大象传媒

It is good that Newsnight is taking a look at the EU. I hope not only MEPs expenses are covered. I have read over the years that nepotism rules in the bureaucratic tier. It is a great shame that we are involved with this blood-sucking empire. I was trying to find from IE the number of EU bureaucrats in post, but no luck so far.

Congratulations Jeremy! A well deserved award, for who is definitely one of the country's best presenters.

Congratulations to Jeremy on his award. He deserves it. Keep up the good work of showing us how awful our politicians are.

RENDITION

I agree with barrie singleton. They have followed the Bush admin's Straussian philosophies which allow for lying in pursuit of a perceived greater good.

There is a list of enablers as long as your arm and a price will have to be paid. The Hague is pleasant at this time of year.

Miliband's statement is indeed quite extraordinary. But whose head rolls?
Why not ring up Tam Dalyell - long-
time campaigner for the human rights
of the islanders deported from Diego Garcia and fierce critic of the Iraq War - and ask him for suggestions ?!

Reply to #5 (Barrie Singleton)

When I was 12 my father threw me and my mother into the street. Divorce followed, then a remarriage followed by another divorce. I grew up in an estate surrounded by gangs many of whom wound up in trouble with the cops and then in prison. I did not grow up and go around murdering people.

Maybe Steve Wright is to blame for Steve Wright's inadequacies, rather than society. Quit the hand-wringing moralism and realise that some people are just plain bad or dangerous. It's all part of the wide spectrum of personalities that people across society have.

His childhood may have been unpleasant and mine was no picnic. Millions of others have had a lousy time too, but we all know that murdering people is wrong. Maybe Wright just doesn't care in which case locking him up is fully justified.

Jeremy Paxman is an extraordinary presenter and interviewer, and deserves the accolades and recognition which he, admirably, does not crave. Congratulations to Mr Paxman and Newsnight.

"We'll be asking where it leaves the 鈥渟pecial relationship鈥�?"

This has been asked so many times and nothing ever changes.

Maybe this time it'll be different and Brown will tell Bush:
"I've had it up to here with your lies, your wars, your rendition. Who needs enemies with friends like you? Now get your Bases out of our country - and I mean all of them - NSA Menwith Hill Station, USAF Mildenhall, USAF Lakenheath, USAF Alconbury, USAF Feltwell, JAC Molesworth, the US Deep and Near Space Tracking Facility at Feltwell, USAF Fairford, NSA Croughton, Fylingdales, Digby, Morwhenstow and the rest - and jolly well don't come back"

Doubtful though.

congratulations America, UK, Germany etc., in recognising Kosovo, you have ensured a military presence for decades to come and we will foot the bill as China, Russia, South Africa and the UN will make bloody sure we do

I think Scotland's First Minister Rt
Hon Alex Salmond may also want some explanations as well as Tam Dalyell,
not least as both of them took keen
interest in the 'clearances' from
Diego Garcia when they were MPs; both opposed the Iraq War; & both opposed 'extraordinary rendition'.

Tam has been banging on about this issue since a stopover in Mauritius
back in 1969 and questions then put
to Patrick Gordon-Walker .........!

'Were they a tragic, isolated series of killings or do they speak to deeper issues in society?'

What deeper issues? It is an offence under common law to take the life of fellow human being. Surely you are not going to suggest that there are circumstances in which killing people is justified?

Congratulations to Mr Paxman on a well deserved award, although I am sure he would want to say that 'I couldn't have done it without the help of loyal and supportive team'. Possibly with his tongue slightly in his cheek.

Both he and John Humphrys are unfairly characterised as rottweilers, whereas it would be fairer to compare them with terriers, digging for the truth under several layers of equivocation, spin, evasion, bull and sometimes downright lies and mendacity.

I have to admit to being slightly perplexed about the 'rendition' thing though. Hasn't it already been established that some of these flights stopped to refuel in Scotland ?

Or was that never established/proven /Govt. never coughed to it ?

Can you explain why the 大象传媒 promulgates this special relationship myth, which only exists in the minds of government ministers and British journalists. After all it's not like the 大象传媒 to take the pro-establishment line. 'irony'

I would have liked to see an intelligent discussion on the prostitute murders, instead you decided to get on some woman-hating weirdo to tastefully use this case to grind his partuicular axe, so I switched off.

EXTRAORDINARILY SANCTIMONIOUS: Kirsty Wark

And tomorrow in the interests of balance - something the 大象传媒 is supposed to be obsessed with - will Kirsty Wark secure an interview Osama and chums and get a promise they'll never do a 7/7 or a 9/11 again? I won't hold my breath.

