Monthly Archives: September 2012

I always thought, or hoped, the BBC was a serious news provider that had integrity and a sense of responsibility and was not prone to disseminating bilious, dangerous gossip.

Guess I am wrong.

Lib Dem conference: Simon Hughes attacks ‘racist’ banks

Deputy Lib Dem leader Simon Hughes says he has “seen and heard” banks making racist decisions on lending.

He said banks will “say yes to a well established white individual” but say no to a black business person “with a better financial reputation”.

“I have seen clearly banks, and heard clearly banks, who make racist decisions,” said the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark.”

Good  that the BBC is prepared to publish such libellous smears about the banks…no names, no pack drill.  Nothing like a bit of uncorroborated anti-bank vilification that is purely designed by Hughes to do the most reputational damage as possible.

Such charges of racism should only be raised with absolute proof.  It seems here that the BBC have decided to publish under the cover of ‘just reporting what he said’ whilst knowing that mud sticks.

Let’s wait and see just how long the bandwagon takes before the ‘victims’ of bank’s racism come crawling out of the woodwork….and make an appearance on Today and the  Victoria Derbyshire show…hankies at the ready!….just don’t expect to hear the bank’s version of any story we hear….all callers to the BBC phone-ins are entirely trustworthy and credible.

A few years back the BBC did a programme on business start ups showcasing  some people who were attempting to get their inventions onto the shelves.

One was a young black man who had designed an escape ladder that provided an emergency exit from a burning house.  He couldn’t get the banks to fund him…he openly claimed that it was due to racism.

On the same show a white man (Ken Frogbrook) who had invented a straw matting to soak up oil  spills at sea  couldn’t get any finance despite it working and being a viable commercial product and as such a potential big money spinner, the oil business being the oil business.  He finally got some money….his story was heard on the radio and Joanna Lumley (yes Purdey) stumped up some of her own money. 

Was he a victim of some unknown discrimination by the banks or did they just think the venture too risky or not likely to be sufficiently successful to warrant an investment?  Maybe he had red hair.  We shall never know.

It may not say much about racism in the banking world but it certainly says something about their ability to pick a winner.

 That’s the real story for the BBC if it really wants to keep poking the banking industry with a sharp stick…that and the lunacy of the Lib-Dems.

Not seen any corrective to the BBC’s big Arctic ice melt story…even  though Reuters is running with it:

(Via Bishop Hill)

NASA finally admits it Arctic cyclone in August ‘broke up’ and ‘wreaked havoc’ on sea ice — Reuters reports Arctic storm played ‘key role’ in ice reduction  

In a September 18 video posted by NASA on its website, they admit that the Arctic cyclone, which began on August 5, “wreaked havoc on the Arctic sea ice cover” by “breaking up sea ice.”

Global warming activists have been giddy in their hyping of the satellite era record low Arctic sea ice extent while ignoring the satellite era record sea ice expansion in the Antarctic.

Many climate activists have sought to downplay the significance that the Arctic cyclone played on this year’s summer sea ice in the Arctic. But this new inconvenient video report from NASA now makes the warmists’ attempt to deny the cyclones role in 2012’s Arctic sea ice conditions — impossible.

Do you think the BBC et al would have been more ready to accept PC Harwood’s version of events regarding the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests if Ian Tomlinson had been a Tory?

From the official notebook of PC Simon Harwood recording the events that resulted in the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London.

‘I was having a rest break after a long period of time helping to prevent a family of polar bears being brutally exploited and abused by city bankers when a man, now identified as Ian Tomlinson, came up to me and kicked me in the testicles shouting ‘Fucking plod’…..I believe he may have been heavily under the influence of several  kinds of intoxicants including the Guardian newspaper.

I fell to the ground and when I had recovered my breath and my eyes had stopped watering I requested that he didn’t do that again and that he move along.

As I lay there Mr Tomlinson then proceeded to take out his penis and urinated upon me. I told him to desist otherwise I would have to issue him with a warning.

