How to be heard!!?? The fall of the BBC as a great and impartial broadcaster...

I have recently followed the example of Actress/Blogger Vera Graziadel and made an official complaint to the BBC about the fairness in their handling of the horrific crises in Ukraine. My complaint was centred around the bias towards one side in in the conflict. The side that has predominantly western backing.

I wont go into further detail here as this post is designed to be a supporting doc to my work on Twitter but suffice it to say the BBC barely pays complaints lip service at this stage....

Please note that you cannot reply to this email in anyway. Only start another complaints procedure!!??

And WE pay for this!!????

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Dear Mr Bailey

Reference CAS-2791989-W6YXD6

Thanks for contacting us regarding BBC News.

I understand you feel our news reports of what is happening in Ukraine have been biased against Russia. I also note that you are claiming Daniel Sandford made an abusive comment regarding fellow journalists.

BBC journalists are well aware of our commitment to impartial reporting. They are expected to put their own political views to one side when carrying out their work for the BBC. They seek to provide the information which will enable viewers and listeners to make up their own minds; to show the political reality and provide the forum for debate, giving full opportunity for all viewpoints to be heard. Senior editorial staff, the Executive Committee and the BBC Trust keep a close watch on programmes to ensure that standards of impartiality are maintained.

It is not always possible or practical to reflect all the different opinions on a subject within individual programmes. Editors are charged to ensure that over a reasonable period they reflect the range of significant views, opinions and trends in their subject area. The BBC does not seek to denigrate any view, nor to promote any view. It seeks rather to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of the audience. Among other evidence, audience research indicates widespread confidence in the impartiality of the BBC's reporting.

In relation to comments you claim were made by Daniel Sandford, without evidence or links we cannot investigate this.

Thank you again for contacting us, we value your feedback about our news output.

All complaints are sent to senior management every morning and I’ve included your points in this overnight report.

These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensures that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future programmes.

Kind Regards

Neil Salt

BBC Complaints

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

The 'wrongness' of this year... Or how Al got his political mojo back..with a vengeance

Somethings happened to me this year. Some thing that both distresses and inspires me. Not inspired by the events, but has awoken my spirit and sense of whats right and wrong with the world..on a grand scale..

I'll be upfront and say I have emotional connections to Russia. My wife is Russian, I have friends there and have met many wonderful people there who mean no harm to the world and live with a spirit I have rarely seen. I grew up fearing Russia..well the Soviet Union as was.. all film I saw from them in that era was sepia tainted and depressing. The people looked drab and miserable, severely staring into the cameras of BBC news crews who (we felt) were brave enough to venture there for some reason. Once you go there and break the surface with the population you find they are almost with exception warm, blisteringly dry humoured, generous and welcoming.

Yes the culture (which appears at first to be pretty similar to western norms) has some fundamental differences and western media have made big noise of common held opinions on homosexuality, femininity and to some extent Democracy, but underneath this is an underlying aversion to being told what todo..especially by 'superior sounding' westerners... in essence they won't be lectured to and all you do by trying is entrenching the feelings you are lecturing against.. trust me on this..I'm married to one as I mentioned above!  What I'm getting at is the constant media assault on Russia over the past couple of years.. If I didn't know the country well and understand the Russian cultural reference points I too may have fallen for this 'propaganda' (Lets call it what it is..) But as I do know Russia and the Russians I was unswayed by the endless unflattering reports from the once reliable and unbiased BBC. I knew something bigger was going on..

