Judge Kavannaugh - 6pm News: We were shown lengthy footage of the evidence of Dr Ford, who accuses Judge Kavannaugh of sexual assault. Sopie Raworth described this evidence as 'powerful' - if she meant, as I fear she did, 'convincing testimony', her interpretation of it is totally different from mine - I found myself thinking 'crackpot'.
It's a good question...the BBC is probably the most Americocentric broadcaster in the world - bar none - and that includes American broadcasters.
Despite their pretence of being orientated to Europe and Asia, they hardly ever report on the doings of Brussels or Beijing except when there's a periodic crisis. But every twist and turn of American politics is followed with great attention to detail.
And why is Gary Donoghue there? Apparently he's the North American political correspondent...they got Sopel, Katty Kay, Nick Bryant, and Anthony Zurcher plus a host of others...
Why the obsession? I suspect being on BBC expenses in the USA is a bit like being sent on holiday with a suitcase full of tenners. They love being out there. It's basically safe, they speak English and, as in the UK, the media and academia are dominated by liberals...but the Republicans are strong, there's gun ownership, needless poverty, racial tension and lots of religion...so plenty to whinge about while you enjoy the good life.
The BBC sees the UK as a microcosm of the USA; so, if right-wing policies work in the USA, the 'misguided' people of the UK might be tempted to vote for those evil 'extreme' right-wingers in the Tory party. It follows, therefore, that the BBC must pour scorn upon Trump and all his works. I'm horribly afraid that somebody has been hoarding some weapons grade dirt to throw at Boris Johnson, just in time to wreck his chances of leading the UK out of the mess that May & Barnier have wrought! If that happens the BBC will gleefully turn its attention back to home affairs.
It doesn't matter if they've got anything on Boris or not. They just need to make something up and keep pushing the lies as in the Kavanaugh hearing in the USA. Mud sticks and Kavanaugh has been blamed for the rest of his career despite being probably innocent and legally innocent. Boris cannot prepare for an attack as he won't know what lies they will concoct.
I've just sat through, by courtesy of BBC News Channel, the entire Brett Kavannaugh defence submission which was nearly an hour long. I found myself in sympathy with a man who has to face the ordeal of a surreal Kafkaesque 'trial' in which the basic tenet of justice - of innocent until proved guilty - has been abandoned.
When Sopel introduced the item he elicited sympathy for Kavanaugh's accuser by stating she had received hate and death threats. He did not make reference to Kavanaugh and his family receiving such vile mail - but the Chairman of the Committee did...so why did Sopel leave that out? Did he wish to elicit sympathy on that basis for one party, but not for the other?
Brett Kavannaugh - Trump nominated, male, pale, stale, straight, Christian and Republican - What's there for Sopel and the BBC not to deride in line with their PC ideology?
It’s ironic that the BBC have such a downer on male, pale and stale. David Dimbleby David Attenborough John Humphreys Hugh Pym Mark Easton Evan Davis Will Gompertz Frank Gardner James Landale Gavin Hewitt Huw Edwards John Simpson Jon Sopel Gary O’Donoghue Jeremy Bowen Nick Bryant And so on....
I don't think the QT Bishop Auckland audience have not read the memo as they seem to anywhere near anti-Brexit as dimbleby would wish. It must be too far oop north for the London momentum crowd...
Watching BBC 1 Question Time I had a hard time understanding MP Ian Lavery (subtitles please) who now favours a re-vote on Brexit, even though he once said that there should never be a second referendum. Never been a huge fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Like Boris he comes from another era and I can never resist watching Ian Hislop dig away at him on Have I Got News For You, But I fully support his campaign to exit this awful E.U institution lead by a rag bag of corrupt nobodies.
Odd isn't it that if David Cameron had pushed for an E.U exit that he might have still been in power. And did anyone know that he had actually planned to drop Teresa May from his then Cabinet as she refused to fully participate in the whole leave or stay campaign.
Well done to Rod Liddle for his dig at Jeremy Corbyn's politically dodgy past, something the Corbyn army seem to overlook.
Re the Kavanaugh hearings...the BBC aren't telling you, but I am getting the feeling from more objective sources that it all went terribly wrong for the Democrats. Who knows what, if anything, really happened...when, where or with whom...but as an exercise in political terrorism, it seems to have misfired and might kill the would-be assassins.
Last night's BBC News website' headline 'Emotional Kavanaugh swears innocence' is a loaded form of words intended to mislead so that we should presume that he is guilty, and he is there under oath to 'prove' his innocence.
A more accurate headline might have been: Kavanaugh publicly humiliated over accusations of sexual misconduct 36 years ago when he was a 17 year old High School student'.
With Sopel and his ilk it’s all in the intonation and emphasis when speaking and not always the actual words. If you listen to the report you can be in no doubt who is in the dock and who is the injured party.
Yes, indeed. Expression, tone, hand gestures, verbal emphasis...it all helps the bias. If they had to read out "Donald Trump did not kick beggar today."...they would inject a tone of surprise, while looking simultaneously wearing an expression of sadness (given that all good lefty folk would wish he had since that would mean he could be got rid of all the more quickly)...there would be unneeded emphasis on the word "kick", to suggest that while one might grudgingly accept he hadn't actually kicked a beggar he may yet have done something far worse to a beggar which he has so far sneakily managed to keep hidden.
Sky but relevant in that the BBC pursues a policy of "silence is golden" with Batten and Robinson and any others who are effective at getting their message across.
Go to say - Gerard Batten has some balls stating clearly what is allowed under Sharia law:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oMliI6rkFI
04:40.
What other politician in the UK is telling the truth in this way? Anne-Marie Waters, but she has no real platform.
Gillian Joseph appears a very pleasant presenter but her ignorance of Islam is quite breathtaking.
When reading about Boris’s Canada + plan on the BBC website today, I unexpectedly came across Chris Morris and his hastily assembled Reality Check on the subject. It was embedded within that article. I try to avoid him and his checks but he was well and truly hiding this time.
Anyway, it was typical rubbish and as usual, not a reality check at all. It was a thinly disguised attack on the plan with the opinion of the leader of a ‘trade organisation’ masquerading as fact.
"As a result, it would put thousands of manufacturing jobs and hundreds of billions of pounds of exports at risk and, at worst, could destroy much of Britain's manufacturing base," said its chief executive Stephen Phipson. "Having been to Canada I know a customs model built around this is naïve and unrealistic as a short term solution."
So how is this fact and reality? It is a pretty big claim to say it will destroy much of Britain’s manufacturing base. Chris Morris leaves this assertion unchallenged and takes it at face value . It is the only piece of evidence he uses, no corroboration, no other quotes or additional evidence to back up the claim.
Reality check, my arse. It is a complete joke and an embarrassment to properly researched, fact based journalism.
Chris Morris and the BBC should hang their heads in shame.
The BBC's Reality Check has been an embarrassment from the start. At the beginning they did have a sort of format...there would be a specific question about some claim about the past or present, and they would attempt to answer it by reference to credible facts (albeit facts they liked). They soon found that way too restrictive...before long they were tackling claims about things that might or might not happen in the future - claims that by definition don't relate to reality. They also found the question format too rigid for their purpose (which was and is to give pseudo-objective backing to subjective political positions that they like). They started drifting off the question or even ignoring it altogether. Eventually they gave up on the pretence of fact-based checking and simply started creating opinion pieces, like anything else you might read in the Guardian, except this is on the BBC. It's a disgrace and probably a very costly disgrace. This being the BBC there are probably 20 people on the team, all eligible for a BBC pension...there will be endless conferences and quaffing of coffee, much reading of newspapers and lefty websites...lots of e mailing to pals at BBC Trending...diversity and equality training...target setting for staff against lengthy checklists...monitoring of target achievement etc etc.
That isn't a reality check as reality would know it but it is all of a piece with Nick Robinson telling us he had to pass on warnings, forecasts, worries and concerns of Mark Carney and Christine Lagarde, before proceeding to conflate himself with those august personages and tell us that he has a duty to warn us and hey presto! their utterances have mysteriously become the BBC's warning. So it is here. Warning is transmuted into reality.
News Quiz...there's just been the annual conference of one our two great political parties...so plenty of opportunity to wield the satirical knife - well, you'd think so. But in reality what do we get? Mark Steele saying it's amazing how Jeremy Corbyn just keeps going despite all the negative publicity about anti-semitism and other made up stuff, and is able to come out with wonderful policies that even wow the man from Goldman Sachs...
Satire? Yes, but the satire is at the BBC's expense.
Why is the BBC cheerleading for the USA in the Ryder Cup while our UK players are part of the opposing Europe side? What possible reason for the odd behaviour could there be? (Not hard to guess.) And while we are about, why couldn't they admit Tiger Woods actually LOST today? The reporter I heard had to come up with some marvellous circumlocution to avoid the deadly L word.
"I'm a Muslim Woman, Visually Impaired and a Boxer."
Only the BBC could find this interesting! BTW - why does the BBC promote boxing so extensively? Normally they put health and safety to the fore...it's a terribly damaging sport. If you weren't visually impaired before you started, you will be by the time your career is over. A perennial of local news is always that boxing clubs stop young people getting involved in crime...no evidence given for the claim...and dangerous steroid use neatly sidestepped.
Do people at the BBC ever feel ashamed about the Project Fear nonsense they put out? Obviously most sensible people ignore the rubbish but some vulnerable individuals will be unnecessarily alarmed and made miserable.
The BBC make deliberately considered choices on people and causes to support. My theory is that it is usually to do with their left liberal bias and socialist agenda.
They support Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and Lewis Hamilton as black role models who are world beaters and GOATS. This PC outlook trumps the sports and countries they represent including the UK.
Boxing fits in the same category. They can overlook the danger because they are underprivileged or bad boys made good, Usually black and from a poor or working class background. Nicola Adams is another example.
It may be a positive discrimination thing because the BBC don’t want to be pale, male and stale with their sports coverage and feel the need to promote more minority role models.
I hadn't followed the golf so I didn't know they were doing that but I know why! Easy peasy.
As for the Muslim boxer, well, it does illustrate the problem with the BBC: when you set up special cases as your priorities, it means that you are deeply unbalanced and you miss the point. You are blind to the issue with boxing so long as it can facilitate box ticking. Did anyone see that programme on Sunday morning? Sunday Morning Live or something like that. I don't think I can face to describe it at the moment.
Talking of the Golf and The Ryder Cup. Why aren't the BBC showing us any live coverage. And the same happened with this year's Open Championship. Once again no Live coverage. I mean what's the point of only giving us evening tv highlights when the days play is all done and dusted. And if they ever lose coverage of The Masters from Augusta then that'll surely be another nail in the coffin of BBC Sport. I reckon is cost of the money they're paying out for what little Football they have and of course Gary Lineker's obscene wages.
Mention of the annual conference reminds me I tuned into 'Politics Live' today to find a discussion going on and - first time I've noticed anything like this on the programme - a large banner across the bottom of the screen stating Conservative Conference. I was confused: has the conference started already? Were they broadcasting from it? Politics Live?
As the programme went on I waited for them to put up the name of the speakers in turn as they spoke but no, it didn't happen. Throughout, I didn't know who three out of the four panel members were. The only one I recognised was Rachel Johnson.
As the topics changed so did the large intrusive banner. A discussion of young people's views about politics had longwinded wording in the form of a question. It came across as very nannyish as well as intrusive and unnecessary. A short sharp couple of words would more than suffice to get the idea across. I do hope they will drop these awful overlarge banners and give us actual useful information. Either the presenter make a point of naming the panel member as she goes round them or else put up the name on screen and not in HUGE letters.
BBC Sport, like BBC News, is the ultimate oxymoron.
I love footie and watched MotD since I was 6 or 7 years old. Not now. And won't do again until they replace the grotesquely overpaid Lineker with someone less hypocritical, smarmy and left wing.
BBC Sports Correspondent today: "Brexit is looming..." Yes, and there's a "growing clamour" for a second referendum in case we "crash out" and car production "comes to a stop" throughout the UK.
More claptrap and 'junk as art' from BBC Arts editor Will Gompertz. But what caught my eye was this sentence he wrote about Boris Johnson;
"Their serious social commentary had been turned into exactly the sort of jingoistic metaphor they had intended to undermine."
No, it wasn't jingoistic, he was just rooting for our country and our athletes as any patriotic Briton would.
Straighforeward reporting or overt political point scoring by printing and promoting someone else's political view? I'd give him the benefit of the doubt if he covered both sides but he never does.
My verdict - I think Will Gompertz is wearing his politics on his sleeve again. Not for the first time, he regularly sneaks in sly digs in his articles.
How pompous and badly written that article is. I can't believe that person is actually an arts editor on the BBC. Is he American? We have 'the guys', 'an ice box', 'real estate prices', 'backstory' and 'like' for 'as'...all American, not English. And for good measure, 'en-mass' for en masse. You must be joking, BBC!
Sadly, your arts man is not. The worst thing about that quote about Johnson is how po-faced it is. You have to read the whole paragraph to understand how bad it is: he knows that Johnson said it mischievously - typical Johnson style humorous quip with a point - yet goes all pompous over it, while calling the 'guys'' work gently mocking, but reverts to going on pomposity about its 'serious purpose'. Actually, it seems to me the whole passage labouring over origin, meaning and significance of it in the context of art history is seriously overselling what looks and sounds like something literal, pedestrian and underwhelming. Who am I, though, compared with the erudition of the Gompertz BBC?
A Reality Check for young people about Brexit called ‘The truth about young people and Brexit’.
It’s 4000 words so quite long, but I’ve cut and pasted the summary of each section below. Hilarious, but for a change probably the most accurate and honest summaries about Brexit by the BBC.
So where are we? We don't really know...
So where are we? For now there's an agreement in principle, but beyond the transition period we just can’t say...
So where are we? The truth is nobody knows exactly what will happen....
So where are we? Depends what sort of deal we get TBH.
So where are we? We will have to wait and see...
So where are we? You guessed it... we'll have to wait and see. Patience is a virtue.
Here's a "Counter Reality Check" for our young folk:
"As long as you allow mass immigration to continue unabated, with the consequence that our population grows by half a million a year, you will never ever reach your goal of having a decent family home where you can raise some kids with your partner. Don't expect the BBC to do anything to protect you just because you are young. Remember, they did nothing to protect young vulnerable people from Jimmy Savile and have never ever admitted their guilt in that regard."
There you go, young guys and gals! Your Reality Check has been fixed.
Major scoop for Marr this morning, he had secured an interview with "Britain's most famous, well loved actor and national treasure" Sir Mark Ryland, or Rylance or something. Has he been in anything ? In other news he seems to be a Corbyn supporting leftie.
One too many yets. Nothing has appeared yet though on the BBC News website. It's incredible. Jeremy Hunt is the Foreign Secretary. Had Boris held the post, there would have been wall-to-wall coverage of the speech looking for ammunition to fire at him. Bias by omission. Perhaps the news gathering operation has imploded.
What an incredible example of bias! They have no problem reporting Heidi Allen propagandising on behalf of the Soros Referendum. They have no problem reporting on Digby Jones's attack on Boris Johnson. They have no problem reporting on Ruth Davidson's Brexit views.
But the Foreign Secretary comparing the EU to the USSR?
They did mention it in the 10pm news bulletin - but censored the comparison of the EU with the USSR. Makes it all the order that it isn't mentioned on the website.
Notable too that the Telegraph is leading with the EU=USSR comparison...So, once again the BBC's judgement of what is newsworthy is shown to be decidely wonky.
The exact text of Jeremy Hunt's speech is around and available. This extract is from Not a Sheep:
"At the moment you, European friends, seem to think the way to keep the club together is to punish a member who leaves, not just with economic disruption, but even by breaking up the United Kingdom with a border down the Irish Sea…
"The EU was set up to protect freedom – it was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving. The lesson from history is clear – if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out of it won't diminish, it will grow, and we won't be the only prisoner that wants to escape…"
The BBC's campaign to demoralise a nation in the wake of Brexit continues apace. Latest is their bogus self-selecting survey (described for some reason as "an experiment" on radio).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45561334
Loneliness - involuntary social isolation - is of course something many people do experience in their lives, some sadly all their lives. But rather than approach this as a problem that has many solutions, the BBC's approach (as with its previous mood-hoovering items on anxiety, nuclear war, failing democracy, divisiveness, expert knowledge and so on) is relentlessly negative, designed to depress.
In my view it is all about creating a negative mood music in the nation as we seek to Brexit. I realise that might sound a bit conspiratorial, but I think if I had the time I could objectively show this to be the case by comparing the two years of BBC "social reporting" prior to Brexit with the two years since.
It doesn't really require people to sit in a smoke filled room to conspire...it is really a kind of group-cultural response from the media elite, following articles in their in house journal, the Guardian. The media elite (Lord Hall said as much) view Brexit as one of the worst disasters to ever befall their "project" and they link it with a need to fight populism in all its forms.
The BBC's current depressive solemnity follows from an unstated desire to pop the Brexit balloon and ensure (in sympathy with the EU elite who have much the same agenda) that there is no sense of celebration in us leaving the EU. Of course there is also the unstated hope they can actually turn things round and stop Brexit, but even if not, they want to ensure the mood of the nation will be anxious, nervous, full of foreboding.
Huw Edwards would be unrivalled in any contest to find the purveyor of the most downbeat miserable news delivery style. Whenever he reads the Ten o' Clock news, at the start of the bulletin the camera zooms in. He is always looking down at the desk. He looks up with a grim humourless expression before reading the headlines. By and large, nothing much has happened that might warrant such a funereal approach to the news.
We knew it but confirmed here...you can't tell the truth even when all the facts back you up:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45709205
Science was not only essentially a male invention but also essentially a European cultural product - with very little input from Asia,Africa or indigenous people in the Americas.
Progressive policies have had virtually no impact on the gender divide in science, technology and maths:
Even in liberal Sweden where vigorous efforts have been made over the past 70 years to bring in gender equality, only 20% of University Professors in the STEM subjects are female.
The irony is that if a female professor were to stand at a lectern and claim that women invented civilisation, or maths or some such no one would bat an eyelid and her post and positions would all be safe.
More fake BBC news: Guido ran a story this morning on 'naughty Boris' apparently running through a wheat field - as Guido's readers were quick to point out, 1. the wheat crop was harvested about a month ago, 2. the 'wheat' was scrub/set-aside and 3. Boris was clearly jogging along a footpath - this did not stop Norman Smith repeating the nonsense on the 1 o'clock news. So, Norman, next time you pinch a story from Guido, read the comments first!
Still, it did what Boris presumably wanted & served as a trailer for what he has to say tomorrow - just a pity thay, if we miss it live, we can't rely upon the BBC to show any decent soundbites. Hope Guido will have it.
It's taken over 24 hours for the BBC News website to finally report on Jeremy Hunt's conference speech likening the EU to the UUSR. Of course, now it's all about the EU.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45712670
... 'Brexit: EU diplomats say Hunt's Soviet comparison 'insulting'. ...
There are two questions:
1. Why wasn't it reported on the same day?
2. Why was it relegated to the Politics pages and not on the Home page?
The answers are easy. It doesn't fit the narrative.
Two very good questions, LC. The answer to the first is probably that they didn't like it and it didn't serve their Stop Boris campaign directly. Answer to second is that they often hide things on the politics page, when they have a motive so to do. I'd add a third question - why when they reported on it in the TV news did they avoid mention of the comparison of the EU with the Soviet Union? I think they definitely wanted to prevent that comparison becoming part of public discourse. But now that the EU is going to paint it as xenophobic hate speech, they probably feel it's safe to broach the subject.
On University Challenge this evening was a question about which English women's cricketer has achieved so many wickets and so many runs during her career. The question was met with blank stares from the faces of our leading Oxbridge brains.
Your starter for ten: who deserves to be tarred and feathered and paraded through the streets tied to a donkey first...is it Donald Trump or Boris Johnson? I'll accept either answer...
Often 99% of an audience will be totally oblivious to BBC lies and distortion. Tonight Jon Sopel asserted that the prosecutor hired by Republican Senators to interview Christine Blasey-Ford had advised them that the case would never be prosecuted because it was a "he said, she said" situation. That made the prosecutor sound dismissive of the case.
But Sopel misrepresented her advice - this is what she actually wrote:
"In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,”
You see how Sopel deliberately (I believe deliberately, because he's not stupid and must surely have read the prosecutor's advice) placed the emphasis in the wrong place. The fact is the prosecutor thought Blasey Ford was a weak witness who could not remember basic details about her travel to and from the alleged crime scene, or indeed details about the house's location. There were various other instances where her memory seemed faulty.
But pressing his hand on the scales, Sopel is able to serve the customer, the viewer, short giving the misleading impression that the prosecutor's advice was based purely on the "he said, she said" nature of the case.
The reality is BBC journalists do this all the time. Omitting vital details, so allowing them to place the emphasis where they want to.
