In a blatant day of pro-Labour political spin the BBC have been giving massive publicity to a report by what is almost, in essence, a Labour Party front organisation, The Resolution Foundation, which claims millions of the poorest will have whatever is left of their meagre income further shrunken by councils ‘forced’ to make cuts in council tax benefits to the poorest because of heartless Government cuts….
or as the Resolution Foundation puts it:
‘Low-income families will see their council tax bills rise by up to £600 a year from April.
As a result of council tax benefit reform, No Clear Benefit shows that three-quarters of local authorities are set to demand increased payments from the 3.2 million poorest working-age households who currently pay either no council tax or a reduced charge. Families are facing a hike of more than 330 per cent in the most severe cases.’
The Resolution Foundation are happy to join up with the IPPR ‘think tank’….Labour’s own propaganda unit….Beyond the Bottom Line, a joint report from the Resolution Foundation and IPPR.
Richard D in the comments draws this to our attention….a letter from the Tory Party condemning the BBC’s coverage of an issue to which even the BBC admits has a “highly charged, political context”.
The letter from Grant Shapp’s aide Jack Berry states:
‘This morning BBC news outlets gave heavy prominence to a report on council tax benefit from the Resolution Foundation.
The report was highly critical of Government policy concerning changes to council tax benefit. In turn, it provided an easy hook for the Labour Party to voice its opposition. I am writing to register concerns about the corporation’s editorial integrity over this story.
Viewers, listeners and readers might therefore expect that the report was wholly independent of party political interests. However, this is clearly not the case.’
He’s not wrong.
If you had been listening to the BBC today you might have come away with the idea that £600 was the default figure to be imposed.
Here the BBC explains it on the web with at least a stab at the truth:
Millions of the poorest households face council tax rises because most councils in England will pass on a 10% benefit funding cut, research suggests.
A typical bill will rise from April by between £100 and £250 a year, but some could rise as much as £600, the Resolution Foundation think tank says.
But who are the Resolution Foundation?
The BBC says: ‘The Resolution Foundation, is a not-for-profit research and policy organisation which says its goal is to improve outcomes for people on low and modest incomes.’
Listening on the radio I heard them described by the BBC as ‘an independent think tank’ and as ‘an independent research group’.
Which of course immediately caught my interest….
Guido beat me to the punch in revealing that the BBC has blatantly lied about the Resolution Foundation.
The report’s author was one Matthew Pennycook….a Labour Councillor for Greenwich West and an ex advisor to a Labour MP, Karen Buck.
He is also, surprise, surprise, a Guardian columnist…here is a taste of his obviously pro-Labour thought.
He also served time with the ‘Fair Pay Network’…of which Labour’s Peter Kenyon enthused about:
‘We agreed that as the Labour Party we need to be pushing this as a campaigning issue of direct relevance to the majority of people we seek to represent. A twin-track campaign with the Fair Pay Network highlighting greed and inequality would do wonders for Labour Party morale. It might even improve Labour’s electoral standing.’
The BBC seems to have a similar idea launching its own ‘twin track campaign’ against ‘The Cuts’ with Labour…..it might even improve Labour’s electoral chances!
The Fair Pay Network…chaired by Karen Buck…Pennycook’s old boss…oh and look John Cruddas, and Polly Toynbee, Baronness Kennedy…and Guy Stallard – Director – KPMG Europe….just of interest because of course KPMG seem involved in a lot of these initiatives and were used by the BBC as an example of a company endorsing a ‘living wage’ when Miliband was trumpeting his latest brainwave…and are the BBC’s own accountants.
Not sure what the BBC’s idea of ‘independent’ is but here’s some help for them:
in·de·pend·ent
[in-di-pen-duh
nt] Show IPA
adjective
Frankly that headline could have served alone, with just a punctuation & spelling tweak.
BBC: Blatant Liars On Behalf Of The Labour Party
At £4Bpa and compelled funding access into every home on multiple platforms, it doesn’t bode too well for democratic representation based on objective information and education.
Spot on…..have taken advice.
It’s a typo. They meant “interdependent”.
The Resolution Foundation eh?
Got to be yet another “cheridee” committed to passionate redress of all injustice, inequalities and grievances…anywhere, any time, any place hasn`t it?
Or is it an independent research organisation?…yet another favoured Labour instrument of choice, that is exactly the same thing as far as we`re concerned.
Brown has one, Blair , of course has a few….wonder about their tax arrangements, don`t you?
Oh if only they`d open a shop or sell us a writband…as it is they`re Trojan Horses full of Marxist flip flops and leaflets.
But they`ll always be charities as far as the BBC is concerned…oh, and aren`t they always concerned about getting Labour back in?
Scum I tellzya!
‘or sell us a writband’
One imagines Ms. Boaden’s office is pretty packed with the in-house and outhouse legals as they ponder the next variant of ‘you’re trying to subvert the editorial independence we have renowned ourselves for!’ as the next hapless MP’s complaint hits the oblivion file along with all the rest, so you maybe closer than you perhaps imagined with that.
Nice one centurion!
Just listening to the BBCs version of Camerons trip to Libya.
It was “muted”…”not like last time”…needing “heavy security in an armour-plated vehicle”.
Well…maybe…but can we have Ed Miliband over there in speedos and bucket and spade…in a low hot-air balloon( Kinnock/Prescott accompanying?)…and maybe a few photoshopped doughnuts featuring IPPR, Resolution Foundation, ECHR staff to act as flag-waving “supporters”…so it`s not all muted!
