Monthly Archives: October 2012

Gosh but it’s been a busy morning for the BBC. What with the UK economy moving out of recession and IDS promising further welfare reforms, the comrades are not happy. So, on Today we have several items aimed at minimising any praise for the Coalition on the economy front (Basically, it’s all to do with the Olympics) and IDS is going to cause millions of poor children to starve to death if one listens to this one-sided “debate” with Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group.

The Huffington Post has an exclusive scoop revealing that the Coalition Government has a cunning plan for solving the social mobility problem (if it really exists):

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was out on the streets of Britain today launching the government’s new range of Social Mobility scooters.

The scooters are designed to take people from less privileged backgrounds to universities and workplaces that would previously have been out of reach.

Each scooter has 17 indicators and carries a choice of two SatNavs: one giving directions to Oxford and Cambridge, or one giving the best route to the BBC and Houses Of Parliament.

Early trials show that it takes on average approximately 25 years – also known as ‘a generation’ – to get anywhere on them.

Clegg attacked those who say that, given his own background, he shouldn’t be using the scooters. “I couldn’t disagree more,” he said. “If privileged people don’t ride these things, we will never get anywhere. Now – thanks to the scooters – everyone can get everywhere!”

The BBC doesn’t think much of that plan and prefers Labour’s EMA but it is very concerned about ‘social mobility’…or the apparent lack of it in society today.

If you’re poor, you’ll die poor…or your more likely than ever to do so. Apparently. Of course if you’re from an ethnic minority then this must radically increase such iniquities and generate even greater divides between classes and communities.

Which is why of course Dr Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah, Poet, and Righteous Dude, gets a headline on the BBC Frontpage when he comments on the state of education today.

You or I couldn’t get on the Frontpage, but he can….he is black, dreadlocked and ‘radicalised’….the BBC loves him….especially when he says stuff like this:

Africans around the world are still suffering from slavery today and, one day Britain will have to wake up and face the nightmare it induced. We are not going away.

The day will come when we move from the margins and come to the centre; I just want it to be today.

I mean no justice, no peace.

When I say ‘Black’ it means more than skin colour, I include Romany, Iraqi, Indians, Kurds, Palestinians, all those that are treated Black by the united white states. I can hear cries of ‘What?’ already, but I have to say the suffering I have witnessed means that my conscience allows me to include the battered White woman, the tree dwellers and the Irish, the Irish after all they are the largest immigrant group in Britain and I still remember the notices that said ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No dogs.’

My Black is profound.

On the other hand I also feel concerned that in the country of my birth my rights are ignored. In this multicultural, multiracial country, its prisons, its courts, even its hospitals don’t recognise my religion or cultural heritage.

The world is staying silent as the Palestinians are being annihilated.

Britain should be the last place on earth where you should find racism. But the reality is that many people are suffering from what I call the ‘last of the boat syndrome’. They conveniently forget their journey here and now live in the fear that Britain will be flooded by penniless asylum seekers who would then drain our precious society of everything they hold dear.

That pretty much covers the BBC’s main concerns in the world.

Zephaniah is the Rasputin of our times, the plaything of the white, Liberal Establishment….he denounces others for being ‘coconuts’ and ‘Uncle Toms’ but the reality is that it is he, himself, who is the closest to being such a creature….he puts on the face of the radical black agitator but the reality is that he is only putting on the performance his white paymasters demand to assuage their own guilt about Empire and colonialism. Feted and lauded by the likes of the BBC he receives their thanks and their pieces of gold whilst all the time betraying the people he tells us he is working to defend from the incessant racism he claims is set deep in the White Man’s heart and that is holding back his ‘people’….he tries to whip them up into a frenzy of angered disenchantment and a sense of embitterment about their place in life….all caused by the White man….and what is his answer? ‘No Justice, No peace!’

Isn’t that the Muslim Jihadist’s justification for violence too?

The BBC is ever ready to give him a platform but he is a dinosaur that has been left in the 70’s when racism was very much more apparent and a real problem. Things have changed, Zephaniah hasn’t….but the BBC still supports him and in doing so helps to generate anger and fear about a racism that doesn’t exist in the form that Zephaniah rants about.

