On American Independence Day, here’s a new and independent open thread for y’all! Enjoy.

I can’t resist sharing my glee at the BBC’s obvious horror that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood puppeteers are on the run in Egypt.  I know it is very unclear where things may go but the BBC meme that the “Arab Spring” is an irreversible force for good has been shattered and all we get is BBC talking heads bemoaning the loss of “democracy”.  Watching Jeremy Bowen has been a particular delight as he squirms with the uprising that the BBC cannot rationalise! I mean how on earth could any people resist a descent into an Islamic caliphate. Still, there’s always Tower Hamlets….

Remember this?

“I always think that impartiality is in our DNA – it’s part of the BBC’s genetic make-up.”

That was Helen Boaden, the then director of BBC News. It was 2011

And then today….

Helen Boaden, the BBC’s former news director, has admitted the corporation held a “deep liberal bias” in its coverage of immigation when she took up the role in 2004.

Oh my.

The BBC’s latest review on impartiality says:

Today’s BBC gives due weight to all significant strands of opinion on the subject of immigration. 

Well Sir Andrew Green from Migration Watch was certainly given a fair interview recently on the Today programme, and David Goodhart from Demos has had a few interviews on his ‘controversial’ book about the effects of immigration…but he is a ‘safe’ lefty.

How much longer the BBC will maintain this approach to reporting or discussing immigration might be open to question….the possibility is that this new approach is merely a response to the knowledge that they were under observation for the purposes of this review.

Certainly when you listen to everyday programmes on the BBC the same old attitudes prevail….talk of school overcrowding, and immigration usually doesn’t get mentioned, the same with housing or the NHS….occasionally the presenter will refer to immigration but only because he/she has been deluged with emails or texts pointing out immigration is the main driver of overcrowding and other problems and he/she realises they can’t get away with not mentioning it. 

By coincidence the government has today published its own report into the effects of imigration:

Immigrants create overcrowding and fuel tensions, report finds

Asylum seekers, refugees and low-skilled immigrants are creating overcrowding, fueling community tensions and putting pressure on the NHS, a government report has found.

Never mind schools, housing and jobs, more cars on the roads and increased crime.

The BBC’s own report states:

“The BBC was slow to reflect the weight of concern in the wider community about issues arising from immigration.”

No..it wasn’t ‘slow‘…it deliberately refused to cover the damaging effects of mass immigration and repeatedly pushed  a positive narrative of ‘immigration is beneficial’ to the UK both economically and socially.

The effect of this is that politicians have been allowed to put into practice immigration policies that are politically and ideologically motivated and against the interests of the existing population with highly damaging effects. 

The BBC has been complicit in this and has ‘aided and abetted’ what amounts to corrupt political practice by the Labour Party.

What is needed, rather than evermore internally generated reviews,  is an independent ‘Leveson Inquiry’ for the BBC that looks into how its own political leanings effect its output and how that output then effects the politics and society as a whole.

The inquiry should be legally based and have the power to force changes upon the BBC…should they be needed…..perhaps we might also have running alongside a trial of the polticians who implemented such corrupt policies.

The power of BBC news is once again confirmed by this report from Reuters…though one of the co-authors is ex BBC man Richard Sambrook….which tells us of ‘the importance of mainstream TV bulletins for communicating significant international news. BBC TV news programmes still play an important role in setting the wider news agenda.’

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has looked at the BBC’s coverage online and on its main TV bulletins – and has looked at the audiences’ behaviour. There are some surprises.

Firstly, TV bulletins still rule. In spite of all the discussion of the merits of online, of social media, of interactivity, choice and convenience it was clear that more people got their news of these big international events from the main bulletins at 6 and 10 on BBC1 than from the BBC website.

So editors of the main TV bulletins still set the agenda for other outlets and platforms and provide the mass viewing experience. We found no evidence of online coverage driving TV viewing.

Thanks to A.D who posted this in the comments:

Toxteth mosque ‘suspect’ suitcase: Danish man cautioned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-23142432

Police confirm man cautioned after bomb alert at Liverpool mosque is Somalian NOT Danish .

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-cautioned-following-bomb-security-4803983

Reading the Liverpool Echo version it looks possibly like a Muslim was posing as a non-Muslim with the intent of implicating the ‘right’ in a hate crime:

Officers had taken away CCTV footage which showed the moment a man turned up at the mosque saying he wanted to become a Muslim.

Suspicions were aroused when, after spending about 15 minutes inside the building, he abruptly ran off, leaving a metal suitcase on the premises.

One quick-thinking worshipper dragged the suitcase out while the police were called.

