Embarrassing Misprint on BBC News
The BBC has a headline on its news ticker that reads:
Doctors call for fresh inquest into death of government scientist Dr David Kelly
Clicking on the link takes you to this story. It turns out that the “Doctors” in question are, principally, a man called David Halpin. The names of the other doctors who agree with Halpin are not given, but I believe he has a couple. There are, needless to say, a larger number of doctors who do not believe that there is any mystery in David Kelly’s death: but who have not made this issue one of their hobbyhorses.
David Halpin is most certainly a doctor. However, he is far better known as a crank of the first order, who passes his time writing loopy letters to the BBC and national newspapers. Here is an example of one such letter of complaint, to the Today Programme:
I have met Ishmail Haniyeh, the PM, in March 2007 with fellow doctors, and other Hamas ministers since. I would judge them to be trustworthy men who are doing what is right for their tormented people, unlike the collaborator Abbas and his friends. Insight into Hamas, and the literal crucifixion of these people…
I think we can all see where Halpin is coming from. Have a look through his website, and you will too.
Halpin has his own loopy theories about David Kelly’s death. They are dealt with well by David Aaronovitch in his book, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History.
The BBC ought to be savvier than this. Halpin has been banging this drum for years. The fact that he has issued a new press release on his kooky theory is no more a news event, than the publication of yet another article “proving” that the Earl of Oxford or Sir Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
A much better headline for this article would have been:
Nutter calls for fresh inquest into death of government scientist Dr David Kelly
That epithet is not only factually accurate: it also has the advantage of conveying to the BBC’s readership, just how seriously this latest piece of agitation by a very disturbed old man ought to be taken.
Comments
| 13 July 2009, 1:19 pm |
I heard the plural doctors on the BBC radio news as well.
Maybe Dr Halpin has a view on the alleged murder of Norman Mailer, which a relative in the USA tells me was reliably reported in a recent Daily Star Sunday. The suspect was a carer of his, as witnessed by her French boyfriend who was burgling the house;
“Twice seen was the female death merchant sitting on the chest of the author. When asked by the boyfriend what she was doing, she wryly replied, “Pressing the life out of the old man.”
She is now in a French mental institution, having stabbed herself to feel Adele Morales pain and declared her loathing for Mailer as his Executioner’s Song is a poor man’s In Cold Blood.
I agree with her sensible comment on the Executioner’s Song.
| 13 July 2009, 1:25 pm |
That is truly shocking, at first funny, but then actually apalling.
Basically it suggests that any crank can send a press release to the Beeb and, if it suits their core beliefs and news agenda, turn the ’story’ into a serious news story.
The blokes website is evidently the rantings of a madman (and one who really doesn’t seem to like jews very much, or Donald Rumsfield)
Incredible.
MattG
| 13 July 2009, 1:26 pm |
Halpin and the vile, bigotted BBC deserve each other.
| 13 July 2009, 1:26 pm |
What is the view of La Toya Jackson?
| 13 July 2009, 1:32 pm |
LL – Haniyeh, like anyone would, as a democratically elected government, is standing up for his electorate, the Dr reiterates this. If that is the worst comment you can find on his site then then scraping the barrel comes to mind to tarnish a reputation.
| 13 July 2009, 1:36 pm |
One thing tho Lucy
“The BBC ought to be savvier than this.”
Come on…
Don’t Panic I’m Islamic, The Power of Nightmares?
| 13 July 2009, 1:39 pm |
It’s common for doctors to believe that their two first degrees give them unique insights into unrelated topics. They aren’t alone in this: engineers are famously prone to the same error. The difference is that the media regard doctors has having unique insights into unrelated topics by virtue of their two first degrees.
| 13 July 2009, 1:39 pm |
I believe that Halpin was Orthapaedic surgeon.
My wife is studying Homeopathy.
