Monthly Archives: March 2013

With lots of changes to Welfare coming in next month, the BBC has been to the fore in pointing out these will hut “the poor”. I was on BBC Three Counties earlier this week debating these changes with someone from the Resolution Foundation (A Labour front masquerading as a “independent think tank”. The issue under debate was the reduction in subsidy from Central government to local government in housing benefit. Basically, there is a 10% reduction and Councils either learn to spend less and so keep council taxes as they are (already way too high in my opinion) OR they ask those who currently make no contribution to council tax to cough up a few pounds.  This is presented as Apocalypse Now by the BBC and the clear meme is “evil conservatives hurting the poor”   It strikes me that the BBC really does behave as the official opposition to ANY change to UK welfarism and maybe that it because as the recipient of over £3 BILLION a year, it likes the idea of something for nothing?

Following on from my Mandela post, I see the Telegraph reports that  BBC staff who went on strike yesterday said they were prepared to return to their desks if Nelson Mandela died, however the staff’s generosity stopped there.

I can’t believe the BBC are STILL droning on about David Miliband as he leaves the UK to spend more time with his ego. I think it may be a topic for Any Questions this week. A Reader posted this and I think it fairly well sums up BBC coverage.

Here you go, a BRAND new thread for your edification! Seen the bias? Well HERE is where we detail it, in a civil manner too.

Well, the comrades are on strike determined to protect their feather bedded tenure. Are YOU enjoying the silence? Wouldn’t it be great if everyday was like today? Thoughts?

The BBC seem to be having a dry run for the inevitable passing of Nelson Mandela. Now then, whilst this is much to admire about some aspects of the former South African President I do trust that they will not sanitise his terrorist past, his admiration for thugs like Mugabe and Gadaffi, and his expressed dislike of the United States. Then again……maybe the BBC see those things as further virtues?

David Miliband, the Private Pike of Politics, has fled the country.

The BBC, unlike with cuddly Boris Johnson whom they find ‘a nasty piece of work’, can’t find a nasty word to say about him other than he didn’t  quite have it within himself to wield the axe on Gordon Brown’s Prime Ministerial career.

Peter Oborne in the Telegraph thinks he can help  the BBC out in digging some dirt:

David Miliband a colossus? He’s a greedy failure in a cosmic sulk

The political breed the Labour MP represents has done extraordinary harm to the nation’s governance

Perhaps I could offer a few reminders of what any BBC interviewer could ask Milibland about:

On the R4’s  ‘Great Lives’ Miliband said terrorism could be both justifiable and effective:

Asked by presenter Matthew Parris whether there were any circumstances in which terrorism was justified, Mr Miliband said: ‘Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.’
　

How about a Labour champion of the poor wangling a low tax rate for himself?:

How David Miliband Ltd pays less tax

By Andrew Pierce

Quietly, he has set up a company called ‘The Office of David Miliband Limited’, which will be a tax-efficient vehicle for his non-parliamentary earnings.

It will be subject to corporation tax of 20 per cent (rather than the 40 per cent rate Miliband would have to pay on his income as an individual taxpayer).
Miliband is clearly a canny operator when it comes to tax. In the past, he exploited a Revenue loophole to reduce the family’s total death duty bill by using a so-called ‘deed of variation’ in respect of his childhood home.

Already, the money has started rolling into Miliband Inc. As non-executive vice-chairman Sunderland Football Club, he gets £75,000 a year and there was a £25,000 fee for a lecture at the Emirates Centre For Strategic Studies in Abu Dhabi

Or how about buying votes for Labour with government money?:

WikiLeaks: David Miliband ‘championed aid to Sri Lanka to win votes of Tamils in UK’

David Miliband championed aid to Sri Lanka during last year’s humanitarian crisis to win the support of expatriate Tamils living in key Labour marginal seats, one of his own Foreign Office staff claimed.

David Miliband championed aid to Sri Lanka to win the votes of expatriate Tamils in key marginal seats, a Foreign Office worker claimed Photo: PA

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter 6:45AM GMT 02 Dec 2010

Tim Waite, a Foreign Office team leader on Sri Lanka, was quoted in a leaked US Embassy cable explaining why the then foreign secretary was lavishing so much attention on the island’s plight.

“Waite said that much of (the government) and ministerial attention to Sri Lanka is due to the ‘very vocal’ Tamil diaspora in the UK, numbering over 300,000, who have been protesting in front of parliament since 6 April,” wrote Richard Mills, a political officer at the US Embassy in London.

“He said that with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 per cent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka.”

Or how about his judgement on Gordon Brown….was Miliband lying or deluded at a time when polls showed 1 in 5 voters thought Brown was a terrible PM?:

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, yesterday defended Brown as a man who commanded “the detail as well as the bigger picture. I don’t recognise the portrait John Prescott has set out”.

It seems that even as Foreign Secretary Miliband lacked genuine experience and judgement, as noted by Oborne above, and  the Guardian as it continued:

More experienced colleagues recognised it all too well. “These memoirs are unhelpful, but there is nothing in them which people do not already know,” said another senior minister.