Just how many other ‘anti-Muslim’ attacks on Mosques can really be attributed to Muslims looking to stir up anti-EDL feeling?  The Media are all too ready to jump in and claim any graffiti is ‘racist’ or a ‘hate crime’ before the people who did it have been caught.

It doesn’t take long for things to start to unravel.

The BBC’s impartiality review, conducted by Cardiff University, has some major flaws.

Even without reading it you can already pick holes in it.

Its terms of reference were obviously far too narrow..ironic for a review that was concerned with ‘breadth of opinion’.

Two major topics of concern are missing…climate change and Israel.

Strangely Israel was also missing in any meaningful way from the Seesaw to Wagon Wheel report as well.

But another question might be asked….why Cardiff University?  Or indeed any university.

Academics are notoriously left wing…and ‘extreme’…. ‘Academics have deeper knowledge but some also hold extreme views’….hardly a good starting point.

If this was conducted by students you have to ask do they have the experience and depth of knowledge needed to judge ‘bias’ in the BBC’s output….they would need a wide ranging and deep knowledge of world affairs to be able to do the job properly….did they?

And look at Cardiff….and the BBC’s relationship with it….the BBC has close ties to Cardiff which seems to be the ‘go to’ place when the BBC wants some research done.

Cardiff research recognised for reshaping the BBC’s post-devolution news agenda

22 May 2013

A Cardiff University research project that helped change the way the BBC reports on political issues has been recognised for its impact at the University’s prestigious Innovation and Impact Awards.

and how about this:

Professor Richard Sambrook – BA (Reading), MSc (Birkbeck, London)

Position: Director – Centre for Journalism Email: SambrookRJ@cardiff.ac.uk
Blog: JOMEC @ Cardiff University
Twitter: @Sambrook

Richard Sambrook is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Centre for Journalism which undertakes postgraduate vocational training. He is a former Director of Global News at the BBC where he worked as a journalist for 30 years as a producer, editor and manager.

Oh…and look..who was a previous director of journalism at Cardiff:

Professor Richard Tait CBE, was Director of the Centre for Journalism Studies at Cardiff University^[1] and a member of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

and it looks like he is still there as a ‘professor of journalism’

Professor Richard Tait – M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon)

 

Position: Professor of Journalism

All of which probably means nothing at all…but it hardly inspires confidence in the independence of Cardiff.

The BBC Trust has just published its ‘Breadth of Opinion’ review into impartiality.

Not had time to look at it but you can see it here.

A taster from the press release:

As part of the study, the BBC’s coverage of immigration, religion and the EU was analysed through content analysis by Cardiff University.  While the findings of this were largely positive and indicated that the breadth of opinion on all three subjects is comprehensive, the research also found that information and opinions provided in stories tended to focus on the specific case, with the larger story of how immigration may affect British society for better or worse covered much less often.

That’s classic BBC tactic…the ‘personal’ story of an immigrant…designed to make the viewer ‘connect’ and ignore that ‘big picture’.

The big picture is still being ignored….Miliband talked of the crisis in primary school  places today…..the BBC made absolutely no mention of the real cause of that…immigration and the surge in births that resulted.

And another couple of lines from the press release that might make you laugh:

BBC Trustee David Liddiment said:

“Ensuring that a wide range of views are seen and heard on the BBC is at the heart of the BBC’s enviable reputation for impartial journalism.”

Presumably climate change coverage wasn’t so ‘impartial‘ then due to the lack of a wide range of voices?

Just searched the PDF for ‘climate’…result….’0’…how can you have a report into BBC impartiality when one of the most controversial, and important, subjects hasn’t been covered?

The BBC science review by Steve Jones can be completely discounted as he is a BBC stooge who is rabidly pro-man made climate change.

“We deliberately chose some complex and controversial subject areas for the review in immigration, religion, and the EU, and our generally positive findings are testament to programme-makers across the corporation.”

‘Positive findings’ on immigration, religion and the EU?

I’ve got to read that.

Over at Telegraph blogs Sean Thomas recalls how the BBC nicked one his ideas, and how this ties in with the ludicrous pay-offs, the unadvertised job appointments, and the overall sense of impunity within the Corporation:

…I was tempted to write a blog post on the Telegraph mentioning all this, explaining why the BBC is, for all its wonders, actually an outrageous, malign, monopolistic force in British broadcasting, like a kind of vast, retarded toad, squashing the life out of the little guys in the media, especially with the BBC’s 70 per cent dominance of UK TV news consumption, but then I remembered that I am journalist, in a struggling industry. I’m a writer with kids to feed, in a media world destabilised by the internet, where, all-too-often, the only secure employer is the BBC.

