Monthly Archives: April 2012

HEALTH ATTACK…

By | |
63 Comments

It’s been a busy morning attacking the Conservative led Coalition on the BBC Today programme. The focus of attack, of course, is always on the Conservative element of that Coalition.

We were treated to Ed Balls whingeing about changes to welfare which come into effect with the new tax year today. Balls was allowed to bluster and he stuck to his script paying little regard to the gentle questions asked of him. In fairness, Lib-Dem Danny Alexander was permitted to make some replies although James Naughtie seemed determined to leave the impression that the tax and welfare changes can be made without affecting anyone. This is from the Balls school of economics and it is one that the BBC seem at ease with.

However this was merely the warm up act for the main attack of the day. In essence, how dare the Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley order spot checks on Abortion clinics? The BBC brought on a Lib Dem (Can’t remember his name) just before 7am to have a ritual sneer at Lansley and this was promptly followed by Andy Burnham joining in the feeding frenzy. The argument pursued was based on the claim by the chair of the Quality Care Commission, Dame Jo Williams, that the request to audit these abortion clinics has cost “one million” pounds (Is that an extra £1m and if so, why?) and may impact of the QCC hitting annual targets. Do you think that Dame Jo might herself be carrying a little political baggage? The reason I ask is that I note the Guardian raises a few concerns about her…

The inference is that Lansley ordered a comprehensive check on mis-practice by Doctors in these abortion clinics to deflect bad headlines he was getting on the NHS Health bill. Burnham agreed that it was suspicious. The fact that 50 out of 300 clinics were found to be breaking procedures was deemed neither here nor there. To other eyes this would be seen as an utter scandal. Not to the BBC.

Then we moved on to a THIRD and prime time interview with some manager from the NHS I think (running order has not been put up at time of me writing, despite the world class technical resources they have at the BBC). This time, Detective Sarah Montague remorselessly pursued the line that the TIMING of the Abortion Clinic inspections was…interesting. She was an echo chamber for what Burnham had said earlier.

Today had one aim this morning – to spear the Conservative Andrew Lansley because he ordered a thorough audit of Abortion Clinics. To my mind, this was the BBC using the guise of the Dame’s report to smear the integrity of Lansley and by extension, the Conservatives. Plus ca change?

The US President, the Supreme Court, and the BBC

By | | , , , , , ,
20 Comments

On Monday, the President made a pre-emptive attack on the Supreme Court because He’s afraid they’re going to vote to overturn ObamaCare on the grounds that part or all of it violates the Constitution. Needless to say, there’s been a huge outcry, and a lot of fuss in the press about it. I commented about it here yesterday to give everyone a heads up before the BBC came in with their spin.

Right on cue, realizing there’s a growing controversy, the BBC whipped up a quick article online laying out the White House talking points. Naturally, it contained the same bit of dishonesty – or, if I’m feeling generous, lack of understanding – as their previous reporting on the law:

The act’s requirement that all those eligible should have medical cover has been condemned as an assault on civil liberties by conservatives

Of course, in actual fact, the law requires people to purchase health care from companies.  That’s what the “Individual Mandate” is, which is the key turning point of the entire fiasco. The BBC’s wording here is grossly misleading as to what exactly people are complaining about. No surprise there. BBC correspondent Steve Kingstone said that the President’s attack is “a sign of just how high the stakes are”, but it’s really sign that He doesn’t have confidence in a law He never even read before it was passed. Continue reading →

BRITAIN OR THE THIRD WORLD?

By | |
21 Comments

This BBC item has been brought to my attention.

Sessions to encourage men to help stop female genital mutilation (FGM) will be held in Bristol, it is hoped. Campaign group Daughters of Eve has started hosting workshops for men in London after gaining funding from the Staples Trust in December.

Wonder who these “men” might be? Any thoughts? The world class BBC journalists don’t seem to know….

BRITISH – AFRICAN TERRORISM

By | |
14 Comments

Interesting piece on the BBC here concerning the emerging threat from Al Queda in AFRICA, and how this could increase the Jihad threat in Britain.

