Monthly Archives: January 2011

JAW -DROPPING

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Following up my post yesterday about Roger Harrabin’s partisan antics, eagle-eyed B-BBC reader John Horne Tooke found this gem, about our Roger’s chairing of the Environment Agency’s annual conference in November. This body, of course is chaired by former Labour culture minister, Chris Smith, who long since abandoned his marbles in his zeal for the green creed. The report of the conference is so jaw-dropping about Mr Harrabin that it deserves to be quoted almost in full:

As students and police clashed outside the Environment Agency’s annual conference got confrontational as its chairman attacked the Government for gagging the chairman and cutting its funding.

Against a background of police helicopters and loudly protesting students the Environment Agency annual conference yesterday (November 24) started with an attack on climate change scepticism and coalition cuts.

The event’s chair, the BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin, tore into the coalition Government and the apathy he perceived around cuts as well as the climate change movement.

Mr Harrabin, who opened as well as chaired the event in central London, introduced the agency’s chairman Lord Chris Smith saying he’d been gagged: “His words will have been edited in his head otherwise he’s facing the sack.”

The presenter also criticised Caroline Spelman, the secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), over the cuts to her department which described as ‘the very worst’.

He said: “Everything is being cut and there’s widespread support for what is happening, everyone seems to be persuaded that cuts are the only way ahead.

“And DEFRA, from the greenest government this country has ever seen, has some of the very worst cuts floods and biodiversity are challenged even more than they were before.

“I hear talk in DEFRA of a lack of confidence, a lack of a sense of direction from a lot officials they don’t quite know where this is all going.”

Mr Harrabin also branded reports of plans to sell of Forestry Commission assets as ‘extremely controversial’.

So let’s get this straight. Mr Harrabin is levering his position as an “influential” environmentalist to earn extra money (up to £10,000 a pop, according the agencies with which he is registered) in chairing government conferences…a role which he uses as a platform to spout what looks like naked, unqualified anti-government, greenie propaganda? Of course, I’m relying on the report on the Edie site to reach my conclusions, and he may have been misreported, or reported out of context. But if only a fraction of what is in the account is correct, then what Mr Harrabin has become is a fully-fledged taxpayer-funded political activist. That squares with what Autonomous Mind and James Delingpole have also noted in terms of Mr Harrabin’s relationship with the Met Office. How does all this fit in with the BBC’s so-called impartiality?

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The US Constitution Makes A Comeback

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On Thursday, when the new Congress is seated and begins work, there will be an historic moment, something that hasn’t happened since the founding of United States: the US Constitution will be read out in the House of Representatives. It’s a statement by the newly-elected and Tea Party-influenced Republican majority that they heard the voters and they’re realigning their priorities.

Naturally, the Left is shocked and outraged. Ezra Klein, founder of the notorious but thankfully defunct JournoList (source of the majority of viewpoints on US issues the BBC fed you for the better part of two years), has gone so far as to say that we shouldn’t pay so much attention to the Constitution as it was written over 100 years ago and thus is too “confusing” and so nobody can understand or relate to it anymore. The BBC correspondents assigned to the US will be aware of this, and some of them at least will be aware of its significance. Yet, they haven’t reported it so far. Possibly, they’re waiting until it happens so they can report on the reaction and portray the Republicans as hyper-partisans intent on forcing their ideology on Congress.

The primary reason the Republicans want to have a public reading of the Constitution can be found in this BBC report about ObamaCare:

US healthcare law: Republicans bid to overturn reform

I think we can guess the angle from which the BBC is going to approach this, no?

What remains to be seen is whether this is simply a symbolic flexing of muscles by the Republicans, or whether it sets the tone for two years of party-political acrimony, our correspondent says.

Excuse me? All of a sudden we’re going to have party-political acrimony now that Republicans want to do something? What do you call what’s been going on for the last two years? This is written from the Democrats’ point of view.

With power in Congress divided, Democrats and Republicans must work together if new laws are to be passed.

Naturally. Just like I’ve been saying for some time now, the BBC wants you to think that bi-partisanship is good: when it involves advancing The Obamessiah’s agenda. When it’s something someone else wants, suddenly the Beeboids hold their noses and cast aspersions.

And what do you know, the President Himself wants us all to work together.

On Tuesday Mr Obama appealed to Republican congressional leaders on to put partisan politics aside to rebuild the US economy.

You see, He wants to fix the economy, while the nasty Republicans are willing to destroy it for ideological purposes. Funny how so many in the business world think He’s the one destroying the economy due to ideology. Not that you’d ever hear that viewpoint allowed through over the BBC airwaves or online.

I feel a statement from the White House coming on….

Speaking on board Air Force One as he travelled back to Washington from a holiday in Hawaii, Mr Obama said: “You know, I think that there’s going to be politics. That’s what happens in Washington – that they [Republicans] are going to play to their base for a certain period of time.

