I know I have referenced this in other posts but just to say I watched the BBC news throughout yesterday and there seemed to be a REAL determination to ensure that ANY good news concerning UK economic performance was doused. Items were constructed to ensure that any viewer would be left with the impression that we are still in deep trouble and that jobs are still being lost more than they are being replaced. Stephanie “Two Eds” Flanders was a particular annoyance as she struggled to diss any notion of progress that did not involved tax and spend,
BEGRUDGERS…
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The BBC are completely opposed to the notion that too much state spending can wreck an economy, and that the Private sector is what is required to fix the economy.
The BBC is utterly delusional.
I am no economist, David, but I do know this: Labour have offered absolutely nothing in terms of a credible fiscal alternative to reducing the deficit. I mean, Ed Balls’ mantra “cutting too fast, too soon” is infantile and offensive to those with even a cursory knowledge of finance. I simply don’t understand why the BBC continually refer to this man, especially when he was one of the major economic figures in Brown’s government at the time of the collapse. Yes, they obviously need to get a range of views, but surely any view must be credible and impartial. Yesterday’s opposing views offered none of these elements. Yesterday was a complete assault on any news of growth.
“cutting too fast, too soon”.
(S)troll onto any Labour blog and pose the question that if the (not going to be achieved) coalition target of 3% real savings by 2015 is (yawns) ‘too far, too fast’ then give us a target that isn’t ‘too far, too fast’.
I guarantee that answer there will come none, though you may well get a harangue about (yawns) £40,000 cheques to millionaires, (yawns) greedy bankers, and (yawns) Thatcher.
My advice in any case – stay away from Labour blogs, they’re too ridiculous and life is too short.
They have Balls on because he’s the Shadow Chancellor. Who else is it going to be? Granted, he seems to be on a lot more often than Osborne was when Labour was running the show (into the ground). Having said that, I’m still waiting for Stephanie “Two Eds” Flanders to do another cutesy split-screen segment about these new green shoots of recovery. She was very eager to do it when there was even less of it when Labour was in power.
If nothing else, the fact that there’s been even a miniscule growth percentage means the whole BBC Narrative about the disastrous double-dip recession seems to have been bogus. But what do you expect from a news organization where the top four economics/business “experts” are decidedly Left-wing, some much farther than others?
Granted, he seems to be on a lot more often than Osborne was when Labour was running the show (into the ground). Understatement of the year!
Stephanie “Two Eds” Flanders to do another cutesy…
I have to admit I do find her cute…but them my blog was linked on her BBC page for several months!
“They have Balls on because he’s the Shadow Chancellor. Who else is it going to be?”
Perhaps someone with a little credibility?
No, no, they have to have someone from Labour……
It wasn’t just bBBC TV. I had the misfortune to hear part of Martha Kearney’s loony lecture yesterday on The World At One.
TWAT-O, I believe the insiders call it.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2012/10/25/real-public-spending-increases-lead-growth-in-3rd-quarter-in-uk-economy/
That presents quite a conundrum for the Beeboids: do they continue to press the “Osborne has killed the economy” Narrative, or try the “See, public sector spending does save us all” angle?
A couple of comments under the Redwood article nicely sum up the ‘conundrum’:
‘If GDP were reported separately as public sector GDP and private sector GDP, it would immediately become apparent just how much the state keeps growing’.
And…
‘I know you said we have to have public spending in the GDP numbers, because of the services they provide (Schools, Health care etc). But can’t we subtract any borrowing from this, to give a better picture?’
That second point is surely the killer for any advocate of long-term public spending largesse as some kind of substitute for genuine wealth creation by the private sector, as Labour’s debt mountain and its crippling interest payments only too clearly shows.
It would be nice to hear this (properly) debated on the BBC, as it is one of the fundamental areas of disagreement between Right and Left.
I see Ed Balls got a thorough drubbing by Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics, but this wasn’t given much if any coverage on the news.
BBC refuse to cover drubbing bbc journalist gives Balls on BBC programme.
Commies.
“Commies”
No, just anti-Conservative Party. Just like you Jim Dandy. Just like The Guardian. Just like the Daily Mirror, Just like the New Statesman. But none of the latter claim to be politically impartial. None of the later are funded by a [compulsory] broadcasting tax. You got it yet?
As their editor put it when talking about This Week and The Daily Politics on the BBC Editors page
“People still say they don’t really feel like BBC programmes, and I still take that as a compliment.”
