AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

The BBC paint one picture of the Mau Mau but a B-BBC reader paints another;

“I was there as a Police Inspector in the Kikuyu Reserve. I am astonished that the British Government should be giving compensation to Mau Mau. of course it is a different Government to that of the 1950s. Mau Mau murdered large numbers of their own Kikuyu tribe. They didn’t beat them up they chopped them up. What about their families? Oh I forgot, they murdered the families as well.

Mau Mau was not the Kikuyu tribe it was an aberration of the tribe forcing its will on the majority of the tribe. The Mau Mau strategy was enforced oath taking or murder. Kikuyu houses were scattered around the country side.  I personally dealt with more than a hundred murders as did colleagues wherever Kikuyu people lived. This was contained only when the people were moved into fortified villages and their men folk were armed. Latter day historians now call these concentration camps, not safe havens.

Once they felt safe the Kikuyu people went after the Mau Mau and played a major part in their defeat. After the defeat of militant Mau Mau they obviously became more clever in the field of misinformation. Latter day historians should note that Jomo Kenyatta would not have any Mau Mau in his Government. How could they get it so wrong? Perhaps rewriting history is their only way to get noticed”

BBC Contracts Out For a ‘Hitman’

 

The BBC have been busy trying to dig up anyone who has been ‘victimised’ by the government’s welfare reforms as Guido highlights:

Newsnight have been caught  red-handed using a private firm to try stir up outrage toward’s the government’s, legal, tweaking of Housing Benefit changes.

 

 

 

No mention of all those who have been or will be helped by this reform…all those needing a family home but are crammed into tiny houses, bedsits or hostels.

 

What does the company, Support Solutions,  that was running this man hunt for the BBC say about its services?

Our aim is to influence policy in favour of the sector in these challenging times and to be the first to know of and interpret policy development and change which impacts on our sector.

  • We are experts in the Welfare Reform Act & Universal Credit, especially as these affect vulnerable people and organisations that provide and/or commission services for vulnerable people.
  • We help clients to enhance their housing revenue streams

 

Their aim…to influence policy and get more money for clients in the housing arena….sounds quite political to me….and in direct opposition to government policy.

Wonder why the BBC chose them to dig up some suitably disadvantaged persons to put on the telly as examples of government cruelty?

 

DESOLATION?

I don’t think that Lord Howell said anything he needed to apologise for but thanks to the predictable baiting in the Lords from Labour, picked up and magnified by the BBC, he ended up saying sorry for suggesting that “desolate parts” of the north-east with no obvious natural beauty could be potential spots for tracking. Maybe he should have said the north-west? The BBC seized on this with glee and given the BBC opposition to a/ fracking in particular and b/conservatives in general, they have sneered at this for the last 24 hours. Following the logic put forward by Labour and echoed by the BBC  it appears that every inch of the UK is so beautiful that we cannot frack anywhere. How curious.

BBC Too Right Wing?

 

The BBC Trust, on the basis of a complaint from one man and his dog, has declared that the BBC, or at least John Humphrys is a right wing government stooge:

 

The BBC Trust said that a programme called the Future of Welfare, written and presented by John Humphrys, breached its rules on impartiality and accuracy. It found that the programme had failed to back up with statistics claims that there was a “healthy supply of jobs”.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, defended Humphrys as a “robust broadcaster” and said the documentary was “thoughtful and intelligent”.

His intervention came on the day that High Court judges rejected claims that the social housing benefit cuts for people with spare bedrooms discriminated against disabled people. Ten families had brought a court case against the Government.

Mr Duncan Smith was infuriated by the BBC’s coverage of the ruling, which he felt gave too much airtime to campaigners.

He said: “I have just watched reporting on the BBC about the Government winning a High Court judgment on the Spare Room Subsidy that once again has left me absolutely staggered at the blatant Left-wing bias within the coverage. And yet the BBC Trust criticise John Humphrys’s programme, which was thoughtful, intelligent and born out of the real life experience of individuals.

 

This is the same BBC that has provided a ‘useful’ calculator that will tell you which parts of the country you can afford to rent a home in…..it tells us that the South East and London are practically out of bounds for anyone but a lottery winner…however one look at the homes on offer in estate agents proves that to be far from the truth.   In other words the BBC is providing propaganda for the anti-welfare reform lobby who insist that the poorest are being priced out of London…which is patently not the case.

Just been listening to Derbyshire reporting on the court’s decison  (from 41 mins) and the response from campaigners….she had to admit the case she was highlighting as an example was ‘extreme’….as is usually the case.  There will always be such cases that need special consideration but they should not be used to condemn the whole policy as the BBC all too often uses them to do.

 

 

Do Muslims Like Islam?

 

‘Is the BBC biased’ has done a write up of Sunday Morning Live….it concludes that overall it was a fair effort on the part of the BBC….I haven’t seen it yet so can’t comment myself.

