Monthly Archives: October 2012

Flanders rounds off her portraits of influential economic thinkers with a Marxist mirage. Ostensibly about Marx it was really just a vehicle to propagate the usual BBC rhetoric about inequality, Thatcher and the rich getting richer.

 

Flanders, like Marx, seems to have no interest in finding the truth but more in proclaiming it.  She embodies the virtues that Marx displayed…the poet, journalist and moralist….producing a fascinating fusion of visual delights and facts that as we draw closer melt under the harsh light of examination and reality.

 

Marx, out of interest, has almost a uncanny resemblance to Gordon Brown.  His anger was unbounded and rages furious, his grandfather was a rabbi, he was a scholar and a journalist and fascinated by economicss but not too bothered about the truth as it turns out….he spent so long reading his books in the British Library that the real world and events passed him by….which meant all that he wrote was based upon historical facts and not the current state of society or economy…..a genius, perhaps, but not one in touch with the real world.  He almost lost an eye in a sporting accident.   Uncanny.

Flanders asks the question ‘Can Marx provide any solution to today’s crisis?’.

The answer she told us was ‘No’…..she says Marx said very little about an alternative to Capitalism.

Not really true as vast numbers of people who have suffered the implementation of his solution could tell us…..many millions of course cannot because they were killed by the Soviet Solution.

However according to the BBC’s favourite Marxist…Eric Hobsbawm (probably writing from his Bourgeois home in Hampstead or his holiday home in Wales), the killers were the ‘liberators of mankind’ and the deaths of many, many millions an acceptable and necessary part of the process in the inevitable advancement of the workers.

No mention of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or the workers taking over the means of production, or the destruction of the family, Church and society…and of course of Capitalism itself…or the arming of the workers and the final, ultimate Communism in which there is no government just an armed proletariat somehow making all the necessary decisions.

She tells us that Marx’s big contribution was to discover that Capitalism is ‘unstable’.

Is it? It goes up and down for sure….but we know that, any businessman could have revealed that way before Marx. Joseph in Genesis could of told you that as he battled with 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine.  Gordon could have learnt something from his preacher father….in the good times pug some away for a rainy day.

That was about it really for Marx….Flanders told us he had no real answers to the problems he diagnosed.

Professor J. Schumpeter, Professor of Political Economy at Bonn, and formerly Minister of Finance in Austria, talking about “The instability of our economic system,” probably has a better grasp of the realities:

‘It is not capitalism that has come to an end but a mode of politics that seeks to guarantee market stability.’

 

In other words it is government interference that produces the most instability.

Capitalism is ‘stable’ in that it goes up and down in an almost predictable manner….but look over the last 100 years and you can pick out why economies collapsed….usually too much government interference lowering interest rates and creating a housing bubble or a stock market boom….politicians flooding the market with too much cheap money.

It is the government, by trying to maintain ‘stability’ (and voting majorities) that introduces the element of increased instability beyond the norm….and intensifies any natural boom and bust cycle…because as Hayek said…the economy is just too complicated for us to really understand…any changes can have massive unintended, and damaging, consequences.

So perhaps Marx was wrong about stability…and that is why he had no solution to the problem…..a problem that has no solution….because it is as natural as the weather cycle that produces the occasional drought and famine….and a problem that will always ‘fix’ itself as humans always endeavour to recover and rebuild their lives and fortunes….rather than manning the barricades.

　

Which kind of made the programme a bit pointless if Flanders admits Marx had no answers….but she carried on manfully and decided instead to explain how we found ourselves in such a mess.

Nothing to do with Labour or Gordon. No. The problem is inequality, between the low wages of the workers and the vastly richer top earners.

She tells us that inequality is creeping up the agenda and asks ‘Have the greedy capitalists been picking the pockets of the workers?’

Her answer was a definite ‘yes’.

She tells us that wages for the middle and low income brackets have not increased for nearly 30 years, and may have fallen whilst the rich have become even richer.

Why have the rich become richer?

Three reasons….‘Those things that kept a lid on inequality are no longer present in society‘…..

1. The Unions have been made weaker…cue film of Scargill being arrested.

2. Low tax rates.

3. Social norms have changed…we are no longer a moral nation ‘obliged’ to share our good fortune.

　

So we need stronger Unions, higher taxes and responsible capitalism…..er…is this a speech by Miliband?

 

Flanders also has the grace to mention the advances in technology and the ever changing face of global business. Technology means we need fewer workers in each industry, (whilst creating many others), but she claims that this globalisation is a new thing…the interconnectedness of economies is what created this recent crash. She also claims that the vast new pool of cheap labour in developing countries has meant we are all out of a job as our high wage economies cannot compete.

　

Let’s look at her claims.

She, and Stiglitz, claim incomes have been falling for 30 years.

Not according to both the IFS  and the US Congressional Budget Office.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) points out that income inequality in America has not risen dramatically over the past 20 years—when the top 1% of earners are excluded. With them, the picture is quite different. The causes of the good fortune of those at the top are disputed, but the CBO provides some useful detail on that too.

CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:

275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,

65 percent for the next 19 percent,

Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and

18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

 

In the UK incomes have risen dramatically across the income spectrum…..since Thatcher took over incomes have risen for nearly everyone…..but look at the graphs, they tell an interesting tale.

 

 

Under the Tories the poorest 250,000 remain poor, and the richest rise to 500,000. Labour takes over and the poorest rise to 1000,000 whilst the rich get even richer…with nearly 1 million extra people clambering up the greasy pole to the ranks of the richest.

Inequality was greater and rising under Labour not the Tories….but income was rising for the majority.

So that’s one Flanders’ error put to bed.  Yes, the rich have gotten richer but wages for nearly all rose appreciably in the last 30 years. Anyone with eyes in their head could see that just looking at the lifestyles people lead these days…not only that but prices have dropped…how many low income people could fly off around the world on holiday 30 years ago?…no where near as many as today.

How about her claim that the recent availability of cheap foreign labour has led to the crash?