The above report on the BBC website seems to me reasonably fair and balanced compared with the utterances we get from more senior parts of the BBC News outfit in North America. But, one thing that did strike me - there were two names attached to this story that I don't recall coming across before, based in the USA. One is termed an "Online Business Reporter". Does the BBC really need such a person based in the USA to be an "online business reporter" when it has plenty of general business reporters, and how much journalistic output does she achieve?
I was less impressed by the following article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45712062
This seemed an exercise in bog standard Trump scepticism beginning with the title: "Can Trump really cut the US trade deficit?" - does it really need that "really"? Or are you setting a mood of scepticism?
Then there's a bit of economic theory for the plebs (but always bear in mind for any one view expressed by an economist, you can find always find a contradictory view expressed by another economist).
The article concludes: "The economic relationships - the questions of what causes what - are complex. So it is not necessarily the case that what he is doing is counterproductive by his own objectives. But it might turn out to be. " Talking about hedging your bets!
What I find odd about an article like this is that is makes no mention of the USA's current impressive growth rate of 4.2% or the elevated stock market levels. That surely has to be weighed in the balance, since the writer acknowledges Trump aims to raise tax revenue through economic growth. Another way of puttting that is the Trumponomics seem to be working at the moment.
One thing I am picking up a bit from some of these business types is that economic reality is forcing them to give Trump some grudging respect. The post election narrative we got used to was that the Trump administration was chaotic and ineffective. But to me it seems very focussed and, so far, pretty effective in achieving its objectives, whatever you might think about those objectives. The business journalists are finding it difficult to deny this.
Meanwhile the top honchos at BBC North America - Sopel, Bryant and Zurcher - still seem to be pushing the "chaotic incompetence" narrative with every bit of breath in their journalistic bodies. They don't seem to have adapted at all.
Well that's the end of Russell Brand's career then...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTAezuwAFFw
"You can't have nations without nationalism."
That quote will have them seething at the Guardian and the BBC, but just as bad or even worse was his suggestion that you should actively respect the will of the people expressed through democratic votes e.g. the election of a substantial number of Sweden Democrats.
I imagine the Guardian and the BBC probably did think once think Russell Brand was one of their own, despite the high jinks with Jonathan Ross.
Nothing to do with BBC bias, but I am in the middle of reading Yuval Harari's “Sapiens”. He covers the whole issue of Nationalism with such succinctness - really exposes the shallowness of “no borders”, so beloved of Guardian type SJW's..
Harari is v. good. I've read that and Homo Deus as well. As you suggest, he's a deep thinker whereas BBC and Guardian SJWs are just like children in the shallow way they think and argue.
Well I haven't seen this on the BBC. Apparently two men have contacted the Judiciary Committee claiming to have been the one to have had the "encounter" with Christine Blasey Ford, not Kavanaugh. Presumably they feel confident in doing so because of the statute of limitations in the USA. See at 3:25 -
“The view of some of Mr Johnson's former colleagues is that he is a charlatan, who never showed that he could do the work needed, to show the responsibility required, to make decisions that would affect the lives the public.”
Writes Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC website.
It’s the classic BBC way to do a hatchet job, journalists can’t say these things outright so they simply disguise the words as someone else’s.
‘Some people say’ and ‘colleagues have reported’ is such a lazy but easy ploy to separate yourself from the message.
Now I’m not a Johnson fan but he really does bring out the worst in BBC reporting. They try so hard to damage him at every opportunity.
The upside is that BBC Boris baiting betrays their impartiality and demonstrates BBC agitprop in all its glory.
Absolutely. Johnson has been Target No. 1 since 24th June 2016. He is an effective leader, effective Brexiter, an effective democrat, an effective Conservative, an effective campaigner; has can reach across class, party and race divides (as he showed by winning Labour London twice over and leading the capital and its millions of residents for 8 years).
The view of many of Mr Hammond's colleagues is that he is a charlatan, who is not batting for Britain but actually talking down the economy. Has Kuennesburg ever mentioned that in her missives?
Agreed, MB. Note how Boris's speech does not have an existence of its own on the BBC site but appears under 'more on this story' - the important story, itself, appears to be that Boris has made Mrs May cross - good!
Yes, I heard that too. Kuenssberg definitely uses different language with Johnson, derogatory terms not generally used on anyone else. I’ve also noticed that she is being very gentle with Theresa May nowadays, supportive even.
Not just Laura, but Emily too on Newsnight. She was quite hysterical in her interview of JRM - compare and contrast with her much friendlier chat with Clare Perry whom she referred to as "Clare" (whereas, "Jacob" was not addressed in such matey terms). Her first question to "Clare" referenced "Boris's antics". Can you imagine her referring to "Dominic's antics" or "Amber's antics"? No, neither can I.
Newsnight: Emily Maitlis has just worked herself up into a frenzy of anger while interviewing Jacob Rees-Mogg - she seemed to be particularly annoyed that JRM persistently refused to agree with her that Boris's speech was 'a deeply unedifying spectacle.' In a second interview with a minor, pro-Chequers, minister Maitlis referred to 'Boris Johnson's antics'. Whatever happened to impartiality & who the hell does Maitlis think she is?
Yes, I did wonder whether to use the word "frenzy". You would have feared for JRM's personal safety if she had a letter opener to hand. I suppose, to answer your question, she thinks she works for an untouchable pro-Remain media organisation with a state-guaranteed income and has to do her bit, along with her colleagues, to stop any meaningful Brexit.
Yes, the Beeb is clearly desperate to keep May in post long enough to push her deal through. Since Boris's speech, I'm cautiously optimistic that he's done enough to pull the Chequers rug from under her.
Mark Easton delivers a 100% alarmist report on the impact of the Government's migration system proposals on the UK economy on the 10pm tonight, in particular the UK care and hospitality sectors. I don't think he even allowed one contrary voice in his report.
Well I'd like to put a contrary analysis:
1. There are 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care system.
2. The annual turnover rate is 27.8%. That's huge and suggests that pay is too low. I suspect there is a conveyor belt going on with people coming from East Europe and working in the sector for maybe 2 or 3 years before they find alternative better paid work.
3. Contrary to the impression given by the Easton report, in 2016-17, only 7% of the care workforce were non-British EEA nationals. That's about 94,000. If we apply the annual turnover rate to that figure as rough guide, we get a need to replace 27,100.
4. I think we can cope with this vacancy issue.
Firstly, I am sure that any migration scheme approved is going to allow for emergency permits for migrants where necessary. So there was no need for the hysterical tone of the Easton report.
Secondly, we can make the care sector more attractive to potential employees. That will involve higher pay and more career opportunities.
Thirdly, by restricting migration and creating new housing, we can reduce the rise in housing costs which is one of the things driving UK citizens out of the care sector in places like London.
Finally, we can put in place a programme of automation and robotisation of various aspects of the care sector, in particular kitchen work, delivery of supplies and so on. The state can help here. The role of the Care Quality Commission could be expanded to include a role as overseeing care qualifications, applying minimum pay regulations, and encouraging the adoption of appropriate technology (perhaps through a grant aid system).
The BBC's sharp suited economist, Kamal Ahmed, had a very odd piece in the Sunday Times magazine this week (based on his "Christmas clean-up" autobiography it would appear). He seems in some respects likeable but it was a very weird PC, race-obsessed piece, not surprising perhaps since he was with the Equalities Commission before he joined the BBC.
He expressed his admiration for Obama...because of his policies you wonder? er, no...because he was "brown" (I kid you not). There were so many gaps in the narrative relating to his absentee Somali father, that it was more thin air than a story...we don't seem to hear anything from his mother about that, which is distinctly odd given she was "married" to him and you might reasonably have thought to have her own views on their relationship. It seems Kamal wants to produce a "brown Britain" through mixed race relationships...personally I think it's a matter for people to sort out themselves rather than being a matter of public policy.
His political philosophising is rather sixth form. He seems to accept that "identity" is very important. But despite his own emphasis on race, says identity is not subject to scientific laws. Well I never thought it was either (bit of a straw man argument there Kamal), but it is based on some realities of social interaction among human beings in particular sorts of societies (cultures): language, literature, art, sport, culture, history, religion, political ideology and attitudes to law are all of vital importance in terms of identity and the ability of people to live together harmoniously. Personally I think all those are much more important than whether someone is "brown".
At times the article reaches bathetic lows eg where he argues that the profileration in the UK of weirdly spelt and mutually incomprehensible names for individuals is a cause for joyous celeberation (although he is very keen that we should understand his name means "perfect" and has nothing to do with camels!). He sternly reminds us that names are not a cause for humour - I'll remember that next time Mr Smellie turns up to flush the drains.
He has a book to promote. A not so modestly titled book. Expect to hear all about it on the BBC. https://de-at.fievent.com/e/kamal-ahmed-and-minna-salami-the-life-and-times-of-a-very-british-man-gower-street/18303806
Interesting what you mention about his views. He was married to writer Elizabeth Day and more recently there was a bit of gossip about him and BBC news reader Sophie Long. I had no idea he'd worked for the Commission.
I was just looking at his bio on Wikipedia. He's not the first economics "expert" from the BBC to not have studied economics at degree level. He studied journalism. Naga Munchetty was another one (she studied English). Interesting how the media ecosystem operates. Elizabeth Day is a BBC and Sky regular. He also worked for the Guardian - of course!
Yes, I have a vague recollection of her being on Sky, perhaps on the Press Preview. Paul Mason was a music teacher who became a BBC Economics Editor. Fascinating!
I didn't know that about Paul Mason! lol So, it seems, just about every "economics expert" on the BBC is not actually an economics expert.
Being a Londoner, a couple of years ago I had the opportunity of witnessing another one of them, totally a-holed in a pub (that's the "Truth" - think surname)...I just checked him out on Wikipedia and it seems he somehow "became" an economics expert in the 1990s. No reference again to any economics degree. So I think we can reasonably conclude he ain't got one.
I was naive about this previously, thinking they all had some sort of economics degree. It seems now we have to conclude they none of them have that sort of degree qualification. I won't say they are a bunch of chancers because you would need to know them personally to make that judgement but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people drew that conclusion.
Christopher Cook issues a mealy mouthed apology that is really a non-apology with continued biased beef inserted between two thin slices of mea culpa...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45685926
This is really not acceptable. He's supposed to be a serious policy editor on Newsnight, the premier news flagship of the once great, now trash, BBC. Because of his obvious soggy-left Guardian worldview he was straight on the IEA report, so eager to trash a pro-Brexit report.
Rather than take time to "do the math" he couldn't wait to get stuck in on a report from what he called a "right wing think tank" (there are no left wing, social-liberal, globalist or communist think tanks, as we know).
In his haste, he made some obvious schoolboy errors (though he's not going to tell us what they are). Rather than damage his career - the danger being that his employer the BBC might be obliged to admit his errors in response to a complaint - he has now put out this non-apology as a fig leaf, so the BBC can claim the story no longer exists.
Just not acceptable in my view.
This was obvious knee-jerk, pro-Remain bias, just like Maitlis's pathetic show last night with her hysterical het-up hyped-up hubristic haranguing of JRM, followed by cosy, all-smiles chat with Clare Perry.
A blundering teenager from the Newsnight stable. He can't even write clear English, which is all too typical of the BBC these days. 'Priors' isn't even a word. At least the IEA can demonstrate a grasp of English. Teenager Maitlis is another blunderer. Has she issued a retraction or correction about the falsehoods she relayed about that cartoon? I think there's a problem of endogeneity in Newsnight.
The tic-tac man on the race course. Remember that weird man who used to do the horse racing on Channel 4? He took them to an employment tribunal for ageism. John McCririck, that's it. I've just remembered the name.
Tonight on Newsnight: Very balanced review of the Conservative Party Conference. Left wing pro-Remain pro-PC Zoe with left wing Tory pro-Remain pro-PC Matthew and left wing globalist pro-Remain pro-PC Evan (presiding, allegedly, in the chair, but sounded like a very cosy chat amongst peers in the Guardian conference room).
Earlier Evan interviewed David Attenborough and referred to the "tricks of the trade"...hmmm, we know you have a few of those yourself don't you Evan. Why don't you own up to them?
Talking of which...I've noticed the "Bias by Infantilisation" pioneered very effectively by Evan (when he spent a significant part of his interview with Nigel Farage during the 2015 election campaign discussing Paddington Bear) is proving popular with the UK media...
When Boris dared to deliver a speech on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference, the UK MSM were straight on it. We had Beth (Sky), Jo, Emily and Laura (BBC) talking about Boris in infantile terms - he was referred to as being "naughty", and Theresa (aka "Mother") was it seems "cross" about him and his "antics".
It does seem the women in media (the WIMs) really have a problem with Boris...aka "The Philandering Turk"... they've probably all been on the receiving end of the philandering, so to speak (perhaps I should rephrase that but you know what I mean) and instinctively feel negative about him ("the bastard"). Boris is the sort of bloke women spend thousands of hours discussing over prosecco before he is ritualistically denounced as "an effing selfish bastard" or similar. (Even his daughter has used the same phrase I think. Rather sad, but that's what happens if you go a-philandering).
But news reporting, especially by our state-funded broadcaster, shouldn't be ruled by personal or political animus.
I think you're right re: the 'WIMs' attitude towards Boris & would add another reason for it: the women were presumably chosen for, among other things, their feminist, liberal-left credentials - so Boris was doubly-damned as a white male, even before he started philandering. This also explains the coven's attitude towards Judge Kavanaugh, so that even the, normally level-headed, Sophie Raworth found Dr Ford's laughable testimony 'powerful'.
Oh right, the Dems aren't gonna take the Senate. Could have told you that Anthony. Mind you, so many of the new Dems are going to be ex CIA (could be as much as 20 I think), perhaps they will be able to frighten various Republicans to vote their way...we will se.
The BBC News website specialises in eye-catching headlines. There's nothing wrong with that, but the short catchy few words can also be used to mislead. They rely upon a cursory glance, during which a misleading message can be put across.
... .Brett Kavanaugh: 'Ford is a liar' - Trump supporters. ...
Further down:
... 'At a Trump rally in Mississippi,' ... That is where Donald Trump is speaking? The article doesn't really say whether or not DT attended the rally.
You need to concentrate upon what is written otherwise this snappy headline might give the impression that Donald Trump has spoken the words 'Ford is a liar'.
File under "That didn't take them long..." Today's PM had a hatchet job on Shaun Bailey. They seem to take exception to some mildly negative remarks (in an essay for the "right wing think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies) he made some time ago about school holidays for Hindu and Islamic festival day. They seemed to think it amounted to a Tommy Robinson level offence, that needed to be met with summary imprisonment for 13 months. They also seemed to object to his factual description of the community he was born into and the temptations to become involved in crime. Realiy is no defence!
Pugnazious over on Biased BBC seems to agree with my take on this:
"I first heard the story on WATO and I was astonished at the sheer unpleasantness of a quite blatant attack on Bailey by the BBC which quoted a Labour MP calling Bailey the ‘token black ghetto boy’. Why would the BBC use that quote? It wasn’t needed, it’s irrelevant to the story…except for the BBC it isn’t because that is their whole narrative…Bailey is only a candidate because he is black, nothing to do with talent and ability. "
May gives the impression Canada Plus x 3 isn't on offer...but she inserts the claim that the EU will only offer it if we have a border down the sea separating N Ireland from the rest of the UK. But Barnier has offered some concessions on the "backstop"...I don't think the N Ireland issue is a serious one. If we "crash out" as the BBC likes to say, do we really think the Republic of Ireland are going to erect a border fence and border posts along the border with N Ireland? Really?? There would be riots.
No Irish government is going to set up a hard border, whatever the EU says. Also, we, the UK, are not going to set up a hard border. It's all a load of balls. It ain't gonna happen. It's been a negotiation ploy that our useless PM failed to call the bluff on. One day at business school they will teach the EU-UK Brexit negotiations as how (from the UK side) NOT to negotiate. May should never have agreed to the timetabling, or the money, or granted EU citizens any guarantees. She basically said "Here are my cards, you have them Michel".
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that it was a "difficult" and "scary" time for young men in the US.
So guess what? The BBC have published an article to refute his statement.
Brett Kavanaugh accusations: Are young men in America scared?
And here is the first quote that sums up the tone of the article ;
Drake King, an 18-year-old student from Tennessee, told the BBC that he did not feel scared as a young man in college. "I feel comfortable with this social change - it helps me realise what I've been doing wrong as a man. Self-reflection is something that most people need," he says.
So that’s it then, keep asking young men until you find a quote that fits the narrative - publish it and give it prominence.
Bingo - problem solved - young men in the US are not scared.
How do I know? Because the BBC said so and they are impartial, free and fair.
The British public are being played by May and the establishment.
The softest possible Brexit has been the objective all along.
The establishment never wanted to leave so their job has been to tread the fine line by ‘staying in’ as much as possible without the majority of the public saying they haven’t honoured the result. That’s why they have ignored Canada +++.
Zurcher breaks cover and (don't forget he is an American) enters the political fray in the US, forgetting he is supposed to be "impartial, free and fair"...
He's basically saying the Republican is wrong. That's a public political position. That is not what BBC journalists are supposed to do: enter into politics. But Zurcher has.
He no doubt feels protected by the SJW armour of appearing to be on the side of female victims of male violence...but then, it that is the case, why have we never heard Zurcher condemn Bill Clinton for his vile behaviour towards women?
Peter Hitchens has been on the BBC's Politics Live recently and makes the odd appearance on Question Time but I think we've noticed that he's not their favourite panellist.
He has posted something about this on his blog which he says is an updated and extended version of an article first published in 2010:
"...I have since been told directly by a senior BBC executive to abandon any hope of getting any more than occasional appearances as a tolerated right-winger. I am most unlikely to be asked to present a BBC programme again (I have made two, a brief documentary on crime for Radio 4, many years ago, and a BBC4 film - which I presented because the BBC's original presenter of choice dropped out at the last minute - on Britain's entry into the Common Market). I was at one stage considered as a possible regular panellist for 'The Moral Maze' on Radio 4, but this was vetoed at quite a high level. ..."
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
Incidentally I was looking for the missing Moral Maze today and I've found out it is coming back next Wednesday.
My view is that Hitchens is only allowed to appear as a "Comedy Conservative" - especially being invited in when they know he will be out of sympathy with majority opinion on some social issue.
The BBC don't mind occasional appearances by Hitchens. What they are most concerned to ensure now is that populists never ever get on their screens if at all possible. Rob Burley (yes, he had you fooled that he was a nice guy, didn't he? - just remember he works for the BBC!) has made it clear he will not allow populist voices like those of Tommy Robinson any sort of airing on the BBC now.
HIGNFY: Ian Hislop got the first show of the season off to a predictably dreary start with the usual session of Boris-bashing. Boris's speech, which earned a standing ovation on Tuesday, he dismissed as 'terrible' - the reason? - because his jokey reference to praemunire ignored the inconvenient fact that the statute was repealed in 1967; well, Boris was only three at the time so perhaps he missed that one. Hislop's next ploy was to diminish the number present at the speech to 1,000 - Kuenssberg pulled that one earlier in the week: in fact the venue was filled to capacity at 1,400. Lastly, Boris was a philanderer - shock horror! I do wish the British media would grow up about this sort of thing - in France, politicians' standing is enhanced when they are found to have strayed eg Mitterrand. (Not that I am recommending philandering - my wife reads ITBBCB?) Hislop's hostility towards Boris seems to be driven by more than just dislike of his policies or personality - perhaps envy has something to do with it: Boris went to Eton, Hislop only to Ardingly, Boris is taller than he is, has more charisma, more hair and fewer chins; worst of all, he is successful with women.
Boris, the politician, also has more amusing jokes in his speeches than Hislop, the alleged satirist, does in his appearances, despite the help of a team of writers and presumably first dibs at the jokes.
Does Zurcher put "presumption of innocence" in quotes because he doesn't really think it's a thing? I have a horrible feeling the answer it yes..."You stand here accused of being a Republican Trump supporter. How do you plead? No need to answer that - I've put down guilty for you. Anything you say to the contrary will count as evidence of your guilt. Take him down!"
Just a minor point. Although the BBC World Service has been given the PC Makeover, it is still far more serious in its analysis of events and far more illuminating I think. Take this example - they are currently running a series of programmes on the 2008 crash, making the point that this was a recession for Europe and N.America not for the rest of the world. Too often on the domestic BBC their lazy journos refer to the 2008 as a global phenomenon. But it really wasn't. The rest of the world (China, India, Africa and so on) continued to grow their economies. There was a dip in world production for just one year.
Domestically the BBC just pumps out the received wisdom of the globalists, that this was a systems failure in the banking sector and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the globalist vision of free trade, free capital flows, free movement, and "fluid" manufacturing (locating manufacturing anywhere in the world that suits global companies).
It baffles me why the Prime Minister allows herself to be beaten up by the BBC as when the famously soft interviewer Marr put on his full Labour antagonist colours last week to savage her. It was a poor interview, being a mixture of grandstanding, virtue signalling, venom (a la Kuennsberg), Labour mouthpiece and 'get the Tory' frothing bias.
