Monthly Archives: September 2012

Prime Minister’s Questions 12th September 2012

By | |
9 Comments

Today Biased-BBC will be hosting a LiveChat for Prime Ministers Questions at 12 noon UK time.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, although CoverItLive were always commercial at the medium to top volume of their market they have decided to charge everyone now, regardless of size.

Their concession is a sliding scale of charges, but it would still impose a financial burden on the site and we decided to look for an open source version as a replacement.

We will test the proposed solution today.

The second reason is that we think that the server load issues that have may have been at least mostly resolved. This will be a test of the server too. If it dies during the event then it will show that I still have more work to do alongside the hosting company. Please do not be completely surprised if there are problems.

Although this software doesn’t look as polished as CoverItLive there are a vast amount of extra things we can configure behind the scenes. Your input would be fantastic.

Guests can contribute anonymously but will have unique numbers assigned. I’ve turned the Country flag option on for a bit of colour. I think I’ll leave the ability to change your name turned on this time. But there’s a lot in this app. It allows private side chatrooms for example running parallel with the public discussion. That’ll be off this time around.

I’d like to thank David (@DVATW), Billy Bowden (@OnTablets), Max Farquar (@maxfarquar) and David Mosque (@DavidMosque) for their help testing this and for their advice.

Censoring The Gaffe-O-Matic

By | | , , , , , , , ,
28 Comments

Yesterday, the President of the United States made a campaign appearance in Florida (the same day He got hugged at a pizza joint, video of which the BBC dutifully has up, and will have for days). He made yet another classic gaffe, but this is a video you will not see on the BBC:

“Three proud words: Made In The USA”

Yeah, it’s an easy mistake. We all know what He meant to say. But that’s not the point. The point here is that there are no Beeboid tweets at all. Not from any of them who laughed at Sarah Palin for “refudiate”. When the President of the United States – who has a history of eye-watering errors, if you get your news from somewhere other than the BBC – makes yet another dopey slip, the BBC is silent, and BBC staff see nothing worth tweeting or even retweeting. Probably none of the Left-wing media outlets or pundits or bloggers or activists they all follow mentioned it, so nothing to retweet.

But when someone who holds no public office, is not running for office, runs no major organization, and holds no position in any political party tweets an accidentally made-up word, the BBC is all over it. Several Beeboids tweeted their laughter (can’t provide links as old Biased-BBC comments are unavailable, and I can’t seem to search for tweets by date – if I find them I’ll add them). Worse, the BBC’s top journalist in the US, Mark Mardell made a snide reference to it in one of his blogposts.

Most ridiculous is that the BBC World Service did a full segment on it. A tweet. Not a speech, not an interview, not a press conference. A tweet.

The thing is, the President really does have a history of silly gaffes like this, yet the BBC remains silent every time (with one exception, which I’ll get to later). No Beeboid thinks it’s worth tweeting, or even feels someone else’s comment is worth retweeting. Why is that?

At the risk of creating a straw man, I’d have to suggest that one line of defense would be that Sarah Palin had a media reputation for gaffes, while the President does not. So media people report in that context. Another Palin goof, haha. But the President? We all know what He meant, He’s the smartest man in the room, etc., nothing to see here. It’s as if they don’t see any of His mistakes.

In order to counter this and demonstrate that there really is a history of bad slip-ups which create the historical context of a gaffe-prone politician, here’s a partial list of Obamessiah gaffes which the BBC has censored (in no particular order):

When the President was negotiating that awful debt ceiling deal with the Republicans, He said this: “Don’t call my bluff,” the president said. “I am not afraid to veto and I will take it to the American people.” The BBC mentioned the heated negotiations, but censored that bit out.

He called the Malvinas the “Maldives” (two gaffes in one, actually, as not calling it The Falklands betrays our greatest ally).

Claimed He’d visited 57 States.

Said in a speech at a NATO gathering, “I don’t know what the term is in Austrian…”

Said that Lincoln was the “founder of the Republican Party”, when he was in fact one of the founders of a local chapter.

Refered to Hawaii as being “in Asia”, at an Asian economic summit – in Honolulu.

Called Auschwitz a “Polish death camp”.