We have always relied on that…Orwell told us that….‘We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies’……

‘All left-wing parties in the highly industrialised countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have international aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are ‘enlightened’ all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free, but our standard of living, and hence our ‘enlightenment’, demands that the robbery shall continue. A humanitarian is always a hypocrite.’

　

And what about the ‘interconnectedness’ of the global economy? She says this is a new thing, something which nobody could have really accounted for or planned for.

Really? That was Gordon Brown’s excuse believe it or not…the Chancellor and PM didn’t realise the extent of the connections between the global economies. Really?

The Great Depression in Europe was kicked off by the stock market and banking crash in the US….Hitler rose to power on this tidal wave of bad news. That was in the 1930’s, there are lots of books on it, lots of films, Wikipedia does it to death. Gordon must have noticed.

Flanders tells us Hitler came to power due to the reparations imposed on Germany after the war.  Again not really true….Germany could have paid them from the revenues from its own economy but decided instead to borrow heavily from the US to fund the roaring 20’s in Germany….a stimulus in other words by borrowing.

No wonder Flanders doesn’t want to admit the truth….an economy crashed by a reckless and feckless government spending and borrowing too much…..how similar to our own.

She tells us that Hitler’s rise to power was almost certain due to the austerity imposed on Germany by the Allies….however the BBC’s own programme ‘The Nazis: A Warning From History’ states that this wasn’t so….’The Nazis wanted the world to believe that Hitler’s rise to power was inevitable – this programme shatters that myth.’ and it also explains that it was the US crash that allowed Hitler to get his foot in the door…not reparations or hyper inflation which the Germans got under control.

But note…no other country was so effected by the crash.

　

Flanders and Co are pushing hard at the door that opens onto a brave new world……which they believe can be jimmied open with a bit of Keynes.

Keynes, Flanders tells us also thought reparations were to lead to war….not true if you read Keynes…..he agreed reparations should be paid….but that some measures to restrict the German economy and ‘empire’ would hamper those payments.

What else though could Keynes tell us…what thoughts might be instructive?

‘What is Communism?

Like other new religions, Leninism derives its power not from the multitude but from the small minority of enthusiastic converts whose zeal and intolerance make each one equal in strength of a hundred indifferentists. Like other new religions it seems to take the colour and gaiety and freedom out of everyday life and to offer a drab substitute in the square wooden faces of its devotees.

Like other new religions it persecutes without justice or pity those who actively resist it. Like other new religions it is unscrupulous. But to say Leninism is the faith of a persecuting and propagating minority of fanatics led by hypocrites is, after all, to say no more nor less than that it is a religion and not merely a party, and Lenin a Mahomet, not a Bismark.

I sympathise with those who seek for something good in Soviet Russia.

But when we come to the real thing what is one to say?

Red Russia holds too much which is detestable….I am not ready for a creed which does not care how much it destroys the liberty and security of daily life, which uses deliberately the weapons of persecution, destruction, and international strife.

How can I admire a policy which finds a characteristic expression in spending millions to suborn spies in every family and group at home, and to stir up trouble abroad?

How can I accept a doctrine which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world?

How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts a boorish proletariat above the bourgeois and the intelligentsia who, with whatever faults, are the quality in life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement?

Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the Red bookshops? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values. (Eric Hobsbawm?)

In Western industrial conditions the tactics of Red Revolution would throw the whole population into a pit of poverty and death.

I do not mean that Russian Communism alters, or even seeks to alter, human nature, that it makes Jews less avaricious or Russians less extravagant than they were before.

　

What else is there of interest in his writings that could be of value to us?

‘Money making, as such, on as large a sale as possible, is not less respectable socially, perhaps more so, than a life devoted to the service of the State or of Religion, Education, Learning , or Art.’

 

So being ‘filthy rich’ as someone once said, is fine with Keynes?

 

Further reading might reveal that he did think government spending could be productive….but only if the economy was already in good shape…. ‘We are not inefficient, we are not poor, we are not living on our capital. Our labour and our plant are enormously more productive than they used to be. Our national income is going up quite quickly. That is how we do it.’

Do what? Afford to invest in infrastructure…..but the economy has to be growing to do it.

‘My own policy for the budget, so long as the slump lasts is…to continue to borrow for the unemployment fund, and to impose a Revenue tariff.’

So what is Osborne doing? Borrowing to pay welfare and unemployment and increasing tax…VAT especially.

Seems pretty Keynesian to me.

Guess you can read into Keynes anything you want to suit your purpose.

Shame Flanders doesn’t admit this.

　

So Marx was wrong about stability of capitalism, wrong about the outcome of Capitalism, his solution failed miserably and brought untold misery to the Proletariat and Keynes hated Communism and didn’t really give an unqualified yes to government borrowing and spending on infrastructure….and incomes have risen not fallen over the last 30 years and reparations didn’t put Hitler into power.

Flanders didn’t really get much right did she?

Guess most of it was wishful thinking and Labour propaganda.

 

What was Marx’s alternative to Capitalism?

 

Worst of all, the Revolution had turned the peasants into capitalistic small-holders. The big estates which had produced millions of tons of grain for export had been divided into innumerable tiny patches. The vast stretches of land which used to supply the towns and the Army with food had been split up. The Communist Revolution had led to the increase of Capitalism.

It had led to the increasing strength of the capitalist class of richer peasants, the Kulaks who hated Communism.

The cry went, round among the communists: “The time has come for Change! Forward to pure Communism!

　

“It is terrible here in the kolkhoz. We cannot speak or we shall be sent away to Siberia as they sent the others. We are afraid. I had three cows. They took them away and now I only get a crust of bread. It is a thousand times worse now than before the Revolution;

“The Communists came and seized our land, they stole our cattle and they tried to make us work like serfs in a farm where nearly everything was owned in common” – the eyes of the group of Ukrainian farmers flashed with anger as they spoke to me – “and do you know what they did to those who resisted? They shot them ruthlessly.”

