Nobody watches The Record Europe. Regular news channel coverage of Europe is woefully inadequate.
Economically, the continent is currently experiencing its worst drought in 35 years. BBC News recently ran a report about how the current lack of rainfall in the UK (they didn't call it a drought because that would be alarmist) is affecting farmers in Kent, which is all well and good, but viewers might be under the misapprehension that we can just import food from Europe instead. Except we can't, because the drought isn't confined to the UK; it is a
Europe-wide problem. The BBC surely must be aware that Europe has experienced 50% less rainfall than average in the last two months, yet for reasons known only to them, this vital detail was omitted from the report.
With regard to European politics, the EU recently imposed budgetary measures on Ireland, which included a mandatory 12% reduction of the
minimum wage (although the budget itself was covered by BBC News in some depth, the broadcaster failed to explicitly state that a lot of those measures had been foisted upon Ireland by the EU) and now the European Monetary Affairs Commissioner is
telling Greece to privatise €50 billion worth of assets in order to prop up ailing French and German banks. People need to know the EU is not the Teletubbyland of fluffy bunnies and blue skies they perhaps thought it was. Yet try spotting any of this on BBC News. Nothing.
With regard to social issues, widespread protests are currently being held across Spain, where youth unemployment has spiralled to 45%. The protests started off peacefully but unfortunately the police have now decided they have had enough and are
literally battering sit-down protesters until they cannot take any more. The virtually lawless state of Greece is on the verge of absolute destitution, with communist groups taking up arms and fascist neo-Nazis
hunting down immigrants and their children and murdering them while the police turn a blind eye because they're not getting paid and are oftentimes equally as disillusioned as the rioters are. Even the do-gooding monks of Mount Athos are
refusing to pay tax.
As a highly influential member of the supposedly civilised political, economic and social European Union which we share with these terrible people, anything that happens on a large scale elsewhere in the continent is bound to eventually have knock-on effects for the UK. So why is the BBC virtually silent vis-á-vis all of the above issues when it was so quick to parachute correspondents into Egypt and Tunisia?
Ray Snoddy even moved away from the desk to recap on the piece.