Signed in with the wrong year in the Westminster Abbey guest book: 2008 instead of 2011.

Spoke out of turn when toasting the Queen, speaking over the band instead of following instructions. Actually, the BBC did report that, but they initially tried to blame the band for it and not Him.

Referred to the “Intercontinental Railroad”.

Said that “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”

I’m sure others can come up with more, since there’s plenty. The BBC did report two gaffes that I’m aware of. One was when He accidentally said it was great to back in Kansas, when He was actually in Texas. The other was more of an unfortunate joke rather than a real goof like the rest of these.

Basically, the President really does make a lot of stupid errors like this, at least as many as George Bush or Sarah Palin. It’s only partisan blinkers which keep certain people from seeing it. One can complain that He may be smarter and whatever else than either Bush or Palin, but that’s irrelevant to the count of the gaffe-o-meter. He makes these errors, and the BBC not only refuses to report them, but the Beeboids themselves betray their bias by not laughing at Him on twitter or on air the way they do with Republicans, even those who hold no public office and are not running for any. The Obamessiah does have a history of gaffes, and each new one is just as worthy of reporting as a single tweet by a popular civilian.

Defenders of the indefensible are invited to find tweets of a BBC employee laughing at the President for any of these mistakes. Daniel Nasaw’s concerned tweets about Biden’s repeated misuse of “literally” don’t count, but I’ll give them an honorable mention. I’m talking about the President Himself.

Now come on, do what you’re good for. Prove me wrong.

Olympic legacy: White elephant or economic viagra?

By | |
31 Comments

“Indeed, a substantial, well-researched academic literature shows that if anything the reverse is true: hosting big sporting events is an economic burden.”

 

But not if you’re a Union Leader.

Brendan Barber…the man who thinks not turning up for work and spending lots of money you don’t have is the way to prosperity.

 “We can’t muddle through greening our economy – we need investment, planning and an Olympic-style national crusade.”

 All morning the BBC has been informing us that Barber insists that spending as we did on the Olympics shows that such investments can provide us with a economic legacy that fills the Chancellor’s coffers…..nice to see a Union leader in tune with the Government then. 

The difference being that the BBC do not gainsay Barber…unlike when the Government similarly insisted that we would have an Olympic legacy measured in real gold not just medals….always a vain hope I would have thought rather obviously.

 

Not so long ago the BBC told us that the government’s hopes for an Olympic Spring in the finances were delusional…….

‘It will be years before we know whether UK plc will get its money back, let alone make a profit on the Games, but most economists agree major sporting events rarely bring lasting financial reward.

The government will have its work cut out to buck the trend.’

The FT concurred:

Happiness is only legacy from Olympics

For years, a favourite word of London’s Olympic organisers has been “legacy”. The games were not just meant to be a fortnight of joy, but rather they would boost Britain’s economy and “inspire a generation” to play sport. David Cameron, prime minister, has named Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, as the country’s Olympic legacy ambassador, and spoke of “making sure we turn these games into gold for Britain”.

It feels intuitive that hosting such a memorable event should leave a legacy. But economists who study the topic almost all agree that it doesn’t. Britain will probably get only one intangible benefit: increased happiness.

Politicians in any hosting country invariably promise economic benefits. However, Stefan Szymanski, sports economist at the University of Michigan, says not one credible academic study backs this up. “Indeed, a substantial, well-researched academic literature shows that if anything the reverse is true: hosting big sporting events is an economic burden.”

 

Didn’t hear much of that kind of clear thinking this morning from the BBC.

Seems that the same message has different meanings when spoken by different people when the BBC comes to interpret it.

 

 

COME BACK, MARX, ALL IS FORGIVEN…. LUV STEPH!

By | |
76 Comments

What is it about Marx that Stephanie Flanders finds so appealing? Marx told us that ‘What the Communists might be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce an openly legalized community of women.’ …. that is, a system where one person can have multiple partners in replacement of marriage. Hmmm.

 

Stephanie Flanders, the girl who just keeps on giving. I could almost retire from writing about BBC Bias if Flanders jumped ship and openly went to work for the Labour Party.