The Communists I spoke to did not deny that they had ruthlessly exiled the hardest working farmers.

On the contrary they were proud of it and boasted that they would show mercy to those who wanted to own their own land.

“We must be strong and crush the accursed enemies of the working class,” the Communists would say to me, “Let them suffer now. We have no place for them in our society.”

Nor did they deny the shootings that had gone on in the villages.

“If any man, woman or child goes out into the field at night in the Summer and picks a single ear of wheat, then the punishment according to law is death by shooting,

“So they sent the Red army soldiers to force them,” they told me. “But the soldiers would not shoot upon their fellow peasants.

“What did they do? They called the YOUNG COMMUNISTS in from the town and THEY shot down all the peasants who would not give up their land and their cows.”

　

　

 

Wonder what you make of this cheerily pro Palestinian puff piece from the unbiased BBC?

Wonder how the BBC views THIS then….? Just WHAT has been covered up by the BBC? Isn’t it time for a Judicial-led Independent Leveson style enquiry? BBC seemed keen on that when it came to the Murdoch empire so am sure they will will agree. Hang on, Patten has ruled it out….

Last week, as Labour prepared for their conference, the BBC shilled about how “united” they were. One week on, as the Conservatives prepare for their conference, the meme is “division”…oh, and “cuts”….

“Further cuts to welfare, including curbs on housing benefit, may be needed to help fight the deficit, David Cameron has warned. Speaking on first day of the Conservative Party conference, the prime minister said housing benefit may be reviewed for under-25s.

He promised “further action” to ensure the rich “pay their fair share”. But senior Tories have ruled out a tax on expensive properties or a one-off “wealth tax” backed by the Lib Dems.

The BBC love the class war angle and depressingly Cameron serves it up to them.

Just as they hid Savile’s abuses to keep a legend going and the whole edifice that was built up around him on the road the BBC does the same for Marx and the Left.

 

Which is more sinister – The Swastika or the Hammer and Sickle? Some thoughts on the death of Professor Eric Hobsbawm

Peter Hitchen’s asks a question that the BBC never does…..

‘Sometimes I see a young person wearing a hammer and sickle badge, or some other trinket of Communist kitsch. And I say to him or her ‘would you wear a swastika? They look at me, baffled. I explain to them that the badge that they are wearing was also worn by guards in terrible, deliberately murderous concentration camps. They look at me blankly, or swear at me. Maybe one day I’ll get through. But I continue to be amazed at the way in which our educated classes – who most certainly know better – excuse the apologists of Stalin when they would never excuse the apologists of Hitler.’

 

The BBC itself has no such qualms about those who propagate the Communist ideology and the revolutionary imperatives that is their call to arms.

They do however have qualms about the Nazis….so much so that they have gone to the trouble of producing a ‘Warning From History’  that denounces the ‘Right’ for going ‘too far’ and no doubt ‘too fast’.

The title gives away the BBC’s intent….the programme is a highly political polemic with two targets….the Far Right and the Tory’s ‘austerity’ programme…such as that is.

The BBC has been running a narrative in several programmes that ‘austerity’ programmes will see the rise of the Far Right extremists and the imposition of the Fourth Reich.

It’s a consistent theme……one which Flander’s ‘Masters of Money’ continued.

It is worth noting the paradox that on the one hand the BBC are warning us about the Far Right, as said even producing a programme dedicated to saving us from it, but that in Flander’s programmes we have bearded professors allowed to come on and state that we must rise up and attack the Government, overturn the Establishment….they state we need a revolution, a violent revolution.

The BBC stirring up anger and trying to put ideas into people’s heads about ‘Revolution’?

The ‘Warning From History’ might also have another subtext…..

It opened with some of the horrors of Nazi rule, one of which was the ‘mechanical extermination of an entire people’.

However we weren’t actually told who they were. No mention of ‘Jews’….until a later curious exchange with a former Nazi from the era.

When the German troops came home from the Front in WWI on Germany’s surrender, apparently all the blame was heaped upon on Marxists and Jews……then an attempt to take over Germany by the Marxists was a Jewish plot as many of the Marxists were Jewish….cue photos of the ‘Jewish’ culprits…looking very ‘Jewish’.

The Nazi stated that it was only natural that they would be blamed and thereafter feelings run high against them in Germany….and hence the subsequent atrocities.

Just a thought but that was completely unchallenged by the programme and the Nazi’s statement was left hanging…as if, really, you know, it might be true…they brought it on themselves….maybe rumours of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world are true….who knows..maybe that’s what Christianity is…maybe that’s why the BBC don’t like Christianity…Jesus was a Jew after all.

Not saying any in the BBC would encourage anti-Semitism but it’s just an impression I got….the tone was slightly wrong for me.

Imagine someone saying that about Muslims after 9/11 or 7/7….do you think the BBC would allow that or even allow the slightest possibility that the suggestion might have a grain of truth in it to be aired?  Those so-called Muslims were ‘criminals’, ‘madmen’ or ‘perverters of Islam’…they are definitely not trying to take over the world and impose Islam on everyone!

 

The whole programme was supposed to be an analogy to be superimposed upon today’s politics and events and lessons learned from it.

However Germany was an exception….Austria, despite being in similar dire straits, did not produce its own Reich, nor did an America devastated by the Depression, nor did Britain plunge into a Third Reich type regime in the 30’s….Moseley got nowhere.

　

Rather than a warning it is no more than a Labour Party propaganda piece that paints a doom laden picture of violence and anarchy as a result of ‘austerity’ and the failure to ‘invest’ purely intended to suggest austerity will ruin us.

Have a look tonight….the BBC has another little prop for Labour’s Plan B.

Evan Davis, of course, is presenting a programme called ‘Built in Britain’  (8pm Tonight BBC2) that explores the lack of infrastructure in this country using an analysis of social and economic background to investigate whether we need more government spending on Infrastructure….or as the BBC puts it…’How we can tackle it.’  