British youths from African communities could become radicalised as al-Qaeda looks to Africa to build its strength, the Rusi think tank has suggested. It says such a development would pose new challenges for UK and other Western intelligence services. It warns of potential for new or greater radicalisation among British youths from the Somali and other east and west African communities.

The problem lies in the first sentence. Who are these “British youths from African communities”, exactly? Is this a coy way of defining the vast number of Somalis illegally resident in this country? I was impressed the way the BBC produces an article on Al Queda without once mentioning the word Muslim once. (Islamist does make a brief appearance, hard to avoid when talking about Al Shabab I suppose) It’s as if these “youths” that may be radicalised – of the Pakistani, North African and Indian communities in Britain –  could be of any religious background.

GOD AND MAMMON

By | | ,
12 Comments

Ah. Giles Fraser. A BBC favourite, on the speed-dial for comment, with a guaranteed line of thinking that flows effortlessly into the BBC group-think. B-BBC’s Alan picks up on this here…

“Another little BBC programme just adding to the undercurrent of anti-capitalism, anti-banker rhetoric and whispers that are the cause celebre uniting the unthinking chattering classes and the great unwashed of the Socialist Workers Party and Occupy.

‘Ceremony and Society, Rev. Giles Fraser, the former Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, and David Rennie, Political Editor of The Economist, discuss the past and present importance of St Paul’s.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01f5hnx

The BBC likes to keep the anti-capitalist controversy on a rolling boil never allowing the subject to drop.

The programme is about St Paul’s Cathedral…but in reality it is a platform to allow Giles Fraser to declaim about ‘greed’ and Mammon and the City.

It is in itself a very interesting programme, just 14 minutes long. Rennie is from the left leaning Economist magazine but he speaks well and intelligently in an engaging manner. Fraser comes across as immature and student like….looking out over the city he proclaims ‘ Mammon hey!’.

He doesn’t do the cause of religion any service, in fact the opposite.

He explains why the British don’t like religion:

‘What St Paul’s stands for began after the English Civil war when the Church of England reinvented itself as a place of national togetherness. It shapes the national character…we don’t like ‘isms’, we don’t like any sort of ideology, we don’t do theology. We sit and pray together in a shared common space and that is what binds us together.
They don’t want to talk about theology…because that’s what killed people.’

So religion, at least deeply held views, kills?

Fraser goes on to say, disregarding his previous conclusion, that what we need is a more radical Church, one that goes back to its tenets and beliefs and makes demands of people….it shouldn’t just be a spiritual arm of the National Trust.

The Church should not be just a national place of coming together…a place of unity.
Christianity should be an act of rebellion creating a new narrative.

So back to the Bible then and its commands?

If he was a Muslim the BBC and the Government would be calling Fraser a radical or an extremist…someone ‘perverting’ the meaning of the Bible who doesn’t represent the true Christian community.

I’m not sure how a fundamentalist of any religion who wants to invoke the fundamentals of his religion can be called an extremist…unless the teachings of his religion are in themselves ‘extremist’.

Fraser of course doesn’t disappoint the BBC…he bashes the Bankers and capitalism demanding an ethical capitalism and the end to Individualism….Individualism which is ‘responsible for the way that morality has fallen apart in this country’.

Isn’t ‘Individualism’ meant to have been one of the great successes of Christianity? In fact it is Socialism that promotes individualism….with its take over of family and community responsibilities for caring for those around us.

Fraser says ‘Occupy’ has tapped into something wrong with our society…that banking and capitalism don’t work for the common good. Extreme wealth produces ‘moral hazard’…having a lot of money if bad for your soul…money is the Bible’s number one concern apparently.

I wonder where all the money comes from for the welfare fund and NHS…and all those coins that fill up the collecting plates in the churches or the success of the stock portfolios held by the Church…or paying the BBC license fee that pays his wage?

Where did the £147 million come from to build St Paul’s…or indeed the donations it seeks…‘Every gift from £10 to £1million helps to ensure that St Paul’s can continue to offer moments of peace, reflection, and prayer to all those who seek it, for generations to come.’