This was elucidated by some of the comments
“You’re right in that they most certainly do not ‘look’ like BBC output because…Andrew does not toe the pro Labour BBC editorial line”
“Andrew Neil….is not overtly left-wing unlike the Today programme presenters which is no doubt why he’s sidelined by the Beeb.”
…so sidelined that he presents a daily show and two weekly shows.
I think AN is brilliant but he’s on screen constantly. Hardly sidelined.
If you think that Andrew Neil’s time slots on the BBC are mainstream you are deluded – most people are either at work or going to bed when he is broadcasting.
Jim, I may not agree with a lot you write but here you made me laugh. Thanks.
BBC refuse to cover drubbing bbc journalist gives Balls on BBC programme
————————————————————-
So, Dim, Paxman and Neil are prepared to drub Labour MPs. Can you think of any other time any BBC presenter ever drubbed a member of the Labour Party nomeneither.
Still, nice to see you on in this Time of Savile – your fellow trolls are keeping their heads well down.
I listned to the Q&A session following hte announcement of the figures. The bBBC girly had the second question and the best she could think of was “did David Cameron break the rules by referring to more good news to come during PMQ’s on Wednesday”. Obviously briefed to look for ANY negative she could think of. Incredible!!
‘Doused’
By being the lead item on the 10 o clock news?
The BBC love to report on spending cuts. They were at it this morning on my way to work on BBC Radio Cumbria. About county council cuts.
The BBC do not seem to realise the simple facts. Yes the defecit is less than it was, but its not from “draconian cuts” it’s from tax rises. In fact public spending has increased under the current government.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/charts.html
That is a real problem, as there do need to be cuts.
Reporting in the way the BBC do does not help.
You don’t exactly need to be a Master of Economics, to know you can not spend your way out of debt.
So whilst we hear endlessly about “drastic cuts to public spending” when its actually risen. What will the bbc report when there are the much needed cuts in spending?
These ‘drastic cuts’ are actually drastic cuts to the increase in public spending. After all if public spending was to have gone up by 4% and in fact has gone up by 3% there has been a 25% cut in the increase in public spending. How much more drastic do you need?
Do you think the BBC will accept my little helper for BBC Bitesize GCSE sums revision?
Lets say a person earns £400 a week, and is spending £520 per week. this can not work for long.
his promise is that though he planned to spend £525 next week he will cut spending and only spend £523 instead. thus he has cut a huge 40% of his spending increase. (evil man)
but the nation is in the same state as the above man, and that is serious. not only does our man have to cut his spending to £400 per week, he has to cut it further to pay for that which he has already over spent.
Ah but John, an economy you see is not like a household.
Or so we’re told by the pretrendy left.
Though they never seem to follow this up by explaining in what way an economy is not like a household.
They even want to redefine “household.” Hubby-wifey-2.6 is SO culturally hegemonic, don’t you know!
Another leftist canard is that ‘the labour market cannot be treated like a solid lump’, usually when confronted with tricky questions about the effects of mass immigration…
I am of course guessing that your comment is meant as satire?
reading it, its looks that way, but you can’t be too careful, in writing.
Much more. A reduction in the rate of increase is not a cut. We need to look at what government does, and whether it needs to do it at all, or if someone else could do it more cost effectively.
The question I keep asking myself is what have we got to show for our £1,000,000,000,000 debt, apart from potholes in our roads?
Wait, though, I’ve heard our council is still employing smoking inspectors and what did that bird do on Come Dine With Me? – ah, yes, she was the manager responsible for improving the behaviour of kids on school buses.
I take it all back.
An even more bloated public sector and lots of Labour voters?
I have a very busy life and therefore can only read one newspaper a week. My choice is the Sunday Times. Sad as I am I also subscribe to the Economist. I always read David Smith and Irwin Stelzer in the Business section of the Sunday Times
David last Sunday, prior to the publication of the report on Thursday was ‘cautious & judicious’ in his discussion of third quarter GDP growth and its implications. However he stated, “Economist expect third – quarter growth of between 0.4% and 0.8%, some of it merely reflecting a statistical bounce from the Jubilee-depressed second quarter”.
