The BBC's view of "The Troubles"

The BBC's coverage of Northern Ireland politics was one of the reasons I got into blogging and I see they are still fixated on Loyalist violence whilst Republican terrorism just whistles past unmentioned upon. Here is a piece entitled "Burning of Bombay St 40 years on" which runs:

"When sectarian tensions exploded in Belfast and Londonderry in the summer of 1969, trouble spilled onto the streets.

However, one street suffered more than most, as the homes of Catholic families living in Bombay Street in west Belfast were burnt by loyalists.

Four decades on, Conor Macauley speaks to those who were forced to flee."

I wonder if in November the BBC will run a piece to commemorate 26 years since one person died and almost 200 were injured in bomb attacks in London; one bomb blew up outside the Old Bailey and the other went off outside Scotland Yard. One of the convicted men, Gerry Kelly, later served on the Sinn Fein delegation that negotiated the Good Friday Agreement.

I presume the BBC will be giving similar coverage to the 25th anniversary of the Brighton bombing when the IRA targeted the British government by detonating a bomb at the hotel in Brighton, where much of the Conservative cabinet of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying during the party conference. Five people are killed – including an MP and Normal Tebbit's wife amongst many others was maimed for life. The bomb had been planted several weeks earlier by Patrick Magee, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the attack. He was released in 1999 under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement. You can read more about Patrick Magee and the Brighton bombing here. Maybe the BBC could interview survivors of the explosion such as Lord and Lady Tebbit, or are Norman Tebbit's views not acceptable to the BBC unless he is criticising David Cameron or raising the subject of Europe of course.

I wonder if the BBC will devote any attention to the 20th anniversary on 22 September of the bombing of the recreation centre at the Royal Marine School of Music in Deal which killed 11 soldiers.

I didn't notice the BBC reminding us in August that it was 30 years since the IRA blew up the Queen’s cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten and several others on his yacht in Ireland. A few hours later 18 British soldiers were killed in two booby-trap bomb explosions near Warrenpoint close to the border with the Irish Republic. The IRA claimed responsibility for that attack as well.

The BBC love their terrorists but are not so keen on the UK armed forces, Conservative politicians or Londoners it would seem.