“But I’m pretty confident that they’re going to recognise that our job is to govern and make sure that we are delivering jobs for the American people and that we’re creating a competitive economy for the 21st Century, not just for this generation but for the next one.”

This from the man who responded to the first Republican who objected to one of His ideas by saying, “I won.”

But the BBC doesn’t want you to know that. They’re intent on maintaining this phony impression in your minds that one side has bad intentions while the President is a force for good.

Any evidence of actual reasons the Republicans have given for wanting to repeal ObamaCare? No, all we get is the equivalent of “critics are critical”. All you need to know is that whoever objects is simply on the other side, and of course it’s only natural that they’d object. It’s a slick way of dismissing the opposing viewpoint altogether.

One amusing thing about this BBC article is that they are at last telling the truth about what ObamaCare actually is: a law (or series of laws) forcing citizens to purchase a particular product from government-approved vendors according to government-enforced rules. Okay, they weren’t quite that honest about it:

The US healthcare reform law was approved in March last year, making it compulsory for Americans to buy medical insurance and illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to customers with pre-existing conditions.

You know, it’s funny, but I remember when the BBC was trying to create the impression that ObamaCare was going to provide health care for all those millions of uninsured for whom we were supposed to have sympathy, and not that it was merely a law to make it compulsory to buy it. But anytime the government tries to make any behavior compulsory, people are going to be understandably concerned (What, you mean it was actually about a policy and not just racism? -ed.). The BBC did quietly report about one challenge from the State of Virginia. Which brings me to the point of this post.

The United States is a Republic made of individual States. When the Founding Fathers created this country and wrote the Constitution, each of them viewed their State as their country. There’s an inherent idea of autonomy, and the rights of States and limits of the Federal Government are entrenched in the Constitution. ObamaCare and other Obamessiah and Pelosi/Reid/far-Left policies (such as allowing the EPA to cross over into another branch of government and control things normally left to the Legislative branch) can be considered un-Constitutional.

For quite some time there has been a growing argument about whether or not the Constitution is a “living document”, to be watered down or ignored on a whim whenever the wind of modern culture changes. Of course, those who advocate such a position suddenly get all protective when it’s nasty Republicans wanting to add an Amendment. In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening over the growing noise about a proposed “Federalist” Amendment to give States the power to declare a Federal law un-Constitutional by each of their legislatures voting on it. Giving power back to the States (or, more accurately, allowing the States to exercise the power they had from Day One but which has been leeched away) is a challenge to the supreme executive power, a challenge to the strong man leader so many on the Left wish we had. Perhaps if this comes to pass Matt Frei will once again pine for a bit of Chinese-style autocracy, and folks like Woody Allen will wish the President could be a supreme dictator, if only for a few years.

This is why the Republicans want to have the Constitution read out to start the new session of Congress. It’s much more than a challenge to ObamaCare. It’s a statement of priorities, of respect for the rule of law, and a stand against the Democrats (and a few old-guard Republican leadership) and their attempts to force their most extreme desires on the country against the wishes of the public. In other words, it’s a statement about what they think the Unites States is all about.

I await the BBC’s reporting on the matter, fully aware that this doesn’t help that particular rapport with the US they want to create for you.

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WILD YOOF!

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It’s been a busy morning for the 5th columnists at the BBC. Interesting item here on Today @ 8.30am concerning the “lost generation” of young unemployed people. The allegation being pursued is that the evil Coalition is putting young people on the scrap heap by not continuing with the wise and kindly policies of Labour. Professor Paul Gregg made a guest appearance to state that some of Labour’s policies had most definitely worked and that by abandoning these the Government was risking a repeat of what happened in the early 1980’s. Yes – with a bound we were brought back to…..THATCHER!! It’s funny listening to the show reel of BBC approved lefties rabbiting on about how great socialism is for youth employment. They ignore pesky things like facts – never mention socialist Spain’s youth unemployment for instance – and the impression being slowly but surely created is that Labour presided over a golden period in our history.The revisionism is stunning.

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TAXING TIMES

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Today is the day that VAT moves up to 20%. The BBC is not happy about this and gave Alan Johnson a hassle free canter earlier this morning with the usual disingenuous amnesiac Labour propaganda. Then wee Georgie Osborne was on just after 8am for a verbal roasting for having the audacity to try and balance the books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in the least happy about this permanent increase in VAT HOWEVER the BBC seem to have forgotten why such drastic measures are necessary. Had Osborne decided to go for deeper cuts (My preference) in order to hold VAT down, the BBC would have shrieked at the awfulness of it all! So whatever Osborne did he was going to be damned. Now, it’s not that I object to the Chancellor being given a tough grilling, in fact I welcome this. But during the long Labour years, when taxes were also hiked in all sorts of ways, I don’t recall the BBC getting so vexed about taxes. It is this contradiction that is so offensive – as the BBC parrots Labour economic incoherence as if it were fact whilst wiping clean the things that happened between 1997 and 2010. Their revisionism combined with the sudden interest in raised taxes cuts to the issue of bias.

