Compare and contrast the two very different reports on the same subject, MEPS reject the cuts negotiated recently in the EU budget, one from the Telegraph,

MEPs reject EU spending cuts and demand extra £1.7bn from British taxpayers

MEPs have rejected cuts to European Union budgets agreed at an all-night summit last month and have demanded that national governments pay an extra £14 billion in spending for this year.

and one from the BBC.

MEPs want renegotiation of EU budget deal

Euro MPs adopted a resolution saying they would only accept the deal on certain conditions.  They want governments to settle outstanding budget bills, to avoid the risk of a shortfall.

The MEPs also want a flexible 2014-2020 budget, so that money not spent in one area can be used in another if needed.

The BBC’s version ‘understands’ the MEP’s point of view and suggests it is a reasonable  and fair way forward.

The Telegraph’s version is more open and shows that the MEPs are intent on imposing the rise in budget of near 12% that they originally wanted….a group of MEPs feathering their own nest and trying to build the power base of the undemocratic EU which wants to impose yet more taxes, increase the budget and limit further accountability of itself.

It is customary for news providers to only bring us the bad news…bad news sells.

As former American vice-president Spiro Agnew said:  ‘Bad news drives out good news.’

The BBC has become a pioneer of a new type of journalism in which only good news is broadcast….at least when the news comes from Germany.

Germany is a happy land, happy to be in the Euro, happy to have divested itself of its reliable nuclear power and gone for wind instead….they can always buy in extra power from France’s nuclear industry, the Germans happily assimilate their immigrant population without trouble and Germany looks on with paternal pride as Italy, Greece and Spain bow to Teutonic common sense and apply the austerity poultice to their economies without complaint.

It would serve no purpose to convey bad news all the way from Germany just for your delictae ears.  There is none anyway.
And this is just a misprint in Der Spiegel:

Is Germany Killing the Environment to Save It?

The BBC don’t seem interested in what seems a major wrinkle in the Green debate.

It might be over the top to suggest the BBC is censoring particular types of stories but it looks as if it almost certainly definitely does.

However the BBC does bring us uplifting, heart warming and inspirational tales of struggle and personal courage as in this tale of an immigrant battling Germany’s Nazi past:

Germany’s n-word race debate

Seven-year-old Timnit Mesghena is an avid reader. In the evenings, she and her father like to sit on the sofa in their flat in Berlin and read to each other. They present an easy picture of family happiness.

One of their favourites is the classic children’s book, The Little Witch, an enchanting tale of a witch who flies and birds who talk.

But one day they reached page 94, and a difficult word came up. It was neger, describing a black boy. It is true that it can mean “negro” in German, but it also means the utterly offensive “******”. When the book was written, the former may have been true – but now it is more like the latter.

Timnit’s father, Mekonnen, had no doubts. He is black, originally from Eritrea, and found the word completely unacceptable.

“It made me very angry,” he says. “I know that people use that word to insult me or to give me the sense of not belonging.”

Always fascinating what catches the eye of the BBC editors.

Richard Black ?@enviroblack
@LeoHickman The rules of the #climate battle are currently being set by the sceptics/deniers – progressives have yet to learn from them

 
Roger Harrabin will get a rap over the knuckles from the BBC’s PC police for this one:

roger harrabin ‏@RHarrabin

It seems that Johnny Foreigner owns much of UK fracking rights. Quelle surprise. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/newsdesk/energy/investigations/who-owns-rights-drill-gas-uk …

It seems OK to open the borders for any old ‘Johnny Foreigner’ as long as they don’t Frack….a bit o’ terrorism,  that’s OK…British democracy has obviously failed you.  A bit of crime, that’s OK.  A bit of trafficking of women for sex…we’ll look the other way.  Undercut the natives on the job market…good for growth.  A million pound council house for your 10 kids, who might not even be yours….that’s your human right.  You want to drill for gas?  You’ve got to be kidding….Just who do you think you are coming here with your foreign money and fancy ways?

Good old BBC…sticking up for the underdog and culturally oppressed.