Mr Tomlinson laughed and ground out his cannabis cigarette in my face. I told him I understood his anger at ‘The System’ but  I may have to arrest him if he didn’t stop.

At that he moved off but suddenly a speeding express train thundered through the square and I had to push Mr Tomlinson out of its way to save his life. He fell to the ground and lay there unmoving.

My training kicked in and I proceeded to give first aid…the initial act being to test a casualty’s reactions so I prodded him gently with my baton…he failed to respond, so I prodded him harder. Again no response so I called an ambulance. I then removed my identity tabs so that undue attention would not deflect me from my crucial work ensuring the safety of those protesting about the rape of the planet by greedy industrialists and financiers.

Mr Tomlinson would have made a full recovery I believe had not the ambulance crashed on the way to the hospital and unfortunately Mr Tomlinson died as a result of that RTA.

I write this for your information as Mr Tomlinson’s family would appear to indicate that they are unhappy with my actions.

I have recorded this fully in my pocket book.

 If Ian Tomlinson had been a Tory minister would that ‘report’ have been taken as Gospel?

Not saying that the BBC et al are all too ready to believe the police when they want and to disbelieve when they want but the evidence is there that the police are more than ready to twist the truth for their own purposes.

Well, obviously what Andrew Mitchell may or may not have said to a police officer remains the single most important news story in the Universe but that aside, any other instances of BBC bias bothering you folks? Speak NOW…

Through the left wing prism of the BBC the “Arab Spring” is an unambiguously “good thing” – albeit with the odd “bump in the road”  (Copyright Obama) such as the slaughter and sodomisation of the occasional American ambassador. Hence the favourable reporting of…

David Cameron is expected to urge world leaders to do more to support emerging democracies of the Arab Spring, as he addresses the United Nations General Assembly for a second day in New York. In a keynote speech on Wednesday, the prime minister will say he is optimistic about the region’s future. He will also offer Egypt financial support and help with security.

No voices on the BBC to challenge this support for Islam rising just unmitigated support for helping Dar Al Islam. Who says that the BBC is anti-Conservative? It is PRO Conservative just so long that Conservative is playing the dhimmi.

It has been a constant mystery for Flanders and Co as to why employment is going up in a ‘recession’.

The most reasonable thought might be that maybe the ‘recession’ is not as bad as painted and that it is the measurement of the GDP figures that is wrong giving us a too low estimation of the economy’s output.

Flanders sniffily dismisses this and attaches herself limpetlike to the ‘it’s all such a big mystery’ theory as well as deriding those who are self employed as people who don’t really count as employed…they’re not in real jobs.

Not saying she has an agenda in trying to question employment figures and tell us something dodgy is going on in the economy…but she has.

However if she had read the BBC news site she might have gained some insight into a small but growing part of the economy based on innovation and the entrepreneurship of the ‘self employed’…and further reading might have enlightened her about the failures of methods used to measure GDP and the effect such failure has on the economy and government policy.

Here the BBC illustrates a ground swell of industrial innovation  and manufacturing that employs new technology and the internet to lower the cost of production, speed it up and to share ideas and information around the world:

‘When Karl Marx predicted a revolution putting the means of production in the hands of the workers, he probably didn’t imagine it to be fought by an army of DIYers.

But increasingly tinkerers and hobbyists are proving they are more than equal to the corporate world, and their efforts are challenging the traditional methods of manufacturing.’

And here one of the BBC’s favourite Lefty economists, Stiglitz, reveals that measuring GDP is not quite so simple and methods used are lagging behind the reality leading to governments making policy decisions on the economy based on false information…having obvious harmful effects.

‘This report, building on extensive earlier work, describes the additions and subtractions that can and should be made to provide a better measure of welfare.

Policies should be aimed at increasing societal welfare, not GDP.

There are long recognized problems in GDP as a measure of economic performance, but many of the changes in the structure of our society have made these deficiencies of greater consequence.