It seems God does not provide but the upkeep is from fleecing tourists for a £14.50 entrance fee.

I’m sure it’s all from ethically based Capitalists ….let’s hope they’re not just trying to buy their way into Heaven as the Tory Party ‘kitchen suppers’ are now out of bounds.

EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT BRITISH HISTORY IS WRONG..

By | |
77 Comments

This is a lengthy post but I fully commend you read all of it below the fold because it is a wonderful dissection of the current BBC series fronted by Professor Diarmaid Macculloch which aims to subvert everything we know about being British. Biased BBC’s Alan writes…

‘It is only now at the beginning of the 21st Century that history is being rewritten.’

The Story of Maths – 2. The Genius of the East.
Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy on the BBC.

History is indeed being rewritten…by the BBC.
Stalin’s propaganda chief Willy Munzenberg: “All news is lies and all propaganda is disguised as news.”

The BBC has broadcast what must be one of the ugliest and nastiest pieces of racist polemics outranking anything you might think the BNP could publish….a nastiness that is hidden and given a respectability by the veneer of BBC authority and backed up by the appearance of profound, credible scholarship.

It is a highly sophisticated and polished propaganda drive worthy of Goebbels or Willie Munzenberg, driven by the politically correct imperative to support and excuse mass immigration. It is aimed at the very heart of this nation with the sole intention of destroying national identity and sense of belonging and unity that has for so long held this nation together and provided the world with political, scientific, industrial and social progressive ideas that have made the world a better place.

‘Everything you know about British ancestry is wrong.’

The BBC has put together a three part programme with the intent to challenge every notion you had about what it means to be English and to undermine your very beliefs and identity. Even at face value it is clearly designed to shake a few convictions and beliefs but the deeper meaning is more startling, shocking in its aims and dangerous in its intended consequences. It fully intends that you no longer believe in your own national identity, your ethnicity, your own culture and history.  Continue reading →

ARGIE BARGY

By | |
33 Comments

Yesterday, I queries the BBC view of the Falklands war all those years ago. I am reminded by a B-BBC contributor of this;

“Here’s an interesting snippet from the BBC revealing what it thinks about the Falklands and perhaps the Argentinian claim on them:

‘Thirty years after the Falkland’s War, journalist and military historian Max Hastings explores the conflict’s impact and its legacy.  The Falklands could well be the last popular war Britain fights, and certainly the country’s last imperial hurrah.’

Hmmm…so the possession of the Flaklands is merely an ‘imperial hurrah’….an illegitimate occupation of the Argies land? This is John Humphry’s view from a while back:

‘A deal should be struck which establishes Argentinian sovereignty over the islands while allowing the islanders to remain British and which perhaps shares the spoils of oil exploration.’

No doubt about that…the Falklands are Argentinian.”

THE OLD ONES ARE THE BEST…

By | |
5 Comments

B-BBC’s Alan observes;

Funny how the BBC can always remember this from 20 years ago in 1991 from Norman Lamont:

‘Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying.’ 

but have so far managed to ignore this from Labour:

‘One of Ed Miliband’s closest allies has described rising unemployment and inflation as ‘an orgasmic wet dream‘ for the Left. Jon Trickett, Labour spokesman for the Cabinet Office, claimed some Left-wingers were celebrating the rise in joblessness, as well as the public sector wage freeze and changes to civil service pensions.

Mr Trickett spoke at the launch of a group called Winning Labour, which promotes a bigger role for the trade unions inside the party. He told the meeting at Leeds Civic Hall in July last year: ‘We’re living through amazing times. For anyone on the Left… it’s like an orgasmic wet dream.  ‘Think about it: Capitalism in crisis again; unemployment’s on the rise and so is inflation.’ ‘

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123767/Miliband-aide-filmed-saying-unemployment-inflation-grubby-dream-Left.html#ixzz1qrm3wo9o
and curious how ‘out of touch’ politicians are such a new phenomenom…or are they?:

‘There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours’ publicity.’

Norman Lamont again in 1993.