All is well, though: in another part of the forest, Number 10’s director of communications, Robbie Gibb, has strongly rejected claims of media bias.' The rest of the main channels had written a stern letter complaining that No 10 and the ex-BBCer Gibb have been giving the BBC the lion's share of interviews and access to the PM. Gibb felt 'hurt' and Grand Adam opined that the 'ex BBC suit' only cared about his former employer. Trumping him - this being our great British media someone had to bring an American President into this domestic spat - 'a source' declared “The BBC is to May what Fox is to Trump.”
Anthony Zurcher "The Berserker" has finally fallen silent...after 36 months of continuous tweeting to undermine Trump day and night, his ceaseless efforts have so compromised his health that he was unable to resist the ravages of the tertiary stage of Trump Derangement Syndrome. We shall not see his like again. Unless of course he recovers from Trump's victory in the Senate and starts a fresh tweet onslaught designed to weaken Republican chances in the mid-terms.
BBC's New York correspondent Nick Bryant was in - er - Washington, not New York, to report on the Trump Triumph. I'd say about 80% of the report consisted of shots of anti-Trump protestors. There was lots of "bias by placard" - so you could read the libellous statements and tendentious claims up close over and over. The rest was mostly Bryant looking his funereally most morose adn droning on in predictable fashion with not even a nod to presumed innocence...and without explaining what the eff he was doing in Washington when he's supposed to be the New York correspondent. It's almost as if they don't really need a New York correspondent...because he hardly ever reports from there.
Oh well the ragged band of brothers and sisters of the "Impartial Free and Fair" Kamikaze division of the BBC 5th Column, itself part of the Globalist Army Group (North America) will have to regroup and await fresh orders from Field Marshal Soros. Their local Commander Sopel seems to be losing his grip. The young guns like Kurcher urge a full frontal attack on the Republicans in the run up to the mid terms. Others argue that fresh assaults on the Russian front are required.
Lol at the raggle taggle army and its personnel. I caught a glimpse of Bryant yesterday while scrolling past, which is the first time I've seen him. He had a serious look about him.
Why won't the BBC Raggle Taggle Army admit that Trump is one of the great communicators of all time? It's quite brilliant the way he connects to his audience and then connects up constitutional issues, foreign and trade policy, criminal justice and all the rest for a general audience. For the obverse of Trump, see our PM. Luckily for her she is up a whispery beard and not a Trump type.
... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' ...
It's the image that should concern us. It looks entirely photoshopped to include plenty of EU flags, and the latest creation, an EU flag with the Labour red rose at the centre. If this image was a photograph of an actual demonstration, taken in Scotland when Sturgeon made her announcement - then I'm a Dutchman - if that's non-PC, then I apologise to all Dutchmen and women.
As if by magic, the first image described above has been substituted for an emotive dressed-up lapdog with EU flag image. In the archived version of the story, the photoshopped image is there further down the page with a credit Getty Images.
This led me to search "Do Getty photoshop images?'
You guessed correctly - of course they do. Perhaps here we have a photoshop image commissioned from Getty by the BBC so that they can remain one step removed in the responsibility ranking. Therefore, the BBC doesn't have to justify a blatantly biased, dateless, contextless image.
This is very interesting. When I search Google Images for ... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' ..... The aforementioned images comes up as 'BBC, Pro EU March' without the Getty Images credit, and without the SNP MPs connection.
The photo you refer to is not just photo-shopped, it's a really badly done uber-composite. Two elements that give it away are the EU flag in the centre of the picture which is outside the depth of field of the camera lens. The second is the large group of people dead centre which is a composite of many images. The final image has had quite a bit of work put into it, but if you look to the right of the fat faced guy with the 'exit brexit' sign, there's a group of three, one of whom is wearing a hat and one of whom is sucking or blowing on something (!). That's a really badly done composite. What a joke.
I've had a couple of beers, but I'm enjoying looking at this composite photo. Having worked in post production for 20 years, I can assure you it's a dubious and sloppy bit of work. I googled Jeff J Mitchell. He looks like this :
https://twitter.com/jeffjmitch
If you've got the ability to download and zoom in on the image to which you refer, zoom in on the 3 exit brexit signs above the fat bloke's head (the one who's head is twice as large as 3 of the people in front of him !). Between the second and third sign there's a face peeking out. Is Mr Mitchell having an artistic giggle, perhaps?
Well spotted Enough! I see he is a "Staff photographer for Getty Images" which I translate as "sends in photos to Getty Images for free and Getty Images being part of the PC Crowd are happy to accept them".
This is worth a complaint to the BBC. Fake News can take many forms. This image which at first glance is quite powerful, is entirely false - a figment of JJM/Getty Images' imagination passed off as the leading story on the BBC News website Home page. I'll keep you posted.
I've just done a bit more research and I think I may have this wrong. In the series of photos available on Getty, there's a similar shot taken either just before or after the dubious looking one :
I looked for similar elements between the 2 images, and at first sight, the guy with the fedora type hat seemed to be missing from the group of three to the right of the fat faced bloke. But he is there, behind the guy in the white tee-shirt with the swept back hair. So, although the central EU flag has been enhanced in the second image, and the first image has been colour and contrast treated, I think I was wrong about the composite element and that the impression of composite has been enhanced by the treatment.
Good research - Enough. The exact form of image manipulation is interesting but is of secondary importance. That the image has nothing to do with the headline accompanying it is the fake part ... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' ...
The photo was taken at a different time and at a different location during a protest about a different issue.
Peter Hitchens was on Radio5 Live to discuss drug laws and barged his way through what he said were attempts to stop him having as much time to make his case as others...but they got him in the end with a sort of jocular comment at him, which shows the attitude of a certain radio presenter - I have no idea who - to what is supposed to be a serious topic.
So "this" (a conservative controlled SCOTUS) was "at stake". And "repercussions" will be felt.
You almost get the feeling that the impartial, free and fair Zurcher doesn't like conservative majorities in the Supreme Court. :)
Meanwhile...the BBC has been using its vast cast of American presenters to good effect...tonight, after Nick Bryant's turn yesterday, an extremely rare outing for Barbara Plett-Usher who had the look of someone auditioning for Michael Jackson's Thriller Video or possibly One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yep, I know you shouldn't pass remarks about people's appearance but the BBC do it all the time when it suits them...so eff 'em. It was an odd item she delivered...she did the ya-ya about "deep divisions" or some such and then talked about women on both sides being angry...but the pictures as always only showed anti-Trump protestors...did she mean women in both the Democratic and Republican parties hate Trump and Kavanaugh? I don't know. It was an odd and ambiguous, unresolved assertion.
I've always respected Newt Gingrich. His "Contract with America" was an early example of modern populism. This video confirms me in my respect for him...
I think this is an interesting comment from Graham Norton from an article on the BBC website
"The salary thing, it's frustrating, because it's so inaccurate. It's so all over the shop.” "There are people I know who make millions from the BBC who are just not on that list. It's just like, really? "It's amazing that journalists just get that list, and they must know it's rubbish. And they publish it like it's gospel."
I think we probably know it’s an incomplete and inaccurate list. At least Norton is being honest and the BBC have allowed it to be published.
But it would be nice to know who is making millions from the BBC, under the radar so to speak.
Oh, you know who they are... Dame Jenni, not working for the BBC since the 80's, and the Dimblebys, also not working for the BBC since the year dot. Plus anyone else you've heard of but weren't on the "BBC" list.
Mr Peston, ex-BBC, letting us know why we shouldn't be subjected to a lot of BBC propaganda and bias in lieu of news and information: He got it wrong!
Well thanks a million. Give the man a medal. He's only a few years behind. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6250965/Robert-Peston-claims-BBC-patronising-got-wrong-immigration.html#newcomment
Yeah over the weekend I could only get holf of an analog radio so had to listen to BBC on an off of course mostly off but any time I returned it was an American woman on today on start the week on PM why has the BBC been taken over by American women, rather why have the BBC llowef themselves were taken over by American women ?
Disgusting display of anti-American racism by Evan Davis tonight on Newsnight. Interviewing Myron Ebell in the USA he treated him with complete contempt, aggressively dismissing his attempts to comment on the IPCC report - a tour de force of alarmism using his trademark tricks of interruption, ridicule and answering for him. What a lowlife Davis is.
Davis's central beef seemed to be that as he was not a scientist he could not comment on the scientists' claims. On that basis neither should Davis comment. When his other guests Simon Beard (a moral philosopher) and Baronness Worthington (degree in English Literature) claimed to understand the science, Davis did not interrupt them and tell them couldn't possibly comment on the scientists' claims because they didn't understand the science.
I think a lot of the IPCC claims are BS. Worthington spouted nonsense. She claimed cleaner air would reduce NHS costs. Reducing smog in the UK did not reduce NHS costs. People live longer and it is the disabilities and diseases of old age - diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, strokes and so on that cost the NHS so much.
Couple more things to mention. Worthington is according to Wikipedia the patron of an organisation promoting a molten salt nuclear reactor - this clear conflict of interest was not made clear by Davis.
Now I'm listening to the low IQ Stig Abell on Sky News claiming that CO2 emissions are "pollution".
CO2 is a natural constituent of our atmosphere. Lots of industrial processes put oxygen into our atmosphere - we don't call those "pollution".
Abell (and of course Davis's guests) assume that climate change will disrupt agriculture and cause food shortages. There is no evidence for that. A warmer climate means plants grow better (biomass has been growing).
If a rise of 1 degree causes huge rises in sea level, where are all the disappearing islands? There aren't any.
I'd like to see how temperatures are being measured. Cities have been growing and we know cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. Any weather stations located in cities will have been recording locally higher temperatures. Likewise with airports - nearly all airports have expanded hugely. They all have weather stations. More and more jet aircraft with hot exhaust use the airports.
Any sensible person is going to say that we should have a precautionary approach to climate - and it is not wise to pump out such quantities of CO2, given how little we understand climate.
But without any input from the IPCC, the problem is being solved. There is a massive shift under way to green energy because it's becoming cheaper. Once cheap storage allows us to use green energy 24/7 it will be game set and match and the era of carbon based fuels will be over.
Yes. If anybody doesn't already know it, do have a look at Anthony Watts' excellent blog: 'Watts Up With That'. See under 'The ever-receding climate goalposts' & scroll down to 'Bombshell: audit of global warming data finds it riddled with errors.'
I was surprised Ebell didn't refer to the debacle of the IPCC previously endorsing the mad claim that the Himalayan glaciers were all due to melt away by 2035. Davis was touting the IPCC as some omniscient and all wise body that was above and beyond criticism. But we know from just a few years ago that the IPCC had to retract this absurd claim.
The Watts Up site is a good source of info. I don't really agree with their flag waving for coal and oil though. Personally I think the move to green energy is both desirable and inevitable - and that it will happen a lot more quickly than most people realise because solar/wind plus storage will soon be the cheapest energy source anywhere on the planet, not just in niche areas as it is already.
'Climate Audit' is good too - if you're a scientist or mathematician, which I'm not.
Agreed re: alternative energy - once the petrol companies have faced the inevitable & invested in either battery exchange stations or hydrogen cylinder refilling or exchange stations, things can really take off. The petrol companies don't have a good record with new technology: in 1906, the Stanley Steam Car, which ran on paraffin, achieved a world record speed of 127mph - but paraffin was cheaper than petrol. I think I'm right in saying the petrol companies bought the Stanley patents...& buried them!
Kavanaugh fall out and more liberal propaganda from the BBC. Jocular in nature but there really only one reason why they ridicule and mock. It’s taking sides - not impartial.
Actually the same story but the first one is the older one. It clearly makes it sound like Trump was caught out in a lie and apologised for it. I presume someone (American embassy?) complained.
The reality is, he was apologising on behalf of "the nation". It wasn't a personal apology. If you wanted to sum it up in the same space "Trump delivers national apology to Kavanaugh" would have been appropriate.
Imam Asim Hafiz, Islamic religious adviser to the armed forces, said "any form of racism, discrimination or extremism is taken extremely seriously and will be dealt with accordingly".
Just read this too, is this implying that the British Army has an Imam charged with enforcing "liberal tolerance" in the ranks ? What ? It actually makes the other story I just read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-45800445 less shocking, which in itself is more shocking if you know what i mean. Where is this country heading ?
Where does the BBC go for a quote on this? A veterans association? A notable retired general? Er - no: the not at all far right Muslim Council of Britain representing Mosques funded by the not at all far right Saudi Arabia.
Re. Thread above about integrity of the BBC News website pics editor. There's plenty to be gained from a study of the TR image with the group behind him. It looks like a genuine unaltered happy snap of the type taken by thousands of people every day. That, to me is genuine news photography. It is free from corrective tampering, which might wilfully disguise the place, time and context in which the photo was taken.
Hmm...looks like the story has been disappeared from their UK/England page...was it getting too much interest? Odd they pulled it so soon. Although they are obsessed with Tommy Robinson, the "far right", defending followers of a certain religion etc. they are only interested in the sense they want him locked up and put away for a long time (and quite right too as Joshua and Nick would say). They have no wish to featuer him (cf Rob Burley bold admission) more generally - especially if it feeds interest from the long established working class population.
Why are they all of a sudden gone cold on gay rights?
Hmmm...a bit of a puzzle. Unless - these are clever people... They might have seen that what is sauce for the (Christian) goose would, in law at least, be sauce for the (Islamic - or indeed Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, all of which oppose gay unions) gander. Perhaps "an appalling vista", as our useless judges like to say, opened up of secular gays targetting Halal bakeries, South Asian wedding planners and so on... and then - unlike in the Asher case - there would be major riots, violence and bloodshed on our streets, particularly from one section.
I think that's probably the most likely explanation for this U turn on the PC road. Nothing to do with the principle of free speech per se.
Haven't read the judgment but I had confidence in the outcome partly because they hadn't refused service because of his sexuality and partly for another reason. A few years ago Lady Hale advocated allowing the expression of religion in the case of a Christian wearing a cross, even though it wasn't a religious requirement such as the Sikh turban. I took it as a chink of light, a sliver of hope for some balance and sense in the law. Up till then it was about special exemptions for special cases but no accommodation outside that. A few years on, she's the President of the Court and delivered the judgment, with which the others concurred. The Ashers Bakery family will be cock a hoop.
If it's so obvious why didn't the lower courts back the Asher Bakery? The BBC has probably made me cynical, but I don't believe our judges are as high minded as you seem to think. If they were they would see that membership of Amnesty International for instance was completely incompatible with deciding General Pinochet's fate or locking up a family man for 13 months within 5 hours of arrest was completely unacceptable or allowing violent bogus asylum seekers the right to wander our streets and prey on our citizens was indefensible.
I still haven't recovered from hearing one ex Lord Chief Justice declare the judges would strike down a law if they believed it was going to lead to serious social strife. Remember that!
The judges should be the citizen's friends but I am not convinced they are. I think they see themselves more as Plato's guardians ensuring the "right result".
BTW I note the BBC included in their article an implied crticism (the old "questions will be asked" trick, usually deployed against enemies on the right) of the Equalities Commission for wasting public money on this case. For once I think the Commission are being unfairly criticised. There have been literally hundreds of judgements that it's not a matter of whether an accused person means to discriminate against a protected group, it's a question of whether their actions effectively discriminate against the group. There was no reason to think this case would be any different.
The lower courts didn't back it I think because they felt the political message about same-sex marriage was inseparable from the man's sexuality. They probably also saw it from the perspective of discriminating against him on political and religious grounds, rather than the Ashers Bakery family being discriminated against on the ground of theirs - if they couldn't refuse to bake it.
Lady Hale's view in that case some years ago seemed to be that a pluralist society should be able to find some accommodation between anti-discrimination law and the expression of religion. That was a departure from the rigid thinking prevailing until then that you were protected if you were a specially designated group such as a Sikh but there was nothing for you if you were a Christian. There was a strong chance for this bakery case. Still didn't follow that the other judges would take the same approach but there was cause for optimism.
The Equality Commission for NI is in my view quite extreme and can indeed be criticised but it is a bit rich coming from the BBC about the spending of public money. And criticising it for that will also suit Paisley as a distraction from his own troubles over money and influence, and Arlene Foster's over money misused in a green energy scheme. Note the BBC Legal Correspondent's selection of examples of what ifs: 'The ruling now poses the question whether it would be lawful, for instance, for a bakery to refuse to make a bar mitzvah cake because the bakers' owners disagreed with ideas at the heart of the Jewish religion? What about a cake promoting "the glory of Brexit", "support fox hunting", or "support veganism"?' He got carried away a bit there with 'the glory of Brexit'. Honestly! Couldn't help himself I suppose.
Seems quite simple to me; it is illegal to refuse to trade on the basis of race, etc. but the trader is free to decide what that trade should be. A window cleaner can't refuse to wash the windows of a house belonging to someone of a different race but they can refuse to wash the windows of a skyscraper, regardless of who owns it.
Having listened to the BBC news bulletins all day and read the BBC website, I conclude that the BBC position is that they are against this ruling.
They have kicked up a massive fuss and promoted this story relentlessly way above its relative news value. They won’t directly challenge the law court ruling because they are fellow establishments but I’m pretty sure their far left liberal values means that they believe it to be unacceptable discrimination.
"Seems quite simple to me; it is illegal to refuse to trade on the basis of race, etc. but the trader is free to decide what that trade should be. A window cleaner can't refuse to wash the windows of a house belonging to someone of a different race but they can refuse to wash the windows of a skyscraper, regardless of who owns it."
It's definitely not that simple. If it was then a Fire Service could have a physical test that precluded nearly all women because the vast majority could not meet it. But they aren't allowed to use those traditional tests, even though they were previously deemed absolutely necessary to ensuring you had the right people for the job.
Likewise you will find most large employers feel obliged to provide prayer room lest a certain group claim they are being discouraged from working for that employer through lack of opportunity to meet their obligations. Why do you think the Army had that advert recently showing a "devout" person from a certain group at prayer in the middle of a conflict zone?
I am actually surprised by the SC ruling. I think it has nothing to do with free speech and everything with avoiding a clash with followers of Islam who would not take such a ruling against a Halal outfit lightly.
Mark Easton, a favourite of this blog made an argument against the cake maker tonight on BBC main news. Blatant opinion based political meddling rather than straightforward reporting by the BBC. But that's bog standard for Mark Easton. No doubt he will be getting pats on the back around the office tonight.
Kamal Ahmed interview: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/the1000/kamal-ahmeds-book-about-his-childhood-shines-a-light-on-racism-in-the-uk-a3957456.html
He's about to be the new Editorial Director of the BBC - setting strategic direction, he call it. Mind, I thought they had a director of strategy called Purnell. Oh by the way, he's friends with Purnell. What a surprise! He wants the BBC to be as known for explaining as much as imparting the news - to combat fake news - and he likes Reality Check. Say no more. Is this a newly created post? They've always been good at finding jobs or non-jobs for those they wish to favour. Does it mean they are upping the political and social agenda drive?
Other points: speaks ridiculous BBC jargon, the hallmark of corporate man. Racism racism. Racism is alive and well; Obama Obama; Would he take a pay cut for equality? Won't say. Marriages and divorces; Elizabeth left; trauma.
I referenced the article based on his autobiography which appeared in the Sunday Times just gone. Very weird. He's not a racist of course but wants everyone to become brown it seems - and he liked Obama because he was brown (never mentioned his policies!) !! lol Brown, brown, brown...seemed a bit of an obsession with him.
It's very worrying if he - ex Equalities Commission ex Guardian and pro BBC Reality Check - wants to explain the news rather than report it.
A populist government should put an end to this nonsense. The BBC as it is now definitely has to be levelled.
How can someone go around advocating for a skin colour while complaining that society is racist? Let alone giving him a job where he can spread such pernicious nonsense to children and young people. Note how the plans include packaging news for young people or 'the kids' as he called them. Has he married or romanced any 'brown' people? It's up to him of course, whom he romances, but he shouldn't be shouting about skin colour for other people.
Ahmed is clearly a favoured child of the BBC. But at least he is true to BBC values, relentlessly left liberal biased, always negative on any business or economic good news and totally anti-Brexit.
And as noted above - ex Equalities Commision, ex Guardian, pro positive discrimination and pro Brexit.
He has form on bedding numerous BBC newsreaders too.
No wonder the BBC love him. He really does tick all the boxes.
I've done it myself more than once. Not surprising when so many Remainers are posing as Leavers and the Leave option promoted by the Government looks like a Remain option.
You know how keen the BBC are to apply labels like right wing, Far Right, nationalist, xenophobic, Austria and so on to governments in Hungary, Italy, and Poland?
Well I just heard a report on PM on the political oppression in Nicaragua. I didn't once hear Daniel Ortega's government referred to as left wing, far left, socialist, extreme socialist, Sandinista or whatever. There were simply references to "the government", "the state", "the security apparatus", "the governing party" and so on...Even the protestors' political outlook wasn't referenced! Were they even more left wing, or right wing or something else?