International comparisons of levels and more importantly of rates of growth play a very important role in the design of policy. Comparisons are indeed possible if the procedures and definitions used to compute the accounts are comparable. Yet there are still “large differences in the ways National Accounts calculations are carried out even among European countries, let alone between Europe and the U.S1”. This may have far reaching consequences. It makes no sense, for instance, to structural reforms intended to import the “best practice” of the country performing the best in terms of growth rate, if the growth rates of the two countries differ mainly because of differences in the ways National Accounts are computed.’

Not saying Flanders is arrogant and out of touch but a BBC economics reporter might perhaps have a more rounded approach to the world and not just peddle a certain viewpoint that seems rather too politically partisan.

The BBC lives in its own  little self regarding bubble in which its every thought, opinion and world view is reinforced by others from the same mould….the only thing Thomson below misses is the daily infusion of Guardian drivel that each BBC employee ingests with his/her morning latte.

Speaking at the Church and Media Conference at the MediaCityUK complex in Salford, where parts of the BBC are now based, she offered him advice for the job, urging him to make sure the BBC was “confident but not arrogant.”

She said: “It’s quite easy for the BBC to get a bit above itself and forget about everyone else.”’

It’s good of her to finally come clean and admit what everyone already knows,   but as she is skipping off from the behemoth isn’t it just a bit late?

What exactly was she doing all these years to counter such attitudes that are the very lifeblood of the BBC and inform its every attitude towards the ‘populist Plebs’ who might be so impertinent as to have some ideas of their own?

It’s not just Nick Clegg who is “sorry”...

“The BBC has apologised to the Palace after it revealed the Queen asked the Home Secretary why extreme cleric Abu Hamza had not been arrested for his vile preaching in Britain. Security Correspondent Frank Gardner said the Monarch told him she was so ‘upset’ by the content of his hate sermons, she contacted a senior minister to ask ‘why is he still at large?’

The Monarch’s intervention was revealed today as the hook-handed criminal lost his final appeal against extradition to the United States. She ‘was upset that her country and its subjects were being denigrated by this man who was using this country as a platform for his very violent, hateful views,’ Mr Gardner said. But within hours the BBC issued a grovelling apology in a letter to the Palace, admitting their reporter’s revelations from a private conversation with her was an ‘entirely inappropriate’ thing to do.

Did Gardner not realise he was breaking a private conversation? Did no one else in the BBC not see the problem? Or, are they so blinded by arrogance and self regard that they see no harm in breaking a confidence?

Mark Thompson has left the building. Last week in fact.

Perhaps now we can have a genuine outbreak of free speech at the BBC and an open discussion about religion.

We all probably know Thompson’s views on the broadcasting of critical, or what some might deem offensive, programmes based on religion.

If it’s Christianity essentially anything goes…as long as it can be ‘justified artistically’.

Islam…..well that’s a different ball game…for two reasons…first and probably foremost, the threat of extreme violence being perpetuated upon you, second that to criticise Islam is just another form of racism.

The first is a very real threat…and a perfect reason for not actually bowing down and surrendering your values….give up freedom of speech and what do you have to give up next?

The second, criticism of Islam is akin to racism, is a narrative dreamt up by Muslims to silence their critics. They have seen how opponents of mass immigration were forced into silence by being shouted down as ‘racists’ and have adopted that tactic to further their own interests.

For the BBC to adopt this narrative is a policy of extreme danger that shuts down the normal avenues of debate when controversies arise and leaves only more extreme measures to resolve the issue…ironically resulting in the very violence the BBC thinks its policy of submissive silence prevents.

Below is Thompson being interviewed and it is the famous interview in which he agrees his fear of Islamic violence acts as a natural editor as to what he allows on the screen.

Below that is the transcript of a speech by Christopher Hitchens in which he lays out the reasons why everything Mark Thompson stood for in regard to freedom of speech and Islam is wrong….and ultimately dangerous.

