Monthly Archives: July 2013

 

You have to despair.

 

Dr Mary Bousted is general secretary of ATL.  She was being interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire on Monday  (11 mins) about Gove’s new curriculum proposals…..strangely before he had announced them…and she admitted she hadn’t read them yet in ‘their entirety’.

This is why she opposes the new curriculum:

‘The proposals will be riddled with knowledge and lack skills and understanding.’

Shocking…that schools should be expected to impart ‘knowledge’.

Child abuse surely!

Derbyshire didn’t bat an eyelid and carried on as if such a daft comment had never been made….which is about par for the course for teacher union reps. on the BBC.

Dr Bousted is also very concerned about fractions for 5 year olds…and the time scale for introduction of the new proposals…and about some ‘snippets’ she had heard.  The prospect for classroom chaos really is real she tells us.

Derbyshire asks if there is that much difference between the old and the new curriculum.

Bousted says: ‘We don’t know yet…we have to see the curriculum in its entirety.‘

 

Complete waste of time…..how can you get sensible comments when the person commenting hasn’t read the available proposals yet and doesn’t know what else will be announced ( and is ideologically in complete opposition to anything a Tory  minister proposes)…..the BBC could and should have waited…Gove was to announce the new curriculum in the afternoon.

 

‘

 

From The Commentator:

Baroness Tonge has spearheaded an appeal on behalf of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, claiming that the BBC is biased in favour of Israel! Laugh or cry?

 

The BBC has been having meetings with representatives of the PSC to discuss ‘BBC bias’…pro Israel bias that is.

  

Will the BBC reveal what the PSC said…..and more importantly will the BBC reveal what the BBC said and intends to do, if anything, to accommodate the PSC’s demands?

If such representations have some effect upon BBC news output should there not also have been a balancing representation from the ‘other side’?  Was there one?  Perhaps the BBC could enlighten us.

 

‘BBC Watch goes into further detail:

Who has the ear of ‘senior BBC executives’? 

Of course one presumes that – in the interests of transparency – the BBC will take care to inform those licence fee-payers with somewhat less of an open channel to BBC senior management about the outcome of its tête-à-tête with a representative of supporters and enablers of a terrorist organization designated by the British government.

 

Last week Channel 4 had a ‘big scoop’…Murdoch on tape saying the police investigation into phone hacking was a crock and he would support any journalist who was convicted.

A stunning piece of journalism making astounding revelations.

The BBC must have thought so because this story was one of the headlines on all its news bulletins that day…..tone of voice was all as they relayed to us that Murdoch would support his journalists even if jailed… they managed to convey that this was somehow a reprehensible way of acting by Murdoch.  

Justin Webb though rather let the cat out of the bag, (08:43) and revealed more than he intended when talking to Steve Hewlett from R4’s Media Show about this. (Not  a sympathetic analysis by Hewlett…but he is BBC/Guardian….so perhaps not the most impartial person to be interviewed on this subject really…especially by another BBCer)

Murdoch said that this was the biggest inquiry ever into next to nothing…..

This is from Spiked magazine ‘This is the criminalisation of journalism’:

The police operation against tabloid journalists now exploded into the biggest in criminal history. Last year, deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, who was then running the three investigations, told a committee of MPs that the operations were likely to last three more years, involving almost 200 officers at an estimated cost of £40million.

 

Webb suggests that:

‘There’ll be people outside The Sun who think that Murdoch’s got a point….he said at one stage that people have been paying the police for information for donkey’s years and we didn’t invent it, and actually he’s right isn’t he?’

 

What does that reveal?   That the BBC, of course, knew all along that this was an anti-Murdoch purge and had nothing to do with ‘media standards’ or the police…..or indeed ‘phone hacking’ as a technique per se…as used by various other organisations such as companies and law firms.

This was political and the BBC was part of the attack.