Stephanie has dreamt up another scheme to advance the cause and is presenting ‘Masters of Money’ on BBC2 (Mon 17 Sept)…until then you will have to make do with her trail blazing write up in the Times today (No link as £).

As you may have guessed it’s entitled ‘Come back Marx, all is forgiven.’

Now all those millions of people who have been slaughtered by the socialists in the great leap forward in the name of Progress may take issue with that.

She has chosen three ‘Masters’….Keynes, Hayek and Marx. No Adam Smith…one of the most influential economic thinkers of our time…but then probably because, although capitalist friendly she couldn’t find anything to discredit him.

Keynes is of the Left, Marx, well you know about Marx. Hayek is to the Right…but why choose him not Smith? Could it be that he was one of Thatcher’s favourite economists…..it also allows her to connect him to the ‘bad’ US Republican Party via Ron Paul…and the Tea Party….all dog whistles for the Left. Something else though, something more sinister? Hayek was Austrian and contributed to the Austrian School of economic thought….Flanders keeps mentioning ‘Austrian’ rather than ‘Hayek’……finally she makes the connection you are meant to make obvious saying ‘In an environment where the usual policy tools don’t seem to be working, you can also understand why some would be turning to Austrians such as Hayek for a different kind of answer.’

What is odd about that and her constant thread through the piece? Hitler was Austrian, and of course labelled ‘Right Wing’, he was the ‘different kind of answer’ in the 30’s to economic disasters.

Is Flanders trying to associate ‘Right Wing’ economic policies with Hitler? We know that the Left are constantly alerting the world to the ‘fact’ that the European economic problems are ‘enabling’ the Far Right….Is Flanders saying that if we continue down the road of Austerity we will get Austrians goose stepping down the Mall?

　

Whilst she subtly derides Hayek and tries to damn him by association she bigs up Keynes saying even the Governor of the Bank of England has now ‘got’ his theories….she goes on of course to write glowingly of Marx.

Marx did indeed sum up the essential nature of Capitalism…its inherent flaw in that it grows and grows and then collapses spectacularly…..however that’s just as in Nature and the cycle of life…food plentiful and animals overbreed until they eat everything and their population collapses.

The thing is…there is always a recovery…because it is natural….capitalism will always recover because it is in human nature to trade….the BBC should love Capitalism…it is organic…..it is not a ‘system’, it is not an ideology or something written down in a little Red Book or Manifesto…it is what happens naturally in society where people congregate and have needs and desires.

Communists wish to crush the ‘Human’ and replace it with an ideological ‘machine’ which churns out tractors and tanks and labels everyone as mere numbers.

Capitalism is in fact the only true Communism…who pays for the NHS, the welfare system, the roads, the police, the fire service, the schools, to empty your bins, to light the streets? Capitalism does. Capitalism brings civilisation….‘drawing all, even the most barbaric, nations into civilization’…and cheap flights to the Algarve.

When you want to buy your house or a flash motor do you save up for twenty five years the money you make from your Capitalist job? No…you borrow from the bank…which transfers money from the rich into your pocket as a loan….which you pay back but in the meantime you have a roof over your head for 25 years by which time you own the house.

So ‘redistribution’ is a Capitalist idea….enabling you to live comfortable lives you couldn’t afford otherwise and puts all that wealth to effective use.

Communism is International?

Capitalism is of course the only true ‘international’ system…not caring about borders if business is to be done…even Marx acknowledges this…‘Products consumed in every quarter of the globe…products of distant lands and climes…..no more local and national seclusion…we have universal inter-dependence of nations…national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become impossible and a world literature arises…the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls (or Berlin Walls) with which it forces the barbarian’s intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate’.

　

Flanders tops off her praise of Marx by saying that ‘In hundreds of pages of dense prose about capitalism, however, Marx spent surprisingly few describing what would come after it.’

Well that’s just not true is it. The Communist Manifesto spells out exactly what is intended…the smashing of the Family and all other established Institutions of state and Society to be replaced by the Communist State…no more private property, the abolishing of borders and nationality, along with the Church and ‘all morality’…the state control of banks and finance and all means of communication and transport.

All at the point of a gun wielded by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ ..if you don’t conform and rebel you will be shot. One cow good, two cows greedy and dead.

