BBC Have your Say

The BBC's "Have Your Say" section tries to frame questions to get the answer they want and they almost always pick the answers that they like as their featured quotes. Unfortunately if you click on "Readers Recommended" you find that most readers of Have Your Say are in fact opposed to the BBC world view. Two Have Your Say examples caught my eye this week, so here they are with the front page of top "Readers Recommended" in each case:

1. "Can Gordon Brown save the economy?

Gordon Brown has said he is the right man to steer the country through difficult economic times. Does he have a solid agenda?

The prime minister blamed "international factors" for rising oil and food prices as well as housing market problems and said he was taking the right action to deal with them.

On Wednesday, Mr Brown set out his draft legislative programme for the next year including more help for first-time buyers, a savings scheme for eight million low earners and more flexible working rights for parents.

However, this has been overshadowed by a raft of gloomy economic news with the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King warning the "nice" decade was over.

Are you convinced by Gordon Brown’s claims? What do you think of his plans for the year ahead? Can he steer the country through challenging economic times?"


And the top "Readers Recommended", surely one person would have swallowed the BBC line that Gordon Brown is still the best man to lead the UK out of this entirely foreign sourced problem, or maybe not:

"Family finances?! What about the rest of the country? Everyone is in a mess, not just families.

Flexible working rights for parents is another questionable one. I'm all for it in theory, but why should we work harder/longer hours/worse shifts because we don't have children?

All he's doing is discriminating further against the young white british hard working childless population. You'd think one of his advisors would have mentioned to him he won't be PM much longer unless he sorts it out.

S, The City


As a single person with the lion's share of taxation it's about time people like me got a look in on some of the benefits of paying such high taxation.

Unfortunately I have a private pension, healthcare and higher than average wage so, basically, I'm stuffed.

If I sat on my lazy behind doing nothing I'd have my rent paid, council tax paid, home insurance paid and enough money to sit at home with what time I get up being my biggest worry.

What about people like me?????

Peter W, Manchester, United Kingdom


Putting family finances first?

If he hadn't spent the last ten years as chancellor messing them up in the first place he wouldn't need to put them right, would he.

What a cheek!

Nothing but more rubbish from a tired, desperate man with a thick, brass neck.

[Vulpus_rex], London, United Kingdom


Bluntly no. His priorities display the limited thinking of a tired, battered government with nothing in mind but short term survival.
He should be helping everybody not just families. In fact it is about time the elderly and the single got something.
More control over the police? More meetings, less bodies on the beat, more crime.
A constitution for the NHS? Why? It will be more words and less substance. I want to be treated, not have to wade through reams of useless messages!

[recrec]




The government's only priority is saving its own skin.

Huge Canoe, Up a creek, without a paddle, United Kingdom



'put family finances at the heart of the government's programme'

What about the single ppl - dont they count.

It is about time you where fair to everyone not just the family.

If not you deserve to be out of office.


.

[Katanamochi]



I simply don't trust Gordon Brown or what he says.

Dan Purkis, London, United Kingdom



What we really want is less taxes and more benefits for working families. And less benefits for scroungers.

[KAOwen], Bristol, United Kingdom



he really is out of touch with reality if he thinks the poorest people in this country can afford to save at the moment!

[hindlegoffadonkey]



Gordon has said nothing new. Once upon a time we had Mortgage relief, flexi-time for most workers, final salary pensions and lower taxation. Now we have no mortaged relief, standard working hours(unless you are part-time), money purchase pensions and very high taxation.

As a single person who works full time, I am thinking, what do I gain out of the mess which Gordon has put us into. Top quality Pensions are rare and we pay too much tax. It's time for Gordon to go.

Gillian Moore, London, United Kingdom



Just how many top priorities is this man now giving his full attention to?

All words and in six months we will still have seen no substance. This is times for the by election. Lets hope people still sock it to him!

[TheCrazyFool]



Knee jerk, reactive and a thinly disguised veneer over a disastrous policy decision. Spin-happy Labour have never had the right priorities, they just like to talk a lot about whatever they think are the electorate's current pain points.

The sad thing is that so many were taken in and voted for them, three times in a row!

[examino]



I will not support any government which tries to support high house prices. There is very little point going to work each day if you can't afford your own decent sized home. You might as well reproduce like bunnies and live on the state. Frankly people who do this have a better standard of living than those renting in the private sector.

I own my own house. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother working.

Anon, UK



No government has it wrong in taking money from families in tax when they are working and paying it back in family tax credit. It does not give people a pride in wanting to work but rather that it is not worth working and easier to sit at home on benefits, thus breeding a benefit culture. It does not have crime under control and exacerbates the problem by encouraging single mothers to live alone on benefits with no strong male role model to discipline children, thereby leaving a broken society

Janet White, United Kingdom



"Why is it that there are so many muppets on HYS that know nothing and do not acknowledge all the improvments that Labour have actually made over the years."

Hello?

Illegal wars, a 51% real-term hike in taxation since 1997, failure to improve public transport, a health service bottom of the European league tables, ten million on benefits, massively curtailed civil liberties and lastly £1.15 a gallon.

If you consider those to be "improvements", then you're on your own my friend.

Paul, London "


Not much solace for the BBC there, the public are not as pig-ignorant as the BBC believe them to be.


2. "What's the solution to the Palestinian refugee issue?

