Mark Mardell is a busy chap these days. One moment is his salivating at Rick Perry’s 53 seconds of forgetfulness during the latest GOP debate (It’s finished Perry, reckons Mardell, and Republicans simply must support Romney, this years Dem/BBC approved John McCain) the next he is grimly pointing out that the only person that can beat Obama in 2012 is..yes, Angela Merkel. I believe that is called the assumptive close. Gosh, things must be getting serious.
I wonder why some people get the idea that the BBC is pro-Palestinian and resolutely anti-Israel. Give this a listen. and weep. The bias is effortless.
This is beginning to look like let’s get Richard Black, but he (and the BBC idiots who employ him) deserve it. There is a delicious irony in this story. Mr Black has come out all guns blaring in support of his old chums Greenpeace against a nasty nuclear energy company, EDF. Greenpeace, like Mr Black, want the UK energy supply industry to go back to the dark ages, so the fact that EDF have -in a very French way – looked after their own interests is an occasion for Mr Black to give them a very good (one-sided) kicking, and to remind us how nasty the French government was to the sainted zealots of Greenpeace in the past in helping to sink one of their boats.
But I wonder what the BBC chairman thinks of all this? My guess is that he’s choking over his cornflakes this morning. Or I certainly hope he is. Euromaniac Lord Patten is an ardent greenie, ready to flaunt his eco-fascist credentials to anyone who asks him. To that end, I’m sure he thought he was on a brilliant wicket when he decided (with the inducement, no doubt, of a nice, fat fee) to join the advisory board of a company boasting about its greenie policies and strategy. But I’m afraid all that glitters is not gold – that company just happens to be…EDF Energy. As I’ve noted before, he and his lefty deputy Diane Coyle both sit on the EDF advisory board – so what price their green credentials now? And I’d love to hear them justify how they will continue to serve on a company, which it has been found, is happy to break the law in pursuit of its goals.
This shows, yet again, that the BBC is rotten to the core. Its trustees are nakedly partisan on the subject of climate change, and have sanctioned deliberate misreporting of the whole debate. But at least two of them can’t resist – like so many public servants – the lure of fat consultancy fees… and this morning, they are shown up as venal hypocrites.
A couple of days ago he was getting his panties in a bunch about those evil Koch Brothers, today it’s the Anglo-Saxon world in general:
To those who despair of the success of sceptical lobbying, the message is clear: learn one of the languages of Brazil, China or India.
Even French might do at a pinch.
Black’s article – which bemoans the apparent undue influence of climate scepticism in English-speaking countries – is based on a report by a former BBC journalist (naturally) from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The RISJ is funded in part by George Soros – a good-guy evil capitalist who uses his money to promote the sort of left-wing propaganda approved of by BBC journalists. Other funding for the RISJ comes from the BBC, the BBC World Service and the British Council, which means we pay for it at least three times over. And one of the ubiquitous Joseph Rowntree trusts is involved too, of course.
Anyway, I hope it’s all true. Altogether now (to the tune of U-S-A! U-S-A!): AN-GLO-SAX’N! AN-GLO-SAX’N! AN-GLO-SAX’N!
Question Time tonight comes from Newcastle upon Tyne.
On the panel we have Nadine Dorries, the Sec of State for Scotland and LibDem Michael Moore, the Shadow Chief Sec to the Treasury Rachel Reeves, neurobiologist Professor Colin Blakemore and Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.
Could be an interesting one this week.
TheEye is able to join the Two Davids…Vance and (hopefully) Mosque…in the Moderators balcony tonight, so we all look forward to seeing you at 10:30pm!
Mid- week and this is overdue! Over to you, gentle reader…
One of the battalion of Beeboids covering the US these days, Jonny Dymond, has just done an extremely one-sided collection of sob stories for Today about the struggles of the middle class. He went to a couple of slowly dying cities in Connecticut to create his tapestry of woe, and his agenda is clear.
I say it’s one-sided not because there are tons of stories of rising successes for the middle class he could have provided in the interests of balance, but because of the way Dymond presents the situation in the first place. Highly selective, and framed in a very narrow-minded fashion. The whole story is presented as a case study in how the 2008 financial disaster and the subsequent recession has ravaged the middle class, the backbone of the US. But the agenda here is really to support the Occupiers’ cause.
Dymond starts out in a metal parts factory in Prospect, CT, where he wrings his hands over the plight of the workers. They no longer get the guaranteed annual raises, or the constant overtime which pads the regular paychecks of anyone on an hourly wage in any industry (especially including the public sector), so their American Dream, he opines, is on hold at best, and possibly even disappearing for good.
The factory boss also laments the plight of his employees. But in the middle of all this, he casually mentions that Connecticut hasn’t actually has any net job increase in 20 years. What does that have to do with 2008 or the recession? He and one of his suffering employees also point out that the food prices and gas prices and taxes are going up and up, which makes things tough for those on an essentially fixed income. Well, we can all guess what the standard BBC answer to that is: they need pay rises. Never mind that Connecticut ranks 47th in crushing taxes which hurt businesses and job growth.
The Tea Party movement – so disparaged by the BBC – wants to lower taxes, something that’s an anathema to Left-wingers like Dymond, so he doesn’t mention the idea. Nor does he mention that the Democrats who run the state recently enacted the largest tax increase in state history. (Over the last two decades, when the state wasn’t run by Democrats, it was run by Bush-style Big Government Republicans, the kind the Tea Party movement has been working to get rid of.) Dymond also better hope that none of these factory workers earn more than $50K pa, or have spouses earning a similar middle-class income, as the Democrats who run Connecticut recently raised state income taxes for both. These aren’t even the “millionaires and billionaires” against whom the President often rails, either.