Neil Wallis, ex Murdoch man, says:

‘This will have vast repercussions for journalism’, says Wallis. ‘The oppressive left wants to crush journalism that it doesn’t approve of. It will stultify and terrify a lot of journalism. Whether they like it or not, the tabloid press does an important job informing and entertaining millions of people. The Guardian and the Independent are not going to do that. The BBC is certainly not going to do it. And that’s bad for democracy.’

 

Other than this piece by Webb I haven’t heard anything on the BBC that takes a look at the phone hacking affair from such an angle…that Murdoch is the victim of a Left wing pogrom, and hung out to dry by those who used to stand side by side with him.

Bad for democracy?

The politicians have made a pact with the ‘devil’….they think they neutered Murdoch and have the BBC on their side….but the result is that the Press has been enraged and as you may have noticed the politicians have been under constant attack from papers that previously they counted on as ‘onside’…..and all they have to defend them now is the BBC and the Guardian…..good luck with that Mr Cameron.

One of the things that strikes me about the BBC coverage of the Egyptian unrest is its reluctance to report the sheer savagery of the Muslim Brotherhood supporters or “Pro Morsi” to use the BBC preferred euphemism. When it comes to appalling videos like this and threatening incidents like this, the world class BBC journalists seem to have fallen asleep.  Their entire meme has been thrown into chaos and they seem to struggle to keep up with the story. Perhaps images like this unsettle them – on the wrong side of history yet again, BBC?

Morning all! Sun shining, time for a new one of these! A whole new WEEK of BBC bias awaits so document it here!

 

The BBC undoubtedly thought this was a good pro Muslim story….I might suggest it was the opposite….far from showing Muslims ‘integrating’ it shows a distinct lack of will to do so and in fact shows that Muslims expect British society to adapt to them not the other way round…..you might even suggest that it was fairly disturbing that Islam is presented in such a positive one sided fashion in a Western democratic society….and that British children are being dragged into Islamic culture by stealth….and the BBC hopes this will ensure they ‘accept’ Islam as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’.

 

Perhaps someone might like to point out the difference between these two images:

  

 

 Why is one wrong and the other OK?

What is the difference between Islam and Fascism? When you read what the Koran instructs its followers to do you have to ask if that is any more acceptable than Fascism?

Would the BBC be just as pleased to see children giving a Fascist salute on the playing fields of Newcastle?

 

Some are already typing away…’How dare you etc etc…!!!’

But what’s the difference?  Define Islamic ideology and then define Fascism.   If you accept that Islamists are the  Islamic extremists then you have to accept the Nazis were the extremists of the Fascist movement…and you cannot tar all Fascists with the same ‘extremist’ brush….there are different levels of Fascism just as with Islam…as practised anyway….ideally there is only one ‘perfect’ Islam…as laid down by the Koran….you cannot have different versions or sects within Islam…hence Shia/ Sunni/ Ahmadi conflicts….fundamentalist Wahhabism is probably the ‘True Path’:

‘Do not divide your religion into sects, each exulting its own doctrines.’ 30:31

 

Perhaps the BBC might do better to show us this use of football pitches by Islamic practitioners…a woman being shot for ‘adultery’…which could of course just be a case of ‘unproven’ rape…if you can’t prove you were raped you must have been committing adultery under sharia law:

 

 

The BBC are pleased that British children are copying Islamic practices and making them part of ‘popular British culture’:

Premier League: How Muslims are changing English football culture

Children playing football in the parks of Newcastle have even been spotted falling to their knees as if in prayer themselves after scoring a goal.

They may not completely understand what it means, but it’s a sign that Muslim practices are becoming a more familiar part of popular British culture.

