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Andi Ye

Listed below are comments made by Andi Ye between Saturday, 14th March 2009 and Thursday, 17th December 2009.

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Africa debate 3:14pm on 17 Dec 2009 Thank you for providing some acknowledgement that what happened yesterday was wrong.

Setting aside the question asked, it makes me wonder why the BBC has talking points specifically intended for anyone outside the UK. It seems to me that BBC is here serve the UK license fee payer.

I understand the purpose of BBC World, in terms of providing a service for promoting the UK overseas, generating income which pays - at least in part - for the presence of UK news teams around the world, providing an alternative to other countries' news channels, etc. But I think that having a specific service for Africa is simply beyond the BBC's remit.

The explanation "an important issue where the BBC can provide a platform for debate that otherwise would not exist across the continent and beyond" is a declared purpose concerns me... I think that such responsibilities are jobs for others.

There's every reason to discuss international events, including legislation which would add Uganda to the countries already executing gay men and women. And it's great that people from around the world can contribute to BBC's "Have Your Say" forums. But there should be one web site available to all, one "Have Your Say" viewed in the same way around the world. The rest is an ambition outside the BBC's legitimate remit and as we've seen, can lead to editorial conflict.
Controversial debate 9:36pm on 16 Dec 2009 The BBC is a publicly funded institution, and as such it has considerable public responsibility and accountability. I have no problem with a provocative headline, but what you have done is to invite people to have comments published, explaining why they think homosexuals should be executed. There are no two ways about that. It's not about context, it's not about explanations, you specifically asked the question in a big heading title, "Should homosexuals be executed?".

Even your defence seems somewhat ashamed of the debate title. It presents it as if the title was reworded after the uproar, was the debate title all along. And you have clearly said that this was not a mistake: it was thoroughly discussed. So there is no question about this being a deliberate and conscious decision.

In my opinion, it is far, far worse than the recent controversy about Andrew Sachs. It is a criminal offence to incite homophobic hatred, and it is unclear to many people whether that was the result of your debate. There is no justification whatsoever from the BBC coming anywhere close to that position.
Ball not going to ITV 00:51am on 27 Sep 2009 From what I read... if his negotiation style fits his operation style, then ITV have been spared a disastrous appointment.
Statistical gender bending 6:20pm on 12 Aug 2009 I'm paying for these worse-than-worthless statistics to be generated; and to hear Harriet Harman's illegal sexist claptrap about promoting women because they're women rather than because they're the best person for the job. And I'm really fed-up of it. It does nothing but harm to the case for equal rights.
Monday 15 June 2009 02:54am on 16 Jun 2009 Choosing a Speaker
==================

It seems that having a temporary speaker for the few months until the next election would cost us up to £2.1 million in pension fees. How on earth does that fit alongside the reason for getting a new Speaker???

(Speaker Martin's pension as an annuity has been valued at £2.1m, being a minimum 50% of salary with no minimum term. That would surely be more than every questionable expense claim from all MPs for several years!)
Changes to international pages 6:45pm on 12 Jun 2009 Easy enough for me - I just set a proxy on my PC in the UK to direct through for *.bbc.co.uk content (^_^)
Listening to the BNP. 01:15am on 10 Jun 2009 British politicians have a venerable tradition of receiving direct feedback from their constituents in the form of a good egging. Surely Nick Griffin shouldn't be exempt.

That said, other means of exposing shabby politicians and their policies are also part of the mix; and I don't see why he should be either exempt from these or enjoy the martyrdom of exclusion.

At the end of the day, Nick Griffin cast only one of the million votes that elected him and his fellow. None of them were not dissuaded from their vote by the revulsion of others in the BNP.

Word has it that many of them were drawn to the BNP out of desperation rather than ideology. If our increasing representation by fascists does not teach us to tackle their electors' issues head-on and provide a solution acceptable to some of those 6.2% of UK voters as well as the rest of us, we'd better prepare ourselves for even more BNP representation in the future.
Fixing the Have Your Say fault (2) 11:52pm on 26 May 2009 Twenty days after you put "Have your say" back on-line, as you've made no further comments, I guess we conclude this was your last word on the matter.

So we don't know what went wrong, whether we'll ever see our legacy comments again, whether you're going to have the same problem in the future.

Top class info for a news organisation's editor, don't you think?
Smith thought she'd be cleared 11:54am on 30 Mar 2009 Nick said "It is in all our interests that that gap is closed".

It is not in our interests that MPs get more money than their salary today. They get a starting salary of over sixty-three thousand pounds per year for a salaried position with a very generous pension.

And either this is only a part-time job, or else ministers are all doing a disservice to either their constituents or else to their ministerial office. Lots of backbench MPs further confirm that it's a part-time job by having lots of side jobs - non-executive directorships and the like. And fair-dos - I think MPs do well to keep a foot in "the real world".

But enough is enough... how can MPs be overpaid when there are so many candidates for each vacancy? If we pay them more than the present wage, I think we're very definitely attracting MPs for the wrong motives.

Their current salary is more than enough. We should give them all an admin assistant, a modest office in their constituency, and travel expenses on a per-mile basis, excluding the first 25 miles a day (the regular commute of most of us).

As for London accommodation, they only need somewhere to sleep Mon-Thu nights during parliamentary sessions. we should give them something akin to a nurses home close to Parliament, with a room each if they wanted it. No other expenses for them to fiddle, a standard cost for everyone. Oh, and we should dispense with the subsidised house of commons bistro as well - MPs should eat to the standard they're willing to pay for, just like the rest of us.
'Coach Crash Syndrome' 3:42pm on 14 Mar 2009 Yes Mark, absolutely right. And it's a dangerous reality, because in every instance of "coach crash syndrome" as you call it, more of our rights are taken away with new legislation, and in most cases there's no particular benefit to the original cause.

I remember Ken Clarke's observation "another bomb, another bill". It's just like that: the government reacts to (even ahead of) public reacting to uneven media coverage; and before you know it we've got doddery old men being arrested at party conferences under terrorism legislation after heckling the speaker, spying and phone-tapping by local authorities, and the rest.

Media Studies in schools gets derided, and in fact I don't know the nature of the syllabus. But I'm very sure that discerning interpretation of media; and discerning the agenda and motives of media, politicians and everyone else we hear, should be some of the most important parts of general education.

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Andi Ye