There is no doubt in my mind that without the wilful assistance of the BBC, Miliband and Labour would not be as far ahead in the polls as they are. Naturally this may change but the BBC is remarkably accommodating to allowing Labour to set the daily political agenda and then reinforce it by parroting the crafted Labour soundbites …be it “Plan B” (now discarded) “Bedroom Tax” (no such thing) and more recently “Cost of living crisis”. Today sees an effort to add “childcare crunch” to the vocabulary and BBC trails the ramblings of Comrade Ed here. The BBC is working hard to return Labour to power in 2015 and the person who carries greatest culpability for this is …Cameron. He had a chance to really challenge the BBC and start a process of utter destruction of this malignant beast in our digital midst but he flunked it. And should Miliband stride into Downing Street in 2015, as the champagne corks at the BBC, he should reflect on his failure.
CHILDS PLAY
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I agree entirely David; the only difference this time is they didn’t trail it Friday and keep it up on the main politics news (and UK news) all weekend. It is happening every week and the text and pictures designed to do exactly as you say: boost Ed Miliband’s image (or save him from himself!)
There can be absolutely NO DOUBT whatsoever given the treatment of government /opposition for Blair and Brown – including right up until the 2010 election – and that given now. That and Brown and New Labour’s erasure from the BBC memory banks.
The Conservatives knew years ago, the Coalition know from daily assaults by the BBC so yes, Cameron has and is sowing the seeds of his own downfall.
The constant BBC vilification of the Conservatives, combined with their total support of labour, is proof enough that BBC is part of the Labour party, and is the unofficial voice of the opposition.
Now, political parties are not funded by the tax payer. Yet, as the BBC is consistently pro-Labour and anti-conservative; in effect what we have is a massive tax payer subsidy to Labour, in a critical crucial branch of democratic politics – free propaganda disguised as neutral comment.
This is totally unacceptable. I cannot fathom why this has not been investigated by a Royal commission. At the least, the conservatives should take an axe to the BBC.
Two failures, really – he should have redrawn the boundary lines ASAP, without waiting for the Limp Dims to sniff the opportunity of being the king makers for another 4 years. And he should have cut the BBC off at the ankles. Both are definitely going to cost him!
Vote UKIP.
Yep, that is a sure way of getting the BBCs wish of Miliband in No. 10.
Andy mac, if you continue to swallow the bullshit that a ukip vote lets in Labour, you may as well not bother with the democratic process at all.
Vote for who you wish to see succeed, and if on the way it sinks the lefty liberal so called Tory party, all well and good.
David- it’s nothing to do with islam- Cameron is already a busted flush.
Oh yes the democratic process, applied selectively when required of course. When you cast your ballot you are voting for a candidate in your constituency. But you are also (hopefully) voting for a Party you belive will run the country best according to your beliefs. UKIP can’t run a selection process, let alone a country. Vote how you will but beware the consequences.
Labour = bien pensant + muslim alliance
Conservatives= social democrat eu lap dog
Lib dem= wierdy beardy eu gimps
Vote for these three is a vote for a shamocracy which make Iran look good. They are all EU stooges.
UKIP is a rebelion in the vein of the northern barrons before the magna carter, Britain against the third reich and the US independence. When English men rebel they become libertarians. Give me liberty or give me death!
Nice rabble rousing Chris, but with a swing of monumental historic proportions UKIP could only garner enough seats to form a Coalition. Who’d ya fancy sleeping with? Wated vote?
Wasted ffs
2014 will be a blockbuster year.
1 jan – the roma
May eu elections and ukip win.
Collapse of greece into civil anarchy (the f@##ing government is building a MOSQUE in Athens with public money!!!!)
Scottish independence.
Collapse of euro.
Full realisation by public that our laws are passed down from EU and that cameron and milliband are merely “frontmen” . cameron even uses the Demos think tank which supplied new labour with their vile policies pre 2006 when they gave are soverignty to the EU in the Lisbon treaty.
“Bedroom Tax” (no such thing)
I think if you want people to take you seriously then you should not type such things. Most people don’t know the cumbersome name the apparatchiks have dreamed up for it but there most certainly is such a thing !
As Shakespeare said ‘a rose by any other name’ !