Towards the end Daniel Ortega was referred to as "the cold war guerilla". Hmm...I think for most people who didn't know about Nicaragua's history, that might summon up more an image of a right wing type of person because of the phrase "cold war warrior" being used to describe McCarthyite types in the USA.
Odd eh?
Also, despite the BBC's penchant for referencing the previous misdemeanours of people they don't like, here there was no reference to the accusation against Ortega by his stepdaughter of a "Me Too" nature.
How odd eh? You don't think the BBC applies double standards possibly, do you? :)
I see Peston, ex-BBC, is on another channel tonight with a few more exes: David Davis ex-Brex sec, Sarah Wollaston ex-GP and leading drip, ex-television presenter and Labour MP Gloria de Piero - I haven't heard anything of her for a long time.
The BBC's new technology has gone astray. A bit like Mrs May's strong and stable, it was supposed to bring stability. Fiona Bruce and Mark Easton had to be carted in a taxi to some other building for the News at Six.
Not many people know this...no, don't yawn, but originally - back in Anglo Saxon times - there was carlman (male) and woman (female) and "man" did refer to both. Feel free to use that info-nugget as a tool for annoying uber-feminists.
Following a complaint to the BBC, I can report that an inch of ground has been conceded by their pics editorial staff:
... 'Thank you for contacting us regarding the BBC news online story headlined: "Brexit: SNP would back 'People's Vote' calls, says Sturgeon".
The website team have looked at your comments and can confirm, without doubt, that the picture featuring crowds of people calling for a second EU referendum has not been "photoshopped".
As you rightly identify, the image was taken by Getty photographer Jeff J Mitchell during the "March For The Many" gathering in Liverpool.
Images of this kind are taken by professional photographers and are frequently used to help illustrate our stories. They are not "fake".
The caption on the picture - which read: "Campaigners are calling for another vote on the EU to be held" - was a correct description of the scene.
However, following your feedback there is now a more fulsome caption reading: "Campaigners, such as these marching in Liverpool last month, are calling for another vote on the EU to be held".
To conclude, the website team are happy that the picture was not “fake”, was used correctly and do not intend to remove it from the story'....
So,.... 'Campaigners, such as these marching in Liverpool last month, are calling ....' is something of a concession to my point, but falls well short of an admission that using contextless lifted from Getty Images to convey a political point of view might be a form of bias..
Now I might need to change Loondon Calling to another name.
The teenagers don't know what fulsome means...I think they meant fuller.
There was something odd about the photo - as someone pointed out, the heads of the people towards the back appeared bigger than those closer to the camera.
Leads on to an interesting philosophical issue: if you can have a camera that substantially distorts an image (maybe a "make this crowd look bigger" function).
BTW the BBC response was pathetic: it didn't say how they had arrived at being "without doubt" that the image was not photoshopped.
Meant to say: "if you can have a camera that substantially distorts an image (maybe a "make this crowd look bigger" function), then at what point does a pic become "photoshopped"."
There is some production software that can 'pull together an image' - for instance it can reduce the amount of sky showing. Maybe the image wasn't photoshopped, but I remain convinced that it has been tampered with.
Re:'fulsome', Greg Dyke's dumbing-down project is clearly bearing fruit - I wonder which diversity-box Mr/Mrs/Ms 'Fulsome' allowed Beeb Central to tick.
Re the photo again, "photoshopping" as a word has clearly parted company with the "Photoshop" software product and has come to denote misleading alteration or distortion of an image (cf Corbyn's Commie Hat). If there is software within a camera that can substantially distort images before they are viewed (and I bet there is now - well I know there is because I've seen a relative use that "beauty" app that is applied as the photo is taken) then that raises questions for photo-journalism.
A "reverse fish eye lens" effect might well induce a sense of witnessing a very large demo - I'm no expert obviously but I can intuitively feel that might be the case.
It certainly is a puzzle. The only explanation I can offer is that of the photo taken at a good distance away with a long autofocus lens. The mystery continues though, because adjacent to St George's Hall in Liverpool where the photo was taken there are two statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on horseback by Sculptor Thomas Thornycroft. They are both on high plinths. The Queen's horse has a front leg raised, and Albert's is standing square. You can make these out in the photo.
These statues are some 60 or so metres apart, spaced formally to match the design - and yet the foreshortening of the crowd in the https://twitter.com/jeffjmitch Getty Image shows the 'crowd' drifting (drift as in a drift of swine) to cover the ground between the two statues. It would need many more people, that is a much larger crowd to fill this space.
There are some additional photos covering the topic on https://deskgram.net/explore/tags/Remainer
From the above I would estimate that about 100 protesters were involved. There are scenes of some arriving at Lyme Street station.
There were a significant number of onlookers. I counted the Getty Image and found some 30 or so flags, 20 or so banners and 30 or so faces. I suspect this was a well funded well equipped bussed in crowd assembled for the cameras.
How is it that the BBC can use a rent-a-crowd image with caption "Campaigners are calling for another vote on the EU to be held" and suppose that will be relevant to a statement by Nicola Sturgeon made on another day? It's totally out of context.
As a child I always though 'fulsome' was to do with Nell Gwynn's basket of oranges.
I think you are right - people now are media savvy, particularly properly organised protests equipped with flags and banners. So small groups can make a big impact. Add a good photographer with the right lenses and camera and bingo. Jeff Mitchell gets similar effects here First pic - the real crowd Second pic - sexed up crowd https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/45683/Workers+hold+march+and+work+in+to+save+jobs+at+offshore+wind+turbine+factory
The BBC really have got some front. They are one of the prime exponents of using freelance self employed people as a tax dodges. In fact they recommended the switch to many highly paid employees.
So how can they write an article without a nod or mention that they have been caught at it.
Here is favoured child Kamal Ahmed writing a defence without the decency to acknowledge the BBCs part in condoning tax avoidance. How can that be impartial. They are shameless.
They are increasingly shameless, it's true. I think it's partly knowing they have the PC Bunch at Ofcom looking over them ie not looking over them, that is accounting for their mounting brazeness of bias.
Sir Topham, "How can they write an article without a nod or a mention that they have been caught at it?" - easy: they despise the license-payer & consider his or her views to be of no account.
Introducing the Moral Maze, those teenagers again: 'Twelve years to save the world. While we're squabbling about Brexit, climate scientists are reminding us that the existential threat of our day is global warming. This week’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising temperatures. ...'
How easily they slip into the old lines and switch from facetious trivialising to putting on the voice of doom. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nhn
So why is the low IQ New York correspondent writing about BIG THINGS like world order, international law and human rights obligations? Er because he's Nick Bryant and he wants to bash Trump.
It's hardly worthwhile critiquing such articles as this but given its central thesis is that Trump's America First approach has encouraged international lawlessness, here's a few things to consider:
1. Saudi Arabia funded terrorists like Osama bin Laden within impunity under Clinton and GW Bush.
2. China kidnapped Hong Kong journalists while Obama was President.
3. Reagan illegally invaded Grenada on a pretext.
4. Clinton arranged for the detachment of a province (Kosovo) from a legal UN state (Serbia).
5. Under Obama, the US and EU encouraged Muslim Brotherhood rebellions in countries across North Africa and the Middle East leading to the deaths, mutilation and displacement of tens of millions of people.
6. George W Bush with Tony Blair and others launched a war against Iraq on what the BBC at the time inferred was a pretext.
7. Under Jimmy Carter the Iranian regime felt emboldened to kidnap and torture US diplomats.
8. Under Obama Russia felt at liberty to arrange for the polonium assassination of one of their ex spies on UK soil.
Bryant criticises the alleged politicisation of the Supreme Court. That is all laid at Trump's door. But it was Ruth Bader Ginsberg (now 85 but still claiming to be able to meet the arduous requirements of being a Supreme Court judge) who - note, this was during the Presidential campaign - called Trump "a faker" and cast serious doubts over his candidacy claiming that Hillary had been unfairly treated by the media!
Evan Davis gave the strong impression on the programme that the report was the product of sober scientists making objective assessments, rather than political activist scientists, lawyers, enviormentalists and so on. But he was clearly wrong to do so.
Gabriel Gatehouse on Tommy Robinson on Newsnight...
As we know it's difficult to follow GG's tack. Tonight it seemed to be a bit of "media culpa"...
To be fair, GG certainly reaches the parts that most MSM journos don't.
As something of a Dutchman (he told us previously he was educated in the Netherlands) GG once or twice referenced Wilders' Party and set up the idea of UKIP becoming a continental style anti-Islamic party...hmmm...
GG stated that TR's supporters "hate the media". Well that's not true. They like Rebel Media! :) They hate the mainstream media.
GG interviewed one of the "grooming" victims - Sammy Woodhouse. She was a "criticism from both sides" type of witness.
References to "Pakistani heritage"...not Islamic background. Insulting to Hindus, Christians and atheists from Pakistan I would say. And we have seen in other gangs people of Somali, Moroccan, Afghan, and Syrian heritage. Help us out here GG - what's the link?
GG uses the "Islamophobic" word. So clearly he thinks it is a "thing".
"Gerard Batten declined to be interviewed for this film. " Good says I. He should confine himself to live interviews.
Raheem Kassam briefly on. Fair play to GG again - most MSM journos would seek to hide the fact that some South Asians support Tommy Robinson.
Interview with Ivan Humble ex EDL. GG allows him to say forcefully that they were not racist. But then get to what is perhaps the central message - he and other EDL people were "radicalised" (radicalised? - to do what? protest? peacefully?) by watch mainstream UK TV progs on Anjem Choudhary and "Undercover Mosques" etc. Hmmm...
So what's GG's agenda here? If the MSM were even more censorious we wouldn't have problems with TR and co?
Interview with William Baldet. Never come across him before. He was billed on the programme as a Prevent Co-ordinator (isn't that a civil servant?? or a local governemnt officer? - since when did they get invited on to discuss controversial political topics?). But it seems he is also a "Senior Fellow" at the "Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right". Seems to be an American organisation partnered with far left organisations. Nowhere does it declare its funding...highly suspicious.
The after-party discussion had Danny Lockwood (licensed Yorkshireman) and (much more to Kirsty's taste) the arrogant Nasrine Malik. They both seemed to agree that they would like a media world where Tommy Robinson didn't exist.
So what to make of all that? I'd say GG is seriously conflicted. Maybe he's been reading the Koran and Hadith recently...I don't know.
That item out of the way it was business as usual with Newsnight waving the flag for Australia letting in illegal migrants never mind how many people get drowned en route to the promised land. Followed up by Guardian grievance merchant Afua Hirsch reviewing the columns (seem to be rather a lot of Guardian journos popping up in this segment now we are a few weeks in).
Liberals and socialists are great defenders of free speech unless it is speech they don’t like and is contrary to their views. TR is one high profile example but it is spreading through our entire society. The BBC and Guardian are the prime defenders of the faith egging on and agitating. It has gained traction through activists in our education system and our institutions and establishments. Due to apathy and the British reserve, the silent majority sit back and watch it spread like a virus. MSM were converted early on so that voice has already been denied to those who want to speak out against elite led social liberalism.
We are firmly in its grip - not much different to Turkey really.
Indeed. It's galling as well to hear Kirsty interview people who are posing as moderates. But these "moderates" (Guardian columnists and the like): strongly support Corbyn who in turn has strongly supported the IRA, Hamas and the Iranian government; strongly support hate mobs preventing politicians like Farage campaigning legitimately during general electionsl;and strongly support no borders mass migration into the UK by undocumented persons. These people are far more extreme and dangerous than Tommy Robinson.
Yes, Blair let the genie out of the bottle. Look at where we are 20 years on!
And where will we end up? Will it continue unabated or will there be a correction? I suspect the British public will reach a point at which they say ‘enough’.
Don’t count on the BBC to stand up for small c conservative Britain though.
That is the question isn't it?...most people seem to lead rather schizoid lives. They lead their real everyday lives, but that bears little relation to how they vote. They vote for parties that have allowed mass immigration, a huge housing crisis, low productivity and declining real incomes and will continue to do so. Even people who dislike mass immigration continue to vote for parties that support it.
People's real priorities are not much different from a generation or two ago: people want prosperity through good jobs, a good family life, a good future for their children, entertainment like sport or the arts, socialising with friends (who tend to reflect their own cultural background) and so on...in private they don't have much time if any at all for the BBC's priorities, its obsessions, such as transgender identity, equality of outcome, women's football and boxing, politically correct forms of speech, Trump bashing, global warming and racial identity. [I say that but of course I am referencing stable families, mostly with deep roots in this country. In truth a lot of people are living in very unstable families and now a lot of people look abroad for the source of their identity.]
Part of the problem now is that people see so much modish virtue signalling (pro mass immigration, pro Sharia, pro multiculturalism and pro equality of outcome) - on the TV (especially the BBC of course) , from the Royal Family, from business leaders, from religious leaders, from commentators (not just political but sports), from Conservative Party leaders as well as other party leaders. They read it as well in their newspapers and magazines. Even someone appointed a Sun editor - Stig Abell - is incredibly PC in outlook. So there is tremendous social pressure on us to conform to the PC ideology.
The British, at heart, have always tended to conform. We lost our revolutionary spirit some centuries ago. So now it seems people conform to PC ideology.
I hope eventually we will see people say "enough". But, although I am a natural optimist, I can't really say I see any signs of that. We had a chance when UKIP was on 13%...But the elite destroyed UKIP. We will have to see if it rebuilds. I have a lot of respect for Gerard Batten who is doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
We are either going to watch this nation's slow suicide (well maybe not so slow). Or we are going to witness some serious political and social conflict. Either way it won't be pretty.
It will be fascinating to see. Will young people not become angry at being denied decent housing for them to raise their young families? Will they really continued to accept the nonsense that the housing crisis has nothing to do with mass immigration?
Part of the problem is that once you have mass immigration in the millions and so many different cultural backgrounds in play, you are almost obliged to have something like PC multiculturalism as your ideology. And it's as though our political elite have almost begun to believe the lies they keep telling us about all cultures and religions being of equal merit and of all types of immigration being of huge benefit to the UK. etc etc.
Hadn't seen this until just now. Rather underlines what I was saying. The BBC are determined to destroy UKIP. Can you imagine Jo Coburn interviewing a Sinn Fein representative so vehemently over support for violence, when they were invited on to discuss Brexit?
The BBC has added to its raggle taggle crew a new post of Gender and Identity correspondent. I can't remember where I read this and I have no link to the source. It's a world first, folks! Of course, 'gender' isn't what it used to be and the BBC must jump on board with all the current'gender' activists. Did anyone see the person described as a rights activist on Politics Live last week? Peter Tatchell. He was allowed to get away with a speech about poor put-upon trans; bigotry; no trans would ever attack women; and a contemptuous dismissal of concerns about women's safety. You should have seen Rachel Johnson's tight face as they all sat politely silent while he was delivering this false and disingenuous lying rant. Misogynist homosexual rights activist? Now there's a surprise. I think we caught a glimpse of the real ruthless fanatical person there and not the one he usually tries to portray of sweet reasoned concern for right and rights. An insight into a very unsavoury person.
If anyone has access to iPlayer, you may be interested to see the last item on yesterday's Politics Live with Lord Falconer and others. I can barely form words to convey my reaction of disbelief at the sort of stuff he, in particular, was coming out with. Is he for real? I don't know what we can do about our politicians or the BBC, quite honestly.
Have you seen today's Politics Live and the desperate attempts at moral outrage by Jo Coburn over Gerald Batten of UKIP about Tommy Robinson? He's a convicted criminal, in case you didn't know; he hasn't been elected to anything. I'm sure someone could compile a list of 'convicted criminals' on the BBC where it isn't mentioned every time they are. Or who are regularly on the BBC and don't represent anyone or aren't elected to anything. I could fill a book with that one. Or who is, morally and impartially speaking, highly dubious when displaying prejudice against groups or religions, like the BBC presenter of a politics programme who asked a prejudiced question of a prominent backbench politician about his religion? Clue: Not Andrew Neil and not about Islam. And which one is quite happy to brand people as 'white' but not Muslim? And who doesn't show a similar scramble for the outrage podium over the extreme prejudicial rantings of the trans fanatic, as over Robinson? And by the way, why is Tatchell on the BBC and to be listened to as he doesn't represent and hasn't been elected to anything?
You can always tell the worth of a man by the breadth of his cufflinks...according to Lord Hall.
ReplyDeleteWhat a guy:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBMH74OHtY
Trump!!! :)
Roy Walker! Surely?
ReplyDeleteJudge Kavannaugh - 6pm News: We were shown lengthy footage of the evidence of Dr Ford, who accuses Judge Kavannaugh of sexual assault. Sopie Raworth described this evidence as 'powerful' - if she meant, as I fear she did, 'convincing testimony', her interpretation of it is totally different from mine - I found myself thinking 'crackpot'.
ReplyDeleteOops: Sophie!
DeleteWhy is this story leading across the BBC output today?
DeleteI’ve never heard of Brett Kavanuagh or his accuser or of the post he is being nominated for.
I’m not aware of the minutiae of US politics nor am I that interested.
On the website it is lead story, with three more sub stories directly below it.
Once again I think the BBC has got its priorities wrong and should be directing efforts and main news to the issues facing the UK.
They do it because of their strong liberal bias and their sheer hatred of Trump, his policies and his appointments.
This is politically motivated meddling and not a story of great importance to the UK.
It's a good question...the BBC is probably the most Americocentric broadcaster in the world - bar none - and that includes American broadcasters.
DeleteDespite their pretence of being orientated to Europe and Asia, they hardly ever report on the doings of Brussels or Beijing except when there's a periodic crisis. But every twist and turn of American politics is followed with great attention to detail.
And why is Gary Donoghue there? Apparently he's the North American political correspondent...they got Sopel, Katty Kay, Nick Bryant, and Anthony Zurcher plus a host of others...
Why the obsession? I suspect being on BBC expenses in the USA is a bit like being sent on holiday with a suitcase full of tenners. They love being out there. It's basically safe, they speak English and, as in the UK, the media and academia are dominated by liberals...but the Republicans are strong, there's gun ownership, needless poverty, racial tension and lots of religion...so plenty to whinge about while you enjoy the good life.
The BBC sees the UK as a microcosm of the USA; so, if right-wing policies work in the USA, the 'misguided' people of the UK might be tempted to vote for those evil 'extreme' right-wingers in the Tory party. It follows, therefore, that the BBC must pour scorn upon Trump and all his works.
ReplyDeleteI'm horribly afraid that somebody has been hoarding some weapons grade dirt to throw at Boris Johnson, just in time to wreck his chances of leading the UK out of the mess that May & Barnier have wrought! If that happens the BBC will gleefully turn its attention back to home affairs.
It doesn't matter if they've got anything on Boris or not. They just need to make something up and keep pushing the lies as in the Kavanaugh hearing in the USA. Mud sticks and Kavanaugh has been blamed for the rest of his career despite being probably innocent and legally innocent. Boris cannot prepare for an attack as he won't know what lies they will concoct.
DeleteI've just sat through, by courtesy of BBC News Channel, the entire Brett Kavannaugh defence submission which was nearly an hour long. I found myself in sympathy with a man who has to face the ordeal of a surreal Kafkaesque 'trial' in which the basic tenet of justice - of innocent until proved guilty - has been abandoned.
ReplyDeleteWhen Sopel introduced the item he elicited sympathy for Kavanaugh's accuser by stating she had received hate and death threats. He did not make reference to Kavanaugh and his family receiving such vile mail - but the Chairman of the Committee did...so why did Sopel leave that out? Did he wish to elicit sympathy on that basis for one party, but not for the other?
DeleteBrett Kavannaugh - Trump nominated, male, pale, stale, straight, Christian and Republican - What's there for Sopel and the BBC not to deride in line with their PC ideology?
DeleteWhat's the opposite of "ticking boxes"? "Not a box left unticked"?
DeleteThe double negative disease seems to be spreading...think I really meant "Every box left unticked".
Delete... male, pale, stale, Christian ... Best book the helicopter BBC
DeleteIt’s ironic that the BBC have such a downer on male, pale and stale.
DeleteDavid Dimbleby
David Attenborough
John Humphreys
Hugh Pym
Mark Easton
Evan Davis
Will Gompertz
Frank Gardner
James Landale
Gavin Hewitt
Huw Edwards
John Simpson
Jon Sopel
Gary O’Donoghue
Jeremy Bowen
Nick Bryant
And so on....
Sir TH, you forgot M'Lud Hall at the top of the page.
DeleteOh dear - how could I miss him! Best Gammon.
DeleteThe EU take the prize for pale, male and stale.
DeleteYes, spot on MB
DeleteI don't think the QT Bishop Auckland audience have not read the memo as they seem to anywhere near anti-Brexit as dimbleby would wish.
ReplyDeleteIt must be too far oop north for the London momentum crowd...
Unintentional double-negative in there....
ReplyDeleteWatching BBC 1 Question Time I had a hard time understanding MP Ian Lavery (subtitles please) who now favours a re-vote on Brexit, even though he once said that there should never be a second referendum.
