimbleby of the BBC with the German forces invading Poland. As these fearless Nazi soldiers advance they are greeted by cheering Polish peasants who look forward with high hopes to Herr Hitler’s benevolent rule.

“An SS officer I interviewed today described the occupation as a limited policing action in support of democratic forces. He denounced last night’s RAF raids on German battleships as war crimes.”

Unthinkable? Of course. If the BBC had gone to war with Hitler’s troops and spouted this sort of Nazi propaganda, it would have been accused of treason.

So what possessed the BBC to send a film crew to Afghanistan to consort with the Taliban?

Britain is at war with the Taliban. Our soldiers are engaged in daily, bloody combat with these fanatics.

How must British troops feel today to see the BBC praising the “fearless” Afghan guerillas and denouncing Nato attacks?

The Tories have rightly condemned it as “obscene.” The BBC offers a mealy-mouthed defence, pointing out that it also interviews British troops. In other words, as far as our state broadcasting organisation is concerned, the British Army and the Taliban are two sides, to be treated equally.

What this statement tells us, quite simply, is that the BBC no longer knows the difference between right and wrong.

The Taliban are primitive fascists determined to drag the nation back into a medieval existence where dissent is stifled and women are denied education, made to wear burkhas and executed for anything deemed to be immoral.

The Taliban provided safe haven for Osama bin Laden as he planned the carnage of 9/11. They were driven out by Afghans, supported by Britain and America.

Giving these maniacs airtime is a grotesque error of judgment by the BBC. It should make a full apology.

The tragedy is that today’s BBC is so far removed from the people it is supposed to serve that it genuinely does not realise that, in singing the praises of our enemy, it has done anything wrong.

Bus deregulation fails the public

Now tell us something we don’t know. A Commons committee reports that bus deregulation, imposed 20 years ago, has failed.

The old, inefficient municipal services may not have been perfect but it was obvious that a bus free-for-all would see busy routes packed with buses and quiet routes neglected.

Buses can play a huge part in solving traffic congestion, but only if they are properly organised.

If that means transferring power out of the hands of companies and into the care of local commissioners, so be it.