You might have argued that it is not a tax, or that it is a reduction, but not that there is no such thing!
Personally I find it inequitable and inexcusable of the grasping multimillionaires who run this country. It is internationally recognised that JSA is insufficient to live on, it is the reason why Asylum Seekers receive much more in benefits, and why they’re so shocked when and if they do gain refugee status and move to JSA.
It is the intention of the government to make JSA the minimum required to live on (even if we know it isn’t) to then reduce that by something outside the claimants control is frankly, beneath contempt.
And now we hear that in a nine month period a quarter of claimants have had their benefits stopped. Now I’m all in favour of people who aren’t looking for work being ‘sanctioned’ but we know that the apparatchiks in the Job centre are being told they have to stop claimants money, and are doing so for the most ridiculous reasons.
If anyone reading this thinks what I’m saying is wrong, then try it for yourself ! Limit your spending on everything to just £50 pw (and that includes your standing orders), make sure you remove £6 for the council tax which you now have to pay and see how you manage.
We pay a fortune in NI for this benefit, people should be boiling mad that when they come to the unfortunate position of having to claim there’s nothing much there! Benefits have been reduced, but premiums haven’t !
£50 per week……don’t make me laugh!!! What about the rest of the benefits huge numbers are getting. We could not afford the cost of benefits before before the economic crash, and certainly can’t afford it now! We need more cuts not less.
OH Dudley, there speaks the voice of utter ignorance, and unfortunately you’re not alone. You have absolutely no understanding or insight into what you type, but type it anyway regardless.
If you’re going to respond to my post why did you need to change the subject ?
“What about the rest of the benefits huge numbers are getting”
Sorry Dudley, but in this post those people are not relevant in any way.
Get back to the subject of the persecution of single adults – you must hate the ones who actually try, because you seem content to let them starve. The solution is for those that can to give up looking for work and become single parents ! That’s the consequence of your ignorance Dudley. That or turning to crime because there’s no other way to survive.
I notice that throughout your post you are completely unable to provide any kind of evidence that what I have typed is in any way incorrect – so if it’s that easy why not try living on £50 a week yourself?
I’ll remind you as well that a form of benefit for the poor has existed since Elizabethan times. If £50 pw is too much then what amount do you think someone can live on ?
My point is merely that as a country we are living beyond our means….deficit still over 100 billion/year. My point is not to defend whether someone can live on £50/wk or not…..I agree bloody hard….but to argue to spend money we don’t have, as you are, is wrong.
You’ve strayed off topic again Dudley!
By all means cut, and there are plenty of pensioners exempt from these cuts who could afford to lose some benefits, but there is a limit beyond which you can not go without resorting to becoming a third world country.
If you think its good to have no unemployment benefits then there are countries which you could visit to do some fact finding, but I don’t think you’ll be coming back!
Even countries like Nigeria have unemployment benefit! To get to a country as you seem to want you have to travel to Somalia, because as we all know life in Somalia is so much better than it is in the UK! At least they don’t run a defecit!
In hard times the UK has for many years run a defecit, in the good years we should pay that down, but Labour didn’t. So because of Labours stupidity your answer is to take it out on the poor!
That way lies the path to revolution and communism – great thinking Dudley, get off the greed trip.
Elaborate then please: does the 50 quid include rent/mortgage/utilities etc i.e. EVERYTHING?
The £50 is the amount left after deduction of the bedroom tax / council tax band A. Mortgage / Rent is covered by housing benefit, so it has to cover everything including travel to the job centre clothing travel to interviews, internet access. Food, Cooking clothes etc etc.
and £3 a week for the BBC licence tax ?
You are a patronising prat and certainly not very thoughtful. I lived and worked overseas for 15 years….including 4 years in Thailand…so don’t talk down to me as if I cannot formulate an opinion. I never said there should not be some help for the genuinely unemployed so how you can start to quote Nigeria and Somalia to me suggests you have not read my posts. By the way the Thai people have a fantastic attitude to work and are not continually whinning about lack of benefits as are many many people in the UK.
Last post from me as I am bored with your childlike posturing.