If I send the Beeb a Press release stating that leading (tho unnamed) homeopaths believe that Arafat died of Aids and there was a big cover up so as not to cause embarassment to the Arab ’street’ (and Barbara Plett) do you think it would get on the ‘ticker tape’ on the BBC news website??
MattG
| 13 July 2009, 1:40 pm |
“What is the view of La Toya Jackson?”
OMG! I think Graham has inadvertantly hit on something. Could it be that the death of Michael Jackosn is linked to this? Is it just a coincidence that Jackson was due to perform at the O2!!!!??? In London???!!!!!!!! Think about it people! PLEASE!!
| 13 July 2009, 1:44 pm |
My wife is studying Homeopathy.
How hard is the study of pure water?
| 13 July 2009, 1:45 pm |
The BBC probably felt shamed into covering Halpin’s report, given his website’s clinical unmasking of their true agenda:
The internet, whilst it remains largely free, is a bastion of freedom. Public meetings like this must regain their old importance. Measure the untruths in the media, especially in the State Broadcasting Service – the ZBC. Deluge it with complaints about its almost perpetual bias including the tide of anti-Islamic and other racist dross designed to distract you and to polarise you.
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=2
| 13 July 2009, 1:49 pm |
Dr Halpin was the headline speaker for Friends of Sabeel UK’s annual conference earlier this year. I guess they were fond of his ‘literal crucifixion’ rhetoric.
| 13 July 2009, 1:53 pm |
xyzzy
13 July 2009, 1:44 pm
My wife is studying Homeopathy.
“How hard is the study of pure water?”
Dunno how hard it is but they manage to squeeze 4 years worth of study out of the bloody thing!
MattG
| 13 July 2009, 2:10 pm |
I dont think its really justified to yell ‘conspiracy theory’ everytime somebody alleges that the state may have lied and may have killed people. If it didn’t do these things occassionally it would be historically unique. Imagine looking at this from the outside, or imagine this turn of events had happened in another European country – it would seem obviously plausible that, just before a major war, a whistle blowing top-ranking germ warfare official just might have been bumped off.
| 13 July 2009, 2:13 pm |
“It’s not a country, it’s a Zionist entity… That’s what I call it when I write about it… I write about it a lot, I think about it a lot too…”
“I was galvanised by the bombing of Afghan people, some of the poorest people on Earth, by B-52s from 32,000. I was so outraged I decided to act, and I knew that Palestine was the hinder(?) of humanity.”
On 7/7 (from 28:18)
“Where the law ends tyranny begins, so that’s why we go on about Dr David Kelly, because we haven’t had an inquest on Dr David Kelly, and you’ll hear people infer Muslim connections to the bombings of 7/7 in London, and yet there’s been no inquest on any of the victims, either the alleged perpetrators or the 52 victims… all we’ve had is 32-page commentary from a Home Office (lawyer?)…”
| 13 July 2009, 2:13 pm |
A much better headline for this article would have been:
Nutter calls for fresh inquest into death of government scientist Dr David Kelly
Because using deregotary terms for the mentally ill is acceptable?
OK the BBC slipped up, perils of churnalism and all that, but making fun of the mentally ill is hardly a respectable position to take either.
| 13 July 2009, 2:21 pm |
Nutterdom is a very distinct phenomenon from mental illness. Halpin does not appear to be mentally ill but he is most certainly a nutter.
I dont think its really justified to yell ‘conspiracy theory’ everytime somebody alleges that the state may have lied and may have killed people.
Similarly, it is quite possible that sometimes books appearing under the name of person A have in fact been written by person B.
However, David Kelly was not murdered and the Earl of Oxford did not write Hamlet.
| 13 July 2009, 2:28 pm |
Dr David Kelly, the ‘West’s leading biological warfare inspector ‘ with ‘world recognised expertise in every aspect of biological warfare whose knowledge cannot be overtrumped’…
‘I had no doubt about the veracity of it (the Dossier) was
absolute.’…’It is an accurate document, I think it is a fair reflection of the intelligence that was available and it’s presented in a very sober and factual way….it is well written.’