 What is interesting is part of the programme that they have transcribed.

 

I have in a previous post suggested that most Muslims don’t actually like Islam…..the real, fundamental, follow all the rules Islam….they are in fact ‘Islamophobes’.   They are born into the religion, they are obliged by their community to ‘keep the Faith’ but it is more cultural for them, more lip service than devotion, they’ll take the social and perhaps the spiritual parts of Islam but say no thanks to the wife beating, gay baiting and hand chopping etc.

They might express a desire to see Islam ‘reformed’….that is, have those violent, supremacist and genocidal  parts of the Koran and Sharia excised.

If so they would be denounced as ‘Islamophobes’ were they to appear on the pages of this blog no doubt, as the desires they have for the reform of Islam are the very same concerns that are expressed on this site by posters as they argue the BBC should take a more critical look at Islam, only to be charged with ‘islamophobia’….an irrational hatred of Islam….despite the criticism of Islam being based on reasoned argument and endless proofs from the Koran and the Hadiths themselves.

 

With that in mind here is part of the write up of the SML programme:

‘We heard from Sheikh Dr Muhammad Al-Hussaini who said that the British people “no longer believe the Islamist peace double discourse from British Muslim leaders.” In one of those “wow!” moments that thrills the heart, Sheikh Muhammad argued that “the literalist, supremacist use and abuse of scripture by violently extremist Islamist groups…isn’t so far actually different to the same kind of literalist supremacist readings of the same kind of scripture by, if you like, sort of mainstream extremist Islamist groups like the Muslim Council of Britain and Jamaat-e-Islami front organisations like the the Islamic Foundation.” He went on to argue that the violent texts in Islam need to be moderated by Islamic scholars and said they should follow the example of Jewish scholars who have long moderated the texts of Deuteronomy. He then went on to denounce the “interfaith or Islamophobia kind of industry”. Mehdi, you won’t be surprised to hear, wasn’t entirely happy about that!’

 

 

Anything different in there from what this site says?

No.

And yet  if  ‘John Smith’ should try  to express those views on a BBC programme  he would be quickly cut off and ‘outed’  as a likely EDL member…sin of sins!

Much like, as George R points out, Douglas Murray was smeared by Mehdi Hasan as a ‘supporter’ of the EDL:

Mehdi Hasan and the EDL

 

Interesting isn’t it…he, Sheikh Muhammad, a Muslim,  says that there is little difference between what the extremists claim and what the mainstream Muslim groups say about Islam.

Much like the FBI offical who told us what the only difference between Al Qaeda and the Islamic community group CAIR (the US MCB equivalent) and the Muslim Brotherhood was:

“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics.”

 

In the end they all have the same aims…just different methods of achieving them.

That’s a very important point to remember…one that the BBC and politicians deliberately refuse to acknowledge….because to acknowledge it would mean they would have to do something about it…it would mean suppressing Islam in some form or another.

The non-violent Islamists are just as ‘dangerous’ politically and culturally as the ones prepared to bomb and shoot their way to victory….if you consider Islam itself a threat to democratic, secular/Christian society that is.

 

The BBC should, if it were doing its job, be examining every word of Sheikh Dr Muhammad Al-Hussaini and be asking just what exactly does he mean?

To do so would mean having to examine Islam and all those tricky little verses about the Jews and Christians being sinners, unclean, to be controlled at the end of a sword.

 

….and then what?  What if the BBC discovered that this was the true teaching of the Koran, the real meaning of Islam?

 

That’s why it will never happen.

That and the fact that the ‘Establishment’, from the Royal Family, politicians, businessmen and those in the Media all have close and extensive links to Muslim states……not just through commerce, oil and weapons, but cultural and social ties…a surprising number of the ‘upper crust’ being married to Muslims…George Osborne’s brother for instance.

 

And of course the final calculation that they make is that should such an eventuality happen, an Isamic takeover, they, already at the top of the tree so to speak, would likely remain there and would not suffer overly much, not having to alter their opulent lifestyles greatly,  judging by the excesses of the Saudi Royal family.

 

For those at lower levels or the bottom of the tree things might be a lot less pleasant.

 

 

Nice though that the BBC keeps giving the floor to an Islamist like Mehdi Hasan without challenging his views themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pay To Stay?

 

We hear endless sob stories on the BBC about tenants having to move house due to the governments ‘bedroom tax’….or spare room subsidy reduction if you prefer.

We hear the ‘vulnerable’ are being targeted and discriminated against, the poorest in society victimised and cities being ‘cleansed’ of the poor.

Well you can argue about that endlessly but what about at the other end of the scale….those high earners who refuse to budge from their social housing subsidised by the tax payer?

Guido certainly had several pops at the likes of Bob Crow who has such a home.

 

But how often do we hear about the government’s ‘Pay to Stay’ initiative where the higher your income the more you must pay to stay in social housing?

Can’t say I have ever heard the BBC mention it.