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WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK…

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Well, the New Year has truly begun with most of us now back at work. The BBC has also gone back to work this morning, with a vengeance. High up the list of priority news stories is the allegation that “increasing” numbers of White British people are converting to Islam. There is a report carried here on Today @ 8.41am by Catrin Nye of the BBC Asian network (natch) explaining why women in particular are so attracted to the Religion of Peace.  As a PR piece for Islam, it is sublime, with the remarkable statement by one convert that she felt “empowered” to be a Muslim. No tough questions asked, of course, but it’s nice to see the BBC setting off on 2011 with the usual pro-Islam agenda. I look forward to some of the BBC sisterhood doing the decent thing, converting to Islam, and thus removing themselves forever from our lives.

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GREEN BUSINESS

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Some time ago, I noted that Roger Harrabin seemed to be offering his services for hire as a speaker at greenie events, and was seemingly paid amounts up to £10,000 and more for his appearances. I can’t confirm this, of course, because I haven’t seen his financial records, but I believe it is a reasonable inference to make; he’s registered with a fee-making agency as a “performing artiste” (no less) and I don’t imagine that he is there purely for the good of his health. If he doesn’t accept payment, I will be happy to put the record straight, though he hasn’t responded to my invite to do so.

I also suggested that his colleague Richard Black was similarly making money. That led to yelps of protest (and, in due course, a BBC solicitor’s letter) that he did not allow his integrity to be thus prostituted, and I accept that Mr Black does not similarly hire himself out. But this rather begged the question of why, if Mr Black thinks it is so wrong to be a hired gun, Mr Harrabin is seemingly happy to be so. Oh hum, such are the complexities of being a BBC environmental activist.

I’ve been digging a little bit deeper in this patch, and it doesn’t stop there. Our Mr Harrabin is also listed as a speaker with an outfit called Green Business Events (GBE). This is a body which frightens me to the core, and – I submit – shows the extent to which greenie madness has taken hold of the establishment, with activists persuading each other on a regular basis that they are on a righteous crusade to save the world. In reality, it’s a conspiracy of rich companies finding new ways of extracting the maximum amount of money out of subsidies, grants and taxes under the guise of “corporate social responsibility”. Said GBE holds an annual “Green Strategy” screw-the-poor, love-in conference (which our Roger chaired in 2009), and also monthly “Green Mondays” around the country in which 200 or so of the senior management acolytes (chillingly called “corporate climate change leaders”) of this religious-fervour group get together in rather plush venues to crow about their save-the-world policies.

(Incidentally, the whole shooting match was founded by a young whizz-kid called Ben Patten. He seems to be on a good money-making wheeze. His qualifications for running this climate change extravaganza? A dreaded MBA and a degree in, er, ancient history. He thus has as many scientific qualifications as Mr Harrabin).

When I found GBE, I was gripped with a mixture of abject horror and fascination; horror that such a group actually exists and fascination that so many companies, organisations and arms of the government have actually willingly signed up to this brainwashing process. What it means is that there is now a shadowy momentum (as well as the declared mainstream political agenda) towards entrapping us all in the climate change machine, subscribed to by the most powerful organisations in the land.

Mr Harrabin’s involvement reveals something far more worrying. It shows that the BBC not only seemingly allows him out as a hired gun, but also does not care if he is directly associated with an organisation that has a declared partisan goals. Groups like GBE might claim be saving the world; in reality, they are ramming a political agenda down our throats and are working flat out behind the scenes to subject to us to fuel poverty, to invest billions in crackpot wind schemes, to reverse the industrial revolution, and to ensure that the developed world transfers billions of pounds to the corrupt pockets of developing world dictators. The BBC should be ashamed of itself.

Update: Mr Harrabin (having been complicit in spreading the Met Office’s climate change propaganda), is now professing indignance at their conduct in keeping quiet about the recent cold snap. Pot. Kettles. Black. (h/tip B-BBC readers)

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JIHAD FROM BRITISH CONSULATE, NOTHING TO SEE…

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It’s way down the BBC new menu, well below the death of actor Pete Postlethwaite for example, but I await with interest the BBC coverage of the shocking news that Israel has charged two workers at the British Consulate in Jerusalem with arms trafficking, in connection to an alleged plot by militants to fire a rocket into a football stadium.Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency is accusing the two Palestinians of helping two other suspects who are allegedly members of Hamas to acquire guns. I am sure the BBC will ensure that the impact of this is ameliorated and kept well below showbiz and other key news items.