Zephaniah’s work is almost a self fulfilling prophecy…he generates anger and discontent, and it gives him even more to write about….keeping the flames burning, driving a wedge between communities based on a lie.

But as I said Zephaniah is the BBC ‘social engineering’ project…it is the BBC, and other such progressive organisations, working to facilitate ‘social mobility’ by giving him opportunities that he couldn’t hope to get elsewhere…and no one else is given….as he says himself…..’On one hand I think it my duty to travel the world for The British Council and other organisations, speaking my mind as I go, ranting, praising and criticising everything that makes me who I am, but this is what Britain can do. It is probably one of the only places that can take an angry, illiterate, uneducated, ex-hustler, rebellious Rastafarian and give him the opportunity to represent the country.’

Of course the BBC has other, more plausible, people to press the case for ‘social mobility’ than a 70’s throwback.

Last Thursday on the Today programme we had Labour’s Alan Milburn (2 hrs 32 mins) pressing the right buttons….EMA must come back, universities must help the ‘disadvantaged’, social mobility is the key to everything.

He was given a pretty free hand to say his piece and fed some leading questions by Sarah Montague who seemed pretty keen on EMA returning and social background of potential university students being taken into account when applying for entry….needless to say no other voices were brought on to gainsay anything Milburn spouted.

Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times (no link as paywalled) also noticed the BBC’s lack of rigour in challenging Milburn’s assertions…..

‘Above all, what is regarded as the BBC’s most rigorous and even iconoclastic current affairs programme did not begin to ask the most basic question of all: is it really true that we are a country with unusually low levels of social mobility, and that we have become ever more ossified as a society?’

He himself answers this by referring to the work of John Goldthorpe, emeritus fellow of sociology at Nuffield College, Oxford who is ‘withering in his contempt for the unthinking orthodoxy on this topic….”A remarkable consensus has emerged in political and also media circles that social mobility is in decline and has reached an exceptionally low level…or has even ‘ground to a halt’.’…….he continues….‘ no decline in mobility, absolute or relative, occurred in the late 20th century – contrary to the widely accepted ‘factoid’...rates remained much the same for decades previously….this alternative view is grounded in a number of quite independent studies that have produced highly consistent findings.” ‘.

Montague insists that there is a remarkable gap between the performance of state schools and private schools in relation to gaining entry to universities…is that true? The Sutton Trust suggests not…..that state grammar schools do just as well as private schools….the conclusion being that it is the mindset of pupils and their parents as well as teaching quality that determines success or failure in gaining a university place…..not the fact of being at a state school.

Here the Sutton Trust  shows the importance of good teaching for disadvantaged children…..

This summary describes the interim findings of a project commissioned by the Sutton Trust to develop policy proposals for improving the effectiveness of teachers in England, with a particular focus on teachers serving disadvantaged pupils. The research evidence shows that improving the effectiveness of teachers would have a major impact on the performance of the country’s schools;  this work aims to develop specific, evidence-based proposals to achieve this.

Teacher impacts

The difference between a very effective teacher and a poorly performing teacher is large.  For example during one year with a very effective maths teacher, pupils gain 40% more in their learning than they would with a poorly performing maths teacher. 

The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school year, these pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers. In other words, for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning.

Improving the effectiveness of teachers would have a major impact on the performance of the country’s schools, increasing the attainment of children across the education system.

The effect of having a very effective teacher as opposed to an average teacher is the same as the effect of reducing class size by ten students in Year 5 (ages 9-10) and thirteen or more students in Year 6(ages 10-11)

I don’t think the BBC have ever bothered to look at either of those Sutton Trust reports…and yet  the Trust is regularly used as a prop for the BBC’s other educational ideologies when the message is on side.

Maybe it is inconvenient to find out that grammar schools, and good comprehensives can compete with private schools…..and that it is teacher quality that might be lacking…not a thing the BBC would like to promote perhaps when it is said that 60% of Labour  Party members are in fact teachers.