I wonder what his answer will be…and whether he will mention mass immigration as the main cause of the failure of infrastructure from roads, to schools, to hospitals, water and power shortages, and the public transport system….without the qualification of saying ‘immigration of course benefits us all enormously’?

 

 

I wonder what else the BBC is hiding to keep the show on the road, to keep their own pet political narratives running their way?

Is there a whole row of  political ‘Savile’  cover ups just waiting to be brought to light?

The BBC’s coverage, or lack of, on Europe, immigration and  Israel might be a start.

It seems that the BBC’s Jeremy Vine can’t accept the fact that Obama got his butt kicked fair and square by Romney in the first debate. In a desperate attempt to rationalise the beloved Obama’s defeat he is peddling a ridiculous conspiracy theory from lefty website Democratic Underground:

WATCH. Eleven seconds in, did Mitt Romney use a magician’s sleight of hand to produce notes, which are banned? democraticunderground.com/1251119479

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) October 6, 2012

I won’t bother posting the video or waste time detailing why the claim is so idiotic. Suffice to say the “sleight of hand” Vine has told his 140,000 Twitter followers to look out for is in reality Romney openly taking a handkerchief out of his pocket. Go to Buzzfeed to see Romney using it to mop his upper lip during the debate.

If Obama-loving BBC types like Vine are so upset by a debate defeat that they’ll grasp at nonsense like this, imagine what they’ll be like if Romney actually wins the election.

UPDATE. This piss-take highlights the stupidity of desperate idiots such as Vine:

There is some background work happening aimed at keeping the site stable so please bear with us. A team of people is working on this to ensure all the issues are fixed! In the meantime, a new OPEN thread…

Wonder if the BBC feels any embarrassment when it lectures us so sternly on wimmin’s rights?

Caroline Thomson has once again lifted the veil on the BBC Bubble….a little ungrateful considering she walked off with a pension pot of £1.7 million, and as she was made redundant she no doubt received a hefty golden handshake.

 

Why hasn’t a woman ever run the BBC? 

It is quite clear how much Thomson loves the BBC. She has dedicated her professional life to it. And she played a major role in protecting it, helping to negotiate it two licence fees and the current charter – protecting it for the next generation.

However, she more than most, is exceptionally qualified to answer just why has one of the most impressive cultural organisations in the world never managed to appoint a woman as its chief?

It’s 2012 and still not happened. And it cannot be for a dearth of talent. And what better time to ask – 24 hours after she has left that chapter behind?

Pulling no punches Thomson explains that the BBC still has issues around ensuring gender equality that women are promoted regardless of career breaks and working part-time, and making ageism is a memory of yesteryear.

“I think it takes time to properly change a culture around. The BBC still needs more time….However, despite the BBC having improved as a place to work as a woman – with three female executive [board] directors – it still has a long way to go on the equality agenda for women and ageism. The two go hand in hand and its culture will only change when these issues are addressed. You can’t assume you have done it with women – it’s quite a fragile issue to address.”

And good the BBC has all these quotas in place to ensure diversity and equality of opportunity…shame none for ‘Conservatives’.

“John Birt [the former director-general between 1992 and 2000] had targets for making sure we had women and ethnic minorities well represented in the BBC. I don’t approve of quotas but targets are really rather useful tools for management,” she explains in her candid style.

 

 

Makes you wonder what else, apart from Jimmy Savile’s unusual habits, BBC  employees are keeping under wraps so as not to rock the boat.

Maybe someone will blurt out the contents of the Balen Report.

 

Amused but not surprised to hear Union Baron, Len McCluskey, saying that John Pienaar gave the perfect analysis of Miliband’s speech.

Probably because Pienaar found nothing of value to say about it in any critical or meaningful way.

Here’s some questions the BBC could and should ask but don’t:

Will Ed Balls have to rewrite future speeches about public sector business genius giving us the Olympics….in light of rail failures, NHS computers, MOD procurement, PFI,  Labour forgetting to add VAT to the Olympic bill……I’m sure there’s lots more….and do they still support the privatisation of Royal Mail…done at the instigation of ‘predator’ capitalist mail companies in Europe?

The BBC gave a lot of air time to Labour’s claims for Public Sector efficiency after the Olympics…wouldn’t an intelligent BBC be onto them about this latest evidence of PS hopelessness?

Richard Branson said that rail should not be privatised….’If they can’t run a process they can’t run a railway.’

Miliband’s speech…honed and practised for the weeks he disappeared from our screens and papers? Will he run government like that, disappearing off every time he has a big decision to give him time to think?

BBC Pienaar said the speech  was a ‘feat of memory’…..shame Miliband can’t remember what Labour did with the economy for 13 years.

 

 

 

　

This post claims BBC bias in its reporting of the run up to the 2003 Iraq War and the compilation of the Dossier that gave the case for war.

It also explains why, in my opinion, that is ‘bias’ and the effect such bias has upon not only politics but also the literal life and death issues for not just the troops fighting the wars but also the civilians in the UK who face serious threats from Islamic terrorism that could be the result of the BBC’s  false claims.　

It also highlights one of the major advantages the BBC has….it has the platform to keep repeating its ‘Legend’ until that legend becomes ‘Fact’.

The post is long.

 

‘Ludlow, who was rather an enthusiast for liberty than a fanatic in religion—that brave man, who hated Cromwell more than he did Charles I., relates that the parliamentary forces were always defeated by the royal army in the beginning of the civil war.

…….Cromwell said to General Fairfax: “How can you possibly expect a rabble of London porters and apprentices to resist a nobility urged on by the principle, or rather the phantom, of honor? Let us actuate them by a more powerful phantom—fanaticism! Our enemies are fighting only for their king; let us persuade our troops they are fighting for their God.”

“Give me a commission, and I will raise a regiment of brother murderers, whom I will pledge myself soon to make invincible fanatics!”

He was as good as his word; he composed his regiment of red-coated brothers, of gloomy religionists, whom he made obedient tigers. Mahomet himself was never better served by soldiers.