Or how about this as noted by ‘Mat’ in the comments here:

How David Miliband betrayed Tibet

The Foreign Office’s appeasement of Tehran has some strong precedents, says Christopher Booker

All good material to flesh out an interview with such a prominent, in the BBC’s mind, political figure….some very serious questions needing to be asked of a superannuated Labour politician…buying votes and selling out Tibet…..but then digging the dirt on 13 years of Labour destruction isn’t on the BBC’s  ‘to do’ list.

Never mind…perhaps when he returns.  You can’t keep a good man down.

Time for another……

Should you ever be stuck in a snow drift, climate change allowing, with a BBC journalist and he breaks out the ‘Travel Scrabble’ just check all the tiles are there…..I suspect it may be missing the B’s, R’s, O’s, U’s, A’s and L’s.

The Government today announced changes to the NHS to prevent any more scandals as happened at Stafford Hospital under the Labour government when up to 1,200 patients died because of lack of care.

Listening today to the BBC you would hear the dates of this tragedy…but once again no mention of the political Party which ran that NHS service at the time.

I heard no mention of Labour in relation to responsibility for the tragedy at all.  The BBC were quite happy to report Labour’s Shadow Health  Secretary, Andy Burnham, attacking the government proposals today as not enough to prevent a reoccurrence of Stafford…

“We will never get the right culture on our wards if they are understaffed and overstretched,” Mr Burnham said

….but not an inkling of the irony of such a stance when it was his own Labour government’s policies which led to the deaths of all these patients that are having to be changed. 

Listening to the BBC you would almost get the impression that it was the Coalition government that was responsible.

Just for comparison compare the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2009 when a similar number of people were killed….2/3rds of whom were militants.

The BBC still, 4 years on, tags the death toll onto the bottom of many reports about Israel….and makes sure we know Israel’s savage and oppressive army was responsible.

Contrast with how they report the deaths at Stafford Hospital and where the blame is cast…..who is ‘framed’ for the deaths…and it’s not the government of the day…the Labour Party.

I think it’s pretty clear that the BBC see Boris as a threat to the political consensus and Labour’s chances in 2015 if he were to somehow become leader of the Conservative Party.

This is the film by Michael Cockerell investigating Boris’ worthiness to be PM:

Boris Johnson:  The Irresistable rise

I haven’t had time to watch it but you can always go to the end to get the final wrap and discover what the programme really hopes to put across to the viewer…in this case it is that Boris would be a dangerous choice for PM:

‘If he were to become Prime Minister the British people would spend their time on the very edge of their seats.’

I think that’s as close as the BBC can allow itself to get to saying ‘avoid voting for Boris.’

So ‘Operation Get Boris’ is underway.  Twice elected Mayor in what is prime Labour territory, however unlikely, he may well pull off a similar political houdini act for the Tories…and win an outright majority escaping the dead grasp of the Libdems.

The BBC clearly are hoping that some mud will finally stick to what they call the ‘Teflon Mayor’ with Chris Mason concocting yet another BBC effort which seems solely aimed at having sly digs at Boris Johnson….who is as Cockerell calls him: ‘the country’s most popular politician’:

The ‘Teflon’ mayor:  Boris Johnson and the future PM question

‘It is an era where institutions and figures of authority are held in a lower regard than ever before.

Critics claim Westminster is awash with identikit clones who look the same and sound the same.

So perhaps it is little wonder that one politician more than any other, who appears to ooze authenticity, garners so much attention.

And we, at the BBC, are going to show you he oozes alright…but it’s not authenticity.

His name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

You know…de Pfeffel…the Old Etonian…just like that other out of touch millionaire Cameron.

Does he want to be prime minister?

Ah..there’s the rub! Can’t allow that.

“If the ball came loose from the back of the scrum, which it won’t of course, it would be a great, great thing to have a crack at.”

A great thing to have a crack at. The sort of phrase most of us might use to describe being persuaded to play for the local cricket team. Not run the country.

 Ah…Boris is a joker, not someone serious or responsible.

As things stand Boris Johnson does not even have a seat at Westminster. So being an MP, let alone party leader, let alone prime minister is some way off, and to some at least, laughable.

Boris is a joke…laughable.

No disputes, Boris Johnson has got away with a lot.

Boris is a bit dodgy.

His force of personality, up to now at least, has given him a political coat made of Teflon. Nothing seems to stick, nothing seems to finish him off.

But we at the BBC are going to have a damned good go at it!

Quoting Conrad Black:   “he is a sly fox disguised as a teddy bear”. 

A final dig.

The BBC were probably taken aback by the response to Mair’s hatchet job interview and rushed this into circulation…it’s all OK…Boris loved it all….

Boris Johnson: BBC interview was splendid

But Boris would say nothing else..he’s not going to complain…so the BBC’s little ‘cover up’ of extremely partisan journalism is as dishonest as it is expected from the open and accountable BBC.