So then, like many others before me, I thought better. Because the truth is, one day soon I might need the BBC to give me a job…

(h/t George R)

Roger Harrabin tweeting from Glastonbury last week:

Escape #Glastonbury drizzle. Join me in @greenpeaceuk tent for 25 years of reporting the #environment for #bbcnews

— roger harrabin (@RHarrabin) June 28, 2013

The Independent has run a story on the close links between the Left and Islamist extremists…but just how far up the political Left’s chain of command does the UAF/Islamist influence reach?  Just how entangled is the Labour Party with Unite Against Fascism?

And does the BBC show any interest in the close ties between the Labour Party leader and the UAF?

The BBC has no excuse not to be all over this…a Labour leader in hock to a union which is trying to rig elections and which has close ties to an extremist, violent ‘anti-Fascist’ group in league with extremist Islamists.

What’s not to like for any journalist worth his salt?

 Why is the left so blinkered to Islamic extremism?

The article is based upon a report which calls out the left for embracing fundamentalists……

Siding With The Oppressor….The Pro-Islamist Left

The BBC are not interested in such stories important thought they are, just how important you may only realise once you start looking a bit more deeply.

But what if it was the ‘Right’, the Tories, who were joining forces with some extremist ideologues? The BBC would make that front page news….Panorama, Newsnight and Today would be all over that story.

What if….

What if Cameron had become Tory leader only because of the financial and strategic backing of a powerful political lobby group?

What if that lobby group then tried to take over the Tory party by packing the constituency party groups with its own people in order to ensure the selection of candidates to become MPs who would do the bidding of the lobby group?

What if that lobby group’s political director was also chairman of the EDL and he had close ties to Cameron?

What if a Tory MP was also one of the ‘elected officers’ of the EDL?

What if the Tory Mayor of London was an ‘honorary president’ of the EDL?　

What if the EDL then joined forces with an extremist far right group that advocated killing Gays, Jews, beating wives and imposing a strict, oppressive, backward legal regime upon anyone under its influence?

What if the Mayor of London invites a leading ‘scholar’ from that extremist group to the UK and defended his views as ‘moderate’, as the view of a highly respected scholar who is a leading figure in his community?

You might think that is all a bit far fetched….but as with the best stories it is all based on fact…just the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Instead of Cameron how about ‘Ed Miliband’? The lobby group? The Unite union.

Unite’s, until recently, political director, Steve Hart, is chairman of the violent activist group Unite Against Fascism…the UAF.

Steve Hart has been replaced by Jennie Formby as political director at Unite but she is of the same mindset:

Jennie Formby ‏@JennieUnite 22 Jun Join us in telling the Home Secretary that #PeddlersOfHate Geller and Spencer are not welcome in the UK http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/refuse-them-a-visa …

Hart still works for Unite in their newly created think tank ‘CLASS’….which has as its media and policy expert one Owen Jones.

Steve Hart has been replaced as Political Director by Jenny Formby. Steve will deal with CLASS and our anti-fascist work.

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph tells us that Jones is Miliband’s blue eyed boy at the moment, untouchable for some reason:

I’ve just taken a call from a shadow cabinet adviser who asked me whether I’d seen the Daily Politics, with Owen Jones and Labour MP Simon Danczuk crossing swords over welfare. I said I had. (Owen got a proper shoeing from the Honourable Member for Rochdale, by the way.)

“Well, Simon’s going to find he’s in trouble for that. Ed’s office have told people we’re not allowed to criticise Owen Jones,” they said. So I checked with another shadow cabinet source, and it’s true. Apparently, Owen Jones is the Labour Party equivalent of a “Made Man”.

It’s been an open secret in Labour circles for some time that Miliband’s office have been courting the 29-year-old Independent journalist, with one insider saying Miliband’s senior adviser Stewart Wood has been acting as his “handler”.

So you can see how Hart, still chair of UAF, has contacts all the way to the top of the Labour party…and not just through Jones:

Steve Hart has been at the heart of London Labour politics for over a decade, having forged close relations with Ken Livingstone’s mayoral administration. When Livingstone’s former chief of staff, Simon Fletcher moved in to a senior position at the London Labour party before the last election, Hart’s influence increased.

When the continuity Kennites took control of key positions in the London Labour party after the general election, Steve Hart’s role in London Labour grew.

And when Simon Fletcher joined Ed Miliband’s office with responsibility for union liaison, earlier this year, Hart’s personal connections extended right to the top of the party.

