大象传媒

Michael Crick might like to get someone to research Bishop Harries 'Thought for the Day' contributions before the '97 general election. I remember being surprised that one of the C of E's most senior clergy was being allowed to use this slot to make party political broadcasts on behalf of New Labour.

Could be some useful quotes if his impartiality becomes an issue - and I think it will.

"Paddington Bear" should be axed too !!

I do understand he's causing offence to people what live in Paddington..

Hi Newsnight

My second blog today may evade the cyber-men,

鈥淭he early bird may get the worm, but it?s the second mouse that gets the cheese.鈥�

Is there a story behind the story? If there is the next month will show whether Newsnight is the mouse,

By the way what happened to the first mouse-?

Best wishes
Bob

for breaking news on wee Dougie's sister and campaign contributions

Bishop Harries also said that Britain should apologise for the Iraq war, by the way, so I guess he's not on-board with everything the Labour government has done.

My head is swimming watching the debate about the Labour donations.

How could they have been so stupid as to get themselves into this quagmire?

Big up to Paul Mason though for his analysis.

I think the situation with Ms Gibbons in Sudan is disgusting. Being charged with "insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs", for simply allowing children to name a teddy bear, would be considered absurd in most civilised countries today. And the prospect of a fine, a prison sentence and even 40 lashes is in my view evil. Gordon Brown should ring up the President of Sudan immediately and deliver the following ultimatum: either you release Ms Gibbons and apologise fully and frankly to her, or we'll cease all diplomatic ties with your country and get her out of there ourselves.

It would appear that Newsnight is following the war-mongers practice of holding Sinn Fein responsible for the actions of hundreds of thousands of people in Irish nationalist areas. The action of any individual or any one of the (tens of thousands) of ex paramilitaries in Irish Nationalist districts can be used to bring down the government in NI. These districts have the loweset crime rates in Britain and Ireland.

On the other hand Newsnight has still to hold any government minister or any member of the security services responsible for the murder of hundreds Irish civilians - like at our local pub in Louglinisland - and Newsnight finds nothing odd in the supression of the Stephens enquiry (and other enquiries) into collusion in such deaths. Spain was able to jail a minister and police chiefs in similar circumstances,Russia have even arrested members of their security services.No chance in the UK.

Additionally dozens of Stephen Laurance style murders have occured also of Irish young people, and no outcry has arisen from Newsnight when the perpetrators were British Loyalists - why is the murder or Paul Quinn different?

Double standards as usual with the wrongs of only one side in the NI conflict highlighted.

Its a shame Irish people are not Black or Asian, maybe they would get some attention.

As for the IMC, they have refused to confirm if the state apparatus of collusion in murder has been disbanded, and even refuse to confirm that it even exists. Independant monitoring commission my hat.

The DFID website shows that over the last five years we have given over 拢320m in aid to Sudan with a further 拢114m on its way in 2007/2008. Surely this unhinged administration gives rise to question the logic of continuing. I support the Christian ideal of sending aid to help those in need and God knows the Sudanese deserve our help but surely we should suspend this until Gillian Gibbons is cleared, released, repatriated and then only resume if we can be sure that our money will be responsibly administered. This whole episode and the Ambassador's stance at the start of tonights programme gives me serious doubts over their competence.

"The money was just resting in my account" Father Ted Crilly, aka Father Ted. Maybe an offshore account on Craggy Island has a significant role in Labour Party funding.

Nice to see the IRA I mean radical republicanism back in business in Northern Ireland, not that it really went out of commission. Curious as to why the RIRA (Real IRA) weren't mentioned in the report? Since they have pledged to be committed to a 32 County Ireland and hence still do not tolerate British 'imperialism' on Northern Irish soil. Moreover the RIRA have still been active, albeit on a smaller scale with firebombing of business premises and shootings of PSNI officers among other activities. I don't believe that this killing would've been sanctioned by the army council within the IRA (Provisional IRA); however that doesn't mean that lower level 'volunteers' weren't responsible in the planning/execution of this mindless killing. As usual all the senior politicians were more interested in denying possible IRA involvement rather than finding the killers. Roll on the 'peace process'.

Hallo Newsnight

Yet across the gulf of commons, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this government with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

In between episodes of Newsnight I鈥檝e being watching the War of the Worlds,

Humanity is fighting among itself, usual stuff then the bug eyed monsters from Outer Space arrive and we are all in trouble,

If you get the drift

Good night and Good luck, we may need it,

Best wishes
Bob

In North West Tonight (one of the BBc's regional programmes) the crucial point was made in the Gillian Gibbons case that the name of the bear was actually suggested by one of her pupils who was called Mohammad and wanted the teddy to be called after himself.
It would surely have been interesting to hear a response to this.

Tim B

The good bishop's views are, so far as I can see, always trendy and entirely predictable.

The entire country of England should be outraged at what has happened to Ms. Gibbons in Sudan. The hundred of millions that England has given to Sudan through DFID means absolutely nothing! You should show your dissatisfaction by immediately ceasing all programs. All she wanted to do was to help this poor country and teach children.

The director of the school is a complete coward how could he say the verdict was 鈥渧ery fair鈥�. The other teachers should be very careful because it is obvious he is not going to stand behind his teachers!

This is a serious blow to the image of Islam. It is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between hardliners and moderates. It begins to look more and more that there is no tolerance in Islam. We as westerners know when we travel to Muslim countries we need to respect their religious values why is it that many Muslims don鈥檛 feel the need to respect the culture and religion of western countries?

Are any dogs, cats or other pets or toys in Sudan ever named "Muhammad"?

If not surely Ms. Gibbons transgressed. The fact that we in the West don't ask these questions speaks volumes about our arrogance. If our representatives and media had been more conciliatory perhaps the punishment would have been far less severe?

This is politics.