John Bellinger has nothing to apologise to me for. I hope the US goes on protecting people like me who - unlike Kirsty - don't get to avoid the easy target of the tube by being ferried about in 大象传媒 cars to plush locations to interview people.

If there's another 7/7 I'll be stuck on the tube and - worse still - if I get hit I'll no doubt have Kirsty or some other ghastly 大象传媒 reporter doing their usual faux concern for victims of terrorism while having spent all their time attacking the US's efforts to prevent it.

We are fighting an enemy with no respect for the Geneva Convention or any other rule of engagement and Kirsty Wark expects us to play by their rules just because she's unlikely to be on a rush hour tube.

If it stops the next 9/11, Kirsty, the US can plug these people into the mains for I care. What the heck do the 大象传媒 and so-called human rights groups give a stuff for the civilian targets of this stuff? It must be wonderful to be a human rights lawyer swanning around the high-security Royal Courts of Justice listening to the sound of your own voice. Well, get this, Kirsty, the human rights lawyers don't speak for me - and neither does do you.

is it me or Fiona Mactaggart mp is dumb women mp. who don't care or she think about free women who are ladette.

On Kosovo;is it not interesting that a large potential oil and gas find has just been announced near Kosovo and that no mention was made of Bondsteel the US base sited for future pipeline routes from the Caspian.
The provisional Kosova prime minister,Hashim Thaci,was described as a former "guerilla" ignoring the fact that he founded an underground crimal organisation controlling drugs,smuggling, prostitution etc..
This is the man for the EU and the US to do business with?

ON Rendition....given that the aircraft as spotted by amateurs etc.are clearly linked with the CIA and other US agencies and their contractors and that there is now conclusive evidence of their link with cocaine and heroin transportation one would have thought that UK narcotics officers would have insisted on cargo inventories and or inspection of all aircraft touching down on our territories.The media missed this as usual.(See Yucaton crash)

I was very disappointed with Kirsty as she allowed Andrew Dinesmore to blandly state that we can't speculate and must wait for evidence on further renditions. She did not ask him how he might seek such evidence, as we're completely reliant on the US for information.

Congratulations Jeremy the best of the best.

The inclusion of the guest, Stephen Moxon(?), for the segment on the Suffolk murders was disgraceful - I found his views puerile and deeply offensive and his constant talking marred what should have been an interesting discussion. Indeed, his points were as nonsensical as they were irrelevant to the discussion at hand (e.g. no biological basis for male domination over women but there is a biological basis for men seeking extra-marital sex). By contrast, Fiona MacTaggart (?) was engaging and interesting. I accept that Moxon is entitled to his views but that doesn't mean he should be given Newsnight as a platform on which to air them.

However, the selection of other guests in recent weeks has also been questionable. One that particuarly stands out is Edward Macmillan-Scott (the conservative MEP) for a discussion on China. His claim that China was a "terror state" was laughable and indicative of someone who has never been to the country but seeks to shout about it on national television. And why do you keep turning to Will Hutton as a "China expert" - his only claim to knowledge is a mass market book on China's development that simply regurgitated already existing academic work? His knowledge on the country is threadbare and his predictions over its future (typical "democracy is the only answer" myopia) lack reasoned credibility. Again, it has the effect of rendering discussions about China, which are inherently complex and interesting, as facile and superficial - the media keeps telling us that this will be the China century but the presentation of the country in the media has yet to move beyond the "them Communist (with a bit of capitalism), us democracy" paradigm.

In response Laura`s post `Extraordinarily Sanctimonious`...
the chance of a interview with former CIA asset OBL is absolutely nil if we are to beleive the late PPP leader in her interview with David Frost on SKY about 2 weeks before her death in which she named his murderer. There has been a US corporate media disinformation cover up since then with removal of the footage and Imran Khan (the cricketer not the lawyer!) is saying that OBL could be on one side of the Pak/afg border or the other.
Intereseting . Will the 大象传媒 step up to the wicket?

'The inclusion of the guest, Stephen Moxon(?), for the segment on the Suffolk murders was disgraceful - I found his views puerile and deeply offensive and his constant talking marred what should have been an interesting discussion. Indeed, his points were as nonsensical as they were irrelevant to the discussion at hand (e.g. no biological basis for male domination over women but there is a biological basis for men seeking extra-marital sex). By contrast, Fiona MacTaggart (?) was engaging and interesting. I accept that Moxon is entitled to his views but that doesn't mean he should be given Newsnight as a platform on which to air them.'