The BBC when it wants to, when a subject is naturally indicating an approach, philosophy or idea antagonistic to the BBC’s own ideology, will do the research and delve into a subject in great depth to ensure it finds some snippet of information or obscure research that will get its point across…however when the BBC’s own narrative is being voiced by a willing stooge it sees no need to do the leg work and look into the matter further…because of course this is ‘right’…it is the correct way of viewing a certain subject and so there is no need to question its veracity.

For your education and delight here is some of benjamin’s quality work:

The Race Industry

The coconuts have got the jobs.
The race industry is a growth industry.
We despairing, they careering.
We want more peace they want more police.
The Uncle Toms are getting paid.
The race industry is a growth industry.
We say sisters and brothers don’t fear.
They will do anything for the Mayor.
The coconuts have got the jobs.
The race industry is a growth industry.
They’re looking for victims and poets to rent.
They represent me without my consent.
The Uncle Toms are getting paid.
The race industry is a growth industry.
In suits they dither in fear of anarchy.
They take our sufferings and earn a salary.
Steal our souls and make their documentaries.
Inform daily on our community.
Without Black suffering they’d have no jobs.
Without our dead they’d have no office.
Without our tears they’d have no drink.
If they stopped sucking we could get justice.
The coconuts are getting paid.
Men, women and Brixton are being betrayed

White Comedy

I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.

People called me white jack
Some hailed me as a white wog,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don’t worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.

Had to laugh at BBC Today this morning. They were crowing how Lord Patten had written to Maria Miller warning her not to question the impartiality of the BBC! Of COURSE this should be questioned and the fact that Patten, that wettest of “Conservatives” felt obliged to “warn” Miller shows just how sensitive the BBC must feel towards the charge of bias. I see that Bland was wheeled on for a “debate”..did you catch this?

Blimey, busy day so no time to blog so instead here is a new one of these.

You have to look at what is going on at the BBC and the wriggling of those involved and think that here is an organisation that prides itself on challenging other Institutions and organisations about their behaviour but seems all too ready to hide its own misdeeds and have senior management  deny all culpability….we didn’t know about anything…nothing to do with us…..everyone else did the same so why blame us…..as if they would let any other organisation get away with that?

My initial thoughts were that Entwistle would remain in post as DG….but the more you look the more you realise his decision making has in every case been very poor….he has made the wrong decision each time he was called upon to act……does he have what it takes to be the head of the world’s most famous and possibly powerful broadcaster?

First some good news for all those who keep a watchful eye on BBC blogs and Tweets that stray into the all too personal views of the BBC employee publishing them….George Entwistle insists that….Blogs need to have the same standard of journalism as all other BBC reporting….in other words they need to be ‘journalism’ not a personal view of the world paid for by BBC license payers.

George Entwistle appeared before a committee of MPs today to explain events at the BBC regarding Savile.

It wasn’t a good day for Entwistle. When people have time to examine closely what he said I would put good money on it that he is pretty well torn apart.

He was evasive, contradictory and defensive….and his answers revealed several serious lapses of judgement on his part during the whole affair.

One comment he made doesn’t bode well for the BBC…that Savile alone wasn’t the problem…there were ‘broader cultural problems at the BBC’….what did that mean? Does it mean everyone knew but looked away…or that many others were also doing the same and so didn’t see the problem?

No doubt the BBC inquiry will reveal all.

As stated Entwistle has revealed that he made some major errors of judgment when he was Head of Vision right up to now as Director General……

His first major failure of judgement was not to have asked what the Newsnight programme was investigating…considering that the subject matter was so serious that he might have to cancel his tribute shows to Savile.

The second failure of judgement is to not think that even if such an investigation is kicked into the long grass for lack of evidence such evidence, especially in cases like this, might readily appear and have even more damaging repercussions for the BBC…hence he should have still asked what the programme was about even if he had believed it might be cancelled.

His third failure of judgement is that he continued to put out a message about the reasons for the cancellation of the programme based upon Peter Rippon’s ‘inaccurate and incomplete’ blog….even after he was warned by a Newsnight journalist that the blog was seriously wrong.