Yes well I’ve been in Thailand too, and I’ve seen the job adverts which would never be allowed in the West, but are still undoubtedly practiced. I’ve known people sacked simply because they reached the age of 50 and the fact they have to rely on relatives to support them or starve. I heard them talk about Thaksin Shinawatra how the economy is wrecked and they can’t compete with China. I listened to them as they bemoaned their situation faced with having to look after their families because there was no benefit system which they viewed enviously.
You replied to my post which was solely about those on Job seekers and said that too much was being spent on them and there should be further cuts indicates to me that you wish it being reduced to zero (there isn’t far to go!)
To show no sympathy with this people driven to penury but to ignore it and attempt to change the subject to others who are receiving more speaks volumes.
I think there are people on benefits who are receiving too much, but the post wasn’t about them!
Is that £50 per week after the rent is paid for? If so – easy! As long as I stay out of the pub and don’t buy any scratchcards, I could easily live on that!
Sorry, didn’t see this, just asked the same question.
Cameron will not reflect on losing the office of Prime Minister as a failure, but rather a success. The salary for one of the most important jobs in the UK is a joke, with most town hall chief execs and head teachers receiving more.
No the name of the game is personal enrichment, and with a couple of speaking engagements paying more than a years worth of toil as PM it’s easy to see why.
We often wonder why Cameron comes across as such a leftie, failing to condemn Islam and lying through his teeth after the Lee Rigby murder, but we need to see the bigger picture. There’s a lot of money in the Middle East, and it’s no use cutting that off by offending the leaders there by attacking their religion!
At the same time, doing a great impersonation of the Roman God Janus Cameron seeks the approval of the Israelis to give him credibility in the lucrative American market. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9740044/The-cowardice-at-the-heart-of-our-relationship-with-Israel.html
We see the precedence in Camerons great hero, Tony BLiar, a man who has achieved personal enrichment and power beyond the dreams of avarice (well perhaps not beyond the avarice an Eton educated Tory!)
We saw Israel give BLiar a million pound bribe under the guise of a ‘peace prize’! Surely they must have known that wouldn’t wash? While he also makes millions from Middle Eastern states ‘advising’ them.
So this is the state of affairs today, politicians who don’t really want to be re elected unless it will earn them more money in the long term, and a job which pays at best a fifth of what it should.
Until we start to pay the PMs position properly and other politicos then we will have a steady procession of careerists who view the premiership as a mere stepping stone onto a more lucrative world stage.
I’m afraid that one of Lady thatchers mistakes was not dealing with the BBC when she was at the height of her power and popularity. I think that she was the only Tory PM with the power and guts to cut out that malignant cancer. Cameron, even he had the will , which is highly doubtful, wouldn’t have been allowed to touch the BBC by the Lib Dems , who get some benefit from the corporation but of course not as much as Labour does.
Only a Tory leader with a solid majority , a full 5 years to run and a lot of guts, will be able to take on the BBC and win. The liberal left establishment would use its full power to preserve the BBC and deploy every trick in the book to oppose any reforms.
The key thing is to somehow stop the BBC from gaining a large share of the new ways of delivering content that technology is giving us. If they are confined to income from the TV License Fee , they will gradually wither on the vine and cease to exist within 15 years. A long time to wait and they will continue to do damage for some time yet but we would be rid of them.
But watch out for the BBC and Labour trying to come up with new funding arrangements which allows the corporation to gain a large share of new media. The Tories must oppose any such move. They could gather all other media outlets to help oppose the move of the BBC into new media.
The BBC are so desperate for a Labour government they have undermined (long after the point of no return) the only argument for their existence.
People are used to the I scratch your back if you scratch my back greed of the power hungry tax funded establishment, but now that the output of the BBC is 24/7 propaganda for the Labour Party, any claim (if they dare to make it) that the BBC are politically impartial will inevitably provoke laughter.
The BBC not long ago were whooping with delight at the prospect of destroying the free press, but they forget that it is the British electorate who buy newspapers, and they do not (in general) buy The Guardian. So when there is a Right of centre majority as (electoral corruption and mass immigration notwithstanding) is bound to happen sooner or later, at the stroke of a politicians pen (and with the benefit of new technology) power will be taken away from the lazy old Stalinists of the public sector establishment and back to the consumer.