He went on to state that if it is nearer the “top of the range” there would have been “underlying growth since spring”. Now the figure on Thursday was 1%, exceeding the “top of the range”, by 0.2%. Now the Olympic bounce was reported by the BBC to be around 0.2%. Therefore if this is deducted the underlying figure was 0.8%. Now I am no economist and the last conclusion (mine) may be total nonsense, this GDP growth figure and the employment figures made good reading.
However, as I watched the BBC’s negative coverage attempting to play down any possibility that any of this was ‘good news’ and that Osborne’s austerity strategy may be paying off brought back the distorted prism through which they view the world.
When one of the PM’s on the Cultural Committee stated that the DG Entwhistle showed a lack of curiosity for a former Journalist, I realised that he had hit on the central malaise affecting the BBC. There is a total lack of curiosity, because they have their ‘narrative’ and it is set in stone, so facts cannot be allowed to intrude. The Narrative is:
– The West is always wrong/always the aggressor.
– Islam is the religion of peace – any one who criticises it is Islamophobic.
– The strong are always wrong/the weak are victims and their narrative is always correct and their acts of violence, no matter how grotesque,are always justifiable.
– Therefore Israel is wrong and the Palestinians are right and just.
– The USA is always in the wrong because it is powerful.
– All white men and women are powerful and therefore evil etc. and on and on.
(JIMBO) My outgoings are greater than my income thanks for mentioning the subject i wonder how many more are in the same boat.
Many are Michael, many.
Sorry i use the name Jimbo, but for some reason it did not like my real name (Jim)
That is the biggest problem with the entire country. We cant spend more than we earn, it cant work, it never could. I expect you are in that boat because your bills (council tax, income tax, fuel tax, VAT, Utility bills) are so high.
this funds current spending, which as i said is higher than it was.
there is the problem, we need to cut spending ( I know you maybe can not on your bills) but if a government does then your taxes can reduce and you too can be back in the black.
looking at the avatar thats still there though, I think its an old remnant from one i did have years ago, on another forum
so from here on in will post as Dinsdale.
The hedgehog is Spiny Norman, not Dinsdale !
we all need to face our fears mate.
who do you think Spiney Norman there is looking for??????
Because many people now don’t understand how to manage their own budgets, and especially how to economise when things get tough, they don’t understand why the government is having to take ‘austerity’ measures.
If there is one statistic that demonstrates how people have lived well beyond their means it’s this: 46% of mortgages in this country are now interest-only. Now that is terrifying.
But are they entirely to blame for their own predicament? After all, they had an ‘Iron’ Chancellor who had led them to the Promised Land – he’d abolished boom and bust.
Very true. Though i think the iron chancellor deserves some credit, I mean he was half way there.
I distincly remember when the Boom bit was abolished
well, what is the solution to the age old problem of:
Why is there so much month left at the end of the money!
email to the BBC Trust “Nicholas Kroll is Director of Governance at the BBC Trust. What is his job description? What are his responsibilities?”
“As you may now be aware, the Trust has approved the appointment of former Court of Appeal judge Dame Janet Smith DBE to lead an independent review into Jimmy Savile and former Head of Sky News Nick Pollard to lead a review into the Newsnight issue.”
Reply: “I ask again, then, What is is Nicholas Kroll’s job description? What are his responsibilities? He is earning £281,004. What’s he doing?
I note also that Mark Devane is Head of Communications. What’s he communicating? And he replaced Tina Stowell who came from the BBC and went back to the BBC.
“The Trust’s mission is to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers”. So tell me, what’s the BBC Trust doing for people like me?”
To clarify, you asked them a specific question on what a person was doing to justify a £280kpa+ job, and they didn’t refer to him at all in their reply?
If so, Mr. Patten’s ‘We cannot be expected to answer questions to preserve our independence (from any accountability, presumably)’ mantra seems pervasive, and malign.
Patten lies. Fat Pang lies again.
Fatty pang is even more deluded than I thought if he reckons many people will be fooled by that total bullshit.
” Mr Patten admitted he had not read newspaper cuttings sent to him in January and February which broke the news that a Newsnight investigation into Savile had been dropped in December last year.
The cuttings were “buried” among around 150 other cuttings about the BBC sent to him every day, he said, and he only found out about the Newsnight affair at the end of September, as ITV prepared to broadcast its own investigation into the Savile. ”
He’s taking the piss I’m afraid to say, so crudely.