Perhaps a fourth one might be his assertion that, yes, the BBC failed but you know what, so did all the other news organisations, the Press and Media….so it’s sort of OK really…the BBC’s not so bad after all…..it’s merely just like all the rest.

One good call he did make was that he has decided that the Newsnight programme was based upon solid journalism and should have gone ahead.

That puts Peter Rippon in an awkward position (and looks possibly even more awkward….‘Peter Rippon, the editor of Newsnight, is said to have played down the importance of an investigation into Jimmy Savile’s alleged child abuse, saying the victims were “teenagers, not too young”, according to a leaked email written by one of his staff.’)  as he maintains that it was for sound editorial reasons that he canned the programme. From his blog, which is still up, he explains that he felt Newsnight should not be dealing with the Savile allegations…that it should be challenging major institutions about their behaviour…..several failures there on Rippon’s part.  The allegations and ramifications of  ‘Savile’ were extremely serious but he seems to dismiss them…and is not the BBC just such an ‘Institution’ that he was so keen to ‘challenge’? It looks as if he was keen to sweep it under the carpet and go for the CPS or the police failure to prosecute Savile rather than the BBC……

‘If we could establish some sort of institutional failure we would have a much stronger story.

Some of the factors on the other side were: Newsnight is not normally interested in celebrity expose. Savile was unable to defend himself. What was the public interest served by reporting it given he is dead?’

He claims there that such a story was ‘below’ Newsnight as a serious news programme……However in an earlier blog post he states this…..

‘In 2010 the awful term “sofalising” was coined. It is communicating with friends online while lounging on the sofa rather than going out.

Now we are seeing another interesting online phenomenon – people sitting at home watching a programme on TV while at the same time discussing what they are watching on another screen with friends, or indeed strangers, on social media sites.

This is really interesting territory for Newsnight.’

Guess he had a change of heart and suddenly came over all professional when it came to disinterring skeletons in the BBC’s cupboards.

Ironically the post goes on….‘This week’s film about Alan Bennett’s support to save local libraries from government cuts was just the latest example. Bennett reiterated his previously expressed belief that closing libraries constitutes child abuse.’

So closing libraries is a good story as it is akin to child abuse…but real child abuse is not worth investigating….not something Newsnight does?

Rippon claims there was no managerial interference in his decision…and yet he admits in the blog that he had discussions with management…but declares they insisted he kept his independence.

However an email from one of the Newsnight journalists, Liz MacKean, to a friend indicates otherwise….

‘PR (Peter Rippon) says if the bosses aren’t happy…(he) can’t go to the wall on this one.’

Doesn’t that make it seem as if it was someone above his paygrade making the final decisions?

Entwistle tells us that an editor could decide whether to air a report on his own judgement….but if it was of a highly sensitive nature he could refer it to his line manager….so was Savile sensitive or not?….wasn’t the programme, about a BBC icon abusing children on BBC premises, sensitive?….wouldn’t such a programme put a bombshell under the BBC that would rock it to its foundations? And yet Entwistle claims, and Rippon claims, it was left to his decision completely.

You would have to ask just how high is the thresh hold for describing something as ‘sensitive’ at the BBC if that was the case…what are the guidelines for referring a programme to a line manager?

Mark Thompson reveals that….‘There is a list which is compiled by the BBC’s Editorial Policy department of potentially sensitive programmes, but this list is not intended to be exhaustive and, in particular, often does not include investigative segments being prepared by general news and current affairs programmes like Today and Newsnight. As Director General, I saw this list regularly. I do not believe that the Savile investigation was included in it. Certainly I do not recall seeing it there.’

Accusations of prolonged child abuse at the BBC by one of its iconic stars not sensitive?

It seems however that just about everyone else knew about the programme and its contents judging by this email from the BBC publicity department to Newsnight about the report becoming a major news story….

‘A huge amount of interest. All domestic (BBC) outlets would want to run it.’