I was looking at the Twitteratti to see how news of the recent release of the last tranche of Climategate emails was going down…..apparently the BBC has yet to catch up with that one.

WUWT has an initial taster:

Remember that non-existent Medieval Warm period (as well as no more snow)?  It seems that even in 2001 they were rather more aware of its existence and significance than they admit, and not ‘local’ as Black et al argued but global:

This from an email from Dr. Edward R. Cook to Mann & Co:

>there are unresolved (I think) inconsistencies in the low-frequency aspects
>of the hockey stick series compared to other results.
Jan then
>averaged the 2 RCS chronologies together to produce a single chronology
>extending back to AD 800. It has a very well defined Medieval Warm Period –
>Little Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, punctuated by strong decadal
>fluctuations of inferred cold that correspond well with known histories of
>neo-glacial advance in some parts of the NH.
It also
>revealed somewhat more intense cooling in the Little Ice Age that is more
>consistent with what the borehole temperatures indicate back to AD 1600.
>This result also bolsters the argument for a reasonably large-scale
>Medieval Warm Period that may not be as warm as the late 20th century, but
>is of much(?) greater significance than that produced previously.

So, at this stage I would argue that the Medieval Warm Period was probably
>a global extra-tropical event, at the very least, with warmth that was
>persistent and probably comparable to much of what we have experienced in
>the 20th century. However, I would not claim (and nor would Jan) that it
>exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century. We simply do not have the
>precision or the proxy replication to say that yet. This being said, I do
>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event
>to be grossly premature and probably wrong.

Black is no longer a member of the BBC enviromafia but he’s still worth a look as he amply demonstrates the BBC mindset and we can learn a lot about his approach whilst at the BBC to reporting and what he might have taught his new Adepts at the College of Churnalism:

Had to laugh at this one as he pointed fingers at other journos….

Richard Black ?@enviroblack
@markpmcc Leveson… ‘a cultural tendency…to practice journalism which on occasion is deliberately, recklessly or negligently inaccurate’

And this where he blames Thatcher for the Crash….in the article referenced neither Thatcher nor the Tories are so blamed:

Richard Black ?@enviroblack
Britain: a nation in decay http://bit.ly/ZBbQhW  @guardian – Thatcherism scrapped strategic planning, and no govt since has put it back

In the year 2000 the economy was back in the black with no debts as Gordon Brown followed Tory economic policy handed to him in 1997….a legacy he then went out and spent, many times over.

Oh and this astonishing claim:

Richard Black ?@enviroblack  Thatcher as research chemist invented CO2… released into ‘wild’…..Gone rogue…world doomed #ThatcherKilledPlanetEarth!

Might just have made that last one up.

Astonishing…a new political party in Germany and the BBC still ignores it one day after its official announcement….after all ‘German news magazine Focus found that 26 percent of Germans would be willing to vote for an anti-euro party’ :

‘The Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Founded by a group of businessmen, economists, politicians and journalists, this political party has a simple platform. They argue that the euro has subverted democracy and undermined the rule of law, particularly the Maastricht Treaty’s provision against bailouts.’

A party with perhaps 26% of the vote isn’t worth a look I suppose….Labour fortunately took 29% of the vote whilst the Liberals polled a meagre 23% in 2010…oh look…the Liberals had the balance of power and are in government.

Maybe 26% isn’t too bad after all…maybe worth a look eh BBC?

Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson said:

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”

The BBC is going to tell you a story…..

Next Monday Panorama broadcasts this:

The Spies Who Fooled the World

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, Panorama reveals how key aspects of the secret intelligence used by Downing Street and the White House to justify the invasion were based on fabrication, wishful thinking and lies. Peter Taylor tracks down some of those responsible and reports on the remarkable story of how, in the months before the war, two highly-placed sources – close to Saddam Hussein – talked secretly to the CIA and MI6. Their intelligence said Iraq did not have an active WMD programme – but it was simply dismissed.