ReplyDeleteNever been a huge fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Like Boris he comes from another era and I can never resist watching Ian Hislop dig away at him on Have I Got News For You, But I fully support his campaign to exit this awful E.U institution lead by a rag bag of corrupt nobodies.
Odd isn't it that if David Cameron had pushed for an E.U exit that he might have still been in power.
And did anyone know that he had actually planned to drop Teresa May from his then Cabinet as she refused to fully participate in the whole leave or stay campaign.
Well done to Rod Liddle for his dig at Jeremy Corbyn's politically dodgy past, something the Corbyn army seem to overlook.
John....N.London.
Re the Kavanaugh hearings...the BBC aren't telling you, but I am getting the feeling from more objective sources that it all went terribly wrong for the Democrats. Who knows what, if anything, really happened...when, where or with whom...but as an exercise in political terrorism, it seems to have misfired and might kill the would-be assassins.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing...Zurcher isn't putting up any triumphalist tweets.
DeleteLast night's BBC News website' headline 'Emotional Kavanaugh swears innocence' is a loaded form of words intended to mislead so that we should presume that he is guilty, and he is there under oath to 'prove' his innocence.
DeleteA more accurate headline might have been: Kavanaugh publicly humiliated over accusations of sexual misconduct 36 years ago when he was a 17 year old High School student'.
With Sopel and his ilk it’s all in the intonation and emphasis when speaking and not always the actual words. If you listen to the report you can be in no doubt who is in the dock and who is the injured party.
DeleteYes, indeed. Expression, tone, hand gestures, verbal emphasis...it all helps the bias. If they had to read out "Donald Trump did not kick beggar today."...they would inject a tone of surprise, while looking simultaneously wearing an expression of sadness (given that all good lefty folk would wish he had since that would mean he could be got rid of all the more quickly)...there would be unneeded emphasis on the word "kick", to suggest that while one might grudgingly accept he hadn't actually kicked a beggar he may yet have done something far worse to a beggar which he has so far sneakily managed to keep hidden.
DeleteSky but relevant in that the BBC pursues a policy of "silence is golden" with Batten and Robinson and any others who are effective at getting their message across.
ReplyDeleteGo to say - Gerard Batten has some balls stating clearly what is allowed under Sharia law:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oMliI6rkFI
04:40.
What other politician in the UK is telling the truth in this way? Anne-Marie Waters, but she has no real platform.
Gillian Joseph appears a very pleasant presenter but her ignorance of Islam is quite breathtaking.
When reading about Boris’s Canada + plan on the BBC website today, I unexpectedly came across Chris Morris and his hastily assembled Reality Check on the subject. It was embedded within that article. I try to avoid him and his checks but he was well and truly hiding this time.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it was typical rubbish and as usual, not a reality check at all. It was a thinly disguised attack on the plan with the opinion of the leader of a ‘trade organisation’ masquerading as fact.
"As a result, it would put thousands of manufacturing jobs and hundreds of billions of pounds of exports at risk and, at worst, could destroy much of Britain's manufacturing base," said its chief executive Stephen Phipson.
"Having been to Canada I know a customs model built around this is naïve and unrealistic as a short term solution."
So how is this fact and reality? It is a pretty big claim to say it will destroy much of Britain’s manufacturing base. Chris Morris leaves this assertion unchallenged and takes it at face value . It is the only piece of evidence he uses, no corroboration, no other quotes or additional evidence to back up the claim.
Reality check, my arse. It is a complete joke and an embarrassment to properly researched, fact based journalism.
Chris Morris and the BBC should hang their heads in shame.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45673214
The BBC's Reality Check has been an embarrassment from the start. At the beginning they did have a sort of format...there would be a specific question about some claim about the past or present, and they would attempt to answer it by reference to credible facts (albeit facts they liked). They soon found that way too restrictive...before long they were tackling claims about things that might or might not happen in the future - claims that by definition don't relate to reality. They also found the question format too rigid for their purpose (which was and is to give pseudo-objective backing to subjective political positions that they like). They started drifting off the question or even ignoring it altogether. Eventually they gave up on the pretence of fact-based checking and simply started creating opinion pieces, like anything else you might read in the Guardian, except this is on the BBC. It's a disgrace and probably a very costly disgrace. This being the BBC there are probably 20 people on the team, all eligible for a BBC pension...there will be endless conferences and quaffing of coffee, much reading of newspapers and lefty websites...lots of e mailing to pals at BBC Trending...diversity and equality training...target setting for staff against lengthy checklists...monitoring of target achievement etc etc.
DeleteThat isn't a reality check as reality would know it but it is all of a piece with Nick Robinson telling us he had to pass on warnings, forecasts, worries and concerns of Mark Carney and Christine Lagarde, before proceeding to conflate himself with those august personages and tell us that he has a duty to warn us and hey presto! their utterances have mysteriously become the BBC's warning. So it is here. Warning is transmuted into reality.
DeleteNews Quiz...there's just been the annual conference of one our two great political parties...so plenty of opportunity to wield the satirical knife - well, you'd think so. But in reality what do we get? Mark Steele saying it's amazing how Jeremy Corbyn just keeps going despite all the negative
ReplyDeletepublicity about anti-semitism and other made up stuff, and is able to come out with wonderful policies that even wow the man from Goldman Sachs...
Satire? Yes, but the satire is at the BBC's expense.
Stray thoughts:
ReplyDeleteWhy is the BBC cheerleading for the USA in the Ryder Cup while our UK players are part of the opposing Europe side? What possible reason for the odd behaviour could there be? (Not hard to guess.) And while we are about, why couldn't they admit Tiger Woods actually LOST today? The reporter I heard had to come up with some marvellous circumlocution to avoid the deadly L word.
"I'm a Muslim Woman, Visually Impaired and a Boxer."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-45550555
Only the BBC could find this interesting! BTW - why does the BBC promote boxing so extensively? Normally they put health and safety to the fore...it's a terribly damaging sport. If you weren't visually impaired before you started, you will be by the time your career is over. A perennial of local news is always that boxing clubs stop young people getting involved in crime...no evidence given for the claim...and dangerous steroid use neatly sidestepped.
Do people at the BBC ever feel ashamed about the Project Fear nonsense they put out? Obviously most sensible people ignore the rubbish but some vulnerable individuals will be unnecessarily alarmed and made miserable.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/newsbeat-45652695/love-and-brexit-i-ll-move-to-germany-but-it-would-be-brexit-s-fault
The BBC make deliberately considered choices on people and causes to support. My theory is that it is usually to do with their left liberal bias and socialist agenda.
DeleteThey support Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and Lewis Hamilton as black role models who are world beaters and GOATS. This PC outlook trumps the sports and countries they represent including the UK.
Boxing fits in the same category. They can overlook the danger because they are underprivileged or bad boys made good, Usually black and from a poor or working class background. Nicola Adams is another example.
It may be a positive discrimination thing because the BBC don’t want to be pale, male and stale with their sports coverage and feel the need to promote more minority role models.
I hadn't followed the golf so I didn't know they were doing that but I know why! Easy peasy.
DeleteAs for the Muslim boxer, well, it does illustrate the problem with the BBC: when you set up special cases as your priorities, it means that you are deeply unbalanced and you miss the point. You are blind to the issue with boxing so long as it can facilitate box ticking. Did anyone see that programme on Sunday morning? Sunday Morning Live or something like that. I don't think I can face to describe it at the moment.
Talking of the Golf and The Ryder Cup. Why aren't the BBC showing us any live coverage. And the same happened with this year's Open Championship. Once again no Live coverage. I mean what's the point of only giving us evening tv highlights when the days play is all done and dusted. And if they ever lose coverage of The Masters from Augusta then that'll surely be another nail in the coffin of BBC Sport.
DeleteI reckon is cost of the money they're paying out for what little Football they have and of course Gary Lineker's obscene wages.
Mention of the annual conference reminds me I tuned into 'Politics Live' today to find a discussion going on and - first time I've noticed anything like this on the programme - a large banner across the bottom of the screen stating Conservative Conference. I was confused: has the conference started already? Were they broadcasting from it? Politics Live?
ReplyDeleteAs the programme went on I waited for them to put up the name of the speakers in turn as they spoke but no, it didn't happen. Throughout, I didn't know who three out of the four panel members were. The only one I recognised was Rachel Johnson.
As the topics changed so did the large intrusive banner. A discussion of young people's views about politics had longwinded wording in the form of a question. It came across as very nannyish as well as intrusive and unnecessary. A short sharp couple of words would more than suffice to get the idea across. I do hope they will drop these awful overlarge banners and give us actual useful information. Either the presenter make a point of naming the panel member as she goes round them or else put up the name on screen and not in HUGE letters.
BBC Sport, like BBC News, is the ultimate oxymoron.
ReplyDeleteI love footie and watched MotD since I was 6 or 7 years old. Not now. And won't do again until they replace the grotesquely overpaid Lineker with someone less hypocritical, smarmy and left wing.
BBC Sports Correspondent today: "Brexit is looming..." Yes, and there's a "growing clamour" for a second referendum in case we "crash out" and car production "comes to a stop" throughout the UK.
ReplyDeleteMore claptrap and 'junk as art' from BBC Arts editor Will Gompertz. But what caught my eye was this sentence he wrote about Boris Johnson;
ReplyDelete"Their serious social commentary had been turned into exactly the sort of jingoistic metaphor they had intended to undermine."
No, it wasn't jingoistic, he was just rooting for our country and our athletes as any patriotic Briton would.
Straighforeward reporting or overt political point scoring by printing and promoting someone else's political view? I'd give him the benefit of the doubt if he covered both sides but he never does.
My verdict - I think Will Gompertz is wearing his politics on his sleeve again. Not for the first time, he regularly sneaks in sly digs in his articles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45684230
How pompous and badly written that article is. I can't believe that person is actually an arts editor on the BBC. Is he American? We have 'the guys', 'an ice box', 'real estate prices', 'backstory' and 'like' for 'as'...all American, not English. And for good measure, 'en-mass' for en masse. You must be joking, BBC!
DeleteSadly, your arts man is not. The worst thing about that quote about Johnson is how po-faced it is. You have to read the whole paragraph to understand how bad it is: he knows that Johnson said it mischievously - typical Johnson style humorous quip with a point - yet goes all pompous over it, while calling the 'guys'' work gently mocking, but reverts to going on pomposity about its 'serious purpose'. Actually, it seems to me the whole passage labouring over origin, meaning and significance of it in the context of art history is seriously overselling what looks and sounds like something literal, pedestrian and underwhelming. Who am I, though, compared with the erudition of the Gompertz BBC?
Edit: going on pompously...
DeleteA Reality Check for young people about Brexit called ‘The truth about young people and Brexit’.
ReplyDeleteIt’s 4000 words so quite long, but I’ve cut and pasted the summary of each section below. Hilarious, but for a change probably the most accurate and honest summaries about Brexit by the BBC.
So where are we? We don't really know...
So where are we? For now there's an agreement in principle, but beyond the transition period we just can’t say...
So where are we? The truth is nobody knows exactly what will happen....
So where are we? Depends what sort of deal we get TBH.
So where are we? We will have to wait and see...
So where are we? You guessed it... we'll have to wait and see. Patience is a virtue.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b8d097b0-3ad4-4dd9-aa25-af6374292de0
Here's a "Counter Reality Check" for our young folk:
Delete"As long as you allow mass immigration to continue unabated, with the consequence that our population grows by half a million a year, you will never ever reach your goal of having a decent family home where you can raise some kids with your partner. Don't expect the BBC to do anything to protect you just because you are young. Remember, they did nothing to protect young vulnerable people from Jimmy Savile and have never ever admitted their guilt in that regard."
There you go, young guys and gals! Your Reality Check has been fixed.
Great video from Tommy Robinson about how the MSM - in this case Sky but could equally be the BBC - use editing to complete distort reality:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byMHT72YAcg
I've added the video to the Tommy Robinson. It's a must-watch.
DeleteJohn Simpson takes revenge on his old boss James Harding for trying to get rid of him.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6223119/BBCs-John-Simpson-gets-revenge-old-boss-tried-force-age.html
Major scoop for Marr this morning, he had secured an interview with "Britain's most famous, well loved actor and national treasure" Sir Mark Ryland, or Rylance or something. Has he been in anything ? In other news he seems to be a Corbyn supporting leftie.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing on the BBC yet about Jeremy Hunt's conference speech yet. Let's wait and see if anything appears.
ReplyDeleteHe has likened the EU to the USSR. See Guido:
https://order-order.com/2018/09/30/hunt-compares-eu-ussr/#disqus_thread
One too many yets. Nothing has appeared yet though on the BBC News website. It's incredible. Jeremy Hunt is the Foreign Secretary. Had Boris held the post, there would have been wall-to-wall coverage of the speech looking for ammunition to fire at him. Bias by omission. Perhaps the news gathering operation has imploded.
DeleteWhat an incredible example of bias! They have no problem reporting Heidi Allen propagandising on behalf of the Soros Referendum. They have no problem reporting on Digby Jones's attack on Boris Johnson. They have no problem reporting on Ruth Davidson's Brexit views.
DeleteBut the Foreign Secretary comparing the EU to the USSR?
Nope.
They did mention it in the 10pm news bulletin - but censored the comparison of the EU with the USSR. Makes it all the order that it isn't mentioned on the website.
Deleteorder = odder!
DeleteNotable too that the Telegraph is leading with the EU=USSR comparison...So, once again the BBC's judgement of what is newsworthy is shown to be decidely wonky.
DeleteThe exact text of Jeremy Hunt's speech is around and available. This extract is from Not a Sheep:
Delete"At the moment you, European friends, seem to think the way to keep the club together is to punish a member who leaves, not just with economic disruption, but even by breaking up the United Kingdom with a border down the Irish Sea…
"The EU was set up to protect freedom – it was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving. The lesson from history is clear – if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out of it won't diminish, it will grow, and we won't be the only prisoner that wants to escape…"
The BBC's campaign to demoralise a nation in the wake of Brexit continues apace. Latest is their bogus self-selecting survey (described for some reason as "an experiment" on radio).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45561334
Loneliness - involuntary social isolation - is of course something many people do experience in their lives, some sadly all their lives. But rather than approach this as a problem that has many solutions, the BBC's approach (as with its previous mood-hoovering items on anxiety, nuclear war, failing democracy, divisiveness, expert knowledge and so on) is relentlessly negative, designed to depress.
In my view it is all about creating a negative mood music in the nation as we seek to Brexit. I realise that might sound a bit conspiratorial, but I think if I had the time I could objectively show this to be the case by comparing the two years of BBC "social reporting" prior to Brexit with the two years since.
It doesn't really require people to sit in a smoke filled room to conspire...it is really a kind of group-cultural response from the media elite, following articles in their in house journal, the Guardian. The media elite (Lord Hall said as much) view Brexit as one of the worst disasters to ever befall their "project" and they link it with a need to fight populism in all its forms.
The BBC's current depressive solemnity follows from an unstated desire to pop the Brexit balloon and ensure (in sympathy with the EU elite who have much the same agenda) that there is no sense of celebration in us leaving the EU. Of course there is also the unstated hope they can actually turn things round and stop Brexit, but even if not, they want to ensure the mood of the nation will be anxious, nervous, full of foreboding.
Huw Edwards would be unrivalled in any contest to find the purveyor of the most downbeat miserable news delivery style. Whenever he reads the Ten o' Clock news, at the start of the bulletin the camera zooms in. He is always looking down at the desk. He looks up with a grim humourless expression before reading the headlines. By and large, nothing much has happened that might warrant such a funereal approach to the news.
DeleteWe knew it but confirmed here...you can't tell the truth even when all the facts back you up:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45709205
Science was not only essentially a male invention but also essentially a European cultural product - with very little input from Asia,Africa or indigenous people in the Americas.
Progressive policies have had virtually no impact on the gender divide in science, technology and maths:
http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
Even in liberal Sweden where vigorous efforts have been made over the past 70 years to bring in gender equality, only 20% of University Professors in the STEM subjects are female.
https://www.stemwomen.net/is-the-gender-gap-solved-in-liberal-sweden/
The irony is that if a female professor were to stand at a lectern and claim that women invented civilisation, or maths or some such no one would bat an eyelid and her post and positions would all be safe.
Yes, the indignation of the nonentity reading the 1 o'clock news was astonishing. RIP the truth!
DeleteMore fake BBC news: Guido ran a story this morning on 'naughty Boris' apparently running through a wheat field - as Guido's readers were quick to point out, 1. the wheat crop was harvested about a month ago, 2. the 'wheat' was scrub/set-aside and 3. Boris was clearly jogging along a footpath - this did not stop Norman Smith repeating the nonsense on the 1 o'clock news. So, Norman, next time you pinch a story from Guido, read the comments first!
ReplyDeleteUpdate: On the 6pm news the 'wheat field' has become 'the countryside'.
DeleteStill, it did what Boris presumably wanted & served as a trailer for what he has to say tomorrow - just a pity thay, if we miss it live, we can't rely upon the BBC to show any decent soundbites. Hope Guido will have it.
DeleteIt's taken over 24 hours for the BBC News website to finally report on Jeremy Hunt's conference speech likening the EU to the UUSR. Of course, now it's all about the EU.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45712670
... 'Brexit: EU diplomats say Hunt's Soviet comparison 'insulting'. ...
There are two questions:
1. Why wasn't it reported on the same day?
2. Why was it relegated to the Politics pages and not on the Home page?
The answers are easy. It doesn't fit the narrative.
Two very good questions, LC. The answer to the first is probably that they didn't like it and it didn't serve their Stop Boris campaign directly. Answer to second is that they often hide things on the politics page, when they have a motive so to do. I'd add a third question - why when they reported on it in the TV news did they avoid mention of the comparison of the EU with the Soviet Union? I think they definitely wanted to prevent that comparison becoming part of public discourse. But now that the EU is going to paint it as xenophobic hate speech, they probably feel it's safe to broach the subject.
DeleteOn University Challenge this evening was a question about which English women's cricketer has achieved so many wickets and so many runs during her career. The question was met with blank stares from the faces of our leading Oxbridge brains.
ReplyDeleteYour starter for ten: who deserves to be tarred and feathered and paraded through the streets tied to a donkey first...is it Donald Trump or Boris Johnson? I'll accept either answer...
DeleteOften 99% of an audience will be totally oblivious to BBC lies and distortion. Tonight Jon Sopel asserted that the prosecutor hired by Republican Senators to interview Christine Blasey-Ford had advised them that the case would never be prosecuted because it was a "he said, she said" situation. That made the prosecutor sound dismissive of the case.
ReplyDeleteBut Sopel misrepresented her advice - this is what she actually wrote:
"In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,”
You see how Sopel deliberately (I believe deliberately, because he's not stupid and must surely have read the prosecutor's advice) placed the emphasis in the wrong place. The fact is the prosecutor thought Blasey Ford was a weak witness who could not remember basic details about her travel to and from the alleged crime scene, or indeed details about the house's location. There were various other instances where her memory seemed faulty.
But pressing his hand on the scales, Sopel is able to serve the customer, the viewer, short giving the misleading impression that the prosecutor's advice was based purely on the "he said, she said" nature of the case.
The reality is BBC journalists do this all the time. Omitting vital details, so allowing them to place the emphasis where they want to.
I was researching BBC reporting on the NAFTA deal...you know the one that Trump sceptics said never could be done...but has...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45674261
The above report on the BBC website seems to me reasonably fair and balanced compared with the utterances we get from more senior parts of the BBC News outfit in North America. But, one thing that did strike me - there were two names attached to this story that I don't recall coming across before, based in the USA. One is termed an "Online Business Reporter". Does the BBC really need such a person based in the USA to be an "online business reporter" when it has plenty of general business reporters, and how much journalistic output does she achieve?
I was less impressed by the following article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45712062
This seemed an exercise in bog standard Trump scepticism beginning with the title: "Can Trump really cut the US trade deficit?" - does it really need that "really"? Or are you setting a mood of scepticism?
Then there's a bit of economic theory for the plebs (but always bear in mind for any one view expressed by an economist, you can find always find a contradictory view expressed by another economist).
The article concludes: "The economic relationships - the questions of what causes what - are complex. So it is not necessarily the case that what he is doing is counterproductive by his own objectives. But it might turn out to be. " Talking about hedging your bets!
What I find odd about an article like this is that is makes no mention of the USA's current impressive growth rate of 4.2% or the elevated stock market levels. That surely has to be weighed in the balance, since the writer acknowledges Trump aims to raise tax revenue through economic growth. Another way of puttting that is the Trumponomics seem to be working at the moment.
One thing I am picking up a bit from some of these business types is that economic reality is forcing them to give Trump some grudging respect. The post election narrative we got used to was that the Trump administration was chaotic and ineffective. But to me it seems very focussed and, so far, pretty effective in achieving its objectives, whatever you might think about those objectives. The business journalists are finding it difficult to deny this.