 

In the Guardian there are objections to taxing the rich!:

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have persevered with ideas of mixed communities and the benefits of mixing households with different income levels in the same physical space. Now it’s full steam ahead for the ghetto.

 

Inside Housing objects too claiming it is more a political stunt than a proper policy:

Pay to stay has probably already achieved its political purpose in generating headlines about Bob Crow and Frank Dobson. As a housing policy it is at best a contradictory distraction from the real issues. 

And:

…on a deeper level it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is really about accelerating the Conservative end-game for social housing: reducing it to a residualised rump reserved for the very poorest while leaving everything else to the market.’

 

Well…er….yes…isn’t that the idea of council/social housing…to provide subsidised/low rent homes for those on low incomes?….or are we to look on the likes of Bob Crow as some sort of missionary?  Before we had well intentioned priests who used to travel to darkest Africa to bring civilisation to the natives…now it’s the well heeled union barons bringing ‘gentrification’ and  fine dining to the ‘Chavs’.

 

Guess when you are a Tory led government you  just can’t win.

 

Would be nice to hear Victoria Derbyshire and Co expand their repertoire and at least pay lip service to the fact that the rich are being targeted along with the poorest….the rich of course being hit with proportionately far bigger tax rises than any other income level.

Media Plurality….BBC to be reined in?

BBC-NEWS-DOMINANCE

 

Harriet Harman suggested a cap on ownership of  the media but wanted to exclude the BBC from such considerations:

No, the BBC is not included…there is all the difference in the world between a privately owned broadcaster and a public broadcaster which has its own mechanisms for accountability [ha ha] and no I don’t include it as a monopoly…it’s not a private monopoly.

I put it on one side….the standards the BBC offers are important..it offers a gold standard for other broadcasters…the role of the BBC is absolutely essential…there is no need for protection from the BBC, far from it, we need to strengthen the BBC.

 

The government may though include the BBC:

The BBC could be included in any potential move to limit media ownership, the Government will announce today.

Culture Secretary Maria Miller will launch a consultation on rules governing media plurality, asking for the first time whether the state broadcaster should be covered.

If the BBC was included in rules designed to prevent any one media organisation becoming too powerful, it could be forced to rein in its dominant news website.

 

The BBC said:

In its own submissions to Ofcom’s review of media ownership and plurality, the BBC argued that it should be excluded from calculations because of its public service role.

 

The DCMS said:

It also makes sense that when you are trying to ensure that a particular viewpoint does not dominate the media that you ask whether the BBC should be included.’

That ‘Right Leaning Think Tank’

 

 

The BBC more often than not will reveal to us, in the interest of transparency and impartiality, that a think tank is right leaning.

It is a rarity to see left wing think tanks or charities similarly defined.

I have yet to hear The New Economic Foundation so described despite being not just left leaning but out on the fringes of the loony left, the Resolution Foundation or the Rowntree Foundation are never called ‘left leaning’ despite that obviously being the case.

 

Today the BBC brings us the Million+ think tank, ‘a think tank that also represents newer universities‘ which is telling us that ‘England’s teacher training system ‘broken down’

The system of planning teacher training in England has broken down and risks a future shortage of teachers, a university think tank says.

In her evidence to the committee, Pam Tatlow, chief executive of Million+ – a think tank that also represents newer universities – said School Direct, , which is focused around on-the-job, school-based training, had been introduced “without any robust assessment of its impact on teacher supply”.

 

 

Pam Tatlow?   Ever heard that name before?  You might have…she was in the news not so long ago….as a short listed Labour party candidate.

 

You’d have thought that might just be a bit relevant when you have a person strongly criticising government policy and yet is Labour through and through.

Apparently the BBC doesn’t think that to be the case.

 

Lax On Tax

 

 

Kebab Time has some taxing questions for Labour…I wonder if the BBC has any…though Labour’s Margaret Hodge threatening legal action if the BBC asked any questions about Stemcor’s tax affairs silenced them pretty quickly….that and the fact that they weren’t very keen to ‘kebab’ her any way.

Kebab Time posts this from the Times:

Will Hodge be demanding Labour cough up some of that £24 million they took from the Unions over the last 3 years…you know…..moral duty and all that…just as she suggests all those commercial companies do…above and beyond their legal requirements?

No doubt there is a completely valid technical reason why Labour dodges tax…..still….moral responsibility and all that…eh?

I imagine the BBC would be just as disinterested if it was the Tory party dodging tax…..the Tories paying, according to the Times, £521,000….Labour nothing…and yet Labour has more funding than the Tories…work that out.

Labour tops party funds league table

Labour remains the best-funded UK political party, reporting income of more than £33m in 2012.

Accounts for 2012 show it received more than the combined figure for the Tories, £24.2m, and the Lib Dems, £6m.

 

No ‘Labour Tops Party Funding Tax Avoidance League Table’ report from the BBC?