But in order to inspire this fanaticism, you must be seconded and supported by the spirit of the times.

　

Who creates that ‘spirit of the times’?

Who is it that ‘manufactures the consent’ that gives the nod to certain people of a certain ideology that they have just cause for complaint and although the methods adopted may be wrong the Cause is great, just and honourable?

The BBC.

The BBC is one of the most powerful media organisations in the world…all the more so because of the inherent ‘trust’ and credibility vested in it that gives its output so much more authority and veracity….so much clout.

The BBC does not act alone….but it provides the cover for its fellow travellers to act under. It prevents open debate and discussion by suppressing information that is contrary to its agenda, if the information gets out it does all it can to discredit the messenger and by association the message.

Many political, cultural and social changes are ‘forced’ upon the people by an ‘elite’ who can do almost what they like because the people are denied a real voice in what happens in their own country.

That Voice should be provided by the BBC…but not only does the BBC not challenge ‘Power’ it actively suppresses the Voices of opposition who do want to challenge that ‘Power’.

 

Fanaticism can only thrive in an environment that is friendly to it.

Mao said ‘The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fishswims in the sea.”, Thatcher told us that the terrorist needs the oxygen of publicity, the Taliban are invisible because they ‘are the people’, they are able to do what they do because the local people in Helmand support them even if for a variety of reasons.

The Muslims terrorist, insurgent, militant or extremist has thrived for over a decade, not only in Muslim countries but in the West as well, and not only because they are able to hide ‘as fish’ in their own community.

Their biggest ally is the western intellectual, the Liberal apologist for Empire and all that, the socialist who makes friends with anyone who is an enemy of capitalism. These groups give support and encouragement to the Muslim extremist. They are spread throughout society in positions of power and influence…in the media, in government, in academia, in schools and local government.

Orwell spells it out better than I could in this tract  which describes the same groups of people pre-war and their inability to grasp the danger they were in:

‘They could not struggle against Nazism or Fascism, because they could not understand them. Neither could they have struggled against Communism, if Communism had been a serious force in Western Europe. To understand Fascism they would have had to study the theory of Socialism, which would have forced them to realize that the economic system by which they lived was unjust, inefficient and out of date. But it was exactly this fact that they had trained themselves never to face. They dealt with Fascism as the cavalry generals of 1914 dealt with the machine gun – by ignoring it.

Even when they had begun to grasp that Fascism was dangerous, its essentially revolutionary nature, the huge military effort it was capable of making, the sort of tactics it would use, were quite beyond their comprehension.

This vein of political ignorance runs right through English official life, through Cabinet ministers, ambassadors, consuls, judges, magistrates, policemen. The policeman who arrests the “Red” does not understand the theories the “Red” is preaching…… There is reason to think that even military espionage is hopelessly hampered by ignorance of the new economic doctrines and the ramifications of the underground parties.

It is important not to misunderstand their motives, or one cannot predict their actions. What is to be expected of them is not treachery or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable.’

　

The BBC is one of those who ‘do not understand’, who are ignorant…in this case of Islam and the realities preached in the name of that ideology….and they are ‘unteachable’ as to the effects of allowing such an ideology to flourish and expand in a secular or non-Muslim State.

The BBC provides the ‘sea’ that the terrorist swims in, they provide the intellectual, cultural, social and political, as well as the legal, justifications for Islamic extremists to operate under safely.

The BBC provides the ‘Spirit of the Times’ that justifies and ‘understands’, though doesn’t condone, murder in the name of Islam.

　

It provides the oxygen of publicity and pro-Islamic coverage and anti-Western rhetoric that lends authority, credibility to the Divine Sanction the terrorists already believe they have.

The BBC opposed the Afghanistan War from the beginning and then moved on to do its utmost to prevent the Iraq War from starting.

This opposition and the barrage of negative coverage about the war altered the Public’s perceptions about the legality and the wisdom of the whole enterprise….this resulted in the government becoming reluctant to put the necessary resources into fighting the war as to do so would have the likes of the BBC again turn its guns upon them and yet more negative ‘press’ and huge public pressure.

 

The effect of this was that an under resourced army had insufficient men and equipment, as well as lack of will, to carry out the tasks set for it such as securing Basra….this continued into the Afghan theatre of war where such shortages meant that the Taliban roamed at will and re-established themselves becoming ever stronger with the possibility that we will be forced out of Afghanistan shortly with our tail between our legs.

The second significant effect was that the BBC’s coverage….which worked to label the war illegal whilst at the same time accepting Muslim claims that their own actions were purely a response to not only ‘illegal’ wars but also to decades, if not centuries of western imperialism and oppression of Muslims countries…..legitimised extremist’s actions and terrorism to a large extent as well as providing credibility and authority to those recruiting more extremists or terrorists.

This continuous justification and legitimisation of Muslim grievances led to thousands of Muslims flocking to Iraq and the prolonging of a very nasty war of terror after Saddam’s regime had fallen….as well as thousands more recruits to Al Qaeda and its subsidiaries around the globe all believing they had ‘just cause’.

The most extreme example of the BBC’s eagerness to damn the war was the exchange between Andrew Gilligan and John Humphrys on the Today programme concerning the claim that Iraq had biological or chemical weapon systems that could deploy within 45 minutes.

This claim saw the resignation of BBC Director General Greg Dyke, the implementation of the Neil Report  and wholesale changes of procedures including the setting up of the BBC journalism college.

The BBC was found to be at fault for allowing the exchange to occur by the Hutton Inquiry, and though accepting the blame the BBC has ever since worked to change the public’s perceptions about those events and now blatantly claims it was right all along….that the government did know the claims about the 45 minute deployment time was wrong and had been included purely to ‘sex up’ its case for war in its ‘dodgy dossier’.

The latest attempt has been by the ex-editor of Today at the time of these events, Kevin Marsh, who has written a book, Stumbling Over Truth: The inside story of the sexed-up dossier, Hutton and the BBC, and who has been doing the rounds….I heard him on Richard Bacon’s show last Thursday …..Marsh claims that Gilligan was telling the truth.