　

We can see why Flanders might like to skirt round that…..it’s somewhat inconvenient for the Marxists of the BBC that we have 70 years experience of the Communist experiment to judge just how it works….and many millions of East Europeans voted with their feet when the Wall came down….they liked Capitalism.

Still the BBC have never let the People’s wishes  get in the way of their own agenda. A bit of a paradox when you consider Communism is all about putting the People into power.

LABOUR’S NEW POLICY…..NOBBLING THE COMPANIES THAT PRODUCE GROWTH

By | |
32 Comments

Jim Dandy (PBUH) has expressed some cynicism about the BBC’s lack of coverage of Miliband’s ‘Predistribution’ being actual pro-Labour bias.

New evidence has come to light. Item one for consideration is Newsnight, Item two is Jim Naughtie’s interview with Labour’s Chuka Umunna.

During the Newsnight report Allegra Stratton revealed what lay at the heart of Miliband’s new strategy for social harmony and equality…it was in essence the ‘NOBBLING OF COMPANIES’, but she didn’t expand on that any further, not saying what that meant for the economy.

Emily Maitlis went for a more technical explanation…stating that Miliband would be raising the MINIMUM WAGE…but again didn’t expand further other than to gush favourably….‘It’s such a simple idea…a wage that pays you a living wage so you don’t have to claim allowances.’  (Vote Labour NOW!)

Maitlis was asking what the government would have to do to bring down the cost of living….so merely dipping her toe in the murky waters of Predistribution, Labour’s New Grand Idea, is not enough…..this is meant to be Labour’s answer to that very question and yet the BBC fail to look at it in depth which is ironic really because….

What is strange about all that is that Labour and it’s favourite Broadcaster have been bashing the Tories, sorry the Coalition, for not producing GROWTH. Labour suddenly breaks cover and announces as the GRAND NEW IDEA, the central plank of their Comeback, a plan that ‘NOBBLES COMPANIES’, the very companies that produce the wealth that produces the growth!

And yet the BBC decide  to give no more than a cursory glance at this proposal to raise the minimum wage by what would be a huge amount that would cripple the very small and medium sized companies that Labour claims are the source of growth!.

Or is that what it means? If you were to listen to Chuka Umunna being interviewed by Jim Naughtie you get a different tale….To Umunna ‘Predistribution’ means that Labour will create a lot of high skilled jobs that pay high wages.

Now if that is the case this is not a NEW idea, every government since government was invented probably had the same intentions….the last Labour government certainly did judging by Brown’s Mansion House Speech in 2007…..

‘Today there are in Britain 5 million unskilled people. By 2020 we will need only just over half a million. So we must create up to five million new skilled jobs and to fill them we must persuade five million unskilled men and women to gain skills, the biggest transformation in the skills of our economy for more than a century.

And we will need 50 per cent more people of graduate skills. Yet, while China and India are turning out 4 million graduates a year, we produce just 400,000.

Quite simply in Britain today there is too much potential untapped, too much talent wasted, too much ability unrealised.’

 And this:

‘Long term decisions to ensure that because we unlock all the talents of all the British people, there is security and prosperity not just for some but for everyone.

To support world-leading industries so that we create not just jobs, but new skilled well paying jobs millions will need.

Our whole economic prosperity depends upon which competing vision of the future will win in the next few years.

One choice for Britain -the choice we reject- is a low skilled, low pay economy competing in a race to the bottom with China, India and Asia.

But if our choice – a high wage, high skills economy – is to succeed, then Britain, a small country, cannot afford to waste the talents of anyone.’

The question is of course if everyone is employed being doctors and engineers and lawyers who is emptying the bins and delivering the post? I guess that would mean Labour would be opening the floodgates again to more mass immigration…of low skilled workers on low wages…that need topping up by benefits….em…didn’t we come in here?

But the BBC happily ignore all such massive consequences that follow such a daft proposal.

Jim Naughtie failed completely to get a meaningful answer from Umunna, clearly the one he gave was pure evasive invention….or even he doesn’t know what Predistribution means.  Naughtie, as a professional, interested, reporter, must have known what Newsnight had said….he works for the same company after all….and yet he accepts an answer from Umunna that is totally different to the Newsnight conclusion about a higher minimum wage….If we pay him so much We expect a lot more from Naughtie than feebly allowing a politican to walk all over him.