So Jim from PR knew but not only did George Entwistle, Head of Television not know, and not want to know, neither did the DG, Mark Thompson, who was surprised by another BBC journalist asking if he was ‘worried about the Newsnight programme’.

Thompson claims he had never heard of any rumours about Savile and had nothing to do with the Newsnight programme…the same defence as Entwistle…..a distinct case of sloping shoulders there.

Entwistle says he had a very short chat with Helen Boaden on Dec 2nd, the exact words of which he can’t remember but it was along the lines of ‘Newsnight is looking to run a programme on Jimmy Savile…and you may have to reconsider running the tributes to him at Christmas and change the schedules.’

Entwistle says he didn’t ask (and we assume Boaden didn’t actually say any more!) what the investigation was about because he didn’t want to look like he was interfering in the News department’s area.

Contradicting this ‘Firewall’ approach he states that he would have asked about the programme once it had been ‘commissioned’ and a date set for broadcasting saying…..

‘The key message I took away was that I was not sure it would all stand up…and I would only engage with the consequences of a broadcast once I had received an update about the progress on the programme’…..

But how would he know if it would stand up if he didn’t have any knowledge about the investigation? Wouldn’t it seem necessary to ask?

His ‘wait and see’ approach was very short sighted as the likelihood, especially with a subject like that, is that something else will come out of the woodwork fairly soon….and embarrass the BBC….later at the MP’s Committee he admits he was surprised that there was no follow up to the Newsnight programme….indicating he expected more information to come out and the investigation to then go back into production….in which case Entwistle needed to ask questions in order to prepare the BBC’s response.

The programme was due to be broadcast on the 7th of December but was pulled on the 5th…..just when was Entwistle going to be informed of this ‘bombshell’ that was going to be set off underneath the BBC? As said earlier the PR department knew…wouldn’t it have been sensible to inform both the Head of Television and the BBC’s Director General of something of such ‘sensitivity’ that was going to make headlines for all the wrong reasons…probably around the world.

Entwistle later admits that the programme had been ‘commissioned’…..or rather was all set to broadcast…..he said ‘What I meant (by not commissioned) was that there was no final script.’

However he has already admitted that there was ‘solid journalism’ and ‘the Newsnight reporters involved were confident enough in their material to put together a script for a 10- or 12-minute package, indicating they believed their film was largely complete.’

So there was a script…and the journalists involved were all confident of their material? …as the Newsnight journalist Meirion Jones said …

“The story is strong enough and the danger of not running it would be substantial damage to BBC reputation.”

In other words the programme was ‘commissioned’ in Entwistle’s terms….ready to be broadcast……so why didn’t he ask those questions? remember he says quite clearly now that Newsnight should have been broadcast….it was based on solid journalism.

Once all this came into the open and the programme was abandoned the BBC did nothing with the investigation…shelving it until ITV produced its own programme.

Entwistle then refused to hold an internal inquiry. He now claims this was at the request of the police who didn’t want a parallel inquiry going on at the same time as a criminal investigation…….‘It was uppermost in my mind that an inquiry might interfere with the police inquiry.’

However he says that ‘It was entirely appropriate for Panorama to broadcast its investigation’.…… despite Police inquiries being ongoing….and I’m sure ITV’s programme has not sent the police investigation off the rails either.

So Entwistle could have done his inquiry…evidenced by the fact that he has  now launched  two such inquiries to look into matters.

Perhaps one question those inquiries could ask is what was the outcome of the BBC inquiry into similar allegations in the 1970’s …presumably off the back of News of the World reports into child abuse and sex parties involving BBC employees.

There has been a huge failure of management over this affair…only redeemed by Panorama…but even there the BBC has stepped in to prevent emails being used as evidence….so nothing seems to have been learnt yet……still hiding behind legalities…just as they do with the Balen Report….something that would probably destroy the BBC’s reputation completely if it were released alongside the Savile inquiries…the results of which cannot be anything but bad news for the BBC.