However, Marsh is not.

Rentoul in the Independent…1….2…3

‘Kevin Marsh’s book, Stumbling Over Truth, tells of his time as editor of the BBC Todayprogramme in 2003 when it broadcast Andrew Gilligan’s report about the Iraq dossier. It is a savage condemnation of how a cabal of people in positions of power, their certainty reinforced by groupthink, sexed up an important piece of work, including in it things that they knew were wrong.

I refer to Marsh, Gilligan and their superiors at the BBC. Rarely has a book intended to make the case for one side in a controversy been so damning of the case it seeks to defend.’

 

 

Before I get into this here is a quote about the inclusion of the 45 minute claim from Dr Brian Jones, the head of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons section in the Scientific and Technical Directorate of the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff:

“The important point is that we at no stage argued that this intelligence should not be included in the dossier…..We thought it was important intelligence.”

　

　

Gilligan had embellished his story and Humphrys put the stamp of his authority upon it ensuring that it was headline news in every paper on every breakfast table the next day…and altering forever how people judged the legality of the war, the government’s execution of the war and just as significant, giving a boost to recruiters of Muslim terrorist organisations.

Here is the relevant part of that exchange between Gilligan and Humphrys:

JH: The government is facing more questions this morning over its claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Our defence correspondent is Andrew Gilligan. This in particular Andy is Tony Blair saying, they’d be ready to go within forty five minutes.

Andrew Gilligan (AG): That’s right, that was the central claim in his dossier which he published in September, the main erm, case if you like against er, against Iraqand the main statement of the British government’s belief of what it thought Iraq was up to and what we’ve been told by one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up that dossier was that…..

actually the government probably erm, knew that that forty five minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it in.

Downing Street, our source says ordered a week before publication, ordered it to be sexed up, to be made more exciting and ordered more facts to be er, to be discovered.

JH: When you say ‘more facts to be discovered’, does that suggest that they may not have been facts?

AG: Well, erm, our source says that the dossier, as it was finally published, made the Intelligence Services unhappy, erm, because, to quote erm the source he said, there was basically, that there was, there was, there was unhappiness because it didn’t reflect, the considered view they were putting forward, that’s a quote from our source and essentially, erm, the forty five minute point er, was, was probably the most important thing that was added. Erm, and the reason it hadn’t been in the original draft was that it was, it was only erm, it only came from one source and most of the other claims were from two, and the intelligence agencies say they don’t really believe it was necessarily true because they thought the person making the claim had actually made a mistake, it got, had got mixed up.

AG: Well the forty five minutes isn’t just a detail, it did go to the heart of the government’s case that Saddam was an imminent threat and it was repeated four times in the dossier.

　

John Humphrys claims Blair said Saddam ‘threatened us all’…..

JH: Twenty eight minutes to eight. Tony Blair had quite a job persuading the country and indeed his own MPs to support the invasion of Iraq; his main argument was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that threatened us all.  None of those weapons has been found. Now our defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, has found evidence that the government’s dossier on Iraq that was produced last September, was cobbled together at the last minute with some unconfirmed material that had not been approved by the Security Services.

　

Gilligan confirms the statement that the Government was ‘lying’……

JH: Are you suggesting, let’s be very clear about this, that it was not the work of the intelligence agencies.

AG: No, the information which I’m told was dubious did come from the agencies, but they were unhappy about it, because they didn’t think it should have been in there.

AG: But you know, it could have been an honest mistake, but what I have been told is that the government knew that claim was questionable, even before the war, even before they wrote it in their dossier.

　　

Marsh claims that Gilligan only made the claim that the government lied once…and that it was a mistake…however he repeated it on a later BBC programme…and in the Daily Mail…..so not just a slip of the tongue.

　

A later interview on the BBC:

AG: Em, now, you know, what I thought to be honest was that that eh, that claim was wrong in good faith. Em, but er, what my intelligence service source says is that em essentially they were always suspicious about this claim, they did not want it to appear in the document.

Presenter: So, I mean the implications that the, that Downing Street asked for it to be hyped up to help convince the doubters.

AG: Yeah, and, and they’re not very happy……But the 45 minutes was very important because it went to the heart of the Government’s case that Saddam was an imminent threat.

　

　

What were the issues raised by the BBC in these interviews?

1. That the government knew that the 45 minute claim was wrong.

2. That the 45 minute claim was central to the case made for war.

3. That the intelligence officers were not happy with the claim being included.

4. That the single source for the claim was a problem.

5. That Saddam threatened the UK directly.

　

　

　

Gilligan claims that the government knew the 45 minute claim was wrong but proceeded to include it anyway in order to sex up the dossier. He also insists repeatedly that the 45 minute claim was central to the government’s case against Saddam.

Both claims are nonsense.

　

In the intelligence the 45 minutes was at the top end of the suggested time for weaon deployment….the quickest they believed the weapons could be deployed was in 20 minutes…this was not in the dossier….if they were sexing it up they would have used the 20 minute figure….they would also have included a reference to the possibility of a weapon using smallpox as suggested by David Kelly himself…this was not included in the dossier as there was inadequate intelligence to back it up.

Greg Dyke himself admits in his autobiography that he had lunch with a senior intelligence officer who said that he had complete confidence in the reliability of the 45 minute intelligence.

　

What did the 45 minute claim mean anyway?

It referred to battlefield weapons not strategic missiles…in other words weapons that would be used against ground troops….in other words there was the possibility that they could be used against any Allied invading force.

Far from being ‘sexed up’ the dossier was providing a warning to any reader that should the invasion go ahead Saddam might use chemical or biological weapons and he may be able to deploy them so quickly that he couldn’t be stopped, with obvious dangers for Allied troops.

So not sexed up but a warning about the dangers of the war…the complete reverse of sexed up.