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The Mohammed Divide

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Even the BBC is finding it impossible to deny that there is a link between Islam and terrorism. So they do what has to be done. In concord with the government they manufacture a distinction between ‘Good Islam’, and ‘Bad, terrorist-type Islam’, and proceed to distance one from the other, relentlessly.
This means the BBC can continue to insert Islam-related features into hundreds of programmes, the latest example being Five Guys Named Mohammed. (In doing so they had to admit what they had swept under the carpet just a few weeks ago, that Mohammed, not James or Oliver, was the UK’s commonest, most popular name for new baby boys.)

Robin Shepherd has recommended a superb article in Standpoint by the heroic Douglas Murray. “This is the sort of piece that deserves to be read far and wide. So take a look and pass it on to all your contacts.”

It’s long. I printed off all seven pages, and slipped into something more comfortable to read it; I heartily recommend that you do the same.
It relates to Cordoba House, the Mega-Mosque proposed for Ground Zero, and the controversy it has engendered. Douglas Murray has watched and participated in debates in New York, and has seen at first hand what is happening there. He fears America is about to succumb to the malady that is affecting Europe and the UK, namely mass denial of self evident and demonstrable truths about Islam, which is exactly what has already happened here. Do take time to read his article.
Here’s a taster:

In October, the debate reached one of its nastiest points with an over-booked and badly-chaired studio discussion-cum-slanging-match on ABC. Daisy Khan, the wife of the imam of the proposed mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf, was one of those who appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s panel. The anti-building side were repeatedly defamed. Robert Spencer of the Jihad Watch blog was accused by one of the other guests of being in league with neo-Nazis and was not allowed to respond. On both sides, people who had lost family-members on 9/11 slugged it out. The effect was bitter. At one point, Daisy Khan claimed that her opponents were throwing her “into the arms of al-Qaeda”. The author and former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali came on via video-link. “What are you complaining about?” she asked. “You are sitting here at ABC TV. You’ve got a great job. You have freedom. Nobody is throwing you anywhere. Your rights are protected. I think that it’s your perception of being a victim.” Khan glared at her: “I am not a victim, Ayaan, stop calling me that. You’re the one running around with a bodyguard.” The studio audience greeted Khan’s taunt with laughter, applause and cheers. They almost drowned out a single man in the front row shouting at Khan: “And why do you think that is?”

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Dear Richard Black,

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Subject: your New Year message

I know sharks are very, very important to you and I concur with you that it is not right that we still treat them so cruelly and wastefully. It is strange – to me at least – that you write about this topic without mentioning that the EU’s common fisheries policy is the world’s most damaging rat’s nest of rules affecting fish stocks and sea conservation. But no matter, I know that the BBC rather likes the EU and regularly worships at its altar, so I understand why you brush that under the carpet and point the finger of blame in other directions.

May I respectfully raise other queries about your New Year Encyclical on the environment? First I wonder why you dismiss so disdainfully the concerns of Spanglerboy and JackHughes that in your environment beat, you are still a little obsessed with climate change and “emissions”? I know that like me, you are not a scientist, but there is accumulating evidence that is not hard to find that perhaps the AGW curve is not as uninterrupted as you have regularly made out. The Arctic Sea ice has not gone (in fact, according to the BBC’s own report, normally open sea lanes in the Arctic are, as I write, somewhat clogged by ice), ski resorts are not without snow, there is record snow, even in Japan, and, oh yes, despite firm predictions by the Met office back in 2000 that snow would become a rare event, we have had three consecutive winters of arctic temperatures far removed from what the Met Office’s £33m supercomputer predicted and we have just experienced the coldest UK December in 120 years. Some are calling for an inquiry, but I know you and your BBC colleagues don’t think that such views are important enough to report. I could go on, but I don’t want to give you too much to digest. I know you probably view all this as just “weather” and further evidence that AGW is about to kill us all, but I still think that – given the highly influential save-the-world role that you believe you have – you might just think for one moment that the BBC-supported “consensus” on this topic is looking increasingly creaky, and you might at least occasionally break the habits of a lifetime and mention maybe a smidgeon of the rather interesting and persuasive evidence that does not agree with your own views.

After all, you do claim to be a journalist. When I was trained by the BBC, in what is now the Langham Hotel in a very different era, we were taught to cast our net more widely than speaking to people who agreed with us. Instead, you come out with strangely confrontational platitudes like this:

I’m still seriously writing about global warming – do you seriously doing (sic, I think he missed out “think”) otherwise is an option, given the importance of the issue?

I’m writing this because – with the greatest respect – this seems to me to be prima facie evidence that you yourself seem to be elephantinely incapable of absorbing any other perspectives but those of greenie change-the-world activism. Could 2011 be the year that you change?

Yours sincerely,
Robin Horbury (the man you sought to sue)

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