 

Interesting that last line….’They may not completely understand what it means…’

Perhaps if they, or their parents,  read the Koran they might get a better idea…do you want your kids to be taught this…the word of God…perfect in its Koranic recitation taught up and down the country, day in day out,  in Mosques, madrassas, faith schools and homes?:

 

‘The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of creatures.’ 98:6　

‘Believers take neither Jews nor Christians for your friend.’ 5:51

‘Some among us are Muslims and some wrongdoers. Those that embrace Islam pursue the right path.’ 72:14

Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them.’ 66:9

‘Believers do not make friends with those who have incurred the wrath of God.’ 60:13

‘God loves those who fight for His cause in ranks as firm as a mighty edifice.’ 61:4

‘Believers do not make friends with those who are enemies of Mine and yours.’ 60:1

‘Have faith in God and his Apostle, and fight for God’s cause with your wealth and with your persons.’ 61:10

‘The true believers are those that have faith in God and His Apostle, and never doubt; and who fight with their wealth and their persons in the cause of God. Such are those whose faith is true.’ 49:15

‘Do not divide your religion into sects, each exulting its own doctrines.’ 30:31

‘You shall be called upon to fight a mighty nation, unless they embrace Islam. If you prove obedient, God will reward you. But if you run away, as you have done before this, He will inflict upon you a stern chastisement.’ 48:16

‘Those that fight for Our cause We will surely guide to Our own paths. Surely God is righteous.’ 29:69

‘Permission is hereby given to take up arms to those who are attacked.’ 22:39

‘We will surely punish the schismatics, who have broken up the scriptures into separate parts, believing some and denying others.’ 15:90

‘Believers make war on the infidels who dwell around you.’ 9:123

‘God has purchased from the faithful their lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for the cause of God, they will slay and be slain.’ 9.111

‘Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them.’ 9:73

‘If you do not go to war, He will punish you sternly, and will replace you by other men.’ 9:39

‘Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of God, with your wealth and with your persons.’ 9:41

‘Fight against such of those to whom the scriptures were given as believe in neither God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.’ 9:29

‘Believers, know that the pagans are unclean. Let them not approach the sacred Mosque after this year is ended.’ 9:27

‘Believers do not befriend your fathers or your brothers if they choose unbelief in preference to the Faith. Wrongdoers are those who befriend them.’ 9:23

‘When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush for them everywhere.’ 9:5

‘Prophet rouse the faithful to arms. If there are twenty steadfast men among you, the shall vanquish two hundred and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding.’ 8:65

‘A prophet may not take captives until he has fought and triumphed in the land.’ 8:67

‘The unbelievers give aid and comfort to each other. If you fail to do likewise, there will be disorder in the land and great corruption.’ 8:73

‘Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.’ 8:39

‘Have nothing to do with those who have split up their religion into sects.’ 6:159

‘You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians.’ 5:82

‘They do blaspheme who say: ‘God is Christ the son of Mary.’ 5:72

‘They do blaspheme who say: ‘Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god other than One God.’ 5:73

‘Believers, take not for friends and protectors the infidels and those who were given the Book before you, who have made your religion a jest and a diversion.’ 5:57

‘Say: People of the Book, is it not that you hate us only because we believe in God and in what has been revealed to us and to others before, and because you are evil doers?’ 5:59

‘Believers take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends.’ 5:51

‘Unbelievers are those who declare: ‘God is the Messiah, the son of Mary.’ 5:17

‘Believers choose not the infidels rather than the faithful for your friends.’ 4:144

‘If they desert you, seize them and put them to death wherever you find them.’ 4:89

‘The true believers fight for the cause of God, but the infidels fight for the devil. Fight then against the friends of the devil.’ 4:76

‘Believers do not make friends with any but your own people.’ 3:118

Had the People of the Book accepted the Faith, it would have been better for them, Some are true believers but most are evil doers.’ 3:110

‘He that chooses a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will surely be among the losers.’ 3:85

‘Let not the believers make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful.’ 3:28　

‘The only true faith in God’s sight is Islam.’ 3:19

‘To those who were given the scriptures and to the Gentiles say: ‘Will you submit to God? If they become Muslims they shall be rightly guided; if they pay no heed your only duty is to convey the message.’ 3:20

‘Say to the unbelievers: ‘You shall be overthrown and driven into Hell.’ 3:12

‘Fighting is obligatory for you though you dislike it.’ 2:216

‘Fight for the sake of God those who fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love aggressors.

Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is more grievous than bloodshed.’ 2:190

‘Fight them until there is no more idolatry and God’s religion reigns supreme.’ 2:193

‘Believers retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed.’ 2:178

‘Do not marry unbelieving women, until they believe: A slave woman who believes is better than an unbelieving woman, even though she allures you. Nor marry your girls to unbelievers until they believe: A man slave who believes is better than an unbeliever, even though he allures you. Unbelievers do but beckon you to the Fire.’   2:221

 

 

 

Quite a list huh?  And every word from the Holy Koran.  And that’s not all of it…there’s much more in the Koran, not to mention the Hadiths.

What is it that the BBC finds so attractive about an ideology that teaches  children those thoughts and ideas?

People will jump in and say…context!…it’s all about context…those quotes are from a different time..they can now be disregarded.

 

Really?  The Koran is the perfect, unchangeable word of God….timeless and universal.  It is meant to guide you whenever and wherever.  To claim that parts of it can be randomly disregarded is false….the Koran tells you that you must accept the whole of its teachings.

If ‘context’ means you can disregard parts of it then in reality you can disregard the whole of it as it was created 1400 years ago in a time, place and culture that bares absolutely no relationship to modern Western society.

 

You cannot ‘reform’ the Koran, you cannot reinterpret the Koran and thereby change its meaning.

The Koran is what it is, it is what it says it is…..and therefore has to be taken at face value and read with that in mind.

 

Which begs the question….why is such an ideology deemed acceptable to be taught to impressionable youngsters?

 

In a time before everything became ‘relative’ and values meant something Islam was viewed in a completely different light by the Great and the Good:

In Of the Standard of Taste, an essay by David Hume, the Quran is described as an “absurd performance” of a “pretended prophet” who lacked “a just sentiment of morals.” Attending to the narration, Hume says, “we shall soon find, that [Muhammad] bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.”

 

Richard Dawkins believes that teaching any religion to children is a form of child abuse.…terrifying them with visons of hell and damnation and brainwashing them so that they believe those not of their religion are sinners or evil, unclean people….psychologically damaging them for life.

 

Standpoint magazine suggests that it is time that the likes of the BBC stop producing pro Muslim propaganda that hides the true nature of the beast and start a full on honest debate about the consequences of having Islam increasingly dominate proceedings in this country:

Census That Revealed a Troubling Future

Over the last decade the number of Muslims rose from 1.5 million to 2.7 million. These are the official figures. Illegal immigrants make the real numbers far higher.

Despite being hard to digest in a year, the census story passed over in a couple of days. But this is not an ephemeral story. It is an account of our recent past, our immediate present and a glimpse into a troubling future. Perhaps we passed over it so quickly because few people can bear this much reality

Successive governments of all parties have spent decades putting off any real discussion of this ….We also have a media class which has largely supported this state of defeatism. Instead of addressing concerns, politicians and press rarely bother, preferring to throw expressions of rage back at the public as surely as Gordon Brown did to Mrs Gillian Duffy of Rochdale. This is done — as reaction to the census confirmed — not only in accusations of “racism” and “bigotry” against ordinary people, but in a series of deflecting tactics which have become the replacement mechanism for action. These — all identifiable in the wake of the recent census — start with perhaps the most galling of all: “Get over it!”

For what it is worth, it seems to me that the vindictiveness with which the concerns of white British people, and the white working and middle class in particular, have been met by politicians and pundits alike is a phenomenon in need of serious and swift attention.

……were not the voices that everybody wanted to dismiss, in the final analysis, the only ones which were right?

 

 

 

Perhaps a perusal of this list of attacks might make you think again about the ‘religion of peace’….note  how many women are killed for ‘immorality’, how many Christians, how many Muslims who converted to Christianity, how many Shias killed for not being Sunni, or Sunnis killed for not being Shias.