Meanwhile the top honchos at BBC North America - Sopel, Bryant and Zurcher - still seem to be pushing the "chaotic incompetence" narrative with every bit of breath in their journalistic bodies. They don't seem to have adapted at all.
Well that's the end of Russell Brand's career then...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTAezuwAFFw
"You can't have nations without nationalism."
That quote will have them seething at the Guardian and the BBC, but just as bad or even worse was his suggestion that you should actively respect the will of the people expressed through democratic votes e.g. the election of a substantial number of Sweden Democrats.
I imagine the Guardian and the BBC probably did think once think Russell Brand was one of their own, despite the high jinks with Jonathan Ross.
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with BBC bias, but I am in the middle of reading Yuval Harari's “Sapiens”. He covers the whole issue of Nationalism with such succinctness - really exposes the shallowness of “no borders”, so beloved of Guardian type SJW's..
Harari is v. good. I've read that and Homo Deus as well. As you suggest, he's a deep thinker whereas BBC and Guardian SJWs are just like children in the shallow way they think and argue.
DeleteWell I haven't seen this on the BBC. Apparently two men have contacted the Judiciary Committee claiming to have been the one to have had the "encounter" with Christine Blasey Ford, not Kavanaugh. Presumably they feel confident in doing so because of the statute of limitations in the USA. See at 3:25 -
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv37_DN7zk
“The view of some of Mr Johnson's former colleagues is that he is a charlatan, who never showed that he could do the work needed, to show the responsibility required, to make decisions that would affect the lives the public.”
ReplyDeleteWrites Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC website.
It’s the classic BBC way to do a hatchet job, journalists can’t say these things outright so they simply disguise the words as someone else’s.
‘Some people say’ and ‘colleagues have reported’ is such a lazy but easy ploy to separate yourself from the message.
Now I’m not a Johnson fan but he really does bring out the worst in BBC reporting. They try so hard to damage him at every opportunity.
The upside is that BBC Boris baiting betrays their impartiality and demonstrates BBC agitprop in all its glory.
Absolutely. Johnson has been Target No. 1 since 24th June 2016. He is an effective leader, effective Brexiter, an effective democrat, an effective Conservative, an effective campaigner; has can reach across class, party and race divides (as he showed by winning Labour London twice over and leading the capital and its millions of residents for 8 years).
DeleteThe view of many of Mr Hammond's colleagues is that he is a charlatan, who is not batting for Britain but actually talking down the economy. Has Kuennesburg ever mentioned that in her missives?
Agreed, MB. Note how Boris's speech does not have an existence of its own on the BBC site but appears under 'more on this story' - the important story, itself, appears to be that Boris has made Mrs May cross - good!
DeleteKuennsberg referring to Boris as a "loudmouth Brexiteer" on the 10pm news. Has she ever referenced Amber Rudd or Anna Soubry as "loudmouth Remainers"?
DeleteYes, I heard that too. Kuenssberg definitely uses different language with Johnson, derogatory terms not generally used on anyone else. I’ve also noticed that she is being very gentle with Theresa May nowadays, supportive even.
DeleteNot just Laura, but Emily too on Newsnight. She was quite hysterical in her interview of JRM - compare and contrast with her much friendlier chat with Clare Perry whom she referred to as "Clare" (whereas, "Jacob" was not addressed in such matey terms). Her first question to "Clare" referenced "Boris's antics". Can you imagine her referring to "Dominic's antics" or "Amber's antics"? No, neither can I.
DeleteNewsnight: Emily Maitlis has just worked herself up into a frenzy of anger while interviewing Jacob Rees-Mogg - she seemed to be particularly annoyed that JRM persistently refused to agree with her that Boris's speech was 'a deeply unedifying spectacle.' In a second interview with a minor, pro-Chequers, minister Maitlis referred to 'Boris Johnson's antics'. Whatever happened to impartiality & who the hell does Maitlis think she is?
DeleteMB You beat me to it!
DeleteYes, I did wonder whether to use the word "frenzy". You would have feared for JRM's personal safety if she had a letter opener to hand. I suppose, to answer your question, she thinks she works for an untouchable pro-Remain media organisation with a state-guaranteed income and has to do her bit, along with her colleagues, to stop any meaningful Brexit.
DeleteYes, the Beeb is clearly desperate to keep May in post long enough to push her deal through. Since Boris's speech, I'm cautiously optimistic that he's done enough to pull the Chequers rug from under her.
DeleteMark Easton delivers a 100% alarmist report on the impact of the Government's migration system proposals on the UK economy on the 10pm tonight, in particular the UK care and hospitality sectors. I don't think he even allowed one contrary voice in his report.
ReplyDeleteWell I'd like to put a contrary analysis:
1. There are 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care system.
2. The annual turnover rate is 27.8%. That's huge and suggests that pay is too low. I suspect there is a conveyor belt going on with people coming from East Europe and working in the sector for maybe 2 or 3 years before they find alternative better paid work.
3. Contrary to the impression given by the Easton report, in 2016-17, only 7% of the care workforce were non-British EEA nationals. That's about 94,000. If we apply the annual turnover rate to that figure as rough guide, we get a need to replace 27,100.
4. I think we can cope with this vacancy issue.
Firstly, I am sure that any migration scheme approved is going to allow for emergency permits for migrants where necessary. So there was no need for the hysterical tone of the Easton report.
Secondly, we can make the care sector more attractive to potential employees. That will involve higher pay and more career opportunities.
Thirdly, by restricting migration and creating new housing, we can reduce the rise in housing costs which is one of the things driving UK citizens out of the care sector in places like London.
Finally, we can put in place a programme of automation and robotisation of various aspects of the care sector, in particular kitchen work, delivery of supplies and so on. The state can help here. The role of the Care Quality Commission could be expanded to include a role as overseeing care qualifications, applying minimum pay regulations, and encouraging the adoption of appropriate technology (perhaps through a grant aid system).
The BBC's sharp suited economist, Kamal Ahmed, had a very odd piece in the Sunday Times magazine this week (based on his "Christmas clean-up" autobiography it would appear). He seems in some respects likeable but it was a very weird PC, race-obsessed piece, not surprising perhaps since he was with the Equalities Commission before he joined the BBC.
ReplyDeleteHe expressed his admiration for Obama...because of his policies you wonder? er, no...because he was "brown" (I kid you not). There were so many gaps in the narrative relating to his absentee Somali father, that it was more thin air than a story...we don't seem to hear anything from his mother about that, which is distinctly odd given she was "married" to him and you might reasonably have thought to have her own views on their relationship. It seems Kamal wants to produce a "brown Britain" through mixed race relationships...personally I think it's a matter for people to sort out themselves rather than being a matter of public policy.
His political philosophising is rather sixth form. He seems to accept that "identity" is very important. But despite his own emphasis on race, says identity is not subject to scientific laws. Well I never thought it was either (bit of a straw man argument there Kamal), but it is based on some realities of social interaction among human beings in particular sorts of societies (cultures): language, literature, art, sport, culture, history, religion, political ideology and attitudes to law are all of vital importance in terms of identity and the ability of people to live together harmoniously. Personally I think all those are much more important than whether someone is "brown".
At times the article reaches bathetic lows eg where he argues that the profileration in the UK of weirdly spelt and mutually incomprehensible names for individuals is a cause for joyous celeberation (although he is very keen that we should understand his name means "perfect" and has nothing to do with camels!). He sternly reminds us that names are not a cause for humour - I'll remember that next time Mr Smellie turns up to flush the drains.
He has a book to promote. A not so modestly titled book. Expect to hear all about it on the BBC.
Deletehttps://de-at.fievent.com/e/kamal-ahmed-and-minna-salami-the-life-and-times-of-a-very-british-man-gower-street/18303806
Interesting what you mention about his views. He was married to writer Elizabeth Day and more recently there was a bit of gossip about him and BBC news reader Sophie Long. I had no idea he'd worked for the Commission.
I was just looking at his bio on Wikipedia. He's not the first economics "expert" from the BBC to not have studied economics at degree level. He studied journalism. Naga Munchetty was another one (she studied English). Interesting how the media ecosystem operates. Elizabeth Day is a BBC and Sky regular. He also worked for the Guardian - of course!
DeleteYes, I have a vague recollection of her being on Sky, perhaps on the Press Preview. Paul Mason was a music teacher who became a BBC Economics Editor. Fascinating!
DeleteI didn't know that about Paul Mason! lol So, it seems, just about every "economics expert" on the BBC is not actually an economics expert.
DeleteBeing a Londoner, a couple of years ago I had the opportunity of witnessing another one of them, totally a-holed in a pub (that's the "Truth" - think surname)...I just checked him out on Wikipedia and it seems he somehow "became" an economics expert in the 1990s. No reference again to any economics degree. So I think we can reasonably conclude he ain't got one.
I was naive about this previously, thinking they all had some sort of economics degree. It seems now we have to conclude they none of them have that sort of degree qualification. I won't say they are a bunch of chancers because you would need to know them personally to make that judgement but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people drew that conclusion.
Christopher Cook issues a mealy mouthed apology that is really a non-apology with continued biased beef inserted between two thin slices of mea culpa...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45685926
This is really not acceptable. He's supposed to be a serious policy editor on Newsnight, the premier news flagship of the once great, now trash, BBC. Because of his obvious soggy-left Guardian worldview he was straight on the IEA report, so eager to trash a pro-Brexit report.
Rather than take time to "do the math" he couldn't wait to get stuck in on a report from what he called a "right wing think tank" (there are no left wing, social-liberal, globalist or communist think tanks, as we know).
In his haste, he made some obvious schoolboy errors (though he's not going to tell us what they are). Rather than damage his career - the danger being that his employer the BBC might be obliged to admit his errors in response to a complaint - he has now put out this non-apology as a fig leaf, so the BBC can claim the story no longer exists.
Just not acceptable in my view.
This was obvious knee-jerk, pro-Remain bias, just like Maitlis's pathetic show last night with her hysterical het-up hyped-up hubristic haranguing of JRM, followed by cosy, all-smiles chat with Clare Perry.
A blundering teenager from the Newsnight stable. He can't even write clear English, which is all too typical of the BBC these days. 'Priors' isn't even a word. At least the IEA can demonstrate a grasp of English. Teenager Maitlis is another blunderer. Has she issued a retraction or correction about the falsehoods she relayed about that cartoon? I think there's a problem of endogeneity in Newsnight.
DeleteOn a lighter note, I think the picture of Lord Hall at the top of the page looks somewhat like the great Dickie Bird signalling a six to the scorers.
ReplyDeleteThe tic-tac man on the race course. Remember that weird man who used to do the horse racing on Channel 4? He took them to an employment tribunal for ageism. John McCririck, that's it. I've just remembered the name.
DeleteAisla Sinclair above suggested Roy Walker! :)
DeleteAlternatively it might just be the real Lord Hall demonstrating the Banzai cheer to fellow Kamikazes in Salford.
Tonight on Newsnight: Very balanced review of the Conservative Party Conference. Left wing pro-Remain pro-PC Zoe with left wing Tory pro-Remain pro-PC Matthew and left wing globalist pro-Remain pro-PC Evan (presiding, allegedly, in the chair, but sounded like a very cosy chat amongst peers in the Guardian conference room).
ReplyDeleteEarlier Evan interviewed David Attenborough and referred to the "tricks of the trade"...hmmm, we know you have a few of those yourself don't you Evan. Why don't you own up to them?
Talking of which...I've noticed the "Bias by Infantilisation" pioneered very effectively by Evan (when he spent a significant part of his interview with Nigel Farage during the 2015 election campaign discussing Paddington Bear) is proving popular with the UK media...
When Boris dared to deliver a speech on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference, the UK MSM were straight on it. We had Beth (Sky), Jo, Emily and Laura (BBC) talking about Boris in infantile terms - he was referred to as being "naughty", and Theresa (aka "Mother") was it seems "cross" about him and his "antics".
It does seem the women in media (the WIMs) really have a problem with Boris...aka "The Philandering Turk"... they've probably all been on the receiving end of the philandering, so to speak (perhaps I should rephrase that but you know what I mean) and instinctively feel negative about him ("the bastard"). Boris is the sort of bloke women spend thousands of hours discussing over prosecco before he is ritualistically denounced as "an effing selfish bastard" or similar. (Even his daughter has used the same phrase I think. Rather sad, but that's what happens if you go a-philandering).
But news reporting, especially by our state-funded broadcaster, shouldn't be ruled by personal or political animus.
I think you're right re: the 'WIMs' attitude towards Boris & would add another reason for it: the women were presumably chosen for, among other things, their feminist, liberal-left credentials - so Boris was doubly-damned as a white male, even before he started philandering. This also explains the coven's attitude towards Judge Kavanaugh, so that even the, normally level-headed, Sophie Raworth found Dr Ford's laughable testimony 'powerful'.
DeleteOh dear, our Anthony seems a little sad today...what could be the cause of these black thoughts crowding his thoughts? ...
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1047630684553195520
Oh right, the Dems aren't gonna take the Senate. Could have told you that Anthony. Mind you, so many of the new Dems are going to be ex CIA (could be as much as 20 I think), perhaps they will be able to frighten various Republicans to vote their way...we will se.
The BBC News website specialises in eye-catching headlines. There's nothing wrong with that, but the short catchy few words can also be used to mislead. They rely upon a cursory glance, during which a misleading message can be put across.
ReplyDeleteSee: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-45727652/brett-kavanaugh-ford-is-a-liar-trump-supporters
and its headline:
... .Brett Kavanaugh: 'Ford is a liar' - Trump supporters. ...
Further down:
... 'At a Trump rally in Mississippi,' ... That is where Donald Trump is speaking? The article doesn't really say whether or not DT attended the rally.
You need to concentrate upon what is written otherwise this snappy headline might give the impression that Donald Trump has spoken the words 'Ford is a liar'.
It's best to think of them as headlies not headlines...especially the ones on the front page which is seems are impossible to copy easily.
DeleteFile under "That didn't take them long..." Today's PM had a hatchet job on Shaun Bailey. They seem to take exception to some mildly negative remarks (in an essay for the "right wing think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies) he made some time ago about school holidays for Hindu and Islamic festival day. They seemed to think it amounted to a Tommy Robinson level offence, that needed to be met with summary imprisonment for 13 months. They also seemed to object to his factual description of the community he was born into and the temptations to become involved in crime. Realiy is no defence!
ReplyDeleteSorry - I meant WATO, not PM.
DeletePugnazious over on Biased BBC seems to agree with my take on this:
Delete"I first heard the story on WATO and I was astonished at the sheer unpleasantness of a quite blatant attack on Bailey by the BBC which quoted a Labour MP calling Bailey the ‘token black ghetto boy’. Why would the BBC use that quote? It wasn’t needed, it’s irrelevant to the story…except for the BBC it isn’t because that is their whole narrative…Bailey is only a candidate because he is black, nothing to do with talent and ability. "
Typical BBC view of the EU negotiations - as usual they bat for the other side and waste no time in taking the UK down.
ReplyDeleteTusk reiterates offer of Canada +++
https://mobile.twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1047825916905357312
But the BBC goes with the negative headline:
Donald Tusk calls Jeremy Hunt's Soviet jibe unwise and insulting
Haven’t May and Robbins been saying Canada+++ isn’t on offer?
May gives the impression Canada Plus x 3 isn't on offer...but she inserts the claim that the EU will only offer it if we have a border down the sea separating N Ireland from the rest of the UK. But Barnier has offered some concessions on the "backstop"...I don't think the N Ireland issue is a serious one. If we "crash out" as the BBC likes to say, do we really think the Republic of Ireland are going to erect a border fence and border posts along the border with N Ireland? Really?? There would be riots.
DeleteNo Irish government is going to set up a hard border, whatever the EU says. Also, we, the UK, are not going to set up a hard border. It's all a load of balls. It ain't gonna happen. It's been a negotiation ploy that our useless PM failed to call the bluff on. One day at business school they will teach the EU-UK Brexit negotiations as how (from the UK side) NOT to negotiate. May should never have agreed to the timetabling, or the money, or granted EU citizens any guarantees. She basically said "Here are my cards, you have them Michel".
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that it was a "difficult" and "scary" time for young men in the US.
ReplyDeleteSo guess what? The BBC have published an article to refute his statement.
Brett Kavanaugh accusations: Are young men in America scared?
And here is the first quote that sums up the tone of the article ;
Drake King, an 18-year-old student from Tennessee, told the BBC that he did not feel scared as a young man in college.
"I feel comfortable with this social change - it helps me realise what I've been doing wrong as a man. Self-reflection is something that most people need," he says.
So that’s it then, keep asking young men until you find a quote that fits the narrative - publish it and give it prominence.
Bingo - problem solved - young men in the US are not scared.
How do I know? Because the BBC said so and they are impartial, free and fair.
Bit of a typo there...I think you meant partial, costly and unfair.
DeleteI think May did lie to the British people when she claimed that the Canada Plus deal was not on offer.
ReplyDeleteNot saying I think Tusk is a font of honesty but...
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/10/04/eu-has-offered-uk-canada-deal-since-beginning-says-blocs-president/
May has to explain why Tusk is lying if she is to be believed.
But my guess is she won't take him on.
The British public are being played by May and the establishment.
DeleteThe softest possible Brexit has been the objective all along.
The establishment never wanted to leave so their job has been to tread the fine line by ‘staying in’ as much as possible without the majority of the public saying they haven’t honoured the result. That’s why they have ignored Canada +++.
Brino is where we will end up.
Zurcher breaks cover and (don't forget he is an American) enters the political fray in the US, forgetting he is supposed to be "impartial, free and fair"...
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1047923686496505856
He's basically saying the Republican is wrong. That's a public political position. That is not what BBC journalists are supposed to do: enter into politics. But Zurcher has.
He no doubt feels protected by the SJW armour of appearing to be on the side of female victims of male violence...but then, it that is the case, why have we never heard Zurcher condemn Bill Clinton for his vile behaviour towards women?
Peter Hitchens has been on the BBC's Politics Live recently and makes the odd appearance on Question Time but I think we've noticed that he's not their favourite panellist.
ReplyDeleteHe has posted something about this on his blog which he says is an updated and extended version of an article first published in 2010:
"...I have since been told directly by a senior BBC executive to abandon any hope of getting any more than occasional appearances as a tolerated right-winger. I am most unlikely to be asked to present a BBC programme again (I have made two, a brief documentary on crime for Radio 4, many years ago, and a BBC4 film - which I presented because the BBC's original presenter of choice dropped out at the last minute - on Britain's entry into the Common Market). I was at one stage considered as a possible regular panellist for 'The Moral Maze' on Radio 4, but this was vetoed at quite a high level. ..."
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
Incidentally I was looking for the missing Moral Maze today and I've found out it is coming back next Wednesday.
My view is that Hitchens is only allowed to appear as a "Comedy Conservative" - especially being invited in when they know he will be out of sympathy with majority opinion on some social issue.
DeleteThe BBC don't mind occasional appearances by Hitchens. What they are most concerned to ensure now is that populists never ever get on their screens if at all possible. Rob Burley (yes, he had you fooled that he was a nice guy, didn't he? - just remember he works for the BBC!) has made it clear he will not allow populist voices like those of Tommy Robinson any sort of airing on the BBC now.
Guido, meet Craig. Guido has carried out some objective measurement of the three principal BBC political shows - QT, Politics Live and Any Questions:
ReplyDeletehttps://order-order.com/2018/10/05/bbc-flagship-shows-still-remain-panel-bias/#disqus_thread
He finds an astounding level of bias towards Remain on panel selection. Not once have Leave outnumbered Remain.
HIGNFY: Ian Hislop got the first show of the season off to a predictably dreary start with the usual session of Boris-bashing. Boris's speech, which earned a standing ovation on Tuesday, he dismissed as 'terrible' - the reason? - because his jokey reference to praemunire ignored the inconvenient fact that the statute was repealed in 1967; well, Boris was only three at the time so perhaps he missed that one. Hislop's next ploy was to diminish the number present at the speech to 1,000 - Kuenssberg pulled that one earlier in the week: in fact the venue was filled to capacity at 1,400. Lastly, Boris was a philanderer - shock horror! I do wish the British media would grow up about this sort of thing - in France, politicians' standing is enhanced when they are found to have strayed eg Mitterrand. (Not that I am recommending philandering - my wife reads ITBBCB?)
ReplyDeleteHislop's hostility towards Boris seems to be driven by more than just dislike of his policies or personality - perhaps envy has something to do with it: Boris went to Eton, Hislop only to Ardingly, Boris is taller than he is, has more charisma, more hair and fewer chins; worst of all, he is successful with women.
Boris, the politician, also has more amusing jokes in his speeches than Hislop, the alleged satirist, does in his appearances, despite the help of a team of writers and presumably first dibs at the jokes.