CLASS is a Unite ‘front’ organisation:

The Centre for Labour and Social Studies (Class) is a new think tank established in 2012 to act as a centre for left debate and discussion. Originating in the labour movement, Class works with a broad coalition of supporters, academics and experts to develop and advance alternative policies for today.

It works from the same address as Unite: 

128 Theobalds Road,
London WC1X 8TN　

Unite, Unite House,
128 Theobald’s Road,
Holborn, London, WC1X 8TN

Labour MP Peter Hain is an elected officer of the UAF.

Ken Livingstone is honorary president of the UAF. 

The UAF has close ties to Islamist groups. One of its vice chairmen being Islamist Azad Ali.

Unite has been caught trying to rig elections in its favour by packing the membership of Labour constituencies with Unite members:

Revealed: The document that explains how Unite intends to take over the Labour party

It’s a major decision to accuse Labour’s biggest donor of packing a constituency with ringers and trying to subvert a parliamentary selection, but one that was inescapable given the facts.

Uncut understands that in the last three months of 2012, the membership of Falkirk West CLP increased by over half – from 200 members, it grew by 130 to 330.

These weren’t members attracted by the magic of Arnie Graf’s community organising, or an inspirational Ed Miliband speech.

They were shipped in, en masse, by Unite.

Why did Steve Hart leave his position as Unite’s political director?…….because he failed to keep the machiavellian scheme to take Labour over out of the Press:　

Steve Hart was national political director of a political operation that is seen to be misfiring. The fiasco over the selection of Labour’s European candidates is symptomatic of a wider problem.

The issue for Hart within the union is not the fixing – no one in the union disagrees with the goal of installing Unite placemen and women as Labour candidates.

The problem has been the scrutiny and headlines generated by the clumsy nature of the fixing. Motions criticising the selection process have rippled across London CLPs with the row making front page news in the national press.

Len McCluskey has had to publicly defend Unite’s conduct and the union has become embroiled in a running row that has made Unite activity in candidate selection an increasingly sensitive topic within the Labour party.

This is not how a political operation is meant to work. The dark arts require shadows, not the harsh spotlight of national newspaper stories.

Still, at least someone on the Left has woken up to some aspects of the ‘moderate face of Islam’ so beloved of the BBC:

Erdogan’s democracy bus ride

As a little footnote to my piece on the Turkish protests, a little nugget I have just discovered (h/t: Harry’s Place). In what seems now like quite a prescient interview earlier this year, King Abdullah of Jordan is quoted as saying the following:

”Erdogan once said that democracy for him is a bus ride,” Abdullah told the Atlantic. ”Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off.”

In the context of the reaction to the protests, and the frustrating comments of many that he is a “moderate”, I find these words particularly chilling

Whilst the BBC report the goings on in Falkirk West  where Unite tried to rig things in their favour they look no further, they turn over no stones even though the work has been done for them….more often than not by Left wing blogs.

The BBC has no excuse not to be all over this…a Labour leader in hock to a union which is trying to rig elections and which has close ties to an extremist, violent ‘anti-Fascist’ group in league with extremist Islamists.

What’s not to like for any journalist worth his salt?

UAF’s honorary presidents are Ken Livingstone and Doreen Lawrence.

Our elected officers for 2013 are:

Chair

– Steve Hart, political officer, Unite
Vice chair – Christine Blower, general secretary, NUT
Vice chair – Hugh Lanning, deputy general secretary, PCS
Vice chair – Azad Ali
Vice chair – Jennifer Moses, national official for equality and training, NASUWT
Treasurer – Jane Loftus, deputy general secretary, CWU
Joint secretary – Weyman Bennett
Joint secretary – Sabby Dhalu
Assistant secretary – Brian Richardson
Assistant secretary – Jude Woodward
Parliamentary Officer – Peter Hain MP
European officer – Claude Moraes MEP
European officer – Glyn Ford

Unite’s think tank CLASS and its officers:

Steve Hart, Chair – Political Director at Unite the Union (no longer)

Tim Roache, President – Regional Secretary at GMB

Geoff Shears, Vice President – President of Union Solidarity International

Christine Blower – NUT

Manuel Cortes – TSSA

Keith Ewing – Kings College London

Billy Hayes – CWU

John Hendy QC

Carolyn Jones – Director of the Institute of Employment Rights

James McGowan – Head of Policy and Communications at ASLEF

Steve Murphy – UCATT

Andrew Murray – Chief of Staff at Unite the Union

Doug Nicholls – GFTU

Dave Watson – Senior Policy Advisor at PCS