 

2012.01.24NorwayHaugesund Two ex-Muslim converts to Christianity are stabbed by three attackers shouting ‘kuffar’ (unbeliever).

 

2012.02.02 Pakistan Rajanpur A woman and her neighbor are murdered by her stepson on suspicion of sexual activity.

 

2012.02.03 Pakistan Basti Damraywala A woman and her two daughters are shot to death by her sons for having ‘loose morals’.

 

2012.12.24 Germany Bonn  Islamic extremists slash the tongue of an Indian student who refused their offer to embrace Islam. 2012.12.31 Syria Ras al-Ayn A pregnant Christian woman is left widowed after her husband is beheaded by Islamic radicals and fed to dogs

 

This post shows the difficulty in using statistics to ‘prove’ anything…especially if the two sides are not singing off the same ‘hymn sheet’…i.e. not using the same sources of information or the same definitions…..especially so when one side knowingly uses  statistics that don’t agree because they come from a different source or are based on a different definition in order to confuse the issue.

 

Victoria Derbyshire interviewed Nigel Farage on Friday and using statistics provided by BBC bean counters, tax experts in the BBC business unit, she lays into his figures on Europe and Quangos amongst other things.

This is what the Guardian says about Victoria:

Victoria works hard and doesn’t want her efforts ruined by a slack quote.

She is sensitive about her public persona, aware – possibly because she interviews so many politicians – that reputation is everything. So what is hers?

You know, I’m not super-intellectual, I work really hard at my job, but I enjoy it and it seems to come naturally.”

In an unguarded moment, she tells me she’d love to present Question Time in the future.

 

This interview can’t have done her reputation much good…she very stridently claimed that quango costs were only £30 bn whilst Farage said they were £60 bn…it is clear immediately that how you define a ‘quango’ is the baseline that needs to be the same for comparative purposes.

Derbyshire obviously was using a very narrow definition….whilst at the same time knowing exactly where Farage got his figures…and yet she compared as if the two figures were comparable and yet knowing they weren’t based on the same starting point.

It seems she was merely intent on deliberately trying to make Farage look like a liar, a fool or incompetent by using figures she knew to be ‘wrong’.

　

The Tax Payers Alliance was straight onto to her……

 

Robert Oxley ‏@roxley 2h ‘@vicderbyshire heard quango cost discussion this morning. Here is our paper quoted by @Nigel_Farage http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/sapb.pdf

Victoria Derbyshire ‏@vicderbyshire 1h @roxley thanks, will hve a look at weekend – is this the most upto date doc you have

Robert Oxley ‏@roxley 1h @vicderbyshire Yes, Nigel was quoting earlier report. Main reason for difference is cabinet office have more narrow definition of quango 

Robert Oxley ‏@roxley 1h @vicderbyshire but if it quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck we call it one… e.g carbon trust

　

 

As soon as the interview was over I googled ‘quangos costs’ and immediately came up with Farage’s figures in a Telegraph report that was based on the Tax Payer’s Alliance’s own report….the figure the Telegraph came up with for 2010 was £60 bn.

 

The fact that it took 30 seconds or so to hit on Farage’s figures and the explanation from the TPA as to how they defined a quango tells us that Derbyshire could easily have found that also…or rather her ‘tax experts from the BBC business unit’ could have.

Derbyshire says she was using government Cabinet figures but this report from the House of Commons Library, which tells us that ‘This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties’, gives a different picture showing the ‘Executive NDPBs (one type of quango) alone cost £46.5 bn:

‘Quango’ is an abbreviation of the phrase ‘quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation’ and is often used as an alternative to the abbreviation NDPB which stands for ‘non-departmental public body’.

As at 31 March 2009, there were 766 NDPBs sponsored by the UK Government. Of these: • 192 were Executive NDPBs;

In 2008/09, total expenditure by Executive NDPBs was around £46.5bn.　