When this happens there will (other than from the usual leeches) hardly a word of protest. There will be about as much protest as there was when the buses and trains and planes, and for that matter gas, electricity, and telephone suppliers, were taken out of the “we do it for you” public sector.
Guardian readers underestimate the strength of belief in a free society in this Country. Not everybody was a conscientious objector in the Second Word War. Not everybody rooted for the Soviet Union in the Cold War. You can (as an American president once said) fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
The bloated Stalinist payroll of the BBC is a relic of the days when some people (they liked to call themselves Progressives) thought that Lenin was the wave of the future. Of course some still do, but (outside the Arts Departments of Universities) not many, and certainly not enough to halt the disappearance of State Sector television, whose demise is now inevitable.
Cameron hasn’t done much of anything to rein in the BBC besides freezing the license fee for a while because he has the same mental block as nearly everyone else: he cannot separate in his mind the biased news and current affairs division from the entertainment and documentary output. I know I sound like a stuck record here, but nobody seems to get it. Why do you think he and the rest of them always bookend even the tiniest criticism with assurances that they love the BBC? You may as well try to get people to renounce their favorite childhood toy.
The only possible way to get real public support for reducing the license fee or reforming or even reining in the BBC is to finally make a clear demarcation between the biased news output and the “national treasure” stuff, e.g. the orchestras, Attenborough, classic sitcoms, Blue Peter, costume dramas, etc. Tell people they can keep most of that and I’d bet not many tears would be shed by the privatization or at least severe shrinking of the news division.
I now expect to be reminded that the bias is just as bad or worse in the entertainment output (a concern we know is based on fact thanks to 28-Gate and admissions of various writers and producers), but I still say ending the license fee, full stop, and shutting the whole thing down is a losing cause even before it begins. That’s the problem with having an official national broadcaster with a legacy of trust and a deep cultural connection spanning generations. The whole “rhythms of daily British life” thing is a pretty real and probably insurmountable obstacle. So go after the news division and get the politicians to understand how to separate the two.
Cameron and his inner circle see an attack on the BBC News as an attack on the Proms and various Great British Whatever series just as much as Harriet Harman and her ilk do. Of course, the latter are far more concerned about losing a sympathetic Progressive, very Left-wing platform to Rupert Sauron or whatever, but they always bring up the rest of the “national treasure” stuff as a bulwark against any and all real criticism of the BBC’s bias.
It’s no wonder that every single BBC scandal is met with hand-wringing and scowling about fixing only the management structure and top salaries. There will never be a real reform as long as the whole apparatus and the all the biased journalists and producers and editors remain in place. Streamlining upper management and reducing payoffs is utterly useless if Bowen and Mardell and Peston and Boaden and Harrabin and all the 5 Live primates are allowed to keep doing whatever they please. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change without a real purge. The far-Left echo chamber of the Beeboid Twitterati is evidence that the scandals and public scrutiny have had zero effect on the endemic institutional bias.
I’d start with making a big push to raise awareness of the awful US output, in the hopes of making people question just what the BBC does in their name and just how much they’ve been uninformed and misled. If people learn they can’t trust one section of BBC News, maybe they’ll start wondering what else they can’t trust.
If I have got the history right the Conservative Party have always (against the fierce opposition of the Labour Party) sought to decrease the near radio and television monopoly of the BBC, on the grounds that the UK (much to the disappointment of the above mentioned Labour Party) is not a one Party Communist State.
In 1955 as a result of legislation passed by a Conservative government ITV [Independent Television] was set up – and a number of different television broadcasters supplied programmes funded by the selling of advertising space.
Commercial radio, although already broadcasting illegally or offshore under the Labour government in the Sixties, was allowed to broadcast by a Conservative government in 1973. A total of 16 new stations were launched until its growth was halted in 1976 by the new Labour government.
With the return of the Conservative government commercial radio was once more allowed to expand, and the Conservative government set up a new television channel, Channel Four in 1982.
The Conservative government in 1990 allowed British Sky Broadcasting to be created – a merger between Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting.
Each and every one of these changes was opposed by the BBC-Labour. Indeed I recall watching a drama on the BBC which sought to educate us that satellite television is evil.