DeleteDoes Zurcher put "presumption of innocence" in quotes because he doesn't really think it's a thing? I have a horrible feeling the answer it yes..."You stand here accused of being a Republican Trump supporter. How do you plead? No need to answer that - I've put down guilty for you. Anything you say to the contrary will count as evidence of your guilt. Take him down!"
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1048295353630507009
Just a minor point. Although the BBC World Service has been given the PC Makeover, it is still far more serious in its analysis of events and far more illuminating I think. Take this example - they are currently running a series of programmes on the 2008 crash, making the point that this was a recession for Europe and N.America not for the rest of the world. Too often on the domestic BBC their lazy journos refer to the 2008 as a global phenomenon. But it really wasn't. The rest of the world (China, India, Africa and so on) continued to grow their economies. There was a dip in world production for just one year.
ReplyDeleteDomestically the BBC just pumps out the received wisdom of the globalists, that this was a systems failure in the banking sector and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the globalist vision of free trade, free capital flows, free movement, and "fluid" manufacturing (locating manufacturing anywhere in the world that suits global companies).
It baffles me why the Prime Minister allows herself to be beaten up by the BBC as when the famously soft interviewer Marr put on his full Labour antagonist colours last week to savage her. It was a poor interview, being a mixture of grandstanding, virtue signalling, venom (a la Kuennsberg), Labour mouthpiece and 'get the Tory' frothing bias.
ReplyDeleteAll is well, though: in another part of the forest, Number 10’s director of communications, Robbie Gibb, has strongly rejected claims of media bias.'
The rest of the main channels had written a stern letter complaining that No 10 and the ex-BBCer Gibb have been giving the BBC the lion's share of interviews and access to the PM. Gibb felt 'hurt' and Grand Adam opined that the 'ex BBC suit' only cared about his former employer. Trumping him - this being our great British media someone had to bring an American President into this domestic spat - 'a source' declared “The BBC is to May what Fox is to Trump.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/may-sees-bbc-as-trump-sees-fox-a3952561.html
https://twitter.com/awzurcher?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
ReplyDeleteAnthony Zurcher "The Berserker" has finally fallen silent...after 36 months of continuous tweeting to undermine Trump day and night, his ceaseless efforts have so compromised his health that he was unable to resist the ravages of the tertiary stage of Trump Derangement Syndrome. We shall not see his like again. Unless of course he recovers from Trump's victory in the Senate and starts a fresh tweet onslaught designed to weaken Republican chances in the mid-terms.
BBC's New York correspondent Nick Bryant was in - er - Washington, not New York, to report on the Trump Triumph. I'd say about 80% of the report consisted of shots of anti-Trump protestors. There was lots of "bias by placard" - so you could read the libellous statements and tendentious claims up close over and over. The rest was mostly Bryant looking his funereally most morose adn droning on in predictable fashion with not even a nod to presumed innocence...and without explaining what the eff he was doing in Washington when he's supposed to be the New York correspondent. It's almost as if they don't really need a New York correspondent...because he hardly ever reports from there.
ReplyDeleteOh well the ragged band of brothers and sisters of the "Impartial Free and Fair" Kamikaze division of the BBC 5th Column, itself part of the Globalist Army Group (North America) will have to regroup and await fresh orders from Field Marshal Soros. Their local Commander Sopel seems to be losing his grip. The young guns like Kurcher urge a full frontal attack on the Republicans in the run up to the mid terms. Others argue that fresh assaults on the Russian front are required.
Lol at the raggle taggle army and its personnel. I caught a glimpse of Bryant yesterday while scrolling past, which is the first time I've seen him. He had a serious look about him.
DeleteWhy won't the BBC Raggle Taggle Army admit that Trump is one of the great communicators of all time? It's quite brilliant the way he connects to his audience and then connects up constitutional issues, foreign and trade policy, criminal justice and all the rest for a general audience. For the obverse of Trump, see our PM. Luckily for her she is up a whispery beard and not a Trump type.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kPtrXgbXTA
It's Sunday again, the day when the pics editor for the BBC News website isn't looking. Sure enough here's the leading Home page story:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-45760207
... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' ...
It's the image that should concern us. It looks entirely photoshopped to include plenty of EU flags, and the latest creation, an EU flag with the Labour red rose at the centre. If this image was a photograph of an actual demonstration, taken in Scotland when Sturgeon made her announcement - then I'm a Dutchman - if that's non-PC, then I apologise to all Dutchmen and women.
As if by magic, the first image described above has been substituted for an emotive dressed-up lapdog with EU flag image. In the archived version of the story, the photoshopped image is there further down the page with a credit Getty Images.
DeleteThis led me to search "Do Getty photoshop images?'
You guessed correctly - of course they do. Perhaps here we have a photoshop image commissioned from Getty by the BBC so that they can remain one step removed in the responsibility ranking. Therefore, the BBC doesn't have to justify a blatantly biased, dateless, contextless image.
This is very interesting. When I search Google Images for
Delete... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' .....
The aforementioned images comes up as 'BBC, Pro EU March' without the Getty Images credit, and without the SNP MPs connection.
The photo you refer to is not just photo-shopped, it's a really badly done uber-composite.
DeleteTwo elements that give it away are the EU flag in the centre of the picture which is outside the depth of field of the camera lens. The second is the large group of people dead centre which is a composite of many images.
The final image has had quite a bit of work put into it, but if you look to the right of the fat faced guy with the 'exit brexit' sign, there's a group of three, one of whom is wearing a hat and one of whom is sucking or blowing on something (!). That's a really badly done composite.
What a joke.
I've been hunting for the origins of this image. I found an article in The New European by Zoe Williams using it with the caption:
Delete... 'Demonstrators on the March For The Many on September 23, 2018 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)'....
It also appeared in the NYTimes.
I've had a couple of beers, but I'm enjoying looking at this composite photo. Having worked in post production for 20 years, I can assure you it's a dubious and sloppy bit of work.
DeleteI googled Jeff J Mitchell. He looks like this :
https://twitter.com/jeffjmitch
If you've got the ability to download and zoom in on the image to which you refer, zoom in on the 3 exit brexit signs above the fat bloke's head (the one who's head is twice as large as 3 of the people in front of him !).
Between the second and third sign there's a face peeking out.
Is Mr Mitchell having an artistic giggle, perhaps?
Well spotted Enough! I see he is a "Staff photographer for Getty Images" which I translate as "sends in photos to Getty Images for free and Getty Images being part of the PC Crowd are happy to accept them".
DeleteThis is worth a complaint to the BBC. Fake News can take many forms. This image which at first glance is quite powerful, is entirely false - a figment of JJM/Getty Images' imagination passed off as the leading story on the BBC News website Home page. I'll keep you posted.
DeleteI've just done a bit more research and I think I may have this wrong.
DeleteIn the series of photos available on Getty, there's a similar shot taken either just before or after the dubious looking one :
https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-on-the-march-for-the-many-on-september-23-news-photo/1038311840
I looked for similar elements between the 2 images, and at first sight, the guy with the fedora type hat seemed to be missing from the group of three to the right of the fat faced bloke.
But he is there, behind the guy in the white tee-shirt with the swept back hair.
So, although the central EU flag has been enhanced in the second image, and the first image has been colour and contrast treated, I think I was wrong about the composite element and that the impression of composite has been enhanced by the treatment.
Good research - Enough. The exact form of image manipulation is interesting but is of secondary importance. That the image has nothing to do with the headline accompanying it is the fake part ... 'Sturgeon: SNP MPs would vote for new Brexit referendum' ...
DeleteThe photo was taken at a different time and at a different location during a protest about a different issue.
Peter Hitchens was on Radio5 Live to discuss drug laws and barged his way through what he said were attempts to stop him having as much time to make his case as others...but they got him in the end with a sort of jocular comment at him, which shows the attitude of a certain radio presenter - I have no idea who - to what is supposed to be a serious topic.
ReplyDeletehttp://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/10/a-sort-of-discussion-of-drugs-on-bbc-radio-five-live-is-this-impartiality.html#comments
Anthony is alive! He's stopped his sobbing...he's up and at 'em.
ReplyDelete"Yup. This is what was at stake in 2016. The repercussions will likely be felt for decades."
https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1048720612015951874
So "this" (a conservative controlled SCOTUS) was "at stake". And "repercussions" will be felt.
You almost get the feeling that the impartial, free and fair Zurcher doesn't like conservative majorities in the Supreme Court. :)
Meanwhile...the BBC has been using its vast cast of American presenters to good effect...tonight, after Nick Bryant's turn yesterday, an extremely rare outing for Barbara Plett-Usher who had the look of someone auditioning for Michael Jackson's Thriller Video or possibly One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yep, I know you shouldn't pass remarks about people's appearance but the BBC do it all the time when it suits them...so eff 'em. It was an odd item she delivered...she did the ya-ya about "deep divisions" or some such and then talked about women on both sides being angry...but the pictures as always only showed anti-Trump protestors...did she mean women in both the Democratic and Republican parties hate Trump and Kavanaugh? I don't know. It was an odd and ambiguous, unresolved assertion.
Stuff you won't be told about by Sopel, Bryant and Zurcher (this is all factual, no supposition)... see 07:45 to 09:00:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AzHMSkRPxI
I've always respected Newt Gingrich. His "Contract with America" was an early example of modern populism. This video confirms me in my respect for him...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/10/07/newt_gingrich_unless_stopped_radical_democrats_will_rule_or_ruin_america.html
I think this is an interesting comment from Graham Norton from an article on the BBC website
ReplyDelete"The salary thing, it's frustrating, because it's so inaccurate. It's so all over the shop.”
"There are people I know who make millions from the BBC who are just not on that list. It's just like, really?
"It's amazing that journalists just get that list, and they must know it's rubbish. And they publish it like it's gospel."
I think we probably know it’s an incomplete and inaccurate list. At least Norton is being honest and the BBC have allowed it to be published.
But it would be nice to know who is making millions from the BBC, under the radar so to speak.
Oh, you know who they are... Dame Jenni, not working for the BBC since the 80's, and the Dimblebys, also not working for the BBC since the year dot. Plus anyone else you've heard of but weren't on the "BBC" list.
DeleteMr Peston, ex-BBC, letting us know why we shouldn't be subjected to a lot of BBC propaganda and bias in lieu of news and information: He got it wrong!
ReplyDeleteWell thanks a million. Give the man a medal. He's only a few years behind.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6250965/Robert-Peston-claims-BBC-patronising-got-wrong-immigration.html#newcomment
Yeah over the weekend I could only get holf of an analog radio so had to listen to BBC on an off of course mostly off but any time I returned it was an American woman on today on start the week on PM
ReplyDeletewhy has the BBC been taken over by American women, rather why have the BBC llowef themselves were taken over by American women ?
Disgusting display of anti-American racism by Evan Davis tonight on Newsnight. Interviewing Myron Ebell in the USA he treated him with complete contempt, aggressively dismissing his attempts to comment on the IPCC report - a tour de force of alarmism using his trademark tricks of interruption, ridicule and answering for him. What a lowlife Davis is.
ReplyDeleteDavis's central beef seemed to be that as he was not a scientist he could not comment on the scientists' claims. On that basis neither should Davis comment. When his other guests Simon Beard (a moral philosopher) and Baronness Worthington (degree in English Literature) claimed to understand the science, Davis did not interrupt them and tell them couldn't possibly comment on the scientists' claims because they didn't understand the science.
I think a lot of the IPCC claims are BS. Worthington spouted nonsense. She claimed cleaner air would reduce NHS costs. Reducing smog in the UK did not reduce NHS costs. People live longer and it is the disabilities and diseases of old age - diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, strokes and so on that cost the NHS so much.
Couple more things to mention. Worthington is according to Wikipedia the patron of an organisation promoting a molten salt nuclear reactor - this clear conflict of interest was not made clear by Davis.
DeleteNow I'm listening to the low IQ Stig Abell on Sky News claiming that CO2 emissions are "pollution".
CO2 is a natural constituent of our atmosphere. Lots of industrial processes put oxygen into our atmosphere - we don't call those "pollution".
Abell (and of course Davis's guests) assume that climate change will disrupt agriculture and cause food shortages. There is no evidence for that. A warmer climate means plants grow better (biomass has been growing).
If a rise of 1 degree causes huge rises in sea level, where are all the disappearing islands? There aren't any.
I'd like to see how temperatures are being measured. Cities have been growing and we know cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. Any weather stations located in cities will have been recording locally higher temperatures. Likewise with airports - nearly all airports have expanded hugely. They all have weather stations. More and more jet aircraft with hot exhaust use the airports.
Any sensible person is going to say that we should have a precautionary approach to climate - and it is not wise to pump out such quantities of CO2, given how little we understand climate.
But without any input from the IPCC, the problem is being solved. There is a massive shift under way to green energy because it's becoming cheaper. Once cheap storage allows us to use green energy 24/7 it will be game set and match and the era of carbon based fuels will be over.
Yes. If anybody doesn't already know it, do have a look at Anthony Watts' excellent blog: 'Watts Up With That'. See under 'The ever-receding climate goalposts' & scroll down to 'Bombshell: audit of global warming data finds it riddled with errors.'
DeleteI was surprised Ebell didn't refer to the debacle of the IPCC previously endorsing the mad claim that the Himalayan glaciers were all due to melt away by 2035. Davis was touting the IPCC as some omniscient and all wise body that was above and beyond criticism. But we know from just a few years ago that the IPCC had to retract this absurd claim.
Deletehttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11441697/Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri-the-clown-of-climate-change-has-gone.html
The Watts Up site is a good source of info. I don't really agree with their flag waving for coal and oil though. Personally I think the move to green energy is both desirable and inevitable - and that it will happen a lot more quickly than most people realise because solar/wind plus storage will soon be the cheapest energy source anywhere on the planet, not just in niche areas as it is already.
'Climate Audit' is good too - if you're a scientist or mathematician, which I'm not.
DeleteAgreed re: alternative energy - once the petrol companies have faced the inevitable & invested in either battery exchange stations or hydrogen cylinder refilling or exchange stations, things can really take off. The petrol companies don't have a good record with new technology: in 1906, the Stanley Steam Car, which ran on paraffin, achieved a world record speed of 127mph - but paraffin was cheaper than petrol. I think I'm right in saying the petrol companies bought the Stanley patents...& buried them!
Kavanaugh fall out and more liberal propaganda from the BBC. Jocular in nature but there really only one reason why they ridicule and mock. It’s taking sides - not impartial.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-45797293
Not at all gay then, mum! lol
DeleteA tale of two stories:
ReplyDelete"Trump apologises to Kavanaugh over 'lies'"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-45794473/trump-apologises-to-kavanaugh-over-lies
"Trump Kavanaugh: President apologises for 'unfair' treatment"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45793524
Actually the same story but the first one is the older one. It clearly makes it sound like Trump was caught out in a lie and apologised for it. I presume someone (American embassy?) complained.
The reality is, he was apologising on behalf of "the nation". It wasn't a personal apology. If you wanted to sum it up in the same space "Trump delivers national apology to Kavanaugh" would have been appropriate.
Tommy Robinson Army story
ReplyDeleteImam Asim Hafiz, Islamic religious adviser to the armed forces, said "any form of racism, discrimination or extremism is taken extremely seriously and will be dealt with accordingly".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45805285
Just read this too, is this implying that the British Army has an Imam charged with enforcing "liberal tolerance" in the ranks ?
DeleteWhat ?
It actually makes the other story I just read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-45800445
less shocking, which in itself is more shocking if you know what i mean. Where is this country heading ?
Where does the BBC go for a quote on this? A veterans association? A notable retired general? Er - no: the not at all far right Muslim Council of Britain representing Mosques funded by the not at all far right Saudi Arabia.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRe. Thread above about integrity of the BBC News website pics editor. There's plenty to be gained from a study of the TR image with the group behind him. It looks like a genuine unaltered happy snap of the type taken by thousands of people every day. That, to me is genuine news photography. It is free from corrective tampering, which might wilfully disguise the place, time and context in which the photo was taken.
DeleteHmm...looks like the story has been disappeared from their UK/England page...was it getting too much interest? Odd they pulled it so soon. Although they are obsessed with Tommy Robinson, the "far right", defending followers of a certain religion etc. they are only interested in the sense they want him locked up and put away for a long time (and quite right too as Joshua and Nick would say). They have no wish to featuer him (cf Rob Burley bold admission) more generally - especially if it feeds interest from the long established working class population.
DeleteOutbreak of common sense at Supreme Court...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-45789759
Why are they all of a sudden gone cold on gay rights?
Hmmm...a bit of a puzzle. Unless - these are clever people... They might have seen that what is sauce for the (Christian) goose would, in law at least, be sauce for the (Islamic - or indeed Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, all of which oppose gay unions) gander. Perhaps "an appalling vista", as our useless judges like to say, opened up of secular gays targetting Halal bakeries, South Asian wedding planners and so on... and then - unlike in the Asher case - there would be major riots, violence and bloodshed on our streets, particularly from one section.
I think that's probably the most likely explanation for this U turn on the PC road. Nothing to do with the principle of free speech per se.
Haven't read the judgment but I had confidence in the outcome partly because they hadn't refused service because of his sexuality and partly for another reason. A few years ago Lady Hale advocated allowing the expression of religion in the case of a Christian wearing a cross, even though it wasn't a religious requirement such as the Sikh turban. I took it as a chink of light, a sliver of hope for some balance and sense in the law. Up till then it was about special exemptions for special cases but no accommodation outside that. A few years on, she's the President of the Court and delivered the judgment, with which the others concurred. The Ashers Bakery family will be cock a hoop.
DeleteIf it's so obvious why didn't the lower courts back the Asher Bakery? The BBC has probably made me cynical, but I don't believe our judges are as high minded as you seem to think. If they were they would see that membership of Amnesty International for instance was completely incompatible with deciding General Pinochet's fate or locking up a family man for 13 months within 5 hours of arrest was completely unacceptable or allowing violent bogus asylum seekers the right to wander our streets and prey on our citizens was indefensible.
DeleteI still haven't recovered from hearing one ex Lord Chief Justice declare the judges would strike down a law if they believed it was going to lead to serious social strife. Remember that!
The judges should be the citizen's friends but I am not convinced they are. I think they see themselves more as Plato's guardians ensuring the "right result".
BTW I note the BBC included in their article an implied crticism (the old "questions will be asked" trick, usually deployed against enemies on the right) of the Equalities Commission for wasting public money on this case. For once I think the Commission are being unfairly criticised. There have been literally hundreds of judgements that it's not a matter of whether an accused person means to discriminate against a protected group, it's a question of whether their actions effectively discriminate against the group. There was no reason to think this case would be any different.
The lower courts didn't back it I think because they felt the political message about same-sex marriage was inseparable from the man's sexuality. They probably also saw it from the perspective of discriminating against him on political and religious grounds, rather than the Ashers Bakery family being discriminated against on the ground of theirs - if they couldn't refuse to bake it.
DeleteLady Hale's view in that case some years ago seemed to be that a pluralist society should be able to find some accommodation between anti-discrimination law and the expression of religion. That was a departure from the rigid thinking prevailing until then that you were protected if you were a specially designated group such as a Sikh but there was nothing for you if you were a Christian. There was a strong chance for this bakery case. Still didn't follow that the other judges would take the same approach but there was cause for optimism.
The Equality Commission for NI is in my view quite extreme and can indeed be criticised but it is a bit rich coming from the BBC about the spending of public money. And criticising it for that will also suit Paisley as a distraction from his own troubles over money and influence, and Arlene Foster's over money misused in a green energy scheme.
DeleteNote the BBC Legal Correspondent's selection of examples of what ifs:
'The ruling now poses the question whether it would be lawful, for instance, for a bakery to refuse to make a bar mitzvah cake because the bakers' owners disagreed with ideas at the heart of the Jewish religion? What about a cake promoting "the glory of Brexit", "support fox hunting", or "support veganism"?'
He got carried away a bit there with 'the glory of Brexit'. Honestly! Couldn't help himself I suppose.
Seems quite simple to me; it is illegal to refuse to trade on the basis of race, etc. but the trader is free to decide what that trade should be. A window cleaner can't refuse to wash the windows of a house belonging to someone of a different race but they can refuse to wash the windows of a skyscraper, regardless of who owns it.
DeleteHaving listened to the BBC news bulletins all day and read the BBC website, I conclude that the BBC position is that they are against this ruling.
DeleteThey have kicked up a massive fuss and promoted this story relentlessly way above its relative news value. They won’t directly challenge the law court ruling because they are fellow establishments but I’m pretty sure their far left liberal values means that they believe it to be unacceptable discrimination.
"Seems quite simple to me; it is illegal to refuse to trade on the basis of race, etc. but the trader is free to decide what that trade should be. A window cleaner can't refuse to wash the windows of a house belonging to someone of a different race but they can refuse to wash the windows of a skyscraper, regardless of who owns it."
DeleteIt's definitely not that simple. If it was then a Fire Service could have a physical test that precluded nearly all women because the vast majority could not meet it. But they aren't allowed to use those traditional tests, even though they were previously deemed absolutely necessary to ensuring you had the right people for the job.
