Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 07:27:12 PM

Login with username, password and session length

David Kelly's last interview - Friday on Five...

Started by Pinball, February 10, 2004, 10:19:22 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Pinball

Friday 7.30pm Channel Five
QuoteExclusive to Five, Dr David Kelly's final interview - given four-and-a-half weeks before he died and never seen before.
The preview looks interesting, conspiraheads ;-)

QuoteLast Update: Saturday, February 7, 2004. 11:26am (AEDT)
Interview with weapons expert Kelly to be broadcast
The final interview given by British government weapons expert David Kelly, who committed suicide after giving unauthorised information on the Iraq war to the BBC, will be shown on UK television next week.

The documentary, broadcast by British terrestrial channel Five, is called Germ Warfare: Doctor Kelly's Last Interview, and is expected to examine the career of one of the Government's most senior specialists on weapons of mass destruction.

It is scheduled to be broadcast on February 13.

"In the feeding frenzy surrounding the release of the Hutton report, Dr David Kelly's immense contribution to this country's national security has been overlooked - this film puts the record straight," the documentary's producer Dan Korn said.

A channel Five statement said the interview took place just over one month before Mr Kelly took his own life on July 17 last year.

Dr Kelly killed himself after he was identified as the source of a report by the BBC's defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, which alleged that the Government had exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair challenged the allegations, which were subsequently investigated by senior judge Brian Hutton.

-- AFP
Edit: I bet Five won't be so controversial once Murdoch has bought them... :-(

butnut

Friday the 13th is certainly an interesting day to choose to broadcast it.

Gazeuse

And the music on the promo is fucking brilliant!!!

butnut


Pinball

http://unpersons.net/archives/000021.html
QuoteTuesday 12 August 2003
Sky's The Limit
Business | UK affairs
There was good news for those in Britain who struggle to deal with more than one point of view expressed to them this morning, with further confirmation that pretty soon whatever Rupert Murdoch says will be gospel.

With the Government's recent Communications Bill seeming a thinly-veiled contract for Murdoch to buy Channel Five (or 'Five' as we are supposed to call it), and the media tycoon already owning the Prime Minister, the Times, the Sun, the News of the World, Sky News (which also provides news to countless national and regional radio stations) and a monopoly on the nation's satellite television, the future of balance and impartiality in UK media appears to be bleak. The foundations of this new Bill were sewn in 1997 when, it is alleged, Tony Blair made a cordial speech at a conference organised by Murdoch which was based on the proposition that if you'll scratch our back then we'll scratch yours. In other words, if Murdoch's media outlets in the UK offered support to the Blair Government (as has recently been evidenced by the easy ride given to the Government in Murdoch's papers over the Dr. David Kelly affair) then Blair would force through the Communications Bill. This would supersede the old communications act passed by the Tories in 1996 banning any media mogul with more than 20% of the British newspaper market from owning a terrestrial television channel (see Private Eye No. 1085).

British Sky Broadcasting (BskyB) this morning announced pre-tax profits of £259.6m, up on last year's loss of £22.1m. The total revenue of the satellite television company was £3bn over the last twelve months. This company already has 6.8million subscribers to its television services and expects to exceed seven million by the end of the year. With forty million households in the country, Mr. Murdoch will, within a few years, be able to command authority in a fifth of the nation's homes. With such power, BskyB is a huge market force in UK television. Last week, the company secured the exclusive rights to future FA Premier League matches for the obscene figure of £1bn. If football fans want to see the game on television, they will have to get Sky Sports, either from BskyB or from another digital provider.

However, this raises yet further issues. With the collapse of On/ITV Digital last year there are, for most people in Britain, only three choices of television provider beyond BskyB. The first is to simply pay the TV Licence and just watch the five terrestrial channels. However, as one of them is soon to be taken over by Rupert, and two are run by the BBC, getting a non-government point of view can be tricky. Even though the remit of the BBC is to bring impartiality to the British audience it's Director-General has to be approved by our blessed leader. Consumers can pay around £100 for a digital adapter to get 'Freeview' (still costs £100 to get it though, doesn't it?), which, guess what, gives you more BBC channels and, with very few others, Sky News (proprietor R. Murdoch). So, what is left is a choice between cable and satellite.

Most of Britain's cable services are run by ntl: (yes, it does technically have that colon on the end) but large numbers of British consumers cannot receive cable because the cable itself has not been laid to their homes. This is due to the very serious problem that until January of this year, ntl: were bankrupt, and still retain huge debts. Furthermore, this morning's news signalled a further loss of £1.3m for the company as a pay off for chief executive and founder Barclay Knapp. Mr. Knapp, who leaves at the end of the year, defended his pay out as compensation for the money he lost in not selling his shares before the price collapsed. The fact that its collapse was due to his piss-poor management and over-spending was, of course, not mentioned.

Nevertheless, presuming that someone can get cable somehow, most cable channels are the same as those on satellite, with the most popular being Sky Movies, Sky Sports and Sky One, all demonstrating this media monopoly, and huge wads of cash going from ntl: to Sky.

There is, of course, an argument to suggest that in a free market economy Sky have simply been the most successful and so there is no problem. However, it must be realised that problems do arise from both potential conflicts of interest in news distribution and from the fact that Mr. Murdoch owns such popular media outlets. There are nearly seven million Sky subscribers, millions more watch their channels on cable, the Sun is the country's most popular newspaper with a circulation of 3.52 million, Sky News is present in over fifty countries and almost every house with a television is able to pick up Channel Five. It would seem that Mr. Murdoch, on behalf of his friend Tony, will be diligently ensuring we all receive the right version of the truth in future.

Posted by Duncan Morgan at 1740 on 12 August 2003

fanny splendid


Ambient Sheep

Actually, I thought it was very weak.  Took me a while even to see the joke, I just thought it was being wilfully surreal at first.  Quite disappointing.

Still, it seems it worked for you...

Gazeuse

Quote from: "butnut"Did you do it?

No. No no no...No.

yes

Pinball

I think that Eye cover is great, albeit obvious.

Reminded me of an interesting fact about Hutton. Of the dozen or so similar enquiries into controversial issues (Falklands, arms to Iraq etc.), none have found any significant wrongdoing on the part of the government. The PM simply chooses some friendly retired judge or other "great and good"-type, who delivers the goods of absolution. Reputation of said judge doesn't matter 'cos they're retired anyway. In short, it's a set-up by the government, of a type that's been done many times before.

Clearly, there's a system fault with these enquiries - they don't work. I hate to have to say "we need a radical overhaul", but we do! ;-)

zozman

Quote from: "Pinball"I think that Eye cover is great, albeit obvious.



Clearly, there's a system fault with these enquiries - they don't work.  

They work for the government.  That's why they do them and why the opposition won't attack them too much.