Of course any media offensive needs a focus, and that focus has been the Russian President Vladimir Putin...  Ooh your just waiting to tear into me as I defend him and justify him as a great leader of our time... well I'm not going to because he doesn't need it... He doesn't care about what I think..or you most probably.. what he does care about is bringing his country out of it's depressed self it was in during the 90's and early 2000's and he's doing a good job of that. If he wasn't then there would not be such media hatred towards him in western media. We are taught to fear what western media cannot tame, box-off or..dominate... and we certainly cannot dominate him. Now I personally do not agree with a number of his policies. I have a number of Gay friends and I wish Russia was more accepting of them.. though the law that came into force last year is only related to the 'promotion of gay lifestyle to minors' I realise this can lead to others things which I find distasteful. But here's one thing for certain (As I told a gay friend of mine and some of his friends) You will never change this opinion by asking David Cameron to complain, by Gay westerners protesting in Moscow. If change in these attitudes is to come (and I personally hope it will) it will be slow and gradual and from the Russian people. You have to understand that Russia only recently came out (no pun intended) from a restrictive communist system where religious expression was forbidden in most cases. Christians practised in secret and once Perestroika occurred in the early 90's the Russians exercised their right to express their religious views which historically in the majority have been Orthodox Christian. So atm these beliefs hold strong in the mainstream hence the reason for the current attitude to homosexuality. I know this won't sate the anger of the majority in the western world who care deeply about this subject, but I just wanted to give some background..

So back to the bigger picture and the current situation in Ukraine...  Firstly lets go back to the early days of perestroika and the Berlin wall falling.. Amongst discussions between the US and Russia was a promise made to Russia that NATO would not seek to expand eastwards.. it's documented..google it.. I would hope no one reading this can say that this has been honoured in any shape or form. This bred distrust of NATO's ambitions and as the Eastern European countries gained their independence if not NATO then certainly the US Government was eager to get in there and build bases, station Missiles and envelope these countries in the protective cloak of NATO promising funding, military support, social programmes etc etc..oh and McDonalds, KFC and many more behind the scenes business deals which meant that these countries were as integrated and yes controlled by Washington as we are here in England. And it's gotten to the point where Russia is encircled by NATO or countries under western influence indeed I'm sure during the Yeltsin years I'm sure there were such ambitions for Russia itself which once stymied by a strong leader like Putin turned the business intentions of the west into burgeoning hostility and adverse propaganda.

Ukraine: Most in the west don't understand the deep divisions that exist between regions in Ukraine. As in many countries (Yugoslavia under Tito for example) these divisions were while not forgotten.. muted under the governments of the day. Parts of Ukraine supported Nazi Germany in WW2 and these memories run deep http://korabox.ru/category/jest/volinskaya-reznya-ili-nemnogo-o-banderovcah (while I'm sure those in power in the west know of this as in many cases in the past this has been washed over in the cause of "Bringing freedom and democracy" American style... Sites such as freedomhouse.org which have strong links to American Neo-Con (new conservatives who work ceaselessly to bring down barriers to US business going in and pillaging in actual fact.. again google it) Indeed Russia warned America and the west that influencing regime change in Ukraine would most likely instigate civil war and true to previous actions involving USA/NATO this has indeed happened sadly.. So when it became obvious what was occurring Russia did indeed instruct it's forces in Crimea to secure certain sites and indeed the Russian Naval base there (for which they paid rent on and had an agreement with Ukraine that upto 25,000 Russian personnel maybe stationed there..so it wasn't an invasion in the true sense). The thing that strengthens Russia's hand even further in this is the backing of the vast majority of the Crimean population. They feared greatly the new Regime in Kiev and were very happy to be able to ask Russia to join them..and yes this was the case.. I have friends there who all verify this.. so for NATO to think that Crimea should be part of this 'new' Ukraine is crazy.. there would have been an even greater conflict costing many many more lives. It's obvious to anyone looking at this with an open mind that really the aim of NATO was to deprive Russia of it's only 'warm water' military port and there was no way this was going to be allowed to happen by Russia.. Do you think America would let pearl harbour go??? So we are now at a virtual Civil War situation because Eastern Ukraine has in the main similar feelings to Crimea in that they greatly fear the Ukrainan Right Sector... The remnants of the Ukrainian army are (backed by American 'Blackwater' Mercenaries ) are now attacking the eastern regions of Donetsk and Dombass to force them to stay with the rest of Ukraine. While there are divisions in the eastern regions again a large majority do not want this to happen and have had a vote on becoming self governing (not joining Russia) which has for some reason been declared illegitimate by the west.. why? because the west knows that eastern Ukraine is the manufacturing heart of the country and would a)make the country without the east alot less valuable to the west and b) if they succeed in retaking the east it would be a blow for Russia as it has many heavy Industry interests there such as Rocket Engine manufacturing (yes those that NASA depends on atm!!..Russian) Indeed the IMF has laid down that Ukraine will only receive its full loan if east Ukraine is taken.... it always comes down to money huh?? In my view the IMF now has blood on it's hands...