Naughtie is probably one of the highest paid political inquisitors in the Media, Maitlis certainly is, and both being on Premier League political programmes should be expected to get right down to the core of any issue and not be fobbed off by slippery politicians…but no, what we get is muddled and half baked unexamined reports that don’t reveal anything much.

Watching the Newsnight debate it is hard to come away with any feeling that you have learnt anything and that any conclusion was reached…other than Predistribution means ‘nobbling companies with massive wage increases’.

Certainly no examination of the consequences of the economically highly damaging ‘Predistribution’ policy was offered.

The BBC presumably ignore it because it is so damaging to the economy that the BBC knows no one would elect Labour if they knew what they really intended to enact in government….and/or the BBC knows it is such a foolish idea that any close examination would reveal those flaws and Miliband and Balls would be, once again, shown to be the economically illiterate buffoons that we know they are.

 

So my answer to Jim Dandy(PBUH) is that such lack of will to press forward with a more rigorous investigation into the meaning and consequences of ‘Predistribution’ indicates the BBC are showing bias, and certainly incompetence, in their coverage of Labour’s Big Idea.

The Revolution Will Be Filmed And Encouraged

By | |
27 Comments

Yesterday Ed Miliband launched Labour’s comeback with a raft of proposals to bring riches and a sense of fair play back to Britain. A Plan C rather than Plan B, as he seems to have dumped most of what Balls proposes….lowering taxes and spending more.

This was a major speech from Miliband but it raised hardly a ripple on the BBC news front.

There is this but it hardly bothers to go into any depth on the matter…except for one telling insight from Iain Watson, BBC political correspondent:

‘Ed Miliband unveils ‘predistribution’ plan to fix economy….this is the bit Labour aren’t saying too much about at the moment – it is also means putting more pressure on employers to pay higher wages.’

Why is that the sole intelligent comment by the BBC?  Such a policy is major game changer with huge implications for the economy…and yet…hardly a squeak out of the BBC.

The fact that this article received around 800 comments should suggest a level of interest that the BBC is not reflecting in its coverage.

This is Nick Robinson’s, the BBC’s senior political correspondent, offering:

‘Predistribution: The Labour leader’s latest Big Idea

The Labour leader’s latest Big Idea may not be catchy but it is interesting’

 

So Miliband’s ‘Big Idea’ is merely ‘interesting‘? Not interesting enough to actually examine it and what it actually means for business…which is essentially that if taxes stay the same higher wages will be paid by the businesses rather than ‘subsidised’ as they are now by big business and the highest earners in the country in the form of tax credits. Wage costs for small and medium businesses will skyrocket…and many will go out of business.

In effect they will be paying the price of the Labour Party funnelling funds into its own election campaign….ala Gordon Brown…and using them to buy votes by ‘funding’ the NHS or schools…but it is smoke and mirrors….it is a stealth tax on smaller businesses that is at present ‘paid’ by big business and the ‘fatcats’.

　

You can see why the BBC don’t want to look too closely at that proposal….it is in effect a huge tax increase…hardly something to encoursge business growth and a successful economy.

It didn’t even merit a mention on the Today programme…allegedly Britain’s premier political programme.

　

Here’s the full text of Ed Miliband’s speech at the Stock Exchange, in which he introduces a new idea to British politics: ‘predistribution’.

Here is some of that speech as given to the New Statesman in which he puts the boot into Brown, and of course Brown’s protégé Balls:

‘Ed Miliband: It would be “politically crackers” to spend like the last Labour government The comeback interview.

The next Labour government is going to take over in very different circumstances and is going to have to have a very different prospectus than the last.

And if we came along and said ‘look, we can just carry on like the last Labour government did’ – I mean it’s politically crackers to do that, because we wouldn’t win the election and we wouldn’t deserve to win the election. We can’t say: ‘Look, we just want to sort of carry on where we left off, you know, the electorate was wrong, we were right, thanks very much…” It’s not realistic.