Who should George Entwistle listen to? Thompson or Hitchens? Who speaks truth to power, who speaks the unadulterated truth, who speaks without fear of being silenced by some fanatic….no, who speaks his mind despite the fear of being finally and irrevocably silenced by a knife wielding Islamic fanatic?

Hitchens.

Thompson believed everything was relative and negotiable…..He had no real principles, just words….that ultimately signified nothing.  His legacy….a BBC that is cowed and still as biased, if not more, as when he took over.

Proof?

This is the reality of the BBC in action: 

BBC refuses to screen play about Islamic threat to freedom of speech

Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, says it will not screen the controversial ‘Can We Talk About This?’.   Although the BBC was willing to disregard protests from Christians who considered its decision to broadcast Jerry Springer: The Opera as an affront, Mark Thompson, its outgoing director-general, is more wary of giving airtime to Can We Talk About This?, the National Theatre’s examination of how Islam is curtailing freedom of speech.

Perhaps someone at the BBC has read or will read Hitchens’ speech, his plea, for the defence of freedom of speech, not just in relation to those things that we either know aren’t ‘offensive’ or those that we know  though offensive will not bring retribution upon us but also those difficult subjects that demand courage to stand up and say when something is wrong no matter what.

Perhaps someone at the BBC will take that plea to heart and act upon it.  Somehow I doubt it.

It really is time for the BBC to make its mind up…is it going to defend freedom of speech come what may or is it going to allow itself to be silenced not just by threats of violence but by false considerations of whether or not someone may be offended in their own mind by this or that programme?

Thank God for the Internet! 

The Interview:

(in two parts)

In 2005, the BBC broadcast Jerry Springer: The Opera despite protests from Christian groups (read and comment on our case study). The BBC received more than 60,000 complaints about the show – a record at the time. In an interview with Free Speech Debate, Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, explains the broadcaster’s decision to air the show: “It was a serious piece of artistic work.”

In 2008 a decision was made to abolish blasphemy laws in England and Wales, which for centuries had made it illegal to insult Christianity. Thompson says: ”That’s now left our law. Well, I rejoice in that fact.” But would the BBC have broadcast the programme if it had been about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad? Thompson says it probably would not, and offers this explanation: “It’s not as if Islam is spread evenly across the UK population. It’s almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against and where they may well regard an attack on their religion, racism by other means.”

Mark Thompson on the BBC and religion

 Interview by Timothy Garton Ash, director of Free Speech Debate

MT: Jerry Springer I saw without feeling that it was offensive to me because the intention of the piece was so clearly a satire about an American talk show host and his world rather than the religious figures as such. Now I readily accept that that’s a matter of opinion but that was my view.

MT: Post-Satanic Verses, so if this debate in broadcasting or in British cultural life suddenly got energized by the Satanic Verses, that was an absolute watershed I think for us. It was after that but of course it was before 9/11 and the sense and fear, and so forth, in the sense that some of this could lead to direct violence against individuals.

TGA:  It is an ace, isn’t it? And a rather nasty ace if people say, “I feel so strongly about that; if you say it or broadcast it, I will kill you.”

MT: Well clearly it’s a very notable move in the game, I mean without question. “I complain in the strongest possible terms” is d ifferent from “I complain in thestrongest possible terms and I’m loading my AK47 as I write.” This definitely raises the stakes. But I think there’s two or three things going on, so manifestly a threat to murder, which by the way is quite rightly a crime, massively raises the stakes.

MT: It’s not unreasonable to ask what the consequences of broadcasting something, or writing something will be for a particular individual or for a community, especially communities who may reasonably – I think that’s perhaps an important word to use – reasonably take the thing to be an attack, or to be threatening.

MT: I do not think that it’s appropriate that there should be laws inhibiting freedom of speech in the interest of protecting religions.

As I said…all fine words but in reality? 

Hitchens:

The Video of the speech

The (partial) transcript of a speech by Christopher Hitchens from a debate at Hart House, University of Toronto, 15 November 2006. “Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate.” Hitchens argued the affirmative position

Now, I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion, and organized religion. Absolutely convinced of it.

