Monthly Archives: January 2013

FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR MILIBAND…

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I was intrigued by this BBC headine this morning.  “Iain Duncan Smith calls benefit rises unfair..”.  Cute. IDS did not say that benefit rises were “unfair” but he pointed out that the RATE of increase under Labour was unfair. Big difference and to be fair to the BBC they do go on to point this out in the article below albeit whilst giving Labour lots of space to insist benefits had not risen enough BUT many people grab their new from headlines and in this instance it is at best sloppily constructed or at worst maliciously contrived.

OBAMA “WINS”?

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Interesting set of headlines from the BBC this morning on the deal passed in Congress last evening. Today informed me that it was “Game, Set and Match” to Obama; it also added that “Obama has won” and  that “Obama would not be compromising in two months time of spending cuts”. I wonder if the Democrats just send the BBC press releases to read out as “news”? Incredible pro-Obama headlines from the strictly impartial  State Broadcaster.

THOSE CONSERVATIVE PAKISTANI KILLERS

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Interesting report here from the BBC. It informs us that seven charity workers, six of them women, have been shot dead in north-west Pakistan. Clearly a terrible act of savagery but who could have been responsible? Well, no one is quite sure….but the BBC helpfully ads…

 “No group has claimed responsibility for the attack although militants in the conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province oppose female education and have attacked female students and their schools.”

“Militants”…..”conservatives”…..mmmmm. Hang on, do you think the BBC is trying to tell us that these killings were carried out by Islamic Taliban terrorists do you think? After all, they rather dominate in this region….

FISCAL CLIFF DIVING

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I’m not sure if Mark Mardell and Jonny Dymond spotted the four horsemen of the apocalypse over Washington but the tone and content of their Fiscal Cliff has certainly been full of doom and gloom and worst of all, in my opinion, wilful exaggeration.

Mardell in particular has been to the fore in alleging that IF a deal was not to be done by Jan 1st then massive tax hikes will descend upon the American people. Not so. US Tax returns do not even have to be until end of February, as I recall, and it would take some time for the necessary tax adjustments to be made assuming nothing was to happen politically in the intervening months. It could well be seen that Mardell was simply hyping the whole issue and painting Obama and the Dems as voices of  calm responsibility seeking to do a deal whilst the bad recalcitrant GOP refuse to pay ball.  No mention  from Mardell of the $16 TRILLION debt bomb that Obama has racked up, or the $87 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities. Instead plenty of hype about the £1.2trn cut in Goverenment spending OVER ten years. Shouldn’t the BBC provide the FULL fiscal picture rather than a skewed version seen through an Obama prism?