Thought this worth sharing…it’s in the form of an Open Letter from Lord Monckton to Jeremy Paxman…

“Your Newsnight segment on Arctic sea ice (BBC2 TV, 8 September 2012) featured a “scientist” who said ice loss since a high point in 1979 would cut the Earth’s albedo and, by this feedback, cause warming equivalent to 20 years’ global CO2 emissions.

On the IPCC’s current central climate-sensitivity estimates, 20 years’ CO2 emissions would only warm the Earth by ¼ C°. But since the IPCC’s first projections in 1990, temperature has risen only half as fast as predicted: so make that just ? C°.

The glaciologist the programme relied on got the math wrong. Ignoring the growth in Antarctic sea ice since 1979, as the programme unwisely did, the loss of 2.5 million km2 of Arctic sea ice (measured as the linear trend on the NSIDC data) will warm the Earth by only 1/20 C°, and only then if the ice loss is permanent. Halve that to allow for the compensating effect of record Antarctic sea-ice growth: say, 1/40 C° of global warming, equivalent to just 2 years’ CO2 emissions on the IPCC’s current projections, not 20 years’ emissions.

See more here

Wonder if anyone else caught this debate on BBC Radio 4 concerning the oxymoronic concept  “Open Borders”?

 “In this week’s programme, Professor Sandel visits the heartland of America’s deep south, hosting a public discussion at the University of Dallas in Texas. He challenges ordinary Texans to consider the moral issues raised when it comes to controlling immigration and deciding who should be entitled to citizenship.

Texas has a long frontier with Mexico and the issue of immigration divides people sharply. A million people in Texas are “undocumented” living without immigration papers. Many Hispanic voters want immigration to be reformed and President Obama recently outlined initiatives aimed at this base. Mitt Romney, too, is reaching out to Hispanic voters but many in the Tea Party movement pull the Republicans in the other direction. They insist that the border must be closed and deportations must be stepped up.

Against this backdrop, our public audience will be asked: “how far should an open society go on accepting outsiders?” Michael Sandel weaves through these issues with the help of philosophers past and present.”

Struck me that Sandel was inherently pro the idea of “Open Borders” and it showed in how he conducted the debate but perhaps the MOST interesting aspect was when the Harvard Professor Sandel  (sic) asked for a show of hands on who favoured Open Borders. There was a NARROW majority against this liberal proposition. In Texas. Now HOW did the BBC construct THAT audience??

I was on the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live programme the other week and met journalist and feminist crusader Julie Bindel. I debated her and Donal McIntyre on the need for tougher prison regimes. Anyway, I happened to tune in to BBC Woman’s Hour yesterday to hear Julie “debate” whether woman “own” the abortion issue. I thought she got a VERY sympathetic hearing which I am sure is nothing to do with her arch-feminism arch-lesbian values. Men haters DO seem to get a rather good hearing at the State Broadcaster for some reason….

Well, further to David’s post below, I was most interested in the final Presidential debate that took place in the wee small hours. I was intrigued to hear Mark Mardell inform the listening audience of BBC Today that the debate had no clear winner and that Romney has adopted “a softer position to persuade Americans that he is not a war monger”.  Interesting, Mark. Just wondering why you chose not to editorialise Obama adopting a position that deflected criticism of him being seen as “a weak kneed dhimmi” when it comes to foreign policy. Heaven forbid that there could be a “war monger” in the White House, right? Dhimmis, by contrast, seem welcome by the BBC.

It’s interesting the language that the BBC chooses at times. As we know language and images are the main currencies of the BBC so words matter. The BBC were to the fore in attacking every action of NOTW when it came to phone tapping and most certainly adopted  high moral tone suggesting that Murdoch’s newspaper empire was evil.  Come this morning, we read that the Daily Mirror has “been hit” by legal claims that it engaged in similar acts of phone tapping. Curious – almost as if this was an accident. There was the Mirror, innocently churning our day and day of left wing propaganda and trash, and ..whoops.. it “is hit.” Throughout this entire phone tapping saga, I have felt that the BBC seemed determined to place Murdoch at the center when in fact, as we all know, the practise was common across the media. It’s a pity nobody tapped Jimmy Savile’s phone…