Couldn't agree more - where on earth did newsnight find him, and on what basis was invited to contribute? His views, and the manner in which he delivered them, were offensive, unsubstantiated and bizarre.

They did however provide an excellent opportunity for Kirsty Wark to employ her best 'what kind of fool are you' face to full effect.

I've not been moved to write about a Newsnight programme before but must echo the comments about the unpleasant and rather disturbing Stephen Moxon (why exactly did he spend 20 years living in a red light district?!) in the segment on the Suffolk murders. Kirsty Wark's sceptical face was indeed excellent but I am also perplexed as to why Newsnight felt they had to supposedly 'balance' Fiona MacTaggert's contribution with strange and ill-informed contributions from a man with no professional standing.

It would have been braver and more insightful to have a representative from the Prostitute's Collective if the programme had really wanted to have a voice from 'the street'. I have written news features about women working in the sex trade and have found many eloquent voices there. Well done to Ms MacTaggart for such grace in the face of such idiocy.

So it turns out that the USA did use British territory for their extraordinary rendition flights, without informing us and without even asking permission first. No surprise there then. I always had my doubts about Jack Straw's claim that "We have found no evidence of detainees being rendered through Britain". That's because the evidence was carefully not recorded in the first place.

The European Parliment: a retirement home for the spent, used up and the pilfering politician. Whilst watching this report on the fiddles that go on from our Euro represensitives, i recalled the time when Neil Kinnock was there... so nothing has changed then.
Moxon once worked for the home office who wrote a book about the immigration issues and exposed some of the shortcoming in that particular dept; he's seems to have taken a big leap into something totally different and become an 'authority' on the sex trade, one has to wonder how! maybe he had a bad deal once or was "clipped" himself and it has stuck in his craw ever since.

To Kevin Post 23

Where d u get u ideas from?

Did u pto?

Re: 21 - Kosovo is landlocked, you must have been thinking somewhere else.
Re: 19 -Steve: The UK Government led the NATO campaign that bombed Serbia, clearing their troops from Kosovo. They had started a campaign of murdering Albanian Kosovars, and more than a million of them became refugees. Independence will reduce the costs you are talking about!#

Re: 21 - Kosovo is landlocked, you must have been thinking somewhere else.
Re: 19 -Steve: The UK Government led the NATO campaign that bombed Serbia, clearing their troops from Kosovo. They had started a campaign of murdering Albanian Kosovars, and more than a million of them became refugees. Independence will reduce the costs you are talking about!#

Re: 21 - Kosovo is landlocked, you must have been thinking somewhere else.
Re: 19 -Steve: The UK Government led the NATO campaign that bombed Serbia, clearing their troops from Kosovo. They had started a campaign of murdering Albanian Kosovars, and more than a million of them became refugees. Independence will reduce the costs you are talking about!#

Well done Jeremy; but ...

Unfortunately, I have to disagree that it was completely deserved. Jeremy has many good ways, but his unprofessional mannerisms sometimes get the better of him. Also, great moments though they were, the newsnight website shows the "highlights" of Jeremy's year as the ones when the stupidest guests were in.

I quite honestly believe that Kirsty Wark would deserve such a greater status due to her professionalism - but she presents so few programs that even that would not be possible, I suppose!

Paxo has passed it. He is useless

He should go on a gardening leave

Better sack him

Why because he not got one minesterial scalp. Zero

In a recent inteview of Paxman's with US presidential candidate Ralph Nader the Newsnight presenter persisted in alleging that Nader's candidacy destroyed Gore's 2000 campaign by splitting the Democratic vote. Nader's response that the election was stolen, something reported by Greg Palast for Newsnight itself, was persistently ignored by Paxman, who was merely committed to reiterating a question he already had the answer to. Why?
Paxman is not the epitome of a good or honest journalist. He is merely riding on a wave of tributes paid to him by those who cannot tell the difference between legitimate challenges and simple repetition.

In a recent inteview of Paxman's with US presidential candidate Ralph Nader the Newsnight presenter persisted in alleging that Nader's candidacy destroyed Gore's 2000 campaign by splitting the Democratic vote. Nader's response that the election was stolen, something reported by Greg Palast for Newsnight itself, was persistently ignored by Paxman, who was merely committed to reiterating a question he already had the answer to. Why?
Paxman is not the epitome of a good or honest journalist. He is merely riding on a wave of tributes paid to him by those who cannot tell the difference between legitimate challenges and simple repetition.