Friday 4 July 2014

Ruled By Muppets

As Richard North notes:
As it does on such occasions, the juvenile media is going into gushing overdrive at the "launch" of the Queen Elizebeth II in Rosyth, the latest in the saga of Britain's aircraft carrier programme, set to deliver one operational platform with no aircraft to fly until 2020.
Naturally any acknowledgement of EU involvement goes entirely unmentioned:
...but then one recalls that the main purpose of our carrier is to fulfil our commitments to the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). It is considered to be a shared resource, as part of the 2010 Headline Goal
...when you delegate your foreign policy to a supranational entity, as in the EU, and then gauge your defence requirements to servicing that posture, it was always on the cards that we would end up with an unbalance defence capability, fielding equipment that had no role in projecting our own national interests.
One could suspect a conspiracy of silence regarding the EU but then when the BBC refers to the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier as a "boat" we can't help come to the conclusion that many of today's journalists are just simply thick muppets:
...the BBC risked the wrath of some of the British navy's most senior officers after describing HMS Queen Elizabeth, which will be official named by the Queen today, as a "boat".

Business reporter Justin Rowlatt was swiftly correctly by Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord, who phoned the programme to point out the slip - prompting a speedy correction.
My father-in-law who was part of the last crew on HMS Belfast before it was decommissioned would be in deep despair at the lack accuracy by the BBC regarding "boats" and "ships".

And nor is this "muppetary" unique to matters military. This morning the Telegraph had an article "England has become a nation of losers again" with a picture underneath of the Scottish tennis player, Andy Murray. The oldest comments say it all. The Telegraph have now amended their headline...
 
...which raises a couple of questions, why wasn't an obvious mistake spotted from the outset and can the commenters below the piece now invoice the Telegragh for doing their sub-editing for them?

9 comments:

  1. Sceptical Steve4 July 2014 at 18:52

    It's almost certainly because the DT's current business plan is to become a cynical, click-counting, advertising vehicle. Over recent weeks they've increasingly taken to posting ever more juvenile, superficial and controversialist articles.
    Why bother with sub-editors when you can rely on gubllible idiots clicking madly on every error-strewn article?

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    1. Yes...there was a half page article last weekend in the Telegraph on the best way to eat cakes on the London Underground. I kid you not...

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  2. A boat for fuck's sake! Jesus H Christ!

    For those who are unaware (quite a lot of cretins) A boat has only one deck, a ship has more than one deck. It really is that simple.

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    1. Aye...you would think the letters HMS might give the game away but apparently not.

      My father-in-law always used the definition that "ships carry boats".

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    2. "Aye...you would think the letters HMS might give the game away but apparently not."

      Not quite. I served on many submarines - all prefixed HMS, but they were always called "boats"

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  3. The DT editing has gone from poor to comical in the past couple of weeks. There was a whole piece posted discussing how Ryan Reynolds cause some female journalist heartbreak when appearing in The Notebook, when the actor was in fact Ryan Gosling - there were multiple references and even the headline contradicted the piece. That's just one of many, the DT seems to be falling apart.

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  4. ' ... nor is this "muppetary" unique to matters military ... '

    Surely you meant matters naval?

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  5. A few of our own planes to go on it would be very nice.

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  6. The amended headline is no better - Britain is an island, not a nation.

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