How many of Gadhaffis Little Green Books could be inserted into a Labour shellsuit of a “party leader”?…shall we try Moussa?
I hope readers of this blog won’t be too hacked off if I refer to a report which I pointed out on another thread here earlier today – but maybe we have a bit of a backbone emerging regarding the BBC and it’s anti-Conservative tendencies – something often picked up here on BBBC…
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/01/shapps-aide-delivers-next-blow-in-bbc-cuts-row/
Oh, hell – I didn’t see the mention of my earlier post in the body of the main text ….. my most sincere apologies.
You are only following what you have been programmed to do, ironically enough, by the Bbc…
Repeat enough times until the message sticks. 🙂
No harm in posting it more than once, you never know, Dez might have missed it the 1st time you posted. 😉
No, you’re OK…I read your link on this post….thanks for it…a top tip!
As I head to the pub, by sheer coincidence, on twitter, some totally factual reporting, RT’d around the entire BBC..
BBC Newsbeat @BBCNewsbeat
Labour Party Leader @Ed_Miliband answering your questions about apprenticeships. Now on @BBCR1
Retweeted by BBC News (UK)
Not to be missed, evidently.
I wonder if he will answer all questions, or just those the BBC filter though to him in that special ‘we want your views (we like)’ way they have of representing the nation?
This is a step beyond the usual Rule #1 (if the BBC doesn’t label a guest or group, you know where they’re coming from). Now we must add a secondary rule: If the BBC labels a group “independent”, it probably means little more than it’s not officially part of the Labour Party.
Of course, other than the obligatory boilerplate response, the BBC will ignore the Conservative’s complaint of bias. It tells them only that they “got it about right”, because they provoked a reaction on a politically charged subject. They’re supposed to hold the government to account, blah, blah, they get complaints from both sides, blah, blah. Your license fee hard at work.
Tertiary rule: If the BBC labels an inquiry about their latest implosion “independent”, it probably means little more than the investigators no longer officially being paid staff… at this precise moment.
Of course, other than the obligatory boilerplate response, the BBC will ignore anyone pointing out that they’d have a conniption if any body they were holding to account tried to pull that one.
Your license fee… uniquely, and… hard cheese suckers!
Thing is, they are not supposed to be ‘holding the government to account’. They are supposed to report the news and nothing else. Let the privatised media do the account holding.
Try telling them that. It’s their number one line of defense, so good luck.
‘Thing is, they are not supposed to be ‘holding the government to account’.
Actually, I’d like a better explanation of what this HPTA lark is.
Because when the BBC says ‘power’ they don’t mean themselves.
And when they say ‘government’ they don’t mean any they happen to like, so Ed & crew are off the hook on past misdeeds and future questions being asked.
So at best it seems a bit of a moving target.
Maybe Hugs can oblige?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/helen-boaden-director-of-bbc-news-at-the-lse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/boaden_lse.shtml
‘When you set out to inform, educate and entertain – the BBC’s original and continuing mission – how much does the audience trust you when you question those in power?’
Not much love, when you investigate yourselves, find you get it about right 110% of the time and the head of The Trust has a hissy fit at the very idea you should face up to your own failings.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed
of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent
virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Winston Churchill
Alan, make sure you haven’t made any mistakes in your post or Scott will be here vilifying you and trying to score points. He’s probably checking very obscure BBC archive right now to try to catch you out.
Strange though, whenever the BBC is caught bang to rights shilling for the Labour Party, Scott, Dopey Dez and the rest of the Beeboid apologists do a disappearing act. Funny thing that!
Scott will also behave like a Rotherham social worker snatching a child from its foster parents – he’ll never let it go.
It’s amazing how much mileage and blog space Scott can get out of one mistake someone may make.
I don’t mind being called out on a mistake per se (at least I hope it doesn’t appear that way). I do mind being held to a higher standard than the BBC and their defenders.
A love in for Margaret Hodge on the One Show yet oddly on mention of her family business and its tax arrangements. Interesting to compare the treatment of Hodge and Lord Ashcroft on tax.
Or Councillor Hodge on closing an inquiry into paedophilia and Lord MacAlpine on being accused of it.
bbc2 the planners; evil goverment forcing through development on brown field sites. no mention why new houses are needed in such great numbers.
Here’s an interesting exercise : go onto bbc iplayer and do a search for party political broadcasts. What do you find? Three hits – two for the labour party and one for plaid cymru. I wonder where all the broadcasts from other parties have gone?
… when the massed prole listeners hear “” not for profit ” they assume that the body referred to is independent — just as the weasel BBC intends …
Unfortunately they downplayed the maximum amount. Thanks to our Labour council the career scroungers will be protected and anyone who has tried penalised. Those living in a band H home could be asked to pay £2500 pa when you consider that the people most likely to be affected are the disabled it’s a shocking adminstrative mess.
In the worst case a 25 year old with £54 pw benefit will be asked to pay £50 pw council tax, with deductions permissible for maintenance £10 fines £10 and arrears £10.25 a claimant can actually end up owning the state more than they are receiving.
This is of course illegal, the council know that as soon as their policy is challenged the courts will overturn it, but regardless they’ve implemented it anyway.
No reports on the BBC about that though.