I speak as someone who is a very regular target of this, and not just in rhetorical form. I have been the target of many death threats, I know within a short distance of where I am currently living in Washington, I can name two or three people whose names you probably know, people who can’t go anywhere now without a security detail because of the criticisms they’ve made on one monotheism in particular. And this is in the capital city of the United States.
So I know what I’m talking about, and I also have to notice, that the sort of people who ring me up and say they know where my children go to school, and they certainly know what my home number is and where I live, and what they are going to do to them and to my wife, and to me and who I have to take seriously because they already have done it to people I know, are just the people who are going to seek the protection of the hate speech law, if I say what I think about their religion, which I am now going to do.
I’m beginning to resent the confusion that’s being imposed on us now and there was some of it this evening between religious belief, blasphemy, ethnicity, profanity and what one might call multicultural etiquette.
It’s quite common these days for people now to use the expression for example anti-Islamic racism, as if an attack on a religion was an attack on an ethnic group. The word Islamophobia in fact is beginning to acquire the opprobrium that was once reserved for racial prejudice. This is a subtle and very nasty insinuation that needs to be met head on.

Somebody said that the anti-Semitism and Kristallnacht in Germany was the result of ten years of Jew-baiting. Ten years?! You must be joking! It’s the result of 2,000 years of Christianity, based on one verse of one chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which led to a pogrom after every Easter sermon every year for hundreds of years. What are you going to do about that? Where is your piddling sub-section now?! Does it say St. John’s Gospel must be censored?!

We believe in the truths of holy books that are so stupid and so fabricated that a child can and all children do, as you can tell by their questions, actually see through them. And I think religion should be treated with ridicule, and hatred and contempt. And I claim that right.
Now let’s not dance around, not all monotheisms are exactly the same at the moment. They’re all based on the same illusion, they’re all plagiarisms of each other, but there is one in particular that at the moment is proposing a serious menace not just to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but to quite a lot of other freedoms too. And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity.

I am talking about militant Islam.
Globally it’s a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several large countries and states with an enormous fortune, it’s pumping the ideology of Wahhabism and Salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young and its madrassas, training people in violence, making a culture death and suicide and murder. That’s what it does globally, it’s quite strong.
In our society it poses as a cringing minority, who’s faith you might offend, which deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need.
Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn’t it? It says it’s the final revelation. It says that god spoke to one illiterate businessman in the Arabian Peninsula, and the resulting material which was largely plagiarized from the Old and the New Testament, almost all of it actually plagiarised, ineptly from the Old and the New Testament, is to be accepted as a divine revelation and as the final and unalterable one and those who do not accept this revelation are fit to be treated as cattle, infidels, potential chattel, slaves and victims.
Well I tell you what, I don’t think Mohammad ever heard those voices. I don’t believe it.

But who is the one under threat? The person who propagates this and says I’d better listen because if I don’t I’m in danger, or me who says No, I think this is so silly you could even publish a cartoon about it?
And up go the placards and up go the yells and the howls and the screams, Behead those who cartoon Islam, this is in London, this is in Toronto and this is in New York, it is right in our midst now…. Behead those, Behead those who cartoon Islam.
Do they get arrested for hate speech? No. Might I get in trouble for saying what I’ve just said about the prophet Mohammad? Yes, I might. Where are your priorities ladies and gentlemen? You’re giving away what’s most precious in your own society, and you’re giving it away without a fight and you’re even praising the people who want to deny you the right to resist it. Shame on you while you do this. Make the best use of the time you’ve got left. This is really serious.

Look anywhere you like in the world for the warrant for slavery, for the subjection of women as chattel, for the burning and flogging of homosexuals, for ethnic cleansing, for anti-Semitism, for all of this, you look no further than a famous book that’s on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and in every mosque.
And then just see whether you can square the fact that the force of the main source of hatred is also the main caller for censorship.