Ed Balls is not going to go to the Labour party conference and say, ‘It’s going to be the old model where we have economic growth and then we’ll use lots of that money to spend lots, to spend billions of pounds.’It’s not realistic and it’s not credible.’

　

Here is a final rather interesting comment from Miliband:

‘Just as the pre-war consensus could not solve the problems Britain faced in 1945.

Just as the postwar consensus could not solve the problems of the late 1970s.

So the ideas of the last three decades will not solve the central economic challenges we face.

Instead we need a new agenda.

An agenda sufficient to the scale of the challenge, and to the demand of the British people for change.‘

The postwar consensus could not solve the problems of the late 70’s? We need a new agenda? Sounds an awful lot like he accepts Thatcherism was necessary to put Britain back on it’s feet.

Funny he should say that because just as the BBC ignore the present Labour Party they continue to harp back to the Thatcher era…..in The Reunion they delve into the Poll Tax Riots….

This week’s edition of ‘The Reunion’ covers the story of the Poll Tax, with contributions from:

* Kenneth Baker, Minister of Local Government and later Environment Secretary
* Chris Brearley, Civil Servant (Department of the Environment) who was part of the team devising and implementing the tax
* David Magor, then assistant Treasurer, Oxford City Council, who had to collect the tax
* Danny Burns, organiser of the Bristol Anti-Poll Tax protest
* Chris Moyers, founder of a protest group in Edinburgh against the Scottish Poll Tax.

Note the cast of players from the time.

Kenneth Baker, Tory, is vastly outnumbered. Two of the players being ‘neutral’ planners or administrators but who can be relied on to relate tales of woe in the process of introducing the Poll Tax whilst that last two are protestors against the Poll Tax….Baker is left basically alone to ‘defend’ the Poll tax…and even he isn’t too keen to do that…so it was all down to the evil Thatcher.

And apparently this was the final nail in the coffin of ‘Thatcher’s Britain’…..a term used as abuse rather than a mere descriptive.

You may think that such a tale is of interest from a historical point of view…and indeed it is, having different voices from the various ‘camps’ speaking.

If left at that it could have slipped under the radar but naturally, this being the BBC, every programme has a message…this one about what we can learn from the past to use in the here and now…..

Apart from the ‘fact’ that Thatcher was a symbol of the Rich attacking the Poor, the Big Message is that people can FIGHT BACK…and it looks like we are heading for another ‘Poll Tax’ with changes to social security and the introduction of Universal Credits….there is potential for disaster.

So listen up boys and girls, dust off the scaffold poles, dig out your balaclavas, get out your superglue, prepare for battle….stay tuned in for more guidance from your friendly caring BBC.

Not saying of course that the BBC would ever dream of inciting riots and civil disobedience in order to confront government policies that the old Marxists of the BBC find unpalatable but it does look that way doesn’t it?

　

The BBC practically ignore the Official Opposition’s major relaunch speech but take a leap into the past, a leap over 13 years of disastrous Labour misrule, continuing its obsession with all things Thatcher as if just the mention of her name will act as a sort of voodoo talisman to ward off present day Toryism and bring people out onto the streets in the hope of ousting Cameron as they claim to have ousted Thatcher.

Programmes like this are a prime example of why the BBC should be reformed so that it is the face of ‘responsible broadcasting’ or it is stripped of its license to print money and made to go out into the world and earn its living.  Tunes might suddenly Change when They have to reflect real life and the real views of people on the street who then  have the option of not ‘buying’ their politicised bilge.

BAD NEWS IT’S GOOD NEWS

By | |
13 Comments

UK industrial output rose at it fastest rate for 25 years.

But you would hardly notice if you rely on the BBC….the story being relegated to an also ran position on the UK news page and not the Frontpage.

Who would doubt that if the figures had shown the biggest drop in 25 years it would have been headline news?

After the initial statement that output rose then came a long list of warnings and doubts about  future prospects.

It looks like someone at the BBC doesn’t want you to think that things may not be quite as bad as they are being painted by the BBC and Labour.

 

You might have thought that the possibility of coming out of recession would be big news:

 

UK’s double-dip recession over, economic surveys hint

A series of economic surveys has provided fresh evidence that the recovery is gathering momentum and the double-dip recession is finally over.

 

Apparently not.