“I was personally sympathetic to the war because I recognised from a decade’s work the menace of Iraq’s ability to further develop it’s non-conventional weapons programmes.”
“We were 100% certain that Saddam had a biological weapons programme.”
Funny that we didn’t and won’t hear the BBC trumpeting these views of David Kelly.
| 13 July 2009, 2:35 pm |
Lib Dem MP, Norman Baker, has made a mini-career out of the Kelly faux “whoddunit”.
One of his killer arguments is that Baha’is have an injunction against suicide. Well, so does Islam, Judaism and Christianity, but amazingly, Jews, Muslims and Christians all have been known to kill themselves.
| 13 July 2009, 2:39 pm |
One of his killer arguments is that Baha’is have an injunction against suicide. Well, so does Islam, Judaism and Christianity, but amazingly, Jews, Muslims and Christians all have been known to kill themselves.
No, they’re all murdered by the state. Of course.
| 13 July 2009, 2:41 pm |
On a related note, Lindsey German was just on BBC News 24 and was allowed to rabbit on about how the women of Afghanistan are worse off as a result of the war, how we’re really there for British and American “strategic interests” (i.e., imperialism), how the intervention in Bosnia to stop ethnic cleansing was worthless because people there are “poorer” since and how, she felt, we have no business “in other people’s countries” telling them how to behave etc. — all without any serious response and to fulsome gratitude for even being on the programme, let alone anyone drawing attention to her (former) position in the SWP or her other political views. She was treated as though she was some sort of independent expert on the war as opposed to a radical Trotskyite who opposed the war before it was even launched for ideological reasons.
Pathetic.
| 13 July 2009, 2:44 pm |
Why don’t they have Nick Griffin on. He’s an MEP and was very against the Afghan war.
| 13 July 2009, 2:49 pm |
The truth is, of course, that Nick Griffin is now becoming a fixture.
The difference is, he’s always given a rough ride, because he’s the representative of a marginal and extreme political party.
| 13 July 2009, 2:52 pm |
Dunno how hard it is but they manage to squeeze 4 years worth of study out of the bloody thing!
Not to mention 4 years of tuition fees…
| 13 July 2009, 3:20 pm |
If Lindsey German thinks ‘we have no business “in other people’s countries” telling them how to behave’, she presumably thinks the anti-Apartheid movement was a disgraceful affair. Presumably she opposed the Guardian’s attempt to influence the 2004 US election, and presumably she will oppose all criticism of Isreal from now on. Or have I misunderstood something?
| 13 July 2009, 3:21 pm |
Well irrespective of what anyone else thinks, I think Dr Kelly’s death was highly suspicious. And so do a great many other people. Some of us may be cranks, but by no means all. Curious how anyone disagreeing with the official version of some cover up gets labelled a crank or conspiracy theorist.
| 13 July 2009, 3:34 pm |
Apparently the poor old chap’s biggest worry is “seeing the results of psychopathic American squirrels”:
http://avll.co.uk/viewpage.php?page_id=23
Presumably these have been trained by the CIA and are out to get him.
The company he keeps:
http://avll.co.uk/viewpage.php?page_id=11
It’s a shame David Bellamy has lost the plot.
| 13 July 2009, 3:37 pm |
I imagine the tuition (if not the fees) is extremely watered down, so as to make it more powerful.
And regardless of whatever loonytunes views this man may have on other topics, I don’t think it can any longer be regarded as contentious to note the moral vacuity and utter contempt for truth, honour, decency, and the concerns of the electorate that have characterized this Government since the start of its office (and of the Party that has formed it) – and indeed that are probably its principal defining feature, the recollection of which will endure for decades henceforth:
So, in that context (and things like the refusal to hold a proper public inquiry into the events leading up to the Iraq war, and the lies on which it was sold), one doesn’t have to be a conspiratorialist nutter to refuse to believe, or at any rate have serious doubts about, the “official version” of events such as the death of Dr Kelly
| 13 July 2009, 3:40 pm |
Not to mention the cover up over fluoridation of our water supply.
| 13 July 2009, 3:44 pm |
Fuckinell! That “Alternative View” event is a kind of Global Peace and Unity of conspiracists, isn’t it?
