Farage Barrage

 

 

To the BBC the BNP are racist, violent thugs, but Scottish Nationalists are romantic rebels fighting for a free Scotland.

 

Nigel Farage doesn’t agree and he’s not impressed with the BBC either:

Nigel Farage condemns ‘fascist scum’ who forced him to take refuge in Edinburgh pub

The Ukip leader Nigel Farage has condemned the “fascist scum” who forced him to take refuge in an Edinburgh pub and hung up on a BBC Scotland interview over outrage at the “hatred” in its questioning.

 

 

The Womb as a Weapon ….Onward Christian Soldiers

 

A pretty disgraceful treatment of Christians by the BBC in comparison with their treatment of Muslims…here playing up claims that Christians are trying to outbreed Muslims…whilst at the same time the BBC downplays suggestions that Muslims might outbreed Non-Muslims in Europe.

The Telegraph tells us that:

‘ almost one in 10 under 25s in Britain is now a Muslim.’

 

The BBC constantly states that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that it presents no threat to a secular/Christian democratic society…whilst happy to label other religions trigger happy when it suits.

And Christians, Evangelical Christians especially, do pose a threat…not only that but they are breeding children to create an army to fight a Holy War against the Infidel:

 

A Christian evangelical movement where followers avoid contraception and have as many children as they can is spreading to the UK. They are The Quiverfull.

“Get married. Have a quiver full of kids if you can.”

So said unsuccessful presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a recent speech to graduates. It was a conscious echo of Psalm 127.

The psalm – where children are compared to arrows for war – is the inspiration for the Quiverfull movement.

“Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They shall not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.”

[They] believe there are specific groups of people with high birth-rates that she is worried will soon outnumber Christians. “We are limiting our children. And then we are allowing other cultures to come into our nation who are having a lot more children than us.

“Gradually, down the line, the culture is going to change, without anyone doing anything except having children, or not having children,”

 

So how often do we have the BBC quoting text from the Koran as they quote here from the Bible….the numerous Koranic verses demanding Muslims fight the Unbeliever…or demanding Muslims do not make friends with Jews or Christians?

 

The BBC, when dealing with the question of Muslim birth rates is quick to play down any suggestion that they, Muslims,  could ‘takeover’ eventually…

They are happy to link Breivik to claims about Muslim demographics…so if you raise the subject you too are a potential Breivik…… 

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik has ended in Norway with a walkout by families of victims in protest at his attempts to justify the massacre.

As he took the stand to explain why he had killed 77 people last July, some 30 people filed out of the courtroom…saying he had acted to stop a Muslim invasion……Citing statistics about Muslim birth rates, he said he had made his attacks to prevent Norway from becoming a “multicultural hell”…..’Extreme, radical, political’

 

The BBC have worked desperately to counter a Youtube video…Muslim Demographics which suggested that Muslims will engulf us all in Europe….

Debunking a YouTube hit 

A big YouTube hit makes startling predictions about the Islamification of Europe over the next few decades and has been viewed more than 10 million times. But can you believe what it says?

 

The BBC were so desperate to disprove the video that they made this programme and put it on Youtube to counter it.

 

No doubt that the video was exaggerating (at least in time span) but the BBC is also exaggerating in its shrill denunciation of these Evangelicals.

 

No problem with the criticisng of Evangelicals, they can be quite scary themselves,  or whoever, as long as the same standards of criticism are applied to all other religions.

 

Never mind, thank goodness we have a growing army of Muslims to counter those terrible Evangelists……

In the words of Dr. al-Qaradawi, the host of the popular al-Jazeera TV show, Sharia and Life:

“Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and all dialects.”

Dr Al-Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, is also the spiritual guide of the hardline Muslim Brotherhood, which is growing across Europe, and whose leader Muhammad Mahdi Othman ’Akef declared recently, ‘I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.’

 

Catching Up With Katz

 

Bishop Hill points out why Katz ticks many of the BBC’s boxes when it comes to recruiting talent as demonstrated by this article by Katz demanding action on climate change:

The beauty of 10:10 is that it’s both achievable and meaningful

The world’s response to global warming is a classic case of all mouth and no trousers. This new initiative aims to show that we can all act now – and achieve something significant.