Palestinians are marking the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the first Arab-Israeli war, known as al-Nakba, or "the catastrophe". What can be done to resolve the Palestinian refugee crisis which was one of the outcomes of the war?

More than 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes or were expelled in 1948, during the war that followed Israel's declaration of independence.

The anniversary is being marked with a series of marches and protests and comes on the second day of US President George W Bush's visit to Israel. He is there to join the Jewish state's 60th anniversary commemorations and to push forward peace talks.

Do you live in the region? Are you a Palestinian refugee? What would be a lasting solution for the refugee problem?"

I think we can see how the BBC see this story, as they only want Palestinians to air their views; not that the BBC think there is a valid Israeli view - in the BBC collective mind: Israel = bad, Palestinian = good.


"There has never been a Palestinian state, and there never will be. During Ottoman rule there wasn't even a province called Palestine. The Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are actually Jordanians, Egyptians and Syrians, and after the failed attempt to destroy Israel in 1948 these nations should have absorbed the 'Palestinian' refugees, instead of forcing them to live in squalid camps in perpetual war with Israel.

Aussie Pride, Cronulla, Australia



Jordan seized the West Bank in 1948, and annexed it. The annexation was never contested. Therefore, all West Bank Palestinians are Jordanians, and are Jordan's problem, not Israel's.

That should solve half the problem.

[Corruptuser], United States



Well Jordan was going to be part of Palestine until the Arabs decided that war was their favoured option because they wanted ALL the land.

They lost that war, and with that they lost Palestine.

Now the Arabs must think of a way to accommodate the Palestinians into Jordan.

Lostin Space



"What's the solution to the Palestinian refugee issue?"

What refugee issue? There would be at most only a few thousand original refugees from 1948, the rest of the 'Palestinians' are the children and grandchildren of these refugees. Refugee status isn't magically passed down to future generations.

Aussie Pride, Cronulla, Australia



Electing Hamas certainly isn't conducive to a diplomatic solution to the problem. Declaring war on Israel as history has shown isn't either.

[Ifancyapint], United Kingdom




Pack your bags. It's only a hop and a skip to your homeland in Jordan.

Gemma A.




How many refugees are there today?

If there were 700,000 sixty years ago, then it means that most of them have already died, and the current 'refugees' are children and grandchildren of those original ones. For people claiming those should be allowed to return think about all the wars in Europe in the 18th century. I'm sure each of you have at least one ancestor that fled during a war never to return. Let's quit being self-righteous here. Nothing happened on that war that did not happen before

Chen




"What can be done to resolve the Palestinian refugee crisis which was one of the outcomes of the war?"

Stop bashing Israel, plz.

The crisis was not just an outcome of the war - it has also been caused by Arab countries' unwillingness to harbor or help Palestinians. Do you think Jordan wants the West Bank back?

[Spironline], Denmark




Well I find it incredible that a Palestinian can be born anywhere in the world today and have automatic 'refugee' status afforded to them.

Obviously what should have happened to Palestinian refugees, was that they would have been taken into Arab countries as Israel took in the Jewish refugees.

Now the only solution is of course the return to Jordan which is Palestine.

First Name Last Name




Many more Jews, around 850.000, were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries at the same time.
Isn’t it disingenuous not to mention them when discussing this issue?

Millions of Germans were ethnically cleansed from East Prussia etc…about the same time the Arabs launched their war to “drown the Jews into the sea”.
Has anyone ever heard complaints from German refugees?

Why should the Germans pay a price for their wars of aggression but the Arabs can get away scot-free?

Why?

Fernando Carreras, Amsterdam




There are no real refugese in 2008 from former Palestine, only the decendnts of former refugese & this goes for Jews as well as many other people arround the globe

We can not turn the clock back, The ME of 60 years ago does not exist any more, the homes of former Arab & Jew inhabitants no loner exist.

It time to move on and end the suffering of those who are under the dilusion that time can be reversed.

It is time to make peace & leave the past behind, we owe it to our future generation

Dr Mookie Fallah (Israeli Arab), Herzalia Israel




Is this even a question? 5 minutes of research tells you that the Arab armies forced them out of their homes so they could beat the Jews, promising them a quick victory. 60 years later, and Israel is the Middle Easts strongest nation. So, the Arabs can make due on that promise since they forced them to leave in the first place, and open their own borders to them. I find it disturbing that the BBC only seems to report the poor palestinians plight, and keeps ignoring Israel in their behalf.

Seer, USA



I'm sick of them. They can afford 22,000 balloons and countless rockets and guns and yet continue to yelp about their lack of funds.

Jane, Trenton, USA




Only one solution. The right to return to the occupied land
[drarni], Finland

I just hope the Jews thrown out of the West Bank having lived there for centuries/millennia get the 'right of return' into the parts of the Palestinian-occupied west bank.

Tom smith



The Huseini family forced Arab migration to the TransJordan area to counter Jewish immigration and claim the area for the Jordanians. The so called "Palastinians" are Hashemite Jordanians. Let the Arabs give them back what they were forced off of to migrate to the partitioned lands of Palastine. The long term solution is one state. Israel is the economic powerhouse in the region. It has the brains, the ambition and the will to make the area prosperous. Terrorist Islamists stand in the way.

Collin Canadian "



Not much agreement with the BBC/Palestinian view there either.