Gosling will be there. A bit of “questioning Global Warming” nonsense. Somebody wittering on about “Common Purpose”. That bloke who wrote a paper that “proved” that GM food was poisonous, on the grounds that a GM potato that had, erm, been bred to be poisonous was poisonous.
God, I wonder how widespread this is.
| 13 July 2009, 3:49 pm |
According to a BBC documentary, Dr Kelly strongly believed that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction and that what’s more he believed that he was the only person who knew where to find them. If he was murdered it is more likely that it was an Iraqi intelligence plot.
| 13 July 2009, 4:25 pm |
“God, I wonder how widespread this is.”
Wider and deeper than you think. Daniel Davies over at Crooked Timber was railing against aaranovitch’s conspiacy theory book the other day (Davies has bit of bee in his bonnet about Aaro) and started to bang on about the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an example of a real live, actual, conspiracy only for someone to gently point out on the thread that actually all his ‘evidence’ was, er, a load of huey. DD then claimed that the actual facts were beside the point because the ’shape of the narrative’ or something remained true. It was a startling insight into how an otherwise sane (if unpleasant) person can get hooked on this stuff incrementally.
By the way, anyone who enjoys watching DD get his arse handed to him should pop over to Crooked Timber and take a look at the Ashes thread where Daniel has, with customary modesty, tried to lecture Richie Benaud about cricket. Yes, that’s right, Daniel Davies thought Richie Benaud needed putting straight about test cricket. It is very funny. My comments on the thread seem to have been blocked though. They were brilliant and incisive so I can’t work out why.
| 13 July 2009, 4:40 pm |
The article mentions 13 specialist medics, you might think one is a nutter, but what about the other 12? I doubt they are all nutters. The paramedics who first treated him are among the sceptical.
| 13 July 2009, 4:47 pm |
“The article mentions 13 specialist medics2
But doesn’t say who they are. Don’t you find that a bit suspicious?
| 13 July 2009, 5:05 pm |
I doubt they are all nutters.
I don’t. For a start, they are all people who have failed to identify Halpin as a nutter.
| 13 July 2009, 5:18 pm |
DD then claimed that the actual facts were beside the point because the ’shape of the narrative’ or something remained true.
Ah, the famous “fake, but true” narrative so beloved of the left. See for example, the infamous alledged plastic turkey incident with GWB.
| 13 July 2009, 5:18 pm |
By the way, anyone who enjoys watching DD get his arse handed to him should pop over to Crooked Timber and take a look at the Ashes thread where Daniel has, with customary modesty, tried to lecture Richie Benaud about cricket.
Hahahahaha (it’s that ginger gene…)
| 13 July 2009, 5:26 pm |
Well one of the twelve is mentioned by name in the Telegraph. Lucy Lips, are you suggesting Halpin et al are part of a conspiracy to create a conspiracy theory?
My point of view is you don’t have to find out what actually happened to prove what you have been told happened didn’t actually happen. An example of this would be Barry George’s appeal and re-trial. His defence only had to prove that he didn’t do it and didn’t have to prove who did kill Jill Dando.
| 13 July 2009, 5:30 pm |
Lucy Lips
13 July 2009, 2:21 pm
Nutterdom is a very distinct phenomenon from mental illness. Halpin does not appear to be mentally ill but he is most certainly a nutter.
Lucy:
“Nutterdom” is, I suspect, the behaviour of persons suffering from diagnosable personality disorders — ie “traits” of personality. These are, in some individuals, as serious as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
The fact that people like Halpin can remain employed shouldn’t be a criteria for deeming him “mentally healthy”. Types like him can make the workplace a hell hole, especially if you are unfortuante enough to have such types as a manager.