The continuing and enlarging American sanctions which always state that they are because of Russian involvement appear to relate to Crimea.. this is a dead end... Crimea is now Russian territory and as the populace wish it stay that way continuing to argue this point is ridiculous!!  Believe me I only care for what the population wishes in these regions.. if a region does not wish to be Russian then I would defend there right to be Ukrainian, but as the offensive actions are all coming from the west against the people's will (in the main) in the east I'm calling NATO out as an aggressive/destabilising force in the world..driven by corporations... To back this up I give you Mr Hunter Biden.. son of Joe Biden American vice president who is now on the management board of the largest Ukrainian gas company!!!! Business drives the western actions in Ukraine..not care for human rights etc... and western media in the main (apart from publications like The Guardian and certain articles in the uk huffington post) are not telling us the full truth... i could go on and on about the BBC... but I'll save it for another article as my disappointment with the is so crushing... please keep an open and investigative mind and realise that we are being manipulated and things are often not as we are told...

Please forgive the 'scatty' nature of this article.. my fury at realising the extent of fabrication to the public in the name of justifying actions in other countries has shocked me into action and the need to get this out there has affected good narrative to some extent I'm sure...

Amazon is at war with me...

The leviathan that is Amazon appears to be at war with me... In the space of 4 weeks they have lost my custom for hardware items, made me cancel my Prime account & now killed my Lovefilm Subscription and are trying to make me pay £79 for something that used to cost me £59.88..

Where to begin... How about this.. My email to Jeff Bazos:

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Mr Bezos,
I’m told you actually read emails that are sent to this address and as I feel this issue is of concern to your business I’m attempting to bring this to your attention.

I’m a longstanding Amazon customer and prime subscriber. I’ve rarely had any problems with your company and buy most of my non everyday purchases from Amazon. I have trusted them to deliver when they say they would and to be responsive in times when there is a delay…

I’m just a normal working guy, trying to run a small one man IT consultancy and I have often turned to Amazon for products I require..especially when needed at short notice.

Recently (going back a few months) my deliveries have switched to a new service called Amazon Logistics, and this is when the troubles started. Deliveries stopped happening when promised.. this I could tolerate if there were honest excuses..but the problem is that Amazon Logistics began stating that delivery was attempted when it most definitely had not! either me or my wife had waited in for the delivery and no one appeared. Yet the Amazon logistics reports on my amazon acc page always stated the same thing.. that delivery had been attempted.

I reported this to your company and after a couple of chats with representatives I was promised that none of my orders would be sent using Amazon Logistics… and behold.. items began arriving in time again.. very happy allround…. until I needed two Apple Airport routers urgently for an installation. They didn't arrive, so I checked my online account and saw that delivery had been attempted… and that the courier service was Amazon Logistics. I had an online chat with a rep who didn't seem to understand my complaint and just kept stating that delivery would surely happen the following day.. I asked to speak to a manager and after a couple of hours was called back by a manager called Andrew who was very nice and honest. he told me he had looked into this and been told by Amazon Logistics that they could not gain access to my road (it’s a rural lane) but had ‘mistakenly’ entered the issue as attempted delivery… It’s strange that other couriers managed access just fine the same day? Andrew promised that redelivery would be attempted the same day… Nothing happened. I checked online and it stated that redelivery would be today (12th) My wife waited in.. nothing. I waited till 4pm uk time and checked my online account.. Delivery attempted…

I’ll be honest I was very upset now and asked to speak to a manager. I was called back and struggled to make it clear what my issue was… it wasn’t just that the items had not arrived it’s that Amazon logistics are dishonest..at least the driver who handles my area… I asked for a refund and after some polite discussion this was granted.