Food prices going up? Even the Guardian admits that this is in large part due to the Warmists forcing biofuel down our throats, causing edible corn prices to skyrocket, which drives up everything else. Who’s robbing the American dream here, Jonny?
One of those responsible is the Democrat former Senator, Chris Dodd, who was partially responsible for driving the mortgage crisis, and got a sweetheart deal from one of the failed sub-prime companies. Never mind all the campaign largesse he got from the industry.
One of the staples of the American Dream Dymond mentions is home ownership. Well, he better hope none of his struggling middle class workers in Connecticut own homes these days, as the Democrats who run the state have made property taxes there 50% higher than the national average. Sure, these geniuses think they’re doing to it soak the evil rich bankers and David Letterman who live within commuting distance of New York City, but the unintended consequence – as always in these cases – is that hurts the middle class most. Dymond couldn’t be bothered to find this out, as it would detract from his Narrative.
If that’s not bad enough, they also just raised the state sales tax from 6% to 6.35% (still significantly lower than New York, but then New Jersey has no sales tax on retail good at all), and eliminated tax exemptions for all kinds of things which affect these middle class factory workers, like heating oil and the sacred property tax credit. They even killed the tax exemption for products which help people quite smoking. At the same time, they jacked up taxes on cigarettes. I hope none of those struggling factory workers smoke, or if they do they’re not thinking of quitting any time soon. So much for the American Dream, eh, Jonny? As we all know, and which the BBC has mostly kept from you, some states not controlled by Democrats have cut taxes and added jobs. Even New York, with the highest tax burden in the country, the Democrat Governor is trying to fix the budget without raising taxes. But that doesn’t help the Agenda, now, does it? So don’t bring it up.
To tie it all together, Dymond goes to the city of Hartford to meet up with his darling Occupiers. He manages to find one of them who hasn’t pulled a knife on someone. This Occupier laments that we’ve all been lied to, that there’s no such thing as the American Dream. What Dymond fails to realize is that this, just like the factory bosses’ statement about no net job growth for the last 20 years, also has nothing to do with the recent financial crisis and recession. This Occupier means that there has never been an American Dream available to everyone willing to work for it. He’s not talking about a temporary rough time we need to fix at all.
This keeps happening with BBC reports on this issue. On the one hand they say that the Occupy movement is inspired by anger at the greedy bankers who caused the financial crisis that everyone else has to pay for. Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard someone (usually a trade union mouthpiece or Labour politician or Robert Peston) say that people are being forced to pay for a crisis they didn’t cause. On the other hand, they moan about income inequality and corporate greed. But if this is all anger at a recent phenomenon, why do the Occupiers keep saying that this has always been a problem, and everything has always been bad? It’s because the BBC keeps misleading you about the whole story, as Dymond is doing here.
This is a very biased report. Everything is framed from one side of the issue, and facts which detract from the Narrative are swept under the rug.
Well. it looks like Berlusconi is following Papandreou out through the exit door, as demanded by Merkozy. This morning, the BBC pondered the future for Italy. Naturally, they push the “tighter fiscal and political union” fantasy of Barroso and his pals. They are also fixated on the personality of Berlusconi.They might do better to listen to the markets, now factoring Italy’s 10yr bond rates at 7%. That’s immediate bail-out time, and this time, not enough cash in the coffers to bail Italy out. So why does the BBC not discuss the central issue here – namely Euro-Governments spending more money than they have? The impossibility of such diverse economies as Germany and Greece? The hubris of the European elite who have ignored the profound schisms that now threaten to engulf the Eurozone? Why is the substance of the debate always so restricted?
I’m sure you will have been following the BBC coverage of the “Open Borders” issue. Now like everyone else, I expect that UK borders are securely guarded and I have grave doubts regarding Theresa May’s abilities anyway. HOWEVER, the BBC is clearly pursuing a conquer and divide approach to this story, as is all too evident in this coverage;
The suspended UK Border Force chief Brodie Clark has been treated with “contempt” by Home Secretary Theresa May, his union officials have said. The First Division Association’s Paul Whiteman said: “It is astonishing the home secretary [declared] him guilty before he had a chance of responding.”
The open mic blunder has been reported variously as:
“I cannot stand him. He’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama. The US president responded by saying: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day.” (Guardian)
****
“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama (Haaretz)
****
“I can’t stand him any more, he’s a liar,” Mr Sarkozy said in French.
“You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day,” Mr Obama replied.” (BBC)
( It doesn’t state the language in which Obama’s retort was uttered)
****
Whether it’s ‘can’t stand’, or ‘can’t bear’, or whether the conversation began with:
“Mr Obama was taking Mr Sarkozy to task for voting in favour of the Palestinian bid….” (BBC)
or:
“for not warning the US that France would vote in favour of the Palestinians’” (Guardian)
is fairly immaterial, as is the extraneous “but me,” in the BBC’s report, (they probably stuck it in there just in case readers were too stupid to grasp Obama’s ironic self pity) it’s the exposure of the childish and trivial nature of these gossipy disrespectful playground-level remarks by supposedly two of the most important intellectual pigmies in the world that’s so painful.
Memories of Daniel Bernard, the French Ambassador’s infamous remark made in 2001:“All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country Israel.”
The BBC will be feeling a warm glow of satisfaction that Obama agrees with them about Netanyahu, something that also implicitly confirms their assumption that Obama’s apparent support of Israel can be purely put down to electioneering.
Now they can get on with picking away at the scab of Iran’s nuclear threat, and hoping Israel will act alone so that after heaving a surreptitious sigh of relief (which I hope hope some mics inadvertently catch) the rest of the world can blame Israel for unnecessary aggression and for not waiting patiently for some non-existent diplomatic effort by the West to take effect
Not to mention the uncharacteristic but short-lived restraint by reporters.