　

Was the claim ‘central’ to the dossier’s case for war as Gilligan repeatedly claimed?

No. It was a very small part of the dossier…it was mentioned three times….but other intelligence had similar repeat mentions but the BBC doesn’t highlight those…..Uranium sourced from Niger, Saddam’s attempts to conceal weapons, that Saddam attaches great importance to possession of WMD, that Iraq could deliver chemical and biological weapon attacks, and the human rights infringements including the use of chemical weapons…all repeated several times.

The case for war was made on the basis that Saddam had breached UN Resolution 1441 and had failed to co-operate with the UN inspectors and had continued to produce or attempt to produce WMD….it was not made based on the speed at which he could deploy battlefield weapons.

　

Humphrys went on to ’embellish’ Gilligan’s report by claiming that the dossier said that Blair’s ‘main argument was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that threatened us all.’

That was not what Blair said….the dossier stated that Saddam presented a danger to British interests….that would most probably mean Saudi Arabia and its oil fields which Saddam wanted to take over as he had tried to with Kuwait’s….and possibly a danger to British bases on Cyprus which had come into range of Saddam’s new rockets.

　

　

Were caveats removed as Marsh says?

Look at the dossier…it has many caveats suggesting that the intelligence has uncertainties….this dossier was for the consumption of MPs who would then vote on the decision to go to war…they are all experienced people who would understand that no intelligence can be 100%.

Gathering intelligence inside Iraq is not easy.

Saddam’s is one of the most secretive and dictatorial regimes in the world.

What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme.

Intelligence reports make clear that he sees the building up of his WMD  strategic interests, and in particular his goal of regional domination. (Emphasising the future threat not saying absolutely current)

This intelligence cannot tell us about everything. However, it provides a fuller picture of Iraqi plans and capabilities. It shows that Saddam Hussein attaches great importance to possessing weapons of mass destruction which he regards as the basis for Iraq’s regional power.

As a result of the intelligence we judge that Iraq has: ….These judgements reflect the views of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).

Intelligence rarely offers a complete account of activities which are designed to remain concealed. The nature of Saddam’s regime makes Iraq a difficult target for the intelligence services.

Intelligence, however, has provided important insights into Iraqi programmes and Iraqi military thinking. Taken together with what is already known from other sources, this intelligence builds our understanding of Iraq’s capabilities and adds significantly to the analysis already in the public domain.’

　

The dossier was stressing the importance Saddam placed on WMD as much as the hard intelligence.

It is clearly also saying that intelligence was difficult to obtain and that the final analysis was a matter of ‘judgement’ and provided ‘insight’ as much as hard intelligence.

　

　

Did Dr David Kelly say the things Gilligan claimed, in the manner Gilligan claimed and was he involved in the actual writing of the dossier or the intelligence process?

DK: I was not involved in the intelligence component in any way nor in the process of the dossier’s compilation.

My discussions have been entirely technical and factual and although the “45 minute deployment” issue has obviously been raised I have always given the honest answer that I do not know what it refers to and that I am not familiar with an Iraqi weapons system that it matches.

I can only conclude one of three things. Gilligan has considerably embellished my meeting with him; he has met with other individuals who truly were intimately associated with the dossier; or he has assembled comments from both multiple direct and indirect sources for his articles.

(As Kelly was Gilligan’s ‘single source’ for the story it would seem only the first conclusion can be possible).

　

Just how good as a weapon’s inspector was Dr David Kelly?

‘Among his fellow inspectors Dr Kelly was considered the consummate inspector. They admired him tremendously for his very effective interviewing technique; his encyclopaedic knowledge; and his determination to out the truth about the former Soviet and Iraqi biological weapons programmes.  Put another way, David’s colleagues were somewhat in awe of his skills as an inspector’.

　

What did David Kelly think of the Dossier?

‘I had no doubt about the veracity of it (the Dossier) was absolute….It is an accurate document, I think it is a fair reflection of the intelligence that was available and it’s presented in a very sober and factual way….it is well written.’

“I was personally sympathetic to the war because I recognised from a decade’s work the menace of Iraq’s ability to further develop it’s non-conventional weapons programmes…..We were 100% certain that Saddam had a biological weapons programme.”

　

　

Did, as the BBC claim, the scientists or intelligence people have a deep unease about the 45 minute claim?

DK: I do not feel “deep unease” over the dossier because it is completely coincident with my personal views on Iraq’s unconventional weapons capability.

　

Dr Brian Jones, the head of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons section in the Scientific and Technical Directorate of the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff:

BJ: The important point is that we at no stage argued that this intelligence should not be included in the dossier.

Q. Right.

BJ: We thought it was important intelligence. I personally thought that the word used in the main body of the text, that the intelligence indicated this was a little bit strong but I felt I could live with that,

　

As to claims that Alistair Campbell was completely ‘gung ho’ about the project and willing to say and do anything to get approval for the war here is a quote from a communication with Sir John Scarlett that suggests that was not so:

‘Please find below a number of drafting points. As I was writing this, the Prime Minister had a read of the draft you gave me this morning, and he too made a number of points. He has also read my draft foreword, which I enclose (he will want another look at it before finally signing it off but I’d appreciate your views at this stage).

He said he thought you’d done a very good job and it was convincing (though I pointed out that he is not exactly a “don’t know” on the issue).’

 

Was the 45 minute claim just ‘cobbled together’ into the dossier at the last minute?

From Sir John Scarlett’s questioning:

JS: ‘The 9th September assessment that intelligence indicates that chemical and biological munitions could be with military units and ready for firing within 20 to 45 minutes – that was the wording, the sense of which was accurately reflected in the redrafting on the 17th September of the dossier. That is the point I am making. They went back to the intelligence, the original intelligence, which contained no caveat of uncertainty. They went back to the way in which it was phrased in the 9th September assessment and they redrafted their main body of the dossier to come into line with that, which it had not been before, including the words “intelligence indicates that”.

Q. You say there was no element of uncertainty in this intelligence?

JS: Report, yes.