:
What is “Personality?”
Personality refers to a distinctive set of traits, behavior styles, and patterns that make up our character or individuality. How we perceive the world, our attitudes, thoughts, and feelings are all part of our personality. People with healthy personalities are able to cope with normal stresses and have no trouble forming relationships with family, friends, and co-workers.
What is a Personality Disorder?
Those who struggle with a personality disorder have great difficulty dealing with other people. They tend to be inflexible, rigid, and unable to respond to the changes and demands of life. Although they feel that their behavior patterns are “normal” or “right,” people with personality disorders tend to have a narrow view of the world and find it difficult to participate in social activities.
Recognizing a Personality Disorder
A personality disorder must fulfill several criteria. A deeply ingrained, inflexible pattern of relating, perceiving, and thinking serious enough to cause distress or impaired functioning is a personality disorder. Personality disorders are usually recognizable by adolescence or earlier, continue throughout adulthood, and become less obvious throughout middle age.
http://www.nmha.org/go/information/get-info/personality-disorders
| 13 July 2009, 5:36 pm |
My point of view is you don’t have to find out what actually happened to prove what you have been told happened didn’t actually happen…
Um.
| 13 July 2009, 5:42 pm |
I can’t fail to be reminded of: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
| 13 July 2009, 5:43 pm |
A bit of “questioning Global Warming” nonsense.
Surely everyone knows that global warming is made worse by all the hot air and extra energy dispersed arguing about global warming and so self-fulfilling the charge that global warming is man-made.
| 13 July 2009, 6:03 pm |
John Meredith,
Crooked Timber has gone down hill, if you looked in at it during the time of the Iran protests there was NO coverage, over nearly 2 weeks. Surprising eh?
Belatedly they had a bit, but it does give the impression of an on-line ivory tower.
| 13 July 2009, 7:02 pm |
I think that the rise of temperature everywhere is responsible for global warming.
| 13 July 2009, 7:24 pm |
Bit odd that you’re railing against ‘conspiracy theories’ whilst developing one of your own about 13 Doctors conspiring together to make up some unsubstaiated nonsense about David Kelly really getting assassinated. Halpin may or may not be a nutter, but that doesn’t make the perfectly legitimate concerns lots of people have about the suicide verdict go away. At the very least subsuming the inquest into the wider, discredited and controlversial Hutton inquiry was a major mistake that should never have happened. Funny how though, when its a matter of tedious party politics people are more than happy to rip something like Hutton apart, but as soon as its something out of your comfort zone you’ll argue that black is white to defend it.
Still, suicide is painless eh? For everyone.
| 13 July 2009, 7:32 pm |
Graham, that actually makes sense though.
| 13 July 2009, 7:43 pm |
My point of view is you don’t have to find out what actually happened to prove what you have been told happened didn’t actually happen…
Um.
This is an interesting point. Look at Madoff, for years lots of clever and less clever people believed he was a financial genius making them lots of money. Then it turned out that he wasn’t. He was a master swindler and had been for years. So how did he do it? What computer systems did he use, where are the records, who else was complicit, why didn’t the SEC uncover some sort of fraud during its investigation? We have no answers to these questions and it seems unlikely we ever shall as Madoff goes to prison.
So we still don’t know how he actually he ran the swindle, and with whose help, but we sure as hell know that he ran it and deceived a lot of people for a very long time.
| 13 July 2009, 7:46 pm |
Graham, that actually makes sense though.
As does the other (if you can call it sense).
| 13 July 2009, 8:50 pm |
“Um.”
Is that the best you can come up with? The fact that some doctors disagree with the suicide verdict and are asking for a new inquiry is hardly surprising. There are many similar sorts of incidences such as the de Menezes shooting and the death of Ian Tomlinson where what the police initially told the public quickly proved to not to be true.