‘fabrication, wishful thinking and lies.‘…extremely emotive and powerful words…..and not the whole truth…nowhere near the whole truth…..as much a lie from the BBC as some of the intelligence was in its emphasis (sexing up) and omission.

Presumably the BBC is claiming the ‘Spies’ are intelligence agents of the US and UK and that they willingly used intelligence they knew was wrong…thereby undermining every claim about Iraqi WMD and the justification for war……

…No intelligence is ever 100%…as Blair said decisions are made based on “the calculus of risk” as well as intended outcomes and probable outcomes…not necessarily the same things.

Awkward that the BBC’s own Iain watson admitted:

‘In fact, George Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, in 1998, finally took the view that regime change in Iraq was necessary because he could not trust Saddam to disarm.’ 

An inconvenient fly in the ointment is that even the weapons inspectors thought that Saddam had a WMD programme…as he almost certainly did  have….research and development if not final production.  France, Germany and Russia all believed saddam had WMD.

Why does the BBC broadcast this decade old story?  The only reason is Hutton…the BBC can’t accept it was badly wrong and has spent years skulking Achilles-like in its tent plotting its revenge, aiming to claim redemption.

Presumably Dr David kelly was not a liar, a fabricator or someone prone to wishful thinking…

Weapons inspector Dr David Kelly was held in high esteem by his colleagues:

‘Among his fellow inspectors Dr Kelly was considered the consummate inspector.
They admired him tremendously for his very effective interviewing technique; his encyclopedic 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.’

Here is what David kelly had to say about Iraq and its weapons programme…..

‘I had no doubt about the veracity of it (the Iraq 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.”

The BBC can manufacture and distort history all it likes but the truth is somewhat different to that which they want us to believe.

The BBC’s own policy is ‘when the legend becomes fact print the legend.’.…. the BBC fully intends to be the only one that writes the legend and to be the last voice heard.

That is the problem with the BBC…any complaint against it can be swatted aside and the BBC has of course the resources and  ability to defend itself and limit voices raised against it having the invaluable ability to give itself a ‘good Press’…and as we see it can go on for years producing programmes with the sole intent of recovering its ‘good name’.

The BBC’s Dan Snow gives us a guided tour of Syrian history in ‘A History of Syria with Dan Snow’

But who is guiding Snow safely around the warzone is the question at least one Syrian is asking:

‘A History of Syria with Dan Snow (BBC Two) was an excellent opportunity to tell a complex story. But while it provided useful background information, experienced Syria-watchers were likely to be exasperated by its simplistic analysis and reliance on Syrian government sympathisers. ‘

I’m certain Dan Snow is just exercising some ‘real politik’ and doing what he has to do to make the film rather than deliberately siding with any particular faction or dictator.

The same might not be said about Hughe Sykes who seems to say that perhaps we should have left Saddam Hussein in place in what is an entirely negative piece about the situation in Iraq and which employs highly selective quotes to paint a bleak scene of desolation.

He manufactures a conclusion from an American soldier’s comment that this is a ‘Christian Army’ that the US is on a ‘crusade’…..that of course would entail ‘recovering land from the   Muslims’ and presumably converting the Heathens….none of which was intended or attempted. It is the sort of careless talk that drives or excuses the radicalisation of Muslims and incites terrorism and leaps all too readily to the lips of BBC journalists intent on undermining any success in the Iraq War.

Sykes suggests that no work has really been done to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq and his example is the electricity supply which is still unreliable.

The US spent something like $52 bn in Iraq…..the electricity supply was in ever more decrepit state before the war producing 5 gigawatts of power…it now produces  over 10 gigawatts….so somehow they are producing double the electricity than pre-war…..Nothing to do with the Americans presumably.
The death rate in Iraq (4.7/1000) is less than the USA’s (8.9/1000)…and less than Mexico’s (4.9/1000).

Mexico drug war deaths over five years now total 47,515

In Iraq the death rate is around 4,500/year from terrorism….half the Mexican murder rate in the drugs war.