Future generations writing the history of climate change may be struck by an apparent paradox: while millions of educated people – perhaps most of them – alive in the first decade of the 21st century acknowledged the threat posed by the buildup of greenhouse gasses and their part in creating it, only a tiny number did anything about it…..the rise of liberal individualism has made it harder, if anything, to forge collective responses to problems that do not threaten our short-term self-interest…..[and] reflects a profound failure of leadership by the political classes of all the world’s major nations.

 

 

However the BBC might not be so pleased, Harrabin in particular, with his love of the dreaded ‘Blogger’ and Social Media which he says has transformed how they gather and report News at the Guardian:

Open Journalism

Ian katz..a rough translation of…..

Journalists traditionally thought of their stories as like a tablet of stone that they released…to educate and inform the Public.…but we realise that is just the start point, merely telling people what we know at a particular time…whilst our readers then help us get to the bottom of the story….a collaborative relationship with readers without which we wouldn’t have broken many of the biggest stories in the Guardian….

 

So you know what to do…help Newsnight out…they need all they can get with their journalism:

 

newsnight@bbc.co.uk

or 

By post

Our postal address is: : BBC Newsnight, Zone D, 3rd Floor, BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, UK, W1A 1AA.

 

 

Mainstream Scientists Say…er..um…Oh I don’t Know What They Say

 

 

The old question that was used to demonstrate the futility of a particular line of thought was ‘How many angels could you fit on the head of a pin?’…the new question is ‘How many ‘Mainstream Scientists’ can you get into a Roger Harrabin report on global warming’?

 

 

On the Today programme this morning Harrabin was going through the usual smoke and mirrors routine that he has perfected to ensure that whatever the evidence he can claim the world is always warming, the ice melting, seas rising and doom is fast approaching….and he has a whole stable of ‘mainstream scientists’ to prove it.

 

He actually had Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) on but only to ‘rub his nose in the consensus’ as Harrabin sailed merrily on ‘proving’ his own narrative.

Harrabin tells us that the scientific establishment agrees that global warming appears to have stalled….

However…Professor Sir John Houghton from the IPCC….says oh no it hasn’t…the climate is still warming…er…depending when you start to measure the change.

Ah yes….if you were gaining weight for 20 years and then start to drop for one year…the average trend says you are still gaining weight.

Harrabin says ‘that CO2 warms the climate is not in doubt.’…despite records showing that temperature rises came before CO2 rise…as the CRU’s Phil Jones admitted.

He then asks….‘If CO2 warms the planet..and we have a record 400 ppm now…why has the planet not warmed for over a decade?’

 

Harrabin has the answer or rather Sir Brian Hoskins has it…the answer lies in the sea…this is where the imbalance in heat energy has gone…most of it into the ocean….you can have a period of a decade or so where the atmosphere doesn’t warm up but ocean stores the heat.

Harrabin postulates that it is hard to see where else the projected warmth has gone…well yes..it must be hard to see…or else all those high powered computer models would have predicted it…surely?  Just where did it all go wrong Roger?

 

Have the oceans warmed in the last decade…or rather 16 years?……WUWT disputes that….

As usual, global warming enthusiasts in the press overlook some basic issues—like the sea surface temperatures for the Indian and Pacific Oceans from pole to pole haven’t warmed in 19+ years, and the Atlantic data show little warming for more than a decade. Further, the tropical Indian and Pacific sea surface temperatures haven’t warmed since 1986. It’s therefore difficult to make claims like “more evidence of a rapidly warming planet”….In other words, the sea surface temperature data for about 70% of the surface of the global oceans provide no indication of warming for almost 2 decades.

  

 

You would also have to ask why the oceans have only suddenly been so receptive to heat…why did the oceans not absorb heat at a similar rate as proposed by Harrabin in the 1990’s?

 

Harrabin admits that that was only a theory…it may be that climate is not as sensitive to CO2 as ‘mainstream scientists’ told us…..it maybe we get no temperature rise above 2.5° C but he says ‘that is very optimisticand we will probably see much worse.’

Mainstream scientists, he tells us, suggest that 2 – 4.5° C is more likely and ‘there is little reassuring about that’…and temperature is the 27th year above average and sea ice is melting rapidly, as well as weather disruption around the globe…Harrabin spices it all up with ridiculous soundbites…someone had to wear bobbly hat recently….oh no!

He tells us that it is not single events that matter but all the extremes of weather stacked together…that the new ‘low level warming’ can be more dangerous than high level…it’s the cumulative effect you see.