405 were Advisory NDPBs; 19 were Tribunal NDPBs and 150 were Independent Monitoring Boards of Prisons, Immigration Removal Centres and Immigration Holding Rooms.

　

The report goes onto to quote the TPA report which states that in 2007-08 spending was over £90 bn in total if you include many bodies not officially called Quangos but which are to all intents and purposes:

The Taxpayers Alliance has published a list of public bodies which is much wider than that published by the Government as it includes bodies sponsored by the devolved administrations as well as local and NHS public bodies. According to its figures, in 2007-08 there were 1,148 Semi-autonomous Public Bodies operating in the UK, with Government spending over £90 billion on or through these bodies that year.33

 

The UK’s contribution to the EU Figures　

Derbyshire then launches into Farage’s figures on the cost of EU membership saying we only pay a net sum of £7 bn and that Farage says it was £20 bn…unfortunately again she is playing fast and loose with the figures…despite saying that getting the numbers right was ‘absolutely crucial’…..Farage’s £20 bn was the gross payment and that figure came from 2011…not 2012 as Derbyshire compared to….Derbyshire’s £7 bn was the net payment…from 2012.…but Farage was quoting, again, 2011’s figure of £8.2 bn.

Farage claimed the gross sum was around £20 bn and the net around £10 bn.

Derbyshire shrieked away at him.

But again it is a complicated subject and again depends on where you start from.

Here are the Treasury’s figures for EU contributions:

　

　

Here, using the Office for National Statistics sources, are the EU costs:

　

Annual Costs of EU Membership

The net cost of the EU budget to Britain in 2011 was £10.8 billion* and rising. But the actual cost – direct and indirect – is much more than that.

Last time it was calculated, in 2008, the European Union was costing us £65 billion gross every year. That’s about £1,000 each every year for every man, woman and child in the UK. It increases every year, so it will be a lot more now.

* Source: Office for National Statistics “Pink Book”

　

Here are the hidden costs:

Direct and Indirect Costs of the EU

Estimates of the true cost of the EU are difficult to come by. MPs have called many times for a cost-benefit analysis, to prove or disprove the benefits of membership. Successive Governments, both Labour and Conservative, have refused, on the grounds that the “benefits” are self-evident. In truth they are afraid of what such a study would show. The Bruges Group finally produced an authoritative study in 2008.

(http://www.brugesgroup.com/CostOfTheEU2008.pdf)

The total gross cost to the UK of EU membership in 2008 they estimate at around £65,000,000,000* – including:

£28 billion for business to comply with EU regulations,

£17 billion of additional food costs resulting from the Common Agricultural Policy

£3.3 billion – the value of the catch lost when the Common Fisheries Policy let other countries fish in our territorial waters

£14.6 billion gross paid into the EU budget and other EU funds. (In 2011 this had risen to £19 billion)

 

　

　

Roger Helme UKIP MEP quotes these figures:

 

The Office of National Statistics published the annual Pink Book on July 31^st, showing inter alia the UK’s contributions to EU institutions in 2011. Gross contributions are now over £19 billion, while net contributions broke the £10 billion barrier for the first time — for a total of £10.78 billion.

　

And he tells us why using the gross figure is possibly more relevant:

‘….as Dan Hannan has pointed out, we should really focus on the gross figure. After all, if we look at the tax we pay, we don’t make deductions for the benefits we receive from the government in terms of health, education, welfare and so on. No. We just look at what we pay. And although some of our EU contributions come back from Brussels, it may well be spent on things we don’t value and wouldn’t have done ourselves. As I have said many times, they give us back a little of our own money, they tell us what to do with it, and then they expect us to be grateful.’

　

　

So you can see that it is possible to come up with quite different EU costs and contributions depending what you include in the data.