Likewise you will find most large employers feel obliged to provide prayer room lest a certain group claim they are being discouraged from working for that employer through lack of opportunity to meet their obligations. Why do you think the Army had that advert recently showing a "devout" person from a certain group at prayer in the middle of a conflict zone?
I am actually surprised by the SC ruling. I think it has nothing to do with free speech and everything with avoiding a clash with followers of Islam who would not take such a ruling against a Halal outfit lightly.
Mark Easton, a favourite of this blog made an argument against the cake maker tonight on BBC main news. Blatant opinion based political meddling rather than straightforward reporting by the BBC. But that's bog standard for Mark Easton. No doubt he will be getting pats on the back around the office tonight.
DeleteKamal Ahmed interview: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/the1000/kamal-ahmeds-book-about-his-childhood-shines-a-light-on-racism-in-the-uk-a3957456.html
ReplyDeleteHe's about to be the new Editorial Director of the BBC - setting strategic direction, he call it. Mind, I thought they had a director of strategy called Purnell. Oh by the way, he's friends with Purnell. What a surprise! He wants the BBC to be as known for explaining as much as imparting the news - to combat fake news - and he likes Reality Check. Say no more.
Is this a newly created post? They've always been good at finding jobs or non-jobs for those they wish to favour. Does it mean they are upping the political and social agenda drive?
Other points: speaks ridiculous BBC jargon, the hallmark of corporate man. Racism racism. Racism is alive and well; Obama Obama; Would he take a pay cut for equality? Won't say. Marriages and divorces; Elizabeth left; trauma.
I referenced the article based on his autobiography which appeared in the Sunday Times just gone. Very weird. He's not a racist of course but wants everyone to become brown it seems - and he liked Obama because he was brown (never mentioned his policies!) !! lol Brown, brown, brown...seemed a bit of an obsession with him.
DeleteIt's very worrying if he - ex Equalities Commission ex Guardian and pro BBC Reality Check - wants to explain the news rather than report it.
A populist government should put an end to this nonsense. The BBC as it is now definitely has to be levelled.
How can someone go around advocating for a skin colour while complaining that society is racist? Let alone giving him a job where he can spread such pernicious nonsense to children and young people. Note how the plans include packaging news for young people or 'the kids' as he called them.
DeleteHas he married or romanced any 'brown' people? It's up to him of course, whom he romances, but he shouldn't be shouting about skin colour for other people.
Ahmed is clearly a favoured child of the BBC. But at least he is true to BBC values, relentlessly left liberal biased, always negative on any business or economic good news and totally anti-Brexit.
DeleteAnd as noted above - ex Equalities Commision, ex Guardian, pro positive discrimination and pro Brexit.
He has form on bedding numerous BBC newsreaders too.
No wonder the BBC love him. He really does tick all the boxes.
Pro Brexit? I doubt it! lol
DeleteYes, sorry. I can’t believe I typed that! Hopefully regular visitors to this site knew what I meant.
DeleteI've done it myself more than once. Not surprising when so many Remainers are posing as Leavers and the Leave option promoted by the Government looks like a Remain option.
DeleteYou know how keen the BBC are to apply labels like right wing, Far Right, nationalist, xenophobic, Austria and so on to governments in Hungary, Italy, and Poland?
ReplyDeleteWell I just heard a report on PM on the political oppression in Nicaragua. I didn't once hear Daniel Ortega's government referred to as left wing, far left, socialist, extreme socialist, Sandinista or whatever. There were simply references to "the government", "the state", "the security apparatus", "the governing party" and so on...Even the protestors' political outlook wasn't referenced! Were they even more left wing, or right wing or something else?
Towards the end Daniel Ortega was referred to as "the cold war guerilla". Hmm...I think for most people who didn't know about Nicaragua's history, that might summon up more an image of a right wing type of person because of the phrase "cold war warrior" being used to describe McCarthyite types in the USA.
Odd eh?
Also, despite the BBC's penchant for referencing the previous misdemeanours of people they don't like, here there was no reference to the accusation against Ortega by his stepdaughter of a "Me Too" nature.
How odd eh? You don't think the BBC applies double standards possibly, do you? :)
I see Peston, ex-BBC, is on another channel tonight with a few more exes: David Davis ex-Brex sec, Sarah Wollaston ex-GP and leading drip, ex-television presenter and Labour MP Gloria de Piero - I haven't heard anything of her for a long time.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC's new technology has gone astray. A bit like Mrs May's strong and stable, it was supposed to bring stability. Fiona Bruce and Mark Easton had to be carted in a taxi to some other building for the News at Six.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45812540
If you were already wondering whether the whole gender debate was madness - here is confirmation.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely can’t believe what I am reading here - The BBC, Wellcome and those on the liberal side of the debate have lost the plot.
It is stories like this that make me fear for where we are heading.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45810709
Not many people know this...no, don't yawn, but originally - back in Anglo Saxon times - there was carlman (male) and woman (female) and "man" did refer to both. Feel free to use that info-nugget as a tool for annoying uber-feminists.
DeleteFollowing a complaint to the BBC, I can report that an inch of ground has been conceded by their pics editorial staff:
ReplyDelete... 'Thank you for contacting us regarding the BBC news online story headlined: "Brexit: SNP would back 'People's Vote' calls, says Sturgeon".
The website team have looked at your comments and can confirm, without doubt, that the picture featuring crowds of people calling for a second EU referendum has not been "photoshopped".
As you rightly identify, the image was taken by Getty photographer Jeff J Mitchell during the "March For The Many" gathering in Liverpool.
Images of this kind are taken by professional photographers and are frequently used to help illustrate our stories. They are not "fake".
The caption on the picture - which read: "Campaigners are calling for another vote on the EU to be held" - was a correct description of the scene.
However, following your feedback there is now a more fulsome caption reading: "Campaigners, such as these marching in Liverpool last month, are calling for another vote on the EU to be held".
To conclude, the website team are happy that the picture was not “fake”, was used correctly and do not intend to remove it from the story'....
So,.... 'Campaigners, such as these marching in Liverpool last month, are calling ....' is something of a concession to my point, but falls well short of an admission that using contextless lifted from Getty Images to convey a political point of view might be a form of bias..
Now I might need to change Loondon Calling to another name.
'Fulsome' caption. Flipping heck. They are embarrassing themselves.
DeleteThe teenagers don't know what fulsome means...I think they meant fuller.
DeleteThere was something odd about the photo - as someone pointed out, the heads of the people towards the back appeared bigger than those closer to the camera.
Leads on to an interesting philosophical issue: if you can have a camera that substantially distorts an image (maybe a "make this crowd look bigger" function).
BTW the BBC response was pathetic: it didn't say how they had arrived at being "without doubt" that the image was not photoshopped.
Meant to say: "if you can have a camera that substantially distorts an image (maybe a "make this crowd look bigger" function), then at what point does a pic become "photoshopped"."
DeleteSounds like a sort of 'reverse-fish-eye' lens.
DeleteThere is some production software that can 'pull together an image' - for instance it can reduce the amount of sky showing. Maybe the image wasn't photoshopped, but I remain convinced that it has been tampered with.
DeleteRe:'fulsome', Greg Dyke's dumbing-down project is clearly bearing fruit - I wonder which diversity-box Mr/Mrs/Ms 'Fulsome' allowed Beeb Central to tick.
DeleteRe the photo again, "photoshopping" as a word has clearly parted company with the "Photoshop" software product and has come to denote misleading alteration or distortion of an image (cf Corbyn's Commie Hat). If there is software within a camera that can substantially distort images before they are viewed (and I bet there is now - well I know there is because I've seen a relative use that "beauty" app that is applied as the photo is taken) then that raises questions for photo-journalism.
DeleteA "reverse fish eye lens" effect might well induce a sense of witnessing a very large demo - I'm no expert obviously but I can intuitively feel that might be the case.
It certainly is a puzzle. The only explanation I can offer is that of the photo taken at a good distance away with a long autofocus lens. The mystery continues though, because adjacent to St George's Hall in Liverpool where the photo was taken there are two statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on horseback by Sculptor Thomas Thornycroft. They are both on high plinths. The Queen's horse has a front leg raised, and Albert's is standing square. You can make these out in the photo.
DeleteThese statues are some 60 or so metres apart, spaced formally to match the design - and yet the foreshortening of the crowd in the https://twitter.com/jeffjmitch Getty Image shows the 'crowd' drifting (drift as in a drift of swine) to cover the ground between the two statues. It would need many more people, that is a much larger crowd to fill this space.
There are some additional photos covering the topic on
Deletehttps://deskgram.net/explore/tags/Remainer
From the above I would estimate that about 100 protesters were involved. There are scenes of some arriving at Lyme Street station.
There were a significant number of onlookers. I counted the Getty Image and found some 30 or so flags, 20 or so banners and 30 or so faces. I suspect this was a well funded well equipped bussed in crowd assembled for the cameras.
How is it that the BBC can use a rent-a-crowd image with caption "Campaigners are calling for another vote on the EU to be held" and suppose that will be relevant to a statement by Nicola Sturgeon made on another day? It's totally out of context.
As a child I always though 'fulsome' was to do with Nell Gwynn's basket of oranges.
I think you are right - people now are media savvy, particularly properly organised protests equipped with flags and banners. So small groups can make a big impact.
DeleteAdd a good photographer with the right lenses and camera and bingo.
Jeff Mitchell gets similar effects here
First pic - the real crowd
Second pic - sexed up crowd
https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/45683/Workers+hold+march+and+work+in+to+save+jobs+at+offshore+wind+turbine+factory
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/648276/battle-for-bifab-continues-after-shock-redundancy-announcement/
The BBC really have got some front. They are one of the prime exponents of using freelance self employed people as a tax dodges. In fact they recommended the switch to many highly paid employees.
ReplyDeleteSo how can they write an article without a nod or mention that they have been caught at it.
Here is favoured child Kamal Ahmed writing a defence without the decency to acknowledge the BBCs part in condoning tax avoidance. How can that be impartial. They are shameless.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45822650
They are increasingly shameless, it's true. I think it's partly knowing they have the PC Bunch at Ofcom looking over them ie not looking over them, that is accounting for their mounting brazeness of bias.
DeleteArthur - I believe Nell Gwynne's oranges were easy-peel.
DeleteSir Topham, "How can they write an article without a nod or a mention that they have been caught at it?" - easy: they despise the license-payer & consider his or her views to be of no account.
DeleteIntroducing the Moral Maze, those teenagers again: 'Twelve years to save the world. While we're squabbling about Brexit, climate scientists are reminding us that the existential threat of our day is global warming. This week’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising temperatures. ...'
ReplyDeleteHow easily they slip into the old lines and switch from facetious trivialising to putting on the voice of doom. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nhn
So why is the low IQ New York correspondent writing about BIG THINGS like world order, international law and human rights obligations? Er because he's Nick Bryant and he wants to bash Trump.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45817222?ocid=socialflow_twitter
It's hardly worthwhile critiquing such articles as this but given its central thesis is that Trump's America First approach has encouraged international lawlessness, here's a few things to consider:
1. Saudi Arabia funded terrorists like Osama bin Laden within impunity under Clinton and GW Bush.
2. China kidnapped Hong Kong journalists while Obama was President.
3. Reagan illegally invaded Grenada on a pretext.
4. Clinton arranged for the detachment of a province (Kosovo) from a legal UN state (Serbia).
5. Under Obama, the US and EU encouraged Muslim Brotherhood rebellions in countries across North Africa and the Middle East leading to the deaths, mutilation and displacement of tens of millions of people.
6. George W Bush with Tony Blair and others launched a war
against Iraq on what the BBC at the time inferred was a pretext.
7. Under Jimmy Carter the Iranian regime felt emboldened to kidnap and torture US diplomats.
8. Under Obama Russia felt at liberty to arrange for the polonium assassination of one of their ex spies on UK soil.
Bryant criticises the alleged politicisation of the Supreme Court. That is all laid at Trump's door. But it was Ruth Bader Ginsberg (now 85 but still claiming to be able to meet the arduous requirements of being a Supreme Court judge) who - note, this was during the Presidential campaign - called Trump "a faker" and cast serious doubts over his candidacy claiming that Hillary had been unfairly treated by the media!
Further to previous comment on the Newsnight discussion of the IPCC alarmist report here's an interesting article:
ReplyDeletehttps://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/11/bbc-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-who-are-they-answer-activists/?cn-reloaded=1
Evan Davis gave the strong impression on the programme that the report was the product of sober scientists making objective assessments, rather than political activist scientists, lawyers, enviormentalists and so on. But he was clearly wrong to do so.
Gabriel Gatehouse on Tommy Robinson on Newsnight...
ReplyDeleteAs we know it's difficult to follow GG's tack. Tonight it seemed to be a bit of "media culpa"...
To be fair, GG certainly reaches the parts that most MSM journos don't.
As something of a Dutchman (he told us previously he was educated in the Netherlands) GG once or twice referenced Wilders' Party and set up the idea of UKIP becoming a continental style anti-Islamic party...hmmm...
GG stated that TR's supporters "hate the media". Well that's not true. They like Rebel Media! :) They hate the mainstream media.
GG interviewed one of the "grooming" victims - Sammy Woodhouse. She was a "criticism from both sides" type of witness.
References to "Pakistani heritage"...not Islamic background. Insulting to Hindus, Christians and atheists from Pakistan I would say. And we have seen in other gangs people of Somali, Moroccan, Afghan, and Syrian heritage. Help us out here GG - what's the link?
GG uses the "Islamophobic" word. So clearly he thinks it is a "thing".
"Gerard Batten declined to be interviewed for this film. " Good says I. He should confine himself to live interviews.
Raheem Kassam briefly on. Fair play to GG again - most MSM journos would seek to hide the fact that some South Asians support Tommy Robinson.
Interview with Ivan Humble ex EDL. GG allows him to say forcefully that they were not racist. But then get to what is perhaps the central message - he and other EDL people were "radicalised" (radicalised? - to do what? protest? peacefully?) by watch mainstream UK TV progs on Anjem Choudhary and "Undercover Mosques" etc. Hmmm...
So what's GG's agenda here? If the MSM were even more censorious we wouldn't have problems with TR and co?
Interview with William Baldet. Never come across him before. He was billed on the programme as a Prevent Co-ordinator (isn't that a civil servant?? or a local governemnt officer? - since when did they get invited on to discuss controversial political topics?). But it seems he is also a "Senior Fellow" at the "Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right". Seems to be an American organisation partnered with far left organisations. Nowhere does it declare its funding...highly suspicious.
The after-party discussion had Danny Lockwood (licensed Yorkshireman) and (much more to Kirsty's taste) the arrogant Nasrine Malik. They both seemed to agree that they would like a media world where Tommy Robinson didn't exist.
So what to make of all that? I'd say GG is seriously conflicted. Maybe he's been reading the Koran and Hadith recently...I don't know.
That item out of the way it was business as usual with Newsnight waving the flag for Australia letting in illegal migrants never mind how many people get drowned en route to the promised land. Followed up by Guardian grievance merchant Afua Hirsch reviewing the columns (seem to be rather a lot of Guardian journos popping up in this segment now we are a few weeks in).
Liberals and socialists are great defenders of free speech unless it is speech they don’t like and is contrary to their views. TR is one high profile example but it is spreading through our entire society. The BBC and Guardian are the prime defenders of the faith egging on and agitating. It has gained traction through activists in our education system and our institutions and establishments. Due to apathy and the British reserve, the silent majority sit back and watch it spread like a virus. MSM were converted early on so that voice has already been denied to those who want to speak out against elite led social liberalism.
DeleteWe are firmly in its grip - not much different to Turkey really.
Indeed. It's galling as well to hear Kirsty interview people who are posing as moderates. But these "moderates" (Guardian columnists and the like): strongly support Corbyn who in turn has strongly supported the IRA, Hamas and the Iranian government; strongly support hate mobs preventing politicians like Farage campaigning legitimately during general electionsl;and strongly support no borders mass migration into the UK by undocumented persons. These people are far more extreme and dangerous than Tommy Robinson.
DeleteYes, Blair let the genie out of the bottle. Look at where we are 20 years on!
DeleteAnd where will we end up? Will it continue unabated or will there be a correction? I suspect the British public will reach a point at which they say ‘enough’.
Don’t count on the BBC to stand up for small c conservative Britain though.
That is the question isn't it?...most people seem to lead rather schizoid lives. They lead their real everyday lives, but that bears little relation to how they vote. They vote for parties that have allowed mass immigration, a huge housing crisis, low productivity and declining real incomes and will continue to do so. Even people who dislike mass immigration continue to vote for parties that support it.
DeletePeople's real priorities are not much different from a generation or two ago: people want prosperity through good jobs, a good family life, a good future for their children, entertainment like sport or the arts, socialising with friends (who tend to reflect their own cultural background) and so on...in private they don't have much time if any at all for the BBC's priorities, its obsessions, such as transgender identity, equality of outcome, women's football and boxing, politically correct forms of speech, Trump bashing, global warming and racial identity. [I say that but of course I am referencing stable families, mostly with deep roots in this country. In truth a lot of people are living in very unstable families and now a lot of people look abroad for the source of their identity.]
Part of the problem now is that people see so much modish virtue signalling (pro mass immigration, pro Sharia, pro multiculturalism and pro equality of outcome) - on the TV (especially the BBC of course) , from the Royal Family, from business leaders, from religious leaders, from commentators (not just political but sports), from Conservative Party leaders as well as other party leaders. They read it as well in their newspapers and magazines. Even someone appointed a Sun editor - Stig Abell - is incredibly PC in outlook. So there is tremendous social pressure on us to conform to the PC ideology.
The British, at heart, have always tended to conform. We lost our revolutionary spirit some centuries ago. So now it seems people conform to PC ideology.
I hope eventually we will see people say "enough". But, although I am a natural optimist, I can't really say I see any signs of that. We had a chance when UKIP was on 13%...But the elite destroyed UKIP. We will have to see if it rebuilds. I have a lot of respect for Gerard Batten who is doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
We are either going to watch this nation's slow suicide (well maybe not so slow). Or we are going to witness some serious political and social conflict. Either way it won't be pretty.
It will be fascinating to see. Will young people not become angry at being denied decent housing for them to raise their young families? Will they really continued to accept the nonsense that the housing crisis has nothing to do with mass immigration?
Part of the problem is that once you have mass immigration in the millions and so many different cultural backgrounds in play, you are almost obliged to have something like PC multiculturalism as your ideology. And it's as though our political elite have almost begun to believe the lies they keep telling us about all cultures and religions being of equal merit and of all types of immigration being of huge benefit to the UK. etc etc.
https://order-order.com/2018/10/12/joco-loses-bolshy-batten/
DeleteHadn't seen this until just now. Rather underlines what I was saying. The BBC are determined to destroy UKIP. Can you imagine Jo Coburn interviewing a Sinn Fein representative so vehemently over support for violence, when they were invited on to discuss Brexit?
A couple of things:
ReplyDeleteThe BBC has added to its raggle taggle crew a new post of Gender and Identity correspondent. I can't remember where I read this and I have no link to the source. It's a world first, folks! Of course, 'gender' isn't what it used to be and the BBC must jump on board with all the current'gender' activists.
Did anyone see the person described as a rights activist on Politics Live last week? Peter Tatchell. He was allowed to get away with a speech about poor put-upon trans; bigotry; no trans would ever attack women; and a contemptuous dismissal of concerns about women's safety. You should have seen Rachel Johnson's tight face as they all sat politely silent while he was delivering this false and disingenuous lying rant. Misogynist homosexual rights activist? Now there's a surprise. I think we caught a glimpse of the real ruthless fanatical person there and not the one he usually tries to portray of sweet reasoned concern for right and rights. An insight into a very unsavoury person.
If anyone has access to iPlayer, you may be interested to see the last item on yesterday's Politics Live with Lord Falconer and others. I can barely form words to convey my reaction of disbelief at the sort of stuff he, in particular, was coming out with. Is he for real? I don't know what we can do about our politicians or the BBC, quite honestly.
Have you seen today's Politics Live and the desperate attempts at moral outrage by Jo Coburn over Gerald Batten of UKIP about Tommy Robinson? He's a convicted criminal, in case you didn't know; he hasn't been elected to anything. I'm sure someone could compile a list of 'convicted criminals' on the BBC where it isn't mentioned every time they are. Or who are regularly on the BBC and don't represent anyone or aren't elected to anything. I could fill a book with that one. Or who is, morally and impartially speaking, highly dubious when displaying prejudice against groups or religions, like the BBC presenter of a politics programme who asked a prejudiced question of a prominent backbench politician about his religion? Clue: Not Andrew Neil and not about Islam. And which one is quite happy to brand people as 'white' but not Muslim? And who doesn't show a similar scramble for the outrage podium over the extreme prejudicial rantings of the trans fanatic, as over Robinson? And by the way, why is Tatchell on the BBC and to be listened to as he doesn't represent and hasn't been elected to anything?