　

　

Did the fact that the intelligence came from a single source mean that it was not reliable or ‘good’ intelligence?

JS: You are talking as if the assessors sit there and operate in a vacuum. They do not. They are assessing individual intelligence reports against the background of their knowledge. This was a point of precision which was being given, a timing which was being given for the first time with precision, to an assessment which already existed about the capability of the Iraqi armed forces in this area. That is what assessment is about. There is too much emphasis on sources, single reporting. Assessment is a much more complicated thing than that and it takes many aspects into account, as has been explained many times to this Inquiry.

　

　

Are there serious repercussions resulting from false allegation s being bandied about by the Media?

　

Q. Would you agree that the more serious the allegation, the greater the care which you would expect the BBC to take to ensure that it can be properly supported?

A. Yes.

Q. These were exceptionally serious allegations, were they not?

A. Well, I think one thing I should make clear is that I do not think the programme or indeed the BBC, in those early weeks, ever took the wording of the 6.07 broadcast or that phrase within the 6.07 broadcast to be the definitive version of the allegations that we were making……. So I think the mindset on the programme, and I think this continued for some time afterwards, was that the definition of this item, in the BBC’s view, were the scripted versions of it and the 6.07 was something that had strayed from what we believed to be the core allegations we were making or that our source was making.

Q. Leaving aside the mindset of the programme, you very fairly accept the audience would not necessarily have perceived it the same way?

A. Indeed.

Q. In practice it is the most dramatic and gravest allegation which will attract the most attention rather than the allegation which is scripted?

A. Depending on how often it is repeated and how many people hear it, yes.

Q. Yes. But if you make a sufficiently dramatic allegation, other media will catch on to it, will they not?

A. They may do, yes.

Q. They are professional followers of each other’s copy, are they not?

A. They are.

Q. Now, you have already I think agreed in your earlier evidence, and indeed I think it is implicit in the evidence you have given today, that the 6.07 allegation that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes point was wrong before putting it into the dossier was, in fact, going to strike people as an exceptionally grave allegation. I think you have accepted that?

A. It clearly had that effect.

Q. Yes. It was an attack, was it not, on its face, on the integrity of those who had been involved at the highest levels in the production of the dossier?

A. In the way it was phrased, it clearly would have had that effect.

　

　

　

And Lord Hutton’s final say:

The communication by the media of information (including information obtained by investigative reporters) on matters of public interest and importance is a vital part of life in a democratic society. However the right to communicate such information is subject to the qualification (which itself exists for the benefit of a democratic society) that false accusations of fact impugning the integrity of others, including politicians, should not be made by the media. Where a reporter is intending to broadcast or publish information impugning the integrity of others the management of his broadcasting company or newspaper should ensure that a system is in place whereby

his editor or editors give careful consideration to the wording of the report and to whether it is right in all the circumstances to broadcast or publish it. The allegations that Mr Gilligan was intending to broadcast in respect of the Government and the preparation of the dossier were very grave allegations in relation to a subject of great importance and I consider that the editorial system which the BBC permitted was defective in that Mr Gilligan was allowed to broadcast his report at 6.07am without editors having seen a script of what he was going to say and having considered whether it should be approved.

　

　

The BBC here is admitting that its reporting false information would have serious repercussions as the audience were likely to be badly misled by Gilligan’s an Humphrys’ false assertions and that this would spread rapidly and powerfully as the rest of the media took up the story…and thereby potentially altering the whole perception of events and the war…and then to go on to have damaging effects on not only the politics but for troops on the ground.

　

　

This is Dr David Kelly’s pre-war assessment of the danger presented to the world by Saddam Hussein and his regime:

 

‘Only regime change will avert the threat’

Here we reprint Dr David Kelly’s article, written days before the Iraq war, in which he assessed the threat from Saddam

 

The UN has been attempting to disarm Iraq ever since 1991 and has failed to do so. It is an abject failure of diplomacy with the split between France, China and Russia on the one hand, and Britain and the United States on the other, creating a lack of ‘permanent five’ unity and resolve., Iraq established an effective concealment and deception organisation which protected many undisclosed assets. In October 2002, Resolution 1441 gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disclose his arsenal within 30 days. He admitted inspectors and, with characteristic guile, provided some concessions, but still refuses to acknowledge the extent of his chemical and biological weapons and associated military and industrial support organisations – 8,500 litres of anthrax VX, 2,160 kilograms of bacterial growth media, 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, 6,500 chemical bombs and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents remained unaccounted for from activities up to 1991. (Even these figures, it should be noted, are based in no small part on data fabricated by Iraq.)

There are indications that the programmes continue.

Iraq continues to develop missile technology, especially fuel propellents and guidance systems for long-range missiles. Iraq has recovered chemical reactors destroyed prior to 1998 for allegedly civilian activity, built biological fermenters and agent dryers, and created transportable production units for biological and chemical agents and the filling of weapons. Key nuclear research and design teams remain in place, even though it is assessed that Iraq is unable to manufacture nuclear weapons unless fissile material is available. 　

War may now be inevitable.

Some of the chemical and biological weapons deployed in 1991 are still available, albeit on a reduced scale. Aerial bombs and rockets are readily available to be filled with sarin, VX and mustard or botulinum toxin, anthrax spores and smallpox. More sophisticated weaponry, such as spray devices associated with drones or missiles with separating warheads, may be limited in numbers, but would be far more devastating if used.

The threat from Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons is, however, unlikely to substantially affect the operational capabilities of US and British troops. Nor is it likely to create massive casualties in adjacent countries. Perhaps the real threat from Iraq today comes from covert use of such weapons against troops or by terrorists against civilian targets worldwide. The link with al-Qaeda is disputed, but is, in any case, not the principal terrorist link of concern. Iraq has long trained and supported terrorist activities and is quite capable of initiating such activity using its security services.

The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq’s development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction – something that only regime change will avert.

 

The Butler Report on the Iraq War Intelligence