I have now closed my Prime account as it’s of no value because items never arrive. I dare not buy technology items from Amazon for the same reason. I’m only keeping my amazon account now because I use kindle books, Lovefilm and Audible. While I am a customer lost I felt I should inform you of this as I cannot be alone and the good rep of your company is being diminished by this courier ‘service’ and action needs to be taken imo.. something which I cannot seem to make the Amazon staff understand. They just tell me they’re sorry, a refund has been granted and they hope I will order again soon.

regards,
Alan Bailey.

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Ok so you get the idea... The amazon logistics courier service lied multiple times about the reason for not delivering to me. My guess is the real reason is that the courier operates from Birmingham which is about 90 minutes from me.. They just can't be bothered to find us..

Of course I didn't get a response from Jeff..Didn't expect too.. I did get a reply from one Anthony Bennis who purportes to be a member of Amazon's Executive Relations group.

Here's his reply.. chunks of which I'm sure are copy/pasted into this mail... no one can word something so generically:

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Dear Mr Bailey,

My name is Anthony Bennis and I work within Amazon.co.uk Executive Customer Relations.

Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and asked that I respond on his behalf, taking any action necessary to assist you.

Firstly, please allow me to apologise for this matter as a whole. I can see that this experience has not been a desirable one. We do aim to promptly resolve all queries on the first contact, however, I can see that your particular issue was further exacerbated by the inadequate handling of your deliveries, and for this I do apologise. I have highlighted your case to the relevant senior transport teams for review and for corrective measures to be taken where necessary.

I understand that due to these experiences you do not wish to purchase future items other than digital purchases from the Amazon.co.uk site. If you do change your mind on this I have requested that we make every attempt to select an alternative carrier to ship future orders to your address. However, on some occasions, an alternative carrier may not be available.

Amazon and all of its carrier partners aim to provide the highest level of customer service and we appreciate you taking the time to provide this feedback.

Kind regards,

Anthony Bennis
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk
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So in essence he's sorry I've had problems, but at no point do they say they WILL do anything about this...

So Amazon prime account has been registered as being not renewed when it expires in June 2014, and Amazon are aware I wont be ordering any hardware from them in the future.

Moving onto this week... I'm a Lovefilm Subscriber.. can you guess where this is gonna go?
I get an email from Amazon saying IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PRIME ACCOUNT!! It basically says (In very positive terms...) that they are cancelling my Lovefilm subscription and because I'M A PRIME MEMBER they are giving me the Amazon Instant service as part of Prime.... So I'm thinking.. But I'm cancelling Prime... Can I just keep my subscription? I email Amazon support to ask if I can just keep my current subscription?... Nothing...
I dig deeper and it appears that the ONLY way to use Amazon Instant (ex Lovefilm) is to be a Prime Member... for a moment I consider reversing my move away from Amazon Prime, but then I see that the Subscription has now gone up to £79.00.. But it's ok you get all the previous benefits of Prime free delivery of your...oh wait a minute... No I don't.

So not only do Amazon annoy me to the extent I cancel my Prime Account and move my (quite substantial for a one man band) business to a competitor, but now they take away my longstanding Instant video subscription and try to get me to pay £20 more a year for it!!

Just remember that these companies don't care about us unless we complain in large numbers... Amazon are not a touchy/feely/friendly company like on the TV adverts, and even though I was going to keep my Amazon Account so that I could keep access to my kindle books I'm now going to kill it and I'll re-buy the books I need on a competitor....