Corruption?  Today we hear that council planning officers are selling their services to guide big business around the inconveniences of planning law…..that is just a very minor example of what goes on in this country.

Iraq is certainly not anywhere near perfect or close to a stable, democratic, progressive and economically successful state.  It is riven by tensions produced by having three very powerful factions jostling for power…the Sunnis, the Shia and the Kurds…plus jihadists stirring the pot.  It has external parties with vested interests such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, amongst others..and of course America, all interfering and giving support to their ‘side’.  It has massive infrastructure problems from the power supply, water and schooling…and jobs…and a fast growing population.

‘Although all combat brigades have been withdrawn, Iraq still remains embroiled in ethno-sectarian violence, an internal and foreign refugee crisis, generally weak infrastructure, and recurrent corruption within the public sector.‘

Read that though and you could just as easily apply it to the UK….not to such a large degree but only dissimilar because of the different scale….and no one can say we aren’t just as corrupt as any of these countries.

The Americans certainly made big mistakes but what if they hadn’t taken Saddam out?

Yes it’s OK for Sykes to run around pointing out ‘failure’ but the BBC always fails to consider what the alternative was…that of leaving Saddam in place.

Iraq has had two successful elections and has just passed its latest budget…though with great disagreements.  It is ramping up oil production and investing in infrastructure and the economy…but all this takes time.  Our own economy has been in the doldrums for nearly 5 years and we have one of the biggest economies in the world with comparatively great education and infrastructure….and yet we are struggling…and we were still rationing food and petrol after the end of WWII…petrol rationed until 1950 and food till 1954…..so how does the BBC expect a war zone like Iraq which suffered a decade of sanctions before the war to suddenly turn into a thriving fully functioning economy and politically stable state in a matter of a few years?

Yes Iraq is struggling…but is it possible to say the ending of the Saddam regime wasn’t worthwhile and has failed as a great humanitarian scheme?

And remember this…the US pulled its troops out of Iraq prematurely, as they will from Afghanistan, because of intense pressure generated by the Media….the Media which published stories exactly like Sykes who is paintng a relentlessly bleak picture of Iraq and portraying the war as a failure.

Killings went up as the troops withdrew and the Jihadist moved in.

As fighting increases and it looks like a nation is falling apart the Media will start asking why the troops were withdrawn and Iraq or Afghanistan were ‘abandoned’.

Panorama has already done one ‘investigation’ into the readiness of Afghan forces to combat the Taliban without Coalition backup…and pronounced them unfit for task.  You can write the scripts for years to come as journalists dole out the blame without ever once looking at their own responsibility.

Of course what really messed up Afghanistan was socialism….come to think of it the Baath Party was a sociailist enterprise too….but that might be a step too far for the BBC to admit and pass on the blame to.

Here you go folks, time for a new one of these!

Wonder have you heard Gus O’Donnell present “In defence of bureaucracy” on BBC Radio 4? I wonder what it is about someone defending a bloated bureaucracy that so appeals to the BBC? Cough.

The editor of Today is off to a new job next Monday.

You may think ‘Good, perhaps we might have a different take on world events under new management’..…as always with the BBC you’d be wrong.

Ceri Thomas is now ‘Head of News’….in charge of just about everything:

‘The BBC has confirmed that Ceri Thomas has been appointed head of programmes at BBC News.

Currently the editor of Radio 4 Today, he starts his new role on Monday 18 March.

He will replace Stephen Mitchell, who resigned from the BBC after the Pollard review criticised management over a dropped Newsnight report featuring allegations of child abuse against Jimmy Savile.

Thomas will oversee all major current affairs output, investigative journalism and interview programmes such as Panorama, Today and Newsnight.

His remit also covers news programmes on Radio 1, Radio 5 Live and Asian Network.

He described his new role as “an enormous privilege and a huge challenge”.

“So much of the heart and soul of BBC News lives in this department. It’s full of variety and ambition and endeavour.

“It’s where we take risks – calculated editorial risks, but risks all the same – and it’s vital that we don’t stop taking them.” ‘