‘“buried” among around 150 other cuttings about the BBC sent to him every day’
As the man at the top of the entity in theory overseeing the BBC (and in theory not on the BBC’s behalf) for a fair old wedge, maybe he’d like to ask (I believe he thinks he can while we who pay him can’t) what the point is to pay another BBC employee to locate, cut out and present BBC-related information to him on a daily basis for his consideration… if he doesn’t freaking read ’em.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9633390/Jimmy-Savile-tsunami-of-filth-has-caused-terrible-damage-to-BBC-says-governing-body-head-Lord-Patten.html
Another nifty precedent.
When Capita ask why I have not responded to the licence fee demand, I presume all will be brushed aside if I inform them that it was amongst 150 other matters I was concerned with that day… which actually served a purpose, and did not involve funding a bunch of law-breaking, buck-passing, accuracy-unfamiliar, service-inept, unethical, lying, two-faced, hypocritical control freaks who operate on self-delusional belief, hazy memories and dubious complicit ‘sources’ as opposed to evidence-based reality and on-record fact.
There’s a storm coming, Chris. I don’t know when, but I know who.
Uneasy sits the head that wears the Chairmanship.
Itchy neck much?
Oh dear, Fatty Pang has awoken from his slumbers and written in the mail-on-sunday.
Maybe someone has told him that the erupting war within the INBBC, is bound to reveal some nasty skeletons, and he’d better start putting some distance between himself and them.
” There’s a second reason the BBC’s reputation is on the line. All objective evidence tells us the BBC is one of the most trusted institutions in the UK.
‘Even those of us who were not there at the time are inheritors of the shame’
It is by far the most widely trusted source of accurate and balanced news.”
Well he is obviously still somewhat deluded if he’s clinging on to beliefs like that!
I seem to recall Helen Boaden trotting those out verbatim on The Editors, adopting the ‘tell it often enough’ strategy that has worked so well before when you control a £4Bpa propaganda megaphone.
Trouble is, there’s now a free internet, and no one is buying it any more.
Still being forced to pay, but not buying it.
I remember that as well. The video went private soon after it was mentioned here.
Sky News this morning has the story of Mark Thompson’s discomfort at reports that his office was TWICE told about saVILE and did nothing. I can totally understand he was so busy at his work, that the hint of one of his huge stars was a paedo would cause no concern.
WHAT?
Aide to DG: ” psst someone has reported JS as a paedo Mark”
DG: Yawn…”I’m busy come back later”
yeah right.
See that flying pig?
Sky has it, but INBBC ? zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Expect their bulletins now to be filled with Paul gadds demise instead.
Any questions with Brilliantjournalistjonathan Dimbleby.
First out of the blocks with a planted question was some Labour dupe with…
Does yesterday’s GDP growth figure of one percent have any real significance?
To which the correct answer is
‘As much significance as if it had been minus one percent. But if it had been minus one percent you certainly wouldn’t be questioning its significance you would have been shrieking and wailing and howling.’
Had enough – switched it off.
Don’t forget, if you have any issues with the programme you can always email brilliantjournalistanitaanand@bbc.co.uk
I am disappointed. Kroll, Devane and Patten are the people who are vulnerable. They know they are. That’s why their names never appear on internet searches. Get them, ask them what they knew. Ask them why e.g. Kroll, is on £290k a year and does fuck all. Biased BBC is just some scatter gun approach. And in the end does nothing.
So, anti-Britain & anti-British people BBC strikes again. I don’t think there is another country on the planet where the state-funded broadcaster turns on its own state which such frequency & venom. With friends like these who needs enemies. Maybe the BBC is collaborating with Al-Qaeda to destroy Britain.
I watched ‘Have I got news for you?’ Friday night – It was disgusting. Most of the programme was devoted to anti conservative comments. George Osbourne rail travel and Austin Mitchel etc., I even think Maggie Thatcher go a mention. Jimmy Vile was passed over quickly. I am sure the laughter was canned. Conrad Black was very ill advised to go on the show. I wont watch it again.
When I was doing my physics degree, I seem to remember that nothing could be measured with absolute certainty, and that you always had to calculate the error associated with the measurement – plus or minus 0.25 mm etc. It seems that only economic performance measurements are exempt from this rule. So if the economy has gone down 1% but the calculation carries an error of plus or minus 2%, the economy could have actually grown by 1%. Anyone know why this is never mentioned by BBC ‘economists’, or anyone else for that matter?
Very easy to tell the BBC from a ray of sunshine these days isn`t it?