The cumulative effect of decades worth of climate science going up in smoke he should say.

This is the best guess that we’ve got….he tells us…in other words it’s all guess work…they don’t have a clue…they are running around like headless chickens making it up as they go.

But no matter…….We are conducting a very dangerous experiment with the planet if we do not take measures to rein in CO2 levels…our children and grandchildren are at risk.

Isn’t that a bit like ‘Godwin’s Law’? A child’s tears are worth a thousand words in News terms…..To save the life of a child is worth paying any cost….act now!!!

  

As usual Harrabin is spinning like mad to dismiss any of the Sceptics claims and build up a case for the climate change fanatics.

 

Perhaps he is being fed all this ocean warming guff by his ex-colleague, now ocean researcher, Richard Black.

This graph from the US Environmental Protection Agency show that temperatures have risen for over 100 years…and that since 1998 they have stalled….and that previous ‘data’ (the greyed area of the graph) is not really reliable….

Line graph showing changes in average global sea surface temperature from 1880 to 2011.

 

Small Pond

 

This has raised many a comment on the open thread already so I’ll lob my two penn’th  in.

You have to laugh sometimes.

 

The BBC fulminated against the appointment of a Fascist as manager of Sunderland football club but have no problems recruiting a left winger who actively campaigned against Bush in the US elections to head up Newsnight.

Fascism has little to do with running a football club…but surely someone with such obviously strong political convictions as Katz shouldn’t be head honcho at Newsnight directing its editorial direction….in league with fellow Guardianista Allegra Stratton and old Trot  Paul Mason….a bit of an Eastern Front?

On top of that Katz has never worked in television…but…he says:  “I’m incredibly excited to be joining a programme I’ve watched and loved all my adult life.”

Not sure I trust this lady’s judgement on Katz going by her description of the beleagured Newsnight:

Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s acting director of news, said: “I’m delighted to be welcoming Ian to the BBC. His journalistic pedigree speaks for itself. 

“He will bring to one of Britain’s most influential news and current affairs programmes all the judgment, news sense and innovation we need.”

 

Paxman must be reassured.

 

Meanwhile Newsnight deputy ed. Jamie Angus heads off to take over the reins at the Today programme as editor….at least he has actually worked on Today before…for 8 years…and has plenty of editorial experience…..though he too might have misjudged the pedigree of the programme he is going to lead:

“At the heart of Radio 4 and of BBC News, Today is central to what the BBC offers its audiences.”

 

Kind of worrying when you think how influential these two programmes are supposed to be:

Newsnight is where the Establishment is supposed to reflect after a hard day, but it’s the Today programme (I know, plus the newspapers) that tells them what to think about at the start of the news cycle.’

A STEEL AT ANY PRICE

 

 

If Margaret Hodge’s grasp of Stemcor’s company accounts is any indication of her grasp of Amazon’s or Starbuck’s then I don’t think they have anything to worry about.

In this Sky News video  (via Guido) she is left floundering when asked for details of Stemcor’s profits and taxes paid upon those profits..in the UK.

Note the completely different treatment by the BBC as it runs for cover as Hodges gripes the accusations ‘were “completely wrong”, adding that they were “scurrilous and defamatory’:

Margaret Hodge taking legal action on Stemcor tax claims

 

As the BBC’s Jo Coburn says…’Alright I hear that loud and clear!’…and Goodnight!

 

Stemcor denies that its use of Transfer Pricing is a device to avoid tax…though it says that ….‘Other international companies may possibly use transfer pricing to avoid or evade tax in high tax jurisdictions. Any suggestion that Stemcor has followed such practice is libellous.’

 

So Stemcor pays all the tax it legally has to.  That’s for sure. No doubt.

 

Stemcor is a company that seems to be getting more efficient, making more profit per ton traded than before the recession began….and yet in 2012 it says it lost money.

 Here are some figures from 2005  comparing performance with 2011:

In 2005 it had a turnover of £180m per 1m tons traded, and made £1m pre-tax profit for every £145m of turnover.

In 2011 it had a turnover of  £353m per 1m tons traded, and made £1m pre-tax profits for every £100m of turnover.

 

In other words by 2011 it had almost doubled its 2005  turnover  on a similar amount of trade and multiplied its pre-tax profit by almost 1.5 times….and paid only £163,000 in tax to the UK in 2011 on £2.1 bn of revenue generated in the UK…with £4bn generated in the rest of the world.