It is therefore somewhat unfair for Derbshire to ambush Farage using statistics that he wasn’t using…and not mentioning that EU costs vary enormously from year to year…and that they look to be going up quite considerably in the near future…and with the graphic below you can see the difference between net contributions and net payments….all adding to the confusion:

 

 

 

As Rod Liddle, then editor of the Radio 4’s Today programme, said: “The whole ethos of the BBC and all the staff was that Eurosceptics were xenophobes.” He recalls one meeting with a senior BBC figure over Eurosceptic complaints of bias. “Rod, the thing you have to understand is these people are mad. They are mad.”

 

 

I guess the BBC is still trying to get over that message…criticise the EU and you are either a knave or mad, mad, mad.

 

 

The story so far. Red Ed has problems with Red Len, so what to do? How about sending Harriet Harman onto the Marr programme on a Sunday morning so she can waffle her way through the Labour talking bite agenda? The BBC does gently point out that Unite is backing candidates in 41 other constituencies, but Harriet was allowed to claim that the problem is restricted to Falkirk and that Ed is showing his strength by dealing with the issue … in an article in The Observer.  Pure farce, of course, but the BBC seems keen to present Ed as a herculean figure, confronting the evil Union barons! You have to love their instinctive bias towards the left

Today is the 8th Anniversary of 7/7, the day the Jihad came to visit London and take 52 innocent lives. I note the BBC has nothing up to mark this sad anniversary. I suppose it is too busy marking Ramadan to consider such? The US media always marks 9/11, but our State Broadcaster has other priorities….

 

 

Is Miliband lying about his involvement with Unite and the stitch up of the selection of Parliamentary and MEP candidates?

And does the BBC care?

　

This quote from a disaffected Labourite in April suggests Miliband may be lying:

The real question is: why was Ed Miliband’s team happy to let this happen?

Or how about this:

Perhaps the leadership thought no one would notice? That no one would care about the fixing involved in selecting Labour’s European election candidates?

　

Well the BBC certainly didn’t notice and even now seems inclined to ignore it as much as possible.

　

However there is more recent evidence….on the BBC itself no less:

Yesterday the BBC’s Norman Smith interviewed Razvan Constantinescu on World At One, a prospective Labour MEP candidate who was eliminated by the selection process in favour of a union candidate.

This story has been around since at least April…so the BBC are once again ‘slow’ in picking it up, especially considering the ramifications.

Constantinescu revealed that the selection process had been ‘engineered’ to ensure that only women were selected…the union choice being a woman…interviews then eliminated further candidates who were ‘threats’ to the chosen one.

Constantinescu said that many complaints were made to Party HQ and a petition personally handed to Miliband.

　

Miliband lies

The outcome of that? Labour’s Party Secretary, Iain McNicol, threatened the complainants with disciplinary action if they didn’t stop raising the issue….in other words they didn’t care about a union stitch up.

We were also told that the local party officials at Falkirk had raised the matter of the mass signing up of Unite members but were told by the ‘Party’ to keep signing them on.

　

Norman Smith raised a metaphorical eyebrow when told of the threat and clear knowledge of the possible union conspiracy, recognising that it was something that was significant in light of the Unite saga.

However immediately following the interview Nick Robinson came on to give us his thoughts on it…and failed to mention what was probably the most salient point raised in it….that Miliband knew about the complaints and not only ignored them but threatened to discipline those who complained.

Miliband hand in hand with McCluskey to rig elections?  Nothing to see there?

BBC Ignores big story

There has been no follow up on the BBC as far as I can see…despite this being possible evidence that Miliband is now lying through his remarkable teeth as he claims McCluskey must accept his responsibilities and that Falkirk is not typical and was the result of a few rogue officials.

　

Strange that World At One’s editor, Nick Sutton, should tweet that the Mail has picked up on the interview…and yet his very own BBC hasn’t…..

Nick Sutton ‏@suttonnick 19h Interested to see @ShippersUnbound on front of Mail picks up on @BBCNormanS‘s #wato intv with Razvan Constantinescu.　

　

The Labour Party are ‘managing’ the news:

Miliband has said: “I will not allow the good name of the Labour Party to be undermined by the behaviour of a few individuals.” And claimed Falkirk is an isolated case.