What a comparison to those Golden Years of Labour….very Pollyanna and Anne of green Gables wasn`t it?
In those days, you may recall that any glancing quibble from a chinless spineless Tory was regarded as “treacherous as it was doing the country down”…and as it was Mandelson…LORD Mandelson, mark you…that said it; well Labour could do no other, but to agree!
How unlike today-when any piece of “good news” is a disaster to Labour and to its BBC…I myself think that Received Pronunciation now insists that the word “good”
has to have a gritted teeth inflection, and the word “but” added automatically !
The BBC…truly desperate in the last ditch…follow the cigar smoke and soiled shellsuits, and you`ll find them all!
All this and Russell Crowe has sold out too!
See how and have a laugh at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
David, as an economist can you explain why the IMF is also wrong in pointing out that the UK economy is likely to slide backward?(I assume no-one is going to claim that the FT and IMF have some loony left agenda.)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16771cb2-113b-11e2-a637-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2AVtXuxgO
It was good news that we are not in recession. There’s considerable doubt that it will be maintained. There is no bias in reporting both bits of news.
Oh prole-you are a one!
It`s all electronic blips and future deceits, up there in the world of gamers and chancers isn`t it?
I`m not sure who you mean by referring to David as “an economist”…is he?…hope not!
It`s all quackery and rune reading, chicken entrails and the like isn`t it?
Maybe my point is that Labour cooked the books and continue to lie about their complacency, malice and sheer incompetence throughout the Glorious Decade when the likes of Blair, Brown..and their vapour trails who are Miliband and Balls…were fiddling, snoozing then buying votes on welfare forever.
Yet the BBC didn`t bother their arses about it all-for their partners were something in the media/politics/charity quangos/uni tunes…and the whole fetid liberal elite wanted tomorrow to belong to them…and unable to be paid for any time soon.
So-economist or not-we know it`s all shite and lies, but the Tories seem to be steadying the ship as much as can fairly be expected-and only Labour get away with serial corruption, incompetence and get asked about their f***`in view of how Osborne is doing by your pals in medialand?
Down here-Labour are out of power for a lifetime for what they did to the economy…and must never be let near our taxes again, surely to God!
The BBC and the likes of the Guardian must never be listened to until they recall their recent history under Labours table from 1997-2010…and their obscene Pravda-lite of airbrushing out the Euro schmoozers, the Red Square fiddlers and the brassnecked bastards who still DARE to give any economic opinions…and those who PRESUME to let them do so at our expense.
So prole-being an economist is not the issue-being moral and caring about the future is all we need at present…and when a humane Labour placemen like Darling gets such a trashing from his own side, it shows Labour need to be rendered irrelevant..not fit for purpose…and for ever.
David Vance has an Economics degree,, was economic spokesman for a Unionist party and I believe lectures on the topic. He does understand what the IMF are saying.
Fair enough-thanks for that sir!
Is economics the voodoo science or the dismal one?…or is it both….is it even a science?
You will note that the BBC tell us that we have now come out of a double dip recession.
I thought according to Gordon Brown and, of course, the BBC the first dip was only a “downturn”!
Don’t forget Gordon not only eliminated boom and bust forever, all done with the help of dear Prudence, but he also ” saved the world”: his words not mine!
Heard a bit of “Feedback” last night.
A few victims of crime were wondering if the BBC has an ongoing attempt to ensure that prisoners are always seen as victims of a society that lets them down.
Apparently the useless James Jones of Liverpool was such a willing dupe for his BBC handlers in a recent series.
The producers of these shows confirm that yes-they do think the prisoners to be victims themselves by being in prison-no they don`t think the victims of their crimes ought to have any say in reminding us all why those prisoners are in there in the first place-who are we to judge etc.
And of course-it is the BBCs unfettered right to get to “the truth”-well what the Beeb decides our “truth” is to be anyway. For doncha know- ThePrison Service is publicly funded and therefore we all have a right to know the answers to the big questions…like how on earth are we failing to produce criminals fast enough, clever enough or scary enough NOT to actually trouble the courts with petty victim tales and myths, I`m thinking.
Any prospect of this right to eviscerate the squealing effete and useless Prison Service being read across to the case of Savilegate I wonder?…or do we just settle for the contents of Pattens jamboree bag by way of “enquiry”?
Why do I bother to ask what the BBCs “social affairs and prisoner cossetting department” would make of that?