The power of BBC-Labour is overdue to curtailed by further reforms. Unfortunately however the Conservative Party failed to get a majority at the last election. Your suggestion David is an interesting one.
Needless to add Leftists are as keen for politicians to “regulate” the Internet as they are for politicians to “regulate” the press. In their fantasy world right-wing gobshites like Guido Fawkes who (almost daily) exposes the hypocrisy and corruption of the Leftist elite will be required to get permission from politicians before they can operate.
The Conservatives (to howls of outrage from the Libertarians) want to make it harder for paedophiles to find videos on the Internet of young children getting raped. The Paedophile Information Exchange in the Seventies campaigned for a reduction in the age of consent and against the banning of child pornography, and was supported by Harriet Harman (later deputy leader of the Labour Party) who argued that seeking to prevent paedophiles from getting access to child pornography was to “increase censorship”.
Let me tell you about my own opposition to the Tories making it harder for paedophiles to access their disgusting content across the web, and it’s a powerful argument.
More Perverts have been caught this way than any other, here are the figures:
7,250 suspects identified, 4,283 homes searched, 3,744 arrests, 1,848 charged, 1,451 convictions, 493 cautioned and 140 children removed from suspected dangerous situations and an estimated 33 suicides.
Distasteful as it might be to allow these images to be viewed 140 children being removed from potentially dangerous situation makes it worthwhile.
Operation Ore came about as a result of the monitoring undertaken by US law enforcement, it would seem that UK Police are only any good at lying to save their own asses and the government know that. Personally I’d like to see the useless Police force privatised so we have something which actually works, but that’s as likely as a privatised BBC !
We need to allow Paedos to use the web and by doing so we need some kind of prosecuting authority with the competence to track them down and prosecute them (not the Police!).
The figures speak for themselves.
Cameron will not touch the bbc. He needs them for the pro EU propaganda in the event of a referendum. Look at all actions through the prism of the EU.
Gay marriage? – EU
Post office sale?-EU
Green taxes? – EU and nees to raise funds.
All policy since 2006? – EU
Given the random news about age of consent you can garantee a EU harmonisation directive is on the way. That way the BBC can kiddy findle legaly.
Gay Marriage – nothing to do with the EU, this was leftie Dave acting under the instructions of his wife & Nick Clegg !
Post Office hasn’t been sold ! Royal Fail has and God knows it needed to be! It wasn’t that long ago that it accounted for on third of all claims going through the employment tribunals. Thank God it will now be properly managed !
Green Taxes ? Well yes some of them are down to the EU but I’m afraid most are as a result of Liebours Tony BLiar who went far beyond what the EU wanted. Also Beaker whose madness added another £100 plus to the average utility bill.
In addition when the EU demanded smart meters BLiar went further than was needed – much further including spying in real time on each individual home and remote disconnection for those using too much. And guess what? He loaded the cost of those onto your electric bills too !
Every major policy for the past decade has beenin response to EU directives. They even have last saybon national budgets. Our children will not look kindly on our betraying their freedom.
Caught them headlining this on Breakfast this morning – what I did notice when they read out the headlines of Ed Miliband, gush, fawn etc, there was no “but the Tories say…” or even “but the coalition says…” tacked onto the end. Why do the Tories/Cameron never, ever spot the double standards which are plainly visible to everyone else? More fool Cameron and the Tories.
“Why do the Tories/Cameron never, ever spot the double standards which are plainly visible to everyone else?”
Of course they notice it, they notice it even more than we do, because they pay close attention to how they are being reported.
The BBC is slitting it’s own throat. It is the result of years of partisan recruiting. They are now incapable of political neutrality.
Given the use of the term “Bedroom Tax”, will we get to hear of “Labour’s Higher Education Tax” – aka university fees?
One of the classics in the 1990s was ‘modernisation’, the BBC’s sleight-of-hand for ‘socialism’
We now also have:
‘far right’ = ‘not left wing’ (=’not one of us’)
‘left-leaning’ = ‘communist’
etc
And notice how ‘immigration’ has subtlety morphed into ‘net migration’, and ‘equal opportunity’ has become ‘equality’ (i.e. communism, er, or is that merely ‘left leaning’).