 

…and yet it lost money in the UK…despite the UK generating 1/3rd of its revenue……

 

The Telegraph ,  (in a report it had to withdraw)  said that Stemcor’s accounts showed that:

Stemcor’s tax bill to the exchequer equates to just 0.01pc of the revenues it booked through its UK-based business. In accounts filed with Companies House, Stemcor revealed that despite generating about one third of its revenues in Britain, its UK tax contribution made up only 2.7pc of the tax the company paid globally.  (On my calculations…Stemcor made £65m in profits in 2011…so if 2.7% is £163,000[UK tax contribution] then 100% is £6m paid in total……which is a rate of 10.8% tax on income of £65m?  Stemcor says it paid tax rates of around 40%….I guess I must be missing something somewhere)

 

Those are facts that aren’t disputed…what the Telegraph did question was whether Stemcor used any measures to lower its tax bill….Stemcor saying, despite the UK generating 1/3rd of its revenues:

‘The tough economic environment in the UK squeezed margins during 2011, resulting in a loss of £2.9m on UK operations, which reduced Stemcor’s UK tax payments compared to prior years.’

 

 

Stemcor is making vastly more money per trade…and yet is losing money.  Times are hard.

 

 

Question Time 16th May 2013

On the Question Time panel this week – Philip Hammond, Chris Bryant, Charles Kennedy, FT journalist Gillian Tett and television producer Peter Bazalgette.

Please join us over on the livechat server from 10:30pm UK time.

To address some of the issues from last week’s livechat we’ll be running a beta copy of their next version of the chat software. So be aware that it will solve some problems but may bring out others. Hopefully we’ll be joined by the head developer of the project, Paul, who is going to see how his software runs under real-life conditions.

Bye Bye Newsnight

 All those resources, all those journalists, all those editorial guidelines…

 

The BBC’s Newsnight programme once again wraps itself in glory as the Sun tells us:

BBC’s Help for Heroes slur

Grovelling apology for flawed report on charity

THE BBC will today broadcast a humiliating network-wide apology for smearing Help for Heroes on Newsnight.

An “investigation” by the flagship show last August accused the troops charity of misspending its cash. It cost Help for Heroes more than £100,000 in withdrawn donations, The Sun can reveal.

After a major internal probe, chiefs accept the scandal-hit programme’s coverage was “misleading and unfair”. They agreed the 216-word “sorry” will go out on all media that aired the report — on Radio 1 at 5pm, on Radio 2 at 5.45pm, on Newsnight on BBC2 at 11.20pm — and online.

 

graphic

Bulging With Bulgarians?

 

 

 

The truth about Bulgarian and Romanian immigration into this country must lie somewhere inbetween the reassuring utterances adopted by the BBC:

Polls: No indication of huge Romanian-Bulgarian influx

And those of the Sun:

Next stop UK: Romanians & Bulgarians are queueing up for handout Britain

 

 The BBC however is actively working to change your opinion about immigration and the numbers coming here…going so far as to make completely ill-matched comparisons to bolster their dodgy position:

British entrepreneurs invest in Bulgaria 

The suggestion that Bulgarians and Romanians will soon arrive in the UK in their thousands may have fuelled UKIP’s surge in the polls, provided column inches in the newspapers, and given news programmes something to chew on – but it has also concealed the fact that there is quite a bit of migration in the other direction.

….Amid the cacophony of voices one distinctly British accent sticks out.

It belongs to Matt Pigden, the founder of a snowboarding and ski company that has cornered the market here.

Thanks to him, and others like him, Borovets is awash with British skiers in the winter season.

Influx of entrepreneurs

“Borovets has seen massive investment. New lifts, new hotels,” he says.

Mr Pigden says he and his company, Snow and Wake Bulgaria, are now making a difference to the local economy.

“We’re employing people. We’re building a project at the moment. All the materials are sourced locally. Yes, the money is definitely going back in.”

 

So Brits are bringing in skills and massive investment…..whilst most Bulgarians coming to the UK are bringing what?

Where are the figures for all the unemployed Brits in Bulgaria claiming benefits, housing, free schools and health services?

Disingenuous to think this compares in the slightest to the type of immigration that goes the other way…here to the UK.