…and yet we can see from the above that it looks like he knew and approved of what was going on and on a far wider scale.

　

Chuka Umunna has said: “There is absolutely no place in the Lab Party for machine politics of this type …we find it we will root it out and stamp it out” and yet also dismissed the row over Falkirk as “Westminster soap opera“…the rigging of Parliamentary elections and the selection of MEPs a ‘soap opera’!

　

Labour’s Angela Eagle says: “We will not tolerate the kind of behaviour we’ve seen in Falkirk” and yet she too takes Miliband’s line pointing the finger of blame for Falkirk at “partic individuals” in constituency rather than an organised campaign by Unite.

She also says “Falkirk is unique” and says that claims that Unite were involved in “rigging” other selection contests are “rubbish…..hysteria“.

　

But back in April there were rumblings in the Labour heartlands……

　

Richard Angell ‏@RichardAngell 8 Apr @jonworth @annefairweather otherwise known as the members first choice!!! Where is the respect for members?

Jon Worth ‏@jonworth 8 Apr @RichardAngell Absolutely nowhere, by the look of it. And where’s the union stitch up? Everywhere by the look of it.

　

　

Here from some Leftist blogs comes evidence of that discontent and allegations of the union stitch up……

　

South West there’s brewing anger…..

‘It strikes me that some names were deliberately eliminated in order to give some candidates a more or less free run, and the number of candidates with very heavy trade union links is notable, while the number with considerable EU experience is rather fewer.

In the end all of this leaves a very sour taste for me. It might seem fine to do some sort of stitch up, to deny party members the very best candidates by eliminating strong people at the shortlisting stage.’

　　

 

London Labour revolt over Euro-list fix grows

‘Perhaps the leadership thought no one would notice? That no one would care about the fixing involved in selecting Labour’s European election candidates?

Well, the evidence is that they were wrong. Very wrong.

The lightning rod for emerging discontent in London is Anne Fairweather. Ahead of the 2009 European elections she was the top choice for Labour members, securing almost 3,500 votes, comfortably ahead of the rest of the field.

As Peter Watt and Jon Worth have noted, this time round, she was rejected by Labour, without even an interview.

Her crime seems to have been to work in business and not be one of the chosen candidates of the unions and the left.

Out of seven members of the London European candidate selection panel, five are either serving officials in the unions or have been backed by Labour Briefing – a hard left publication committed to establishing the most left-wing policy platform for the party since 1983.

Three panel members in particular are understood to have been influential over the selection approach: Gary Doolan, Steve Hart and Joy Johnson.

Steve Hart is the extremely influential political director of Unite, lest we forget, Labour’s largest donor. Unite are just as clear as the GMB about using their influence to pick specific types of candidates. Last year, Dave Quayle, chair of Unite’s national political committee set out their priorities in an interview for the website of Marxist fringe group, the Alliance for Worker’s Liberty:

“We want a firmly class-based and left-wing general election campaign in 2015… We want to shift the balance in the party away from middle-class academics and professionals towards people who’ve actually represented workers and fought the boss.”

Quite.

The clear political imperative of the unions and Labour’s left is to recast Labour’s political representatives in their own image. In this context, the exclusion of Anne Fairweather is eminently predictable. No one involved has hidden their agenda or their objectives.

The real question is: why was Ed Miliband’s team happy to let this happen?’

 

 

The other question might be why the BBC is so ready to downplay this?  Rather than investigate and dig for dirt they seem quite happy to sit and wait for the story to come to them….at which point they will ensure that the picture we get is that Miliband has heroically seen off the unions but paradoxically the unions actually did nothing wrong being the victims of a smear…it turns out it was all the fault of a few misguided individuals who had the best interests of the party at heart….seeking, as Sarah Montague insisted on the today programme, to ensure that they could get more working class people into parliament and make it more representative….as it clearly isn’t with all those Eton toffs in there now.