Another case where people are asking for a full inquiry but have been denied despite the evidence is the death of four young soldiers at the Deepcut barracks.
| 13 July 2009, 8:58 pm |
“I can’t fail to be reminded of: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
I was thinking the same as I typed it, though I only used “happen” or “happened” three times while Donald R used “know” etc 12 tmes! In fact I actually understood what Rummy was trying to say in this instance, though my personal favourite of his is this one:
“It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
| 13 July 2009, 9:08 pm |
Anyone aware that the timeline of the Kelly affair is exactly parallel to the timeline of the Bush/CIA/Valerie Plame outing in the US? Indeed Plame was outed 3 days after Kelly was found dead. Both affairs about dodgy Iraq WMD intelligence. Interestingly, journalist and Bush Iraq war cheerleader Judith Miller was jailed for her part in the Plame outing. Even more interestingly, Judith Miller and David Kelly were friends and Kelly’s infamous last email concerning ‘Dark actors playing games’ was to…Judith Miller.
I love coincidence theories.
| 13 July 2009, 10:49 pm |
Interestingly, journalist and Bush Iraq war cheerleader Judith Miller was jailed for her part in the Plame outing. Even more interestingly, Judith Miller and David Kelly were friends and Kelly’s infamous last email concerning ‘Dark actors playing games’ was to…Judith Miller.
You do know it was a Clinton apparatchik who actually “outed” Plame, right?
| 13 July 2009, 11:07 pm |
Surely 99% of sentient beings on this planet know it was Cheney?
Anyway, here’s one point about this that I’ve not heard mentioned before. You could almost call it the Elephant in the room. Kelly was at the centre of one of the biggest government/intelligence/media shit-storms in recent history if not ever. He was a massive national security risk. Are we really to believe he wasn’t under surveillance the night he died?
| 14 July 2009, 12:20 am |
The Daily Mail had its own unique take on this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199109/13-doctors-demand-inquest-Dr-David-Kellys-death.html
Since the article places great emphasis on thousands of missing emails & documents apparently magicked off the computers of our intrepid sleuths by government hackers, I left a comment remarking on the normal practice of backing up important files to external media. It didn’t get published!
| 14 July 2009, 9:33 am |
By the way, anyone who enjoys watching DD get his arse handed to him should pop over to Crooked Timber and take a look at the Ashes thread where Daniel has, with customary modesty, tried to lecture Richie Benaud about cricket.
You know, it’s just conceivable that the person posting under the name Richie Benaud, in fact isn’t.
| 14 July 2009, 10:57 am |
Zizek added a fourth possibility: Is this the same lunatic Zizek I watched last night in the Robespierre programme? Despite the evidence on weird far left sites linked to here, I could not believe that it was still possible today for anyone to spout with such passion the appalling stuff he did about virtue and violent revolution. I looked him up afterwards and was even more alarmed he still has a post in a British Uni.
Isn’t it more than coincidence that I had never heard of him before last night, and lo, within hours socialrepublican is citing him?
| 14 July 2009, 6:29 pm |
Isn’t it more than coincidence that I had never heard of him before last night, and lo, within hours socialrepublican is citing him?
I’m guessing that you don’t visit Lenin’s Tomb much Ami.
| 14 July 2009, 6:31 pm |
You know, it’s just conceivable that the person posting under the name Richie Benaud, in fact isn’t.
I think you might be onto more of a winner should you have indicated that it was conceivable that the person posting under the name of Daniel Davis, in fact isn’t.
| 18 July 2009, 7:07 pm |
Yes, that’s right, Daniel Davies thought Richie Benaud needed putting straight about test cricket
possibly. Or possibly, since I am an admin at that site, I considered it unlikely that the great broadcaster and bowler had a) decided to comment on Crooked Timber, b) done so from the same IP address as “Brownie”, beloved of this site and c) dropped his normal elegant prose-style for the saloon-bar rantings so often seen on Harry’s Place. You really are an idiot, John Meredith (this is why you’re banned, by the way).
Read some of the website, I concur a twat of the first order…some of it made me feel ill!